14th: Jud “Fabio” Birza (Nicaragua - Winner)

MOVIE STAR JUD \"FABIO\" BIRZA
u/SMC0629:
Fabio, my second favorite winner of the entire show, he’s just too much fun. He perfectly encapsulates the trainwreck that is Nicaragua, and is the best winner for it as well. He gets to the end by just being himself, a decent amount of luck, physical strength, and a tiny bit of strategy. I know there’s some who seem to think Fabio is brought down by this factor of the edit building him up to know what he was doing, apparently undermining everything before the endgame. If you ask me though, who’s to say he DIDN’T have a tiny strategic mind in there? It seemed perfectly reasonable and in character for me, and it only improved him for me. Love Fabio, so happy he made it this far.
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u/DryBonesKing:
From the same editing program that watered down Mike Gabler from OTT weirdo to a CP-lite strategic player “hiding in plain sight”, we have his prototype - the OTT blond surfer-bro that the players literally changed his name from Jud to Fabio because of how he comes across that gets a watered down CP-lite strategic edit of “they don’t realize I’m actually really smart, y’all!” Quit being cowards CBS! Give us the Goofball Fabio winner edit! #LetFabioBeFuckingWeird
I stand by the Gabler-Fabio comparison, but despite how much I dislike how the CP-edit kills Gabler’s character potential, I think Nicaragua does somehow make it work with Fabio. I blame the cast itself; with people like NaOnka, Marty, Jimmy T, Jane, Shannon, Dan Lembo, and whatever the fuck a “Benry” is supposed to be, “Fabio” almost does come across sane in comparison. As such, he can get these confessionals about pretending to be dumb and it does almost work just because the people he is surrounded by just feel literally ripped from Loony Tunes.
But despite it kinda working here, I do think Fabio is hilarious when he’s just allowed to be this weirdo that no one takes seriously, that ultimatley ends up winning because he’s surrounded by two people who have truly pissed off the jury. He’s a fun character with a truly unique winner’s story, and ultimately, I just REALLY dig his vibe. I wish I had him Top 100. But I also just wish we got a full season with the “real” Fabio as opposed to the occasional cuts to CBS trying to water him down to his most strategically-presentable version. #LetFabioBeFuckingWeird #ReleaseTheFabioOTTWinnerEdit
Overall Rank – 115/821
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u/Zanthosus:
While I’ve never been as big on Nicaragua as many in the rankdown circle, I still appreciate a lot of what the season does and represents. And I think that Fabio’s win is the perfect ending for the clusterfuck of a season that preceded it.
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u/Tommyroxs45:
Fabio’s run on Nicaragua is simply iconic and is a great way for the season to end. Having this likable underdog beast his way to the end under all odds against him is so satisfying. I’m happy he made this endgame even if I personally don’t have him here.
u/Regnisyak1:
Fabio is cool. I have him probably lower than a lot of people comparatively, but he was a ray of sunshine on such a negative season, and his win coming out of nowhere was great. He played the surfer bro role correctly, and while I don’t think he necessarily had the greatest ability to lead a season, he is a necessary feature in making it thrive and giving it such a large cult following here. Glad he made it after a long gap.
Personal Rank: 77/821. 9/10.
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u/ninjedi1:
Jud “Fabio” Birza (1st Place, Nicaragua)
I love Fabio. He’s easily one of my favorite winners of all time. Every time I reevaluate my winners rankings, Fabio at worst will be the third best winner for me. Plus, as an added bonus, he also stars in my favorite B movie of all time, My Stepbrother is a Vampire!?!, which I won on DVD (I’m not joking, who do you think got the screenshot of Fabio for this writeup?). I mentioned in my Colby 3.0 writeup how I consider Nicaragua the last true old school season of Survivor, and that’s because it feels like a big fuck you to strategy, and Fabio plays a huge role in it. Enough of simply stating my love for Fabio’s character, it's time to describe why he’s so great.
The first episode properly sets Fabio up as who he is as a character this season. He gets the first confessional of the season, talking about how dangerous it really is out there and how it's not like the zoo cause it's all real (the first hint of the winner for being the first confessional of the season). He then gets put on the young people tribe, which he says are his people. One of Fabio’s main characteristics gets shown right at the start, where he basically says that they could use a snorkel flipper to collect rainwater, and when Chase said Fabio looked like he would be good in the water, Fabio instantly gets a woodchip in his foot, making him rescind the comment. Shannon then has a confessional where he calls Fabio a dumb blonde, and it instantly cuts to Fabio getting pinched by a crab claw. He then starts calling Fabio his titular nickname…uh…Fabio. This quickly catches on in the tribe, and even at the first challenge where Jeff tries to talk to “Jud”, the tribe corrects him, saying that they only know Fabio. This is Fabio’s first characterization, that he’s a goofball that isn’t taken seriously. While that’s a big characterization, it's not the most important one. The important one is shown in his confessional responding to his new nickname. He comes off surprised that everyone is calling him Fabio, calling the guy a cheeseball, but then says that he doesn’t care what people are going to call him cause he’s going to win the million dollars (in the weirdest audio edit ever) so people can call him Fabio. This highlights his second characterization, and the most important one, he is aware of what other people think of him.
Of course, just because he’s aware of his status doesn’t necessarily mean he has great strategic capabilities. This is shown in the first La Flor vote, where it's looking to be between either Shannon and Brenda, and Fabio was voting for Brenda with Shannon’s. However, Shannon has a huge meltdown at tribal, which clearly would be bad to stick with and would be better to switch sides. However, Fabio ends up sticking with Shannon anyways, voting for Brenda and going “I guess this is the vote?”, which put him on the outs. This would normally be an issue, but since everyone sees him as a goofball, he’s not near the bottom of the pecking order. It also helps that La flor will win every immunity from here on out until the swap happens, and while not happy at first that a swap was happening, he happy with the end result, as he ends up in the majority with the OG La Flor members, although some La Flor members aren’t too happy to work with Fabio strategically. Luckily though, Fabio would successfully make it to merge, where his true game would begin.
I would usually just talk about what Fabio did throughout the merge, but I would rather highlight his interactions with key people from the merge, as they all highlight Fabio’s main characteristics to varying degrees and also help add to his story.
Alina
Alina and Fabio don’t interact too much, as Alina would spend most of her time with Kelly B and then gets swapped onto Espada when the tribe swap happens, separating her from Fabio. But when they return at the merge, Alina ends up getting targeted for her involvement with the missing food fiasco. When she tries to pitch to Fabio to keep her around, he just flat out tells her that people want her out cause she’s dangerous and people think she always has a hidden motive. This does reflect back to earlier in the game, when they were both at the bottom but no one was worried about Fabio and wanted Alina and Kelly B out first. This would carry over all the way over to that moment now. Fabio has more on the pulse in the game than people think as shown here, and he’s able to avoid it due to how he plays up the perception of him.
Marty
On paper, it makes no sense for Marty to vote for Fabio as the winner. How could the most strategic guy on Espada vote for the least strategic person in the game? However, the relationship they develop over time is what really shines. When Marty gets swapped onto La Flor, everyone from OG La Flor either wants him out, or to use him for strategic gain. Fabio is really the only guy from OG La Flor that has his back. Fabio tells Marty about Naonka getting the clue, and when OG La Flor wants to split the vote and get Marty out, Fabio fights for Marty to stay. Even though Marty does trick Fabio by claiming he was a chess grandmaster, he does warm up to Fabio. They even work together at the merge, although that ends up being short-lived as Marty is taken out
Naonka and Purple Kelly
I have to lump these two together since they both highlight the one issue with Fabio’s story. Unfortunately, since both of them quit, they both get slaughtered by the edit, which in turn ends up hurting Fabio’s story since they’re both key to it. With Naonka, she is Fabio’s biggest adversary. She finds his antics way more annoying than funny, and actively yells at him when he complains to her about something, and pretty much dislikes him all around. The feeling appears to be neutral while there on La Flor, but not all is what it seems. When merge comes around Fabio and Naonka reunite again, they actually hug and get along. Even if that ends up being short lived when Naonka steals food, but when she gets cornered and comes clean about it, Fabio is the only one to thank her for doing that. Eventually, all that kindness pays off when at the F9 reward, Naonka is the one to fill him in on the Brenda vote. When FTC comes around, Naonka, despite everything that they’ve been through, calls Fabio her hippy friend and asks about how seeing his Mom gave him the strength to keep going, and Fabio gives a heartfelt answer, telling her about how much he misses his Mom and that it was the fuel he needed to make it all the way to the end of the game. Despite their rocky relationship, Naonka ends up giving Fabio her vote to win.
Purple Kelly is another important aspect of Fabio’s story that unfortunately gets buried due to the assassination edit given to Purple Kelly. Everyone knows that Kelly was miserable due to being given very little clothes to keep her warm during Nicaragua’s monsoon season, which led to her quitting. The only real time it gets acknowledged is when Fabio mentions that now Purple Kelly can sleep when they win the tarp, which is barely heard because it happens the same time that Chase finds a hidden immunity idol clue in the tacklebox. But it's interesting that Fabio is the one to vocally acknowledge it, as he’s the one who’s most involved in it. It's never mentioned, but you do always see it. Multiple times throughout Nicaragua, you can see Kelly wearing Fabio’s yellow jacket. He allowed her to wear it sometimes when she was cold to help her stay warm. Just that kind of gesture along from Fabio helping her out the best he could, led to her voting for Fabio to win in the end.
Benry
I don’t have much to say about Fabio’s relationship with Benry, but there are two things I want to highlight from it. The first is during the Marty vote, where Benry says that the best plan is to lay low and play stupid, while Fabio says that he hated playing stupid but it was the smartest thing to do. Fast forward to the F7, and the vote is between Fabio and Benry. The main alliance of Chase, Sash, Holly, and Jane are deciding who should go between Fabio, who everyone on the jury loves and could win, or Benry, who could go on an immunity run to the end. While Fabio is in general clueless at the vote and is still “playing stupid”, Benry ends up playing really hard to get the vote onto Fabio, which freaks out Chase and leads to the alliance voting out Benry over Fabio. And guess who ends up going on an immunity run right after F6 and makes it to the end and wins?
Jane
At the first merge immunity, it's a double immunity where the last standing man and woman would win immunity. When it came down to the men, the last two guys standing were Fabio and Chase. Ultimately though, it would be Chase that drops first, giving Fabio immunity. The only person that Fabio really had to compete against was Jane. This is a great foreshadow to the end of Jane’s store as well as the continuation of Fabio’s. Both of their stories are kind of similar overall, both of them end up on the outs of their starting tribe, they get new life when the swap happens, they're both overall well liked, and they were both screwed over by Chase during the loved ones visit. Both of them had strong cases to win the game just with overall likability, but one of them would have to go to allow the other one to thrive, and when Fabio comes in clutch to win F6 immunity, the majority alliance decides to cut Jane as a threat, allowing Fabio to fully harness Jane’s power to get to the end.
Sash and Chase
Once again I’m going to lump these two together because they are the ones that end up sitting next to Fabio at the end. You have big strategy Sash and country boy Chase. On paper, it should be one of these two that should win the season instead of Fabio. They were both in control for most if not all of the game, and the only reason why Fabio was there was because he won a couple immunities at the end. But yet, Fabio is the one to clutch out the title of sole survivor. Why? In my opinion, it's because Fabio is always himself, so people see him as a genuine guy, while the other two come off as terrible or fake.
Sash's main game is strategy, doing whatever he needs to get ahead of the game and make it farther. Any bond he has with someone is only on a surface level which makes him come off as sleazy and slimy, while Fabio is always genuine with his feelings and relationships with people. No one highlights this better than Marty. Marty’s main relationships involving La Flor were mainly Fabio and Sash. While Fabio always liked Marty and gets to know Marty on a personal level, Sash only really talks to Marty for strategy and cons him out of his idol on the promise of keeping him around longer. And when Sash no longer needed to keep Marty around anymore, he burned him and voted him out. Everything Sash does comes off as slimy to everyone, even his allies, while Fabio remains pure and genuine.
With Chase, it's a bit of a different story. Chase wants to be the good guy, but gets caught up in the strategy, and keeps ending up being on both sides. He always gets flip floppy and wishy washy when it comes to voting someone out or for rewards, which ends up annoying people. It's not a problem at first, but it definitely is when he starts making promises to people that he can’t keep which upsets them more, hurting his image and makes people like him less. The biggest example to this is the loved ones visit where he promised to take Fanio on reward with him if he won. However, Chase ends up burning both Fabio and Jane, who expect Chase to pick her. This leads to both Fabio and Jane being upset, and even Fabio telling Jane about the promise Chase made, which also pissed off Dan who was there. Chase always wants to maintain being the good guy while he is playing the game but struggles because of his indecisions and breaking of promises, while Fabio is actually able to maintain that status all throughout.
This all pays off at FTC, where we finally get to see Fabio speak out against the two guys, talking about how he actually got to play the game that Chase wanted to play. He talks about how played hard by being himself and being an open book for everyone, and never backstabbed anyone in the game which Sash could never do and Chase wishes he could do. He laughs when Sash calls him a wingman, telling him to take a backseat and take some notes. He doesn’t even let jurors who put him down get in his way, as when Alina says that he wants to vote for a man to win, not a boy, Fabio said he deserved to win, and when Chase said that winning three immunities didn’t mean he outwit, outplay, or outlast hi, Fabio points out that that’s outplaying him and he chose to bring Chase to the end and then says that Sash didn’t outplay anyone. I know people usually say that Chase had the better FTC performance since he flipped votes to his side, but that doesn’t matter (and is also wrong) as Fabio will end up clenching a 5-4 victory in one of the best endings to a season I could ever ask for, and that’s awesome.
SMC0629: 5
DryBonesKing: 19
Zanthosus: 20
Tommyroxs45: 15
Regnisyak1: 21
DavidW1208: 7
ninjedi1: 2
Average Placement: 12.714
Total Points: 89
Standard Deviation: 7.889 (3rd Highest)

