Diagram of parts of human skin

If you’ve ever hugged, touched, touched something they touched, borrow something/let them borrow something, or even been in the same room as your crush, parts of them have been in you and might still be there to this day. Their cells among your cells. There bacteria possibly walking on your skin. Possibly even their poop in your lungs. It’s such a nice thought to think that my crushes particles have been in me, even if they don’t like me. I have breathed their cells in my lungs and maybe some of them are still alive.🥰

You know what the best part is about playing Engineer in Team Fortress 2? You get to watch how angry everyone gets when they get shot by your sentry guns. Me and my best friend Jose both main Engineer, and can confirm that the best way to spend your Friday nights after school is to set up a sentry and get ready for the rage. There’s been matches where we haven’t even used our actual guns even once, but racked up lots of kills just because of the sentries.
One day Jose called me up with an idea that was either going to be the stupidest thing ever or the smartest thing ever. He wanted to fill an entire team with only Engineers and watch the chaos unfold. I couldn’t stop laughing at the mental image in my head and agreed with the plan. I joined a Discord server with everyone else on the team.
I convinced my cousin Matthew to join, and he in turn brought along his little brother Zack. According to Matthew, it took quite a bit of convincing because Zack was a Scout main who couldn’t stand Engineers. He eventually got through to his little brother by promising him a Steam gift card. I even got their dad Graham to play along (yes, I have an uncle who plays TF2. How cool is that?). Jose enlisted his friends, who turned into friends of friends and soon enough we had a team of 16 Engineers.
To say that we caused chaos that night was an absolute understatement. As soon as we joined the game the text chat was flooded with messages from the other team wondering what the hell was going on. And they only got worse from that point on. We surrounded our control points with a ring of sentries that people just kept running into. I saw keyboard smashes and heard other teen boys’ voices crack in rage and many, many words that I personally don’t care to repeat here.
The most skilled Engineer was this guy named Craig, who was a friend of one of Jose’s friends. Not only was he the main person capturing the enemy control points with some very strategically placed teleporters, but he was also really friendly and encouraging to all of us. I didn’t know what he looked like, but from his voice it sounded like he was in his early 20s.
Me and Craig started to chat more and more on Discord. He was a super nice guy who was also really fun to talk with. He took time out of his day to teach me how to be an even better Engineer player. Whenever someone started dissing me in the voice chat, he firmly told them to leave me alone. After seeing my fair share of toxicity in the TF2 community, it was nice to know that this complete stranger was looking out for me.
This whole Team Engineer thing became a weekly tradition for us on Friday nights. It was something everyone could look forward to after work or school. One time after everyone logged off and said their goodbyes, Craig sent a message a few hours later in our Discord:
“You guys gotta check this out. I found the weirdest server ever. It’s literally Engineer heaven. Meet me at vl_sentry.”
I was still in the mood to play and I could stay up late tonight, so I hopped back on TF2. I saw that Jose, Graham and this other girl we played with named Lynn were also online. I found vl_sentry and connected to the server. The map was called Valley of the Sentries and it was created by Valve.
It took my computer a little bit to process the map, and it took me even longer than that to process what I was seeing.
The map looked like a chessboard with 3D-sculpted hills. The sky was just pure white. Not even white walls, just the color white. Every square had a blue sentry on it and there were about 4 or 5 other Engineers jumping around, spamming their voice lines. That’s when I realized that we were the only ones there, and there was no red team.
“Hey Sean, glad you could make it :)” Craig said in the text chat. “What the hell is this?” I asked. He told me that this was a server that one of his friends showed him. The friend said he was introduced to the map by a friend of his who knew someone who worked at Valve. Craig then went on to explain that apparently Valley of the Sentries was an experiment to test the limits of the sentry guns and their effect on the servers. Rumor has it that the map is infinite.
“Check this out.” said Jose. He switched to Heavy and immediately got shot down. All of the sentries turned towards him. There were so many of them that it made the game lag a ton. He respawned as Engineer and the sentries just kept on spinning.
“WTF?” I typed. “We tried it with all the other classes and it does the same thing.” said Craig. “It ignores Engineers, but shoots everyone else.” Lynn added. “And that’s why we’re the best class. Engineer power!” Graham joked.
I asked what would happen if you were to play as Spy and sap one of the sentries. “I tried, but you gotta have a godly reaction time to activate it.” said Jose. As soon as he said “godly reaction time”, I knew I had to try it out just for the bragging rights.
Respawn. Shot down. Respawn. Shot down. Respawn. Shot down.
Yeah, I did not have a godly reaction time. The others kept spamming “lol” in the chat each time I failed. I got annoyed pretty quickly and stopped trying. Then out of nowhere, all the sentries turned away from me and started firing at someone. I turned around and all five of us were still standing there. I looked at the top bar that shows how many characters were in the game. There were only five Engineers and they were all on the same team. So what the hell were the sentries targeting?
I started to walk in the direction that the sentries were facing and Jose followed me too. We moved really slow, not only because of the sentries on every square but also the uphill climbs. It was just us two in the chat for a while, talking about seeing each other back at school on Monday while we made our slow walk across the map. Then our conversation was interrupted by a chat message from Lynn.
“Why is there a man in the sky?”
Me and Jose tried to get to Lynn to see what she was talking about as fast as possible, but we moved like snails. To get back to the spawn point, we both switched classes, instantly died and respawned as Engineers. I don’t think we respawned in the same place we started from. I don’t even know where we respawned. There were no landmarks or notable things to help you find your way. Just hills, valleys, and sentries.
I asked Lynn where she was and she just told me she was with Graham and Craig. Only that wasn’t very helpful because we didn’t know where they were either. We stood there, stumped for a minute and a half until Jose got an idea. He said that she should just switch classes and respawn, because then all of the sentries would point toward her and we could follow them all the way back to her. She made the switch, got shot down, and we instantly knew where to find her.
We finally got close enough to kind of make out the vague shape of a few Engineers over the non-existent horizon. Me and Jose were relieved, until all the sentries pointed to our right. I swiveled around and saw them open fire on…nothing. I checked with Jose to see if he caught something I didn’t, but he also didn’t see what they were shooting at. I decided that it wasn’t that important and continued to walk towards the rest of the group.
We met up with Lynn, Craig and Graham, disappointed that we made that trek all for nothing. Even though we were all together now, it just felt so lonely. The only sound coming from my computer was the constant beeping of the sentries in perfect sync. I don’t know why, but it made me so uneasy. I attempted to break the silence by going to the voice lines and playing the iconic Engineer “Nope” soundbite. It echoed across the checkered land with no response.
It was about 12:30 AM at this point and I was starting to feel more and more unsettled with each passing minute. There was just something about this black and white world that I felt creeped out by. Before Craig invited us to come over, there was no one else on the server. Who would even want to play on this map, anyways? It’s so unfairly balanced that only one class can survive. Movement speed was super slow, and you can’t even really do anything except watch the sentries turn and turn and turn forever. It was like hypnosis, except I didn’t feel sleepy or relaxed at all.
Speaking of being sleepy, Jose said he was getting tired and was going to be logging off. We all said goodbye to him and continued chatting amongst ourselves. It sounds stupid, but my stomach dropped when I saw the fifth Engineer portrait disappear. One less person to talk to. One less person to keep myself from wondering what else was out here. I could have sworn that after he left, the beeping got louder.
“So is this map actually infinite?” asked Graham. “Only one way to find out.” Craig said. “Just keep on walking and see if it goes on forever.” “Why don’t you just fire a shotgun and see how far it goes?” Lynn suggested.
