Why i chose nursing as my career

Freshly back and awake after a twelve day stint for my first time there. I knew that I wanted to go in general, and while I didn't have a firm itinerary planned out, there was one main goal that I had in terms of sites within the country. The main video game that I play is Beatmania IIDX, and it has internal trophies which are represented as badges. Your profile allows you to assign up to five of them as visible when you start a new round, and there are badges to earn for playing at least one round in every prefecture in Japan, as well as every subregion. Getting the Kanto badge meant that I needed to play at least one round in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, and Chiba. After five days, I had that complete, and now I have a permanent record of this trip within the game itself. There was also a time-limited event to earn points in IIDX in order to exchange them for goods, such as a hat, or a towel, or a new account card and a poster, and I managed to get that taken care of in somewhat dramatic fashion. I did some other things too.
Primary general points
· Getting Suica set on the phone and using it was generally painless. There were only two times where I needed to summon the help of a resident JR employee to clear up an issue with the gate not reading the card for some reason.
· Most vocal interaction which I had was the opposite of painless, because I continuously kept trying to speak Japanese and failing, and most people would realize that I was completely failing at it and responded with English (some with full on sentences, others with just a few words). There were a few rare times that I was able to express my intent in Japanese, receive a response, understand the response, and reply as necessary, but that was rare. Once English was invoked, I would stay with it, because that's what they were expecting. I've been self-studying the language for more than twenty years in varying degrees of intensity, and while my reading comprehesion seemed sufficient enough for this trip, and while I didn't expect my speaking to be as good because I don't have any opportunity to practice speaking, I came away bitterly disappointed in my vocal and speaking comprehension in terms of my interaction with people there. Even within the trip I could at least overhear common chitchat better, but any time I needed to converse with someone for some reason, I usually needed to have things repeated several times and broken down before I finally realized what was being said.
· You are going to be asked about separately buying a bag with every non-food purchase. Accept or immediately present one that you are carrying to indicate how your purchase shall be bagged.
· I never once had my passport requested for presentation.
· Only once did a person volutnarily reach out to address me, and it was just to ask me where I was from in English. Otherwise, everyone left me alone the entire time.
· Weather through the period was ideal. Mid to upper 70F/25C range and only a few days where it was rainy, and even then it wasn't a downpour. A while ago I personally resolved to only wear suits in public and I purchased a new pair of Mephisto shoes after hearing reports of the extensive walking causing problems for traveller's feet and shoes. My attire help up well; there were only a few times that I needed to avoid sunlight to not get too hot, and I have no issues to report from the shoes.
· I only got X'd out of a restaurant one time, and I think it's only because I wandered into it before it was ready for service. Otherwise, I never once waited in line for food, I never once went to restaurant more than once, and all food was acceptably priced for the portion and excellent for the quality.
For these per-day recounts, I wrote them contemporaneously at the end of each day, so you'll need to forgive me for some writing being in present tense and other writing being in past tense.
Day 1 - Travel, Sugamo, Ikebukuro
Non stop flight from Chicago OHare to Haneda. 12 hours. Good thing I usually don't watch movies, because that just means that all I needed to do was binge a few to make the trip go by.
Pre-trip research led me to choose APA Sugamo as my home base for the visit, and I think that it was a very fortuitious choice. I'll have more to say about it later.
Some awkward encounters happened right away upon checking in here. I was at the nearby Family Mart to buy some things and I didn’t catch that he was making sure I wanted a bag until he repeated it five times. Yes, I’ll take it. Before getting there I was coming down to ground level after checking into my room, and when that person saw that I would have been the only other person going down to the ground, they ducked right back out. I was warned on both of these kinds of things happening, so I guess it’s good to have that immediately out of the way. It would turn out that people deliberately avoiding me was rare throughout the trip.
Despite not sleeping on the trip, I had freshly arrived and had no sense of being tired, so once I had my stuff down, I went off to Ikebukuro right away. No picture or video truly conveys how crowded these areas can get. It can only be experienced in person to be understood.
I soon found Round One Ikebukruo and went right in. So dense and loud. It’s entirely alien to me to see no less than ten IIDX machines in operation and all of them in use. I dumped the money into random tickets, as I foresaw doing, but now I have to wonder if that was the right thing to do, or if it’s tied to that location. I guess I’ll find out.
The forecast is for rain so I need to be in a hurry to figure out where I’m going to go. There might be only one day left for me to get my time limited toys.
Day 2 - Kawasaki, Kanagawa - Utsunomiya, Tochigi - Oomiya, Saitama
My body decided that it only needed four hours of sleep this morning. Without doing more research, I somehow decided to assume that more of the Round One locations were close to 24 hours of operation much like Ikebukuro. Answer: no. I hopped on the train early and went to Shibuya first, but it was very quiet, so I decided to get some of the travels out of the way today and headed south to Kawasaki. I still needed to dawdle for a while until Silk Hat opened at 900AM, and when I finally was able to get inside, I was only able to verify that their store had several allotments of the campaign goods and all allotments were out. Played one round on a monitor that was surprisingly blurry, and I don’t know why that would be the case with a lightning model, but it was, so that was enough.
After doing all of that, I resolved to try to go to Chiba and Ibaraki afterwards. I figured that with Kanagawa and Tokyo likely all out, going to the outskirts would make more sense. However, there was an injury on one of the rails that threw everything off normal, and the train I found myself riding was bound for Utsunomiya instead. Seeing as how I was going to go there eventually, I rolled with it.
It doesn’t take too long to move away from Tokyo metropolitan area before you encounter more forest like areas and rice paddy fields. Halfway through the trip I noticed that two older women suddenly hopped off while the train was waiting to go to the next stop, and I followed them when I realized they found the express line. Utsunomiya has a substantial size to its area and buildings but it was very quiet on the streets there in midday. Walked a mile to Sega GIGO, found that they didn’t even have the goods tracker up. All out. Interesting buliding for it having several neon signs, all vintage and authentic at that. Getting to there from the south meant cutting through Saitama, so I knew I had enough time to make one last attempt there. Research shown two stores being near Oomiya station, so that’s where I ended up. Taito Station was immediately visible upon exit, and they have two IIDX machines specifically with 20 gram springs, which is closer to my home setup and that much lighter than standard 50 gram springs. The final hour drew near and I made one last visit to that city’s Round One. Unlike nearly every other place I went to so far, it only had one IIDX machine. However, and maybe because of that, their goods listing didn’t show everything as out. One painful language exchange later, I was able to discern that what I wanted was available. When you spend more than 3000 yen in a single credit, the game wants to verify if you really want to proceed. It does it again at 6000 and 9000. Yes, I really do. But, having made that money dump I was able to get my hands on the e-amuse card and poster with fifteen minutes left before the deadline. Mission complete. By this point in the day it was exceedingly difficult to even look at the screen so I was ready to come home, but not before getting some goods at the Oomiya Book Off and redeeming what I could for points at Round One Ikebukuro. By the end of the day the only thing that I could tolerate doing was to buy some chicken and nigiri from the nearby train station. Good enough. At that point in the day my body felt like it wants to rock back and forth after all the train riding done today. But, it ended up being worthwhile after all.
One nostalgic feeling I had the most strongly in the day was at the Utsunomiya location where the smell of it triggered past buried memories of yesteryear. I think I want to attribute it to the stronger second hand cigarette smell but I’m not sure - all the same I felt its presence strongly there. Also, I don’t see Oomiya (or really Saitama itself) mentioned as a fun place to go, but it might serve as an acceptable alternative to Ikebukuro, only not as massive in scale of human quantity. Depending on how the trip goes in total I may end up back there for IIDX playing, at least if I don’t find any other place that has 20G springs.
Day 3 - Akihabara
With the travels out of the way, it was time to keep things more regionalized and stick to one area, and there is shopping that needs to be done, so it was off to Akihabara and to see how much of other posted tales hold true. The answer is that it is a lot of it. Kotobukiya can stand to open sooner than noon. Super Potato is indeed priced for a market which wants to snap up anything cheap - I at least found Xi for under 500 and felt that it would have been a bit silly to buy only that, but it didn’t make spending 2000 on one single issue of Arcadia any better. I had no idea that Hey Arcade was right next to both of them; while it was assuredly nice to be there and see the row of Cave shooters among everything else, something got messed up with my registration of my new eamuse card with everything else, so that quickly added to my stress. Having to carry around a few hundred dollars worth of crap with every step didn’t help matters. At least I was able to help a person recover their lost phone by applying a bit of logic to the situation and deducing it to belong to the only person there who looked French, as it was on the Lock Screen. They were relieved, yes. Then, rain came, and it was more than I was anticipating, and I left the umbrella at the room, particularly since I knew I’d be shopping this day. It also turns out to have not mattered much, because I went to visit Bic Camera so that I could get myself a hair trimmer while here, and that turned into me finding a bunch of Kit Kats available, so that meant a second bag. The wind kicked out the rain and my umbrella. In trying to get as many gifts secured as possible, I found some gachapon, but it needed 100Y coins, and I didn’t need paper money in the trip yet. After fighting with maps, I found an ATM to get cash, and got the gachapon. I came home late with feeling rather crushed about the day in that I couldn’t take pictures very well with having to juggle weather and bagging considerations. There were some nice parts of the experience to be sure but between that and more gawking at Super Potato pricing ($135 for PS3 Caladrius? $6000 for Pulstar?) and seeing similar markups on other goods, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that there is a reputation that this area carries and the pricing is there to go with it.
Day 4 - Laundry Day. Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku
I was so drained at the end of Day 3 that I fell asleep on the bed immediately after ending the night call, which meant that I woke up at 0200AM to a room that was fully lit. This meant that I needed to look up how to resolve my eamuse problem or else I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. I did both. Awake at 0800AM meant that I had time to do laundry while I figured out what to do with the rest of the day. This meant that I was able to get more of Sugamo in pictures, and it was nice to be able to walk among the actual residences, and do other things like come across a school as it was actually in session. With them being close by and all in succession, I figured to get Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku visited. It turns out to have been a good day for it, as the temperature was perfectly cool and no rain came, and the sun came out only for a little bit. Shibuya somehow doesn’t seem quite as large in scope in person but the crowds were definitely there, and it is much more hilly than I anticipated as well. After wandering around and not seeing any arcade for a bit, I came across a series of coffee and cookie shops and remained strong to not indulge. It was there while looking at a Disney store (which gets tourists to take pictures of it for some reason) that the song Alone Again came on through the nearby public speakers. What timing. It drove me to finally get a treat for myself, and the frozen latte (black sesame and houji) and croissant (dark chocolate filing) were certainly good, it ended up costing more than the dinner I’d have later this day. I found a seclusion with a garbage can to eat the food and not carry the trash around, then an arcade soon after, and it was time to determine if I could fix the problem. Just like an easy click, it was. New to trash. Old to new. Done. Why did it have to be this way. Harajuku came next, and the environment there was distinct. This one in particular felt like it was an extended carnival atmosphere with the single tight knit market street and emphasis on fashion. A conversation with a freelance artist in the subway actually went well enough that I didn’t feel dumb. The same sensation carried to Shinjuku as well, only it was more spread out. Kabuki street was interesting to see in person, and I didn’t get any unseemly vibes from the place. Maybe it’s different later at night. A return home at a reasonable time allowed me to go down Sugamo’s market street a bit; most of it was closed, but it was interesting to come across the few remaining stores that were open by 0800PM, and more so the one that wasn’t. Coming back to the hotel I found a 24 hour ramen shop with nobody inside. The chef didn’t want to speak and only pointed to the ordering kiosk when I addressed her. The food came through a slot in the obscured window. At least her thank you as I left was a bit more warm, and the food was certainly delicious. To match with the matcha dessert that I bought from Sugamo station, I swung by a 7Eleven to get a drink, and found a milk tea for cheaper than a vending machine. The overhead music in the store was an instrumental version of Alone Again.
Day 5. Ibaraki - Mount Tsukuba, Miraidaira. Kashiwa, Chiba. Akihabara 2.
Awake at 0500AM on my own and knowing the current forecast meant that my envisioned plan for the day was quickly realized. Reaching the Tsukuba Express starting point from Akihabara needs you to get very far down into the ground before getting out into sunlight. I was on the ride early enough to see schoolchildren going about their commute, some of them being no older than ten and going about it unaccompanied. The people of Tsukuba seemed to be particularly helpful and cheerful that day, even despite my Suica issues at the gate. I didn’t ask his name at the counter but the man at the service desk was eager to speak with me about my career and what I was doing there. One asked where I was from on the way up to the summit and another caught my cable car ticket on the way down. There had to have been a few of them who saw my doing this climb in my business attire and thinking me to be a complete idiot if not outright mocking them for doing it that way while they employed the use of dual walking sticks and the like. I know I read some reports of the home stretch being difficult, but it did get pretty close to being an actual rock climb instead of a trail hike for that part of it. A quick stop to Miraidaira on the way back to get the Ibaraki play. The way the town center greets you upon leaving the rail gate struck me as incredible, as well as for how quiet it was. It was like walking onto a movie set. I did find the sweet shop after the play, and that was another painful interaction yet again. Oh well. Two quick stops down Tsukuba Express and one across from Tobu Urban Park line was enough to have a toe in Chiba, and I didn’t even need to leave the physical building of the train station to get to the basement level to find a machine for a play. Thank you, Kashiwa, you were great. Gunma is all that’s left. The descent from Tsukuba did take some earnest exertion, and after doing that the two stops, that put me back in Akihabara about when I anticipated; what I failed to anticipate is how much that place seems to drain on me. I think I just need to eat at an actual dinner time. Once I got back to Sugamo and had food it was a bit better, but while in Akihabara and being around that environment, and not finding things on a shopping list, I found myself just standing still and watching life pass me by. I hemmed and hawed a while for a maid girl’s hour of service for chitchat, but eventually I talked myself out of it because I just didn’t want potential trouble, just like her name. Komaru. I thought about doing this once just to say that I did, but I ultimately decided against it. You cannot go to this place with the expectation that you will find anything unless it is advertised and new. If you are looking for anything used, don’t count on it being there. You also cannot go there without having a strong resolve to not engage with the touts, because it becomes disheartening to see them do their job and blankly stare at the world when they're forced to stand out there and do nothing. Back to Sugamo to find a place that advertised Wagyu but the price they wanted was more than I wanted to spend. The ramen and seaweed & rice servings were fine, but they advertised endless drink and I didn’t receive that. All for $20? No, son. I did better than that elsewhere, I’ll know better now. Long day.
Day 6 - Tokyo Flea Market, Nakano Broadway, Ueno.
The weather couldn’t have been better for this weekend. I’ve read reports that the flea market held near the horse race track will be arbitrarily cancelled regardless of what is reported on the website, but my gut instinct told me that it would occur today, and it did. Turns out that a flea market is a flea market which is a flea market, no matter where it happens. Same allotment of clothes and stuff that few people really want to buy, although I was able to find myself some neckties at least. I probably overpaid based on what I saw later in the route, but that’s fine. They look nice. I settled on some shot glasses for a gift as well, but I’m surprised that I can’t ind something ornate that isn’t part of a sake set. Seated in the shade with a chocolate churro while rap music played in the background - it’s like I never left home. A woman came to sit across from me for the sake of sitting down; she was from Holland and today’s her last day in the country. Her husband came with food eventually. She had three weeks here and went to several places (allegedly, she didn’t list them out) and I asked her about Nakano Broadway. She didn’t make it there. It’s a good thing that I did - this is probably the kind of environment and market that people expect of Akihabara now, and maybe that’s how Aki was years ago, but it’s different from this. What’s more interesting is that Mandarake has a larger presence here than in Akihabara (so it seems to me), and their stores had floor after floor of any and every kind of pop culture product that’s been made in the past sixty years at least. Buttress that with extensive watch and jewelry stores and a slender arcade in the basement, and it’s a very well centralized microcosm of the country’s economy on the whole. I actually made a point to have dinner earlier than usual this time and found a place to serve some deep fried pork cuts served with rice and soup on the side. It was enough, and very well made. The day had not ended and my bag was heavy with several books purchased there, so I reported back to base briefly and decided to try visiting somewhere else, and settled on Ueno. Just as I arrived, a festival was underway where local teams of people made an elaborate show of carrying a home made shrine to a temple. Streets were officially blocked by police to allow the procession. In following the line I came up against makeshift food and amusement stands with the traditional toy gun shooting and goldfish catching. It appears that this is an official “start of summer” festival and I was able to watch it all happen in front of me. That was the good part of the day.
Day 7 - Tachikawa / Kunitachi. Shinjuku 2.
One of the games that I've never played is Beatmania III The Final. I've played some BM3 7th Mix years ago, but not The Final. I found a location that has one - World Game Circus in Tachikawa. In looking around that area before the trip, I saw that there was a nearby shinkansen museum, and not much else, so I figured that going to both places would make that walk worthwhile. Turns out that it wasn’t a museum in the proper sense of a dedicated building. Rather, it was a bullet train engine car on the side of a building that was unrelated, and that was it. A cute interaction happened here - when I approached the car, I heard some children running around inside, so I approached cautiously without knowing if I was encroaching upon someone else's alloted time or something. Once the children saw me, they gave a hearty irrashaimase as I entered, and the boy stamped a paper and presented it to me. Perfect. Despite it not being a typical musem, the card did have some interesting content, and it's good to see some kind of commemoration for their achievements and progression in that industry regardless. They have a lot to be proud about there. Off to WGC. Maps wasn’t lying about the walk taking twenty minutes. It's a good thing that I looked it up on streetview beforehand, because I otherwise would have walked right past it without knowing it was there. Then there it was, and there I confronted a past that I couldn’t visit again. Sure, I got to play BM3 The Final at last, but my timing was off, my hands were off, there wasn’t much I could do. Along with that I can say that I’ve played on a Beatmania II cabinet, and that was better than 5th Style at least. But that was it, that was all I could stand to do. It was right there and I couldn’t bear to put up with it more than a few rounds at best. Dream big, because only disappointment follows if your smaller dreams ever are fulfilled. I don’t know why finding IKEA back in Shinjuku was so difficult, but it took a while. I bought a bag, and then I bought a bag because the other bag was at the end of the register, which makes sense. I did feed myself before getting back to the Taito station to play some songs, but it still wasn’t good enough. All thumbs. Ended the day with laundry since the timing worked. Speaking of making dreams big, it’s time to cross another one off the list tomorrow. I can’t wait.
Day 8 - Takasaki, Gunma. Oomiya, Saitama 2.
It’s a good thing that I only needed to get to Ikebukuro to transfer over to the next stop, because that’s where that particular run ended for some reason. I wonder what was up. Speaking of things getting messed up on trains, I managed to find my way on a train that needed a separate ticket, which I didn't have. The conductor found me right away and had me disembark at Uraja for me to wait for the proper transfer. The weather forecast said there’d be rain, and the travel forecast said it would take two hours to get there, and neither lied. I feel like I had more people staring at me in Gunma than other places. I will say that I found the Takasaki station area to be rather charming, with the stores that it had inside and the emphasis on the music culture there. It’s one thing to offer a piano to the public to play, but it’s another to have a public willing to use it. This location had both. Having what was essentially a Bic Camera built into the facility was a nice touch too. The Leisure Land arcade was sandwiched between other floors that had its own offering of gaming stuff, so that was an unexpected bit of a fun thing to look through. The area was clean and sparsely populated, and it wasn’t picked clean of all matter of things that would normally get snapped up, so that was interesting. Finally, I made it over to the machine. They had separate fans for each location. I got the songs and then the medals came, and that’s that. Kantou Seiou. I would have stayed a bit longer but I wanted to have the medals show up right away, and my internet wasn’t cooperating, so that’s all I could do. I think there was an Internet cafe that I could have used in the facility, but I didn’t want to deal with an awkward conversation. I did get some Lawson on the way out, as well as some trinkets from the local Gunma-chan store as well as some mini croissants and some macademia cookie things. More vocal awkwardness. Omiya was one of the stops on the way back, and I found a place to serve omrice, so that’s another one off the list. No shoes allowed inside. The value wasn’t there but the service was good enough, as was the flavor. The machines with the 20G springs are indeed legit. Back home in time for some McDonalds, and that’s another food-checklist item marked off. Takoyaki mayo dipping sauce - somehow it’s both salty and sweet. While returning to the hotel, I did happen to encounter an argument amongst two teenaged locals where the guy ended up half-heartedly kicking the girl and getting her to cry. I wonder what their argument was about. I didn’t play hero, but someone else did so enough to prevent an escalation and called the police over.
Day 9 - Sugamo, Tokyo Sky Tree, Akihabara 3, Kanda
Up early enough to decide that I should at least visit the Sky Tree while I'm there just to say that I did, and that I should visit the Sugamo street market upon its open since it was right there in front of me. I'm glad to have done so. With everything open, this felt more like what one would think to expect from a flea market environment that's operated and supported by the local populace. Small stores were open both sides of the street that go on for many blocks, and some tents and tables were set up to sell second hand goods as well. I was able to find someone selling a US Morgan dollar and he wanted only 2000Y for it, so that was an easy buy. If I would have known better to anticipate this area, I wouldn't have felt compelled to buy kitchy tourist crap that is expected as gifts elsewhere. If you are looking for a place to idly shop around that doesn't get extremely crowded and has an authentic local feel to it, consider making a point to come here. Off to Sky Tree. Getting the combo ticket for the second deck was worth it just for the lack of crowds on the upper area. If you're going to come here, consider getting a phone selfie stick or something of the kind so that you can take pictures against the windows without the structure scaffolding obstructing your view. On the subject of shopping again, this might be another area to consider visiting just for the sake of the specialty stores to be found here, such as those for chopsticks or hairpins. To close out the day, my wife reminded me to look for something from the Square Enix cafe, so that meant swinging by Akihabara yet again. Since it is within a walkway, it was a bit of a pain to find this place even with using maps, but I eventually found it and got what she wanted to find. Played some IIDX at Game Panic, which was surprisingly small and the one machine that was avaialble to play had some 2P turntable issues, so that didn't last all that long. Dinner was at a nearby place that specalized in tofu, so that was a good ramen serving with that infused. For the evening, I wandered south to Kanda to get night pictures, and found it to feel pretty similar to Ueno.
Day 10 - Ginza, Tokyo, Kanda & Akihabara 4
Launrdry in the morning. I also wanted to say that I went to Ginza in my time here, and I didn't research anywhere to go to keep it a surprise. It was a bit warmer and sunnier than usual that day, and I stuck to the main road for most of the walk, so I can't say that I found too many points of the interest along the path that I walked starting from Yurakucho station and heading out that way. High class store for high class people, and that's too rich for my peasant blood. Similarly for Tokyo proper itself, I suppose I'd have to needed to wander far away from the Yamanote vicinity to find points of interest there, as I didn't encounter anything that was remarkably distinctive here in comparison to other areas that I have previously seen. Continuing north across Nihonbashi brought me to Kanda and eventually to Akihabara yet again, as if it was a magnet that pulled me inside every time. For the sake of trying a different place I chose to play some IIDX at the Leisure Land arcade there, and I'm glad to have done that, as those machines were probably in the best coniditon that I encountered within that area. Dinner was at Tenkaippin, which I didn't realize until after I placed the order was cash only. The clerk didn't request it beforehand but I voluntarily left my passport there to show that I would return, and promptly went to the same ATM that I had found days prior in order to get the cash to pay for the bill.
Day 11 - Haneda T3, Nishi Nippori, Nippori, Uguisuidani, Otsuka, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukruo, home.
The end. I resolved to take the subway over to Haneda today to get the one luggage over there and stored, and it’s a good thing that I did - there’s no easy solution for getting over there without encountering a crowd. If anything I wonder if Yamanote is actually better. Regardless, I got that much done. With the day left to go, I ventured to Nishi Nippori and I needed to summon the map several times to make sure I found the location, as it was as obscure as it could get. Just a sign on the ground for the third floor, a stairway that led to the back, an elevator that had no decoration, a single room that housed everything. Arcade PCB kits on shelves, joystick panels in exposed boxes, nicotine odor from years past - it was like I was transported to 1995 upon entry, beyond the fact that the games weren’t as old. Most of them, they did have a lot going for SF3 3rd yet. I was able to take care of some game business in a hurry since I was the only one there. It was a very pleasant respite for play in comparison to most of the other sessions. The region itself felt much the same as this arcade - old and well worn, as in well lived. Venturing south to Nippori led me to stumble upon a shrine and cemetery just by following some stairs. Usuigudani was cleaner but mostly had hotels as points of interest. Back home to buy some mochi while mochi was for sale in midday. Then to Otsuka, thinking that I would wander to Ikebukuro, but I ended up wandering back to Sugamo instead. Whoops. Meal at Sugamo, then back out to return to Shibuya and Shinjuku at night to catch evening shots, when I hadn’t done so before at these places. Good thing I did that to get Golden Gai area shots at night. With the night winding down, I decided to have one last IIDX play at Round 1 in Ikebukuro to symbolically end where I started.
Ending arcade comments
· Although the upkeep is generally better and more consistent than the US, some machines will have hardware issues here too. I was surprised by the blurriness with some of the LM IIDX machines.
· Densha De Go on the propert large cabinet is nice but quickly becomes very expensive.
· Bombergirl is OK enough and having the dedicated detonator button that pops up for hitting the base is a cute touch.
· Chase Chase Jokers feels rather clunky and I'm not sure what the game is trying to do. Interesting side screen concept at least.
· Nostalgia is delightful and would probably find a small fanbase worldwide if it had more exposure.
· Favorite IIDX locations are Taito Station in Oomiya for the light keys and Leisure Land Akihabara for the high quality of the LMs there. Honorable mention goes to the Game Versus loctation in Nishi Nihonbashi, but that might not be worth it for a dedicated trip unless you go there first thing in the morning.
Ending overall comments
This was a life altering trip for me, as would be expected. While I'm glad to have made the journey, as to be expected, I will only want to return after making an extensive redoubled effort into speaking and hearing comprehension, because I know that I came across like a blubbering idiot so many times, and it's truly aggravating because I generally know what I want to say and most of the words that are used to say it, but it just doesn't come out of my mouth properly when it needs to be done.
I welcome any questions you may have, as that will help for me to recall the memories and have me write them down.