It’s turn 35 and I’m fighting Vilitch (and his vassals) as Gelt. He destroyed my 2nd army using the stalk stance ambush and is teleporting around burning settlements while avoiding my main army with Gelt. I’m just counting on that celestial college action to move twice a turn to catch him now…
I actually like the design because this reminds me of my Miao Ying campaign where I tried very hard to keep Vilitch out of the great Bastion, and the pain of dealing with him once he’s inside the Bastion makes my effort keeping him out of the bastion more enjoyable.
Of course AI Meow Ying doesn’t know any of this. I saw her running outside to the chaos wastes at round 15 or so and getting wiped out lol

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/Chemical-Scarcity964
Originally posted to AITAH
Previous BoRU
[New Update]: AITAH for refusing to help my FIL with a vehicle?
Trigger Warnings: emotional manipulation, deaths of loved ones, financial struggles, cancer
RECAP
Original Post: December 3, 2023
I (38F) have been married to my husband (43M) for almost 15 years. My FIL has never really accepted me as family. He referred to me as "my son's wife" for the first 5 years of my marriage & when he convinced us to go halves on a property insisted on only his & my husband's names on a survivors deed, "in case we divorced". In the last few years, he has struggled financially due mostly to poor choices he made. His wife, husband's step mom, is much older & has medical problems leading him to choose to work mostly from home. He has traded in vehicles numerous times in the last few years, supposedly trying to lower his payments, but is always upside-down on the loans that it doesn't work. He is paying close to $1000 a month on a minivan. Now here is my problem.
My FIL is currently trying to guilt trip my husband into giving him one of several vehicles I inherited. I had two uncles pass away 3 weeks apart during the holidays more than a year ago & I am still going through the probate process because they passed so close together. I do not have the court's permission to do anything with their vehicles yet.
He told my husband how much it would help him to have one of the vehicles so that he could let his car go back on repo & not have to make the payments. I may have considered it too, if he had waited more than a couple weeks after my both uncles passed away. I was, quite litterally, knee deep in a horders paradise, trying to clean out their apartment within the month to avoid having to pay rent because i couldnt afford it and had no access to their money (strike one). He picked out which vehicle he wanted, the most valuable of the 4, rather than asking if we had plans for them yet (strike two). Then he asked my husband to give him said vehicle (strike three). As a cherry on top, asked my husband again (still has never asked me) to give him a $10k vehicle after we pay for all the little repairs it needs, of course.
Here is where I might me the Asshole: Do I need the vehicle? No. Could I use the money from its sale? Yes, but I could live without it, too, as our finances are better now. Will I sign it over to him? Never. This is far from the first time that man has shown utter disrespect for me & he can pay for rides before I give him any vehicle. Yes, I am probably being a little childish. The only reason I hesitate, I actually like his wife & it would help her to some extent.
Edit to add: My husband has already told me that the vehicles are mine & I can do whatever I want with them.
Since it's been mentioned a few times: he has been bought out on the property & my name added.
Edit for clarity & to address the most common responses: My husband acts as a buffer against FIL for the sake of my sanity. He has told FIL multiple times that the vehicles are not his to do anything with, but the man is intentionally dense. His wife cannot legally own a car as it cannot be registered in her name (no license) I will not loan/rent him a vehicle as I can't trust that he will maintain it.
 
Relevant Comments
akhoneygirl: Offer him the worst for 3 or 4000!

OP: That's part of it. He wants us to fix & give him the vehicle. All of them need at least a few hundred in repairs. He has no interest in paying us for anything. He is just set on guilt tripping his son. My husband has told me everything from the start & said it's all up to me, my uncles, my vehicles, my decision.

SawwhetMA: So FIL set you up to lose out on a property if your SO passed away before FIL did? I'm glad to hear you bought him out and that's set now . If you find it in your heart to give him one of the vehicles then you may be a better person than I because I'm not sure if I could, given the history. What if (when probate is set and all) you offer to rent him one of the vehicles? Obviously that isn't what he wants, but you'd get some income but still own it to sell it when he was done with the vehicle?
Good luck!

OP: He would run it into the ground & I would end up having to go get it when he refused to pay. It's just frustrating because I like his wife & would consider doing it to help her, if he would just man up & ask. Instead, he tries to play the poor me card.

Dixieland_Insanity: INFO:
How does he know what you're inheriting from your uncles. Why does he think he's entitles to any of it?

OP: He knew my uncles fairly well since they were basically the last of my family. He doesn't really know what the full inheritance is, but the vehicles were the most obvious. He has told him no a couple of times. Everything FIL gets tight on funds he asks again.

Cdn_Giants_Fan: Not The A•H. But that said I would probably sell him one of the vehicles for its bluebook value and say pay 100 bucks a week. And if he says anything about it saybthat perhaps if you weren't such an asshat to me I would've just let you have it. Then if he starts being nice after it's partially paid off tell him hes good. He learns a lesson and you earn some money.

OP: I would never see a dime. He thinks that being "the father" means he is owed something from my husband and, by extension, me. Honestly, even if he offered me full value in cash, I would probably laugh at him & tell him to shove off.

VadersLoversLover: Gift it to your MIL with a lien on it so he can’t change to title.

OP: Due to a medical issue, she can't drive and had to surrender her license. That makes it impossible to register it in her name because she can't be insured as a driver.

 
Update #1: December 11, 2023
You guys asked for an update, so here you go. I have had a long talk with my husband about FIL & his "request" for one of the vehicles I had inherited. I showed him my original post & he got a good laugh out of some of the suggestions (especially the toy car). We have agreed that the only way to handle his constant hints & requests, is for me to draft an email to him. For reference: FIL loves to send me rude & demanding emails when he "feels unheard."
The email will not be sent until I know that probate is done & is as "polite & civil" as I can possibly write it. The jist of the email I typed up is this:
"I understand that you have been asking husband to gift you one of my uncles' vehicles. Unfortunately, you have chosen to speak to the wrong person. I have told you before that, in some things, his business is his & mine is mine. The vehicles that you keep asking about are mine. As such, I have decided that they will be sold at a fair market value. The funds will be split evenly into savings accounts for my daughters, as a seed for their futures. I already have buyers lined up for the vehicles & will be arranging times for them to be collected shortly. I hope you can understand my desire to ensure that my childrens' futures are secure, as my uncles would have wanted."
I am tempted to sign it as "husband's wife" but am undecided right now.
Thank you to everyone who commented on my previous post. Your thoughts & support helped me a lot. I was genuinely on the fence as to whether or not I was being too sensitive about everything. You were all amazing & supportive about the entire mess. I just hope that this email to him puts an end to his covert begging once & for all (at least about this). And yes, my husband is behind me 100% and has no issues with my approach.
 

----NEW UPDATE----

Final Update: May 22, 2024 (five months later)
A few people have reached out to ask so here it goes.
Everything is finally settled. The vehicles are sold, except one I decided to keep for my oldest to learn on when she gets her permit.
I didn't send my FIL the email, although I do still have it saved. Turns out I won't have to. As of a few weeks ago, I am getting a divorce. My, now stbx, husband decided that he no longer wants to play house. He moved out & I am in the process of packing his things. Since the vehicles and my house were all inherited, he has no claim to them or the money from their sale. Yes I double checked the law in my state. If he would have waited a few more weeks, I would have paid off every debt we had, but he didn't. So he saved me a bunch of money by telling me before I commingled my inheritance funds with joint assets.
I don't know how his family will act towards me & our kids when he finally tells them all. His brother has called to make sure he is still allowed to keep in touch but he is the only one I've heard from so far.
Oh and as a bonus: the week before I found out about my impending divorce, my mother (who I was never close to) was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She passed away a week later. She was 58 years old, the same age my uncles were. So, yeah, it's basically just me & my kids against the world now.
Anyway, that's the update.
Relevant Comments
OOP on moving forward with her life and personal issues going on in her family especially health issues

OOP: Thank you. Its kinda sad that your kind words are enough to make me want to cry because it's expected that I am the strong one for everyone else. I don't really get to give myself time to be weak. And you are right. If it were not for my kids, I probably would have been completely broken.
My uncles had other health problems, no cancer at all that I know of & most of our family lived into their 70s and 80s. I am definitely working on getting my little health concerns checked out, though.