I took out the shotgun and fired. The bullet flew off into the white distance and disappeared.
Then I heard the distinct sound of someone getting shot.
A message appeared in the chat, from someone named sentry_check_pattern.
“sentry_check_pattern: stop that”
Once again I looked at the top bar. It just showed four blue Engineers. That meant we were the only ones on the server. Or so we thought.
The chat was flooded with our confusion, almost as if everyone realized at the same time that something wasn’t right. None of us moved an inch.
“What even is this place?” I asked, hoping that the mysterious user would provide me with an answer. “Must be Engineer heaven.” said Graham.
“sentry_check_pattern: more like my personal hell”
This was the moment that made me trust my intuition. I knew there was a reason why I found this map so creepy. I wanted to leave the server, but there was just one thing keeping me back- my own curiosity. My wish to unveil the mysteries of the Valley of the Sentries.
“Okay this is really freaking me out. See ya guys.” said Lynn before she left the server. The fourth Engineer’s portrait disappeared from the top bar.
No no no, please. Please don’t go. Don’t leave us. I wouldn’t want to be alone here. Now there’s just three of us, and I really hope that number doesn’t go down anymore. When the others were here, this was just a weird TF2 map that we were exploring together as friends. And now it feels like we’re trapped in this infinite world, but we aren’t alone. The only problem is we don’t know what else is here.
I shuddered, imagining Craig and Graham ditching me and leaving me all alone in the Valley of the Sentries. Just me and whoever- no, whatever was talking to us.
“sentry_check_pattern: you don’t know how good you have it
you can leave at any time
i can’t”
This terrified me. What a horrible thought, never being able to leave this place. But of course, no one could really be trapped here. It’s a Team Fortress 2 server. You can just exit the game and shut your computer. No one could be trapped in a video game.
But if you think about it, aren’t the characters themselves trapped? They can’t leave the game. They’re characters. They don’t even know they’re in a game. You or the computer controls all their actions. They don’t have free will. And if you’re bad at the game, they’ll just keep dying over and over again.
Wait, why was I thinking about this?
I carefully considered what I wanted to say next in the chat. Whatever I said could either answer all my burning questions or leave me asking more. But sentry_check_pattern talked first.
“sentry_check_pattern: i was made for one purpose
to die over and over again”
Oh my god. It was like this person read my mind and knew exactly what I was thinking about. Who or what was I talking to? I turned all the way around to make sure that no one else was there. It was just the two blue Engineers standing behind me. Just Graham and Craig. And that man with the checkered skin.
Startled, I asked my friends if they saw what I saw. It took them a second, but both of them confirmed that yes, there was indeed something else there. A basic male model with the same chessboard texture as the map. Graham immediately started to shoot at him. Nothing. It just went straight through him.
“sentry_check_pattern: you can’t kill what’s already been killed millions of times over
valve made that mistake too
every company has that one failed project they don’t talk about
and that’s me”
Whoever was behind this weird account was talking crazy. The Team Fortress 2 developers were very open about everything like fixing their glitches and bugs. They always posted things on the official blog about the development process. They’re so open about their failures and always promise to fix them.
“Stop with the weird stuff. We just wanted to know what the deal is with this server and the weird chess guy. Do you know anything about it?” Graham asked in the text chat.
“sentry_check_pattern: know anything?
you’re not very bright, graham
none of you are
do you not realize where you are and what you’re talking to”
Something about the way sentry_check_pattern used Graham’s name gave me goosebumps. I didn’t know what I was talking to. I didn’t even think I wanted to know at this point.
“sentry_check_pattern: this is one of valve’s test servers
i’m the texture they use to check if the sentries work
read between the lines”
“Quiet, NPC.” Craig said. I laughed a little bit to fight off the awkward tension. Then I reminded myself that I was talking to a video game character, no- not even a character. A blank character model. A texture.
“sentry_check_pattern: just because i’m a character model doesn’t mean i can’t feel pain
open fire”
The sentries all swiveled around to face the man and shot at him. He kept falling to the ground, turning white and standing back up in the same position.
“sentry_check_pattern: cease fire”
All of the sentries stopped shooting and just went back to spinning around, their beeps echoing in the air.
“sentry_check_pattern: ready to see what i’ve been through for over a decade?
open fire”
Before any of us could react, the sentries opened fire on Craig all at once. He kept dying, but he didn’t explode the way you’re supposed to when you die in TF2. He just dropped to the floor, turned white, and respawned over and over again. There was no death scream. I tried to type something else in the chat but the game lagged so much that my typing just ended up as a string of random letters that meant nothing. Craig tried to type something out too. It just ended up as “wwwwwwwwwwthisishowitfeelswwwwwwwww” Then the game crashed and my computer shut down.
I hyperventilated. Then I laughed at myself for hyperventilating over a stupid computer game. It was Team Fortress 2 for god’s sake. That game with all the memes and goofy jokes. Stupid, stupid Sean. Scared of a character model. Jose would never let me live it down. I just laughed and laughed to push the fear away.
I closed my laptop and took out my phone to rewatch all of my favorite TF2 animations for the millionth time. As if they weren’t already the funniest things in the world, I forced myself to laugh even harder than usual. Every time I saw the Engineer, I couldn’t help but look at the reflection in his goggles. The reflection of an endless map of black and white squares.
Thankfully, nothing bad happened to my game, account or laptop. The next day I just went right back to playing and enjoying the rage coming from all the people who ran right into my sentries.
Team Engineer was still a thing, but it was never really the same. We played together a lot less frequently. It was still a lot of fun, but I felt a change that I couldn’t really describe.
We found out that Craig had lost all progress on his TF2 account. Everyone gifted him all his favorite cosmetics and we all pooled our money together to get him a Steam gift card. He video called us, crying at our kindness. It was the first time I ever even saw his face. He was a lot older than most of us. If I had to guess an age, I’d say somewhere around 30. He had black bangs and was wearing a TF2 shirt. His room was dark, only lit by his glowing computer screen. He thanked us repeatedly and even tried to return the gift card, but we were all adamant that he should keep it.
Speaking of Craig, we still kept in touch but he didn’t talk to me as much anymore. Any time I tried to ask him about vl_sentry, he ignored me for a few days.
The other day, I got some postcards from my cousin Matthew. He was very academic and happened to be studying at a private high school about 9 hours away from where I live. All of his postcards were pictures of him making funny faces with all his friends at favorite school activities like robotics, debate team, and chess club.
I looked at the chess club photo closely. Matthew and his friends were standing in front of a chessboard with a mirror on the wall. And for a split second, I could have sworn that the chessboard looked different in the mirror. It looked warped, like it wasn’t a flat board anymore. Like it almost had hills and valleys. No, it couldn’t be. I rubbed my eyes. There, in the mirror was a checkered man. I knew it was there. I swear on my mother’s life that there was another person in that photo. And then it was gone. Maybe the picture was just printed badly. But I had to make sure my eyes were right.
So I brought the postcard to school with me and I showed Jose. I asked him if he saw the checkered man in the mirror. He said no. But that wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. That was the answer I hoped I wouldn’t hear. I asked him again. He said no again. Then I asked him another time. He said I was being annoying. So I asked another one of my friends. He said no too. So I moved on to yet another friend. He told me to stop.
I angrily clutched the postcard in my hand, crumpling it. I was the only one that saw what was really there. Everyone else was lying to me. They refused to see the truth.
I screamed and ripped up the postcard. I stomped on its pieces. I rubbed them in the dirt for good measure.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of electronics beeping.
It rang in my ears.
It was weirdly comforting to me.
You can leave the Valley of the Sentries. But the valley will never leave you.