Around Thanksgiving last year, my 22 year old daughter Izzy started complaining about her back hurting. We just assumed she pulled a muscle or had a pinched nerve. After a couple weeks, the pain seemed to be getting worse. She went to urgent care on a Friday and they confirmed she probably had a pinched nerve. They gave her some meds. That following Monday (Dec. 18) she was in a lot of pain, so I rushed her to the hospital. It was her back and her left arm now bothering her. They blew her off and said that she was fine. I insisted that she get an MRI or cat scan done. Finally at my request they did a cat scan on her back and said they didn't see anything wrong. They said it's probably a pinched nerve, gave her more meds and sent us home.
The week of Christmas everything changed. She woke up each night covered in sweat. On the 28th, her heart was beating fast, she was extremely pale, and had two knots appear on the left side of her neck and one under her left underarm. I brought her to a different hospital.
When we got to the ER, they immediately took her to a room. Her vitals were extremely high (170 heart rate) from the pain she was in. They were considering that she could have meningitis or mono. They wanted to get tests ran right away. They admitted her, and did a spinal tap and MRI. 2 days later (Saturday) the doc said they found a large tumor on her spine. Can't say if it's cancer yet, she would need a biopsy first. They informed us that she would be moved that day to their sister hospital that specializes in cancer.
When we arrived, she was put on the neurology ward in a regular room. They immediately put her on a lot of meds. She was on so many pain drugs, (Oxy, Dilaudid, muscle relaxers, Morphine, Xanax, etc.) that I kept asking, "Is this end of life? Can she overdose from all these drugs?" They would respond with, "no, it's just to keep her comfortable and we're trying to get her heart rate down." On New years day they gave her Ativan. She responded horribly to it. It was a rough day. She was hallucinating and freaking out all day and night. The next day she told them to NEVER give her that again. They told her when we first arrived that anything she didn't want to take, they would respect and not put it in her charts to receive. They would put it under allergies. We assumed they would do so as they said they would.
They finally did the biopsy on Wednesday the 3rd. When she came back from surgery, she wouldn't wake up. She slept all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. I was really concerned.They kept adding more pain meds to her chart. I again was scared she would forget to breathe. That night she wasn't breathing properly and her vitals were going down. She had to be rushed to NeuroICU. They got her stable and explained it was from all the different drugs. They explained that it's trial and error. They're trying to figure out what works for her and they decided to put her on a drip line of Dilaudid. They still gave her other drugs but Dilaudid seemed to help her pain somewhat. They also said she had a spot on her lungs what looked like pneumonia starting.
All week she was constantly telling us that she was losing feeling in her legs and her left arm. By Saturday of that week she was paralyzed. They finally took her for an MRI and saw that the tumor had spread up and down her spine and to her ovaries, and it was stealing her blood supply. She would need emergency surgery asap. They of course came to explain what was happening and the surgeon informed me that Ativan would be used during surgery. I immediately told him no, and that she is allergic to it and it was supposed to be on her allergy list. I explained to him what happened when she received it before. On Sunday they rushed her into surgery and cut the blood supply to the tumor. It was too dangerous to try and remove any of the tumor. They didn't know if the paralysis was permanent, but they were hopeful that the surgery would work. It didn't we would later find out.
When she returned from surgery, she was out of control. She was violent and cursing at me. In 22 years I had never heard her curse, but she was fluent! She was hallucinating bad and kept freaking out. It was scary to watch. They decided to give her some meds to make her to sleep, to help her heal. For 2 straight days my baby screamed blood curdling screams, she would cry out "mommy, mommy" while she slept. She screamed so much and so loud that anyone in ear shot were questioning what was going on. It was heartbreaking to witness. I thought she was having a bad reaction to the anesthesia. I later found out that they were giving her Ativan anyway. They NEVER put it in her chart as an allergy the week before, and the doctor disregarded what I said about not giving her that. They had other options they could have used but he still chose to do what he wanted. I only found out because the nurse mentioned that she would be right back with her Ativan. The nurse had no knowledge that my daughter refused that medication previously. I informed her not to give that drug to her. She went and spoke with the attending physician who changed it to haldol and ketemine. That was Monday night. By Wednesday she finally calmed down from screaming, so they decided to try and wake her up.
When she woke up she could no longer speak properly, use her left arm, or move her legs. Her fingers and toes were turning black. They said it was from a certain med she was on. That it's normal. A lay person could see something was horribly wrong.
Everyday we would see up to 30 doctors. I say we, because I never left her side. One would say one thing while another would say something else. It was confusing and scary. We still didn't have a diagnosis. We just knew she had cancer. They suspected stage 4 but couldn't say until pathology came back. It was traumatic and a nightmare. It went from a diagnosis of a pinched nerve to stage 4 cancer in a matter of a week. WTF?
We finally got the diagnosis on Tuesday the 9th.. Stage 4 anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Very rare and aggressive. They said they were starting chemo immediately. They gave her the first dose that Wednesday night. We had hope. It was a rollercoaster of terror, but the doctors kept saying that she could beat this. I googled everything I could and prayed for a miracle. It's always been my girl and I, so I was desperate for her to live through this. She wasn't just my daughter, she was literally my everything.
By week 2, she needed blood on a daily basis. She couldn't eat or drink. She couldn't relieve herself. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak clearly to explain her needs or wants. Her breathing was shallow. Her vitals were not normal. They would go down and then jump extremely high. She was so out of it, that they had to come to me concerning everything. Her oxygen was dropping significantly and they had to keep changing out the masks and oxygen levels to help her breathe. They kept changing her meds and she had multiple complications from that. They couldn't find any good spots on her arms to put her IVs anymore, and her legs were so swollen that they couldn't locate a useable spot anywhere. They put it on her right side of the neck. During all this she had multiple medical emergencies. One example is they said that spot on her lungs wasn't pneumonia but they now suspected a small blood clot. That medicine she was given would hopefully help, the only problem was that medication was causing problems for her back surgery. A few days later we found out it was blood and it was completely filled up in her chest. She was drowning in her own blood. They couldn't do surgery right away because she would bleed out since her platelets were so low even while receiving blood transfusions. That blood was somehow going into her lungs. I was floored. Everyday I would ask about it and I was told it was getting better, nothing to worry about. In fact the doctor said that very morning it had cleared up significantly. Imagine my shock when the critical team comes rushing in that evening to do ultrasounds on her and tells me they suspect it's why her breathing was going downhill.
On Monday she was transferred to a MICU room on a different floor. This floor felt uneasy to me. There was death all around and you could see it. They said that this floor was where her main doctors were, so that she would get the best care. Now they introduce fentanyl to her med regimen. They explained it that it would help with her pain. She would be allowed so much every hour if needed.
The next day they decided to do the surgery to put a tube in her chest to drain the blood. She now had an extremely dangerous back surgery, staples running up her entire back with tubes, a huge scar under her arm from the biopsy with tubes, and now a huge tube coming out her chest. Her fingers and toes at this point were in a stage of necropsy. But they couldn't do anything about it. They would just have to fall off in time. It was devastating. My daughter was a trooper through out this whole time. She never complained or was negative. She was just scared when she understood what was going on. Honestly I've never seen so much courage in my life.
When it came to her pain meds she was only on fentanyl and Dilaudid drip. She would only receive it when she asked. That was her rule. She was scared she would overdose or become hooked on it and didn't want that monster on her back. She would be in so much pain but would just sit through it. Her vitals were better, but when the pain would become to much to bare, her heart rate would go into the 150 to 170 range. As soon as she got some meds it would go down to the teens to low twenty's.
On Thursday night she had a new nurse. He would administer pain meds even when she didn't request it. I saw him give her shot when she was sleeping. I walked in on him. I asked him if she requested it as I saw she was asleep and he said no. He stated he was trying to keep her comfortable. I asked him not to unless she asks. He didn't listen.Throughout the night as we slept, he would give her meds that she didn't even need. He gave her haldol. She only received that for two days after her back surgery. No one had given her that since. He would give her a shot of fentanyl behind it. I later found this out while talking with her doctors and from her records.
That Friday morning she started having these weird episodes, what later looked like seizures to me. Her vitals would drop and she would go into a deep stare. They blamed the meds. It was constant apologies for her being over medicated again. Even the doctor didn't understand why he gave her so much.She had 4 separate episodes before they (at my constant request) sent her to get a MRI done.
She had a blood clot in her brain. Again they said nothing to worry about. But after experiencing what we went through already, I was highly concerned. As I should have been. They kept apologizing and said they would change her medication up again. I told them it wasn't the medicine it was the nurse. I couldn't understand why he would give her two doses of haldol when she didn't need it. The nurse said my daughter was anxious and thought it would help. My daughter was sleeping so how could she have been anxious. I went off. Something in my spirit was telling me to get her out of there. But how could I when she was hooked up to all these tubes. She was suffering and I couldn't help her. The only thing I could do was use my voice to try and protect her and be her advocate. The next day Jan. 20th, I woke up after a couple hours of sleep, and I knew something was wrong. She was awake and trying to talk. Her vitals were back at a steady 170 with high blood pressure and a low oxygen number so I knew she was in pain. I could feel it in every bone of my body something was different that day. I felt my baby didn't have long as I thought cancer was winning. I called all of our family to come see her. I can't explain it. At one point I pulled one of her doctors out of her room and begged him to tell me what was happening. Shoot it to me straight. He kept saying she's always been critical but she would pull through. He had so much hope.
They gave her some meds to help bring her vitals down and it started to work again. Her vitals started going from 160 to 150. At this point she was having a brain scan done in her room to see what the episodes were exactly. She was awake but could no longer move from her neck down. Which had just started the 2 days before. She had a blood infection and they had to move the pic line from the right side of her neck to the left side but we're unsuccessful because she had obstructions there (2 huge tumors) They had to put the new line back on the right side in the back of the neck. I don't know what happened since I wasn't allowed in the room. I do know my daughter said after they finished, she wasn't able to feel anything but her face. She never turned her head again.
During that day she kept having flem and spit from the congestion she had due to the chest infection and surgery. I would sit there and suck it out for her. No problem, I had been doing it for days with no complaints on my end. The doctors were coming in and out constantly all day to check her brain test and at one point the doctor seeing me and my nephew take shifts suctioning her out said he wanted to try a new medicine she had never received. My daughters nurse interrupted him and said that she didn't think that it was a good idea. They went back and forth for a few minutes and I stepped in and said, it was fine, I would sit there and suction out forever if I had to. Something felt different in this exchange as well. In all of 24 days of being in the hospital, I never saw a nurse challenge a doctor. I immediately went to the computer, where the nurse had typed in the order for this drug, and googled it. The first thing that popped up, was not to give this drug to someone with high blood pressure or high heart rate. It causes a person's heart rate to shoot up high quickly. It was too late. They already administered it to her. Since her heart rate was already high it caused her to go into cardiac arrest. I just stood there in shock screaming is she in cardiac arrest? To which the doctor finally responded "I'm sorry, yes"
They ushered me and my nephew out of the room so they could work on her. After about 30 minutes they called my phone and told me she flatlined but they got her heart beating again. I went flying back in that room screaming at them. I refused to leave the room. She was now on life support, but there was no hope for her to ever wake up again. After consulting with my family and her doctors, and looking at where her vitals were, I decided to pull the plug. She passed within seconds. I feel like the doctor should have listened to the nurse, but his ego would not allow him to. I feel like he's somehow responsible, but at the same time I saw what was happening to her on a daily basis and what cancer was doing to her body. I also witnessed a lot of negligence too on their part. I've been going back and forth since January 20th, about contacting an attorney and seeing if I have a case. I requested an autopsy to be performed, because I wanted to know what all was wrong with her. They informed me they normally don't do that because of the cancer. I argued with them and said I wanted one anyway. I wanted to know what happened. I was trying to understand this whole situation. 25 days prior it was just supposed to be a pinched nerve, but it wasn't. They explained I would have to pay for the autopsy, and I was okay with that. The next day after she passed away, I received the phone call to give my permission for an autopsy. They said it would take a couple days and would let me know when it was finished so the funeral home could pick up her body.
I've been calling for months about the autopsy report with no luck. Here we are in May, I go to the hospital to get the autopsy results and it's all of five pages. It's not even an autopsy report. It doesn't even state her cause of death. It's just bullshit paperwork. All it mentions is the necropsy to her fingers and toes and her basic info like height and weight. I'm so angry right now. I have her medical records, and I noticed on the 19th of January they finally put she was allergic to Ativan. There's a lot wrong with this situation. I even asked for a CD of all her images, from pathology. What I received only two images come up. Everything else is blocked from opening. I know my daughter took multiple MRIs, ultrasounds,and CAT scans in those three and a half weeks. There's no way it's only two images.
I counted all the times the nurse gave my daughter pain meds that Thursday night and it was double what any other nurse had given her at any other time plus with other drugs she didn't need at that time. I found out that haldol and fentanyl is something they give to patients that's in end of life care. Which I was constantly told my daughter was not. Her death certificate states she passed from lymphoma related cardiac arrest. I'm just so confused on what to do. I feel like I'm letting my daughter down if I don't look into this further.
I'm sorry this a novel. I couldn't just ask a simple question with out the back story for you to understand. It was so much more believe me, this was the short version!
Do I have a case or should I just move on and accept my daughter died from cancer related complications? Thank you....