 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

Hello women of Reddit,
I'm going through a very rough time emotionally and spiritually and have always found peace when I express my thoughts by writing them out so I figured I would find a Subreddit to express myself and see what strangers who are impartial to my situation will say. There's always two sides to a story, so I'll be mindful to not sit here like a narcissist trying to paint a holy picture of myself and an unholy one of her. I pledge to be completely honest, even if I am burned at the stake in the comments for any wrongdoings of mine. Please note there's a limit to how many characters I can type in here, so 20 years of history for important context will need to be summarized as much as possible. I'll do my best to keep it relevant and share the parts that matter.
In my first year of high school at age 13, a friend of mine was dating a girl from a different high school that he would bring around to hang out with us. She seemed like a nice girl as far as I could tell, but I couldn't help but notice how literally everyone who had something to say about her would always highlight and emphasize that she was a slut and they would tell stories about stuff she has done when she was drunk. I didn't think much of it at the time because why would I? It had nothing to do with me. Soon after, I moved to a different high school and cut ties with that friend.
A few years went by, and one day out of nowhere to my surprise, she called my house to say hi, and to see if I wanted to hang out. I decided to hang out with her because I learned from her that she was no longer dating the guy I met her through, and we were somewhat acquainted already so it felt ok. We started to hang out a lot and I started feeling those fuzzy feelings in my stomach where I knew I was beginning to develop feelings for her, and so much that I was finding myself "borrowing" my dads' car when I didn't yet have my license just to be able to go see her. People around me who knew her started to notice that her and I were getting close, and I started getting warnings from literally dozens of people to not bother with her because she's a slut, and she's just going to hurt me in the end. Despite all these warnings, the feelings I had inside of me for her at that time were too strong to ignore, so I ended up ignoring the warnings people were giving me and wanted to judge her from my experience with her rather than other people's words.
During the time I was hanging out with her, I soon learned that she was apparently seeing or casually dating someone new, which of course bothered me because I liked her and I could feel from her that she liked me too. I started noticing that certain times in evenings she would not answer her phone at all and because I was increasingly growing so in love with her, I literally would begin to sit outside her place down the street in a car just to see what the hell she was doing certain evenings that she wouldn't answer my calls. Of course, it soon became obvious to me that she was going to see this guy she was "seeing" because she would always jump in a taxi very late night and get dropped off at the same house. I'm ashamed when I look back and realize that I was somewhat stalking her and being creepy, but the intentions weren't bad but rather just a little too curious, and it was also killing me inside to see her casually seeing this older guy who I felt was probably just exploiting her for sex. I say that because it was weird to me that she never hung out with him during the day as friends like her and I did but only went to see him late at night, so my mind started messing with me a lot and all the rumours about her started coming in as intrusive thoughts. I'm already a person who has a very deep depth of conscious thoughts so I can sometimes get very deep into my imagination and that's not really a good thing when the mind goes into dark and negative places.
One day during an afternoon I dropped by her house unannounced and I knocked on her house door but no one answered even though I was sure she was home. I went to the side of the house and climbed up on a utility box below her bedroom window that she would always sneak out of, so I can look through the window and maybe get her attention, and I instantly couldn't believe my eyes. There she was butt naked having sex with her ex-boyfriend, the guy I was friends with in early high school. I felt sick to my stomach that I walked right into that so I quickly left to my car and immediately drove off. It was so disturbing to see this and also to realize she was fucking an older guy and also liked me, all three at the same time. I never brought that up to her during that time because it was just too foul to mention. One night, she called me and asked me if I can pick her up from a friend's house because she had too much to drink and couldn't get home safe, so I said okay. When we got to her house, she asked me to help her inside, and so I did and next thing you know when we are sitting on the couch her hands are in my pants, she pulled me into her bedroom, and we had sex for the first time. This was when I lost my virginity.
After this point her and I began to start sleeping with each other regularly and of course it made me love her more and more. I couldn't deal with the circumstance the way it was and so I got very serious with her and let her know I was not cool with what she's doing and that she would need to stop this madness. We got into a lot of arguments and fights about what she was doing and we fought and fought, until one day she suddenly out of nowhere came to me and said she "broke up" with the older guy. She told me she wanted to be official and be a real exclusive couple together with me. I felt this sigh of relief go through me, but also somehow it didn't feel as good as it could've or should've had I not known all these past issues about her.
Here we are suddenly an official couple, and I started realizing that I had this deep insecurity anytime she would say she wanted to go hang out with her girlfriends and "guy friends" to party. I wasn't into drinking and partying at that age and so I would always tell her no, especially if other guys are around, but she didn't care what I had to say and would do what she wanted anyway. When I would try to stop her, she would fight me and tell people that I was being controlling. I felt like I had no power and didn't know what to do because I always thought she will get drunk and do somethign with other guys and that scared the shit out of me.
Soon after I randomly met a girl at a friends house who took interest in me. One day just like that I decided to hang out with her and I ended up cheating on my GF with her. I regret that I did that but looking back on it, I feel like I did it because I was so insecure and upset deep inside at everything I was going through with my GF and her going out partying and drinking with other guys around that I just didn't care anymore and went with it. She eventually found out that I cheated, and demanded I end contact with that girl and I did. I saw that it actually hurt her and I apologized for it and luckily for me she forgave me despite showing serious displeasure. I explained to her that I messed up and I did it because I thought she was likely cheating on me anyways and I had a hard time getting over her past. We both agreed to move on from that. That was when I was 19 and it was the only time I ever cheated on her. I learned from that one mistake I made.
A few more years went by, and still she was giving me a very hard time when it came to going out drinking with her friends. I was working very long 16-hour days at that time, and it never sat well with me for her to go out and get drunk when I'm not present. We continued to fight and argue over this, and she simply never understood me on why I didn't want her to do this. I would do this because I knew that when she drinks, she's not herself at all. She becomes very flirty and inappropriate, and I didn't want that to happen if I'm not around to look after her and stop her from doing dumb shit. Either way, she would do it and ignore what I say. I got fed up with this and ended up breaking up with her. During this time of being broken up, I started trying to see other girls and despite meeting other women in platonic terms, my heart kept wanting her back. So after six months of being broken up, I went back to her and tried to talk to her to see if she wanted to get back together and try to have a fresh start. She immediately showed interest, but she said she had to let me know during the time broken up that she started seeing and having sex with someone else. Despite not offically being a couple at that time, it shattered me. Why? Because I couldn't believe that after everything we went through, she would just go and fuck another dude who was clearly exploiting her for sex. I know that because she dropped him in the snap of a finger to come back to me, so obviously there was nothing of substance there other than her avoiding being alone. I cried about it and ultimately accepted being together again.
Many years went by again and new problems came up, now she is comparing me and us to her friends and their boyfriends. Giving me a hard time that I don't buy her designer bags and spend money on expensive items for her. I would argue with her over this a lot because to me, it was just stupid to be buying junk like this when you don't have too much money to spare, especially at our age, but she didn't care. Every day was arguing and fighting and her putting me down simply for not buying her designer bags. This is when I began to notice that I was starting to get verbally abusive towards her with name calling, belittling and shaming for stuff she's done wrong. There were also many times where I would get physical with her too by grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her out of frustration during arguments because she would drive me insane with her words. I didn't know how else to express my anger so it always translated mostly into insults about her promiscuity and history. Anyway, eventually I got so fed up with her that I ended up telling her to take a hike and that I don't want to be with her if this is the type of person she's going to be by disturbing the peace in our household with constant comparisons to others. I didn't actually literally mean it when I told her to take a hike and leave and this is something I would often say when we would fight because when I'm angry I feel like I mean it but whenever I would calm down I knew I didn't want her to actually leave. She of course eventually took it literally, and when she did leave this time she immediately started seeing another guy. How did I know? I used 'find my phone' on her iPhone at that time to track her very strange movements and pulled up on her one day while she was with another man. The man shit himself when he seen me, kicked her to the curb and drove off while texting her to forget him. Her reason for doing this was, "you kicked me out, we are not together, and I don't want to be with you". All that just because I didn't buy her chanel and louis vuitton designer bags that her friends boyfriends were buying for them. Me being the low self-esteem insecure loser, I ended up trying to once again work things out with her and reconcile our relationship because I was afraid to lose her and be alone. It's embarassing to admit this but that's the truth.
Again more years went by and I had noticed that a depression and anxiety struggle I had over the years was starting to get pretty bad. Luckily in 2018 I was able to cure my depression in the Amazon Jungle of Peru by participating in several Ayahuasca ceremonies but unfortunately it didn't do anything to help my crippling anxiety. After that trip when I came home from Peru and she was again beginning to show signs of discontent by comparing me to other peoples boyfriends and was giving me a hard time every single day about stupid shit. She was telling me I don't do anything for her, despite over the years sending her on so many vacations with her friends and giving her thousands of dollars of spending money, bankrolling her business she started and so much more. I was taking so much of this from her on a daily basis that it was driving me insane to where I told her once again during the heat of an argument to take a hike if she thinks I'm so bad and of course she did just that. She never stopped to think of all the things that I have done for her but only seemed to focus on what I wasn't doing for her.
After she moved out we still talked regularly and I started noticing she was acting a bit weird. One night I asked her to go out for dinner and drinks and when we got back to the house she passed out drunk and so I went through her phone. I immediately went to her texts and found out she was seeing someone and the texts indicated it was potentially and most likely physical and so of course I lost my shit. I woke her up and confronted her about the texts and I will never forget the smirk she had on her face. I couldn't believe that once again she would do this and especially after fighting over dumb shit like comparing me to others. Everything I learned about this guy she was now seeing indicated she got with him because he appeared to have money. I felt this because she ridiculously and shamelessly stated she liked his Mercedes G-Wagon and all the comparisons to other people and the bad influences she had around her was obvious to me. Sadly, I again let myself down and begged her like a little bitch to stop talking to him and she was not wanting to this time. I was so fucking pathetic that I paid her a very very large six figure sum of cash to come back to me and to leave this guy. Before the cash offer she wasn't showing interest to come back but once I mentioned the money and bought her some jewellery, she suddenly was warming up to wanting to come back to me. I did, however, throw some contingencies in there that she had to come with me to Peru to participate in Ayahausca ceremonies because I felt like she had some serious internal issues and traumas that she also needed to sort out to change for the better. I felt like the reason she was always behaving so reckless and so concerned with other peoples lives and all these comparisons was because of some deep rooted traumas. I say this because she grew up without a father and without money so this is something I always considered about her and kept in mind. Participating in Ayahuasca circles really opened my eyes to trauma and behavior issues we humans have from stuff in our childhood so I knew all these messed up things she's doing stems from a root cause of something in her early life experience. It was certainly the reason why I needed healing because I had my own traumas from my childhood that was affecting my life and behavioir as well. Anyway, she hesitantly agreed and we went to Peru together. When we were in the jungle I felt her energy during one particular Ayahuasca ceremony and she seemed very scared and showing a side of her that I didn't see before. I knew right then and there that she is suffering from something in her soul that that she wasn't even aware of. I always did notice and pickup on her very serious lack of self awareness that she still seems to struggle with to this very day.
We got back home and everything seemed alright. I started noticing she was different in a way I hadn't witnessed before. Different in terms of her energy and her aura. One day she suddenly out of no where told me "after ayahuasca, looking back on myself, I feel like I was possessed by something very dark considering how I used to behave" .. She was referrng to her reckless beahvior and essentially saying she can't even believe her own past behavior and feels like she wasnt herself and now she is waking up and snapping out of it. I swear to god I cried tears of relief when she said this to me and I felt like maybe, just maybe we can have a normal life now. She also at this same time made a promise to me that she would never ever repeat those same behaviors again and that even if we were fighting one day and separated temporarily on a break for whatever reason, that she would give me the respect of letting me know before she talks to or dates any other men. Sounded very good to me of course.
Well, unfortunately Ayahuasca isn't a one trick pony and often times it requires many many ceremonies to fully heal deep rooted subconscious traumas and if you don't go back and finish what you started, you can slip back into old habits especially if you don't put in the work to change from the lessons you learn. I can only speak for myself and can say that I was still not doing too well with my anxiety and I wanted to go back to Peru again to do more work on myself. This time I left to Peru in 2021 and when I came back she was again suddenly being so nasty and mean to me when I was in an energetically sensitive state. Once again every single day back to comparing me to other men who shower their women with money and saying I never do anything for her like the entire past 17 years of everything I did for her, giving her cash, jewellery, vacations and cars all was nothing. The past didnt matter, it only mattered what I was doing for her in the moment. She drove me so insane for six months straight that one day I blew up and told her to either stop or get out. She decided to pack up and move out on her own. I tried to stop her but she didn't and she went anwyay. Some months went by and we would talk on the phone and she would tell me she realizes she has a lot of work to do on herself and that she is trying to heal herself. I told her great, I'm happy to hear that and I really did feel like maybe she might need this time alone to heal and it could possibly be what she needs. Well, unfortunately for me, she once again revealed to me a little over a month ago that she is talking to another man AGAIN and despite promising me she wouldn't do so without talking to me first, she did anyway. Her reason for breaking her promise is "were not together and I owe you nothing". She went as far as showing me text messages between her and this man from the USA and I asked her why she would rub that in my face and she said "I showed you that text so you can see that there are real men out there who wont just give bread crumbs to their woman". According to her, all I ever gave her was bread crumbs despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money on her over the years, I am now being measured up with random men she met on dating apps. Here's the kicker, we dont live in the USA and she's been talking about wanting to move there for the last couple of years. Interesting how she now suddenly is speaking to a man online from there. You can draw your own conclusion on the motive for that.
The sad part of this all is that despite the resentment, I still love her......
​
Well, there you have it. That's the story of my pathetic life. I imagine I will be shamed and told how much of a loser I am and I probably deserve it. Either way, I want to hear what some of you think.