I've been practicing the Paranoid solo a lot lately, so much so that the callus on my ring finger started flaking off. I can literally see parts of it fall as I'm playing.
I did notice that the area of my finger without skin isn't perfectly on the tip of my finger. Does this imply that I'm using wrong fretting/legato technique? Or does the skinless area still count as the tip of my finger and is the area I use still okay?
Thanks in advance!

Hey y'all, I recently started 1Q84 as my 6th Murakami book and I'm loving it so far! Just finished chapter 9 (where the term 19Q4 is coined) so there's a whole lot left, but I recently read and loved Orwell's 1984 and couldn't help but notice the connections between the two books. Didn't see a lot of people talking about it so I figured it'd write down what I noticed here:

• Aomame noticing a shift in reality where everybody else knows about past events that, according to Aomame, never happened is practically the same as the whole concept of doublethink in 1984. In 1984 the Ministries constantly make up fake news articles which they present to be the truth, and all citizens are brainwashed enough to believe it. The comparison goes even further when you look at how O'Brien describes the concept of doublethink in the third part of the book, where he basically questions the concept of reality and how humans define something to be real. In his view, when something like a new fake historical event is made up it actually becomes the new reality. The concept of what's real and what's not becomes way more fluid. I feel like Aomame's supposed shift in realities is a nice conceptualization of this idea.
  