Round 7 of Ragnarok was approaching, and Brunhilde, accompanied by Göll, was checking on the Medbay, where both humans and Gods were treated, after they had won their round in Ragnarok.
“How are they, Mary?”
Brunhilde asked, and a woman, around her middle ages and dressed in red robes with white cloth covering her hair, turns to Brunhilde, while she was tending to Chang’e, victor of round 2 but still not completely healed up due to the injuries Tsukiyomi inflicted on her.
“The Goddess is in better conditions, but she still can’t move, and as for her leg, it’s healing too, we were lucky her husband brought it along her”
Brunhilde was about to reply, but the tv opens, announcing that the Gods have revealed their next fighter:Lucifer.
“Tch, prideful bastard”
Brunhilde looks away, before Mary tells a few nurses to notify Asclepius of something, walking towards Brunhilde.
“Who will you send?”
She asks Brunhilde, who quickly scrolls through the available roster, looking at a young woman in armor.
“I’ll have to send her, I know Lucifer has a shield, and she can easily evade his other weapons”
Mary looked at the selected fighter:Joan of Arc, before shaking her head.
“No, she’s too important…..I’ll go”
Brunhilde and Göll look at Mary, shocked.
“M-Mary? A-Are you crazy? The medbay needs you!”
Göll exclaims to Mary, before Asclepius, with his caduceus, interrupts her.
“I got this, plus, we still have plenty of both Human and God medics and healers, we can do without the Virgin Mary”
Asclepius answers Göll, Brunhilde looking at Mary and changing her selection off Joan and to Mary.
“Very well, let’s go meet your Valkyrie then”
On the side of the Gods, Lucifer was looking at the arena from the Gods balcony, while Zeus, Artemis, Hermes and Thanatos were looking at him.
“You stupid fool, why did you announce yourself publicly?”
Thanatos scolds Lucifer, who simply shrugs him off.
“Relax old man, I want to see the humans fear as I net our 6th win effortlessly, I’ve hoarded enough sins to last me a gauntlet of all 7 human fighters at once”
While Lucifer gloats, Artemis sighs annoyed.
“Sin of Pride? More like Sin of Stupidity”
Lucifer turns and snarls at Artemis.
“And who lost 2 legs and an arm against that shit relic of a plane? Huh? Mind your place”
Artemis, Hermes and Thanatos were taken aback, before Zeus grew all muscular.
“Careful with your words, Devil, Michael can still fight”
Lucifer looks at Zeus and scoffs.
“Whatever, no wonders that stupid rabbit sided with them with your attitudes, I’m going there right now”
Lucifer walks away, Artemis’ hand quivering in rage as she firmly grips her bow, Thanatos following Lucifer.
“I’ll go check on how Michael and Amaterasu are”
Hermer looked at the roster while Artemis and Zeus were looking at Lucifer and Thanatos walking out.
“Oh, what a….curious choice”
Hermes shows Zeus an image of Mary, as he then smiles.
“Heh, she’s still wasting weak fighters against powerful ones? Are you secretly wishing for us to win, Brunhilde?”
While Lucifer went inside his room, Thanatos went inside the medbay, surprised to see Thanatos and Hippocrates patching up Amaterasu, while Lakhsmi was tending to David.
“Where is Mary? I need to speak to her”
Thanatos asks Asclepius, before he points to the door Thanatos went in, Thanatos sighing disappointed, while Brunhilde and Mary were now in Brunhilde’s office, Randgriz looking at Mary.
“Are you sure of this pick sister?”
Göll asked Brunhilde, as Mary and Randgriz were looking for weapons.
“Lucifer is a very well armored asshole, both armor and shield, so Randgriz’s Shieldbreaker will be very useful”
Brunhilde said, before Mary and Randgriz returned, Mary held a thurible.
“Mary…..what is that?”
Göll asked, Mary looking at her Thurible.
“A thurible, it’s used to spread incense in ceremonies, but Randgriz said we could use it as a weapon”
Mary answered, before she swung the Thurible like a flail.
“Plus, smoke can be a great help, you told me Lucifer has enhanced sight and reach with his helmet and hook right? The smoke can render them useless”
Brunhilde looked at Mary and Randgriz, nodding.
“It does fit a holy saint of your caliber, Mary”
Brunhilde then opened the doors of her office.
“You should go now, match should start soon”
Mary and Randgriz walk out, as Brunhilde and Göll head for their balcony.
“Sister, please don’t tell me you’re using the same plan you did against Thanatos”
Göll asked Brunhilde, fearful of Mary’s fate, but Brunhilde reassured her.
“No, Lucifer has no idea of who his opponent is yet, so imagine his surprise when his extreme opposite will stand on the other side of the Arena”
Göll looked anxiously at the Arena as Heimdall began announcing.
“IN ROUND 7 OF RAGNAROK, WITH THE GODS AT 4 POINTS AND THE HUMANS AT 2, THE GODS HAVE SENT THEIR TRUMP CARD!”
As Heimdall spoke, the arena entrance on the side of the Gods bursted into flame, with the screams of the damned echoing around the arena and unsettling the audience, a figure with 6 wings slowly walking out of them.
“HE IS NONE OTHER THAN THE SIN OF PRIDE! THE STRONGEST REBEL OF HEAVEN, NOW THEIR BIGGEST ASSET!”
Lucifer stepped out of the flames, as they slowly turned into a set of Armor, gauntlets, a helmet, a shield, a sword sheathed on his hip, a spear, and a hook wrapped around his right forearm, while Lucifer spread his pitch black bat wings out.
“THE LEADER OF HELL! LU! CI! FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
The crowd of the Gods immediately began cheering and chanting his name, as the humans started to pray and beg for mercy.
“LUCIFER! LUCIFER! LUCIFER! LUCIFER! LUCIFER!”
A few spotlights turned to Lucifer, who had the biggest grin ever, as Brunhilde scoffs while Göll is shocked and scared by Lucifer.
“WOOOOAHHH! H-he looks so terrifying”
Heimdall then points to the human entrance of the arena, where everything gets darker, before all the spotlights aim at the entrance.
“HEY! Keep one on me!”
Lucifer complains, before a chant in ancient Hebrew could be heard from the entrance, a dim light slowly emerges.
“BUT WHO HAVE THE HUMANS SENT?”
The light grew a bit brighter as the chanting grew alongside, Mary slowly walking out, swinging her thurible with one hand while preaching a bible on the other, Lucifer lifting the visor of his helmet.
“Wait what the fuck?” “THEY CALL HER THE GREATEST WOMAN WHO HAS EVER LIVED!”
The human audience immediately brightened up from the chanting, while all Christian, Jewish and Islamic humans all began preaching in Latin, Hebrew and Arabic.
“THE ONLY HUMAN WHO HAS EVER ASCENDED TO HEAVEN ALIVE! SAY HALLELUJAH TO THE ONE! AND ONLY! VIRGIN MARYYYYYYYY”
The human audience explodes in a hopeful cheer as Mary finishes preaching, the Hebrew chanting dying down as Mary puts the Bible inside her robes, and opening the thurible, but no smoke coming out of it yet.
“Oh you’ve got to be FUCKING KIDDING ME?”
Lucifer looks at Mary, before chuckling.
“Heh…..this is….”
Lucifer then explodes in laughter, pointing at Mary.
“PFFFHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHHHH…..OHHHHhhhhhhh, is that…i-is that a fucking incense spreader?”
Lucifer could barely say in his laughing fit, supporting himself with his spear.
“Y-y’know f-for a second I-I thought that..haha……was a flail or a mace..”
Lucifer slowly began to recover from laughing, still distraught at Mary’s “weapon” of choice
“Ohh, you might kill me with laughter, Brunhilde…..phewwfff…..oh, t-this is a very good joke, now bring out the real fighter”
Lucifer asked Heimdall, who looked at him confused.
“Well…..she’s your fighter, she’s in the roster and all”
Lucifer looked at Mary, then at the balcony, directly at Brunhilde.
“Oh I see I see, you think this bitch can win, because she’s a saint? Why not send your other female Saint huh?”
Heimdall then interrupts Lucifer.
“WILL THE GODS ADVANCE TO 5 POINTS, OR WILL THE HUMANS SCORE THEIR 3RD? MAY ROUND 7 OF RAGNAROK BEGIN!”
As soon as Heimdall announced the beginning of the round, Mary began to swing the thurible back and forth, creating incense smoke around her, Lucifer still smiling from Mary’s weapon of choice.
“Seriously, how are you even going to hurt me with that thing?”
Lucifer then charges forwards, slashing at Mary, who swings her thurible, deflecting the hit as she steps back, surprising Lucifer.
“That footwork….someone must have trained you”
Lucifer comments on Mary deflecting and dodging his Sword of Wrath.
“Will you be surprised if I were to tell you-”
Mary was answering Lucifer, before Lucifer grabs his spear and tries to thrust at her gut, Mary smacking the pole with her thurible.
“-that it’s all self-taught?” “Bullshit, I know a fighter when I’m fighting one”
Lucifer says, briefly glancing at the balcony of the Gods, eyeing Zeus specifically, before his helmet warned him of an incoming hit, and he dodged Mary’s thurible.
“Lucifer charges towards Mary, but she dodges it effortlessly, deflecting the blow with her Thurible, who would’ve known such an unorthodox weapon was actually useful?”
Heimdall comments, Lucifer already growing annoyed.
“Alright let’s get this over with, BEELZEBUB! HOOK OF GLUTTONY!”
The hook wrapped around Lucifer’s forearm unraveled, and he then swings it at Mary, who dodged it, before the Hook then flies around, and ensnares Mary.
“What? How did that hook fly like that?”
Göll asked Brunhilde, before she pointed at a pair of fly wings on the hook.
“Lucifer’s arsenal is consisted of armor and weapons that capture the 7 Deadly Sins, the Hook of Gluttony is able to grab and ensnare everything that Lucifer wants, as he has free control over it”
Brunhilde said, worried, as Mary tried to break free while Lucifer grabbed his spear.
“ASMODEUS! SPEAR OF LUST!”
As Lucifer was about to thrust, Mary’s thurible spewed incense, blinding Lucifer for a moment, and completely engulfing the two.
“Lucifer has successfully ensnared the Virgin Mary! But she retaliates by creating a cloud of holy Incense!”
Helheim announces, while Lucifer tries to get out of the cloud, unraveling the Hook and letting Mary go, the cloud dissipating immediately as Mary then charges at Lucifer.
“And the champion for Humanity charges towards the Devil himself!”
Heimdall announced from the sidelines, Lucifer looking at Mary and deflecting her swings with his Shield of Envy.
“Hey, sister Brun, you chose Randgriz specifically because of her ability right?”
Göll asked Brunhilde, who nodded.
“Yes, but a mere swing like that won’t be enough, for that shield and all of Lucifer’s weapons, are as strong as the sins he has accumulated, and still is”
Brunhilde said, pointing at the dark aura that Lucifer is emitting, while Mary then swings her thurible upwards, shooting something from inside it:caltrops made out of gold.
“The Virgin Mary shoots caltrops out of her Thurible! Is she planning to keep her distance from Lucifer?”
Lucifer looks at the caltrops, sheathing his sword.
“Oh, you think your little caltrops can stop me?”
Lucifer kicks the caltrops with his sabatons, Mary winding up a swing.
“Tch, I almost wish the human wins, I hate that bastard”
Artemis complains, having moved her wheelchair closer to the balcony, Zeus nodding in agreement.
“Yes, especially after everything he’s done, but at least my dear brother Hades is now safe”
Zeus said, a bit ashamed of himself.
“What? He let him go? In exchange for being allowed to fight here?”
Artemis asks, Hermes nodding.
“The amount of sinners still living in Earth is probably worth fighting directly for”
Zeus said, looking at the fight.
“Yet, he did not send one of the other 6 sins, but he went in himself, but I’m sure he’ll win against that human woman”
Artemis replies.
[End of chapter 1]