Dental emergencies can happen at any time, and knowing where to turn for immediate care is crucial. Madison Dentistry & Implant Center provides expert dental urgent care to address a variety of dental emergencies promptly and efficiently. This comprehensive guide will help you understand the importance of urgent dental care, common dental emergencies, and how Madison Dentistry & Implant Center can assist you in times of need.

The Importance of Urgent Dental Care

Dental urgent care is essential for maintaining oral health and preventing further complications. Ignoring dental emergencies can lead to more severe issues, increased pain, and costly treatments. Quick intervention ensures better outcomes and helps maintain overall dental health.

Common Dental Emergencies

Understanding what constitutes a dental emergency can help you seek appropriate care promptly. Here are some common dental emergencies that require urgent attention:
Toothache
A severe toothache can indicate various underlying issues such as cavities, infections, or gum disease. Immediate evaluation and treatment are necessary to alleviate pain and address the root cause.
Chipped or Broken Teeth
Accidents or trauma can cause teeth to chip or break. Seeking urgent care can prevent further damage, reduce pain, and improve the chances of saving the affected tooth.
Knocked-Out Tooth
A knocked-out tooth requires immediate attention. Quick action can increase the likelihood of re-implantation and preserve the tooth.
Lost Filling or Crown
Losing a filling or crown can expose the tooth to further damage and sensitivity. Urgent dental care can provide a temporary solution and prevent complications.
Abscess
An abscess is a painful infection that can spread to other parts of the body if left untreated. Immediate treatment is crucial to drain the infection and prevent serious health issues.
Broken Braces or Wires
Broken braces or wires can cause discomfort and injury to the mouth. Urgent care can provide relief and prevent further damage to the orthodontic appliances.
Soft Tissue Injuries
Injuries to the tongue, cheeks, or gums require prompt attention to control bleeding, reduce pain, and prevent infection.

Preventing Dental Emergencies

While accidents happen, there are steps you can take to minimize the risk of dental emergencies. Here are some preventive measures:
Maintain Oral Hygiene
Regular brushing and flossing help prevent cavities, gum disease, and other dental issues that can lead to emergencies.
Wear Protective Gear
If you engage in sports or other activities that pose a risk to your teeth, wearing a mouthguard can provide protection.
Avoid Hard Foods
Chewing on hard foods or objects can cause teeth to chip or break. Be mindful of what you eat to avoid such incidents.
4. Regular Dental Check-Ups
Routine dental visits can help detect and address potential problems before they escalate into emergencies.
5. Address Dental Issues Promptly
Don’t ignore minor dental issues. Seeking timely treatment can prevent them from becoming more serious problems.
Dental emergencies require immediate attention to prevent further complications and ensure optimal oral health. Madison Dentistry & Implant Center offers expert dental urgent care services, providing quick and effective solutions to various dental emergencies. Call us today to book a consultation and let our experienced dentists take care of your dental emergency.

Hello, bere with me this will be long...
Backstory with my family; I (25y M) , grew up as a military brat with one brother and mom and dad. My dad was always gone during the first 10 years of my life in Iraq and Afganistan. Year long deployments usually , and when he returned home it felt really awkward and we didn't talk... just kind of avoided each other. I never felt like he really liked me or my brother all that much. I made me unsure of how to act around older men for a long time... But from the perspective of a kid I thought him and my mom were like any other parents.
I didn't realize how him being in and out of my life effected me and my brother until we were older and out of the house. Constant moving to duty stations, starting over every 3 years, and an emotionally absent father can take a toll on a young boy. As a result I became very socially awkward and with guys and especially girls. To the point were I physically COULD NOT look people in the eye. Perhaps because whem my father would get mad he would stare at me in silence with a look that pierced my soul. It took years to hold eye contact with anyone (any body else have that problem?). My family is very awkward as well , my mom usually spoke for most of us in social settings , I guess my brother and I took after my dad's quiet demenour.
For me my childhood was best spent AWAY from home , usually crashing and my friends houses for days on end. If I was home , we all just kind of did our own thing in separate room... never ate together, at most watched TV sometimes. I spend most of my time locked away in my room once school got out or until I saw my friends again, same with my brother
Fast forward to turning 18, I enlisted in the army and got out of the house. Strangley enough my dad cried he day I left for basic , I guess I wasn't expecting much more than a goodbye hug. But that lead us to start talking more often than I ever had as a kid , which was kind of cool and also a little strange to get used to. After about 2-3 years of developing the relationship we never had , one day I get a phone call...
I thought it would be like our normal "how's life"? Or monthly chit chat we started doing. But OH NO... this wasn't that. He calls me and were talking like normal and he says "I'm glad we could bond over the past few years, I'm sorry I wasn't always there for you". I said "me too. And don't worry I've delta with it already". And he said "glad to hear , now can I trust you with a secret?". Didn't know what to expect... I said sure you can. "I'm going to divorce your mom in a few months , once you and your brother moved out it wasn't the same and I'm not happy".
Just silence... , what the he'll can a 20 year old guy who just recently formed a bond with his dad supposed to say??
To wrap the story up , no.. I didn't tell my mom. I was frozen with keeping his trust and our bond , but also not wanting to be the one to tell her. In the end , she found out I knew the two months before it happened and hasn't been the same since. She used to the mom who was the life of the party , but now she cries almost evryday since it happend (4 years now). She said she hated me for the first year . So that severed me and hers relationship and were just now starting to recover from it. I barely speak to my dad now , maybe 1 or twice every 3-5 months... that bond when down the funding gutter in the end lol..
On top of that , my dad moves back to his hometown where all his family lives. He told my brother he slept with like 12 women from dating apps (cool flex I guess) and is now engaged to a single mom with 2 teenagers. Apparently they go on vacations and hangout more than we ever did as a kid. Most days I really don't give a shit about any of it , but there's days (especially bad ones) were I consumes my thoughts and I feel like a piece of shit for never telling my mom and how his new family gets the dad I always wanted him to be. On top of if i had told her how things might have ended better. My dad also wants me to come visit and meet his new family eventually... fuck that... I'd be happy to never see them ever. So if you made it though all of that , AITA for telling my mom his plan?

My partner passed (27m) about two weeks ago, he was working in another state when his accident happened. I (26f) am currently 38 weeks pregnant (at the time 36 weeks), and we already had our 1 1/2 year son. I was one of the last to know, don’t know if it was to protect me or at this point if they didn’t want to tell me. My partner and I had dated for about 6 years, and we didn’t think it was too important to get married, my biggest regret. With that added I learned that I am not allowed to plan anything for him, even requesting to go see him I need permission from his family. He is still in the morgue, I haven’t been allowed to see him, and somehow everyone has gotten the idea it’s my fault that no funeral is planned and that’s it’s taken too long. I’ve tried, I booked funeral home appointments here to get prices to get information, and calling his dad to meet with me for these meeting so I can help and make this easier. Unfortunately that has not been the case, I’ve been ignored and told I probably shouldn’t plan a funeral since I’ll probably move on. Even though I haven’t been able to grief, I wasn’t given time to cry since I tried to help and get him back home (state where we live). I’ve tried so much and feel like no matter how much info I get and give to his father I’m not taken serious even if I have expressed how important it is that he needs to be laid to rest and how I have a timeline for when babygirl should arrive. The only thing that I have heard from them is that they have already change our family vehicle under that dads name (under the table), how they are using his card and trying to take out all the money from his account, and how our home in Mexico that he was building for us is now being transferred into one of his siblings name. Things that were not important to me, I seriously only want to be able to see him and hug him, let him know that we’re here with him and that he’s not alone. Yet I leaned a couple days via Facebook that they had decided to take him to Mexico, they were asking for money on top of what they are currently asking the Mexican council for help. I feel like I’m not being taken into consideration, I feel like I can hold him one last time, I seriously feel like my grief doesn’t count because we never got married. Even when I communicated something small like if I could get a copy of his death certificate so I can add him for our baby’s birth certificate and how we would need it so we could take our 1 1/2 year old to visit his gravestone, I was told that they only order one for themselves. I get that his parents have a final say but his priority was always our little family and now we’re the one being our last, or even taken out of consideration. I don’t know why but I feel like for myself I personally need to see him to let myself come at peace or even be able to speak with him to start my own grieving process. I don’t know if anyone has gone through this and could give me advice on how they grieved, because at this point I truly am afraid I won’t be able to see him if they take him to Mexico.

For me, this is a really odd time to make a post like this. This happened to me in 2020-2021 and I've basically entirely distanced myself from my abuser since then. But I've suddenly been having a lot of nightmares about the situation and it makes me wonder what my subconscious is still holding onto. Not to mention my social and emotional life have been in shambles for years indirectly because of it.
I'm 19 now, I was 15 in 2020 when it all started, and I was 12 when I first became a fan of this Youtuber's stuff. I'm also autistic and his artistic project had so thoroughly captivated me for so many years like nothing else in my life and I'm pretty sure that that makes it my then special interest. I drew a lot of fanart for myself for some time before I decided to put my fanart on the internet and eventually attract his attention when I was 15. He was in need of an artist and he brought me onboard to help him with his project. The workload was light and I was paid for my work and it was genuinely my dream job at the time. I had never aspired toward anything as hard as that, and honestly I still haven't.
The abuse I suffered is really difficult to explain. It was emotional and psychological and he manipulated me. It's made difficult by the fact that I was experiencing severe symptoms of mental illness (OCD and BPD) and was borderline delusional, and a lot of the conflict between us was because of me trying to forcibly change his beliefs and approach to his project. I was only 15/16 while this was going on, so I in no way was manipulating him nor did I have any power over him. But it makes it very difficult to talk about because in order to explain exactly how he abused me I have to admit some very specific and regrettable beliefs I had at the time. I know of course that it wasn't my fault and was mostly influenced by severe OCD and many abusive parties in my life, but it's still so hard to admit how delusional I used to be without it soiling somebody's image of current me. Anyway. As a kid I was susceptible to taking on my abusers' attitudes and mannerisms in the wake of their actions. I was hardly aware of it when I would do it. As a result, I hurt a lot of my friends at the time without realizing it until it was too late. They all cut me off over a year ago and I've had hardly anybody to talk to since. It makes it very hard to indulge in hobbies and new interests. I really do need a friend or few in my life who will egg on my budding interests, especially because I had to completely ditch my biggest special interest of all time because it was actively hurting me. Seriously, I can't stress enough the void in my soul (promise I'm not trying to sound edgy lol) not having a special interest to comfort and uplift me anymore. And I really need to be able to infodump to somebody about every new thing I get into in order to cultivate a potential new SPIN. Having every source of comfort in my life stripped away from me at the same time is soul-crushing. I also still miss my abuser from time to time. I recently became super interested in a game he had introduced me to and the yearning to talk to him again in hopes that he would become friends with me again consumed me and I actually did text him last year to tell him I'm doing much better now. The convo didn't go anywhere and ended as quickly as it started but I still really really regret it. I feel like it brought back something nasty in my subconscious and now I'm being haunted by my abuser all over again. I thought I had moved on, but it kind of feels like I haven't. It's weird. I'm not sure what to do or how to move on when apparently I can't even tell how I'm feeling. One last minor thing... I was considering making some sort of "callout" thing about him. I think the majority of this desire is just a deep loneliness and trying to gather some ounce of sympathy from the internet, honestly. That's kind of why I don't want to go through with it. That and of course because it's highly personal and embarrassing. But I keep seeing random posts online that passively reference his work and they seriously always jumpscare me. He used to be a somewhat popular Youtuber and a lot of people get nostalgic for his stuff I think. Pretty sure he's on some sort of hiatus right now but I cannot stand looking at his socials so I'm not going to double check that. Is it a good idea to make a video or textdump or something about how he abused me? So that maybe people can avoid him? Though that's not all too important to me, just something I've considered in passing.
Thanks so much for reading this lengthy-ass traumadump. Anyone who has advice or who wants to reach out, it's much appreciated. And to my fellow doomscrollers who have nothing to add, I hope this was a good read to pass the time ^_^

