I (25M) have been taking care of my mother(52) for about 4 years now and when I move out I'm debating cutting contact.
I pay for everything. I used to pay for food but recently been putting a foot down and she now has food stamps that I dont touch, she has the card it's hers, so I just gotta worry about feeding myself if I remember to at this point. Besides my own stuff, which I can't even afford to get cause I gotta get hers, I pay her car insurance, rent, heat/cooling, internet, ECT. She does have a under the table job cleaning houses btw. But for some reason when I ask her to pay her own car insurance she makes a big deal of it and I still end up paying it, usual excuse is she can't afford to get stuff she needs then, which uh I haven't been able to check fluid around my brain because I can't afford my own stuff cause I have to make sure all bills are paid. And I just get snide comments whenever I struggle. I honestly go majority of the week without eating, but according to my income I don't qualify for food stamps. The only thing I ask her to do is clean the house while I'm at work. She doesn't even have to touch my room, which she doesn't most times. And honestly she cleans roughly every other month which is fine, but that includes dishes, I do my own laundry, I don't touch hers. She's also done damages to the house, such as doing outside projects inside (sanding and painting a toy chest, which there is paint still on the floor), there's holes in the walls, not small ones either, and I paid the deposit, which with the damages she's done I might end up paying a fee. I've tried helping her get a debit card, but she just tossed it in the trash, says if she needs to buy something online shell get me, even though I'm planning to move in with a friend at some point. She's had a job briefly, but didn't like working, so now's she's trying to get SS. I took Netflix away cause I can't afford it and only she was watching it. Told her if she wants it she can buy it herself. Instead of buying it she either begged my oldest sister for hers or just took her information for it, so my mother still stays in bed 24/7 pretty much, even when I'm at work just watching Netflix that she doesn't pay for. She whines about her health but if I mention anything about mine I get yelled at or told nothing's wrong or it gets twisted to a "woe is me" type way. I mean hell a 25yr old shouldn't have fluid around the brain that caused partial blindness, high blood pressure and God knows what else already.
She helped watch one of her clients homes that she's close with cause he was out for a bit and his dog likes her. God that was the best fucking time I've had lmao. The house was pretty clean, I did the little bit of dishes I had, the pup (was supposed to be my mother's emotional support animal. Now mine) was fed daily, didn't itch at all and was pretty happy. And honestly I forgot to take my meds that week and didn't notice.
After what she's done I don't even know if I wanna bother keeping her in my life. Even when I bring up my feelings about it, and it's in a "hey I feel like this can we talk about it and come to an understanding" type of way about how she lays in bed, it turns into a big argument and everything goes back to the way it was. I feel like garbage about it, cause I remember the mother I had, and even though now I know she was abusing opioids and alcohol, she was still technically a single mother who raised four kids, was a welder full time, made sure all bills were paid and even took us kids on vacation, hell we'd be in fucking trouble if we left lights on or if paint got on apartment floors.
I get she's been through shit and that it's hard to let the youngest child go, but I don't think parents do this stuff, and I don't think she'd change unless she'd get someone who knows more about her stuff to help. Hell maybe she won't ever change. But mentally I don't know if I'd be able to handle her, even if we didn't live apart.
So would I be the asshole if I just, dropped contact with her when I move?
(Idk why but I feel like I should add the context from friendly coworkers, mostly the parents ones I've confided in lol who now joke saying I'm her financial daddy at this point. It's a creepy one, but yeah. She also compared borrowing money for pot to me asking her to help me with her car insurance. Safe to say no matter the outcome I'll need therapy probably)

Hey y'all, I am a 26y/o man and recently got some blood work done. Everything falls under the 'normal' range but the range is so wide that it doesn't seem that useful, so I am interested in hearing a more specific take on my levels.
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Total Testosterone: 411 ng/dL (last time I tested ~6mo ago, was 436 ng/dL)
Albumin: 4.8 g/dL
SHBG: 22 nmol/L
Using an online calculator I get:
Free T: 9.69 ng/dL
Bio-available T: 253 ng/dL
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In addition, my cortisol level was 22.7 mcg/dL, which was above my lab's range, but other ranges top out at 25 so perhaps is ok.
I am just slightly overweight, at 6'1" 215lbs. But I've been working on it, my highest was in January of this year when I was 225lbs, and I'd like to get to ~190 I think, so maybe that'll help some as well.
My sleep has been dogshit for most of my life -- I pretty recently got diagnosed with sleep apnea so I have been using a CPAP for a couple of months, which has made the quality better, but the quantity is still bad. I probably average 6.5hrs a night or so. So that's probably the reason for the high cortisol and I'd imagine could help with the T levels too. But still, are my current levels alright? I know they're above the 'low T' levels, but presumably it would still be better to get it up a little higher than it is currently, right?

Hi all, I'm writing because I did a calcium test about five or six months ago and it came back great but with the note that I have a "moderately enlarged aortic root" of 4.5cm. The test was in conjunction with a bunch of tests done on me at that time due to long COVID, something I picked up in August of last year and still haven't quite kicked. Most all of my symptoms seem to be related to my autonomic system and usually, if I drink my electrolytes and wear compression socks I'm alright but I still have tinnitus, back soreness/tightness and I feel my heart beat more than I did before the long COVID, especially when I'm lying still.
I've done a ton of reading on long COVID and on enlarged aortic roots and there seems to be no real consensus about a connection between the two things, though it mostly seems unlikely that they are connected. It's most likely that the calcium test just registered something I already had going on. My cardiologist told me to keep my blood pressure down and not lift super heavy objects and that he'd re-check again in 6 months or a year but beyond that I guess I'm just supposed to interpret his lack of worry as a good sign. As my 6 month appointment approaches, the whole thing's been gnawing at me a little bit and I have a few questions.

• The cardiologist assistant (a nurse practitioner) seemed to think that it was often the case that these things don't really grow past what they are, even at 4.5cm. I'm wondering a bit about whether that's the case, or if there's a kind of sense of the likelihood of it growing larger. Any insights on this would be helpful.
• I like to exercise but have been hesitant to do so, or really to push myself, since the diagnosis. I'm building back up to jogging about a mile at a time (used to do 3-5 miles but now take breaks and don't do as much). Also, I want to do some abdominal exercises, but I don't know about that. If anyone has any advice about like, doing situps I'd appreciate it. My bp is generally very good (107 over 72 seems to be the most common reading and I check it daily).
• While the calcium test came back with the suggestion to pursue more info to figure out the cause or nature of the enlargement, my cardiologist has been more hands off. Does this seem reasonable? I know that sometimes the people who do ct reports are a little dramatic, but given that this is my heart, I want to know for sure what's going on with it. So I'm also wondering what kinds of questions I might ask when I go for my follow up. I'm looking for questions that will be more helpful in giving me a sense of the specifics of my condition.
• From what I can tell, the COVID and the enlarged aortic root are probably not connected but I still have the lingering thought that they may be. If anyone has any insights on any connections between covid and enlarged aortic roots, that would be great.
• Finally, I've even toyed with the idea of requesting a referral to a new cardiologist if this guy isn't a bit more clear when I meet with him for the follow-up. Is this a common occurrence? If so, do I just say to my primary doctor, "I want a second opinion."?