• Tengo is basically a parallel to Winston, the protagonist of 1984. Winston works for the Ministry of Truth to rewrite and falsify news items (or "create a new reality" if you look at my previous point). Tengo is also working on rewriting a book someone else wrote, falsifying it. Furthermore, I noticed that both Winston and Tengo have a traumatic memory relating to their mother which still influences them to some degree. I also think it's funny that Tengo is a math teacher and "2 + 2 = 5" is famous quote from 1984 regarding doublethink, something Winston actually believes to be true in the end.
  
• Fukaeri's limited speech could be related to Newspeak which is very limited compared to English. In 1984 it is the new language the Ministries are developing where all 'unnecessary' words are removed, heavily impacting freedom of speech and, as a result, freedom of thought. This further strengthens the similarities between Tengo and Winston, as Tengo is rewriting the book from 'Newspeak' to 'English' and is, by doing so, going against the ideology of the Party, just like how Winston is rebelling against the Party.
  
• There are other small lines referencing doublethink. Aomame's taxi driver explicitly says that she shouldn't be fooled and that there is only one reality. This also goes against the ideology of doublethink so you could relate the taxi driver to Goldstein, the rival of Big Brother. Also, when Tengo describes the memory of his mother at the start of chapter 2, he explicitly questions whether his memory of it is fabricated or not.
  

So for me it's clear that Murakami did his research when writing this book! Really curious to see where it goes next, I already saw the name Big Brother mentioned in the list of chapters so I can't wait to see what Murakami has in store for me, no spoilers please! (I'm reading it in Dutch btw, any fellow Dutch fans here?)

This is going to be a long post, so please bear with me. For starters, this is my second time applying to PA school--I was at a disadvantage last cycle, as I applied late July, almost early August. I was working towards my masters degree during that time, and had a bunch of in-progress courses that I need to retake. I wasn't the best student my sophomore year of college, and Organic Chemistry I was the death of me, had to retake it and passed on my third try. I have shadowed a surgical PA for a few months, but because of the pandemic, the hospital was not allowing any students to shadow anymore. I like the idea of PA's bridging the gaps in healthcare, as with everyone. Although lateral mobility and good work-life balance are enticing factors in being a PA, I don't see that as being true. It really is specialty-dependent, an ideally, I think is best to stick with one speciality and perfect your craft. I don't mind the level of autonomy that comes with being a PA, I feel that everybody can be a leader within their own scope of practice.
However, amidst this journey of applying to PA school, during college, and even high school, medical school and being a physician has been nagging in the back of my mind. I come from two loving parents who never pressured me to pursue a career in medicine, but something that will make me satisfied and have a good life. Being a physician means having the breadth of knowledge, thoroughly understanding the mechanism of actions in medication and diseases. Its better to know and comprehend the whole story and the why, instead of just knowing surface level information. I'd like to think being a research assistant is helping me in solidifying my decision to be a physician--I understand that its two completely different things, but I enjoy showing medical students and other graduate students how to dissect a mouse, I love teaching them the anatomy of the mouse, and what each part is special in, and how it pertains to the research that I do. I love being the leader, and I appreciate when my colleagues come to me for questions and ask for my perspective in different things. I enjoy being a leader, yet I enjoy working in a team. For reference, here are my stats, they are not the greatest, but I'd like to think my experiences showcases that:
-graduated college with a 2.943 gpa, had to retake most of my sophomore year's worth of classes, failed organic chemistry I and passed on my third try. with all retakes and masters, raised to 3.02. despite failing most of soph year, i made deans list numerous times.
-got my masters in biomedical sciences, got a 3.4 gpa
-last 60 credits, 3.66, last 45, 3.61
-1955 hours as a night shift float pct, certified in phlebotomy, ekg, and as a pct.
-1392 hours in biochem research, vitamin D regulation focused. abstract sent out, will be presenting in symposium in fall
-new job as mental health specialist on back up call center, about 60 hours since i just started position
-990 hours in social and affective neuroscience research, presented thesis to psych department
-volunteering: sunday school teacher for 2nd graders, habitat for humanity, health screener in grad school, volunteer in hospital in high risk pregnancy and geriatric wings, summer camp counselor in church, food bank.
-teaching experience: learning assistant for psych stats course, helped teach 37 juniors and seniors as a junior, about 42 hours bc during semester.
-hobbies: food festivals, legos, parrots, painting, cooking and baking.
I have not taken my MCAT, and I told myself that if I do not get far in PA school applications, I will start studying for the test come the fall. The masters program that I am apart of has a linkage with the medical school, so I will try to see what my options are when the time comes. All in all, both professions are excellent, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been. Some honest advice and feedback would be helpful.

Got some BS over the weekend I guess from who knows where.
I hate cold viruses. I would legit rather have a 24 hour stomach bug than this shit for days on end where you can’t breathe properly out of your face.
Every time this happens I end up taking one million OTC meds to get through. I end up mouth breathing and getting chapped lips from it. My head feels like it’s full of mucus. I sniffle and snort and go through like a billion goddamn tissues a day to the point my skin under my nose gets raw. So then I have to slather some vaseline on my lips and under my nose to make my skin feel better - but then I just feel nasty and slimy like some frog monster coming out of the swamp.
Days later, it’s not even over. Then comes the coughing fits and the post nasal drip from hell, which lasts for a couple weeks at least.
Curse whatever human fomite demon spawn gave me this crap.
Colds are absolutely the worst!