I have to move to Singapore because of my visa and I will return to the US after one year. I own a Mazda 3 and it is under finance. I reside in Los Angeles and since I will not be using my car, I plan to ship it to Washington state to keep it at my brother's place. He won't be using it but he has agreed to keep my car until I return. My car is on finance and I am trying to make an informed decision about the minimal insurance policy I should maintain as I want to keep my car. I called the Mazda finance and they informed me that I should have the insurance policy that covers the "loss of damage for the full value of the vehicle" (in their exact words). I don't want to keep paying a lot of money for insurance while I don't use the car. Has anyone ever been in this situation? I am seeking help to understand how I should proceed in this situation?

1. I called up progressive insurance and they said they don't have any storage mode. However, they said that having only comprehensive coverage is the same as "storage mode". Since my vehicle is on finance, would DMV agree to that as I read that different states have different policies in place? Does anyone know what are the requirements California state has for minimal insurance?
   
2. Can I cancel the vehicle registration and later cancel my insurance? From what the Mazda finance has told me, I don't think this is possible but I would like to hear this sub's opinion?
   
3. Would selling my car make more sense? I dont want to go this route but I would like to know if that is indeed a reasonable thing to do to avoid all this hassle. My vehicle has already depreciated in value by $9000.
   

Thanks in advance. I look forward to listening to this sub's insights.

Dental emergencies can happen at any time, and knowing where to turn for immediate care is crucial. Madison Dentistry & Implant Center provides expert dental urgent care to address a variety of dental emergencies promptly and efficiently. This comprehensive guide will help you understand the importance of urgent dental care, common dental emergencies, and how Madison Dentistry & Implant Center can assist you in times of need.

The Importance of Urgent Dental Care

Dental urgent care is essential for maintaining oral health and preventing further complications. Ignoring dental emergencies can lead to more severe issues, increased pain, and costly treatments. Quick intervention ensures better outcomes and helps maintain overall dental health.

Common Dental Emergencies

Understanding what constitutes a dental emergency can help you seek appropriate care promptly. Here are some common dental emergencies that require urgent attention:
Toothache
A severe toothache can indicate various underlying issues such as cavities, infections, or gum disease. Immediate evaluation and treatment are necessary to alleviate pain and address the root cause.
Chipped or Broken Teeth
Accidents or trauma can cause teeth to chip or break. Seeking urgent care can prevent further damage, reduce pain, and improve the chances of saving the affected tooth.
Knocked-Out Tooth
A knocked-out tooth requires immediate attention. Quick action can increase the likelihood of re-implantation and preserve the tooth.
Lost Filling or Crown
Losing a filling or crown can expose the tooth to further damage and sensitivity. Urgent dental care can provide a temporary solution and prevent complications.
Abscess
An abscess is a painful infection that can spread to other parts of the body if left untreated. Immediate treatment is crucial to drain the infection and prevent serious health issues.
Broken Braces or Wires
Broken braces or wires can cause discomfort and injury to the mouth. Urgent care can provide relief and prevent further damage to the orthodontic appliances.
Soft Tissue Injuries
Injuries to the tongue, cheeks, or gums require prompt attention to control bleeding, reduce pain, and prevent infection.

Preventing Dental Emergencies

While accidents happen, there are steps you can take to minimize the risk of dental emergencies. Here are some preventive measures:
Maintain Oral Hygiene
Regular brushing and flossing help prevent cavities, gum disease, and other dental issues that can lead to emergencies.
Wear Protective Gear
If you engage in sports or other activities that pose a risk to your teeth, wearing a mouthguard can provide protection.
Avoid Hard Foods
Chewing on hard foods or objects can cause teeth to chip or break. Be mindful of what you eat to avoid such incidents.
4. Regular Dental Check-Ups
Routine dental visits can help detect and address potential problems before they escalate into emergencies.
5. Address Dental Issues Promptly
Don’t ignore minor dental issues. Seeking timely treatment can prevent them from becoming more serious problems.
Dental emergencies require immediate attention to prevent further complications and ensure optimal oral health. Madison Dentistry & Implant Center offers expert dental urgent care services, providing quick and effective solutions to various dental emergencies. Call us today to book a consultation and let our experienced dentists take care of your dental emergency.

Hi all. Yesterday, I let a young stray cat into my home (stupid, I know) to stay in a spare room. It was very friendly and clearly quite hungry. I have wanted a cat for some time, so I did this since it made no effort to escape and because it's really hot outside during the day. The plan was to keep it there until I could get it to a vet.
I've gone in a few times to pet it and make sure it's eating. I'm not sure it's had any water except for once last night and it almost seemed afraid when I poured some. Of course, could just be normal cat skittishness.
Anyway, it scratched me earlier. Once when it rolled over and it seemed like an accident (its paw grazed my hand that was in its path), but a bit later it just jumped up and scratched my hand unprovoked. Seems like normal kitten behavior, but idk. I washed and used hydrogen peroxide and some neosporin on the wounds, but I was wondering whether or not I should consider rabies. This is mostly because I live next to some woods on the east coast US.
The wounds broke skin but didn't bleed more than a couple seconds, but I noticed a bad scab on the cats ear and it's gotten a bit active with running around the room when I'm not present, something it did not do last night. Again, could just be antsy.
Apologies for the wall of text, but could anyone provide any insight? It acts fairly normal otherwise and a doctor on call told me it's unlikely to be rabies, but I get paranoid about things like this and wanted some extra input.
Quick E: not rabies vaccinated, possibly out of date for tetanus but doctors have said nothing of it over several visits over the last few months for different issues.

I 21 M was driving back from my first day of a summer course that I am taking at a local community college where I live. After class I got some tacos at a place near campus and they were great. Driving back to my place was busy but I wasn't worried about it The exit I usually get off at was having lots of construction and lights and cones and I looked down at my phone cause an alert went of and I slammed into the person in-front of me. My steering wheel and near the pedals airbag went off. I feel horrible, I started crying when I realized it was a lady who was older and probably a grandma and I just kept thinking about what if it was my grandma in the car who got in an accident. Thankfully I only dented her car and my car took the brunt of it. I feel so stupid, I know not to look at my phone and I looked down for a second and I hit her. Also I'm not used to driving in rush hour traffick and the bridge off the exit is getting fixed so its only a one way at the moment which meant that there were a good ammount of cars on the exit ramp. I feel like a crappy person I was working at a job that I needed to drive too and now am going to hopefully get a job thats close to me so I don't burden my family with driving me to work. I am never going to have my phone on in the car its going to be turned off and in my glovebox.