Thanks for any help you can provide.
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I recently had to properly kick my first ever player, things got a little intense between us for it and well left me on the all sorts of spectrum of emotions sides. I just had to get both feelings and my logic for the reasons for this removal of at the start, a good player and good guy and character that.. to me just started to not be. Maybe to just vent out, maybe to see if I was justified, but also to hope that, if there were points I didnt see or think of at the time that someone can help me think better if a scenario ever bubbles up like this, I have a better headspace to go about things right.
To start, I am more or less a newby forever DM (1 oneshot game to my belt under as a player), my current running campaign is only my second, going 2 years strong now. Its been bumpy recently do to my work schedule last few months but we are nearly up to our 100th session together and things have begun to heat up story wise and excitement wise by my players. Everything's in the story is homebrew more or less, both my own works and others I found and my players bring up to me.
At the start of the game, I had 5 starting players, and the one in question was one of them. We lost a few of them, first sadly I more suggested he leave, as much as he wanted to play, it was to the point he was playing while traveling via busses, planes and others (he traveled alot for his daily life events he couldnt get out of) an never mentioned when these would happen. That went smooth, we were both polite and I wasnt upset with them, just upset a good player like him will have hard times with finding a table. Better ways, would have been having a blast with them to this day. The second was starting to act up, I had to shoot him down a bit hard at times, more so when a new player, a girl, joined up an he started being a bit inappropriate and not act like the character he told me he would be. After I started blocking his more chaotic antics, he pretty much ghosted the group all together. Our third player who left is more on a prolonged hiatus cause of his work schedule, but he keeps in contact. So as far as the original party goes there are only two, with the first whom replaced our enthusiastic but unable to stay with us player being 'Miss 3 1/2's'.
With most of that out of the way, I can get onto the player in question. Again, he was there from the start, only second in my player search to start this campaign. Wanting to play a neutral good paladin who grew up a simple farmers life and was on a life walk-about to enrich himself before his turn to take over the family farmlands. At the start things were bit fine, he showed a general interest to hooks that kinda developed in the intro fight, making some good goofy aspects with his character and interactions and at least at first, an interest to some of the things in the world at the time. But looking back, I did likely trust him with a bit much, the other characters likewise were very 'go with teh flow' but they liked to investigate and get into things outside the city that they were given slight hero titles to after the start of things. With him though, he did 'actively' have his character go to get the town effective 'quest board' and ask around if people needed help with things... and.. not tell the other PC's about it or try an start the missions or plots.
While in itself it wasnt 'bad' people also trusted him a bit as 'the note taker' at first, so maybe we just expected him to go into things later or something, but, this became something I was concerned of with him on it. I mentioned his own story progression aspects from the start of the game, well, when given a lead that would let him undo a poor families ailment he showed interests too with time to go at least check it.. he suddenly invented a sister for his character.. who was getting married, back in his home country, that they 'had' to visit right then an there.
He had been vague about his characters history, he may have mentioned a sister 'in passing' but nothing ever set in stone besides his Grandfather being the true head of the farm and his dad. Not even anything about his characters mother, an now suddenly he wanted to spend a week or two travel via air ship to go see a 'new fiance' on top of it. I admit, I wasn't too happy but I also didnt outright pull him to the side to talk about that. Mark against me I know.
But it kind of worked out, as because no one could do much since he was kinda blocking the group from reaching the intended quest givers that he swore he would get with (2 of the other remaining characters at the time mostly had their stuff working on things they were trying to do that wasnt too crazy but at least progressed their characters in ways). And Miss 3 1/2 wasnt sure of her character at the time so played a temp one to feel out being another class and style for a bit. It helped her bloom a little. They ended up helping another little quest idea i had for halloween, late it was, but had fun with it an great action. But do to how that took an bad dice rolls which I do no flub or such, they got sidetracked from things an had to go back to go onto a quest 3 1/2 got them to.. an he wasnt exactly actively happy or doing the quest (guard a noblewoman on a quest to one of the countries for buisness matters. Kinda.. avoided the woman in weird ways.. like trying to push the hotel cooks asideto 'show them how its done'..).
When the crew finished with it, it was with another teaser to quest lines he was kinda pinning the group with. Again unfortunately the rest were 'kinda' okay with his choice on it but they were doing a bit more to be active now so it wasnt likely to work out for long. Around this time is when 'Work Haitus' had to sadly step away, so i started to put feelers out for new players again. During this time, he was still kinda pulling back on things as best he could, but he started to show a.. interesting trait. He wanted to start 'grinding' for EXP.. without going into the literal forest where some creatures could be faught, instead, he went to the city coliseum. Now this was explained since session one, I dont give any real EXP for fights there, quit literally if you have a fun sparing match or a more rough bloody match in it against a tamed or caught creature or class person, you'll only end up with 1 xp point. I did this cause I heard of a number of stories of 'those' players showing up, going to fight pits to make themselves stronger an not bother with rp time stuff. But I also tweaked it, so you could make bets for yourself, and the boon of prize and noterity (IE, people start being more favorable to you, seek you out that sort of stuff.. which considering he had so many 'hidden to activate quests' at this point wouldnt have mattered either way). He very quickly stopped after his 2nd or so solo attempt and made a passing comment on being upset of it. I overlooked that time.
During this, the entire party collectively was sought out, as the city knew 'all of them' roughly, so no reason only someone looking to the quest board would be involved alone. They were given a new quest by a neighboring kingdom, to deal with monsters they had ties with from the start as an already active side-story plot. He kinda 'backed' a bit into doing his characters 'im off to clean the broom closet' antics during some of this.. alot.. so looking back it feels he was upset not only was he not 'in charge' of getting the quests, but that the whole party agreed to be invovled with it regardless of anything else. I did try to bring him bback in, by having that Sister and her Fiance appear to meet them since he couldnt make the meeting.
There was some .. issues.. he kinda started to instantly mistrust the fiance, he litterally used 'every' detection spell he had on them trying to sus if they were demon, enregy or otherwise. An more or less ignored the sister even when she asked him his plans on things.. an since he 'left the sibling things to me besides she pranks him maybe' he didnt seem thrilled that she was upset the 'Lord title' brother, who won plots of land in this country an was going to open, I kid you not, an 'Pizzaria Inn petting zoo pet super plant farm forge and factory' on said plot of land with 'secret super caves our befriended monster friend will terraforming for us'. Short version of the monster thing.. monster had no such ability and at best had very tiny cute versions of itself digging out the cave, one pebble at a time.. this is when i noticed he sort of 'half' listened to details given.
I will admit, I wanted to have a moment where the sister was going to become some sort of 'rival', if she couldnt find way to convince the older men who are currently running the farm that big bro might have more important things to do as 'a Lordship hero paladin' maybe its time to break 'the men run the farm' tradition. In character he was warned 'she really wants your farm, and as someone whose seen people go extremes maybe you should reach out to her so its not so bad an no bad blood has to happen'... he kinda took it that she wants him dead, sorta. Took a bit with the informer to correct it.
He .. 'kinda' tried to 'make it up to her' i think by baking her favorite pie an admittedly as a nice act gave her his holly symbol which was the family's given by grandpa to him.. no biggy as the city hade a temple of his goddess to get a replacement soo.. yeah. Honestly I did talk with him a little on it.. but this is when another aspect started being apparent.
I hadnt mentioned, but I am not a fan of no call no show specially when we had a constant schedule, he had a few, but 'did' sorta apologize, at first. We do everything discord and roll20, so when he starts to not appear i would '@' the group and then '@' via DM's, and there maybe 'weeks' to 'months' if theres nothing 'important' to talk to me about response wise. And at the start of those times he started missing alot. An also, not apologizing or saying why. He doesnt always have to I know, but given we were having fewer players, wed have sudden 'we cant plays' cause it was 2 people only..
Then, we get introduced to not one or two but three new players. I kinda worried with them being prior friends and click group but its been working out for most part. Timing for ones admittedly stunk, an their on a personal leave Im not faulting but having their character background for now. They show up, an their characters, well starting at high level for at least 2 fresh faces an one long term one is a little odd, but its been fun. They instantly get into their characters mindsets, weird quirks that fit their upbringings and own style of things, but they also work as a functional communicating and asking questions group with slight airs of 'they are not lower class but deal with both from the noble side of things' air to them. Again its worked out, given they lost a litter hard hitter the three work great.
As the plot went, they were actually being lured away by a group who they helped bust antics an get called out on it in the city, the bait was just 'oh it might be the same type of monster you guys are looking for who might eat an entire city', done via a modified memory spell on the patsy. They were lead to a campsite the badguys set up to be a kill/trap spot.. It was a bit rough with things, but the group was doing 'amazingly' well. But I had an even bigger surprise for everyone, to take our game to a new level an give a 'big' meaty plot hook to hype and put every character on an equal 'i dont know anyone around here/dont have the same resources you do' foot from how the characters went, as an idea to build their bonds.
The trap, got ambushed, by a big honken monster I teased the first players with barely into session 4 that was a corps but came back. An this thing was a beast, CR minimal 20+ an higher (i suck at figuren the maths) but yeah, it was 'not' a winnable fight they could escape from that even the badguys said 'truce till were not monster food???'
It blew apart the trap-badguys, an sent the PC's hurdling into a space that was supost to be instant death, but plot armor I intended for em saved them if only 'barely' but now, their in ' a ocean like space between the outter realm and multi realms', with faint contact by the holly characters gods saying 'theres a way back, you must return'. including to the Paladin an 3 1/2 (who is cleric).. and honestly, everyones raved to me about it.. but looking back agian, given lack of Paladins communications 'out' of his appearances in game.. he hasnt said much, unless someone else starts it..an even then its.. barely a sentence..
The players were picked up by 'friendly pirates' an have been discovering things and gaining new strengths.. least, most of them again. 3 1/2 really bounded with the new NPC's an been expanding their character (shes been very creative that way an shes really gotten into the player bug, im sooo happy i could get her into the hobby) the new players had their growths too, the full slightly higher brow noble of them has come to terms 'hes mortal an can die, but people need his strength' too, as well as 'living is hard.. their not just 'dirty' or something by chance its just the efforts of their brow' to the sorceress of his friends being delighted to be sailing the seas with quirky merman, turtle an other type pirates with treasures an jerks to kick in the seat of the pants. Even the other first player has tried new character aspects, trying to be a 'new version' of himself till an event happened (which he half told me of, but it was more workable then 'sudden sister quest').
But.. paladin has been a bit more missing an sadly we have had spotty game times cause this is when my own work schedule has been bad. An again, he never gets back or says 'oh sorry cant make it' or whatever happened. I brought up a bit ago about his passing remarks of the exp thing for this point to make, he doesnt like to have his character have much of my homebrew stuff.. despite how many treasures hes had that hes just gone 'i sell it' or 'eh if you want it take it dont want it' that has been (a) a plot starter, or (b) a pretty handy if maybe OP item, hes just passed them off even from session z where I give every player chances to pick a unique thing for their character that helps tie them to the world. He opted out of it, an through everything they have done an gathered.. hes held onto a grand total of 2 homebrew things.. a sword, that after a 'certin point' he used as his hexblade warlock focus point with his goddess also being his patron, and 'one' spell that I had to reach out to offer him, well, technically '2' spells. One that he could use to turn a mundane object into a powerful magic weapon, an a ritual spell that he needs to cast to regain uses of the other spell.
The reason this ties to the EXP block from the coliseum bit, is because as part of the ritual to regain usages, he has to create a small 'choke point' of a ritual spell ring to fight an unending horde of monsters that the spell summons to fight just him. Now, the monsters are extremely low level, like 1/4 cr, an they wont try an kill him, as the ritual ends when hes KO'ed. It took a bit before he had to properly cast it in ession (big surprise, had him recharging it on some of the missing day's of his). But when eh did, an he finished it, he did instantly ask 'how much exp to i get?' an kinda grew hushed when I said 'you.. get your six usages of your spell back?'. I.. low key wonder if he wanted to try an use it as a cheat to grind or something..
This also does not help that, just prior, 3 1/2 managed to do our 'biggest' damage in a single round during a hord fight, literally between her spells an a new weapon with some seriously amazing rolls, did over 200 hp of damage on her own. To the point she KO'ed the boss monster leader. granted it was with a smart play and some literal crit hits, but thats when his vibe for games started kinda feeling off big time. An come now, to the more recent events before the kick..
I had a rare day off i could have a game completely unhindered, an we agreed to all have it.. sadly starter 2 forgot the US has Daylights saving, so we did loose an hour for him getten outta work. Eh it happens. An sadly the new 3 didnt get to join in so it was an agreed on one shot. Well, that 'was' the idea..
When we started.. when we 'could' have started, I gave them the quick plot of how they got to this place (this all happened just before the event with the pirates so they had their stuff but meta'ed they were still their current levels). Now, Im loose with my own OS's, so I used a module i bought that looked fun an it was interesting. I did have to build a bunch of rough doubles of the maps, since turns out the PDF didnt want to let me get the pics right at the time, so wasnt focusing too much on some details but for key point ones. Its important for later. But anwyay after the basic 'you did a hero thing an was invited to a small isle city by its noble ruler who has big parties every week an your the guests of honor', you know the usual kinda crud. Well i started to get into the start of it, about to go to details of the maps location.. when he, stopped me an blocked me to go 'oh i climb the building or whatever to get that gun!'.....there was unfortunately an image of a gun on the part of the token i used to build the maps clocktower..didnt notice it.. he sure did.. an kinda derailed me a bit more..reminder, we were an hour late into session.
I managed to get back on track, the security at the start of the party line stoppen the crew an saying 'sorry its a costume party, dont worry we always have spares, pick one' an they got to pick a set of masks for themselves. They rolled to take turns, he got first dibs, an picked one he 'really liked', but I do kinda wonder cause my tag name relates to what it was.. Well, I sent them the screenshot of the masks an their effects as an item/equip card... he started to.. get sour sounding.
In prior in between an pre game times, hes mentioned hes.. not exactly a fan of alot of stuff. Even some of the oldest movies an comics that are still being made now an are big on fandoms, hes got zero interests or cares for.. an on troupes, he is not big on mysteries. An sadly, the mask gave him an ability thats great in discovering secrets...
Well, I started to bring one of the moduels NPC's to start pointing out details, give them some hook bits an background to what goes on normally in the city... and.. he used that one use ability to check if she liked her mask.. literally stepping the entire conversation, then walked away to break into that clocktower.. that had the guns on it..
3 1/2 an second 1'st decided 'lets try an get on with the actual story regardless' an tried to go to the party which they did, trying to get him to come with too, crossing the small castle bridge to get to there an start mingling as they do.. paladin did 'eventually'.. but first he shimmied the bridge to use up his stealth abilities from the mask... then when 3 1/2 noticed, tried to get him to come in, he... started climbing to the top of the castle wall..
His character, never acted like this, in any OS we had before or in game before. Second 1'st did do a little weird, but it was stuff his character was infamous for, but not good for the long run. I admit.. I lost my cool, I didnt shout, yell, or otherwise.. but at this point, from when we 'late started', to paladins 3'rd athletic roll to scale the building he was invited for, we had lost over 2 hours of our usual session time an it was very apparent he was really not going to act like the character we were accustomed to.. so I said, 'sorry guys, see you next time'.. admittedly, I did kinda vent in our group chat text wise.. I was pretty upset an tired i cant lie on this, i had spent very early hours on the maps an looking over to familair most of the thing as best i could while having lack of sleep beforehand. But, I basically just said, if you dont feel up to a game please just say so cause putting all that time en effort for even a one shot was time an tiring thing an just frankly kinda rude antics for no reason just hurt.... didnt use cures or otherwise but that was about it..
It did help that, the group reached out to me about it, even both our Hiatus ones.. everyone but Paladin who kinda went back to basic no coms with me pretty much like norm.. he kinda missed a few more sessions between then to now.. so lets get to what became the last straws of the DM..
So, in the 'undersea' places, the crew realized that, the party had something they could use with their nations rulers to try an breach peace with the races that was locking everyone up in this space between the multiverse, to escape some big dangers thats happening here. This thing was second 1'sts 'tie in starting choice' i gave the first party options too an hes loved ever since, giving his character a level of importance. Of course there is the risk the guys could go 'we dont need 'them' for just 'that'. but thankfully its the nicer space sea folks side so thankfully its all negotiations. I rolled beforehand to see what outcome would happen.. not the best roll but it was one with surprising good results but the meeting was postponed with the intended target cause.. well the system got fragged as they sent the unintended invite back to the outer realms and their time slot to reach out to there was lost. So the party an the friendly pirate captain npc buddy was told 'come back in several months well try again'. The captain was telling the leaders 'oh sure no problem' while giving a 'if we dont find you guys a way back to your side of the world to stop that big bad monster for good first 'wink' to them..
An paladin.. confronted an tried telling the nation guys the details in a... weird way. I really dont know how to explain how he said it it still sounds weird to me. But he basically wanted too.. convince the nation that 'the party' could end all their troubles.. against a hord of demons an undeads effectively 'not understanding' the monster that threw them here was not one of the creatures in question. Which even after i pointed out 'if he couldnt do more than 13 points of damage to that thing, how would he think he can beat the monster he 'thinks' made it?'... which on that matter, he was told multiple times it wasnt.
Well, the rest of the gang tried to talk reason to him, even pull him aaway.. an i had made split choice of the captain decided to put a 'command bracelet' on him, effectively 'if you fight the order given you get zapped an paralyzed'. telling him 'please stop an lets talk about this somewhere 'safe'... because the party and them werent safe..
People in the sea space place, dont like people 'from their side' not that any survive coming down to there. Again, they survived via their plot armor's they dont even fully get yet. With the leadership litterally saying to him before the captain dragged him to the doors a bit 'let them hang for all we care'...
Well, paladin passed the check against the paralyze effect (again, i give honest rolls unless absolutely necessary which i dont like doing..) an.. he had his character chop his hand off, use every will save till he passed the players spells an use his tp abilities to get out of any grapple an ran into the building to more or less brow beat the leaders into listening to him...I made a choice as the captain npc... an ran for the ship to get the heck out before his crew would be arrested an maybe killed for hiding the PC's, an the other PC's likewise, ran for the hills too with them saying 'your mad if you do this'..
That is where that session ended, he made a passing comment 'guess ill reroll a character for the time being'... an he never showed up for the following one despite knowing 3 weeks in advance..though it turns out he 'did' roll stats for a character after I left the chat an roll20... an 'then' designed his character... which at first i was iffy but gave him a sheet to fill in to go ahead an start worken it, not knowing he had pre existing stat rolls for it or clearing that with me.. something I dont like..
Well, cant say i fault him for not knowing this, none of them did.. but there was a planned event for the city they were in. After the 'meeting the outsiders' event, they were going to be there during a siege by the monsters the leaders were worried about. I had the mechanics that, theyd get swarmed by mooks they could likely kill in a round or two at worst with a few higher level front line commanders thrown in, for each one of these theyd get a -5 to around -15 against a d100 roll (which I infamously roll low on all the time) on how much the city gets damaged up (multiple of the results for fyi), where either (a) they would stand their grounds just enough to cause the enemy to tempt pull back from the current onslaught, (b) the do enough damage an pull back gettin more then they need for now (long story) or (c) the party retreats for the time trying to pick up some survives they could fit on the ship an get the heck out as the city is torn up...
Instead.. I roll flat 3d100's as the party 'just' avoided the guards an lockdown.. which didnt add any bonses for the city guards chance to prep ships an counter attackk.. of the three, 2 in the ninties, one over fifty.. the city was whiped out.. I was 'devastated' that now i may have put the paladins character in a state he was just outright mamed and couldnt even give his player a 'last hura an fade to black'...because they never showed up or said anything...
I had to take a day or two before i sent the news to him, i did kinda phrase it a little angerly but i was 'where were you what happend'?... no response the entire week, right up to our next game session with nothing being done to that character sheet i gave him for a month..
And then came to our last bit of communication.. one hour before we started, he wanted to ask me about his character creation thing.. he stuck with the class i was iffy on to begin with but he.. went with a completely different class, an frankly he was maxing out the stats on the class too..
I confronted him since at least then he was 'finally' speaking to me. He was giving me the 'he would have convince them' speach of his characters plans.. I was just getting more confused by some of his responses of what that even was. The 'misunderstandings' of his character of what things are going on, why he did an extrem like 'why would he cut his hand off' an then he admitted no matter what, his character was going to leave. All on the fact his 'Paladin Alignment as Lawful good' wouldnt let him 'let a bunch of people die in the city'... his character has pulled back from fights an stuff before, while yeah if he saw a fight he would totally try an defend someone if need be, but, the abandon the party thinking they were doing wrong, knowing that the plan the group would be involved with after the outsider meeting, was to go search for things that might power them all up enough to be on the same playing field as the monster that beat them, or event he ones attacking the undersea side.. He even made a passing comment 'yeah i know they all talked about it for an hour'.. when.. he caused the conversation to las tthe hour by having them repeat it different ways several times.. something he also did alot im afraid when the quest was not one he started/invested in specifically of himself (the starting foot of it happened to one of the new players an 3 1/2 while he was on one of his missing days again).
He made a slight passing comment about me jus killing off his character an how they were acting as a 'what if someone wanted to play something else' .. which i did ask 'did you want to play something new why didnt you just ask?' to which.. he kinda ignored an went on. It was roughly at this time that he said he was trying to focus on his wizard spell list that i clicked to he was playing a new type of character all together.. one he admitted he wanted to play as 'weird and kinda crazy'.. it honestly sent chills to me given his 'sane' character did something extreme out of the blue for no reason an would never had done before was a bad sign what he considers 'slightly weird/crazy' would be.. but i was further made up set he made up a character only 'after' getting rolls he didnt get clearance from me with beforehand. I asked if this was the case which he confirmed and simply asked 'what want me to do point buy instead?'... an thats when I said i dont think he was set for my game again.. most so since all this all he focused on, again, an hour before game time, was only the basic mechanics an nothing else (given my honest mistrust of him springing something on me on this point with the sister visit 'quest').
I had literally given him my reasons, told him didn tlike how many red flags hes pulled lately. Including our game communities famed words by players who do things that tend to do things that.. kinda make things weird or bad or start to trail from how they start as.. When he first started missing the bulk of sessions, an losing plot interest, was when he 'lost his notes'. Then an most infamous last appearance, literally last bits hes said when he decided to have his character leave (which in hindsight i think he may have just wanted but again.. pardon me for guessing since he never communicated) 'Its what my character would do' when he had him cut his hand off.. Then during our conversation when i was trying to figure out what the heck was all that an what happend he said 'because my lawful good paladin couldnt let that under his oath'... his 'netual good' character whose hidden monsters under his house, stolen from a school of magic, made friends with an had sight powers from a devil an a few other shady things to say the least...so he was plannen or taking that his character should have a diff alignment without communing with me on it..who knows ont hat one..
I honestly did my usual, 'i dont think this game is for you' exit speech... an he said 'dont bs me with this over polite crap' an tried to make me say 'i want you gone'.. he was more or less animate on the specifics of the words.. and I think i know why..
Because, the players have a private text chat, not that hes much on there himself unless his character name is mentioned multiple times, but they do have it for funnies an stuff between em. I dont mind it, but.. at some point when I officially announced I'd be removing the player in our whole group chat.. he sent a very cropped two lines that was the tail end of us with me saying him in the groups not looken good, but told them 'i shouldnt be contacted about this'..
Tooo bad for him, I screenshot everything big like this. An further bad for him, the new guys an me talk alot too, like constant, and he forgot, 3 1/2 are friends for over a decade. 3 1/2 told me that... so i reached out to the rest of the group, shared the entire thing with them on the spot, saying 'i am sorry, its been bad with all these points' (i mention in here better more details after all, given how it was an hour of getting heated an trying to get him to tell me what his game plan is or anything else if need be given everything else sounded like he was flipping between wanting to be something new or... again i can only speculate since he just went offensive/defenses with no explanations or stuff to understand him the player). an sent them the entire conversation the two of us had as a screenshot.
While I was polite an just saying 'dont think the games for you' which yeah is a little over gentle.. after i pointed out one of them mentioned with a tiny screenshot of only me saying 'you should go' an the 'dont talk to me about it'. He honestly said 'i told them they shouldnt bother with it' like they should have just listened to him on the get go...an that 'he' would send it.. told him I already had. And for that level of honestly kinda manipulative tactic, both trying to isolate the party from me and only showing the 'closest' he would have of me saying 'i want you gone' comment, which he had stressed for a bout a minute i should 'say' in our private chat, i cant help but wonder if he was seriously trying to poison the well between me and the others.. an then said he would 'show them the whole conversation.... well he kinda got super silent with the private group and to me when i said 'i already sent the whole. I told him, good luck an goodbye, an then removed him from my DND group.. he suddenly for the first time in 2 years 'went offline', on my notice thing, so i think he made himself invisible but at first i thought he blocked me.. made a passing comment to test, but he went 'no' an was suddenly fully online an back to his MMO's that he 'usually' played too much an overslept some of our early day games on... not surprising..
The rest of the party were.. thankfully understanding, 3 1/2 suggested we didnt play but i pressed on but we did kinda vent.. helped one of the experienced newby of the three was a dm, an said 'hey its what you feel too, if he was making you feel uncomfortable at the table with that, your alright to feel it an remove him' which helped too..
But part of me does have to have that nagging feel since, he is the 'first' true kick i have done. ALl my other possible problem players ghost themselves from my games an he had been in for 2 years.. not that we done much since we are nearly at our 100'th session an only 'now' getting to the possible tea of the world i have been sitting on for 3 years since started working on the campaign over it. I left it openf or them to discover, an things started to click when the new guys came in an started being able to 'take lead' a bit on group choices.. not waiting for the paladin to lead them.. but.
of course, communication is '2 way street' i know, I said he didnt talk to me on things but likewise maybe i shoulda been more active reaching to him. To a point I tried, but, unless it was 'hey want a new power or something' ...he didnt respond back much. Again we had not much on similar things an it feel slike he was cluing in that many of my influences was from comics, movies games an anime that even if he was into the fandoms of, he didnt know alot as I have a broad and little known spectrum of series. Maybe a bit of it was lill mix of we didnt upfront what we expected, but also disinterests... but I do know at least 2 of his fave games.. tha has owning land, getting bonus in some way from that, an thats that.. an some other aspects, kinda in hindsight were what he wanted/expected for his character at times.
Again, my thing is full homebrew, an always say 'hey if you find something you like, lemme know an see maybe we can toss it in.', sadly some of the gang dont take that up too much, but the new players have lately an its been fun. He did at first 'start' suggesting something.. but with no set things, so when i brought up things that we can do for it he kinda.. shot em down, like not say full on no but.. just went silent.
In the end, Im upset with myself over not confronting the problem a bit more 'first', but i guess i just started to let him just 'be silent all the time is fine the problem goes away' as much as he did it when i reached out to him. Hell if he stepped away for a bit, sadly perfect since his first character might be KO'ed, i may have taken him back if he just said 'been dealing with things' or 'wanted to be something new' or, 'can i try something crazy'.. but in the end he only wanted me to respond in the moment to what he came up without double checking things an it can happen so sparatically, so 'railroady' for me an the other players I just cant anymore. An knowing hell honestly try an manipulate my words behind my back to the rest of the players.. yeah Im not trusting that player at any of my games ever again and wont ever trust one like that... but I hope it doesnt turn to that for just that factor an not because of other reasons that can be avoided...
Anyone who reads, thanks for your time. If you got tips or mindsets to consider for me here, like to help get them like a mindworm to maybe help me over things, given how my head is still lill swimmen on it both emotionally an thoughts. I guess maybe im looking to see if I was valid (I know for my 'mental health' i was, but want to know its not just my own head thinking it an maybe cases like this is at least partly justified). An hey, if you ever had a sitch like this, lemme hear how ya felt too, never helps bottling it in. Just typing this at first as a note to myself before it showed up anywhere helped me clear my head a fair bit, so theres always getting the words out there wither someone's ear or eyes take it is a nice way to get the happy feels in. Next order buisness to feel better... getten to those cursed die rolls (come on Dice Gods treat me an my players failry, ah dangit another 1! I thought i blotted it out!)

[US to Anywhere][Perfume][Sell/Picky Swap]
Feel free to make offers.
BASIC INFO

• Please comment to claim!
• Shipping to the US is $5 or FREE if you buy $50+
• International shipping would probably ~$18 but please ask for a quote if outside the US. $10 anywhere for $50+ purchases (up to 8oz/225g). I can also ship to Ajevie.
• I try to ship next business day after payment.
• Payment or communication should be sent within 24 hours of claiming.
• By default, all packages include candy, stickers, and teabags
• Open to offers but picky about swaps.

FREE PACKING MATERIAL
At work I throw out thousands of clean bubble wrap sleeves (~3"x4", no sticky strip) and sheets of ultra-thin packing foam. They are used to ship stainless steel components and are perfectly clean. Take as much as you want for the cost of shipping.
[US/US][buy/swap]Perfume
ISO (minimum purchase/swap quantity is 3mL)
I'm more open to purchasing if the item is DCed/not available direct. If it is still available from the shop, I strongly prefer swaps but would be open to buying partials or discounted bottles. I will probably swap heavily in your favor for prioritized ISO items.
If something is marked "FS", I'd probably accept partials/decants with 2mL+. If something is marked "sample", I'd take a FS as part of a swap.

• Alkemia: Confectionaire, Cupid's Arrow, This Summer Night (sample or 5mL)
• Amorphous: Sanguneta, Strawberry Fawn (dram/5mL)
• Area of Effect: Kokiri's Emerald, Game Over, Riften, The Fade, Camper, Outset Island (3mL preferred)
• BPAL: Dark Chocolate, Whiskey, and Cardamom-Infused Caramel (any amt)
• Cocoa Pink: Vampire's Bane (2.5 or 10 mL)
• Debaucherous Bath & Body: Coyote Red (any amt, DISO), The Bee Queen (any amt), Red Queen's Rage (FS/partial)
• Haus of Gloi: Molokai FS (5mL)
• Poesie: Strange Unearthly Thing (5mL)
• Possets: Coo (5mL)
• Sorcellerie: Moon Magic, Where the Wild Things Grow (pref 5mL for both)

FOR SALE
FULL SIZE/PARTIAL BOTTLES (2.5mL+) All full (no visible depletion) unless noted.

• Arcana Craves - Pumpkins Crave Quietude (Soft vanilla, white amber, white musk, Mysore sandalwood, sweet pumpkin, and a tiny pinch of white pepper) ~4.5mL (to label) Swap for ISO
• Arcana Wildcraft - Nog AF (Eggnog, Arcana’s beloved Yellow Cake note, rum, fresh milk, nutmeg, and a drizzle of toasty caramel) Full to label $17
• Arcana Wildcraft - The Cunning Folk (An unread magical grimoire smudged with tobacco and surrounded by offerings of chocolate and golden amber) 5mL $20
• Arcana Wildcraft - Witches Trace Sigils in the Dirt (Moss, soft forest floor, blood cedar trees, tangled vines winding over crags, damp patchouli leaves, and rosemary) 5mL $20
• Arcana Wildcraft - Mountain Witch (Roasted black coffee beans with a swirl of woody incense, wild-harvested spruce needles, fir balsam absolute, green moss, damp firewood, soft earth, and a hint of Oregon wildflowers) 5mL $20
• Black Hearted Tart - Cloud On My Tongue (Cotton candy, pink peony, pink musk.) 4mL full $9
• Darling Clandestine - Pyrotechnik (cantaloupe and raw sandalwood darkened with smoke and earth) 9mL $14
• Deep Midnight - Afterfest (Bread, Honey, Tea, Hops) Full 9mL rollerball, used once $22
• Nui Cobalt - Bee in Your Bonnet (Raw rhubarb and cardamom with toasted oats, Madagascar vanilla, ginger ale, and caramelized honey) 5mL top of label $14
• Possets - The Golden Diadem (sweet hawthorne, honey and molasses, syrup of tamarind, and candied ginger) 5mL $13
• Possets - Heka (gourd accord and slides into a fine brew of lavender, oakmoss, and thyme which are twined around a resinous ambery heart) ~3mL in original bottle $10
• Solstice Scents - Corvin's Smoked Apple (applewood smoke, apple, caramel, benzoin, guaiacwood) 5mL (open but with box) $16
• Solstice Scents - Upstairs Window (Glowing Amber, Dragon's Blood, Beeswax, Spices, Fog) ~4mL (leaked in transit from shop) $14
• Solstice Scents - Sirocco (Sandalwood, Saffron Threads, Hot Baked Earth, Myrrh, Spices, Oud & Jasmine) 5mL $17
• Wylde Ivy - Midnight Dreary Collection Complete dram (3.7mL) gift set in themed box. Tested but full. $45 for set (orig $55) or $11/ea to split (dram size not offered separately on site).
  