All I want to do is get my life on track. I turn 40 in two months, and I'm afraid I won't make it.
Two months ago I was pushed out of my dream job. I loved the work, but my manager would gaslight me constantly, and lie to the owner about me, to the point that when I had a health issue that I had been very clear about, they chose to mistreat me until I couldn't stay any longer.
Since then I have tried everything I can think of to get a better job, to get help, and to fix myself.
I've reached out to family members. They largely ignore me, or tell me there's nothing they can offer me. I have very few friends, and they don't respond when I reach out. I tried therapy, but the therapists I was paired with didn't help - some actively made me feel worse about my situation. I've tried applying for social and welfare type programs. I've called domestic abuse hotlines, as part of why I ended up in this situation was because of a very abusive partner whom I am no longer with but who's damage still affects me.
I've applied to so, so many jobs. At first I tried to stay within the industry I loved working in, but I kept encountering employers who were actively abusive, or ghosted me after offering a position. I started expanding my job search to things outside my preferred career that I'm qualified for...and encountered much of the same. I took a job at a well known retail department store, which I knew would be awful, but I was desperate. My first day, I was left alone without training for nearly an hour, fielding customer questions and needs I had no answers for or training to handle, and it sent me into an absolute panic attack.
I want to live. I want to work. I want to rebuild what's left of my life. I don't want to mooch. I don't want to sponge. I don't want to be a victim. But I have zero support, and I feel like the more I try to advocate for myself, the more I'm ignored.
Maybe I should just give up.

I married my husband (28M) when I was fairly young (25F). We've been married nearly 4 years now and we're facing a significant rough patch at the moment. I feel completely scrambled and my family is encouraging me to get divorced. I'm feeling mixed and I'd like some advice.
I see several issues, but I'm not sure how they relate to one another. The first is I am clearly showing symptoms of depression. I am rarely active, I eat like shit, I rarely go outside, I am basically useless and I pretty much rot all day. It is totally miserable, and it upsets my husband to see me like this. I know he cares about me and wants me to be better, but isn't sure how to help and is clearly getting frustrated. To be fair, I don't blame him. I imagine I'm pretty pitiful to watch in this state.
The other issue is that I fear we're growing apart. In terms of values, I feel myself drifting away from how I was raised while he's becoming more firm in those beliefs. The significant item here is religion. Our religion is everything to him, and guides most every decision he makes and how he choses to spend his time. It feels like I'm watching him become more traditional and conservative, while I'm sitting back wondering why we're married. This growing difference has led to quite a bit of friction. He has made it very clear that he sees my role as supporting him in pursuit of his worldly goals of having a family and a career. He acknowledges this requires me to suppress my own desires "for the good of the family."
I see the possible relationship between these two things like this; either I am so miserable that I'm ruminating on the bad and daydreaming to "escape" my current miserable state, or I am suffering in this relationship and it's manifesting as these symptoms. The solution for either situation is individual therapy and then potentially couples therapy for the first, and divorce then therapy for the second. The solution I'm more leaning toward is the first because it does leave open the possibility of ending the marriage if it's clear that it's not working. However, I run the risk of just wasting my time on something that isn't working and also drawing out my husband's suffering. He knows that I'm considering divorce, and it's difficult for him to have me be so indecisive on this. Any advice needed!

We’ve been together for almost a year doing long distance. And he is absolutely incredible. Living 2000 miles apart can be hard but we’ve always made it work. My parents are around his age and having a hard time accepting it. I kept it a secret until 3-4 months until we were stable. And they didn’t meet him until it’s been 9 months.
We’ve talked about moving in with each other this summer and that’s a big reason why my dad wanted to meet him. I brought him to their campsite and the entire evening was perfect. We actually went to their house the next day to drop off some stuff. And again it went perfect in my eyes. Then the next visit I made to my parents house alone, I asked my dad what his opinion was on my boyfriend. And he unleashed. Said how I’m giving up a lot more than he is including having kids, going to miss out on my niece and nephews growing up, how he’s a smooth talker like all the California people, that were two opposites and that I’m quiet and he talks a lot, and that he’d rather see me move back home to their house and go back to nursing school so I can support myself and live anywhere I want.
My boyfriend had already promised me to fly me home whenever I want so I know I wouldn’t completely miss out. I already do support myself and work as a medical assistant full time and have my own place that I rent, car, etc. Maybe not saving money but times are tough. I just feel like I have to choose between him and my family and I’m distraught.
I don’t know what to do. My mom is supportive and actually has him on Facebook and really likes him. My sister isn’t a fan just because of his age. And I feel like my dad just wants me stuck in a state that I’m not happy at and have barely any friends besides the ones at work. I’m scared if I do chose him then my family will never accept it and he won’t be able to be around. I just need advice. Im melting down and lost and confused.

Currently I'm admitted in Urban and Regional Planning. I know it's not engineering. I'm really passionate about EEE(electrical and electronics engineering) and took preparation for engineering admission exam but unfortunately I made a "HUGE" blunder in my entrance exam and now the only subject I can be admitted to is URP(and I don't like it AT ALL). I chose to study for engineering only for EEE and none of the other engineering subjects interests me that much. On the other hand, I really like and am good at biology and chemistry. In these subjects I always top no matter how good or bad my preparation is(not bragging at all ). And I'm really interested in cardiology and gynecology. But whenever I think about the amount of time and pressure goes into studying medicine and becoming a established doctor, I become scared. As I am a girl I know that I have to get married before 30 and that means even after getting married I have to continue studying (if I still want to become a good and well known doctor) with way more responsibilities . Then when will I enjoy my life? When will I ever do the things I wanted to for MYSELF!? All I can see is work,study and responsibilities piled up like a mountain. I know I'm imagining things way too far but I can't help it. It doesn't mean studying engineering will give me a much better established life with less work and responsibilities because in my country girls in engineering are hard to find in university and even harder to find in jobs :).
Every single person around me (my parents,relatives,teachers,friends) tells me that I'm the perfect person to study medicine. But I want my career to be fun. I want new things to try and handle new challenges as I become bored really fast if things stay the same.When I was researching about careers I thought engineering specially EEE will be the perfect subject to study and build a career . That's why I went against everyone,studied hard and had a really good preparation but just a small mark in the answer sheet changed everything and I'm quite hopeless now tbh.It feels like my academic life till last month was at the sky and now it's under the earth :). Now my parents are encouraging me to sit for the medical admission test next year because they think I can easily do it as I scored 64 this year without any preparation (cut mark was 67.75) but I don't think I can do such anymore. My confidence is at its lowest point possible. However, I still have one chance left to study EEE in a really well reputated university in my country as they have the 2nd timer applicant option. But the admission test of this uni is approximately 1 month after the medical admission test (it's in january).The preparation for these two are quite different as the medical admission test is mostly biology with more or less theoretical parts of physics,chemistry and general knowledge (Math X) where engineering test is mostly practical part of physics,chemistry and maths (Biology X) .
Now the question is, should I take preparation for medical admission and practice for engineering test 3-4 hrs/day as I already have a quite solid preparation for it ? Or study for engineering again and learn biology and general knowledge 3-4hrs/day?
It would be of a great help to me if you could give me some detailed advice as I'm torn between these options.
P.S: The syllabus for medical admission test is bigger than the syllabus for engineering test. Many chapters of physics and chemistry are not included in the engineering syllabus and I have never learned them in my life!
P.S.2: If I am to be selected for a good medical college, I have to score 90(+_ 3) because 5 marks will be deducted from my original mark as I am a 2nd timer applicant :) Which is not the case for the engineering test.
TIA!

Prologue (ish?)
I (17 F) have been very busy lately with this stage in my life. I am graduating highschool and moving to college for summer school all within a month of eachother. I am graduating with a 4.2 gpa and got accepted to multiple universities. I chose to attend one not far from my home town and do summer uni before the regular college year starts. AKA this is a stressful stage of my life as I am rushed through the academic pipeline. This week I had my last day of school and my final choir concert on the same day. I had been working hard on my pieces and solos so I could finish my highschool career with this. The concert went well, I shakily sang my solo with all I could give and sang senior enesemble, and multiple honors and combined choir songs all by memory. Afterwards I was very affected by the residual stress of that night and the combination of forgetting to take my medication. I hung out with my friends for that night and the day after before returning home dead tired. I slept through the entire next day. I woke up early today to discover I had started my period before I had to go to my graduation practice. Afterwards I interacted closely with my family for a few hours then came home and took a nap until 11:00 pm.
📝This is when the post really starts‼️
I went downstairs to give my dad tickets to my graduation. My mom was in the kitchen and I guess she got suspicious as to why I was up. I went back upstairs and sat down to finally just chill out after days of stress and play some games. I hadnt even opened a single game before my mom burst into my room angrily telling me that I had to go to sleep (despite just having woken up). She tried to take my switch but I managed to convince her not to. After she closed the door she waited a few seconds before opening it quickly again, trying to catch me disobeying her. I just gave her a wierd look and she glared at me before finally going downstairs about a full minute later. (she was hanging around trying to catch me again). I waited a few minutes and got ready for bed and locked my door. I really hate it when my parents try and sneak up on me or just burst into my room without knocking. I eventually sat back down to play a round or two before going to sleep, but I heard someone moving around. I checked under the door and saw the bathroom light on but assumed it was my older brother just using the restroom. As soon as my first game loaded my mom PICKED THE LOCK OF MY DOOR and barged in to take my switch, headset, and controller saying that I wont get them back and that I wont take them to college with me. For context, I had worked a job at a pet store for 10$ an hour for about a month to buy myself that switch and controller. I had bought it with my own earned money. I stood in my room afterwards trying to think of what the best way to handle this was. I decided that I should confront my parents and explain to them my point of view and let them know how I felt so we could maybe come to a solution and be able to establish that I am going to be on my own soon and could make my own decisions. I braced myself for the conversation, knowing exactly how it would go. I would have no time to talk after my initial sentence and my parents would interrupt me and deny everything I would try to say as well as accuse me of backtalking if I tried to say anything else. So I went into their room and sat down at the foot of their bed, telling them that I had to talk to them and asking for them to please listen to me before saying anything. I told them that I had earned that switch with my own money and that I was going to be moving to college soon and knew how to manage my time. I said that I was smart and knew how to manage my time and understood the consequences of staying up late. I try to continue explaining to them my perspective as I can physically see them getting more and more riled up and angry with me. My dad is shaking his head aggressively while I'm speaking, saying that I'm wrong. After about a minute or two he interrupted me and then went on to say that I was lecturing them and treating them like they are stupid. He goes on to cuss me out (despite being extremely Christian and seeing cussing as awful) and said that I'm just a child and that I think I know everything but in reality I know nothing. He said that they were going to burn my switch and that when I go to college I can do whatever the f*k I want and that I can mess up my own life and fail to be no more than a minimum wage mcdonalds worker. My parents went on to say that I had been lying to them and that the switch had ruined my life. I calmly ask what the switch has done to me. How am I being a horrible person? My mom stutters and tells me that I said I would close the chicken coop door then forgot. Thats the only thing she can think about. My dad then says that my room is a dump and that I hadnt taken out the trash. I calmly told him that I had just recently cleaned my entire room and reorganized it, and that I consistently take my trash out every week. I think of reminding him of the fact that he had complimented my clean room multiple times before this week. He ignores this and tries to think of more bad things that I do, listing them out on his fingers. He gets to three (being disrespectful, not cleaning my room (I did), not taking out the trash), and then stutters, not being able to think of any more issues. Then they both yell at me again before he goes on to scream at me and call me more things for about half an hour. They both get angry and are getting more and more angry as I sit and look at them with a blank expression on my face. I’ve just shut down completely and stared at them blankly the entire time because I realize that speaking isn’t going to help me. Both of my parents start physically pointing their fingers at me and shaking and saying that I’m being a horrible daughter. Somewhere along the way I say that I came down to talk to them calmly but they are cussing and calling me names and saying that I’m a horrible person. They say that my generation is always trying to play the victim and that we always try to blame other people. Then when they’re tired of yelling at me they ask me why I’m staring at them and I say that I’m not gonna say anything else. They ask me why and I say that I already said what I needed to say. They ask me to repeat it and I tell them that I don’t want to argue with them. They ask me to repeat it again and I said that they were both clearly trying to get me to argue with them, but I’ve already said my share and that it’s no use speaking to them. I tell them goodnight and leave the room while they shout at me as I close the door.
The thing is, I know I'm not a bad person. I am well behaved at school and get good grades, along with being friends with all of my teachers and befriending several members of the faculty and staff of my school. I say hi to everyone and try my best to get people to smile. I have been described as someone who "brightens up the room" and "has a great future in store".
Here are a few things im just now remembering my parents said/did during their rant - They insulted my friends and said that all the friends that I have are awful and evil and ruining my life, despite having said two nights before that I had picked amazing friends and they were proud of me. - Said that the devil was making me play videogames and that I need to listen to God (for context, the games that I most often play include overwatch, splatoon, and dredge.) - Said that I was treating them as if I knew more than them (definitely not what I was trying to say) and told me that I was still just a child and didnt know anything, even though they constantly tell me to grow up and to act my age. Then when I try and talk about my problems with them in a healthy manner like an adult, they immediately tell me that I think im better than them or something.
A little more context - both of my parents are hardcore christian conservatives - both of them are hispanic - I am christian nondenominational. I do not intend on abandoning religion or my God. - I love my parents very much. I am so grateful for everything I have and am painfully aware that I have the privelege of having two loving parents who care about me and provide for me because not many people have it as good as I do. - I have an older brother who is in the Naval Academy and has always gotten perfect grades. He is visiting for my gradiation and things are back to the way they were before with him around (I am being ignored and made fun of for entertainment and all the attention is being directed towards him despite it being my graduation and my one time to shine.)
However, this feels like its more than an argument about some dumb videogame console. I honestly dont care if they burn it because they've done that before with a tame impala record. I'll just buy a new one when I go to college very soon. But all that they said must have come from what they actually think of me. If they think that badly of me despite all my efforts to be a good daughter and trying to 'grow up' like they constantly tell me to do, then I feel like there's nothing I can do or say to ever please them properly.
Should I take this interaction with my parents as a sign that it's time to distance myself from them and my family, knowing that I'll never be good enough for them? I just dont think there's much more I can do.