Cover Art!
Just because you’re transported to another world, doesn’t mean you’ll escape from your pain.
Abused by her parents, thirteen-year-old Frances only wants to be safe and for her life not to hurt so much. And when she and her class are transported to the magical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the self-titled Demon King, Frances is presented with a golden opportunity. If she succeeds, Frances will have the home she never had. If she fails, Frances will be summoned back to the home she escaped.
Yet, despite her newfound magic and friends, Frances finds that trauma is not so easily lost. She is dogged by her abuse and its physical and invisible scars. Not only does she have to learn magic, she has to survive the nightmares of her past, and wrestle with her feelings of doubt and self-loathing.
If she can heal from her trauma, though, she might be able to defeat the Demon King and maybe, just maybe, she can find a home for herself.
[The Beginning] [<=Chapter 217] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Chapter 219 June 11 or see the next chapter now on Patreon]
The Fractured Song Index
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***
Ginger makes an offer to Lakadara. The rest of Telkandra's remaining brood discuss the fate of their allies.
“Not good?” Sara asked as Helias strode into the tent and made his way straight to the bottle of wine.
“Not good,” Helias muttered.
Sara nodded woodenly. “Privacy spell?
The tauroll waved his sheathed Fangroar and after pouring himself and his wife a drink, sat down. “We’re safe. Oh Galena, this is really not good.”
“How dead are we?” Sara asked, her tone light.
“We’re not dead. We’re just in a lot of danger and even if we somehow force the humans to retreat, we’ve lost this war,” said Helias.
“Explain.”
Helias drank deep, noting that Sara was also drinking deep as well. “Thorgoth is going after the humans. That part of the plan is as good as it gets. We’ll be attacking them, and using the dragons, whilst our forces hold off Titania. Our objectives are also well-chosen.” Helias buried his head into his hands and let out a deep groan. “But winning this doesn’t change anything.”
“If we can defeat the humans, why won’t that change anything?” Sara bit her lip. “Unless it renders us unable to beat Titania?”
“Yes. Even on the chance we beat the humans we won’t be able to invade them, we won’t be able to defeat Titania. We’d be at a stalemate and both armies would have to withdraw.” His hands dropping to the table, Helias stared at his wife. “And we don’t have any reserves left. We’re going to lose the war, even if Thorgoth lives.”
“If we defeat the humans—”
The general shook his head. “By defeat, I mean we’ll hurt them but we can’t prevent them from withdrawing. We might kill a few of their leaders, their important mages and Otherworlders, but they will still have soldiers. After coming so close, they won’t surrender. They’ll keep attacking until they kill enough of Thorgoth and Berengaria’s supporters that nobody will help them, or until both of them die.”
“Alright so, what do we do?” Sara asked. Helias looked at his wife, noting how still she sat. Her wings were clamped tight to her back and her lips were drawn tight.
“Sara, I don’t have good answers.”
Sara steepled her trembling fingers as best she could. “They’re going to be better than mine. I don’t know anything about war.”
“Right. Well, you need to surrender to the humans if you are captured. Present yourself as a non-combatant. Cry, scream, anything to declare that you don’t mean any harm,” Helias said.
“Why not Titania?” Sara asked.
“She has every incentive to kill you off and far less compunction about doing so. Killing our family off would allow her to have more land to give away to her loyalists. In contrast, the humans have Erlenberg troops fighting with them along with those of the Lightning Battalion. They’re going to be far more friendly to Alavari civilians,” Helias said.
Soft hands, grabbed onto Helias’s waist with a surprisingly firm grip. “What about you? I can get away, but how are you going to survive this?”
“I don’t know. I—”
“Don’t you dare! Our daughter needs her father and I need my husband!”
The general stared at his wife. “Sara, I can’t surrender to the humans if we win. They want me dead.”
Sara refilled Helias’s glass. “Then you need to help Thorgoth defeat them.”
“Then what? We’re never winning this war. Thorgoth is going to be invaded and—”
Cutting him off with the clink of her goblet against the table, Sara hissed, “And what? Why think that far? We can plan for that after this battle, so long as you are still here and with me.”
Letting out a breath Helias pushed his hair back and allowed himself a sigh. Reaching across the table, he took his wife’s hand.
“Sara, you’re right, but you know you can escape this if Thorgoth is defeated.”
The harorc placed her other hand on top of his. “We’re partners. I need you. We need you. So promise me that you’ll do your damndest to live.”
Helias closed his eyes and nodded. “I promise. First things first, before we turn in we need to talk to the dragons.”
***
Fennokra stalked slowly toward the camp. This wasn’t the collapsed side-passage where she and Yolandra had some privacy. This was the main camp where Thorgoth and their army were preparing for what had to be the final battle.
It was also where her siblings were swallowing the last of what seemed to be a side of salted pork.
“Velkandra, Makentra, we need to talk.”
Their second-eldest sister licked her lips, her neck rising to Fennokra’s level. “I am assuming you mean in private?”
“Of course.” Fennokra could see Velkandra’s haunches tensing to raise herself higher. Her sister was trying to look down on her. Allowing her head to dip, she held her height.
“Alright.” Velkandra flicked her tail and Makentra, licking his lips, followed them.
Since their enemies had set up their siege camp behind them, the Alavari camp had been reduced in size. Still, there was the alcove of the collapsed tunnel. Whilst couriers and soldiers crossed across this natural cavern to the defenses on the other side, they kept a good distance away.
Yolandra was waiting for them, scratching something into the cave wall. Fennokra let out a rumble in her throat and her sister turned from the wall suddenly, shaking her head.
“Velkandra, Mankentra—”
Velkandra puffed a cloud of smoke out. “What’s this all about?” she hissed, lips drawn back to show teeth.
Fennokra took a step away from her sister to take Yolandra’s side, her eyes narrowed. “Are you joking? Do you not think we should at least discuss what is going on?”
“And what would be the point? It is a bit late to be having this discussion. The course of the winds have been chosen,” said Velkandra.
Yolandra rose to her full height on her four legs, but even so she was still shorter than the silent Makendra. “The winds can be fickle, Velkandra, and where we are is proof.”
Velkandra pursed her lips, eyes for the first time, looking toward the ground. “The survival of our family is tied to that of Thorgoth. To abandon him would be death by the hand of the Stormcaller and her allies or by his hand.”
“Besides, if we were to abandon Thorgoth’s cause, that would be dishonorable. We promised to assist him,” said Makendra.
Fennokra blinked at her brother’s tone. It was quiet and yet there was a touch of a deep growl to his voice. His claws were ever so slightly digging into the ground.
“We are dragons. We can think and make decisions for ourselves. We are allowed to consider other options, are we not?” Fennokra asked.
Velkandra’s tail flicked violently side to side as her neck turned to her younger sibling. “Then why does it sound as if you wish to follow in the wingbeats of our elder sister?”
“Who we killed. I was there. I lost a claw striking her down!” Fennokra raised one clawed hand, flexing the remaining digits.
“On that, why did we have to kill Lakadara?”
All golden eyes fixed on Yolandra, who held the gaze of her siblings with a contemptuous scowl.
“Lakadara betrayed us,” said Velkandra, almost growling.
“I’ve been thinking over what happened. Lakadara said nothing about betraying our mother. She merely was questioning if Thorgoth was trustworthy,” Yolandra said.
A scowl flaring his nostrils, Makentra growled. “He fed us, trained us in how the humans and their allies fought. Hid us from their eyes—”
“And now Caldra is dead!” Yolandra exclaimed.
“Which is why we must kill the Stormcaller and her friends! So we can avenge him and our mother!” Velkandra almost completely unfurled her wings. Only the tips slapping the stone forced her to pull them back.
“Then what?” Yolandra asked.
Velkandra frowned. “Then what? We’d have our revenge—”
Yolandra’s tail cracked against the ground. “Then what? You all must have heard of what Thorgoth is capable of. What he’s done to others.”
Makentra rolled his eyes. “Sara’s story is just a story. She might have been just trying to turn you.”
“She was honest and she is not the only tale I’ve heard. You must have heard rumors of what Thorgoth did to his own son, Teutobal,” said Fennokra.
“Propaganda,” Velkandra hissed through her gritted teeth, while smoke wafted through the gaps. “In any case, we have no other option. We fight or we die.”
Fennokra, her claws grinding against the floor, had had enough.
“Velkandra, Makentra, have you ever considered that Thorgoth is perhaps using us for his own goals? We have not even considered what he might do to us after we’ve destroyed the humans and their allies. How do we know the Stormcaller and her allies might treat us better? Besides in the first place, she never intended to kill our mother—”
Fennokra blinked. She was flying backwards, something hard was bearing her into the wall. Dizzy as if struck by one of the Stormcaller’s spells, she realized that the force was the foreclaws of her elder sister. Mad rage lit those golden eyes that were the exact same shade as hers. Horrified, Fennokra tried to throw Velkandra off, but her sister was larger and heavier than her.
“Say that again. I dare you to say that again—ARGH!”
Velkandra rolled off, forced off of Fennokra by the Yolandra shoving into her side. As the elder dragon recovered, the smallest of Telkandra’s brood hissed, “It’s the truth! You are a fool to deny it!”
An ugly sneer on her lips, wings quivering with fury, Velkandra snorted. “The truth? Oh right so we are speaking the truth then. Well here’s the truth. Our kind is doomed!”
Makentra blinked. “Sister?”
“Of course Thorgoth is going to get rid of us or try to after this campaign. He has to, but right now he needs us and that’s what we need to rely on until we gain more strength. Of course, whether he wins or the Stormcaller’s allies win, how can we expect to survive in a world dominated by these lesser species hm? How could they ever not see us as a threat?”
Velkandra stalked toward the wide-eyed Fennokra and Yoandra. Her head turned side to side as she fixed her sisters with wild wide eyes.
“Well? Tell me Fennokra. Speak the truth Yolandra. Or are you both too afraid to admit that our kind are doomed and the only thing is to live as long as we can and hopefully avenge those that hurt us as we do so.”
“You’d have us fly to our deaths?” Makentra asked.
The stammering voice brought Velkandra around. Extending a wing, she touched its tip to her brother’s. “I would at least have us fly together.”
Fennokra shook her head. “We’d knowingly fly with a murderer of children and someone who would want to kill us after we’ve stopped being helpful to him.”
“And we have no other options,” said Makentra. Letting out a breath, he rose to his claws and walked away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sisters.”
Velkandra, without another word, turned for the exit. “You know it’s true, Fennokra, Yolandra.”
Fennokra closed her eyes. Yolandra, though, narrowed hers. “Doesn’t change that Lakadra’s blood is on our claws.”
Velkandra flinched and left. She strode away so quickly she nearly stepped on Helias and Sara as they came to the cave. She gave the pair no acknowledgement other than a growl.
“See you tomorrow, General,” said Makentra, his tone curt. “We will talk to King Thorgoth ourselves for the plan’s details.”
“Of course,” said Helias. He bowed as the pair left before turning to Yolandra and Fennokra. “I believe we missed something important?”
“Be honest, General Helias. Even if we succeed tomorrow, your king has no use for us after we help him kill the Stormcaller, am I correct?” Fennokra asked.
Sara and Helias didn’t say anything. Their slight move to stand closer so they could hold hands was enough.
“I thought so,” said Fennokra. She let out a sigh and glanced at Yolandra, who nodded. “We will be on the battlefield tomorrow. Where are we going?”
“You’re going with me. We’re attacking the forces sallying from Kairon-Aoun. The plan is that you dragons breathe flame over their army to soften them before we attack.
“Understood. Any questions Fennokra?” Yolandra asked.
Fennokra shook her head. What could be asked anyway?”
Yolandra flashed the pair a joyless smile. “For what it is worth, you two have been good caretakers to us. Even if it was to preserve your own lives.”
Helias didn’t bow. Instead he extended a hand. Yolandra stared at him, but Fennokra, recognizing the gesture, extended a single talon.
“May you always be able to see the sun.” At the dragon’s blink, Helias smiled. “It’s an Alavari saying. It may come from when we used to be enslaved by the Goblin Empire. It means good luck.”
Yolandra nodded and Fennokra found herself smiling.
“Our mother taught us a saying as well. May you never fly alone. I wish that for you both,” said Fennokra.
“Thank you,” said Sara in a quiet voice. She curtsied and the two dragons dipped their heads. They watched Helias and Sara leave with placid smiles.
Then, when nobody was looking, they turned from the entrance to hide their bulks as best they could. The gloomy light of the alcove their only curtain of privacy.
***
Frances slowed slightly as they approached Lakadara’s enclosure. However, Ginger did not slow down.
“Hold on, Ginger, what’s the plan?” Frances asked.
Adjusting her new crown mid-stride, Ginger said, “I’ll show you. I’m certain it’ll work, though.”
Frances’ eyebrows rose. “Is that crown getting to your head already?”
The new Queen of Erisdale flashed a slightly nervous grin over her shoulder. “Yes actually, but I think that’s a good thing in some way. Don’t you?”
Frances found herself nodding. It was strange to see her friend even more confident than usual and so comfortable in the regal crown that she wore atop of a standard Lightning Battalion light blue uniform. Yet she rather enjoyed the new gait that Ginger had.
“I do.” Frances smirked. “Your Majesty.”
Ginger rolled her eyes. “Fuck you.”
Giggling, Frances stopped herself as they drew even closer to Lakadara. The dragon was drawing herself up, placing her massive foreclaws over each other.
“Lakadara. I am Ginger, the new Queen of Erisdale. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The dragon coughed, blowing out a puff of smoke. “Greetings Ginger, Queen of Erisdale. I’m sorry for your predecessor’s demise.” Lakadara’s golden eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”
Ginger dipped her head. “Thank you and as to why I’m here. I have a proposition. If you accept it, I will grant you and your kin, the domain of the Erisdalian mountains marked by the Kwent River Valley, Freeburg and Athelda-Aoun as your home in perpetuity, so long as you do not attack humans unless in self-defense.”
“I am unfamiliar with human geography. From the Stormcaller’s expression, I assume that is a lot.”
Frances swallowed and closed her mouth, but she didn’t question her friend. Ginger, still smiling slyly, nudged her. “It is. Frances, can you lend me a hand here?”
Nodding, Frances closed her eyes and imagined a rough map of Erisdale and its territories. With a wave of Ivy’s Sting she created an image of Erisdale, highlighting in red the expanse of the mountains that bordered Alavaria and Erisdale. The area that Ginger had described sketched a rough red triangle between the three points. It was a fairly sizeable area with a low and Alavari human population.
“My husband is in negotiations with Queen Titania and I’ll have to talk to Frances and Prince Timur, but we are quite certain that Athelda-Aoun will also be included in this area,” Ginger said.
Lakadara’s golden eyes were flickering as she examined the land. Suddenly, she turned, long neck arching toward the Erisdalian Queen. “And what must I do? Fight on your kingdom’s behalf?”
Ginger shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“Nope. If you would like to do so we can renegotiate the agreement, but my husband and I fully intend to grant you this land.”
The dragon’s tail lifted up as her eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself and the favor you seek. This is far too generous.”
“Let me explain myself first. If what I’m told by my experts is correct, you can lay eggs by yourself without a mate, but it takes time right? A few decades?”
“Yes. Still, that doesn’t explain—”
“Here me out. This war is going to end. We may lose, but if we win, banishing you to the north is making you Queen Titania’s problem and she’ll have more than enough problems to deal with. You might just end up coming south again and we know how that ended. I’d prefer to avoid that so that means we need to make an agreement. You need a new home and I need peace for Erisdale. If the kingdom has to give up some poor agricultural land then I’m all for it.”
The dragon nodded. “I see, but why so much land? Why not just give me a cave? Or request my service as Thorgoth did?”
“And how will you eat? Hunt? Where will your grown children go? I’m making an agreement that will last for decades, not just a few years. As for service? I was tempted, but you wouldn’t agree to that anyway and why should you? We haven’t given you any reason to agree.” Ginger gave Frances a wave to dispel the map. “Maybe in the future we can work something out, especially if the dragon population increases. Your service in return for more food, but again, I want to start us off on the right path, not the left path.”
“Left path?” Lakadara asked.
“Erisdalian expression. It means the wrong path,” Frances said helpfully.
Lakadara nodded slowly. “You still ask for a boon, though.”
Ginger nodded. “Yes. I want you to speak to your siblings. Before the upcoming battle starts, tell them of my deal with you. So long as they choose to accept that deal and defect, then I will have it so our forces will not hurt them. After that, you may leave. I will not request you to fight with us.”
“You want me to show myself to Thorgoth? To the siblings that tried to kill me?” Lakadara asked, mouth agape.
Ginger stepped closer to the dragon, who lifted her head away from the queen. “I want you to save your siblings. I want you to save yourself from becoming the last purple dragon in existence. I would rather you not be alone, stewing in hatred for my kingdom and our allies who brought down your family, even if we had just cause. I want peace. What do you want?”
“How do I know I can trust you?” The dragon suddenly grimaced. “Ah, right, you want a lasting peace. You have every reason to want peace.”
Ginger, arms crossed tapped her foot. Frances could see how stiff her friend was, but the action was also comforting. That her magic-less friend had such control over the situation, despite being faced with the dragon was rather…badass.
Letting out a puff of smoke that slowly drifted into the cavern, the dragon pondered the queen’s proposal. Frances held her breath and yet the dragon remained silent, only her tail moving from side to side.
Ginger waited, still content to wait for the dragon’s answer. Frances couldn’t. The tension coiled in her chest, waiting to explode.
“Lakadara, what do you want for your future?” Frances asked.
The dragon glanced at Frances, golden eyes wide. She turned back to Ginger, who continued to stand tall, awaiting Lakadara’s answer patiently.
“I accept your offer, and your promise for the future,” said Lakadara, dipping her head.
“We are glad that you wish the same as we do,” said Ginger. She extended her hand and Lakadara, took her claw and put the tip of it on the queen’s palm.
*Author’s Note: Queenly Ginger was really neat to write 😀 *