  A Midnight Dreary: coffee grounds, cedar smoke, rum, well aged leather, black vanilla, singed tonka, dripping wax, with a touch of spiced amber and fireplace embers.
  An Agony of Desire: bergamot, mandarin, juniper berries, pepper spiked plum, orris, white sandalwood, incense smoke and amber musk.
  Lost Lenore: dewy pink roses, faded parchment, ambergris, dried heather flowers, and white amber sugar.
  This Kingdom by the Sea: sea salt sprayed stone, sun bleached cedarwood, black amber resin, flowering wood sage, and sweet dune grass.
  The Moon Never Beams: vanilla beans, tonka infused cream, vanilla sugar musk, and just a whisper of vanilla orchids.
  

SAMPLES (and partials 2.5mL and under)

• Aether Arts - Reflection (Sage and Ozonic notes; Cactus Flower, Watery Notes, Sage and Floral Notes; Cedar and Woody Notes.) .74mL shop slink $6
• Alkemia - The Love Thief (Siberian roseroot, oud, myrrh, tonka, vanila, spices, ed zafran, candied angelica, davana, santal, vetiver) .74mL $4
• Arcana Craves - Honey Craves Sunshowers (warm cardamom, bright sunshine and scattered raindrops, then softened with Tahitian vanilla, sheer georgette, salty Ambroxan, and wildflower honey) 2mL in orig bottle $8
• Deep Midnight - Faerie Kitten (Sandalwood, Frangipani, Pear, Patchouli) $3
• Deep Midnight - Jersey Devil (Cranberry, Pine, Soil, Moss, Fog, Dead Leaves, Myrrh) $3
• Morari - Gingered Suede (Crystallized Ginger, Geranium, Suede, Benzoin) 1mL $2
• Morari - Penelope (Plumeria, melon rind, tomato, guava, jasmine, salt) 1mL $2
• Morari - The Wood Witches Magic (Cherry, Cardamom, Amber, Agarwood, Patchouli) 1mL $2
• Olympic Orchids - Night Flyer (sandalwood, olibanum wood, vetiver, furry musk accord, wet earth, damp air, mineral notes, resins, leather, figs, banana, soft tropical fruits.) .74mL $2
• Pineward - Mint Cocoa (notes unknown) 2mL EDP sample $5
• Pineward - Glühwein (cranberry, champaca, cherry compote, raspberry, fir balsam, chocolate, davana attar, oakmoss, frankincense) 2mL EDP sample $5
• Pineward - Cotswold (cedar, smoke, oakwood, ponderosa pine needles, vanilla.) ~.6mL in old-style slink $2
• Possets - Silver Roses (Rose, silver base) $2
• Solstice Scents - Tenebrous Mists (Skin Musk, White Amber, Sea Spray, Sandalwood, Bay Rum, Tea, Smoke) $2
• Solstice Scents - Mountain Vanilla (sweet clover, coumarin, vanilla musk, fresh green accord, poplar buds, morning dew) ~2mL in orig bottle $8
• Wylde Ivy - The Owl (crystalized wildflower honey, smoked vanilla beans, raw amber, and kindled birch wood) 2mL EDP sample $4
• Wylde Ivy - Clear Quartz (sweet ozone, fresh cotton, white tea leaves, babies breath, bergamot, sweet crystal water, white amber, and sheer musk) 2mL EDP sample $4

JEWELRY
I made these years ago and have worn each once or twice. Both are brass with stone, glass, and metal beads. I'd be happy to swap for 'em for approximate values (or just sell).

• Vaguely witchy purple necklace and earring set $25
• Sorta art deco-ish green necklace $20

Throwaway account, sharing where I'm at. 40 Male 5'7 170 pounds, regular consumption of soda and junk food and a sedentary lifestyle for many years, but started Peloton and weight training 9 months ago 30-45 minutes a day 5 days a week. Thought things were going well but then a couple weeks ago woke up gasping for breath and some wheezing. Sleeping on my side helped, thought I got a bug that's been going around my office or thought it's anxiety/stress since things have been tough. This past week there hasn't been wheezing but sleeping on my side stopped helping / had to sit up to be able to breathe while in bed; also noticed over the past few days I gained about 10 pounds despite not eating as much but still keeping hydrated, but not much pee (what pee there is is is not dark colored). Last night for the first time walking up the stairs made me feel winded and sleeping upright wouldn't work and had to get up or sit straight up to breathe without trouble. Went to urgent care this morning and they recommended I go to ER after doing one blood pressure test that yielded 152/130; went to another urgent care provider after that, they did multiple blood pressure tests and got an average of 131/105. They recommended I see a primary care physician this week or to go to ER if I feel chest pain or experience vision changes. I have been crying all evening and very overwhelmed; I feel ashamed and scared. Married, no kids, we have health insurance.

I'm looking at buying a car secondhand in Sydney. Looking for any tips / things to watch out for, as well advice on what the procedure is.
I have a full NSW licence.
For reference, I'll explain how it works in the UK (which is the only place I've purchased cars before).

1. Go to a car yard, take a look and test drive the car.
   
2. Try and negotiate the price down and usually be offered some random stuff you don't want in exchange for the price not dropping.
   
3. If you agree to the price, pay a deposit of say 10% and agree roughly when you will be back to complete the purchase.
   
4. Sort out insurance for the car (third party is the legal minimum).
   
5. Go and pick up the car. You then sort out the paperwork for ownership transfer (can now be done online), and pay vehicle excise duty (known to most people as road tax) for 6 months or 1 year (also done online) - the previous owner applies to get a refund of any remaining months.
   
6. Drive away in the new car.
   
7. One side note is MOT - an annual test for cars over a certain age. Whoever is selling you the car will tell you the MOT expiry date (the test is valid for a year) and then you need to renew it during the month before it expires by taking it to be re-tested.
   

There have been two things to watch out for in recent years in the UK - one is that Vehicle Excise Duty has been restructured multiple times and cars with larger engines or higher emissions levels can end up paying a lot more - often this is a problem with older cars that were not tested the same way, so get charged a high amount, while newer nearly identical models have aligned to the standards and are much cheaper to tax.
The second one has become ULEZ compliance. Not just in London, but in other major cities, there are areas where you pay a daily charge unless your car is compliant with certain low emissions standards. Many people got caught out, because they bought cars a few years ago and then found they were not compliant so had to either sell or pay the fee every time they entered the city.

So - I guess a big part of my question is, what aspects of the process are completely different to what I outlined above. What additional charges are there on top of the agreed price of the car and are there any new regulations currently planned to come in that may impact these (my understanding is that Australia is currently fairly unregulated in terms of vehicle emissions compared to most OECD countries).
Do most people buy privately second-hand or from dealers? Are there any particular things to look out for on Australian cars in terms of wear (often in the UK for instance, rust is a big problem on the undersides of doors etc - in large part because of the salt they use on the roads in winter to reduce the amount of ice)
Any advice is welcomed.

Hello everybody! This is a continuation of last week’s sale with a few new pens added in, including a couple stubs/italics! As always, these pens write fantastically but simply aren’t used enough. As I continue to curate my collection, I’m doing my best to make sure I sell pens that don’t get enough use. It’s hard to let them go but they’ll make somebody excellent writers!
Verification and photos: https://imgur.com/a/7brUUlZ Please note: there may be ink on the nibs in the photos as a result of my testing them. Rest assured, all nibs are in great shape Also, unfortunately Imgur is acting screwy tonight. It wouldn’t let me label my posts with pen identification as I normally do. I will update this as soon as it will allow me to do so.
-All sub rules in effect. PayPal G&S is the only acceptable form of payment! -Please post on this listing first, then PM with your PayPal email and I’ll get an invoice sent out ASAP. Users that indicate firm intention through messaging to purchase a pen will get priority for a given pen, irrespective of “pm” order in the thread.
-The cost of shipping is higher than ever. All packages ship with full value insurance-absolutely no exceptions. Shipping will be a flat rate of $10. I’m happy to combine shipping if you purchase multiple items.
MODERN MACHINED PENS
[A1] Q3D Twis-ti $145+shipping
This solid Titanium pen is built like a tank! Intricate machining is done expertly throughout! Theres no question that Q3D is destined to gain market share and continue expanding! A great pen! This pen is being sold for 1 reason….I’ve become an Autmog fanboy essentially, so I have no need for multiple all titanium pens! Currently sold out on the website but available here :-)
Vintage Pens below
[Parts] Wahl-Eversharp ringtop in Lazulitic celluloid w/14k Fine Signature, flexible nib $115+shipping
I’ve labeled this gorgeous pen as [parts], but it is a fully functional pen. There is a crack in the barrel at the threads(pictured in the gallery) that has been stable during my ownership over the course of several years. The cap threads with no issue whatsoever. What’s special about this pen, aside from the beautiful Lazulitic celluloid, is its nib. The pen truly is a wonderful writer! I purchased the pen with an eye to harvest its nib once the crack became unmanageable, however that never came to pass as the crack today looks just as it did the day I received the pen. It would be a shame to simply yank the nib and lose another precious artifact of a bygone era. This pen is sure to please, both the eye and the hand!
[A2] Sheaffer Balance II in Cobalt Glow w/Broad 18k semi-flex Factory Italic nib $335+shipping
I guess technically this isn’t a vintage pen, but it is an homage to the legendary Sheaffer Balance’ of yore so its inclusion in the vintage section just seems right lol ;-) This is an incredibly beautiful, like new pen in the wondrously chatoyant Cobalt Glow acrylic! The pen is essentially brand new having only been inked a time or 2. What makes this pen really special however, is its nib. The 18k factory Italic is a veritable cornucopia of line variation and is wet, and delicious! If that wasn’t enough, the nib also has a bit of softness to it which adds even more character to your writing! Line variation abound with laser side strokes and broad down strokes. I’ve seen a couple(and actually sold 1) stub nibs available on these pens, but it seems Italic variants such as this one are rather uncommon. I’ve held onto this pen for a long time and need to let it go where it’ll be loved and appreciated on a regular basis. If you like line variation, this one’s for you!!
MODERN FOUNTAIN PENS/NIBS BELOW
[B] Selmy Maki-e pen. Cartridge converter w/Fine SS Schmidt nib $125+shipping
This pen was my first foray into Maki-e. Let me tell you, this pen impressed me! So much so that it was a tough decision to let it go. It’s unbelievable to me that you can get a pen of this quality for this comparative low price! It’s beautiful, in great condition, and has a wonderful nib! What’s not to like? The gold and silver powder used in the design of the pen really pops. Take a look at the video in the gallery. A gorgeous pen that’s sure to please when put to paper!
[B++] Gravitas Ultemate Vac w/SS Fine nib $170+shipping
Ben @Gravitas perfected the vac filler when he designed this pen. I have 2 of them and the other won’t be going anywhere. This is an awesome pen! IMO, Ben solved some of the issues that made Vacs not user friendly. Not the least of which is making the pen easy to disassemble…this makes cleaning a breeze. Grab this pen, which is in great condition, for a discount and avoid Gravitas long shipping times to boot!
[A2] Taccia Spectrum in Forest Eye acrylic w/SS Music nib $115+shipping
Next is a great pen if you like line variation. I’m primarily a Stub/Italic/Music nib user. The SS Sailor Music nib on this pen is fantastic! It has a great feel when put to paper and is wet and smooth! The pen is in great condition and has no scratches cracks or wear visible. I love Sailor Music nibs and am only selling this pen because I have the same model with a gold nib. If you’re looking to expand your nib offerings and jazz up your handwriting, this is a great pen to do it with! Edit: It was kinda difficult to find one of these at retailer sites. Wondering if maybe this pen has been discontinued..? I certainly hope not as they’re great pens….
[parts with NO NIB or B++ with 14k F SIG nib listed below] Franklin Christoph 46 in Antique Glass w/ or w/out 14k Fine SIG nib $110+shipping(body only, no nib), or $240+shipping(w/14k F SIG nib)
Franklin-Christoph is one of my favorite modern pen makers. I especially love their transparent, demonstrator type materials! This 46 in Antique Glass is no exception. The 46 is one of my favorite models in their lineup as it is very ergonomic . This pen is available nibless, or, with the excellent 14k Fine SIG nib listed below. The 46 will accommodate any #6 Jowo screw-in nib unit you’d like to install if you’re interested in rhe body only.
[A2] Franklin Christoph(Jowo) Rhodium plated 14k Fine SIG nib $135+shipping
SIG nibs are among my favorite modern stub nibs to use. They write fantastically and are the perfect blend of line variation and smoothness! The variability in downstroke width, dependent on angle to the page ala’ Naginata-Togi type nibs, is a really cool plus. This particular nib is a true gem, wet and smooth with great line variation and is sure to become a favorite for your daily use! A great match for the pen above, but will go in any pen that accepts screw-in #6 Jowo nibs.
[A2] Leonardo Officina Italiana Furore in Galaxy Blue acrylic(Silver trim)cartridge converter pen w/14k Fine nib $280+shipping
This is a gorgeous Furore in the now discontinued and hard to find Galaxy Blue acrylic, which is breathtakingly beautiful(video in the gallery). This acrylic is a sight to behold….deep and chatoyant, very reminiscent is its “Galaxy” namesakeThe pen has rhodium plated silver trim and is in excellent, like new condition with not a single mark/micro-scratch to be found! The 14k Fine nib is smooth and consistent, beautifully wet, and writes very well! It was a tough decision to include this pen in the sale because I really like this model as a whole, however I ultimately decided to keep my Furore Grande.
[A2] Graf von Faber Castell Guilloche in Burned Orange w/18k Fine nib $260+shipping
I absolutely adore GVFC/FC nibs. They are seriously awesome writers! If you’ve never tried a gold nib from GVFC, man are you missing out! They’re perfectly wet, quite soft, and have a great feel against the paper. If you like FC’s stainless nibs found on Looms and HEXO’s, you’ll fall in love with their gold nib variants! I love this pen, but I’ve only inked it up once as I slowly move more and more toward hardcore vintage pen usage. It needs to go to a home where it’ll be used consistently because it really is that good. A great, great everyday writer….
[B] Levenger Aero D w/Med. SS nib $50+shipping
This was a Levenger pen made with real lacquer coated Carbon Fiber! It’s very high quality and doesn’t look obviously fake like a lot of the other “Carbon Fiber” pens that simply have stickers affixed to look like CF. Its shiny carbon fiber is quite beautiful, but I think I’ve inked it only a handful of times during my ownership. The medium nib is fantastic! Quite honestly, I was surprised at how nicely it writes. Nice and wet and very smooth….writes under its own weight, etc. The only “issue” with this pen is a few chips to the nib coating from capping/uncapping, which seems to happen with these dark nib coatings. Aside from that however, this pen is in excellent condition and ready to write! This is the type pen that you write with and think, “wow, how is this possible?!”. I can’t say enough about this pens nib….
[B+] Ensso Piuma Full Titanium cartridge converter pen w/Titanium nib(EF or F, buyers choice)$145+shipping
Ensso makes beautiful, extremely high quality pens. I love these Piuma models for daily writing, but especially for daily carry! I have 4 Titanium models of this pen and decided to sell a couple of them. It has a couple minor micro scratches but aside from that, it’s in great condition. It’s full Titanium so you could throw it off a cliff and it would survive! It’ll accept any #6 Bock nib unit you’d like to use via screw in nib units. Ti Piumas are the perfect weight, have great ergo’s, and are supremely comfortable to write with! I don’t normally prefer metal sections, however the section on this pen is extremely comfortable and isn’t slippery in the slightest. Their indestructible nature make them perfect for daily carry. If you like metal pens but don’t like for them to weigh a lot, this is the pen for you!

Hi everyone. I'm posting here because I'm at my wits' end, signs point to GERD, but doctors neither confirm nor deny it. Hoping to share my situation and see if anyone has similar symptoms.
This sub has been recommended to me by a friend who has GERD and thinks that I may get some useful information here.
TL;DR at the end.
So, to start with a bit of an introduction. A year and a half ago, or so, I had this undefinable pain in my abdomen, followed by a rapid heartbeat and a general sense of unease. Went to the ER, they tell me it's a panic attack and give me something to calm down. It worked for a few days and then happened again - the ER does the same and tells me to relax. I then decided to perhaps push my yearly check-up by a few months, and went to the doctor. They found that I had developed a hietal hernia, and a gallstone, but that I was otherwise healthy.
They told me I am probably having digestion issues, and told me to get pancreatin pills, and seek out a psychologist. At the time this made sense, since I was going through a very stressful period in my life, and that stress was reflected in my diet and portion sizes as well.
The psychologist, while helpful in dealing with some parts of my issue (like the overwhelming anxiety that consumed me after every time this happened) didn't manage to eliminate all the stress this was putting me under. Another benefit it had, placebo or not, was that it helped me become aware of this pain - and once I did, it kind of isolated itself into being strictly gallbladder pain that appeared after eating fatty foods, or stomach pain, which most commonly appeared after eating a larger than normal portion.
With that, however, came additional issues - I started having mild heartburn, after eating pretty much anything that wasn't poultry, fish, veggies or fruit. On its own it was manageable, since I already mostly ate a diet based on those things.
The problem was, that every couple of days, I'd get a sudden, random, sharp stabbing pain in the center of my chest, about halfway on the sternum between where the clavicles attach on the top and where the lower ribs attach on the bottom.
This pain itself would last anywhere between 15-60 minutes, but what started worrying me was the fact that every time this happened, it left me feeling weak and anxious to the point I'd have trouble sleeping until I literally dropped the next day.
I tried to fight it, but my mind went to heart issues, and conjured up other symptoms of heart attack, angina, or general failure in that department. During this period, I visited just about every cardiologist in my city, and done all the check-ups that were listed as a service (went to private clinics, because the public health waiting lists are huge where I live).
All these doctors confirmed that my heart was fine, and that I could probably do with losing a couple of kg (I was 106kg, and 190cm tall, used to do a lot of sports until recently, so not all of that extra weight is fat), but otherwise there was no reason to be worried. Regardless of their findings and reassurances, these episodes continued; first on roughly the same intervals, then gradually slowed down as I decided to pick up going to the gym again, and making adjustments to my diet.
From this point it was a lot of back and forth with whatever this that I have is, but I got it more or less under control as I resolved outstanding issues in my life, and as I got my weight and diet under a bit of control. Throughout the entire time, I had regular, monthly check-ups with a GP, paid out of pocket, where I'd do blood tests, ultrasound, and sometimes the heart test where they hook you up to a treadmill and monitor the activity. I also once went to a gastroenterologist, whose only conclusion to everything was "you probably have some digestion problems, try playing around with your diet a bit more and find out what doesn't trigger you. I don't think you have GERD, IBS, or anything similar of the sorts. You should stop googling your symptoms, but if you really want to try something out, try removing your gallbladder, it has a high chance of stopping at least your stomach pain."
Now, I am deathly afraid of being put under, to the point that my fight-or-flight instinct kicks in and I would try to assault anyone who'd approach me with anesthesia. Thus I tried to do everything in my power to avoid dealing with gallbladder pain, and possibly finding a nonsurgical way to solve it. It worked for the most part, as I haven't had any pain regarding the gallbladder in several months, and on the latest yearly check-up, they told my that my gallstone has shrunk 3mm.
The thing is, the sharp stabbing pains started returning, seemingly unprovoked, about a month ago. All my tests are fine, and due to me starting to work out again, my weight has slowly been going down to normal levels.
I already described it above, but now, this pain is sometimes followed by severe heartburn, usually an hour or so after the pain subsides. It's gotten to a point that I would sometimes wake up with a sore throat/hoarse voice the next day; and my wife has started to complain about snoring.
The last time this happened, I managed to book a same day check up at a private clinic, hoping that they would be able to tell me what is happening, and once again, they told me nothing of value: "it's just some heartburn. Your stomach and esophagus look fine. You should look into changing your diet."
I can deal with the heartburn, I can deal with the stomach pains, but what is difficult, is this sharp pain that no one can seemingly figure out. I don't have much money left to spend on doctors and check-ups, and the waiting list for a gastroscopy using public health services is two years.
If anyone can confirm or deny this specific symptom, or give some advice I'd be eternally grateful.
TL;DR
I've been having sharp, stabbing pains in my sternum occasionally, for the past year and a half with no discernible triggers. This pain lasts anywhere between 15-60 minutes, and is accompanied by a general sense of weakness and anxiety. After the pain passes, I sometimes get heartburn, the effects of which are noticeable the following day by either having a sore throat, hoarse voice, or a complaint from my wife that she couldn't sleep due to my snoring.
My doctors keep telling me I'm healthy, aside from having a gallstone and a hietal hernia, and haven't been able or willing to either confirm or deny GERD. I am both at my financial and wits' end with trying to figure this specific symptom out.
Regardless of whether you've read the entire post or just the TL;DR, I thank you for the time, and appreciate any and all stories and advice.
EDIT: This post took a while to write, I will be reading any replies come morning.