I've come to a dark, and difficult realization this last week, and ever since I've been really tired and operating on autopilot. I don't feel safe talking to anyone I know about this, so I'm coming to you, internet strangers. Every second of downtime that I get, I go back to this thought, and it's weighing on me.
But first, some back story. This is going to seem totally unrelated, but just take the ride with me real quick.
Although in many ways I lived a privileged life growing up, my parents and younger brother were all emotionally, verbally, financially, and often times physically abusive. There were times when I feared for my life. But perhaps the worst of it was that they were careful. They carefully built a reputation for me--clumsy, strong-willed, dishonest. It was a reputation that I internalized and grew to think was true, up until I had my daughter. Now, she's nearly three, and I am finally breaking my family's hold on me. Permanently.
Like most abuse victims, I tried to leave them several times. It was my baby's father who taught me how to leave for good, and who taught me the importance of severing ties permanently. When I first left him, I needed financial support from my parents, and was grateful to have it. I know so many victims don't have that and can't get out because of it. And, while they were the lesser of two evils, they've proved in the last few years over and over that they are still, in fact, an evil. And one I need out of my life. My dad got me a job when I was well enough to work again after I left, but it only gave him more access to me. And I let him. I'm a grown adult woman. At any moment I could have had the courage and the strength to just walk away. No amount of perceived financial security (because relying on them is not financial security) is worth what I've gone through emotionally on behalf of him and this 'job'. But now, after years of moving over and over again and not feeling safe or secure, my daughter and I have housing that I won't have to worry about losing for the foreseeable future.
I have provided for her a roof over her head, but more than that, a place to grow in and call her own. A place where she can put posters on her wall and have a playground in the back yard and raise a puppy. It's beautiful, and it means that I know that I can now pursue a career that better aligns with the schedule, work-life balance, and emotional fulfillment that she and I need to better our lives. In other words, I've put in my two weeks' at that job so that I can find something more sustainable and sever my ties with my family closer to for-good.
I think that this is why I've had this sudden realization about my daughter's dad. It has been an incredibly emotional time. The universe seems to be throwing tests at me left and right, as if to say, are you sure? Will you really go through with it this time?
And I will. I have faith in myself as a mother more so than I have ever had faith in myself as a person. I know what my daughter needs me to do, so I'll do it. I know where I want to be so that she can grow and thrive, so I will go there.
But it has reminded me of the person I was, who did not know this, and who did not feel so sure.
When I first met my ex, he said and did all of the right things. I was a newly appointed executive in a male-dominated industry, and I was young and single in a conservative area where any indication that I was not wearing a chastity belt read as an invitation to pursue to every man I worked with or around. I was fresh out of another abusive relationship, still repeating the cycle my family had taught me, and was vulnerable.
And he played the part of my savior very well. We were together two years, and I supported him through COVID and losing his high-paying engineer job only to one day, suddenly, discover that virtually everything about him was a lie. Not only was he cheating on me--heavily, while I was at work and he was pretending to freelance, with several women including some I thought were my friends--but he had no college degree, much less a master's degree in engineering, and he had never had the job he allegedly lost. He was a con-artist with two children by two different women, a separate fiancee he'd been with since high school and kept trying to bring into our lives, and so much more. He was using his older, disabled brother's ssn at the job I had gotten him to avoid paying child support. He had even lied about how his parents died.
I'm not even sure I knew his legal name.
To be clear, I found out about the cheating first. That was it. The rest of it, I'm sure I had vague suspicions of. But I had trusted him. If something was off, then he probably had a sound explanation and it wasn't my business. I was young and stupid, and he was still acting perfectly normal.
I broke up with him, then, just to find out a month later that despite using birth control and condoms religiously, and despite having more than one prognosis that I would never conceive let alone carry a child, I was pregnant. At the time, I was no contact with my entire family and had been further isolated from my friends by my then-boyfriend. Plus, the company I worked for was showing signs of selling--my job was by no means secure, and especially not so because they had a history of firing pregnant women in my position exactly two months after their return from maternity leave.
The point was, I was desperate, and I was scared, and I didn't know that the father of my child was a monster, so I tried to make it work, thinking that my daughter, surely, needed a father figure. And for his part, he seemed remorseful. He promised to go to counseling and agreed to certain conditions and, again, said all of the right things.
And then he started drinking. And screaming. And demanding. And...threatening, and then doing.
But at that point, I was alone. I was halfway through a complicated pregnancy that made me incredibly ill with small town doctors who were gaslighting me and not helping me, the writing was on the wall at work and I was enduring slander and drama there, and I had no one and nowhere else to turn. So I pushed through. I tried to leave him when I was about 22 weeks along. I enlisted the help of my friend, who supported me, and I thought I was home free.
But that night was one of the most horrific nights of my life. The only person I've been able to tell about it was my lawyer, a year later, when I went in to make sure my daughter was protected. By the way, he's not in either of our lives at all and will never be. I have and will continue to do everything in my power to keep him away from us. Not that he could find us if he tried.
Things only got worse after that night. and at some point. I told a trusted friend and my mom (breaking no contact) that I intended to leave. Safely, and in time. I started freelancing again and looking for other jobs, and I played house the best I could to keep myself and baby safe. I ended up being ordered to go on bed rest two weeks early, And then I gave birth, and my daughter and I both almost died.
It was horrific, and traumatic, and sent me into a terrible spiral. It was all I could do to care for my daughter. But it became very quickly apparent that I was running out of time to get her out. And this is where the realization comes in.
His alcoholism and verbal and emotional abuse were increasing in frequency and intensity. He was also growing more violent--even if he was just punching holes in doors. But he was also...weird with our daughter. I did everything I could not to have to leave him alone with her, and she was only left with him twice.
Once, for an hour, because I had to go into work and handle something in the middle of the day. He left my 1mo infant daughter lying, asleep, on her belly, on a very high bed with loose blankets and pillows, alone in our apartment while he moved something from one apartment to another. I have no idea for how long.
I tried to breastfeed, at first, and there were issues with that so she was waking up often and hard to put back to sleep. We later found out she wasn't getting enough milk because of a tongue tie and started supplementing with formula at two weeks. I have heavy suspicions that I was also underproducing because of stress and emotional duress. One night, he was frustrated because even though I was sleeping in the living room and taking care of the baby while he slept in the bed, he couldn't sleep, and blamed me for being an incompetent mother. He took her from me, and put her to sleep with him in bed. I knew he was drunk. I went in to check on her--I was anxious, I had done tons of research on safe sleep. He saw me, screamed at me, and then blamed me for waking her up.
Later, he would try to put rice cereal in her bottle and make those "knockout bottles" that are incredibly dangerous when I wasn't looking. There were a number of weird incidents like this which he chalked up to being older than me, and being the way he'd raised his other two babies. And back then I really thought it was just all apart of the abuse--targeted at me.
We got out when she was five months old and today she's a sweet, happy, healthy kid.
But, and honestly maybe this should have occurred to me before, I can not shake the heaviness of the conclusion that remembering all of these incidents has brought me to; he wanted her to die. I mean, I guess in a roundabout way he expressed this. He started berating me for not getting an abortion almost immediately after I passed the legal time to get one done where I'm from (they're completely illegal now but were not at the time). I'm not anti-abortion, by any means, but it felt like it came out of nowhere. He also refused to have any part in naming her or preparing for her arrival--even in raising her. I always thought that these were just manipulation tactics. That he was just saying malicious things to get under my skin.
Now that I'm writing this, I also remember one of the last texts he sent to me over a year ago, alleging that he had shot and killed someone before. It wasn't an active threat to me. It was just part of a psychosis spiral where he was trying to explain that we could live safely with him in his new apartment even though it wasn't in a safe area or something, and so I really just discarded it. I didn't see him anymore. He didn't know where we lived. He was only allowed to contact me still because I was building a case against him. It didn't seem like it mattered.
Now? Today? I think that if I hadn't left with her when I did, we might both be dead already. More than that, I think that if I had not had her and I had ended up back with him--or back in another abusive relationship with anyone else--that I would certainly be dead. I might have been the one to physically take us both and leave, but she saved me first.
So that's it. That's what I've been struggling with. And I haven't really fully processed what that means for me, yet, except that I've made another appointment with my lawyer to take additional safety measures for my daughter. But emotionally? I'm not sure. I'll have to sit with this, and I just needed to say it somewhere. If you read all of this, thank you.
tldr; i left my ex when my daughter by him was 5 months old, and now she's nearly 3 years old and we are no contact with him, but i've recently been hit with memories of actions he took when she was an infant that lead me to believe he may have been subconsciously or even actively trying to take her life

It's been over a month since my operation, and my spice tolerance has decreased significantly. It's all because of the soft part of the roof of my mouth. I experience a lot of dryness if I talk a lot. If I eat spicy food, a white coloring appears. With foods that are relatively hot, which I used to be able to eat, I can’t eat them anymore, or these cyst-like things will appear, though they usually go away overnight. I'm very confused by these symptoms. My throat is fine, and the area where my tonsils were operated on is fine too. It's just the roof of my mouth; did they take a layer of skin?

Believe it or not, there was a time when people actually talked to each other—shocking, especially for the younger generation, right?
But kidding aside, there's a grain of truth in that jest. I'm a firm believer that genuine connections start with meaningful conversations. I'm on the lookout for someone who appreciates the beauty of communication as much as I do.
About Me: I'm the kind of person who finds joy in learning about people from all walks of life. Whether it's through the pages of a book, the scenes of a movie, or engaging in conversation, there's always something to discover about the human condition. I believe in making every moment count.
I've been told I have a knack for turning ordinary conversations into something a bit more exciting. If you enjoy a good laugh, playful banter, and a dash of charm, we might just hit it off.
I'm searching for someone who knows how to keep a conversation interesting. If you appreciate witty banter, love sharing your favourite cheesy jokes, and aren't shy about throwing in a compliment or two, you might be the one I'm looking for.
If you're ready to embark on a communication adventure filled with laughter, curiosity, and a hint of flirtation, send me a message. Let's see where our conversation takes us and if we can make each other's day a little brighter.
About You:
I do have a type. Currently working on my overall fitness journey during bouts of depression (somewhere between fit and dad bod?). I'm looking for a partnesub who is somewhat in shape or thin. Apparently, someone once told me that I have a thing for dark-haired women with big lips—go figure!
A bit about me: I'm pretty open, dark-skinned, 5'7, black hair, brown eyes, working in IT. Feel free to bounce ideas off me to see if there's a match. I enjoy wordplay, encouragement, and, of course, seeing you. Intellectual stimulation is crucial, and effort goes a long way. Currently learning guitar for fun (what a journey!). I'm pretty much an open book.
If any of this resonates with you, don't hesitate to reach out. Pouring yourself out there isn't easy, but to make sure you've read this far, please include your favourite drink or any books you've read lately in your message!