Where to begin… essentially our mother reminds us of both a child and a Karen if that makes any sense? Here are some tidbits of the past 20 years.

• repeatedly makes threats of suicide when something doesn’t go her way or angers her, starting when I was the age of 8
• one time I asked her a question on my science homework (she didn’t know the answer and also was annoyed at me asking), and she hit me on the head and I was so dizzy that I fell into the stove, which was on at the time. brought it up many years later and she laughed nervously asking if i was completely sure if that happened
• kicked my sister when she was 4, when she was asking her a quick way to distinguish left from right, because she was talking on the phone with her friend and didn’t want to be interrupted. also threw her stuffed animals across the room
• when something minor happened (we were about to be late for the bus and weren’t moving fast enough for her in elementary school), she pretended to have a mental breakdown/panic attack and faint on the floor. when I told her I was about to call 911 (I was scared out of my mind), she promptly got back up and acted like nothing ever happened
• when I told her I was severely depressed and had an ED, she complained that she didn’t know what other people in our community would think of her, and also pretended to stop breathing and fell on the floor AGAIN
• my sister had a knee injury from cross country, and when she asked our mom when the next appointment was, she blew up at her, started swerving the car purposely and driving recklessly, had a full on mental breakdown, honked the horn for long periods of time in the garage several times, pretended how to forget to open the garage door, and called her the spawn of Satan
• refused to talk to me ever again after I told her that I couldn’t do orchestra anymore because I was prioritizing adding more classes focused on my potential major, she proceeded to ignore me and deny my existence for almost a week. the only reason she started talking to me again was because there were two suicides at our school in one week. similar thing happened to my sister last year
• extremely clingy, needy, and possessive. i was instructed to send her good morning and good night texts everyday. i also had to always have my location on as an almost 21 year old. when i didn’t respond to good morning quickly enough once (was talking a shower after i slept in and didn’t see her text), i came back to dozens of calls and texts asking me what happened, and she was about to call the police to do a house check. extremely annoyed, i asked her to stop with the good mornings and good nights, and she reluctantly said ok and sent them anyway and called when i didn’t respond. also if i don’t send emojis in response to her when she does or mirror her exclamation points, she says that i’m mad at her
• when my sister cut her own bangs and it didn’t turn out the way she had hoped, my mom chased her with scissors and locked her in the garage until i had to beg her to get her out
• my mom is overweight, while my sister and i have always been slim/skinny, and it seems like this bothers her though she doesn’t explicitly say it. when i went on a recomp journey to gain more muscle and lose fat, she constantly criticized my mela because i refused to eat the food she cooked (she dumps oil on it and i have told her several times to stop because that adds unnecessary calories and showed her how she should cook it, yet she continues to cook it the same way). when i refused once and for all and started to cook for myself, she said she didn’t even know who i was anymore. she continuously pokes fun at my thighs, knowing they're my biggest insecurity. she always asks what my weight is and despite me trying to help her lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way, she never listens or follows through.
• insults other people’s intelligence even though they’ve done nothing that proves her point (only when they disagree with her honestly)
• manipulates, lies, and gaslights everyday. pretends that she didn’t say something that she communicated to us a few hours prior and blames it on her memory
• splitting: sees people as either 100% good or bad, with her opinion changing within minutes
• exhibits anxious preoccupied protest behavior? i’ll say something she doesn’t like (ex: why did you this? that was out of line) and she’ll proceed to say she is not my mother anymore, never wants to see me again or have a relationship with me, and won’t eat food again (?), but then when i ignore her right back she comes back and continues conversation the next day like again, nothing ever happened. she has also said she is never coming back to the house, drives off for hours, and then returns without a word
• scolded me for crying when I was sad about something, stating that I can only cry when someone has passed
• guilts all of us for her pausing her career to raise us when we were younger, saying that by now she could have x amount of $ by now. but like, that was your choice... i didn't ask you to do that as an infant.
• proclaims to have little to no memory of anything described above, and gives a blanket statement that she has a lot of problems she doesn't know how to deal with
• threatens us that we can't put her in a nursing home when we're older (?) and says she will move wherever we move when we get our full-time jobs after college. i don't want that to happen, we both need a lot of space and time to heal

What do we do to help her while also distancing ourselves so she doesn't go ballistic?

So I used to work for my parents business throughout the years. I was always told that I was helping to build the family estate that would eventually get passed down to me. I worked 5 years initially without any pay increases. My parents had begged me to assist them as they were struggling and I left a good job with career potential to do it. I ended up leaving my parent's business because my brother got involved and I couldn't work with him. He didn't do the job properly and my parents didn't care that I had to clean up the messes he made and got abused regularly by customers because of his stuff-ups. After I left, the put up with him for 3 months then fired him. They wanted me to come back but I had another job by then that paid almost double their wages. I remember my mother phoning me up and crying because the only person that they could find that would do the job wanted almost double the money I was paid. I actually felt sorry for my parents.
I was raised on a mantra of we're your family, no-one will look after you like we do. When I went to buy a house on the Northside of Brisbane and took my parents to see it, they were very quiet. Later they called me and advised me to buy their rental house on the southside for what turned out to be a high market value in a buyers market. I'd be a multi millionaire if I hadn't listened to them. But my parents weren't making money on their rental, had bought high then the market dropped and they were stuck with it. Having me buy it meant no agents fees. I did not get a great buy. I did get emotionally blackmailed into doing buying their place. Again, we're family. If I help them get out of trouble, I'll benefit from a larger estate in the end.
I got dragged back into working for them after I had kids. I was on call 24/7, for no extra money. They got a relaxing life at my expense. Yes, I allowed it all to happen. Yes, I should have seen they were acting in their own best interests. They were my parents, I thought they cared about and loved me and we were getting ahead as a family. But when they got older and closer to retirement, suddenly it wasn't about building a family estate, it was about how if they ended up in a nursing home, they'd need all this money to pay for something good. I don't think I'd have even as much of an issue if they'd said "we need you to give us a hand, because we'll struggle financially if you don't but expect to get bubkus from us". That would at least have been honest. They may have been able to emotionally manipulate me still as I was a pretty naive child/adult who believed the best in everyone. I loved them and wanted the best and I have always tried to give my all to those I love.
I think the blinders finally came off when I left my husband, got therapy, realised I was in an emotionally abusive marriage. I looked at my relationship with my parents and how it had set me up to be exploited by my husband. My father is dead now. My mother is shallow, self obsessed, narcissistic and determined to set me up as her carer for the remainder of her life. Well, because, why not? Can there be any greater purpose in life than waiting on her hand and foot, cleaning her house, doing her garden to zero thanks and criticism about ways I could do more. Meanwhile, I have a serious health issue. I am guessing it will be too late to do anything about how she exploited me. At this point, it may even be an issue getting anything from her estate as she is bitter that she can't dangle her money to manipulate me. We are low/no contact at my instigation. Her last effort was to try to have me buy an expensive house next door to her, go $600K in debt so I would be in beck and call distance. The irony, she has the funds to purchase the house herself, but would need to put it in my name or joint names as I would be putting money in. She doesn't want to risk the money, but having me struggle to buy food and beg her to bail me out financially due to an immense loan for a situation beneficial only to her makes perfect sense. Are there any ways to prove how she exploited me. There possibly would be tax records of how she paid me vs the person after. Proof that I bought their investment property at no real benefit to me. Real estate ads from that time could show I would have been better off without them. Is it all just too late and save any evidence for an estate fight if there even is one if she has to go into a nursing home and I'm still around to fight it?

We had been together only 5 or 6 months so I suppose I shouldn't care as much as I do. For the entire time we were together, he made me feel so cared about and so loved. I felt able to completely be myself around him, and I was getting to a point where I was starting to love him. I was so excited for us to grow together more. Communication was so easy too (or so I thought).
One week ago exactly, I was at his law school graduation meeting extended family (I had already met his parents prior to this) and a whole bunch of friends. His family is amazing, and they were so welcoming to me. We went out to a late lunch together, then he brought me to multiple graduation parties where I was introduced to friends and future colleagues. I'm honestly sad I won't get to see some of them again. Especially his mom.
This past week, I had three instances of harrassment in the workplace from three separate people. They're (mostly) being dealt with, so that's not too big of a concern going forward. But after the third instance where a man grabbed me, I called him (crying) after work and asked if we could get dinner or something so I could have support. He came over for a few hours and we talked ramdomly about things to get my mind off the situation. He also invited me to a friend gathering a week and a half from that day. I guess looking back, he was acting slightly off, but hey, so was I. I thought nothing of it. Overall, I was so thankful for him.
Today, out of nowhere, he called me. Immediately, he got to the point by letting me know he's breaking up with me. He hadn't "felt a spark" the last couple of months. But haven't we really only been together a few months??? Weren't we just getting serious with our relationship? He couldn't succinctly answer why. The timeline of his feelings kept changing from months, to weeks, to days, and back again. Just that he doesn't even really like me and would rather not make me a priority. Especially since spare time will be limited for the next two months while he studies for the bar exam prep. He tried to communicate absolutely none of that to me beforehand. And I was fine with his busy schedule and being lower on the priority list while he starts his career.
I just can't help but think, "Why?". Why did he not try to communicate? Why did he bring me to his graduation if he was questioning whether or not he even liked me? Why did I meet all of his family and classmates? Why was I invited events still? Why did he chose now to hurt me when I was already down? I feel used. I feel like I was here just long enough to be paraded around at his graduation, and now I am of no use. Part of me feels I wasn't enough to stay around and support during my first truly rough week since we got together.
I go back and forth wondering if maybe he'll regret this. But then I remember how cold and emotionless he was and figure that it probably was never real to him. I don't know how I'm supposed to move on and trust any other relationships when I was so blindsided by the end of this one. I'm back with my family at the moment, but I am just so tired of being hurt.

Hello everyone, Blue Box gang here. We consider ourselves an endogenic system as we don't feel comfortable saying we're a traumagenic system. We generally associate that term with dissociative disorders that we don't have, but that's just our feelings about our identity. We're an autism-based system with few amnesia barriers (as far as we're aware). We believe that J's beautiful brain made alters break off due to trauma/ an attempt at emotional regulation and masking and it's only since we started anti anxiety tablets that the fog keeping us separated dissipated. We have 7 main headmates: J (our core/host/captain of the ship), V (reformed persecutor turned protector), B1 (me, social and main sexual alter, mostly trauma free), D (inner Snow White, mostly trauma free), B2 (fictive, doesn't have outer world trauma but does have source-material trauma), our littles who are 8 and 4 and our TARDIS. We don't really do tulpas though J might have formed one or two as a young teenager. We are unlikely to form tulpas but we do find helpers in the inner world to perform certain jobs, like Servo (a humanoid extension of J's TARDIS brain, based on the robots from the Sims 2) and Doodles (our freed Ood who helps to look after the littles.)
A life update for those who've seen us about before: we're kept an eye on by our country's mental health services and hoping to get autism-centric therapy. We have three weeks until our appoinment with our psychiatrist. The Crisis Team and Duty Nurse are positive that it's not mania but won't rule out psychosis until our psychiarist sees us. This is because of J's bipolar and family history with psychosis/mental illness/psychiatric hospitals. But also sertraline and other anti depressants can cause euphoria/mania. If you've been depressed for ages, of course you're going to be ecstatic that you've not got that weighing you down anymore. Plus its a big hormonal change. They are confident that we're not a risk to ourselves and that we are doing all the right things. Even if it's an unconventional coping mechanism, they feel it could be a very positive one. So go us! J's family is concerned because they don't understand it yet, but hopefully all of us will learn to trust the plan.
Anyway we just have a few questions for you all that we could do with some advice on:
- How do you balance your inner world and your real life? We struggle with this as we do not know how we come across and are in danger of spending too much time shaping our inner world to the detriment of our core (J)'s real life commitments, career and social life. We're very privileged in the sense both our core and our eldest little (8) are good at worldbuilding and I (B1) am so adventurous and eager to explore. J is keen to flesh out the inner world to give us the chance to achieve happiness that we are unlikely to get in the outer world and have a lot of fun. But it can be time-consuming and we need to prioritize the real world.
- How do you guys manage to balance the needs and wants of everyone in the system? Is it difficult for you? /curious
- How do you guys best communicate/navigate relationships with alters/core/host/deescalate crises? We personally have found journalling in a notebook very helpful, as it helps our 'team meetings', communicating important information and finding parts of the inner world/knowing what to look for in our inner world. We're very lucky to have learned good communication and crisis management from J's fiancee. But we're curious to see how you guys do it. Some of our negative experiences have felt like real existential crises and are so painful and hard to deal with. And J's fiance is usually the one who's having to bring us out if we're struggling and I worry it's taking its toll on him. We're getting by well (just about) now, but there's always the worry we run into a situation that's too overwhelming or upsetting.
- How do you navigate relationships with alters and the relationships they have with people on the outside world? D has an intense infatuation with J's fiancee. He quite likes D but is not in love with her like she is with him. Because he doesn't know her and he'll always be in love with J more than he can ever be with D. V has familial bonds with J's family members but because they don't know her and are still processing her plurality, they cannot feel the same way about her. I'm also so keen to make friends with her friends on the outer world but we don't want to step on J's toes and hog time with her friends. The times we have joined plurality online communities, D, J and I ended up spending a lot of J's social batteries with these people to the detriment of her real life friends. We have had to leave one because it was a positive trigger for me and D. D and I were formed to cope with aspects of the outer world so need more validation from it that we're just so unlikely to get. It's unfair of us to expect getting that immediately considering that the people in J's life don't know us. We're very lucky that most of the relationships in J's life are positive and she learned to cut out toxic people from her life (including family members) when she was 15. J as a singlet has dealt with negative relationships but we (J as a plural) hasn't. That's uncharted territory so far.
- How do you manage your social life and/or organise your life as a system?
- How do alters who need/love having external validation or stimulation/time using the body get what they need without relying on other people/so much on said validation? How do you help your alters feel appreciated (can be both in the outer world and inner world)? There are points where D, V and I have felt pretty resentful that we're unable to do our jobs properly. D is our inner Disney Princess. Although D loves doing chores, going to the supermarket and cooking, she worries that she will "get all the drudgery and no happily ever after" and it makes her intensely sad. My positive triggers are nights out and seeing friends especially when J is drunk, burned out or peopled out but needs or wants to stay out anyway. And Discord servers tend to bring me out, too. I have a danger of hogging the body and stealing time from J even if she's always co-con. V's positive trigger is seeing J's family which can end up backfiring and negatively triggering when she remembers how unrequited it is right now. They are all concerned about J because her behaviour is unconventional and comes across... well disconcertedly, for lack of a better term, to outsiders. J is working on finding ways to make it work, both in the outer and inner world. V found the young children that J has had dreams of many years ago and they are hers now. That has been huge in giving her the sense of family she craves, without relying on J's concerned relatives. We understand that there are good reasons for this happening but we are thankfully given room to feel how we feel without judgement.
- How do you define your roles? How do your system mates feel about these roles they have been given? Considering that we want to be treated like real people and we were brought to the forefront to help J be self-reliant, we have decided against giving any one person one specific task, but for all of us to pitch in depending on our strengths. For example, D shouldn't be lumped with all the cleaning even though she enjoys doing it for the most part. No one person should be left to deal with all the negative emotions or be blamed for all of the persecutory/self sabotaging behaviour. This is what has caused V so many problems.
- How do you guys identify and manage/deal with both positive and negative triggers? We are trying to learn how to pace ourselves after that bout of euphoria. Even when J was a singlet, she tended to take on too much and try and do everything now, now, now. We had to take the day off of work today because it's a positive trigger for me. We can synergise beautifully when in public but we want to build in positive trigger exposure slowly.
- How do you guys navigate in-system relationships/friendships? We're in a bit of a polycule raising our littles and V's children. Most of us are dating J, except for B2 who is only dating me. He's a fictive of one of J's novels and has his own trauma that the body hasn't dealt with. Our feelings and love for each other is intense and everything happened very quickly. During that period of euphoria we all really fell for each other. I'm so in love with J. It's hard for me to come second to J's fiancee but I have so much time for him and honestly I kind of fancy him too? I'm a flagrantly, unrepentant and passionate bisexual. Probably more than the rest of the group lmao. Regardless, I wouldn't want her to give him up. Navigating polyamory is a journey for singlets too but we're getting there.
- Is it normal to have someone in a system go quiet? J gets paranoid if she can't hear any of us or know where we are or what we're doing. It can get a bit annoying but I can understand her concerns. She's scared to lose us or fuse with any of us, especially considering we've only just started our journey together. J's mother is keen for us to fuse but all of us Blue Box gang are very very uncomfortable with that idea. How do we know if someone has fused or integrated? How have you guys felt about it or dealt with that?
- How do you guys keep your chief/captain/host/core stable? What are your host's positive triggers/system grounding techniques? We ask because our system's survival depends on J being in charge. If we don't follow her instructions, the ship will fall apart and we will go off the rails. J's fiance worries that he is losing J as a singlet because she is so caught up with her plurality. She is having a mild identity crisis herself but she can distinguish J the woman, J captain of the ship and J the TARDIS itself at least.
- How do you make sure your littles don't front by accident? How do you handle it if it does happen? We've been lucky that 4 has expressed no interest in the outside world and 8 has no real interest in adult spaces. Like you wouldn't want an 8 year old wandering into a pub. But she has accidentally fronted three times. Once in public, but she was under supervision with B2. Once while talking on an 18+ discord server and once while watching J's fiance play Pokemon. She's an explorer at heart and is more excited about exploring the inner world and fictional worlds than the real world. But we know there is a risk of her coming out if there's positive triggers and we won't be able to control it. Any advice or resources in helping littles are greatly appreciated. 8 and 4 are well-adjusted kids because they are past versions of J who had a very happy childhood, so are generally low maintenence.
- How do you guys navigate your gender identity (both as a part and as a collective)? Any fun things to do as an NB/genderqueer? J is a ciswoman started considering herself as she/they and non binary/genderqueer person since she realised how plural she was. It represents both her male headmates (me and B2 are both cismale because none of us have had trans experiences or inclinations) and her female headmates (everyone else, including V who is also she/they) but also as TARDIS which is how she's framed her mind (bigger on the inside!) transcends gender probably. Because her new gender identity is so tied into her plurality, she doesn't feel she can ask for help in coventional NB spaces. She doesn't feel comfortable coming out as plural in these singlet spaces and doesn't know where to start in looking for resources related to plurality and nonbinary/genderqueer. We've got our whole life to explore our gender identity and we rarely experience gender dysphoria so it's not urgent. Still, it would be nice to know where to start in our discovery.
TLDR; any fun tips that you have dealing with your plurality? You can always use replying to this as a nice excuse to talk about your experiences because we (particularly me and J) are fascinated by how the plural brain has adapted to its surroundings and why things in those spaces are the way they are.
Sorry for the big long essay, but we wanted to keep all the advice we get to get us through the next three weeks in one place. You don't have to answer all the questions or even any of them. There are... a lot, if you couldn't tell. We're so new to our plurality and we're largely navigating it alone at the moment. Any advice or resources you reccomend are greatly appreciated. As great a resource as they are, we've had to step right back from Discord servers until we can find a new normal and get J back on track. Hopefully this thread will be a good resource for newbies like ourselves and it's never too late to put in your reply if you so fancy it.
PS: If we've forgotten to add any trigger warnings, please kindly let us know and we'll amend the post.
​
​