First Previous Wiki
Admiral Tenrah returned to the battle map, looking at all the various icons and routes to and from star systems. So far, the Sennes Armada was keeping its pace mostly on track. The delay due to the diplomats from the Misan Li Heptarchies no longer would matter.
King Siran had pulled back from the battlefront against the High Federation in an attempt to pivot to the Hive Union. He had won the battle, but the stragglers included the remaining leadership of the High Federation anyway, so they could continue to remain somewhat organized. The massive civil war would soon spill into a more international affair, due to the King's rhetoric. But that was entirely his fault when he so strongly advocated for the deaths of Cawlarians who had lived on planets for generations that he happened to desire.
And he would not let his name be stained with even the suggestion of a loss. The Battle Planner and Fleet Commander Annabelle Weber were also now on their way to the front, and the diplomats from the Heptarchies were tagging along. Phoebe was in discussions with them now, and supposedly there'd been a few breakthroughs on that front. Whatever she'd promised them or get them to agree to, the fleet buildup along the Hive Union's border with the Heptarchies was slowing.
The Interstellar Gathering seemed to have realized no amount of bluffing would get the High King out of war. Even if he was a proxy force aligned with them, King Siran was not valuable enough for them to risk a wider war. It was just as Tenrah had expected and had told Eyahtni, Kawtyahtnakal, and the Patriarchs when he'd met with them several days ago. Just as a young hatchling couldn't be allowed to stray too far from the nest, there was simply no sense for the Heptarchies to risk economic ruin.
Orith and those who ruled over him would shift their tone while pretending it was a natural decision, not one they'd been forced to make to align with reality.
"I must commend your tactics in the latest training exercise," Tenrah said, ruffling his feathers slightly before respectfully nodding to Annabelle.
"I am pleased to hear such high praise from you, Admiral," the woman said. She was fully dressed in her regulation spacesuit, meaning most of her face was obscured. But Tenrah wouldn't complain since it was more than prudent to be ready for anything. The next unknown ships might not be friendly.
He had also looked into the parties responsible for the lack of communication or warning of the Misan's arrival. As it turned out, general incompetence was to blame. A receiver hadn't been properly calibrated, so the transmission signal had just been noise. He'd given the officer in charge of that an earful before eventually letting up and telling him to do better. A personal visit with the Admiral was one thing. But a second personal visit was quite another.
Tenrah drew a vector toward some of the outer systems controlled by the High King. A few garrison forces were there, but they would be swept away almost instantly. What most concerned him was the shipyards in the region that received most of their metals from a select group of planets in those systems. They were rich in the metals required to forge the alloys needed in the High King's fleet.
The High Federation had been something of a dumping ground for either overthrown species or other alien species that had been deported from their homeworlds before the war broke out. This was reflected in the number of species inhabiting the worlds, each with unique names, traits, and temperaments.
"We plan on taking this path, and then splitting to conquer these systems and disable their metal exporting abilities," he explained. "Then we will move to this system."
He zoomed in more and drew a new vector from where the previous one ended. "We have intelligence that they have at least four planet crackers there. Brey will send FTL suppression satellites through portals on the outer edges, with her portals boosted by our psychic amplifier fields. we will be able to take over the system quickly, and begin the process of either disabling the planet crackers or moving them back to our territory."
"We will need to know the angles the superweapons are at before committing to the battle," Annabelle said. "Otherwise, judging by the trajectory cone you have, we can bypass them entirely and reach Siran within two weeks."
"And that is an interesting proposal. Can you lay out your plan, in that case?"
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Annabelle did so. She and Tenrah discussed the strategy's risks, and they eventually decided that such a tactic, while bold, wouldn't do what they set out to do: ensure the safety of the Cawlarians near the border. They were already trying to evacuate from the coming war front, but cities and planets were large things that took a lot of time to completely empty.
And more garrison forces, whether they were androids from Phoebe or specialized and highly trained defenders from the Union, were still moving in as the civilians evacuated. Kawtyahtnakal had established a fund for them, but many people were too stubborn to leave. Despite the looming threat of war and possible massacre, they still refused to board the passenger ships. Annabelle could respect their tenacity and courage, though she personally believed it was counterproductive.
A few encroaching splinters of Siran's fleet had already struck the evacuation forces. He'd sent around 2% of his ships away to harass all the border systems within reach in an attempt to get the Armada bogged down in defense. But with such small forces and the Union on such high alert, all of the important stations with weak shields were well within the protective layers of planetary shields in the area.
Larger garrisons than necessary were still required, of course, but Tenrah had managed to navigate the desperate concerns of the Feathers and those like them in charge of governing their planets with his natural political skill. He didn't need to ask them for favors because, as an Admiral, he alone held power over how his portion of the fleet would respond. Annabelle had witnessed that loyalty and control well within the organization of his fleet. Even at his advanced age, she continued to be impressed with his adaptability and skill at monitoring three-dimensional battle planes and fields.
She pointed to the cone of possible directions Siran was expected to take. They were generally adjacent to the border, though they would head around the left side of the territory he claimed from the Union. If he reached it, millions of lives would be lost every day. Once he broke the shields entirely, the planets would be utterly glassed down to their mantles.
She'd read up on his methods and had seen videos of them in action. Despite all her training, it still was haunting. The hivemind helped to soothe her when the unpleasant parts of command sizzled up to meet her in the middle of the night.
But they would not impede her on the field of battle. When she went to war, the hivemind suppressed all that wasn't necessary for the mission. It was their agreement, one which she'd asked of it. And being a node of the network meant that her stability was paramount, even more so than her title as Fleet Commander. For if she fell, others could take her place. Protocols ensured and demanded that.
But her place in the hivemind was what allowed it to have any strength this far out. It could form avatars and help with long-range communications, though the main mind back on Earth and Luna obviously remained disconnected from this distance.
"I would normally agree with you, Fleet Commander, but I am reminded of your tactic to use decoy hard light holograms."
"They will suspect that any ships heading right for the barrels, or close enough, are either not valued enough or are the decoys."
"Then all you have to do is make them impossible to ignore," Tenrah said. "I can lend you bombs capable of remaining armed and capable of being triggered inside of hard light holograms, even with jamming involved. Then, they will be unable to ignore them, and the explosions generated would destroy the shields in place around the planet crackers. If they fire the weapons, then the residual magnetic interference will allow us to destroy them, since the shields will be far weakened."
Annabelle could see the potential brilliance of the strategy. But it was just that- potential. In space, there were no obstacles. Without stealth fields, there was no hiding. And with hard light holograms, stealth was obviously off-limits.
They would be left approaching from angles that they would be unable to adapt to. She had her VI plot several routes but was unsatisfied, so she had Edu'frec link into the network to do it. Phoebe had been replaced after contacting a Sprilnav network to ensure she could scrub any programs that may have gotten through to her without distraction.
It would be a terrible thing for a Sprilnav AI to make it to her dreadnaught, for sure.
"We will likely need a threefold diversion at least," Annabelle said. "Maybe fourfold, if we can spare the forces, and brave any minefields that may exist."
"Well," Tenrah began. He pulled up a few schematics of the weapons her dreadnaught carried. "I believe you can solve the minefield issue from a distance, even with the lightspeed limit. After all, they can't move easily. As for the actual attack? I suggest a sixfold flower formation, with a twisting wings accent."
"You will have to show me a diagram of that," Annabelle said, grasping uselessly at the unfamiliar words. Before their integration had begun, there had been a limit to how much doctrine she could memorize.
Tenrah pulled up an image of an alien flower blooming with six petals. And then the image faded, overloading with a stylized ribbon of red shapes. The ribbons spun on their sides every thirty seconds, like corkscrews that were flatter.
"And in this case, the ribbons represent the drone formations. I can send a few carriers into the battle with fighter escorts, though we will need to keep them spread out to avoid any direct lines of sight from the planet crackers."
"I heavily doubt they will waste such shots on carriers," Annabelle said. "And if you commit more, you will overwhelm their defenses. I believe your drones are highly reflective, so only missiles and bullets can deal sufficient damage at the involved speeds and numbers we are working with here."
She tapped the diagram, shifting it by about 45 degrees.
"I believe I can fit a stealth force here, which will engage the back defenses of the planet crackers once they focus their shields frontward. I can likely get a full battlecruiser group in, and if you can press in as a wedge around 10 million kilometers above me from where I come in, and around 30 million kilometers below," Penny paused to draw the vectors with her hands, "Then it will aid in my ability to subdue them. It would likely shorten the battle time from a week down to four days."
"Assuming their detection satellites are not capable of seeing it."
"And we will target those too. I believe the first strike can fall on those, since the planet crackers will interfere with their ability to scan behind themselves, and such large power signatures can be noted."
"There is one more problem," Tenrah said. "We are generally working on the assumption of trying to capture these ships, yes?"
"Yes," Annabelle said.
"Then will we board them?"
"Yes, but no. Edu'frec and Phoebe's commando androids will open up the beach heads on the physical surfaces of the planet crackers, while our specialized mental warfare agents will take the fight to them in the mindscape. I assume you have your own plans in that regard?"
"It depends on how we will split the planet crackers. There are 12 in the system. Half and half?"
"That seems prudent," Annabelle replied. She selected the ones that would be most advantageous for her various gambits and strategies to work. They were closer together, which meant more capacity for coordination, mutual aid, and shielding. But it also meant a larger target, one which she could hit from many vectors without worrying about each enemy ship having a wide field of view. Some battlecruisers and cruiser groups were scattered around, but they were not enough to resist the Armada. And once Siran was robbed of a quick way to end the war, the Union would hold the upper hand, capable of committing devastating power to a fleet that remained in a system for a long time.
Yet the same was true for the Union and the Alliance. If the battle took too long, or their command positions were located, then the terrible might of the planet cracker beams would be turned upon them instead. Annabelle's dreadnaught was powerful. More so than all the ones before it. But that didn't mean she wanted to test her shields against alien planet crackers.
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Penny was talking to a group of freed slaves on Justicar. These were recent ones who still held quite a bit of trauma. They'd taken to calling her 'Liberator' despite her never identifying herself as such. It was oddly endearing and did make her feel quite a bit better. It was good to just be able to go out and help people.
She felt some perturbations in the mindscape but ignored them. Right now, she needed to ensure that the gangs couldn't continue their horrific industry. She'd taken out most of their heavy equipment and was now waiting for the Guides to finish searching.
Sirens and alarms echoed in the distance. Penny sent psychic energy into her eyes, but she was too far underground to see anything without using the energy itself instead of light to see. Justicar's mind seemed busy, so she couldn't connect with him. As time went on, Penny felt that something was wrong. It was a gut feeling that she couldn't place. But because of that, she was on edge. She made a large shield of psychic energy above them.
She held it for several minutes. Nothing happened, but Penny wouldn't let it down that quickly. Justicar still didn't respond. Her communicator rang. Kashaunta was calling.
"What's going on?" Penny asked.
"The Grand Fleet is-"
Light and heat smashed into her, easily breaking through her shields. She briefly saw tens of thousands of Sprilnav burning before the light overwhelmed her eyes. Her communicator was destroyed. The onslaught was accompanied by a monstrous level of sound. Shockwaves drilled Penny into the melting and fracturing ground, forcing her lower and lower into expanding pools of magma and liquid metal.
The city's upper layers fell upon her, crashing with great and terrible force. But Penny was now fully reinforced with psychic and conceptual energy. She erupted furiously from the rubble. The air around her burned with heat as she continued to accelerate. The armor plates now surrounding her glowed cherry red, but they were white by the time she'd reached space.
She reached the first planetary shield.
"Displace," Penny growled. She forced reality to move as she willed and to place herself where she saw fit. The Grand Fleets were high above, firing upon a small group of ships that had detached from Azeri's fleet. They seemed to be directly attacking the broken-off contingent and not Justicar itself.
So Penny increased her eyesight and analyzed the battle in both real space and the mindscape. Nilnacrawla helped her identify Justicar's targets. The massive Elder was angrier than she'd ever seen him, and his size, which was even larger than Tetelali, made that incarnation of him appear more like a god of wrath. She saw him brutally tear through groups of minds desperately running to avoid him.
She could faintly see spheres of psychic and conceptual energy area denial fields. From this distance, the flagships' strength was truly impressive. Both of them were at least ten times as powerful as Azeri's had been during their battle. It was clear both Kashaunta and Valisada had ordered upgrades.
Then, her attention came to the dreadnaught, which seemed to be at the head of the attack. Penny explored the ship with her psychic power, pushing aside all resistance. Several lasers struck her, but she ignored them, denying their impact in reality against her own.
It glowed with the fury of weapons firing. Missiles and fighters flowed out of its bays. Bullets, nukes, and lasers streamed from red-hot gun barrels. A nuke hit her but didn't explode. She ripped it apart, using the materials to add energy to her reserves.
Justicar continued to go in inside the mindscape. He tore at them like a shark at a school of minnows in a coral reef. His ravenous anger and hatred were frightening, but Penny rapidly got used to it. Calling up her own memories of the innocent people who'd been killed for no reason, Penny wrapped herself in energy and began to erase her signature from the area.
Fighters flew past her, no longer hitting her psychic shields with bullets. Lasers stopped firing at her since she'd moved from her last position, and there was no longer anything for them to track. Penny floated in the stars, with bright blooms of white fusion explosions blossoming around her. And so she moved forward. She reached a cruiser. She reached forward, teleporting past its shields, and shut down the ship's reactor by teleporting all of its fuel into the void.
Soon, a missile from Kashaunta's Grand Fleet found the vessel, and it vanished in another sphere of heat and light. Of course, it was all silent in space. Penny could only hear her heart beating and occasional warnings from Exile or Nilnacrawla at incoming attacks. Exile occupied the area in her ears, which felt weird, but it allowed him to speak without showing himself in the mindscape. Given his nature and the fact that the Grand Fleets likely had detections for speeding space entities, it would be a terrible idea for him to appear there. Nilnacrawla continued to help Penny with the mental aspects of the battle.
He processed the energy input and output that Penny was giving off in the hopes of keeping her off the sensors of the dreadnaught battlegroup. She didn't want to attract the full focus of one of those massive guns. The explosions on Justicar would have been capable of cracking apart a mountain range if not for the extensive dampening Justicar's shields had done. And she'd withstood them only because she could shunt off most of their impact into reality, leaning into her conceptual nature and the nature of Cardinality to escape certain death.
Even with her power, as high as it had ever been, the blow she was taking were the most powerful physical impacts she'd ever endured.
She also suspected Yasihaut's work in this, though she had nothing to prove. She also had to remain vigilant about the Judgment. She couldn't take overly hostile actions, so she didn't just teleport the Sprilnav in the area out of their ships. She tried it on a smaller scale, and a weak pressure from the dreadnaught made her power fail to affect them.
But those Sprilnav were still doomed to die by their commander. But Penny didn't wish to doom the Alliance and herself by taking their deaths into her own hands. And she was stained with enough blood, metaphorical and literal. The ashes of the people she'd freed had fallen away with her ascent into the atmosphere, but the gritty memory and feel of them never would.
Once again, she'd been powerless to save those who'd needed her. And if she'd had that power, what could she have really done? Would she have been forced to stand there and take it? Or could she have really fought back in a way that wouldn't be turned against her in the Judgment? And was she wrong for considering all of that during such a horrendous time, when she'd literally seen thousands of people turned to slag and ash before her very eyes just ten minutes ago?
Penny burned with shame and grief. She hated this. She hated that things always turned to this. Why couldn't the galaxy just leave people alone? Why did there have to be so much suffering? Her anger threatened to overwhelm her, but with a herculean effort from her, Nilnacrawla, and Cardi, it was beaten back.
Penny felt Justicar getting close to breaking through the shield. She sent a small jolt of power to its underside. A thick bolt of psychic lightning infused with rage leaped from her arms, shattering the shield completely and taking roughly half her power. In the dreadnaught, the antimatter reactor she could sense radiating its energy suddenly lost all coolant access.
She pushed her psychic energy into herself and her conceptual energy into words that she harmonized into existence with the force and might of her will.
"Cardinality: One to zero. Reversal."
A heap of her energy left her instantly, stopping a budding explosion from ripping the dreadnaught apart. Justicar absolutely ravaged whoever was inside that ship, including what appeared to be a leader figure in the mindscape. Penny watched Justicar smash the Elder's corpse in his jaws and tear his soul from his body before shredding it violently with a contraption that looked straight out of a horror movie.
She let the explosion go, and so it went. The dreadnaught cracked in half. The Grand Fleets, which had never stopped firing, finally broke through the shields as the circuits failed to supply them with power. Hundreds of thousands of lives winked out instantly, torn to subatomic particles by beams coming from two different flagships. Penny went straight to Kashaunta, appearing on the ship's bridge still in stealth. To their credit, her guards noticed immediately and bared their weapons at her.
The guns that were powerful enough to blast holes in skyscrapers and sturdy enough to withstand a fall from orbit with hardly a scratch unloaded their payloads into her. Penny opened her mouth, and strings of psychic energy writhed outward, wrapping themselves around the guns and wrenching them out of the claws of Kashaunta's guards while the impacts' explosions were contained by thick shields.
Kashaunta herself had already drawn her sword but hadn't moved an inch.
"Penny," she said dryly. "Welcome to my ship. I apologize for your reception."
A new shield came down on both of them, preventing their words from reaching the ears of Kashaunta's subordinates.
"Think nothing of it, Elder Kashaunta. What punishments will be given to the Grand Fleet Commander?"
"Well, technically I am not the Grand Fleet Commander of this fleet," she said. "So that is not really something I can enforce. However, the Grand Fleet Commander of the 85th Grand Fleet does wish to talk with you, Justicar, and myself about what just occurred."
"And you believe him?" she exclaimed.
"He sent transcripts of the message he sent to one Elder Solei, asking him to cease his actions before it was too late."
"Even the Alliance can make deepfakes," Penny said.
"And do you think I would be ignorant of such things, child?" Kashaunta asked. "We have ways around those. That is why we still have a society after billions of years of time to screw it all up. Deepfakes are a problem of less advanced species and cultures, not those with the tools to handle them."
"Which are AIs, which you also ban throughout the galaxy."
"Yes."
"Isn't that hypocritical?"
"Yes, it is," Kashaunta said. "You can go and complain to the Judges who decided that if you wish, though asking them to think of the children instead of preserving the power of the entire Sprilnav species will get you laughed at by a billion mouths."
Penny felt something in her mind take offense to Kashaunta's wording. It didn't feel like it was part of her, but it also did. The shock of all the lives lost hit her again, making her scowl.
"So there will be nothing done?" Penny growled.
"No. Prepare for a neutral and level-headed discussion. If you wish to have any seat at a table such as this, you will conduct yourself with decorum. You will not accuse Elder Valisada of being responsible for whichever fool did this, and you most certainly will not baselessly claim that Yasihaut is at fault for this, even if it is likely that she or her backers are. It is time you learn the lesson that all Elders have: there are always more Sprilnav. Recognize that this was a strike against you without casting aside all of your goodwill among those that matter."
"Those that matter," Penny mused. "Sometimes I forget what you are."
Kashaunta stepped forward, eyes narrowing. She let out a hiss.
"You saw a few thousand people die, and now you're back to the racism again? Grow up. People die all the time in this galaxy. You complain about the status quo. I would respect that, if you could stomach what is required to change it. Death will continue to run rampant, and you will be the reason more die no matter what you do. 760 sextillion Sprilnav, Penny. And you cry over ten thousand?
During the Source war, we sent two years olds to war. You don't get to slide back into comfortable dumb hatred of our species because of a few stupid people. Rest assured, if you ever get this Alliance-based order, you or your successors will become tyrants. There will be a human who has the power and will to start wars, and enact genocides, for functionally no reason. Need I remind you of World War Two, and World War Three? If you multiply the population of Humanity by a trillion, that means you'll get a trillion Pol Pots, or Hitlers, or Genghis Khans.
And a hell of a lot more dumb idiots in power, which ascribes most of the history of nearly every species in the galaxy. Notice how Valisada and I both fired on Solei once he decided to be an adult daycare nominee? Notice how Valisada has not fired at us, or Justicar, and is trying his best to start a constructive dialogue? People die in war, Penny. This is reality. And you cast your disdain onto me, the only Sprilnav keeping you alive in this place, because I happened to be born an Elder. But no. I'm still some alien, right? Just another dirty animal for you to kill when the Judgment ends."
Kashaunta's fury caught Penny off-guard. The Elder truly meant her words. Penny had deeply offended her, cracking open the facade she usually maintained. The smug feeling at having made Kashaunta go on such a tirade faded when she considered the circumstances. Maybe she had acted like a child. But she hadn't said anything truly deserving of such a furious tirade, had she?
Not unless her proclamation that she remembered 'what Kashaunta was' had an implication that she didn't understand. Kashaunta was a mass murderer, one who was more than willing to justify it when necessary. And she downplayed the fact that this attack was on Penny herself and on thousands of innocents on a Sprilnav planet where she was meant to be safe. This wasn't a pair of assassins in the night, slipping poison into water or dropping snakes into a bed. This was a much more insidious and terrifying evil. Penny had been powerless to stop it.
Penny knew she was right, but Kashaunta did not. Could she truly weigh her scant decades against Kashaunta's billions of years of age? Perhaps. Age was not wisdom, though it certainly could be experience. Kashaunta turned around and started to walk away. Sadly, Penny still needed her.
"I'm sorry, Kashaunta. I am... incredibly charged. I am very pissed right now. I am not apologizing for how I feel about this attack. I have every right to be upset, and I will remain so. I will not be bullied or cowed into submission, even by a thousand more tirades. There comes a point where something must be done. But if you are upset over what I said, then I would at least like an honest clarification why."
"Because you had showed me you could think like a person should. That you didn't see people's species anymore. That you were becoming less racist. And yet, when you are cut raw, you still see me as a Sprilnav Elder alone, and therefore complicit in this massacre I literally did everything I could to do stop before it worsened. You said you knew 'what I am' as if you'd forgotten that. And it is clear that you meant that you'd forgotten your belief that I am some dirty criminal Sprilnav, who deserves to be slaughtered in the dark for the crime of being born in her species.
You care more for the ash on Justicar than you do for what I have given you. Your simplistic view of reality would mean that if you could push a button to kill us Elders, you'd do it, robbing countless families of their loved ones, because you now remember 'what we are,' and are again regressing away from your previous growth."
"I am one person, Kashaunta. I don't understand why you care this much about me. But I can recognize that the message you received is one of terrible bigotry. I am suffering, every day, every week, that I remain in this god-forsaken place. It hurts for you to dismiss the people I care about, even for a moment, dying just because there are many of them. But that does not excuse what I said to you despite the death toll you carry on your own head. It was a half-truth."
Kashaunta laughed. "Do you know why I care so much about what you think, Penny? It is because you are the other aliens. All at once. The Alliance is the face of all things 'alien' in many places. Remember what conceptual energy is? Lecalicus told you, I believe. You represent more than just your own views. And if you're able to forgive a speeding space entity, but not me, then it shows that we will never have peace. That no matter what, this cycle of hatred will continue, and I will need to either build a new galaxy with aliens that don't hate us for our ancient crimes, or just figure out another way. You are the face of the rest of the galaxy, Penny. And you have just told me that you still hate me for being an Elder. After I thought you had changed."
"And you believe you are undeserving of such hatred?"
"Penny," Kashaunta said. "The Alliance didn't exist when many of these events happened. Some of your grievances are older than the mountains on Earth. You say you hate us for genocides that happened so long ago that they no longer hold any meaning. There is no compensation we can give to dead species on dead worlds. What you want is an alien species to hate and blame for all the universe's problems. Because it is easier to hate us than to confront reality. And we are the ones you have been told to hate."
"They were not small things. It was the deaths of trillions of people, Kashaunta."
"Yes. And it was wrong. I can understand that. But what do you think will happen when your Alliance, filled with people who hate us, takes over? You will see humans bombing Sprilnav schools, and the hivemind will do nothing, for it will share that hate. Acuarfar will abduct and torture us. Knowers will devour our children. And in the face of that? You would turn a blind eye, because it is too hard to solve with a simple fix. You will only propagate generational hatred, just as all the Alliances and Galactic Republics and Peace Unions did before you.
Because underneath your message of equality for all species is oppression and genocide for us, the villains in your little story. That is what happens in reality, once the benevolent dictators die. And you, who have lived with us, eaten with us, and talked with us, will sit upon your golden throne, and when I am brought before you, naked, bleeding, and in need of support, you will throw me away, because all I am to you is an Elder. That mindset is exactly what stands in the way of peace. It is why I stopped giving you aliens chances for so long. And having to argue this with you at all makes me think you may no longer be worth my effort."
More manipulation. Penny was ready to shout at her, but Nilnacrawla pulled her thoughts away from blind anger. And it did feel unnatural for her. Alien.
"This is not peace," Penny said. "This is war. And we are circumstantial allies. I will not become what you claim."
"I have sown the seeds of a thousand despots," Kashaunta said. "I recognize them when I see them because I have reaped the heads of a million more."
Penny sighed. She wanted to resist and continue arguing, but it wouldn't get her anywhere. Now that she had thought about it, she was unlikely to overturn a viewpoint set in a billion years of experiences. Perhaps Penny could explore this later, when she had time to properly process it all.
"Very well. I will go to this meeting of yours, and I will conduct myself with decorum. However, while I refuse to belittle or forget thousands of deaths, I am sorry that you feel this way."
"But you are not sorry about making me feel so."
"No," Penny replied. She suppressed her emotions more, taking the time to carefully consider her words. Kashaunta was wrong and oddly sensitive right now. Saying the wrong thing could damage far more than their mutual feelings. As much as she wanted to win this argument, Kashaunta was who she was. She was the alien dictator keeping the Alliance alive.
"We are both right in some ways, and perhaps we might be both wrong, too. This only shows how tough the road will be. We at least are consciously trying to come to an understanding. But for the billions of Alliance citizens, quintillions of aliens, and sextillions of Sprilnav? It is a gargantuan task. And... right now, I don't think it is possible."
"It isn't," Kashaunta said. "And it won't be for thousands of years. But we don't get some neat little time skip to wait and solve all of our problems for us. Change will start only when we make it."
Kashaunta was throwing her a bone, then. They both knew the argument couldn't continue right now.
"So we have an understanding, then," Penny said. "Hatred will remain, but it must be minimised. That way, cultural and social pressure will eventually stamp it out, and we may have peace."
"No. We will have a truce, which will only become peace with much more work. The Alliance is a nation that is 24 years old. Only a single generation has grown up within it. Negotiations will be hard with so many who remember the hatred. But Valisada is not like other Sprilnav. He will seek to bring a hybrid war to you and the Alliance, unless you can convince him that you truly mean to bridge the divide. You are clearly misguided, but have a genuinely good heart. That will make life hard for you. Your words today would have spelled the death of you and the Alliance, had I not established this shield around us to hide them. Out of the spirit of our friendship, I will not request a favor in return for this boon."
"Thank you, Kashaunta. Though I'm not sure I can consider you a friend."
"The fact that you bothered to listen to my side of things, in this limited aspect, despite the hurt you must feel right now, proves otherwise. I am well aware of my past crimes, Penny. I know that my emotions today were a weakness I should have been able to seal, and that you will still see me for who I was, and not who I am. I know how it sounds for me, a killer and a ruler, to be upset at being confronted. But that is how I am. I still have my pride as an Elder, and there is only so far it can be pushed. Who I was certainly would qualify as beyond evil. But to remain at the top, there are limits to how far you can swing into benevolence.
I cannot atone. Do not try to make me repay debts that you don't own. If you are ever to have more Elders on your side, whether Progenitors or otherwise, you will need to learn to deal with this. There will be people with death tolls higher than the population of the Alliance, who were once the heart of evil and are now at least acceptable. The first step will be recognizing that, yes, we are in fact friends, despite my history. Because only from friendship and understanding can hope come."
"I will think about this more. My feelings about this, and about you, have not yet solidified."
"I was wrong for what I said to you, Penny. We are both on edge, and said things that we didn't properly express. We should get our heads in order before re-entering this argument with logic instead of emotions."
"I agree. I will go and see who I can save. And I will think more about this. I freed people from slavery, and watched them die today. Respectfully, I must spend some time away from you for now."
Penny left the ship. In something near her subconscious, anger remained. When she landed in the rubble once again, she missed a small but steady stream of conceptual energy wafting into her from below.