In 2024, cold calling and door to door essentially.
I keep seeing people all over saying to go for jobs that are majority if not all inbound, and if you're in one of these roles that's wonderful, but for those of us laid off in the past year or so looking for new work, even the bigger more established companies that would provide at least some low quality leads to follow up with are now expecting reps to source all their own leads.
How do you do this? As someone who has gone down every rabbit hole, networking event, cold calling, door to door, cold email, etc. is that there's no secret or magic cheat code, you have to literally just get your offer in front as many relevant biz owners as possible, nearly impossible in todays market where everyone where wants you to fucking buy something.
Research? Lovely for warm leads and current customers you want to upsell to.
Cold? There's a decent chance your data is inaccurate or outdated so you gotta just brute force get out there and act like a literal human billboard, popup ad, flyer first, you are the outer most ring of the sales funnel, research is just a procrastination tool if you're going cold, save it for warm leads or better yet warm QUALIFIED leads.
Will there be ppl that succeed? Absolutely. But if you're not willing to essentially act as a business owner creating a book of biz from scratch right now, you should probably look into other work.
Part of what all this has taught me is that the glamorization of sales and entrepreneurship is just that, ppl say anyone can do it but if that was true everyone would and be rich and sexy and wonderful, but it simply isn't the case.
Pets.com was an 00's bust while chewy is a tech darling, a lot of it is timing and being in the right place, it's not dependable and your ability to go with the flow will determine how far you go in sales imho, but I'm just some Reddit rando so obvs take this all w a grain of salt

This is for those that may have the urge to fix it yourself and know that ointments and cryotherapy leaves massive scars with the equivalency of spreading it just like extracting yourself because the doctors don’t know what it is unless you tell them. Even then, they don’t know how to treat it because it’s not as normal as genital warts or herpes. So take this advice as you’d like but understand. Everyone is different and everyone has different immune systems and have more or less MC then other people. I’ve noticed MC can be shaped differently for different people but generally speaking, all have a “pearl.”
How to extract:
So when you extract, take the circle from the acne tool and go over the MC as if you were to pop a pimple, then pressed down hard, and slowly drag UNDER the MC. This ensures that the thin skin is torn along with the pearl. I personally found success with using this method while wearing gloves in immediately taking a alcohol soaked swab to the bleeding area. Dispose of the pearl separately from everything. clean acne utensil each and every time you self extract a singular MC. Using the needle part of the utensil, can or may cause spreading through the bleeding. In which I don’t recommend. Clean wounds with 91% isopropyl alcohol and Bactine (separate swabs). Change out gloves for each and everytime you do these steps (will go through a lot). Cover wounds with hydrocolloid patches (used for acne). Leave on for 2 days and then remove to let dry out. You can shower with them on. Shower using Hibiclens. Don’t touch extracted spots with towel. Use paper towels to dry. Don’t touch spots with general towel when drying your body. Highly recommend powdering spots with baby powder if in genital area due to the moisture. Moisture and uncleanliness helps MC thrive like Genital Warts.
This method worked for me, along with taking Zinc pills to help boost my immune system. I’ve had one pop up randomly after 5 months of clearance but using the method above. They do not stand a chance against you. This is a mental battle, just make sure you’re ready to do whatever you can to accomplish this “chicken pox” derived infection.
Best of luck to you all!!

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As a member of Fate Gaming, you’ll have access to our Discord server and game servers, as well as the opportunity to participate in events, tournaments, and giveaways. Whether you’re a seasoned gamer or just starting out, our community is the perfect place to connect with others who share your passion for gaming.
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All Fate members are active within 45 days. Many guilds, both small and large are inactive & lack quality members. Don’t gamble your time on communities with no track record or those that accept anyone willing to join.
Are you in more than one Discord server? No Problem! Many communities ban you for being in other clans, in Fate we recognize people have friends across multiple servers and are fine with you being in more than one gaming community.
­LOOKING FOR RECRUITS
Our community is currently looking for mature individuals who are 18 years of age or older. We are an international gaming community, but have our strongest presence in North America and Europe. We are not looking for players who desire hardcore game play, are angered easily, or who are looking to boss others around.
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Hello there!
I would need some new insights/opinion about this topic from people who also practice spirituality/meditation and are familiar with this spiritual concept. I'd like to present my own insight first and then gather different opinions, it would personally be very helpful to me.
Things that are up for discussion (and also my own insights after practicing meditation for a long time and learning from different spiritual teachings) - feel free to comment on them:

1. If existence/ego/our bodies is an illusion then why don't we just stop drinking or eating...? It's all an illusion anyway.
2. Since everything is an illusion and nothing is real including psychical existence, then anyone who is a serial killer is not responsible for what they've done or the victims family they ruined with their actions at all.
3. I've read different insights on this same topic from various spiritual masters. While some completely deny our psychical form and teach us to destroy/remove our ego and to forget ourselves as a separate self, others teach that the outer and inner are part of the same whole, and that one is just as real as the other - claiming that that's the true wholeness. And denying one or the other either leads to material or spiritual poverty.
4. Down below I'll copy some quotes from a spiritual master that's speaks about this particular dynamic.
5. My own opinion is that not every teaching made in spirituality in realization will always stay the same or can be applied in current reality/developed society or in the upcoming future. We are made to evolve in psychical and spiritual realm.
6. What is your own interpretation about completely removing your ego or denying it existence? Can we use it as a tool, is it an essential part for everyday living, our ego has its own function in our family, work, and so on.. Is it automatically wrong to have it and should we deny it existence?
7. Do you know any quotes (from any spiritual master) connected to the topic, that do not completely condemn the ego and rather describes it as a useful tool for daily functioning and living in society, while also using it as a part of our individual roles in society?

Here are the quotes from an enlightened master about the outer vs inner:
"I teach you the whole man. The inner is real – as real as the outer. And the outer is as significant as the spiritual. You have to attain to a certain balance, a balance in which both are equally complementary to each other. This has not happened up to now. But unless this happens, there is no possibility for any humanity to exist in the world."
“And a mobility…just as you come out of your home and go back inside the home, your coming out of your being and going into your being should be as simple as that.”
“Whenever you are needed in the market, you should be in the market with your totality. The market cannot destroy your soul. And anybody who has preached to the world to renounce it, was against humanity. Neither does going inward, being in a meditative silence, take away anything from the outside world. You don’t have to condemn it, and you don’t have to declare it illusory. It should have been so simple to see, that I am amazed why thousands of years have passed, and still it is not a recognized fact around the whole world.”
"The outer cannot exist without the inner. Neither can the inner exist without the outer. They are both two sides of the same coin."
“I cannot believe it – if the outside is unreal, whom are you teaching? If the outside world is unreal then what are you renouncing, where are you going? To the Himalayas? The Himalayas are as much outside as M.G. Market!”
"These two thousand years of slavery are not just an accident. The East was prepared for it. It has accepted it – what does it matter, in a dream, whether you are a master or a slave? What does it matter if in dream you are being served with delicious food or you are hungry?"
"Every day you need the outside food and every day you need the outside water, and still the outside is illusory?"
Feel free to share your own insights from your spiritual journey.
Much appreciated!

Hello there!
I would need some new insights/opinion about this topic from people who also practice spirituality/meditation and are familiar with this spiritual concept. I'd like to present my own insight first and then gather different opinions, it would personally be very helpful to me.
Things that are up for discussion (and also my own insights after practicing meditation for a long time and learning from different spiritual teachings) - feel free to comment on them:

1. If existence/ego/our bodies is an illusion then why don't we just stop drinking or eating...? It's all an illusion anyway.
2. Since everything is an illusion and nothing is real including psychical existence, then anyone who is a serial killer is not responsible for what they've done or the victims family they ruined with their actions at all.
3. I've read different insights on this same topic from various spiritual masters. While some completely deny our psychical form and teach us to destroy/remove our ego and to forget ourselves as a separate self, others teach that the outer and inner are part of the same whole, and that one is just as real as the other - claiming that that's the true wholeness. And denying one or the other either leads to material or spiritual poverty.
4. Down below I'll copy some quotes from a spiritual master that's speaks about this particular dynamic.
5. My own opinion is that not every teaching made in spirituality in realization will always stay the same or can be applied in current reality/developed society or in the upcoming future. We are made to evolve in psychical and spiritual realm.
6. What is your own interpretation about completely removing your ego or denying it existence? Can we use it as a tool, is it an essential part for everyday living, our ego has its own function in our family, work, and so on.. Is it automatically wrong to have it and should we deny it existence?
7. Do you know any quotes (from any spiritual master) connected to the topic, that do not completely condemn the ego and rather describes it as a useful tool for daily functioning and living in society, while also using it as a part of our individual roles in society?