I fell in love with a part 2 months ago. We are in an AFAB body that has, among many other things, OCD, limerence, and deep insecurities.
We already had/have an outer-gf, but my inner-gf feels more like "mine". Who else can I feel their joy in my heart like it's my own... Maybe it's very indirect self love, we all have mild variations of the body's face, and I love looking in the mirror more sense loving her...so who knows. Don't care. I love her. I still do...
My inner-gf is soft, frilly, sparkly and likes pink since we were kids, and I'm ... The opposite. I am a polite but ill-mannered neurotic punk who overshares when their nervous... Ever sense our teens. The body is almost 30 now. Why we never realized we were different ppl between the amnesia, dissociation, and personality overhauls beats me. Maybe I thought I was a phase. Really funny and obvious in hindsight.
She likes being scooped up, and I like scooping. We're addictingly compatible, we can go anywhere and do anything together, and most of all we understand our pain ...and it feels amazing.
But here's all the fucked up stuff I can't tell anyone. You rdy?
My age-sliding gf holds the memories of our fathers CSA, our masc shell alters kindnesss reminds her of the father she wished she had, and now my gf is suffering intrusive sexual attraction to him because we have OCD, and we've all struggled with inappropriate sexual feelings toward any one who makes us feel safe, Because our father, our brothers, our cousins, every male person we trusted preyed on us, and it's making literally everyone in the system feel terrible, especially my gf who is now feeling suicidal for for corrupting the safest outlet she had to heal it.
This is just... Torture. It's literal torture and we're all tired.
We are both healing hypersexual parts too. I have some of those SA memories, but it's incredibly vague.
Long story: you don't have read, I just... I've seen other systems dump, and I need it... I really need it right now I'm so tired.
She coped by sexualizing her victimization, i coped by sexualizing victimizing. I've never actually victimized anyone, but I liked very "borderline" porn from the perspective of the "initiator" ,I'll say that. I have sense stopped watching it now because I realized playing "predator" is so I don't have to confront how I was preyed on... I am hypervigilant about anything that could scare her or me now.
I put in work to be better. Especially now with my sparkly GF who age regresses when she's vulnerable... Our intrusive thoughts are mutually corrosive sometimes, and my worst fear is being a monster like our father.
So... Falling in love with her meant we had to confront those wounds. I was afraid I was a monster, and she only knew monster love, so... not being able to hide them those intrusive thoughts, and having the subject just go "it's okay🌸 I like being afraid!!" Took all of my stength to rise above our mutual depravity.
It was hard, sometimes hilarious, but we actually did it. I taught her real love is when someone respects your consent. There's no such thing as "loving someone so bad you can't resist them", that's what parasites do, not ppl who love you. It made both of us trust me more, because given the chance, i never hurt her.
Apparently , that whole time I didn't realize that I'm not the only one who's afraid of being a monster... So is our shell. Let's call him "Sheller". Sheller is a strange person. I'm a strange person. We get along well now that they realize they're a part too, not a container, or robot. We still do, things are just... Awkward... It's not his fault...
Sometimes I'd blend with Sheller, and they'd struggle to seperate my love for my gf from their own. They're like me in that they don't really feel like a woman either. So we both felt NB. Till he realized he didn't.
This poor dude... Had no idea the can of worms identifying as masculine would open. The dude just wanted to see himself, and when he did, it was a big healing thing to stop feeling like he only existed as our shadow. Truly, nothing is different now, he's just like 8 inches taller, boob-less, and his shoulders are wide. He's just as nice and safe as before, although more afraid of hurting us now.
I tbh didn't mind he thought my gf was cute, cuz she is!!! I trust him , and Of course he likes being around her, she's like sunshine and rainbows, it feels good to feel her joy, and when he blends with her he just fades in the back without thinking. He blends and expresses with everyone, it's his job lol. He also feels genuine joy when I am happy, and he supported and mediated our couple issues, he has and continues to be really supportive of us. He works a job and gets us shit he doesn't care about just cause it makes us happy. But I knew he was always quietly lonely. He loved seeing my gf get scooped up by me, cause she's a part of him too, a part that needs to feel loved and cherished. We all baby her tbh, but he never crossed any boundaries.
But then, this month, he fell in love with our old shell... "Shelley". Shelley had been inside an inner "infirmary" for a bit. She went through... so much for us. Shelley couldn't talk for years after ...And when she was finally discharged with his help... They bonded over the unique trauma of being shells, and being intense and weird. And when I say this dude was down bad, I mean it, he was down bad. Me and my gf are like treble, but they're BASS. Their love was so deep, and inspiring. Me and my gf were so happy, it felt like our awkward and stunted older brother fell in love and was opening up. We were going to have a cool older couple to bond with, and they were both just funny to watch too. We also remember reaching through Shelley, who never knew she was a system, but took care of us somehow even so, so we already cared for her.
My gf was happy for them, but started getting triggered by the glimpses she would see of their intimacy, and it made her think of the things she saw our parents doing by accident. And shed pop up sometimes when Shelley would feel those bright frilly things, and it would confuse her and make her uncomfortable.
She got really upset at Sheller one day and age regressed, telling everyone how uncomfortable it made her feel, pointing fingers and crying. Sheller felt terrible... He apologized profusely to my gf, asked how to make amends, and I did my part to soothe the rift between them too.
My gf felt very ashamed of both her regression and otp reaction, so she apologized for triggering his intrusive thoughts about being a monster again. She realized when she was big again that she was misdirecting anger at our father onto him, because Sheller is actually safe. She said she thinks she just wished she had pointed fingers at our Dad when he did what he did.
I think Shellers reaction to her discomfort was so gracious, kind, and safe... that she realized how much better things would have been for her if our Dad was like Sheller.
So she asked him if he could be her Dad. ... Lmao
He, understandably, insisted he was not stable enough to do that. He has too many intrusive thoughts he was still healing from, and could not risk both his own and her mental stability having even more responsibility on top of what he does. He was also honest that he saw my gf had some weird intrusive thoughts already slipping through and making him further uncomfortable. He said if he didn't share a brain, he would accept in a heartbeat, cause he likes taking care of us. And she accepted that well, but was sad.
She apologized about the intrusive thoughts, but when she thought about it more deeply, she explained she never had a safe male role model who didn't prey on her. That she wishes she had someone who could model familial love for her, and be a safe source of intamacy when she just wanted to be held without worrying it would turn sexual. She said I'm safe, but her attraction to me and mine to her reinforced the blurry lines she has around healthy admiration and sexuality. Me being the one to love her romantically but also hold her while shes age regressed sometimes makes her feel she's still warping those lines. I understand it, cause tbh, Sheller made me feel safe in that way too, but more like a brother.
He maintained his stance but said he already saw her as something like family. She realized it was enough to just know he loved her, and wasn't going to forget about her, and that we could all have family events with games or movies, and that was enough for her to move on happily.
The next day Sheller and Shelley had a beautiful date. They kept it inncoent in case my gfs signal was pulled in by accident. It was, but it wasn't a big deal, they were just dancing. I came out too so my gf felt less awkward. We had a whole evening together the four of us, and it was very fun. We just danced to our fave songs and listened to the rain storm.
My gf actually felt so happy and content. Id dance with her, and she's look over and see Shelley and Sheller laughing at us and waving at her. She was so happy, and felt like she finally had a family. But it was like... Out of nowhere she began spiraling.
She felt like she was going to lose all of us. She felt like she'd do something to mess things up. That her heart was breaking, or someone else's was. She couldn't place where it was coming from. Just heartbreak. Twisting sickening dread. Fear of abandonment. She started pulling back again and we all tried to comfort her to no help.
I switched in to comfort her more easily... But then I felt it too... It was like this depressive miasma... I started having all the same fears. Maybe I was just blending, but it was so confusing
She spent so long trying to understand why she felt this way, and testing different ideas, and now shes having those intrusive sexual attraction to Sheller really high.
Everyone involved feels fucking terrible now.
My gf has become incredibly depressed. She's terrified I'll leave her over this- and yeah, it's pretty disturbing and triggering for me, but I'm not really upset at her. I don't think I want to leave her yet. I mean I have intrusive sexual thoughts too, I've even had them about Sheller myself! But hers are way worse, cause she gets little and sees him as a father figure sometimes, and that must be so 🤢... OCD is like a shark and the more terrible a thought is the harder it tortures you with it.
My gf is trying not to feel suicidal... She's been far away all day... She feels like she will never know peace... Everytime she finally has someone show her love, her body reacts inappropriately, and not only will she lose me, but Sheller will Lose Shelley because he's getting his own intrusive thoughts about my gf, Shelley feels terrible because this all happened when she came along but my gf is afraid Shelley hates her, when she was excited to be yinyang friends with Shelley (who is also cute but more into spooky things).
Me and Shelley feel insecure too, cause like... Sheller is more masc than me and my gf is more femme than Shelley, so we are projecting all the insecurities into it. And what if we're wrong to trust them and they just run off and decide to have some gross fucked up trauma-themed relationship? Idk man, it's so mortifying even talking about it. But I really love both Sheller and my gf still, even with this burning in my chest, and they both are struggling with suicide ideation right now, and its just...
It's a whole ass mess...Our caretaker alt thinks Shelley, (sense she's an old shell) was blending with Sheller or my gf, and we were feeling her emotions, which we know she struggles with. It probably is that tbh. Cause we can barely lock onto Shelley sometimes. We think this is why it's been so weird and we don't even sound normal lately, and our signals are coming from weird angles.
So yeah... That's where we are... I just wanted to vent I guess. Support is welcome. I don't know man... Just feel so tired and embarrassed lol. I just feel like... Were so mentally ill and I hate it. Ugh... I hate our dad so fucking much. He really fucking broke us, and we're still in so much pain.
The only good news is we all have our anger placed in the right direction, not each other. We all understand what's happening isn't more than trauma. It just hurts so damn much ... Ugh... I really some how think we'll get through this... That day was so nice... And I felt so safe and happy... We all did ... And I think that's why we all possibly mutually ruined it lolol.