I need advice on how to deal with my situation appropriately and it’s been going on for awhile now. It seems to be getting worse each time.
I’m almost 22 and have been married since 2021. My Husband and I have a beautiful 2 year old Daughter. Back when I first met my husband I was 18 and had gotten kicked out of my house (my mom and I had a bad relationship at the time) Having nowhere to go my now husband asked his parents if I could stay with them. He was 19 at the time and had just came back from Army Basic Training. His Dad didn’t have a problem with it but his Mom didn’t want me there and I didn’t know it at that time but I never resented her for that especially now as a Mom myself. I wasn’t talking to my Mom or any of my family at the time. I really appreciated them taking me in. I was very shy and didn’t talk much. It was a new environment for me. He told his parents everything. They seemed to have a really close bond. We sat at the dinner table every night with them. It was all new for me and naturally I felt like a burden.
My Mom called out of the blue and my Husband convinced me to answer and talk things out. My mom apologized for everything and she seen that I went to the doctor from an email she had gotten and she knew I was pregnant. When my Husband and I found out we decided we wanted to move to Florida so he could start a career and become a cop eventually so he applied for correctional officer jobs in Fl. My mom knew and she had to take me to my appointments while we still lived in Nc because my husband worked and I didn’t have a car. My husband’s sister knew because he couldn’t keep it from her. His sister told their Grandpa and even told their Mom “I won’t say yes, but I won’t say no” when asked if I was pregnant. We didn’t tell his parents because almost everyday was a lecture about how we better not get pregnant and she would constantly ask if I was taking birth control. She said a few times that she’d “kick our ass” if she found out we were. I didn’t know them well enough to feel comfortable telling them and my Husband just didn’t want a lecture about something we wanted. We were 18 and 19. Yes, that’s super young but we talked about starting a family and moving away and starting a life together. He wanted to be a cop and I wanted to Stay home and raise babies.
So my family got together to throw us a going away party/gender reveal party and also that’s the day my husband proposed to me. His parents knew about the engagement (which btw I later found out his mom didn’t approve when he first told them he wanted to marry me) but they still didn’t know we were pregnant. At this point I felt like his parents liked me and I really liked them. We moved to Fl and his parents even volunteered to put a down payment on a house if we pay the mortgage and eventually buy it from them. We were incredibly grateful. I was actually shocked they offered. I wasn’t there when they talked it over but my Husband and I were planning to rent somewhere before they came up with this idea. His Mom did make comments to people that it was going to be their vacation home and also telling us that the spare room in the house would be their room when they come down Meanwhile, we knew the spare room would be our future child’s room and It did make me a little uncomfortable about it all but I was still trying to show respect and gratitude.
We were staying in an airbnb until the house closed and we got married at a courthouse shortly after and that’s when he called his parents and told them we were pregnant. Naturally they were upset and felt left out and I felt bad but they put some much pressure on us. After that we made the announcement publicly to all friends and family that we were expecting a baby and everything seemed fine. His Mom and Dad were happy, My parents were happy. My mom did later on. tell me that my Husband’s Mom called her telling her that she was going to be in charge of the baby shower since we left her out and that she was owed the right to be there for the first ultrasound for the next baby and she was making my mom feel like she couldn’t be involved in the baby shower, but it didn’t work out the way she wanted because I was the one that planned my own baby shower and my Mom stayed there all night making desserts and that I am sure made her mad when she could’ve went there and helped my mom that night and since then it felt like my Husband’s Mom didn’t like mine.
Slowly I started to realize that they didn’t respect us. For a few examples, lecturing us over and over about something, calling telling us to do things that didn’t concern them something as simple as sending an important paper in the mail, or fixing our car. if we didn’t agree with them, we just said OK to them we never talked back or argued. I told them that I didn’t want anyone at the house when we had our daughter and they came down to stay for a week and she was trying so hard to stay for me to go into labor when my own mom couldn’t make it down to be there. I just wanted it to be me and my Husband because by that point we found out that he was going to deploy two months after we were going to have our baby for a whole year and I wanted that time with just him. luckily, I went into labor the day after they got back home.
He deployed when our daughter was only a month and a half old and I went to live with his parents for a year because I couldn’t be by myself. I didn’t know anyone I had no family or friends down in Florida, so I just wanted some emotional support during that time two months postpartum with a newborn, and I had a fear of driving. sorry, I started regretting that decision because I felt judged and uncomfortable and unwelcome. They would say little out-of-the-way things to me and make me feel like what I was going through, wasn’t a reason to feel the way I did. I had no motivation I was depressed and I was homesick but I still got up every day and took care of my baby. I never needed their help taking care of her. I just wanted people to talk to when I was having anxiety or when my husband and I were going through problems. she never wanted to be comforting during our fights. She would always tell me or my husband that we weren’t gonna make it and we were gonna end up getting a divorce and she even told me one time that she would not let our daughter grow up around that meaning us arguing when we were going through a long-distance relationship and having a hard time. while living with her, she told me that I needed to get off my phone and pay more attention to our daughter even though it wasn’t like I was neglecting her, I would just do things to keep my mind busy when my daughter was content and didn’t need me. my husband was overseas so we had different time zone so I had to adjust to that while taking care of a baby. I constantly felt judged by them. I didn’t like driving so I would always DoorDash things I needed. I bought everything that my daughter needed. I bought breakfast and lunch for us. The only thing that they provided was dinner.
my mother-in-law’s aunt lived right next-door and she would asked me to go out and run errands with her all the time and it helped me get out of the house. We would go grocery shopping together and she took me anywhere i needed to go. we had good conversations and it was a way to bring us closer. she was really there for me when no one else was emotionally . multiple times while living with them. They would ignore me when I would ask for my daughter back tell me “no it’s okay” they got her or when she was screaming they thought that they could comfort her more than I could and they would not hand her back to me.
I’m sorry this is super freaking long but fast forward to May of last year.
my sister-in-law, and I have the same birthday and she lives in North Carolina and at this time his parents live in Tennessee they took off work to go down to North Carolina to spend time with their daughter on her birthday but she decided to go to the beach so they took the opportunity to come down to Florida for my birthday and I was already upset that my family couldn’t be there but I decided to try and enjoy it. we had been arguing with his parents a week before, and I didn’t want them to come down and continue to argue with us and ruin my birthday and that’s exactly what happened the day after my birthday they were outside washing our house because they said it was really dirty and we went next-door to swim for 20 minutes.
We came back and they were so mad and said that we needed to get rid of our dog, because it chewed the table they gave us, and before we had time to even react, she told us the table was destroyed, and we need to figure something out about the dog so we went in and saw that the leg of the table was chewed, and our dog was in a cage shaking with P all over the house. We were upset because they were demanding that we get rid of our dog before even trying to talk it out like adults and for us to actually feel sorry about what had happened we let it go for a little bit and I was in my room on the phone with my mom and that’s when I heard my husband and his dad getting into an argument. His dad was cussing him and my husband walked through our room to go outside because we were grilling out and his dad followed so I told my mom that I would have to call her back at that same moment my husbands mom open the door and demanded that I get outside and listen to what they had to say. I didn’t say anything I just walked outside and they bashed for everything, our financial struggles, the fact that I didn’t take Mother’s Day to go get cookies to my husband’s grandma in a nursing home
I was shaking so bad I was so upset that they were just yelling and screaming and bashing us, and I was just sitting there quiet not saying anything back. I finally had enough and I started standing up for myself, saying that I didn’t appreciate how they didn’t care about my feelings so they asked me to give them examples. I told them whenever I had my wedding, I also had a miscarriage and I didn’t feel comfortable with one of my sister-in-law‘s friends coming, and I was made out to be the bad guy, and they only thought about her and how I ended up giving in and letting her come because I didn’t want her sitting at a hotel by herself so I was still thinking about someone else’s feelings, but no one was thinking about mine and how I was going through a hard time and they of course shut that down and gave excuses.
I gave them another example about how Christmas of 2022 was going to be mine and my husband and daughter‘s first Christmas ever together because he was deployed for our daughter’s first Christmas my dad had also died December 5 of 2022 and I was also supposed to be pregnant by that time but I lost the baby. I didn’t even get to get anything out and explain my side. The only thing I could get out was “like Christmas-“ and she started waving her hands and screaming and sayin “my son was deployed for a year and I lost my dad”(he died in 2019) I was taken back, but I calmly said” my dad died too” and she fires back and yells. “Yeah, but mine was my life “ I shut down after that how dare she say that and try to one up me ? because my dad had just died a few weeks before that Christmas that we were talking about but she made it about her, which honestly proves my point when I told him they didn’t care about my feelings. She turns around and attacks me and makes it about her but I didn’t even have time to explain that I just wanted Christmas morning to be a tradition with my family. My daughter and my husband and I was going through a hard time anyways, so I was trying to say that it upset me that they made it out to people like we didn’t even want them there when they spent a week with us before Christmas. They live 7 hours away so we can’t have the normal grandparents come over Christmas afternoon like everyone else in my family can’t come over for Christmas morning so they shouldn’t be able to either and the point at the end of the day is that we were that’s what we wanted as a family of three to have Christmas mornings with our daughter.
she didn’t talk to me for the rest of that day and the next day they had left early to go see my husband’s grandma at the nursing home that they moved her to and my mother-in-law texted my husband and asked if we wanted to meet them for lunch so we did I said right across from her in a booth and she didn’t even look at me once or speak to me at all when my daughter‘s food came out it was hot so I put it closer to me to try to break up her food and let it cool down each time she would pull it away from me because my daughter was sitting next to her. I would pull it back and take out the bag of chips and then she would pull it back I would pull it back and dump out her green beans and she would take it back. She did it 3 times all while not looking at me and I still was the bigger person and didn’t say anything and continue to act like nothing happened
when we got back to our house, I went to my screen porch for the rest of the time that they were there. My husband and his parents were in our kitchen and when they were ready to leave my husband came and got me and told me that I should come say goodbye, so I stood in the driveway while my husband, my daughter and his parents all laughed, hugged and kissed and said goodbyes, and then she walks up to me and speaks like a robot in a way of not even wanting to come up to me, like it was bothering her that she even had to speak to me and she just said “bye. Love you” in a really rude way over something that she said to me and it’s funny too because in her hand was a homemade Mother’s Day gift that I made her but she’s going to talk to me like that, and ignore me and treat me like that over her yelling at me and putting me down about my pain with my dad. After they pulled out of the driveway , I went back to the screen porch and cried because that’s the first time I fully felt like I wasn’t part of their family and she showed her true colors once I tried to stand up for myself about her being disrespectful to me when for the three years that I’ve been with my husband at this point, I’ve never spoken back to her or disrespected her
for days they ignored us, and I just cried over my dad because he’s gone and it was like throwing my grief in my face and my husband finally told his mom that she needed to apologize to me. She called him and asked to speak to him alone, and I later found out that she was saying that I took everything the wrong way and she didn’t mean it like that. Finally she text me and basically tells me the same thing that she wasn’t saying anything about my relationship with my dad. She was simply saying why she needed Christmas morning with her family. I didn’t accept her apology because it was basically making excuses, but I decided not to hold her accountable and I just simply explain to her that Christmas has never been the same for me since my grandparents died and then I just wanted that special moment with my daughter especially now that my dad it was gone and I moved on from it I for gave her a few months after this happened she came down for my daughters birthday, and it was still awkward and I was still a little hurt by the way she treated me, but I was trying to MoveOn for it for my husband and daughter sake, and even my own.
After May 2023 it seemed like things were going good they would call and the conversations were nice they weren’t lecturing. We finally thought they learned their lesson after the big blowup in May but then fast forward to April 2024.
they came down suddenly in April after coming down a few weeks before just to visit because my husband’s grandma wasn’t doing too good she was in the hospital and they were preparing for her to pass away. I was taking ovulation medication because we were trying to have another baby. I felt very hung over sound out am I anxiety was the worst it has ever been I would cry almost every night because I would almost go into panic attacks so while they were here, I stopped taking the medicine and was still suffering side effects so I try to stay out of the way because I know they were grieving and everything was happening so suddenly for them and I wanted to be there to support my husband, his work schedule was so messed up that he only had a few hours after waking up to be able to go to the hospital before having to leave for work until 1 AM in the morning so I was never able to go with him to see his grandma, but he asked me if he thought she was about to die if I would go with her and I said of course. Well she passed away before we can make it to the hospital and I know everyone was devastated. This was a day after Easter. My husband had to work on Easter so before we even knew the condition of his grandma’s health, we plan to have our own Easter and egg hunt the day after Easter because my husband would be off work, and that is the day that she passed away so I told my husband that we could cancel our egg hunt and he said no because he wanted to be there with our daughter and enjoy that time. I also invited his parents because I thought it would be good for them to get their mind off of things, and I made a bunch of desserts, including homemade cookies that his mother had asked me to make weeks before this for the next time they came down we grilled out and there was gonna be plenty of food for them and I wanted that time with them as well, but I respected that they needed time to themselves after his dad had just lost his mother.
they had been staying in a hotel, the whole time they were here but the day after she passed away, they came over that morning, and our house was a mess because we had a cookout the night before, and my husband was grieving and upset and we were just too tired to clean and we were planning to get it the next morning They wanted to take our daughter to the park and Dairy Queen and we were going to stay back because we both weren’t feeling too well and we were going to clean the house but before they left my husband’s Dad told us “I wish I would come with us.” so my husband told him that we would get ready and meet him there and that’s exactly what we did. We had lunch with them and the little things like forcing her to eat a hamburger when I told him that she like chicken nuggets or taking her drink away and telling her she’s not feeling up on a drink that she’s going to eat always bothered me and there’s always done it but I knew that at this time it wasn’t my opportunity to stand up because he just lost his mom and I didn’t want to start anything not that I would’ve been rude about it but they never take it for what it is. It’s disrespect if we stand up or tell them we don’t like what they’re doing but I told my husband that what happened in May would never happen again.
we were driving my mom’s truck because my husband‘s truck was in the shop and we went to a thrift store while his parents took our daughter to the park at the thrift store. I found an angel that I wanted to gift his dad to show sympathy. I got a few little toys for my daughter to so when we left we were on our way to meet them at the park and that’s when the mechanic called my husband and said his truck was ready. He called his mom to ask if his dad would follow him and get the truck and if his mom will drive my mom’s truck back home because I was under the influence with the side effects of the medication. She then asked if I couldn’t just make it to the park and the mechanics is right behind the park so of course I could have, but I didn’t see the difference of them going to getting it when we were ready to leave the park together or us going and getting it so we went to the park instead so I could give my daughter her toys.
while I was in the truck getting the gifts out for my husband’s dad, my husband went over to explain that I would just feel more comfortable if they went and got the truck because I was under the influence and later on I found out that his mom said “no she’s not, and saying that I was lying” but when I got out of the truck, she was talking all nice to me and explaining that my husband and my father-in-law we’re going to go get his truck and she even told me to watch my daughter for a second while she went and grabbed her drink out of the car and hit my head. I thought that was crazy that she told me to watch my own daughter, but she those are the little things that I let go and let her say because there’s no point of talking back. It always will start something.
if you’re with me so far, this is the end in our current situation. We all got back home and they walked in and saw that our puppy Peed on the floor and they got mad. We tried to let it go because my father-in-law‘s mom just died and there’s no sense of getting into an argument. We went to our neighbors to give them desserts that I had made for a cookout because I didn’t want them to go to waste while we were there. His mom texted him asking if our daughter could spend the night with them in a hotel when we thought they were staying with us first I didn’t say no I just said where is she going to sleep and they said in the bed with us I didn’t like that. I wanted her to be in a crib so we said no but we even called the hotel to ask if they had cribs to rent because somebody in the hotel said no so we were trying to compromise. We got back to our house and they were so mad. They were ready to leave without saying bye his dad was already in the car and his mom was walking out the door and didn’t really wanna speak to us. We asked her what the issue was and they went off. He went to the car to talk to his dad. his dad screamed at him and drove off. I was so upset because there was no reason to treat us like that when we have boundaries with our daughter and they were supposed to stay with us, but they decided that they were too upset about the dog peeing, and that our house was a little messy from the night before that they wanted to stay in a hotel, and they wanted to take our daughter too.
The next day I had an eye doctors appointment that I scheduled months in advance, and my husband had a job interview and they did not communicate when they were coming over so my husband was already gone and I was about to walk out the door. My husband’s grandpa lives right next-door because we moved him down here a few months ago and they were out there talking to him so I let my daughter go say bye to them and they didn’t speak to me at all. again the same treatment like back in May how she didn’t even want to look in my direction or speak to me so I left and they then texted my husband how I just took off with my own daughter, so there was no reason to stick around blaming me, of course.
I understand that his dad was going through a hard time but my husband also just lost his grandma and that just so happen to be my dad‘s birthday. I wasn’t going to make it about me of course not but I still didn’t wanna get yelled at on my dad‘s birthday I wanted to remember him and have a good day. I texted his mom three days after the incident. Nothing about the text was rude. I just told her that I was blown way by the disrespect and I didn’t like how they treated us. I brought back up me and how it was unfair that she thinks she can continue to yell and scream at us and ignore us. she read it and instantly called my husband and tried to bash me and I tried to speak up and she shut me up telling me that she was talking to her son not me my husband told her not to speak to his wife that way and she tries to bash me and say that I didn’t even want to say sorry to my father-in-law for his loss when I tried to do little things like buy him that angel and make cookies for them and I made a grocery order the night they came down and I clean the house and I was expecting to cook dinner for them and host them but they stayed in a hotel the whole time
she bashed us saying that we didn’t even offer them a shower, or anything to drink or anything to eat when they came home but right when we walked in the door is when they started yelling and lecturing us about dog pee, and it went downhill from there so we didn’t even have time to offer anything that they wanted or needed but every time they come over they make themselves at home because their name is on the deed even though we pay for the home, they act like it’s their home and they do whatever they please, so there was no reason we felt like we needed to assist them to the shower or ask if they needed anything even though that morning they got there She asked if I had any Dr Pepper and I said no that I had Sprite and she didn’t want that so at this point she’s just trying to make us look bad like it was our fault and they didn’t feel welcome here so that’s why they went to a hotel that night.
she was so rude and making excuses and disrespecting me not wanting me to talk to her. She kept saying she wanted to talk to her son and not me and she even called me a little girl at that point I had enough I was finally standing up for myself after four years of my mother-in-law saying out-of-the-way things to me and putting me down and lecturing me, I finally had enough I never cussed once at her I never cussed on her because I respect her enough, but I finally had enough of shutting my mouth and letting her talk to me anyway she want it. I told her she was not gonna call me a little girl and that she was going to hear from me because she’s bashing me to my husband, I tried to explain my side, but she kept on and on accusing us and saying that we were the reason for all of this and that they did nothing wrong and keep in mind, we have never raised our voice to them. We have never cussed at them we have never told them. Hey you’re wrong we don’t agree we just let them have their way and we were done May 2023 was our breaking point even though then we still were respectful, this time we weren’t gonna let them have their way and feel like they were right
The next week my husband went to go pick up his grandma’s ashes because before the fight that was the arrangements because they had to go back home to Tennessee he called the funeral home and they said that the day before his mom called and told them that they were coming down for the weekend to get them but they said nothing about that to us and at this point he hasn’t spoken to his dad in a week. he told his mom that he didn’t even feel welcome at the funeral, and that it really upset him. His mom told him that I had nothing to do with the fight, and that his dad simply just wanted his mothers ashes and she made excuses of course later that day she calls and I heard everything she said even though she thought I wasn’t around and she continue to bash me over and over about how everything was my fault, and I never wanted them around our daughter or to have a relationship with her.
it was extremely hard for me to keep my mouth shut for an entire hour when someone’s making things up and bashing you she think those want to say that she’s sick and tired of me calling her a liar, which I’m never said hey you’re a liar I just said that her apology wasn’t sincere and she continued to say that I took it the wrong way when she was bashing me about my dad and tell her that’s calling her a liar because she continues to say she didn’t mean it like that but the reason I brought back up made her was to say she thinks she can continue to talk to me that way and get away with it and that I was tired of it. my husband try to stand up for me and tell her how it made me feel like she was comparing my pain to hers about my dad and then she makes the snarky remark” I actually had a relationship with Mine”. she was talking about her relationship with her dad and comparing it to mine so again she’s throwing up my pain and trying to one up me and again argue on why she should’ve been there Christmas morning and she even said” I was explaining what I needed Christmas morning with my son and his daughter” His daughter???!
after that phone call, everything seem to be fine with his parents and my husband but she was still ignoring me. She wouldn’t call or message me and apologize or even explain herself. She just wanted to bash me to my husband and now everything was cool with them and they came down for a weekend to get my husband’s grandma‘s ashes and they went to the park with my husband and daughter and I decided to stay home because I didn’t want anything to go down and I be blamed for ruining that hard time for his family. My husband said they didn’t even ask about me and I know that they were happy that I wasn’t around because she made a post about how she just needed that time with her son and granddaughter, and everything was worded perfectly but I know that that was a dig at me and every time I would post something about the way I was feeling just little quotes that I see she would always post something as if she was speaking to me. it didn’t matter if it was something to do with disrespect or my daughter, or supporting my husband she would always find a post to relate it about what I’m posting. stuff like “no one could love her children the way she does” when I would post about how I love my husband and that I am there to support him
ever since then she has been calling my husband to bash me and come up with a new reasons on why I am the bad guy and I’m sick of it so if you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading my story because I don’t even know what to do at this point my husband wants to cut her off maybe not forever but he wants her to understand that she can’t keep treating me like this and even treating him like this because the last phone call was two days ago when we thought everything was at least cool with my husband and his parents even though I knew she still had a problem with me over things she said to me she calls him and bashes me and tells my husband that he’s not standing up for his parents and that that’s wrong and that that is his blood family and that he should be the hero and fix everything or she’s not gonna want to be around me
i’ve read a bunch of other stories about toxic in-laws, and there’s a lot that are way worse than my situation but I’ve had enough of her talking to me anyway she wants, putting me down, lecturing me, throwing my dad’s death in my face as if her relationship was greater and her pain is worse and I’m just sick of it because I can’t even look at pictures of my dad without crying and regretting and it’s really hard to stand up for myself when someone bashes me and makes themself the victim when I know for a fact, the last four years I’ve been nothing but kind to her. Yes, she has done things for me, but when she treats me bad, she uses that as a way to say “look at everything I’ve done for her and she wants to treat me like this?” just because I stand up for myself when she yells at me and I don’t know what to do so if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading and I need help