i 18 f am about to graduate. i’ve been struggling with my anxiety for as long as i can remember. i feel i was robbed out of my experience in life because of it. i am a general A/B student, but i have been struggling with the will to do anything. i missed out on all of my college opportunities like grants or scholarships and im too afraid to ask for help. i asked my mom many times for me to be put on medications but she forgets to set up appointments. i know i am a grown person but im too afraid to do anything. i want to do nursing school but im afraid. i did get my phlebotomy certificate which people congratulate me but i feel that’s not enough. i feel i let myself down and my mom. i am the last of 4 kids to graduate in my family. i wish i could’ve done better and talk to people. i even wish i wasn’t like me at all. i barely have friends and the ones i do, we barely talk outside of school. so that’s why im making this post. im just so angry at myself for choosing my bed instead of my career. it’s been on my mind since i started high school. i want help and want to talk to people but i can’t no matter how hard i try. i think because im a stale person people get bored of me quickly. i don’t know what to do, all i just want to do is lay down and not get back up again. i want help.

I am a 21 (22 in August) female, currently feeling like a failure. I completed all my pre-requisite courses for my college's nursing program with mostly really good grades and was a top contender while applying to the program. I was accepted into the program for the fall 2022 semester, set to graduate in may 2024 (2 weeks ago - it is a 2 year program once you're accepted). I obviously haven't graduated.
In December 2022, a close family member died right before finals and my family hid her death from me so I could focus on finals but them hiding her death rubbed me the wrong way and I fell into a deep depression and tried committing suicide (I've been struggling with depression since I was a teenager and was not prescribed any medication for it). I didn't take any of my final exams and ended up having to take a gap semester from college. So from January 2023 - July 2023 I was working as a Nurse Aide at my hospital.
From Jan - July 2023, I was able to do a retroactive withdrawal process and was able to restart nursing school from the beginning in August 2023 (fall 2023 semester). So basically I was 1 year behind and this pushed my graduation date to may 2025. Already felt like a failure then.
But in August 2023, I worked really hard in my nursing class. I ran for and won class president, got good grades in my classes, and ended up passing 1st semester of nursing school with no problems. I was prescribed Buspar (anxiety medication) after my suicide attempt in Dec. 2022, so I think that really helped as well.
In January 2024, I started my 2nd semester of nursing school. Idk how it is in other programs, but 2nd semester of nursing school is the hardest semester in my college's program. This semester consisted of 4 lecture classes, 2 clinicals, and 1 lab. I've always been better in clinicals and labs rather than lecture courses. I think I have undiagnosed ADHD and I can't concentrate on our 2 lecture days where we sit in the same spot for 7-9 hours. I struggled with the exams even though I went to tutoring, went to every single exam review, and met with my professors. I was diagnosed my anxiety medication to help with my testing anxiety but I think that I needed additional help. I called my doctor and asked if she could sign some forms to give me DSS accommodations so I could test in a different room with minimized distractions and receive additional time for my exams, but she declined and said that she thinks it would be better if I started seeing a therapist or a psychiatrist to better diagnose me for DSS accommodations. Well a few weeks before I called my doctor, my dad had lost his job which meant that our family lost our health insurance and other things because he was receiving those benefits through work. My dad and I didn't think that it would make sense to start seeing a different healthcare specialist just for DSS accommodations when we didn't have insurance anymore. So I tried persisting and continued taking my exams without DSS accommodations and kept failing my exams. I spoke to our college's guidance counselor and she said that I don't need a specialist to sign those DSS forms, just a provider, so I called my doctor again and she agreed to sign them. I had first asked her in the first week of February, and she agreed to sign them April 1st, so there had been a lot of exams I had failed between then.
When I finally got DSS accommodations, I passed my hardest class's last exam. Personally, I think it's because I finally got the DSS accommodations, but there isn't really anything to prove that.
For my university's nursing program, a 77 is a fail and if you get a 77 in 2 classes, you will be dropped from nursing school and are not allowed to continue unless you appeal and your appeal is approved. I received a 76% in 2 classes this semester, so I was dropped. I chose to appeal and told them exactly why I think I failed, and today they denied my appeal.
Now I'm stuck either dropping out of university and going to a community college to get an associate's degree in nursing, or I can switch my major and do something else. I don't know if I want to stick to nursing and take another gap semester and start nursing from the beginning in January 2025 and graduate in December 2026 or if I should switch my major to something else in health care and maybe graduate in May 2026 or later. I don't know what to do. Has anyone else had a scenario like this or has anyone switched from being a nursing major to public health or something similar and ended up liking it? I have wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember and have tried so hard, but I just think nursing isn't for me even though I can't see myself doing anything else.

Hello everybody, I am seeking advice regarding a recent firing from my job (technically a contract terminated early) and wondering if I have any sort of legal standing.
I have been working as a contract health care worker for a certain hospital for 1.5 years. So I am employed by a contracing company, who bids for contracts on hospitals.
There was a co-worker of mine who, quite frankly, was insane. He nearly killed patients, he was a compulsive liar, he harassed workers inside and outside of work, he spread malicious, completely false lies about co-workers which could absolutely be damaging, he used governing bodies to try and have co-workers' careers' destroyed, he would have violent outbursts where he would swear and hit inanimate objects, he would tower over people and yell in their faces, he came close to hitting people and I'm certain that he would, given more time, he talked about how his father was ISIS or Al-Quaida or something like that and how he is extremely proud of his father for that, he talked about how he believes in extreme violence and how he is ready to leave his family and "fight for the cause", essentially. Completely, fucking mental. Somebody even recorded one of his rants talking about terrorism, because it was not a completely uncommon occurance.
I personally could tell this guy had a few screws loose when I first met him, so I did my absolute best to avoid him and stay out of his way. I just kept my head down and avoided this drama as best as I could.
This guy would get into these spats with everybody, and a lot of the times these other workers were not contract workers, but full-time union employees (like himself), and the union or HR would get involved and seemingly put an end to it.
Eventually he started picking fights with me, and spreading complete lies. He was saying that I killed a patient, which was completely false, the patient was alive and well and transferred without any hiccups. And telling others that I didn't do any work and would just push all of my work onto him, which again is completely false.
I told management about the terrorism stuff and that I don't feel safe and my manager, let's call her Mary, basically told me "Well just don't stay in your department and avoid him".
This co-worker of mine became more unhinged as time went on and it eventually came to a head about two months ago. He started screaming at my other co-workers (I was not there that day) during shift change in the middle of the ICU for no apparent reason and basically acting like a madman. Security was called, he was removed, his ID was deactivated, security was given his photo and he was instructed that he is not to step foot in the hospital unless he requires medical attention.
The nursing staff that day felt very unsafe and brought in pepper spray in case he came back with a knife or a gun or something.
This worker was not fired at this point and everybody was very uneasy that he may be coming back. His shouting in the ICU caused a "critical incident" and there was a debriefing which we were all invited to go to.
Myself and about twelve other healthcare professionals gathered and spoke about this incident and him. We shared that this was not some one-off incident, but that this guy has been causing serious concerns for many months. One nurse broke down in tears recounting how this guy had harassed her in front of her child outside of work and was taunting her about it everytime that she saw him at work.
As a group, we were angry and wanted something done.
I created a private chat group (using the hospital's messanging system, which may have been a mistake) with about ten other people and I essentially said "I am going to report this individual to our governing body and my goal is to have his license taken away. If you agree that this individual is a threat to co-workers, a threat to patient safety and does not belong in a healthcare role send me your contact information and I will include you in my complaint."
This was shared amongst staff, and twelve people offically signed on to my complaint.
About a month later a high up staff in management tracked me down and essentially said "Did you write a message about xxx on xxx program? Delete it- immediately". This was the first time this woman had ever spoken to me, but I knew who she was and that she is high up.
On my next shift I was called into my manager, "Mary's" office and was given a termination of contract notice, which would occur in two weeks. I said why? I didn't do anything wrong? She said that she doesn't know the details and whatever discussion I had with the high up staff was the cause.
I sent an email to Mary a few days later very respectfully asking again what did I do wrong and how could I have handled this differently. I was called into her office and I recorded the conversation. She essentially said that my concerns were absolutely valid and that I am free to speak with my regulatory body as I please. Apparently somebody shared the message I wrote with the co-worker and his side was trying to claim that I was bullying him with it, and because of that it set back their case against him. She told me that she had no say in the matter, that the firing came from above her, and hinted that she would not have fired me if it was her choice.
The company I work for was given a letter, explaining my termination; that there was an issue between another co-worker and myself, they had tried to intervene and resolve the issue but could not, so they fired me. Which is untrue. I am in the process of getting that letter from the company as proof, if needed. I was fired a good month after he had left the hospital, and he was officially fired about two weeks after I was.
And this is essentially where I am at now. I am looking for a new job, and I will find one, but I feel there was an injustice here and am wondering if this constitutes some sort of whistle-blowing or retaliation firing.
Our contracts do stipulate that either party can end with a two week notice, but again, the firing does not at all sit right with me.
If it matters, I had contracts until the end of the year, which were worth approximately $100,000.

Me and my wife have 2 kids, one 3 year old and currently one on the way due next week. My wife was adamant she wanted our kids to be close in age, which I don’t disagree with, me and my 1 sibling are 3 years apart so I didn’t see that as long however my wife thinks this gap may have been too long. We haven’t discussed more kids at length but more so a quick convo here or there in which we don’t come to a definitive answer. My wife goes back and forth between wanting more kids and keeping it to 2. My main concern is our finances, we’re still young and have yet to choose a career path. Currently I work in the construction industry and make decent money, (about $2400 a month), and my wife currently is not working due to maternity leave but has interest in becoming a nurse down the line. We are able to get by now between bills and other obligations but are stretched pretty thin when it comes to the end of the pay period, which is why I’m concerned now about when our new baby comes, but more so if we were to have another one after. My wife nearly gave up trying to have a second baby after I pushed off the idea for the same reason after our first, so I’m guessing she’d totally give up and be upset if I told her I don’t want to have a third anytime soon as to not put ourselves in a deep hole financially. How can I voice my concerns without being rude to her or turning it into a fight when the serious conversation comes up about a possible third baby. I’d telling her my worries and essentially “putting my foot down” on the idea of a third baby not the right approach? For context I have brought up my financial woes before and she thinks that worrying about finances is not the mindset to have, and at this moment she herself is not dead set on having more kids. I appreciate all the advice you can give me