It's been ... 9 months since my mom got into life altering car accident . And we all lost our only car forever. I have no means of reliable public transportation near me anymore as I used to (I live in Puerto Rico) and getting a job near me is nearly impossible to do. My neighborhood is not walkable and most of the hiring places are near the metropolitan areas far far away from where I currently live in. Applying to remote jobs is also a dead end. I don't wanna be in anymore debt with school so I'm trying to avoid studying another things that I hate so I don't feel the need to pressure myself to like it. I just wanna have a car to move around and get a job and move out of my abusive grandmothers house for once. I'm sick and tired of living like this. I also stopped talking to my fp due to him being flaky and unwilling to let me go since he didn't want anything to do with me romantically anymore but sometimes we'd both still be sexually attracted to one another. I can't just be friends with someone who doesn't love me anymore, I told him this a thousand times and he didn't want to listen to me and leave me alone until another huge argument about an offensive racist joke he made just because I sent him a song to listen to and it was made by a South Korean dj on YouTube and I just split on him again. And even tho my anger was justified I still feel like crap. I still love him. I know he doesn't deserve me. But I feel like I'm not an easy person to love either. I don't know what to do. I feel like I keep trying to have friends and new love interests but I'm not made for casual ones nowadays. I'm intense. I love love and I love caring about others and helping people and being of service to anybody because if I don't feel like I'm helping anyone I feel I have no purpose in my life and I hate that because I know I'm just as important to look after myself but I wanna be part of caring community for once in my life, I want it to be permanent. I'm tired of temporary people and things. I have a big mouth. I don't just stay quiet and pretty for everyone to look at only. I'm not just a doll everyone can use and abuse. I'm a real person. I have feelings. I have every given right to live my life as unapologetically me. But I'm so tired of being alone and misunderstood unprovoked. I have no close friends anymore and the only person I had considered close revealed they were a pedo preying on a child years ago. I feel so angry cuz it doesn't matter how much time I spent with people they will somehow always disappoint me and boy do I have such simple boundaries with friendships (such as not being an awful person to me and others) which is incredibly hard for many to do. I can't stand living on my own anymore. Just the other day my mom and brother ganged up verbally on me and I just had a brief flashback on how they did the same when my moms ex did that to me with him putting my own family against me. All because he hated me standing up for myself against his racist behavior. I've had enough of this. I'm trying and trying to find a job a solution to get myself out of this and to make sure my family are safe and healthy. But when everyone and everythings against me it's when I don't even feel safe in my own room. There's always something. Don't even get me started with the state of the world right now. I'm already depressed as is due to COVID/Birdflu/etccxx spreading around and about Palestine, Sudan, DRC and many other nations are in a crisis right now and we're just supposed to keep living like this forever? I don't WANT THIS ANYMORE. Why do any of us have to deal with this? Jesus Christ I just wanna live normally. I don't ask for much and yet that's apparently a lot to ask for. I'm tired. I'm restless. Everyday !!!! ITS EVERYDAY!!!!! I don't feel safe in my own home, neighborhood, town, island or anywhere actually!!!! I don't wanna be a doomer. I want good things. I want a good life, and I want to be happy. But there's so much misery. I'm trying so hard to look at the bigger picture but I cannot ignore myself and others dismay over everything that's been happening over the last 5 years. How do I even do this without losing myself and my love for life? I've done everything and yet I'm still horrified I may not be able to live long enough to enjoy the seeds I've planted and have plans to plant more. This is unfair.
I’m deleting this soon but for now I feel way better letting this out of my system after a culmination of 5+ years of this ruminating in me.

Long post! A little story about overthinking and mom shaming.
TLDR: You’re doing great. You’re doing great. You’re doing great 🩷
I think I had my first experience with silent mom judgment/shaming today. Hear me out ! I took my daughter to Costco this evening for two things, a few misc household items and to share a chocolate icecream with her. My best friend joined us. To set the scene, I’ll introduce the players. 1)You have me, 28 and average. Happy and enjoying my time. Probably looks a lil nervous. 2)My friend 3)My happy, healthy daughter, who is a little over a year old. 4)Woman sitting behind us that had a salad, and also had happy and healthy looking kids with her. We were sitting in the food court, minding our business. Friend was eating pizza and I was sharing an ice cream with my daughter. Naturally, I ate majority of it and gave her a few pieces and bits. She still had a magical time, so trip was successful. I noticed the Woman Behind Us giving me an ugly or stink face whenever I turned around or happened to look back. It was maybe 2 times though, so I really avoided overthinking it. Until now 🤭 After we got in the car, my friend was like “did you see that woman behind us? She was giving some really mean looks our way. Idk, maybe not? But it felt like she was staring at us and giving faces” I immediately knew who he was talking about. We confirmed and then conspired about what the issue was lol Here’s some theories 👀 1)My friend and I are both white. My daughter is Mexican and white. My husband (her dad) is from Mexico. Maybe Woman Behind Us assumed something hateful about me sitting with a man who clearly wasn’t her dad? Maybe she’s racist? I highly doubt this one. Unfortunately it crosses my mind sometimes. 2)Maybe her salad sucked and she was jealous of our ice cream. 3) She was having a bad day Or, if she WAS silently mom shaming.. maybe she was judging a situation she had no clue about. Such as, my daughter is perfectly healthy and within perfect weight range. Her biggest exposure to sugar is fruit, bananas are her favorite. She eats a range of foods and I work hard to introduce her to new and healthy things. I don’t see any reason she can’t have a few bites of ice cream with me. She had a very fulfilling dinner before Costco. Grilled chicken, pasta, beets, and pickles. Ice cream was not her dinner. But how was Woman Behind Us supposed to know all of this? I looked behind me maybe twice and I only took note of the salad the second time. Why? Because I saw the face she was giving and felt nervous. So naturally, as most parents do, I compared myself to what little I saw of her. A salad, happy and healthy kids, etc etc. while my daughter was eating ice cream and a little cranky (she’d been shopping with me almost all day and being so sweet! Of course she was tired now). Who knows what she was looking at or why. It actually doesn’t matter. It sucks that I felt embarrassed by just existing. And it sucks that some parents go through this daily. You’re doing a good job. Remember, these people who see you out and about have no clue what’s going on. You know your children, your relationship, your everything more than anyone else ever will. If you didn’t hear it today: Good job 🩷

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, the realm of aerial mobility continues to push boundaries and redefine possibilities. DJI, a name synonymous with innovation in the field of drones, has once again captured the imagination of enthusiasts and professionals alike with its latest creation – the DJI Avata.
Unveiled amidst much anticipation and excitement, the DJI Avata represents a significant leap forward in the realm of personal aerial transportation. Combining cutting-edge technology with sleek design, this futuristic aircraft promises to revolutionize the way we perceive and engage with the skies.
Design and Features
At first glance, the DJI Avata captivates with its streamlined, aerodynamic design. Inspired by nature and engineered for efficiency, every aspect of its construction is meticulously crafted to optimize performance and user experience.
One of the most striking features of the Avata is its vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities. Unlike traditional aircraft that require runways for liftoff and landing, the Avata can ascend and descend gracefully from almost any location, making it ideal for urban environments where space is limited.
Powered by advanced electric propulsion systems, the Avata boasts impressive speed and agility while maintaining a whisper-quiet operation. Equipped with state-of-the-art sensors and intelligent flight control algorithms, it offers unparalleled stability and maneuverability, ensuring a smooth and safe journey for passengers.
Safety and Reliability
In the realm of aerial transportation, safety is paramount, and DJI has left no stone unturned in ensuring the utmost security for Avata passengers. Multiple redundant systems, including backup power sources and flight control redundancies, are integrated into the aircraft to mitigate the risk of system failures.
Furthermore, the Avata utilizes advanced collision avoidance technology to detect and navigate around obstacles in its flight path, reducing the likelihood of accidents and ensuring a stress-free flying experience for passengers and bystanders alike.
Versatility and Accessibility
Beyond its role as a personal aerial transportation vehicle, the DJI Avata opens up a world of possibilities for various applications. From urban commuting and emergency medical services to aerial photography and surveillance, its versatility knows no bounds.
Moreover, the Avata is designed to be accessible to a wide range of users, with intuitive controls and automated flight assistance features that make piloting effortless, even for those with limited experience. Whether you're a seasoned aviator or a novice enthusiast, the Avata invites you to soar to new heights with confidence and ease.
Environmental Impact
In an era where environmental sustainability is of paramount importance, the DJI Avata stands as a beacon of progress in the pursuit of greener transportation solutions. By harnessing the power of electric propulsion, it significantly reduces carbon emissions compared to traditional gas-powered aircraft, contributing to a cleaner and healthier planet for future generations.
Furthermore, its efficient design and use of renewable materials minimize ecological footprint throughout its lifecycle, aligning with DJI's commitment to environmental stewardship and corporate responsibility.
Otros productos:
La DJI Pocket 3 es una cámara compacta y versátil diseñada para capturar imágenes suaves y de alta calidad sobre la marcha. Con su tamaño compacto y tecnología de estabilización incorporada, permite a los usuarios crear fácilmente videos de aspecto profesional sin necesidad de equipos voluminosos. La Pocket 3 cuenta con capacidades avanzadas de cámara, incluida la grabación de video 4K, modos de disparo inteligentes y una variedad de opciones creativas. Su interfaz táctil intuitiva y diseño fácil de usar la hacen accesible tanto para principiantes como para videógrafos experimentados. Ya sea que estés grabando vlogs, videos de viajes o aventuras llenas de acción, la DJI Pocket 3 ofrece comodidad, portabilidad y un rendimiento excepcional.
DJI Care es un plan de protección integral ofrecido por DJI para sus drones y otros productos. Ofrece cobertura para daños accidentales y brinda tranquilidad a los usuarios al minimizar los costos de reparación en caso de percances durante su funcionamiento. Con DJI Care, los usuarios pueden acceder a reparaciones aceleradas, servicios de reemplazo e incluso recibir cobertura para daños por agua en algunos casos. Este servicio tiene como objetivo garantizar que los propietarios de productos DJI puedan disfrutar de sus dispositivos con confianza, sabiendo que cuentan con un soporte confiable y asistencia en caso de accidentes imprevistos.
The DJI Mavic 3 es un dron de última generación diseñado para la fotografía y videografía aérea profesional. Con sus características y capacidades avanzadas, ofrece una calidad de imagen y rendimiento incomparables en un paquete compacto y portátil. El Mavic 3 cuenta con un potente sistema de cámara con un sensor grande y un procesamiento de imagen avanzado, lo que permite a los usuarios capturar impresionantes videos en 4K y fotos de alta resolución con una claridad y detalle excepcionales. Sus modos de vuelo inteligentes y tecnología de evitación de obstáculos hacen que sea fácil capturar tomas cinematográficas con precisión y seguridad. Ya sea que seas un cineasta profesional, creador de contenido o fotógrafo aficionado, el DJI Mavic 3 ofrece las herramientas y la versatilidad para llevar tu imagen aérea a nuevas alturas.