Here are the quotes from an enlightened master about the outer vs inner:
"I teach you the whole man. The inner is real – as real as the outer. And the outer is as significant as the spiritual. You have to attain to a certain balance, a balance in which both are equally complementary to each other. This has not happened up to now. But unless this happens, there is no possibility for any humanity to exist in the world."
“And a mobility…just as you come out of your home and go back inside the home, your coming out of your being and going into your being should be as simple as that.”
“Whenever you are needed in the market, you should be in the market with your totality. The market cannot destroy your soul. And anybody who has preached to the world to renounce it, was against humanity. Neither does going inward, being in a meditative silence, take away anything from the outside world. You don’t have to condemn it, and you don’t have to declare it illusory. It should have been so simple to see, that I am amazed why thousands of years have passed, and still it is not a recognized fact around the whole world.”
"The outer cannot exist without the inner. Neither can the inner exist without the outer. They are both two sides of the same coin."
“I cannot believe it – if the outside is unreal, whom are you teaching? If the outside world is unreal then what are you renouncing, where are you going? To the Himalayas? The Himalayas are as much outside as M.G. Market!”
"These two thousand years of slavery are not just an accident. The East was prepared for it. It has accepted it – what does it matter, in a dream, whether you are a master or a slave? What does it matter if in dream you are being served with delicious food or you are hungry?"
"Every day you need the outside food and every day you need the outside water, and still the outside is illusory?"
Feel free to share your own insights from your spiritual journey.
Much appreciated!

After an agonizing week of waiting, I just got the result back that I am positive for HSV-2. I am weirdly calm because of all of the reading I have done since my symptoms started occurring. So this is a coming to grips with reality post, as well as a thank you to all of you that contribute to these threads.
I do have to have some tough conversations with people I care about soon, but I feel more prepared with all of the knowledge about HSV I have now.
It’s almost amazing how ill equipped people are to prevent transmission, and how even if you consider yourself someone who uses safe sex practices (like me, I limited the number of partners, used barrier methods, blah blah blah) you are still at risk. All it took was a little skin with someone who didn’t know they had it.
So anyways, hi. Guess I’m part of the club now. Will they be serving any refreshments?

I have been looking 11 months now; over 1600 applications.
525 rejections, (about) 900 ghosting me. 55 interviews by phone or video, 4 in-person. of those 4, only one I wasn't the best candidate (a woman with a law license and industry connections). I also got feedback. this was the best interview I ever had in my life.
I am depressed, burnt out, short temper, and hate humanity. I had worked through ptsd years ago, finally got past it, and it no longer affected my life. the hardest part was learning to let go of righteous anger.
I looked in the mirror the other day and thought I am looking like I was rode hard and put away wet. I have always looked much younger than I actually am. my hair seems to have thinned, my skin not as smooth. I had some health scares and issues that I have a zero risk for.
I thought about an article that I read about how us presidents look before they take office and after. for every 4 years in office, they age 10 years. I attribute the toll on my body to this job hunting process. I am trying to keep positive, I don't want to hate humanity, but that is so hard to do when I am being given such justification to do so.
my take away is that you really need to take better care of yourself when job hunting. do not neglect yourself.
has anyone else had the job search take a toll on your body or health?

Courtois has a trash can instead of a heart. If he had been a noble and fair man, he would have refused to play and would have insisted that Lunin play. He would tell Ancelotti that he will have no part in this treachery and injustice. He would admit, that Lunin has surpassed him in his prime and only conceded one goal at Etihad, where Courtois has conceded four goals. But Courtois is an envious, mean and pathetic rat. This is how he will now be remembered, and this is why he will never be considered a legend.
He left Chelsea like a rat, he was kicked out of the national team in disgrace like a rat, he was cursed by the fans of Atlético for being a rat, and in Real Madrid he will now be cursed by the fans like a rat too.
Courtois is the only football player in the history of football who is despised everywhere he has ever played.
Lunin has a faithful, loving wife that cheers for him, while Courtois only has divorces and affairs with the wives of his teammates. That’s speaks volumes. A rat at work, a rat in the family. A rat in essence and in life. It’s a shame that such a worthless disgrace for all humanity plays at Real Madrid.
I know, that 99.9% of Real Madrid fans are with me. We are the REAL Real Madrid. We are the social madridism. We will not forget and we will not forgive. We are ready to DIE for our martyr Andrei Lunin. Brothers from Madrid, gather up and start a riot at Bernabeu! We will be supporting you online and with our prayers! We will burn this new stadium to the ground, but we will not stand by and let our club be disgraced! Hala Madrid!

I'm making this post because of my constant upset of not loving the biggest mmorpgs on the market.
As we know, the most played MMORPGs right now are World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. They are much similar as they have MAGNIFICENT endgame dungeons/raid battles, mount/skin/reputation/achievements farming and PvP.
But my point is, the only really useful content I see from these is the part of the dungeons and raids. If I say this to any FFXIV or WoW player, prob they won't like it. But after the experience I had playing a specific MMORPG for 3 years in my childhood, my eyes just can't shine and I don't get the same dopamine hit while playing these current MMOs.
I've been thinking about this for a long, long, LONG time, and now, I think I found an answer.
The name of the game I played was Grand Fantasia. And the reason I think I used to love so much this game and can't like the actual ones is the RPG element. In MY opinion, you can't develop your character that much in these 2 games. In FFXIV, when you reach the max level, the only thing you can get to your character is the highest ilvl gear from raids, and that's it. In WoW, you have a little more customization, while you can select from different secondary stats on your gear, trinkets always have a special and unique effect, some other items have a cool special effect, you have set effects, you can insert gems to them, enchant, and you have the cool legendary weapons, always with special effects. You can also change your masteries the way you want. But as WoW is a competitive PvE game, all the customization I said might just be an illusion, as you will be always following an optimal guide for efficiency.
In Grand Fantasia you had an insane amount of stuff you could do to develop your character, and I think I should list every possible thing I remember to make here the best comparison I can.
With a level 80 character (max was 90) you had:
-> Many set options, every single one with different special effects. You had the orange crafted set, the PvP set, the legendary set (that was a kind of top tier crafted set), the GvG set, the alchemist set (that you had some peculiar ways of crafting it), the purple sets (detailed ahead).
-> Many legendary weapons options. Pretty much similar to WoW's legendaries, but with many options to EVERY class at every 5 levels after level 50. These weapons gaves a lot of personality to the classes who used them. Mages after lvl 70 were insane in this game, they got a staff that gave them permanent crowd control immunity, and a chance to activate his extra effect when hit, reducing all physical damage taken in 50% for 12 seconds.
-> Purple items, that was an option of gear who had no special effect, but had a bit more base stats in comparison to legendaries, and special gem slots, giving them complete exclusive and interesting effects at your choice.
-> Getting some equipments were hard, but it didn't end there. You had many extended progress you could do to them. You could manually open slots in you gear, 6 to two-handed weapons, 3 to single-handed weapons, 2 to body, and 1 to the rest of the set. You could RNG enchant the items, that would bring a good random effect from a specific selection. You could upgrade the items from +0 to +18 (after +7 was expensive, +18 players were like gods among men), ugprading them also added a visual effect, making them more and more badass. You could also level up your items untill your actual character level, selecting the specific stats you went to boost.
-> Different mounts. They didn't have always the same movespeed, who would make them a simply reskin. So you really liked when you get a +100% movespeed mount. You also had the combat mount, an insanely expensive mount that you could use in combat, and gave you +75% movespeed. The combat mounts also could be leveled up untill your character level, giving you boosts while using it.
-> RNG enchanting skins. You could fuse skins, giving one of your choice a random rarity color with RNG stats. Getting what you went, gaves an insane amount of dopamine.
-> Mastery system. You could prevent you character from gaining XP to give this XP to a list of special statuses, which varied from class to class. This list had around 16 statuses to develop, and after that, you could select about 4 to level until 15.
-> Talents system. Similar to WoW, but much less complex. They only gave you the stats you choose, and you could make a combo, giving a bit of extra effects. These talents also had many levels, so you had to farm them to the highest level you could.
-> Useful title system. The way of acquiring them was similar to WoW and FFXIV. It was after completing determined objectives. But in this game they gave you extra stats, while every title had a rarity color, making them another useful and rewarding farm.
-> Reputation system similar to WoW. But this gave you useful potions for combat, crafting pets, titles, pet skins, and some other useful things.
-> Collection system. You had an account-wide chest that could store skins, mounts, legendary and purple weapon/gear. After collecting many points of a determined category, you could select a bonus stat to use like a title. This system was hard, expensive, and gave you an INSANE boost to your character, so extremely rewarding.
Almost everything about the game you could accomplish with gold. So if you didn't like a dungeon farming for mats, you could simply buy them from the auction house. While there were MANY useful materials in the game, people had almost infinite ways to farm gold in AH, giving you an insane diversity in gameplay.
Even with all these collectibles, you could effectively FINISH your character. In this topic I need to mention another MMORPG, Black Desert Online. After all I said you could do to progress your character, you might had tought the game was just an infinite grind like BDO, but it was not. As you could get everything with gold, the hardest thing was creating an effective way to earn your gold. But after that, your life simply became much easier. Creating a high level gold maker character in this game to boost your low level character to the level 40 battleground ie was so much satisfying.
After all that said, let's talk about the answer I said I found after much thinking.
I listed above the positive aspects of the game to me. Don't get me wrong, the game wasn't perfect. His dungeons in comparison to WoW and FFXIV, were RIDICULOUS. While you have many mechanics to learn and cool stuff from the top MMOs, in Grand Fantasia you had bosses with patterns like: reflect all damage for 5 seconds, and that's it. PvP battlegrounds were massively unbalanced untill you got strong enough to solo carry your team or even compete with enemy players.
With this I concluded that the most fun thing in an MMORPG is the act of progressing your character. Even if the dungeons are simple and the PvP is just ok. These aspects are mere ways of checking how much you effectively progressed.
In WoW, the endgame is basically spamming M+ and Raids. That is much fun and it is works perfectly fine IMO. But if you want to login and do other useful stuff to progress your character, you simply have none. FFXIV works the same, but without M+.