(Sorry for typos or grammatical errors I’m on my phone and it’s a ton of info to edit.)
At this point I’m a 99 percent sure Diddy is the one pulling the strings behind the Kendrick and Drake beef.
At this point I’m a 99 percent sure Diddy is the one pulling the strings behind the Kendrick and Drake beef. I believe that Al B. Sure! was planing to release all the info he had on Diddy in 2022, but may have been poisoned beforehand similar to theories about Diddys’s ex wife Kim Porter who was originally married to Kim before Diddy stole her away along with Al’s son, also Diddy’s stepson Quincy. Diddy has also been directly tied to the murders or mysterious deaths of at least a half a dozen more people who were close associates from the beginning of his career and were key players in the formation of Bad Boy. Coincidentally many of the victims had either exposed or were threatening to expose evidence related to all of these crimes. They are also using Keefe D. to take the charge for 2Pacs murder so he can spin the story and leave out and ties to Diddy who ordered the hit or did it himself.
Unfortunately for Diddy, unlike the rest of the people he had successfully silenced in the past, Al ended up coming out of his coma and revealing all the info he had on Diddy, including that he was responsible for him falling into a coma. After he came out of the coma Diddy knew he was about to go down and before the raid he destroyed and staged all of his homes with evidence that would verify all the claims related to other celebrities over the age of 18. Meanwhile he got rid of all the videos involving murder, sa, child abuse, bestiality and other evidence that would bring major charges. This is so he can cooperate with the Feds and help reduce his sentence. If he hid all the evidence they would know and work overtime to find it. Instead he lied by omission and corroborated the accusations that won’t completely destroy him. He can then release all his dirt to seem like he made all the blackmail with the intention of bringing down known predators who were able to get away with the same things he’s guilty of.
In the video of Diddy in the wig, he talks about partying with Drake and The Weekend and I believe he was able to acquire the blackmail. He then released the blackmail to selected people to ensure they leak at the appropriate time. The plan is to publicly out Drake for sex crimes so the rest of Hollywood knows not to testify against him. During the auction mentioned by ebony prince they are going to auction off all the dirt Diddy has collected the last 30 years. This includes dirt on Trump, which may be the reason behind all of this. The auction is four days after Election Day and will be used as a fail safe in case Trump wins the election.
I’m trying my best to add everything, just struggling because I have like 30 pages worth of write ups. If you want more evidence I have a ton, on my other account, I don’t want to spam so just dm me if you want additional evidence. The full post above is multiple pages long so I just chose the important part because very few people on here have the attention span for it.
You don’t have to believe it, it’s just my personal opinions, but they are based on facts and about 80 hours of research.
https://www.reddit.comRationalSchizo812020/s/IsgRSkK8KM
Check out the post covering Diddy, Drake, Kendrick, and Kanye
Two articles about modern sex cults still in operation: https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/new-york-satanic-cult-764-fbi
https://www.complex.com/life/a/brad-callas/accused-cult-leader-nature-boy-sentenced-to-life
Yesterday I found Ye’s full interview with The Download from before the beef blew up. It discusses a lot of my connections and hints that Ye is partially involved. You can skip to around 13 minutes in.
(Recently the charges against Lucian Grange were dropped showing he most likely is working behind the scenes as well and has some influence. He may be related to the leak as well. He could have also been the one who supplied the blackmail. Another alternative is Diddy went to the feds on his own accord, but when multiple lawsuits pop up very quickly, especially after thirty years of avoiding charges related to tons of sketchy shit, it usually means there is some type of coordination. Look at TI and his wife’s allegations and what lead up to those events.)
Full post:
This is all speculation so please don’t victim blame or spread conspiracies about a possible survivor of C.S abuse. This is why many don’t come forward. All I’m trying to do is point out the large amount of details surrounding the rumor that stand out as odd to me. By no means does this dismiss his claims. I’m not a lawyer, but if he was suing my client, this is some of the evidence I would use in the case.
Before I start I need to put in a small disclaimer. **The subjects I covered in my essay are well known to be linked to conspiracy theory communities that have been equated to terrorist groups. The end goal of a lot of these communities is to promote political divide, antisemetism, homophobia, and violence. I think the ultimate goal is to create such a massive gap between the left and right that the two party system fails and we fall into anarchy allowing the people who really pull the strings to restructure and in order to retain their power. It’s already evident that Biden isn’t able to do nearly as much as he could do if he didn’t have to consider the opposing party’s majority vote as well. Whoever wins I feel the results will be the same, violent protests aiming to reverse the vote. If this is achieved it will be the death of democracy in America.
I highly encourage anyone who identifies with either political party and are attracted to controversial subjects or consider themselves to be contrarian to please look out for any conspiracies that seem to be targeted towards you or the community you’re a part of. If they share similar ideas to the findings I made in my research, please do not engage.
I’ve watched the conception and the eventual downfalls off the P-gate and Q conspiracy communities. It didn’t take me long to figure out the eventual end game and step back from the community while continuing independent research. If you’re letting someone else to the research for you, you really need to be sure to trust the source and be aware of possible ulterior motives. It’s really dangerous territory though, filled with hidden traps that can draw you in and send you so deep that you either end up going into psychosis from the stress and paranoid, or you do what I did and step back for the sake of your mental health. I hate even sharing things like this because I know it may not have the effect I intended, but on the other hand people who are new to these subjects and conspiracies really, really need to take them seriously. They are not just games on the internet and there is a reason members of these communities have to hide in the shadows and lure people into their dark corners. There is also reason why they target the groups they do and I’ve noted a huge effort to indoctrinate people in rap community, the content creator community, and the celebrity gossip communities. I’ll let you guys draw your own conclusions as to why this is. I assume if you read this far you’re not dumb.
Once you’re stuck in their web it’s very difficult for most people to find their way back to society without seeing examples everywhere. I hope this is able to at least help one person who might be teetering on the edge of these rabbit holes. It’s not worth it and if I wasn’t sober and taking my meds, Id probably end up having a psychotic break. If you feel like you may be approaching that point you can still quit while you’re ahead.
Here are just a few of the things you can do to keep yourself from spiraling.
Take a step back for a while and focus on other things. Taking a hiatus from social media is crucial. If you can’t control yourself maybe detach from the news and internet entirely for a couple days. Even a long weekend can make a MASSIVE difference.
Try to get a good nights sleep and consider taking melatonin or an over the counter sleep aid.
Spend some time with friends or loved ones.
Eat some good, somewhat healthy, food and stay hydrated.
Try to get some sun and consider taking a walk or doing some other form of exercise.
Volunteer or do something to help your community if you want to continue working to benefit society.
Try to read a book or spend some time doing your favorite hobbies that aren’t related to any of the subjects I discuss below. Without further ado…
Ties Between Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Violent Antigovernment Conspiracies
I recently saw an article about Bryshere Gray, a rappeactor best known for his role in Empire. He was born in Philadelphia and started rapping at 16. His manager Craig Mack, who facilitated his big break by getting him a role on the TV series Empire, is life long friends with Will Smith. Currently there are conflicting claims about whether he is currently suing or planning to sue Will Smith and P. Diddy for s. abusing him as a minor. It’s rumored he is trying to get 50 million dollars in damages. That number alone seems suspicious to me. That’s 20 million more than Cassie got and she dated and lived with Diddy for over a decade.
One of the other things I noticed off the jump was the fact that the only sources regarding the case were on social media along with one article on MSN, which is known for being a nest of clickbait journalism. Essentially they are the written version of gossip videos made by content creators. The only evidence I could find in these videos were a few short clips from his socials where is talking about the negative sides of fame and a clip of him on the red carpet with Will Smith. This might hint towards suppression, but I’m leaning toward this whole story being bullshit.
The only connection I found between him and Diddy is a song he did with 2 Chainz and Fabolous, the latter being signed to Bad Boy. He ended up getting signed to Columbia which falls under the Sony Music Entertainment while Bad Boy is under UMG. Considering these rumors came about a while back he hasn’t mentioned it at all as far as I know. Some might argue this could be a product of friction between labels or that he included Diddy because everyone knows he’s going down. On the other hand if he is a victims he may not have wanted his story told and doesn’t want to stoke the rumors by responding whether they’re true or not.
One of the biggest things that led me to question the validity of the claims is the fact that 90 percent of the sources I found were using a three minute clip from an interview with one of the top content creators on YouTube, I’ll call her J. At this point I’m 99 percent sure J is an opp, whether she knows it or not. She told his story in vivid detail accusing Will and Jada of luring young artists with promises of mentorship, then involving them in their bedroom activities.
It’s not really a stretch to think that Will might have a cuckold fetish and probably swings both ways. Two things that could ruin you in the 90’s, but neither or them could do more damage to their careers then they have already done by airing out intimate details of their relationship to the public. However the allegations involving minors are complete heresay. This leads me to believe these are just rumors from the 90’s updated to include modern conspiracy theories. J clearly also clearly has some homophobic tendencies, but uses her bisexuality as a pass to bash on most black gay men and even straight men who she claims to be gay. It’s all too obvious she still holds onto resentment over her career never taking off while a lot of the people she collaborated with turned into megastars which is a huge motivator for her content. She clearly still lives in the nineties when these type of allegations alone could seriously damage your career.
In Bryshere’s case, regardless if any of the details she shared were true, they shouldn’t have been aired to the public by anyone but Gray himself. This isn’t the first time J has leaked recordings, exploited, or stolen from victims she claimed to be advocating for. She has even doxxed victims by starting a women’s group for sa survivors and recording all their meetings. She eventually leaked some, claiming they were trying sabotage the group. When the rest found out or were threatened themselves, the group was quickly dissolved and covered up. Considering her track record it’s not unlikely that if true, she released Gray’s story after trying to ask for a payoff and not receiving it. Considering their is no evidence they’ve even met, it’s more likely she’s just reporting on local rumors considering her and Gray are both from Philly and now both live in the Dallas. It’s very important to look at J’s history to see the bigger picture here.
My theory is J was given permission to share her story detailing the dark side of the industry and promised protection if she also included certain details that they provided to her. If true, the motive could have been to help her home channel gain credibility and attract a large viewer base so they can manipulate the message. I believe these people do know some shit about some people, and they want to get out ahead and make sure they only go after their rivals.
I followed J, an up and coming influencer, to examine to see if I noticed any obvious agendas and stumbled upon a full blown conspiracy. I use as an example started with very levelheaded claims that were easy to digest and over the course of five years this influence lured in their viewers with insider knowledge that turned out to be true and by the end was spouting rumors that are easily traceable to certain movements that have been tied to antisemetism, anti LBGTQ, and violent ideologies. It started slow with a few buzzwords and before you knew it the comment sections had been taken over. She started by luring in the celebrity gossip community, specifically people over the age of 40, who treat gossip blogs like the gospel. It’s obvious why this community has been chosen as a target, and I’ve seen recently to rap community is not much better. I imagine whoever is orchestrating this campaign probably wasn’t expecting it to be this easy.
We very well may be witnessing a controlled takedown and the purpose usually is to take out any liabilities while painting their innocence. If a lot of sick people get outed for terrible crimes most people will assume the Feds weeded out all the bad seeds. It would be a public win for the FEDs and would address any criticism aimed at them and those in the industry who have been facing pressure to deal with these types of issues for at least 3 decades. It will also assuage a lot of the conspiracy communities who have been trying to bring light to these issues. I definitely believe the people they chose to take the rap are going to take the charges for all their co conspirators, so those close to them don’t catch any charges. This would be very important in a R.I.C.O. case.
After they’ve completed their mission and their message has been delivered they will then allow these messengers to continue to capitalize on their channel’s popularity. This way they could still manipulate to spread whatever they choose whenever it’s deemed it to be necessary, It probably won’t work too many times before people catch on. In they want to continue making content they can force them to dig up their old dirt. They could also easily provide them with a list of names they are and aren’t allowed to talk about. My guess is they know that most of them aren’t going to be able to find anything, and since they picked people willing to to say any thing for money, they know they will continue to do it with or without relevant information.
They could also continue aiding her in an effort to further the spread disinformation as a preemptive measure. They may threaten harm or violence if the view counts dip below a certain amount to prevent the messenger from self sabotaging in case they need to get their message to the massesIf in the future. If they do ever need them again to do the same thing or are themselves being targetted, they can use their messengers to discredit the facts about them and shine light on those who are leveling the allegations.
You may be wondering what if the enemy finds them and pays them more to doublecross their handlers? They can then use their messenger’s mental illness and paint them and their viewers as violent or mentally ill members of a disinformation cult and either blackmail them into retracting their claims or label them and their listeners as a disinformation cult that happened to be right about some things. Mental health issues can also help paint the narrative that the messenger is suicidal so they can take her out easier if needed. In the case of J it’s not out of the realm of possibility considering her recent struggle and probably played a big part in choosing her to be their mouth piece. since they can use her mental illness at any time to discredit her or create plausible deniability if any connection is made between them and they need to go to court to prove the opposite.
She’s such a wildcard their is no way they would’ve recruited her if they didn’t have an iron clad manipulation tactic with multiple failsafes in place. Usually threatening to kill someones entire family works just fine, but she doesn’t seem to be too worried about her families safety. This is why I think it’s the big labels going after their own artists because they know they’re probably going to get busted soon. Also studios rarely sign you and give you a good deal if they don’t have some type of dirt in case the artist to keep them in line, and use them for their own personal gains. They can also keep them from going after the messenger and better ensure their safety. If they had her go after another label’s artists they probably wouldn’t be able to cover all the bases when it comes to protection, which with J is necessary since she never has any security detail and constantly doxxes herself and her family on live.
While going though her interviews it became very clear to me something was very fishy off the rip. It became obvious after watching sections from all four of her main interviews that as time went on she began incorporating more and more lies and more and more ridiculous conspiracies into the narrative. For most people as soon as they hear a blatant lie they immediately write off anything coming from the source. Most people don’t do their own research so if the messenger tells a couple little white lies with a dramatic flair they can get away with it for a while. The more lies though the higher the chance of them getting called out and losing a portion of their audience as well as making any truth information that can’t be verified sound sketchy.
As I’ve said before J first two interviews do have a lot of verifiable claims, juxtaposed with her life story, and a few blatant lies. One thing I noticed is the majority of her allegations are against artists from her hometown in Philadelphia who were breaking into the industry around the same time as she was and managed to make their way to the top of their respective industries. Sadly neither of J’s two albums were well received and she lost her opportunity because of her combative personality mixed with major narcissism.
After her music career didn’t pan out she moved to Dallas, Texas to try to rebrand. After her son was murdered in 2018, similar to her career, her mental health took appeared to take a nosedive. Before the first interview in 2020, apparently rumors were floating around she was living out of cars and motels. She then met her husband who was ex-military and it seemed like he really built her up and helped her, possibly even writing the stories. In that first interview she accused multiple artists of mistreatment as well as assault. It went semi-viral and a good portion of the accused either provided evidence to contradict her or said the don’t want to go into it, and they seemed to know the situation and feel bad for her. The rapper Common, who she claimed had abused her even said he hopes she’s ok and wished her well. A lot of her fans took this and twisted them into him being guilty because he didn’t go off on a rant trying to claim his innocence and shit on J like they were expecting.
I belief either before or after the first interview got some attention she was contacted and either paid or blackmailed into doing another interview where she was fed information, some truth some lies, and told to mix it in to her life story. I also think her husband may have been one of her handlers. My suspicions stem from the fact that he popped up not long before the first interview and married her after like 3 weeks. I also noticed his way of speaking was also was very similar to J’s and he’d even use similar vocal inflections and speech patterns. They also displayed a lot of similar quirks. Another coincide is he claimed he was responsible for most of the technical support and played a huge part in establishing her online presence. He claimed to have learned everything in a day, and apparently people were shocked at how quickly he learned how to code websites and manage her accounts. A few weeks after getting married she had already made him a fifty/fifty partner for the a new television network she was promoting around the time, but was designed to steal peoples money.
She returned for a second interview in December 2022 and during her second video she mentioned Diddy and dropped a lot of information regarding his current case, his connections to many celebrities, and many specific details about their lives only an insider would have access to. Still there wasn’t much evidence to verify a good portion of her claims until Cassie filed her lawsuit a couple weeks later. I’m almost positive whoever is trying to bring Diddy to justice is connected to whoever is giving her all this info. During the interview J once again eloquently details the dark side of the industry.
Unfortunately her second interview was overshadowed by two separate incidents that both occurred only a few days later and were also caught on her live stream. First she was arrested at a Chicago airport for losing her mind at the security checkpoint. Not much longer after that during an apparent psychotic break, she was filmed in a barbershop parking lot abusing her husband then taking her sons ashes and throwing them her husband and his friends while acting like she was literally possessed. In a later interview she claimed to have Dissociate Identity Disorder from all the trauma and admitted that it was the cause of her psychotic breaks, which totally applies if someone was severely abused at a young age like she has claimed is the case. Eventually she was restrained by the police, strapped down, and tied to a stretcher.
After she got out of a mental hospital a couple days later, her and her soon to ex-husband did a couple separate interviews followed by one where they both discussed to situation together. Before the joint interview their original stories did not line up at all. From their description of events it’s obvious she was cheating and he seems intelligent enough to that, but instead claims the now leader of the Carbon Nation sex cult we’ll call Sol. According to their story he hypnotized her the first time they met and manipulated her into joining her and her husband on their planned weekend roadtrip after meeting in person for the first time. He also forced her into saying she wanted to kill her husband multiple times and letting him touch all over her while they were all in the car together. After that she went on and shared a painfully detailed description of the abuse she suffered as a child all they up until she left the industry. Not much longer after that her husband filed for divorce, further contributing to the spiral.
About three months ago she did another interview that clearly was made by someone else and was loaded with editing mistakes and long gaps without sound that are so muffled you can barely hear them. She also obvious took clips of the interviewer from previous interviews and pasted them together to form new questions and edited them in between her responses. This is also where her claims were all either recycled or included the wildest pizzagate rumors. Then as always she included them in her personal anecdotes so people feel bad for questioning her. The last interview I saw came out less than a week ago and it was even worse than the last and it seems like she’s now just shitposting and seeing how much she can get away with and sadly as expected most people are still eating it up out of the palm of their hand. People who literally worship these influencers like Gods.
Sorry for the giant tangent, but it seems obvious to me that the husband and the two interviewers were all working together. He dressed her up, got her sober and kept her on her meds so she could deliver these interviews. At the same time she was the one who agreed to literally sell her soul and I believe she conscientiously made the decision to scam others. I think everything with Sol was either planned by the three of them or at least the two men who both appeared randomly and were obviously both manipulators. They used their, “divorce,” to really kick things into overdrive and then either both left her there jobs were done. In my humble opinion it’s more likely that they are all mentally ill, desperate for money, and playing roles that were assigned to them for a very specific purpose. I’m almost positive the whole marriage was a sham to help contribute to the narrative that everything in the first two videos was true, until she lost her mind because of the DID, PTSD, and stress.
The last thing I’ll mention before getting back to Bryshere Gray is how I found it interesting that she chose a DID diagnosis. Bipolar used to be a big one, but most people these days know at least one person with it, and it’s easier to tell when people are faking. DID and BPD are the trendy ones now because they aren’t as well understood and easier to fake or play up for the camera. The large numbers of people obviously faking their symptoms, based off the symptoms of some influencer who is also faking. This makes it very difficult to know what’s . It’s also commonly brought up in more radical conspiracy groups as being part of the satanic agenda or brainwash people. I think they were intentionally trying to attract people who would get anything related to the movement send to the deep corners of the internet where those types tend to hide.
This all leads me to the wildest connection of the story. In 2015, when Gray joined Columbia Records, he was signed alongside his future Empire costar Jussie Smollett who ended up playing his older brother. For those who don’t know or remember in 2019, Jussie Smollett was found guilty of staging a hate crime against himself somewhere around the 4th season of he show. The expensive investigation revealed the motivation was political after revealing Michellle Obama’s form chief of staff reached out to Smollett’s lawyer and requested the case be handed over to the FBI. His lawyer then forward the request to Chicago’s Superintendent who approved the request and the case was dropped. After a massive uproar, pitting democrats and republicans against each other, he was resentenced in December 2019 and to this day his legal defense team is still trying to drag out the case so the prosecutor just drops the charges and they don’t have to admit guilt. (If interested the Wikipedia article sums up the whole thing very well.)
Up until his arrest for domestic violence over three years ago where he was caught multiple times lying to the police in his interview, he was found guilty. Seemingly overnight his career tanked and he essentially disappeared and clearly seemed to be dealing with some mental health issues. I find it interesting that after four years of silence he’s just deciding to come out now, and if this case is real in the first place I wonder if anyone is going to draw all these connections.
Aside from Smollett and Gray, the cast list attached to the TV series Empire reveals a lot of connections to a lot of high powered figures with strange connections to this whole conspiracy. A good example of one of these connections is Terrence Howards’s character, a top record label president named Lucious. After skimming the first season’s plot points, some appeared to be directly based on attributes commonly associated with Diddy.
When I looked a little deeper I found that Howard, who also originates from Philadelphia, was cast as the lead actor on the show, while still finding the time to deliver his infamous guest lectures around the world. The main focus of the lectures was discussing the theory he hypothesized which he appropriately named, “Terryology.” This came after being blacklisted from the industry for nearly seven years prior for beating up a crew member and being convicted of multiple domestic violence charges. After the incident with the crew member in 2008, it was revealed Howard had been replaced by Don Cheadle in the sequel to his last hit movie, Iron Man.
Around the same time in 2008, he also signed a record deal with no other than Columbia Records. This came a few years before his infamous on screen sons joined a the same label years later. This can definitely be connected to Howard’s relationship with Gray’s manager Charlie Mack. Some other people who made guest appearances on the show include Naomi Campbell, Cassie, Cuba Gooding Jr, and Mary J. Blige.
The creator of the show Lee Daniel’s, the popular democratic activist whose connections go all the way up to the Obama’s, Oprah, and the Clintons. (Before I go any further, please don’t go down this rabbit hole much further, and to the people who use these type of stories to promote their agendas and spark even more political discord. Now more then ever we need to reel in both the far left and far right and meet as close to the middle as possible or else both candidates are going to continue to be worse every election. Please keep any comments politically neutral. I hate both candidates and I’m simply making connections and could care less who wins the upcoming election.
I think what we’re seeing now regarding Drake, Kendrick, Diddy, and people like Bryshere Gray and J and other influencers and content creators are all be used as weapons to distract people from something major going down and the fact that it’s only getting crazier every day, it appears whatever I’m referring to is yet to come, but won’t be long. Please keep all of this in mind before you start trying to research subjects like these. You may realize that some of the ideologies that have been chastised and tied to violence have been saying these types of things for years, and most of their evidence has been proven already or align with everything we’re seeing.
The paid protestors at Columbia is another example of political theater. Here is where people make the connection to Semetism and where most subscribers theories go off the fucking rails. Just because a lot of these things can be tied to Israel and Jewish Americans, a lot of people like to blame them for all the worlds problems, what they don’t realize is most of this stems from cultural traditions and generational wealth that was gained through hard work and promotion of high education. This has resulted in the majority of Jewish Americans holding more wealth than the average Christian household and most if this stems purely from jealousy and fucking Hitler. This is why the majority of people who go all in on these types of theories don’t have any further education than a high school diploma.
I know this doesn’t make them all dumb, but even a lot of very intelligent people like Ye and other major public figures got sucked into these communities without realizing they were part of the same agenda they were trying to expose. That’s how you end up with Ye saying he loves Hitler in a public interview and promoting Trump for president and supporting the fucking, “white lives matter,” movement along with the Candace Owen, the republicans answer to AOC. Even people with more formal education and fewer biases can and have been successfully targeted by these communities. It’s been shown time and time again that many of these recruiters who have been in their respective communities since their inception usually end up end reaching the same conclusions and the more people there are to confirm your beliefs or suspicions, the more likely it is you’ll accept everything else in they say as true. (This is a very similar conclusion the one I reached in my essay about J).
My belief is someone from the same circle that J was in during her singing career are the same people who reached out to Katt Williams and other blacklisted artists with long recorded histories of mental illness and substance abuse problems to lie by omission and allowing them to release preselected pieces of evidence without repercussions. They could easily know what information the Feds were able to acquire. They then had her leak those details to the public so when the details to come out it makes she can work with the Feds and dismiss any other allegations even if they are true. Obviously it won’t determine the outcome, but it can definitely go a long way in making sure certain details of the defendant choosing can be struck from the record if the evidence isn’t good enough.
At this point I’m a 99 percent sure Diddy is the one pulling the strings behind the Kendrick and Drake beef. I believe that Al B. Sure! was planing to release all the info he had on Diddy in 2022, but may have been poisoned beforehand similar to theories about Diddys’s ex wife Kim Porter who was originally married to Kim before Diddy stole her away along with Al’s son, also Diddy’s stepson Quincy. Diddy has also been directly tied to the murders or mysterious deaths of at least a half a dozen more people who were close associates from the beginning of his career and were key players in the formation of Bad Boy. Coincidentally many of the victims had either exposed or were threatening to expose evidence related to all of these crimes. They are also using Keefe D. to take the charge for 2Pacs murder so he can spin the story and leave out and ties to Diddy who ordered the hit or did it himself.
Unfortunately for Diddy, unlike the rest of the people he had successfully silenced in the past, his dirt ended up coming out right around when Al ended up coming out of his coma and I think it’s likely that if my theory is correct he released all the info he had on Diddy. He even may have hinted in an interview at him being responsible for him falling into a coma. After he came out of the coma Diddy knew he was about to go down and before the raid he destroyed and staged all of his homes with evidence that would verify all the claims related to other celebrities over the age of 18. Meanwhile he got rid of all the videos involving murder, sa, child abuse, bestiality and other evidence that would bring major charges.
This is so he can cooperate with the Feds and help reduce his sentence. If he hid all the evidence they would know and work overtime to find it. Instead he lied by omission and corroborated the accusations that won’t completely destroy him. He can then release all his dirt to seem like he made all the blackmail with the intention of bringing down known predators who were able to get away with the same things he’s guilty of.
In the video of Diddy in the wig, he talks about partying with Drake and The Weekend and I believe he was able to acquire the blackmail. He then released the blackmail to selected people to ensure they leak at the appropriate time. The plan is to publicly out Drake for sex crimes so the rest of Hollywood knows not to testify against him. During the auction mentioned by ebony prince they are going to auction off all the dirt Diddy has collected the last 30 years. This includes dirt on Trump, which may be the reason behind all of this. The auction is four days after Election Day and will be used as a fail safe in case Trump wins the election.
When people who already have even the slightest political biases and less formal education, it can be very difficult to look at these things and not choose a side. This is their agenda to promote centrism and split the left and right even further to promote chaos and anarchy. I advise anyone who identifies as democrat or republican to be extremely cautious when exploring these topics and watch out for the type of things I mentioned. If the information is specifically pointed towards whichever party you identify with, they are trying to suck you in and fill your head with their beliefs.
*Update 2- I’ve never seen this amount of negative responses on any of the bullshit reposts and memes. Clearly people don’t want to actually think for themselves and are just trying to shut down any theory that contradicts their own. Y’all need to stop trying to disprove shit that actually promotes alternative ideas. This is exactly why this community was created. You don’t have to agree with everything, but if you see anything of interest you can do some more research if you’re interested if not just move on and mind your business. Either read it if you’re interested and do your own research or move along and mind your own business.