TLDR; Need to stay a step ahead of my health until further testing can be done and have no idea what to do next or where to start
I (32F) have very recently begun the adventure of a potential diabetes/gallbladder diagnosis and for financial reasons I am currently only able to get help with a free community clinic that works with a local hospital which is awesome, but takes a lot of time between appointments due to volume and my next blood labs at the hospital aren’t for another month and a half.
I received a first round of fasting labs a few weeks ago which showed high cholesterol, barely elevated blood sugar and warranted the clinic to schedule a livegallbladder ultrasound + more bloodwork, however symptoms have been showing up suddenly and aggressively and today led to me passing out/collapsing in the middle of a conversation causing immediate concern, and I am keen on the idea of glucose monitoring until then but I have no idea where to start.
I’m 5’9, 140 lbs and although appearing healthy on the outside, have had a primarily shit diet of processed sugar and fats and alcohol at excessive volume for the past 10 years. I seem to eat like garbage yet lose weight without explanation which I think had lulled me into a false sense of health security.
When symptoms and general unwellness really started showing a few months ago, I made a plan to change my diet and take control of my relationship with food but it seems to be getting worse the healthier I eat and my partner is concerned about the possible sudden drastic difference in my daily sugar intake which may have caused todays episode after eating some very sugary foods during a company party?
I haven’t drank any alcohol coming up on two years now but when I passed out today it felt exactly similar to the moments before puking when I used to drink heavily. (Getting hot, heavy sweaty, blurry vision, and losing hearing before collapsing all within 45 seconds)
I am pretty scared as this is very new territory for me so I don’t know what to expect and I would be incredibly interested and grateful for hearing any stories, experiences or general advice to help start the process of understanding what to do from here on out. I know literally nothing about which monitors are worthy, if it’s a good idea to get one, if there is better steps for me to take, or if I should just shut up and leave all this to the doctors to figure out no matter how slow the process may be.
Thank you sincerely to those who took the time to read this long winded post, I’m just very nervous and would like to do my best preparing for any future outcomes.

TLDR: It was recommended to me as someone with Hashimotos to try a gluten free diet, not only does it help with the extra weight gain that comes with Hashis but it could also help with an underlying undiagnosed gluten intolerance triggering symptoms like rashes, itchy spots, bloating, weight gain and general inflammation which is common with hypothyroidism. Following doctors orders, I went gluten free for 2 weeks and felt great, I noticed a huge difference with my bloating and just overall felt marginally better. During this time, it was brought to my attention that it probably would have been a good idea to start off with a celiac test to rule that out as a possible contender since it is not uncommon to have more than one autoimmune disease. Since I had already started going gluten free for 2 weeks, that's where the confusion started. My doctor thought since I had eaten gluten my entire life, doing 1 week of gluten foods before my blood test should be enough. I know research typically shows to do a gluten loading for 6-8 weeks for the most accurate results. Regardless, it was super hard to do this gluten overload. I ate anything I could get my hands on, pastas, pizzas, breads I didnt hold back. However, my body was not happy, I suffered from instant painful bloating post meals, it looked like I was 4 months pregnant, I would have to unbutton my pants post eating. My stomach hurt or it would churn. I know my doctor recommended I do 1 week of this diet and get tested, however I stuck to this diet for about 2 weeks before getting tested due to appointment availability at my local lab. Test results came back, and I am negative for celiac. I am relieved but, but not convinced. I have continued to eat gluten since, but the bloating post meals is still pretty bad, and any weight I lost during the restriction, I gained back. Some symptoms like my stomach cramping have gone away (or I guess my body got use to it), but I definitely don't feel great eating gluten.
Fast forward 1 month (now 6 weeks since restarting gluten), I am wondering if it is worth getting retested. The only reason why I mention this is I recently had a dentist appointment and the dentist was surprised by the staining on my teeth since I don't drink coffee, don't smoke, and I have pretty good oral hygiene. It was brought to my attention that tooth staining could be due to my saliva being more acidic and that could be because of my diet / nutrient absorption which could also be hinting at possible celiac disease.
After alot of back and forth the past couple of months with doctors appointments, sometimes I feel that I am better off listening to my body and doing what is best for me than seeking medical advice and looking for a concrete diagnosis. Wondering if anyone has had similar experiences and if it would be worth riding out the next 3 weeks and repeat the test for more accurate results (not sure if it would make too much of a difference).

TLDR: It was recommended to me as someone with Hashimotos to try a gluten free diet, not only does it help with the extra weight gain that comes with Hashis but it could also help with an underlying undiagnosed gluten intolerance triggering symptoms like rashes, itchy spots, bloating, weight gain and general inflammation which is common with hypothyroidism. Following doctors orders, I went gluten free for 2 weeks and felt great, I noticed a huge difference with my bloating and just overall felt marginally better. During this time, it was brought to my attention that it probably would have been a good idea to start off with a celiac test to rule that out as a possible contender since it is not uncommon to have more than one autoimmune disease. Since I had already started going gluten free for 2 weeks, that's where the confusion started. My doctor thought since I had eaten gluten my entire life, doing 1 week of gluten foods before my blood test should be enough. I know research typically shows to do a gluten loading for 6-8 weeks for the most accurate results. Regardless, it was super hard to do this gluten overload. I ate anything I could get my hands on, pastas, pizzas, breads I didnt hold back. However, my body was not happy, I suffered from instant painful bloating post meals, it looked like I was 4 months pregnant, I would have to unbutton my pants post eating. My stomach hurt or it would churn. I know my doctor recommended I do 1 week of this diet and get tested, however I stuck to this diet for about 2 weeks before getting tested due to appointment availability at my local lab. Test results came back, and I am negative for celiac. I am relieved but, but not convinced. I have continued to eat gluten since, but the bloating post meals is still pretty bad, and any weight I lost during the restriction, I gained back. Some symptoms like my stomach cramping have gone away (or I guess my body got use to it), but I definitely don't feel great eating gluten.
Fast forward 1 month (now 6 weeks since restarting gluten), I am wondering if it is worth getting retested. The only reason why I mention this is I recently had a dentist appointment and the dentist was surprised by the staining on my teeth since I don't drink coffee, don't smoke, and I have pretty good oral hygiene. It was brought to my attention that tooth staining could be due to my saliva being more acidic and that could be because of my diet / nutrient absorption which could also be hinting at possible celiac disease.
After alot of back and forth the past couple of months with doctors appointments, sometimes I feel that I am better off listening to my body and doing what is best for me than seeking medical advice and looking for a concrete diagnosis. Wondering if anyone has had similar experiences and if it would be worth riding out the next 3 weeks and repeat the test for more accurate results (not sure if it would make too much of a difference).

TLDR: It was recommended to me as someone with Hashimotos to try a gluten free diet, not only does it help with the extra weight gain that comes with Hashis but it could also help with an underlying undiagnosed gluten intolerance triggering symptoms like rashes, itchy spots, bloating, weight gain and general inflammation which is common with hypothyroidism. Following doctors orders, I went gluten free for 2 weeks and felt great, I noticed a huge difference with my bloating and just overall felt marginally better. During this time, it was brought to my attention that it probably would have been a good idea to start off with a celiac test to rule that out as a possible contender since it is not uncommon to have more than one autoimmune disease. Since I had already started going gluten free for 2 weeks, that's where the confusion started. My doctor thought since I had eaten gluten my entire life, doing 1 week of gluten foods before my blood test should be enough. I know research typically shows to do a gluten loading for 6-8 weeks for the most accurate results. Regardless, it was super hard to do this gluten overload. I ate anything I could get my hands on, pastas, pizzas, breads I didnt hold back. However, my body was not happy, I suffered from instant painful bloating post meals, it looked like I was 4 months pregnant, I would have to unbutton my pants post eating. My stomach hurt or it would churn. I know my doctor recommended I do 1 week of this diet and get tested, however I stuck to this diet for about 2 weeks before getting tested due to appointment availability at my local lab. Test results came back, and I am negative for celiac. I am relieved but, but not convinced. I have continued to eat gluten since, but the bloating post meals is still pretty bad, and any weight I lost during the restriction, I gained back. Some symptoms like my stomach cramping have gone away (or I guess my body got use to it), but I definitely don't feel great eating gluten.
Fast forward 1 month (now 6 weeks since restarting gluten), I am wondering if it is worth getting retested. The only reason why I mention this is I recently had a dentist appointment and the dentist was surprised by the staining on my teeth since I don't drink coffee, don't smoke, and I have pretty good oral hygiene. It was brought to my attention that tooth staining could be due to my saliva being more acidic and that could be because of my diet / nutrient absorption which could also be hinting at possible celiac disease.
After alot of back and forth the past couple of months with doctors appointments, sometimes I feel that I am better off listening to my body and doing what is best for me than seeking medical advice and looking for a concrete diagnosis. Wondering if anyone has had similar experiences and if it would be worth riding out the next 3 weeks and repeat the test for more accurate results (not sure if it would make too much of a difference).