It started about 6 months ago. Although i’ve had a similar patch before around my belt line, I assume friction has something to do with it.
All the areas of the flareups are where my clothes would rub up against my body the most. Shoulders, hips, tummy, belt line. I have smaller ones on my legs.
They are mostly like the picture above, crepe-y and red, sometimes flaky. When they heal, they heal from the inside out, like in the photo. My skin will have some clear spots in the middle of the patch, which I found odd.
It doesn’t itch much, it does sometimes at night.
I haven’t tried a whole lot in terms of lotions.
I tried eczema goldbond, it didn’t do anything. I tried hydrocortisone, it made the patches burn and flaky, and very itchy. I stopped because it made it difficult to sleep, I don’t know if it’s part of the healing process because I honestly didn’t give it much of a chance other than like 2 applications.
It also started around the time I started taking testosterone (I’m trans), it also started around the same time I started a new job after a long unemployment stint. And the movements of this job are very repetitive and I could physically feel my skin being irritated by clothes rubbing. Idk if either of those things have any correlation.
I tried switched detergent to something for sensitive skin and scent less, it didn’t make much of a difference except make my clothes a bit more comfortable.

Conner sat listening to music while the history class droned on endlessly. What is the point of learning history? War never changes, right? It seemed tedious. What does history have to do with how powerful and cool a mech is, or how sweet it is to be a mech knight?
"When the darkness came from outside, only the humans knew what was happening. It was war, war from outside the peaceful galaxy. War that had started when the Milky Way first showed the twinkling signs of life. One insane intelligence, old as time, would not tolerate another living galaxy. Each must be consumed by its own weight, and only death may prevail.
Humans instinctively knew this, as the chosen ones, the T-Cells of the galaxy. When their alien friends started getting ravaged and marauded by the scouts of the Dark Beings, humans responded, retaliating with unbridled ferocity and driving the otherwise unstoppable enemies back into the darkness.
It was a frightening time, and it only got worse when the massive cloud of shade was identified as the locust fleet that had sailed for billions of years, the Silent Empty Eternal Darkness Sailors, as they called themselves. They were nothing but dormant hives, sleeping forever, ready to wake and kill and self-destruct, make the galaxy dead. They could have done so, but humans stood in their way, an unpredictable enemy, capable of war.
That is why human worlds were directly targeted by their commandos. Massive singular monsters of ungodly visage were deployed to human worlds, spawning armies of miniature satraps of the horrors, to pillage and assault human worlds, turning them into hellscapes of death and destruction. The alien friends of the humans did not sit entirely idle, they helped by selling powerful new weapons and armor to the humans who kept retaliating against the Dark Beings with ever more powerful and vengeful mech."
Conner perked up at the part about the mech. Various famous chassis flashed across the screen in cool paint and poses with alien worlds in their backdrop and accounting for their neatly colored camouflage plates. He paid attention to the famous battles, where humans had defeated the Dark Beings in honorable combat.
"Conner, do you know what made your clan's father and mother such great mech knights?" his teacher asked.
"They learned from their mistakes." Conner sighed.
"They learned from other people's mistakes. They studied all of our defeats, all the times the Dark Beings annihilated entire battalions or overwhelmed our defenses. It is a much heavier volume. We learn little from victory except that now the enemy will try to better themselves again. When they win, they use the same tactics again - that's when we win. We don't use the same tactics again, for they will be ready when we try. We conceptualize and learn their thoughts, through their actions. They do not understand us. It is our only advantage, for each progression of our tech is met by another evolution of their monsters. Someday we will not be able to make a stronger bullet to match their stronger armor. We must anticipate a limit to this war, and fight accordingly."
"I can only anticipate getting into a mech and fighting bugs!" Conner had said. His teacher had given him that look. Nobody else got that look. Conner got it everywhere. He thought back to those days, he'd really thought he'd see action, in a mech, fighting bugs.
The rest of his class went on to become mech knights. All of them had seen action. Of course, none of them were left alive, and few of their mech were salvaged. Except, Pharlie.
Her mech was the third in a row of ones hit by a single plasma beam of the enemy. While the first two were instantly blown to atomic dust, her mech was only knocked over and set on fire. The ejection seat in the cockpit had the one and a half seconds needed to egress the mech knight safely.
She'd spent some time in relieved-of-duty status on Maranda Beach before she insisted they give her something to do. They quickly evaluated her and decided she wasn't fit for duty in a mech. Something about 'shutting down the Berserker Program' and 'protocols preventing reinstating anyone who qualifies to pilot a Berserker Mech'. Not happening under Admiral Khaspa.
"How's getting into a mech and fighting bugs, Conner? Still anticipating it?" Pharlie asked her old classmate.
"You are under my command. Watch your tone, I run a cruel shift." Conner grumbled.
"Aye, Skipper." Pharlie cringed, realizing the bureaucrat Conner had no sense of humor anymore. She decided to make it her personal mission to work on that. Conner with no humor didn't sound fun.
That scene in the classroom was a long time ago, but it was with Conner like it just happened. He hated Pharlie, because she stood for his humiliation, and wanted to humiliate her, but then he hated himself for feeling that way. He resolved to leave her be because he didn't want to feed his own calloused resentments.
"We've got work to do. We are reassigned to military surplus salvage. This job just keeps getting better. I used to think I would somehow be tested on a battlefield to save the galaxy, but out here I just get tested by boredom. I don't even feel the shame of these janitorial jobs anymore, I'm numb to it." Conner said to Pharlie, the next time they spoke. Pharlie realized he was trying to be nice to her and asked him:
"You'd rather be dead, or be me?" She wondered.
"Yeah. You don't know what it is like flying around delivering stuff and counting crap. I hate it. I could've made an actual difference." Conner complained personally.
Pharlie smiled and said: "You'd have made no more difference than the rest of us did. You don't know what a victory against the bugs costs, do you? You think you just have to stand there bravely shooting back and if you die, oh well, otherwise it's all glory. It's never like that. It hurts, it hurts a lot, because you don't die. Everyone else does. And for what? We just play the same game again next weekend, and it never changes."
"That's war." Conner nodded. "What am I doing? I bring supplies to remote outposts. It's pointless."
"Not anymore, they reassigned us to go pick up supplies, remember?" Pharlie pointed out.
"Oh yeah - don't remind me, just when I though my life couldn't be more tedious or pointless." Conner fell silent, realizing he sounded weak and small, complaining so much. He wished he was stoic, but he had a chance to confide in Pharlie, and he had taken it. Pharlie said:
"You're right. But let's make the most of it." And she smiled, so Conner decided that letting someone know just how miserable he was wasn't entirely a bad thing. He just wished he could somehow just be good with it, without having to use drugs or somesuch. He really felt like his combat skills were going to waste, sitting on a ship for long years, asleep and going around picking up supplies. As Pharlie had pointed out, they weren't even delivering them anymore, new mission, go get all that stuff the aliens made over the centuries for the war effort.
Rhema loomed in the distance. "We are picking up artwork on this world. Are you kidding me? The manifest shows it is categorized as artwork. So this community of variety-hour aliens have compiled some kind of treasure trove of fine art. This is asinine." Pharlie offered.
"That's enough of that." Conner chastised her formally on the deck, but he was smiling as he said it. He loved having her there stating his real feelings. "The mission is to acquire this propaganda, it is deemed useful to the war effort."
The world was like melted orange-cream covered in brown fog, a desolate radiated landscape below testified to the destructive power of the Unknown. The same Dark Beings had taken shots from the darkness with precise aim and killed some of the older aliens, such as the Frendsikeel. Long ago the peaceful otter people had lived happily on Rhema, inviting trade via broadcast.
After meeting an assortment of artist-aliens wearing shimmering dark-colored robes and cowls, the human delegate collecting military surplus accepted the crates of fine art, packed for their shipping across the stars, trusted to nobody except the human military to safely transport it.
"Conner." A call came in from Supply Command Unk Gheldin, Conner's commander. "You just earned me a promotion. The patrons of Rhema have instituted a check as a downpayment on our services. It's enough to build an entire warship. These aliens are loaded and just became our daddy. You're doing good work out there, the war effort thanks you!"
"I'll be sure and handle with care." Conner saluted diligently.
The next world was Arienta, populated by what was left of aliens who looked like huge anthropomorphic tarantulas.
"We've perfected a drug that can induce Star Sleep in humans. They said it was not possible for such belligerent minds to Star Sleep, but our colony of volunteers have allowed us to test every kind of euphoria and pleasure-inducing drug we could on them. Most species wouldn't have such a supply of volunteers, but humans come from far and wide to live as our guests, accepting our hospitality for their entire lives, saying they don't ever want to leave." The high priestess of the Blue Light Watchers, Rhoxa Billi, explained the doped humans lounging around everywhere.
"They look like slackers, sir." Pharlie said loudly.
"That's enough of that." Conner admonished her, but was smiling, glad she said what he was thinking. He faced the high priestess formally and said:
"We'll take this drug, and thank you for your hard work." Conner waved his fingers in the spiritual way to show he knew the sacred gratitude of the Blue Light Watchers. He'd studied how to do it on the way over, practicing it for days until he was confident he could do it right.
The next stop was Basilik, an industrialized wasteland where the Sunder had hundreds of thousands of giant humanoid machines, in loincloths, working tirelessly to drag massive monolithic super metal beams across rollers, up ramps to assemble indestructible mech chassis to sell to the humans.
"Sir, we take shipments from here all the time. What are we here for?" Pharlie asked.
"Not a what, a whom." Conner said.
The casket of the revered Exalted Inquisitor Eshka Layenna was loaded on board, but it was not made by Sunder. No, it was tech from some other society, preserving her eternally in a state of dormancy, a kind of molecular stasis.
"We're taking her back to the ones who put her in there. They have a gift for us. She is our gift for them. The Sunder have agreed to this, in the name of the war effort."
The Desperado star sailed to the nearby Kriesene system where an old gravity cloud that looked like a planet had hundreds of planet-sized moons dancing around it like an insane ballroom.
"The shoals around their world will make this somewhat dangerous to traverse. We have a map, given to us by the Sunder, so we should be fine." Conner told Pharlie.
"Danger, eh? Kinda like it, don't you?" Pharlie teased.
"That's enough of that." Conner said without any real command in it, smiling.
The Skiesene had a moon-sized space station named Thoughtfulness where they conducted much of their trade with each other. They looked like dark-shelled nightmare creatures, some kind of H.R. Giger prophecy had remembered these creatures long before humans had met them.
Conner witnessed their massed warriors, in stasis, embroidered stole draped over them, crouched motionless atop pedestals with twenty-yard tall tapestries depicting their many victories in bloody combat. They sat there in a great hall in their various forms and armors, but always hideous monsters, reminding him of the Dark Beings vaguely, except devoid of insectoid features.
The Skiesene were delighted by the delivery of their goddess, Eshka Layenna. A time without bloodshed was declared, and the Skiesene offered a shipment of their finest warriors, in egg form.
The Skiesene Khan grinned with uncannily human-looking teeth, but in its grin was a sharpened beak that could pierce the solid dome that was their head, with no eyes or ears, at least not in one place, for they had sensory all over their bodies.
"Uh, thanks. We could always use some special, uh, special forces." Conner accepted the eggs, as he was under orders to do. They were preserved until called, using a key to deactivate the stasis they were in. Then they would serve the orders in their minds, to obey their human commanders.
"I hope they don't have to facehug us and chest burst us." Pharlie chuckled.
"That's enough of that." Conner told her, smiling.
The last stop was the world of the Beebee, aliens who looked like cats wearing incredibly fancy clothing.
"We've tailored new uniforms for the human armies. You'll like them." The Master of Design, top official of the Beebee, told Conner, purring as he went.
Conner put one hand on his elbow and one holding his chin, trying to keep a straight face, when he saw the uniforms.
"They are a little small, don't you think?" Conner looked at the feline models in the uniforms meant for human soldiers.
"And kinda derpy with all those frills and colors?" Pharlie offered further criticism.
The Master of Design seemed to think the uniforms were being complimented, anticipating no other response. It took a moment to sink in that the humans were mocking all their hard work.
"All of the specifications for armored clothing were met. These uniforms will preserve your body temperature in very extreme conditions and will slow ballistic projectiles so that they cannot penetrate the cloth, but instead have their kinetics splattered outward and also the colors shift to the mood of the wearer. You can make it camouflage if you like. We worried that human sizes made dispensing millions of these uniforms impractical compared to making an adjustable size. Try one on." The Master of Design was not offended, but stood his ground, his hair puffing up making him look sophisticated and official. His whiskers twitched handsomely at the end and he gave a prolonged blink.
"They still look silly, why so many frills?" Pharlie chuckled.
"That's enough of that." Conner sighed.
The humans were about to leave and board their ship when Conner spotted an ancient mech standing next to the star port.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The tomb of Drastic Conner Mcfarley, the mech knight who defended our world, surprising a lone scout of the Dark Beings and engaging it in single one-on-one combat, saving our world. Drastic Conner Mcfarley died in his mech during the battle. The scout retreated and left us unharmed." The Master of Design said.
"Why'd it leave?" Conner asked, but recalled what his clan father had done. He awaited the answer he knew:
"Drastic Conner Mcfarley disarmed it, but left its capacity to retreat intact. It is believed he deliberately used this measure of engagement, in order to ensure the enemy would not retaliate by bombarding our world. When one of them dies, the world they die on gets destroyed. He might have survived the battle if he'd just killed it when he had the chance. We know this. He sacrificed himself to save us."
"That's right." Conner nodded. He and Pharlie felt solemn, realizing how far their journey had taken them, all the way to where it had began for them. "We're him, and we won't let you down."

Officials are human, and people make mistakes. That's part of the game. Sometimes, they're going to make the wrong call. It's frustrating, but as long as the wrong calls are balanced, I'm fine. What drives me nuts is that some officials don't seem to really understand the rules of the game or call fouls on one team while saying "I didn't see it" when the other team commits the same offense, like shoving a player to the ground. Our school coach complained about one ref, and whatever organization oversees the referees shrugged it off, saying the coach was just mad because his team lost.