TLDR: It was recommended to me as someone with Hashimotos to try a gluten free diet, not only does it help with the extra weight gain that comes with Hashis but it could also help with an underlying undiagnosed gluten intolerance triggering symptoms like rashes, itchy spots, bloating, weight gain and general inflammation which is common with hypothyroidism. Following doctors orders, I went gluten free for 2 weeks and felt great, I noticed a huge difference with my bloating and just overall felt marginally better. During this time, it was brought to my attention that it probably would have been a good idea to start off with a celiac test to rule that out as a possible contender since it is not uncommon to have more than one autoimmune disease. Since I had already started going gluten free for 2 weeks, that's where the confusion started. My doctor thought since I had eaten gluten my entire life, doing 1 week of gluten foods before my blood test should be enough. I know research typically shows to do a gluten loading for 6-8 weeks for the most accurate results. Regardless, it was super hard to do this gluten overload. I ate anything I could get my hands on, pastas, pizzas, breads I didnt hold back. However, my body was not happy, I suffered from instant painful bloating post meals, it looked like I was 4 months pregnant, I would have to unbutton my pants post eating. My stomach hurt or it would churn. I know my doctor recommended I do 1 week of this diet and get tested, however I stuck to this diet for about 2 weeks before getting tested due to appointment availability at my local lab. Test results came back, and I am negative for celiac. I am relieved but, but not convinced. I have continued to eat gluten since, but the bloating post meals is still pretty bad, and any weight I lost during the restriction, I gained back. Some symptoms like my stomach cramping have gone away (or I guess my body got use to it), but I definitely don't feel great eating gluten.
Fast forward 1 month (now 6 weeks since restarting gluten), I am wondering if it is worth getting retested. The only reason why I mention this is I recently had a dentist appointment and the dentist was surprised by the staining on my teeth since I don't drink coffee, don't smoke, and I have pretty good oral hygiene. It was brought to my attention that tooth staining could be due to my saliva being more acidic and that could be because of my diet / nutrient absorption which could also be hinting at possible celiac disease.
After alot of back and forth the past couple of months with doctors appointments, sometimes I feel that I am better off listening to my body and doing what is best for me than seeking medical advice and looking for a concrete diagnosis. Wondering if anyone has had similar experiences and if it would be worth riding out the next 3 weeks and repeat the test for more accurate results (not sure if it would make too much of a difference).

I got tested back in December just in case. I hadn't been with anyone since January or March 2023 and had no symptoms so it was a precaution. When I get tested they do a rapid HIV test, I guess the lady forgot it so I didn't get it. A week later I get a call of my results and they say everything is negative but HSV2. They give me no further info and I'm at a loss because I've never had symptoms or a partner with it to my knowledge. I do some research and I'm in the false positive zone and get further testing. Turns out it's a false positive.
However despite confirming I'm clean I'm paranoid even more so now. I've got myself worked up thinking I have HIV now because I missed the rapid test. I called the clinic I went to back and they confirmed they did blood test for HIV even if you don't get the rapid test.
When I get in my head I feel like I work myself up in a panic that I manifest symptoms. Then when I forget about it I'm fine but then I remember and hyper focus on every feeling. I've always wrapped it up except when receiving oral. I'm unsure if continuing to get tested is the right move because my insurance didn't cover last time so I paid $700 out of pocket plus an additional $80 for the confirmation testing.

TLDR: It was recommended to me as someone with Hashimotos to try a gluten free diet, not only does it help with the extra weight gain that comes with Hashis but it could also help with an underlying undiagnosed gluten intolerance triggering symptoms like rashes, itchy spots, bloating, weight gain and general inflammation which is common with hypothyroidism. Following doctors orders, I went gluten free for 2 weeks and felt great, I noticed a huge difference with my bloating and just overall felt marginally better. During this time, it was brought to my attention that it probably would have been a good idea to start off with a celiac test to rule that out as a possible contender since it is not uncommon to have more than one autoimmune disease. Since I had already started going gluten free for 2 weeks, that's where the confusion started. My doctor thought since I had eaten gluten my entire life, doing 1 week of gluten foods before my blood test should be enough. I know research typically shows to do a gluten loading for 6-8 weeks for the most accurate results. Regardless, it was super hard to do this gluten overload. I ate anything I could get my hands on, pastas, pizzas, breads I didnt hold back. However, my body was not happy, I suffered from instant painful bloating post meals, it looked like I was 4 months pregnant, I would have to unbutton my pants post eating. My stomach hurt or it would churn. I know my doctor recommended I do 1 week of this diet and get tested, however I stuck to this diet for about 2 weeks before getting tested due to appointment availability at my local lab. Test results came back, and I am negative for celiac. I am relieved but, but not convinced. I have continued to eat gluten since, but the bloating post meals is still pretty bad, and any weight I lost during the restriction, I gained back. Some symptoms like my stomach cramping have gone away (or I guess my body got use to it), but I definitely don't feel great eating gluten.
Fast forward 1 month (now 6 weeks since restarting gluten), I am wondering if it is worth getting retested. The only reason why I mention this is I recently had a dentist appointment and the dentist was surprised by the staining on my teeth since I don't drink coffee, don't smoke, and I have pretty good oral hygiene. It was brought to my attention that tooth staining could be due to my saliva being more acidic and that could be because of my diet / nutrient absorption which could also be hinting at possible celiac disease.
After alot of back and forth the past couple of months with doctors appointments, sometimes I feel that I am better off listening to my body and doing what is best for me than seeking medical advice and looking for a concrete diagnosis. Wondering if anyone has had similar experiences and if it would be worth riding out the next 3 weeks and repeat the test for more accurate results (not sure if it would make too much of a difference).

Big ups to Accidentally Adopted for inspiring this white hot dumpster fire. Enjoy, or don't I have shenanigans elsewhere that need my attention.
“So we’re screwed?”
“Well, Neb, let’s go over the day's events. Pirates have boarded, they’ve blown away our communications relay, all but slaughtered us and those of us who survived are stuck in the safe room with no control over the ship, so-”
A third voice flatly interrupted the condescending tirade. “Specimen’s loose.”
“And now the specimen is loose. Yeah Neb, I think we’re screwed.”
Four scientists were all gathered in the ship's safe room. They were all that remained. Pared down from a crew of over two dozen they were the only ones that happened to be close, or perhaps lucky, enough to make it to the final bulwark.
“But we’re in the safe room. They can’t get in here, right? We just have to wait them out, wait for help?”
That question belonged to Trest, the youngest and most inexperienced of the lot. She had just earned her apprenticeship and had come to Kem’s ship wide-eyed and primed for adventure. But fate occasionally has a cruel sense of humor, so her first foray into the stars would be her last, it seemed.
Kem turned to face her, he didn’t want to be mean, he really didn’t. But the time for pleasantries and comforting lies had passed. The poor lass needed to know what they were facing so that she could make peace with whatever god it was she prayed to.
“I’ll humor you Trest,” he quipped “Let’s assume that these particular pirates are the special kind of bland that happen to be the only crew that galavants around without plasma cutters. They’ve already cut out our comms. They’ll simply steal everything of value, everything of no value, anything else not nailed down, and blow our engines. Doesn't matter if they can’t get in, there is a finite amount of oxygen in this room. With no signal or signature, we’ll be corpses before anyone even realized we were missing.”
He could see the tears begin to well in her eyes as the realization washed over her. Perhaps he could have used a little more tact in his hypothetical, but the stress of being about to be consigned to the void was weighing on him. He made a mental note to apologize to her in the afterlife.
He was also not trained or ready to deal with a blubbering intern, so he decided to distract himself with more pertinent matters.
“What are they up to out there?” He asked Wren, purposely avoiding the torrential sob storm that Trest was about to unleash.
“No idea.” Wren huffed as he tossed his tablet to the side, “After they broke the locks on the specimen’s cell, they cut the feed. We’re stuck blind and waiting now.”
Kem’s frills rippled. It was one thing to be trapped waiting for death, but to do so with no inkling as to the estimated arrival time of the Great Winged Guardian was a different beast altogether. Fortunately, or perhaps, unfortunately, the universe grew tired of its malicious malarky and decided not to leave the beleaguered scientists in bated anticipation as the muffled roar of a plasma cutter opposite the security door broke through the air.
Instinctively the four moved toward the back wall, away from their impending demise. Not that it mattered much, there really wasn’t anywhere to go. The loud thunk of the safety interlock being cut, and the scraping metal on metal of the door being pried open gave finality to the doomed researcher’s situation.
Two Korrivian pirates strode through the threshold. Their armoured carapace would be more than enough to ward off any feeble assault the biologists could muster. Their mandibles were hungry clacking at the sight of new, succulent prey.
Oh good Kem thought They’re not just the steal your stuff kind, they’re also the kill and eat you kind. And currently, he was very much hoping that they would choose to do it in that order.
So it came as a minor relief when one of the insects raised its rifle towards him. It then came as a major shock when the pirate was suddenly relieved of his weapon. And one of his arms.
The bug didn’t even have time to register the missing appendage when the stock of his former rifle became intimately acquainted with his face plate. He crumpled to the ground in a heap of twitching chitin. His associate turned to face this unexpected intrusion only to be met with the same weapon slamming down on the top of his head, shattering whatever minuscule cluster of neurons that passed for a brain it had once had.
The quartet had no time to feel any relief, however, as their would-be savoir turned out to be the thing of their nightmares set loose. It was the specimen. It stood over the pirates, skin glistening and breathing heavily, likely examining its most recent handiwork. It took a long deep breath and dropped the rifle to the floor with a loud clang. This led to Trest letting out a petrified yelp. Bad move. The specimen took notice and looked up. It scanned the petrified group of academics until its predatory eyes landed squarely on Trest. It bore its teeth and raised one of its hands, waving it back and forth violently in some aggressive hunting display.
Wren and Neb took measured steps to distance themselves from poor Trest, who appeared to have, for some reason or another, attracted the targeted ire of the bloodthirsty beast. Kem, however, was made of slightly stiffer stuff and took his role as expeditionary leader rather seriously, so he stepped between the beast and the quivering intern. After the violent display the specimen just put on he seriously doubted that this gesture would make any difference, but at least he could make a good show of it, and maybe provide the girl a few more moments of precious life.
The specimen recoiled slightly and looked almost offended. It shook its head back and forth a few times.
“Friend,” it said as it pointed a single digit toward a violently trembling Trest. “Friend sing me.”
The three others turned toward her looking for clarification on the bizarre statement. Her frills deepened with embarrassment. She had been, admittedly, more than a little unsettled to be in such close proximity to what could best be described as a walking war machine, so while running her experiments she had taken to singing hatchery rhymes softly to herself to soothe her nerves. The bizarre creature had mistakenly thought she was singing to it, though given her current precarious predicament, she thought better of correcting it.
Neb would be the voice to ask the question that now lingered in everyone’s mind. “Wait. How the hell does it know how to mimic our speech? Where could it possibly have learned that?”
The specimen it seemed had anticipated that question, or at the very least one in the same vein. It cocked its head to one side “See-know, same not same.” Its face seemed to condense, it tried to clarify, “Learn speaks. Learn space.”
“Great” Wren moaned “All it knows is gibberish.”
“No, I don’t think that it's gibberish.” Neb retorted. “I think it’s trying to communicate. I’m fairly certain we can decipher what it's trying to say if we look at it scientifically. We have to work backwards; extrapolate from incomplete data.” He began pacing as he was wont to do when faced with a particularly vexing quandary.
“Learn space is fairly obvious, it’s likely analogous to one of our schools or academies. Learn speaks is more difficult, but seeing as it was able to use the singular for Trest’s singing and used the plurality for speaking, combined with the speed at which it picked up words from our language we can reasonably surmise that it wasn’t actually learning to speak per se, but likely was learning languages, or at least something adjacent like linguistics. Same-not-same is a different challenge.” His pacing became more erratic as he fell deeper into the linguistic mystery. “Likely something that is close, but not the exact same.” His eyes lit up as the pieces began to fall into place “Something similar! See-know is a little more difficult…I think that, in conjunction with similar, we can assume it to be comprehension, or at the very least understanding.”
Neb’s tail smacked the floor with insight “Recognition! So if we combine all the data points, of course factoring in interpretation errors, I think it’s trying to say that it has pattern recognition and picked up our language because it was studying them at an academy!” Neb’s pride at deciphering the solution quickly gave way to abject terror “Wait…if it has pattern recognition…and was studying at an institution…that would mean…NO! No. Nononononononono.” He pointed a shaky phalange at the specimen “It’s a sentient! We’ve been running experiments on a sentient!” Neb collapsed to the floor, embracing himself in a fetal position at the revelation, incoherently rambling about “moral failings.”
The specimen looked slightly upset at Neb’s existential crisis “Hurt.” It said as it pointed to the whimpering mess
“No, not hurt. Stupid.” Kem hoped his simplified answer would suffice, but the empty stare he received indicated the opposite.
Though it couldn’t fully understand Kem its ability to perceive and react to change did lend weight to Neb’s theory. This gave him an idea to truely test the sentient capabilities of the specimen. He stared down the one working computational station in the room. Show time.
Kem made a gesture to the specimen to follow as he walked over to the console, and much to his surprise it dutifully followed him without any hesitation.
He booted up the translation matrix input program. The screen flickered and a crude picture of a dwelling appeared. “Speak,” Kem said.
The specimen narrowed its eyes at the image before it turned to Kem and lifted its shoulders briefly.
Kem scoffed. “You. Speak.”
It stared back at the picture for a moment, before bringing up one of its hands, moving it in a way that created an odd clicking sound. It then growled something in a strange dialect that he assumed was its mother tongue. The image changed and the specimen belted out something else.
Shit, it's figured it out. Looks like Neb was right Kem reasoned. As the specimen continued to work through the images brought up on the console, he made his way over to Neb, plucking the earpiece from his incapacitated colleague.
He made his way back to the specimen, as it was finishing up with the program, and let out a short cough to grab its attention. He offered up the earpiece and pointed to the side of his own head. The specimen took it and moved its head up and down. With some difficulty, it managed to seat the piece on its alien anatomy.
“Hello? Is this better? Is it easier to understand?” Kem asked the specimen.
Its face contorted briefly, “Yeah…yes. Better. Thank you.”
“It won’t be perfect, syntax, idioms and grammar may become distorted or incorrect, but it’s a logarithmic learning algorithm. The more we speak, the clearer it will become, you understand?”
The specimen nodded its head. “Yeah, I get it. What I don’t get, however,” Kem flinched at the sudden shift in tone from the specimen “is why we didn’t just do this off the hop. It would have made everything easier!”
This decidedly posed a problem for Kem. He could lie, and risk pissing the specimen off. Or he could tell the truth, and risk pissing the specimen off. As science is the pursuit of truth and to his core he was a scientist, he went with the latter.
“We didn’t know you were a sentient,” he said quietly.
“What?!” the specimen seemed incensed. “When you scooped me up, did you not notice the cities? The signals? The satellites? Like I get it, it’s not Star Trek-level space shit, but surely that level of civilization should have given it away.”
There was a strange silence as no one apparently wanted to answer the question. The specimen once again regarded the others in the room, all of whom had suddenly, simultaneously found the floor incredibly fascinating.
Kem sighed, the next answer may be more difficult, but seeing as thus far the specimen had been fairly amenable, he pressed on. “You were purchased.”
“WHAT!? WHY!?”
Kem’s tail flicked non-commitally. “Because grant funding has been sparse recently. To get any appreciable amount, a shattering discovery needs to be made. One of my crewmen said he “knew a guy” as it were, and it turns out his contact was good. So we pooled what little funding we got, along with some of our own savings, and purchased you, stasis pod, and all. You were billed as an exotic, unknown, apex ambush predator. Something that’s relatively difficult to get one's hands on.”
The specimen stared blankly at him for a few moments before bursting out in a fit of laughter. “Buddy, you got railroaded. I may be one of those things. But if that’s what you were paying for, you got scammed.”
“How’s that?” asked Kem.
“For starters, I ain’t apex. I could rattle off a dozen animals that would beat my ass, half of them prey, off the top of my head.” the specimen explained “Plus, not an ambush predator, there’s persistence hunting in my lineage, sure, but not something we’ve done for a long time. All in all, we’re pretty bland. I think the ‘unknown’ thing is the only category I qualify for.”
“Persistence predation? That would explain why our experimentation was going awry, we were chasing the wrong path!” Kem froze, in the excitement he had accidentally, explicitly, revealed their ethically dubious enterprise. He looked back to the specimen who seemed to have not reacted to the information.
“I do apologize. Had we known about your sentience, we wouldn’t have performed such invasive procedures.”
The specimen let out a strange snort “You call those invasive? Hell, I’ve had worse blood draws at the lab. I do wonder though, what was your end goal with all this? Surely some blood draws, and alien Xrays weren't it."
Kem gulped. This was the question he was dreading. "We...well we were going to make you as comfortable as possible, then we would have euthanized you and performed a dissection. All painless, I swear, and it was for science. I can only hope you aren't terribly cross with us. As commander of this operation I take full responsibility and can only request you direct your rage toward me."
The specimen let out a heavy breath "Oof, I'm glad it didn't come to that."
Kem glanced to the bodies of the still twitching pirates "As am I. Again, I offer my deepest apologies. Please do not harbor resentment for my crew."
The specimen waved a hand dismissively at him. "Look, other than the weird mix-up where you assumed I wasn’t a person, this whole trip has been a ride on easy street. So no, I’m not angry.”
This made very little sense to Kem, if he had been kidnapped, mistaken for a beast, and had experiments performed on him he would be more than a little miffed. So for the Nth time today, he decided to be bold. “I’ll risk overstepping, but why aren’t you at least a little mad?”
“Because this is so objectively absurd. If you had told me six months ago, that I’d be bouncing around a starship, waxing alien cockroaches to save a bunch of walking Geico ads that thought that I had the cognitive capacity of an ant and had plans to vivisect me, I would have asked if you were smoking crack cocaine, but…” The specimen gesticulated widely around the room “Here we are!”
The specimen thought for a moment. “Wait…you said stasis pod and all? Hell, it may be longer than six months, but my point stands. All of this, it’s insane.”
“Insane as it all may be,” Kem said as he wandered back to the console “Now that we’ve cleared up this, uh, unfortunate misunderstanding, I think it would be beneficial for all parties to get you back where you came from.”
He pulled up a holographic galactic map and turned back to the specimen, whose demeanor had once again shifted, this time it emanated an air of disappointment.
“Something the matter?” He asked.
“Well, it’s just that, where I’m from, this would literally be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” It paused “I was kind of hoping you’d allow me to stay, even if for just a while. A grand space adventure sounds pretty neat.” It pointed to the map “‘Sides, that might as well be written in hieroglyphs, don’t know if I could find Earth even if I was chomping at the bit for it.”
Kem thought on this, there was a lot of potential to having such a creature around. If he could somehow convince it to allow experimentation to continue, even at a reduced rate, the data provided could be invaluable, not to mention recrewing would be infinitely easier with the level of protection the specimen could offer. He prepared himself to negotiate with all the tact that he could muster, but the specimen seemed ready to do his job for him.
“I ain’t no freeloader. I’d be willing to pull my weight, hell I’d be willing to let you keep running your experiments, with the euthanasia and dissection bits off the table, of course.” It offered.
Kem was shocked. Not only was the specimen ready to work to earn its stay, but it had also willingly offered its body for science. He was practically salivating at the academic prestige, not to mention the grant funding that would roll his way. There was no chance he was going to let this opportunity slip through his webbed fingers.
“No cutting you open. Seems a reasonable compromise.” He hissed with amusement “I’m sure we can make reasonable accommodations to facilitate your stay, if you’re certain. Though if you do find yourself lacking anything, once we crew up, feel free to ask.”
“I think I'm alright. I’m a creature of few earthly comforts, all I need is the clothes on my back and-”
The specimen stopped mid-sentence, glancing down briefly at its own form. Its face twisted into one of abject horror. Realizing, seemingly for the first time, that in this entire escapade, it had been naked as the day it was hatched.
“Actually, there is one thing,” it added quickly “You guys got a towel? Bit chilly in here.”

so this is long and probably full of spelling issues so im sorry in advance
hey there. so im a 22 yr old female and after years of refusing to get the surgery to go for a colostomy im finally realizing that i really cant go on like this forever.
background, my diagnosis is still not really known. ive been consistently misdiagnosed since i was a child, given tons of different medicines and work done to figure it out, but no doctors could figure it out for real .
as a child from ages 5-7 i was on drug study programs i was put into by sick kids hospital, who kept saying that i just had chronic constipation. if any of you have ever taken restoralax/miralax, Hi, i was a child test study for it. i got nasogastric tubes once a month in the hospital where the drug was administered and spent 2 days on a commode watching grease and matilda on a roll in tv. though this would empty me out , it didnt actually solve anything and just left me even worse. they also gave me semi regular botox injections in the anus/rectum , im still not entirely clear on why because my issue was i became so impacted that nothing could pass through, and nothing in my intestines was moving right. i would have "accidents" not because i just couldn't hold it, but because after a few weeks the back up would be throughout the entire colon and slowly push out of me. my stomach would be so distended it was hard as a rock and i was malnourished because i always felt so "full" even if i hadnt ate. the injections wound up completely destroying the nerves in the area, tightening me up so much that even pushing was impossible, and to this day i still dont have control of the muscles there.
i was then sent to another city to be seen by other doctors..
ive seen specialists in 3 different cities, all having different diagnosis, and at the age of 7 they decided they thought it was a misdiagnosed Hirschsprung's and did a trans-anal pullthrough to remove the worst of it. the part they removed was the size of the 6ft 3 surgeons two fists put together. they removed part of the large intestine and removed the rectum.
while the surgery helped with some of the pain, i was left totally incontinent and i began to become fully blocked again. they decided then to try to put in a cecostomy tube and do daily flushing, and ive had 4 different variations of that since i was around 8 and it was alright for a few years. it was small and discreet, easy to care for and though the nightly flushings (500ml peglyte and 500ml sterilized water every night) have always been painful it was just a few hours out of the day.
every 4 months i travel out of town (11hrs thru canada) to get the tube replaced with a new one and the recovery time is about a week to 2 weeks when it all goes well.
when i turned 18 my pediatric gastroenterologist sat me down and said they were wrong. he no longer thinks i have Hirschsprungs and he has no clue what i have. he said he was going to personally pick my adult gastro because he didn't trust some randomly appointed one, and hopefully they would be able to do more tests to help me. unfortunately i was on the waiting list for a few years and only got to meet him november of last year. despite our talks on the phone, he has no real interest in doing a bunch of tests and redoing the old tests to see what they can find, especially since i already have the tube which is technically working, and i can always move to a colostomy if i don't want the tube anymore.
I've had the holes sewed up and moved to a different area when it got too stretched out with age 2 yrs back
well for the past 3 years I've had an infection. well actually 2 infections that will not go away. (we thought doing the surgery to move the hole would eventually get rid of the infections, we were wrong) Pseudomonas and staph are the two most prevalent bacteria. my tube site is a constant weeping pus mess, I'm in constant pain and I've been on and off different antibiotics for a few years now. nothing works.
i was given the choice between two options, either A:a colostomy. they have wanted to go this route for a while now and ive been too scared to. i have severe mental health issues and my body image is something I've always struggled with. even though my uncle has a colostomy (chrons) everything about it made me miserable just to think about. option B was to just live with it. i was given a prescription for antibiotics to help when the infection flared up badly and would just have to live my life bandaging it and cleaning the pus and blood and dealing with the pain
though maybe it seems stupid, i chose the second option
now though, its been about 6 months and I've been in a near constant flare up state. the area is always burning up, puffy red and irritated, and I'm leaking pus through multiple layers of bandaged. the worst of it though is the pain. it hurts to walk , it hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep. the pain is constant, aggravated more by movement and it feels as though i have been skinned in the area and the wet flesh left to fester. the medicine isn't working anymore, I've either developed a tolerance to it or its just not enough anymore.
this last bit i had a week and a half between these bad flare ups and the timing is only getting shorter each time.
I'm at a point where i know i have to make another choice. do i just keep going, hoping despite it being years that it will just go away somehow, or commit to getting my biggest fear?
my biggest concern is the body image issues, as well as comfort.
(1) firstly, i sleep in the fetal position, curled up holding a stuffed animal. specifically i tend to sleep on my right side. I've read that i wont be able to anymore and that worries me, as i already have bad sleeping issues that i have to take medicine for and any discomfort would make that even worse.
(2) secondly, I'm worried about my fashion.
this probably will sound odd so some of the older people on here, but i dress in some specific fashion styles, specifically Japanese street styles, specifically i go between Fairy Kei and Angura kei, the former of which often has me in high waisted pleated skirts that are tighter on the stomach. i also like the kind of 80ish styles with high waisted jeans and stuff like that.
as someone who has severe body issues, dressing up has become a way to feel okay in my body and I'm worried that after the surgery not only will i feel bad about myself with the bag, but will also have to stop dressing up the way i like , which i foresee will have me once again refusing to leave the house and be seen in public.
(3) this sort of piggy backs off the previous one, but I'm terrified of the smell and the thought of having no control. the way i am now means that i pick a time of the day and spend a few hrs flushing myself through the tube. i cant have bowel movements any other way, and my anal muscles dont work right anymore, so it needs to be liquified to move through me. this means that i have control of when i do this and i don't have to worry about needing to use the washroom in public of anything like that. i know with a bag it just sorta always drains and this scares me. its like losing the last bit of control i have over my gut issues

(4) and I'm scared of the stoma. this is an admittedly odd fear , but the way the stoma sort of hangs out a few inches makes me nauseas. the thought of something meant to be inside being slightly outside, and not only that but also having to touch it to clean it and stuff makes me want to cry.

all in all, I'm having a rough time coming to terms with this, but i also know that i cant go much longer the way i am. i have little to no quality of life since I'm always hurting and always getting sick. i guess i just need some perspective (especially from young women) about how their daily life is. I'm not expecting this to be easy of course, but my other surgeries that have left me with bodily modifications all happened when i was underage, and the decisions were made FOR me, i didn't have a choice. i wish i was still a little kid, and that they had just done this the first time so i wouldn't have had to live for a while with this more flattering tube and know what its like with it. i now know the the procedure i got isn't even meant to be permanent, and its rarely ever seen on adults, usually only on children temporarily. they wanted to try to find another solution other than the bags i guess, but it just doesn't really work anymore and i haven't gotten any guidance on what to do next other than to just get the bag
any support and info is appreciated greatly. sorry for the long read, but believe me when i say i actually cut a lot of info about my health out lmao.

I just turned 20 last week and was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in February. Almost all the women in my family have it. I don’t have a great history with doctors. My first doctor who I saw from birth until I was maybe 11 was an absolute nightmare. She refused to send my sister to a specialist until she was 98 pounds at 17 years old and misdiagnosed me because she never bothered to run any tests. My second doctor I liked at first. When I was 13 I started gaining a little more weight. I had always been chunky but due to my food options at home and the environment I had developed what I now know is a binge ED. He asked me to keep a food journal for two weeks but I didn’t because I knew he would be upset with me when he saw what I was eating even though I literally had no choice. He told me I wasn’t ready to lose weight and if I was I would have done it. Every appointment he brought up my weight and attributed everything to my weight. Even my mental health and learning disabilities were blamed on my weight. I told him for years about my symptoms and it was ignored. He ran one blood test in the several years I was seeing him and I was maybe 12/13. My senior year of HS I developed chronic urticaria which is a symptom. He still didn’t even add it to my record. When I thought I could have PCOS he just suggested birth control and hesitantly offered an internal ultrasound to see if I had any cysts. He seemed irritated when I turned down the birth control. He had been pushing birth control on me since I was barely 14 despite me being on pysch meds and already overweight. In February my symptoms got so bad I thought I was dying. I went to a walk in clinic and within 2 hours I was diagnosed. They also did an EKG for my peace of mind. When I went back to him to get my meds prescribed and follow up he tried to say I couldn’t have hypothyroidism and that I need to go outside for two minutes a day after my mom told him that I walk 2-4 miles every evening despite it being physically painful sometimes because of my urticaria. He told me “nothing really bad can happen if I dont medicate you and the symptoms aren’t really interfering with your life.”. My mom ended up getting him to give me a very small dose of levothyroxine but he continued to talk about my weight and bring up bariatric surgery for the second time. My mom and I decided to switch doctors and I am seeing a woman that I used to see when she was a PA. I see her for the first time soon and even though she has been wonderful to me before I am just having a hard time trusting doctors.

• Meet the Kyanah -- the alien civilization I've been working on since 2016
• A Primer on Kyanah Physiology
• Aliens Deserve Alien Brains
• A Primer on Kyanah Pack Dynamics
• Advanced Kyanah Psychology: Inter-Pack Dynamics
• The Motives for Project Hope: Part I
• The Motives for Project Hope: Part II
• The Motives for Project Hope: Part III
• The Motives for Project Hope: Part IV
• The Motives for Project Hope: Part V
• Intro to Kyanah Politics
• An (abridged) Beastiary of the Kyanah Homeworld
• Plantlife of the Kyanah Homeworld
• An Analysis of Kyanah Military Forces: Part I -- Tech
• An Analysis of Kyanah Military Forces: Part II -- Organizational Structure
• An Analysis of Kyanah Military Forces: Part III -- Military Doctrine
• Alien Computers Are Alien
• Alien Computers Are Alien -- Part II: Kyanah-Human Cyberwarfare
• Alien Computers Are Alien -- Part III: A Guide to Kyanah Internets
• A Look Into the Kyanah Education System
• A Rare Look at Kyanah Living Spaces
• A Primer on Kyanah Economics

Kyanah are obligate carnivores, a fact which obviously influences their diet to a strong degree. Virtually all of their calories come from some form of meat, eggs, or other animal products; while some plant matter can be safely consumed, they derive little or no energy from it and would eventually starve if placed on a vegetarian diet for some reason. Thus plant-based foods are usually only added in small amounts to meat-based dishes for flavor or micro-nutrients (which could usually be gotten from meat as well); animal products are around 90% of the average Kyanah's diet, depending on the region. The actual meat consumed by Kyanah varies a lot by region and culture, with animals from all major categories being consumed somewhere in the world, but walkers tend to be the most common and crawlcritters (the closest analogue to insects) are usually avoided except in desperate times or very poor and undeveloped city-states. In Ikun's cuisine, nyruds and tyukruds account for the significant majority of all meat consumed--perhaps unsurprising as the rud suffix indicates a livestock animal--with thukukens coming in a distant third. Though cuts and preparation styles vary considerably depending on the dish. The plants that they do consume, albeit in small amounts, tend to be spices, tubers, or "nuts". These nuts aren't botanical nuts in the same sense as Earth nuts, due to the paucity of seeds and complete nonexistence of fruits. However, similar-looking structures do exist in some structured plants, where many species store spores inside hard-shelled structures that, when mature, crack open to release large quantities of spores; the immature forms of these structures are called "nuts" by Kyanah. Leafy greens are taboo in most cultures, as they are seen as livestock food and also have an emetic effect in large quantities. Attitudes towards fungi vary widely and are not taboo in Ikun, but also not very popular.
Ikun is a melting pot city-state with hundreds of specialty stores and restaurants selling food from all regions of the world--with varying degrees of authenticity--but has its own mainstream cuisine as well, which is obviously high in meat. Nyrud or tyukrud steaks are an obvious choice--either as-is or with other ingredients on the side and sauces to dip it in--and a favorite of picky eaters and/or lazy Kyanah, but plenty of other options exist. Whole nyrud ribs are usually shared by entire packs (nyruds are very large animals) with each member taking turns to take a bite out of it. On the other end of the scale, ground-up nyrud, tyukrud, or other meats can be mixed with the eggs of these very animals and smaller amounts of the aforementioned tubers and "nuts" to create a sort of "salad". This mix can be eaten as is or stuffed into the gas bladder of a juvenile thukuken, or a tyukrud stomach, or wrapped tightly in cooked skins or thin strips of roasted meat. Various blood or animal oil based sauces exist, which are used to provide flavor and moisture. Fried bits of wingbeast wings and thukuken gas bladders, flavored bone marrow, and jerky-like strips of dried meat are common snack items. Meat cubes, consisting of one or more ground meats stuck together with eggs and sticky sauce and shaped into a cube, and sometimes subsequently fried, can be eaten as either a snack or full meal, depending on their size. Lower-grade meats are sometimes dried, powdered, and used as a condiment on other dishes. Spices are heavily used in Ikun and most northern cuisines, though in the far south, where spice plants are typically not as common, there is more of an emphasis on flavoring meats via salting and drying, or cold smoking. Hatchlings, whose teeth have not yet fully developed, eat chewed up and regurgitated food, which can be provided by any adult in their pack, or sometimes even older siblings; Kyanah have a specialized pouch in the upper esophagus to store food for this purpose.
As Kyanah biochemistry uses water as a solvent, they do naturally drink water more than anything else. Packs with a lot of money are often water snobs who will pay a premium for water that was bottled in some particular city-state, usually one with historical or religious significance, or just one that has a particularly nice mineral profile--despite the fact that any mineral profile can be created synthetically, and the Water Distribution System tends to mix water from different regions anyway. Flavor packets are commonly used to enhance the flavor of water; these tend to be savory or even bitter rather than sweet. As Kyanah haven't evolved to consume large amounts of sugar, and a lot of the bacteria found in spoiled meat on their planet produce saccharin as a by-product, so sweet tastes are generally avoided (the average Kyanah really wouldn't like cake even if a biochemically compatible version were somehow made). The blood of various animals, most commonly nyruds, is also drunk, either straight up--it's often considered to be very refreshing on a hot day, when chilled--or as the base for various sauces. This substance has a distinct indigo hue, much like the blood of the Kyanah themselves, or most other animals on their planet, for that matter. It appears that ethanol has a fairly similar effect on Kyanah as on humans and alcoholic beverages have thus existed for thousands of years. However, the means of creating the Kyanahs' alcoholic drinks is quite different; it relies on strains of microbes unique to their planet that produce alcohol from amino acids rather than carbs or sugars. Naturally, this means that most such drinks are produced from "fermented" meat or blood. Roontkak, made from tyukrud blood, is the most popular alcoholic drink, both in Ikun and the broader world. The Kyanah have also been able to replicate this process using plant-based proteins found in tubers, nuts, and fungi. This process was discovered a few thousand years after the meat-based alcohols and tends to produce a slightly weaker drink, but it's rarer and harder to make, so tends to carry a connotation of culture and sophistication, while something like roontkak is seen as a lowbrow drink for the masses. Common plant-derived alcoholic drinks include roontyeti, from the tubers of the tyeti plant, and roonwerkdda, from the nuts of the werkdda bush. These tend to have spread to Ikun's region of the world from the far north and far south, where suitable plants for making alcohol are more common. Either alcohol category can be distilled to create the Kyanah version of hard liquors, which are usually denoted by the suffix -tyot (literally "strong" or "dominant").
Additionally, capsaicin is a psychoactive and moderately addictive drug to Kyanah, with a sizable chunk of the population smoking the dried and powdered skins of various endoskeleton plants that have evolved to use capsaicin to deter herbivores. Though in southern hemisphere cultures, it's more common to mix it into a tea and get high on capsaicin that way. Such mixtures usually contain no more than 2% actual capsaicin; purified industrial-grade capsaisin is much stronger and more addictive and restricted by many governments. There is no minimum age for substance use (nor any minimum age to do anything else, since adulthood is determined solely by separation from the birth-pack, regardless of the age) in most Kyanah societies, so it's up to the adults in a young Kyanah's birth-pack wehther they can access these items. However, it's seen as perfectly normal in Ikun society for older children and adolescents to be given small amounts of alcohol or some of the milder capsaicin variants on festive occasions, to partake with the adults.
Kyanah in most societies typically don't use personal utensils, instead simply taking food with their hands; at most they use ladles or tongs to take food from serving dishes. Rather than using their teeth or knives, they typically use their powerful neck muscles to rip away bite-sized chunks of whatever they are eating. In formal dining environments, eating gloves are used to keep their hands clean, but at home or in more casual venues, nobody really cares. As Kyanah drink by lapping rather than sipping, shallow bowls rather than cups are used for liquids; drinks are only kept in bottles for storage. Technology has advanced to the point where synthetic meat is fairly common and cheap, using colonies of genetically engineered microbes to essentially grow meat like a crop inside industrial tanks, with artificial flavoring being added to simulate various actual meats. While often cheaper than real meat, it has its limitations; it can only create homogenous patties rather than the complex textures of an actual animal, while there's no scientific evidence that they're unsafe, many feel that they're unnatural or unhealthy. So this tends to mostly be food for the poor. However, it has also found a use as military rations during the Kyanah invasion of Earth, as it would be stupid to try to farm livestock in space, or on an alien planet in the middle of a war zone.
Eating is generally not a social occasion for Kyanah, it's seen as something of a private and vulnerable time, when they're weak and in need of nourishment, not strong and ready to defend or advance their pack's position in society (most Kyanah won't absolutely refuse to eat if outsiders happen to be around, but all else being equal, most will prefer to have only the company of their own packs). So it's very rare for them to eat or drink with anyone who isn't already in their pack, unless they don't have one yet, or want to expand it. Even ikoin who go "together" to eat out somewhere will split up into their own separate areas and just eat with their packs. So their restaurants and bars--which still exist, as even Kyanah, much like humans, often like eating professional-quality food without having to prepare it for themselves--have a considerably different layout and atmosphere. Usually there will be a bunch of stalls where diners can sit and eat while being walled off from other Kyanah while still providing a good view of the kitchen via a curtain or window so they can keep an eye on their food being prepared. Mid-range establishments will usually just have the food and drinks, and few other amenities, while higher end ones have more elaborate measures to draw in diners and justify their price points, from ornate cushions, aromatic sprays, and elaborate light displays all the way to live music, holographic movies, and other performances like reenactments of historic duels and combat challenges, which diners can either open their window to get a good look at or ignore and eat in peace.
Since the end of the Utopian Wars, the traditional Kyanah dining experience has been steadily losing ground to fast food (DakDakDak--literally FastFastFast--being the most popular one in Ikun, with over 64 locations) and drone deliveries. The former allows Kyanah to simply come in, choose from the premade meals that are currently on the shelf, pay, and leave, or (for a premium) put in a special request, though these establishments by nature have limited menus and little room for customization; they will often use AI to predict what to make ahead of time, with high accuracy. While the latter allows them to avoid the hassle of dealing with anyone outside their pack entirely, while still getting high quality food. The one exception to the general dynamic at Kyanah restaurants and bars would be those that cater to the packless; these are set up to encourage rather than discourage interaction, as their entire purpose is for young adult Kyanah who have recently separated from their birth-packs to find love for themselves. To this end, such establishments have elaborate sets of rituals and social rules to attract the attention of other individuals. As a day on the Kyanah homeworld is only about 15.75 hours, there are customarily only two meals, the very creatively named day-meal, eaten before the beginning of the workday, and night-meal, eaten after the end of the workday. Though many do eat snacks during the day, especially if working physically demanding jobs.
In terms of inter-species compatibility, as humans and Kyanah are both carbon and water based life forms, most human foods wouldn't kill a Kyanah, nor vice versa (with a few niche exceptions, such as chocolate or grapes) neither species can properly digest the other's food and would likely throw up if they tried to eat a significant amount. Interestingly, hard liquors of either species are largely exempt from this, as they're mostly just alcohol and water anyway, while weaker booze like roontkak or beer has impurities that would definitely not be appreciated by the digestive system of the wrong species. During the post-war occupation of Earth, Kyanah have also been known to import chili powder into their occupied regions, apparently for the sole purpose of smoking it.