I don’t even really want to talk about it but I need to get it off my chest.
My dad is in his mid sixties with gbm grade four, unmethylated. They discovered his tumor after he had a seizure at home alone and he got up to dial 911 to be sent to the hospital.
A few days after his admission, he had a successful surgery in mid/late January 2024. After surgery he refused chemo and radiation and chose to purse natural/homeopathic options.
None of them have been working and by march his tumor had regrown to the same size as it was prior to his surgery.
His symptoms worsened even more after this last weekend and I could no longer get him out of the bed to the wheelchair. He wasn’t eating or drinking much in bed for a couple days so I called palliative care and they scheduled a telehealth the following day to discuss proceeding into hospice care. He initially agreed and we started getting the hospice evaluation set up.
Before hospice could arrive my dad was having abdominal pain and hadn’t had a bowel movement for days. My uncle flew in to help me a couple days later and we were able to lift him barely off the bed and onto the commode. Shortly after that he started eating again and drinking again.
My dad is 6 foot 2 and 230 pounds so I asked if they could expedite the request for the hoyer lift and it arrived the same day.
Prior to the hospice evaluation that was scheduled for the next day. Someone else from hospice came to explain hospice and get signature for the go ahead.
The whole meeting was so weird. It was someone that hasn’t met my dad before explaining hospice. I know it’s their job to be clear and blunt but my dad already has reservations about western medicine and when she stated he couldn’t pursue further treatment he took it as “you can no longer pursue natural/homeopathic treatment”. On top of that she kept asking him “Are you sure? It sounds like you aren’t sure yet. I don’t think you’re sure.” I get why they need to vet each case but everyone who knows my dad including his palliative care doc knows that talking to my dad requires some delicacy. Even his palliative care doctor tried to explain over the phone that hospice won’t interfere with any out of pocket therapies or treatment but my dad is convinced hospice means giving it all up. We’ve been having the same conversation over and over to explain to my dad that hospice is not closing the door on his ability to pursue natural treatment.
His palliative care doc even showed up to our apartment the next day to sit down with me, my dad and my uncle to clarify face to face and he keeps nodding but refuses to make the decision. He’s clearly getting worse every week and at this point, the only way hospice is going to get involved is if he loses his cognitive function - which is one of the only things he has at this point other than function of his left arm. The rest of his limbs are just extra weight at this point, the right side of his mouth is drooping and so much food is getting stuck in right cheek. He’s becoming incontinent, and asks me where stuff is on his computer screen because he’s starting to lose vision of things to the right of him.
Since he refused hospice they are going to take back the lift they delivered when he initially agreed. We are going to have to rent one out of pocket if he wants to leave the bed.
I’m so frustrated because there is nothing I can do. He still has the power to make the choice but is choosing to leave the resources that hospice has to offer on the table. It’s just an endless loop of the same conversation until he loses his mind.
Tldr: Dad initially agreed to hospice during a telehealth after a weekend of worsening symptoms. When a hospice nurse came to visit, he changed his mind due to the verbiage used. When me, my family, his palliative care doc tried to explain clearly hospice won’t interfere with his decision to pursue natural / out of pocket treatments my dad just kept nodding and refused to make a decision. He’s getting worse and at this point will lose the last bit of function that he has which is his cognitive function before being forced into hospice through a psych evaluation.

I'm in the process of figuring out which universities I want to apply to and I'm getting incredibly frustrated at the requirements for some schools. Is anyone else feeling this? I don't really get why a lot of the schools are requiring a two year pre-nursing base and then calling it an accelerated program?
I'm making a career change and went to school 10 years ago. I've talked to a couple universities and some seem fine but others are just seem like they don't want older students. Dalhousie won't count my previous academics towards my transfer, which is fine, but because I went to postsecondary, they won't let me enter the regular program. I MUST go through the accelerated stream which means that no matter what they want me to do the two year pre-nursing courses. If I wanted to complete the pre-nursing requirements, I'd have to do it part time because life is expensive and I have a couple university courses already. But they have a credit expiration that would run out before I graduated and would make them invalid. Like just say you don't want people over the age of 25 going to you're school and be done with it. It doesn't matter if you have a degree in health sciences. You got that degree +5 years ago? Doesn't count towards prereqs.
For a country that says that they really need nurses, I'm finding the process as an older student to be discouraging. Is anyone else feeling or felt this way? Or am I just having a frustrating day and need to chill?

TLDR version: Am I the AH for telling a cohort that they spend a LOT of time worrying about unimportant details and that I prefer not to reinvent the wheel?
Background: For my career, I decided to get yet another degree. I have an MD but did not keep my license because I work mainly in research. Now, I am getting a Master's in Nursing to get my RN and take DNP exams.
I have NEVER, nor do I ever plan to tell my cohorts I have an MD. I have also been a professor at MANY schools, including nursing schools and medical schools, but I don't tell this to my cohorts. A few of my professors so know; I have mentioned I have a PhD and that I studied "hippie medicine," but I never elaborate. I mean I am a medical director, so DUH, I HAVE to have an MD, but I never told them. It may come up at some point, but I really don't plan to tell them.
Ok, so I had to repeat some classes because they were done at medical school and were pass-fail, but this school needs a letter grade. Those classes were with undergrads, so I just ignored the absolute brain-numbing stupidity. But one example is a fellow student who used MY PRESENTATION as their own and did not even take my name off of it, and they still passed.
We are now in the graduate part of the program. All my cohorts must have at least a master's degree. We all have to have had a minimum GPA of a 3.5. We all cannot have failed a healthcare class, we all had to take an entrance exam and get at least 70% (I got 80% and had schools BEGGING me to apply and to give me scholarships).
We also have to get a minimum of 70% on any assignment and 80% or higher overall for every class. And we have periodic competency exams.
So this semester we have a CRAZY course load. 6 courses, all slamming us. The professors asked me to counsel students and do a peer support group thing, as credit for one of my courses, as I have been a professor previously.
So one woman is gung ho. Has no job, like online 24/7 constantly engaging in the group. NO biggie, let her. I interject and guide, but basically this is a group of adults, and I do not need to be seen as the leader.
the professors have basically daily, maybe more than once a day zoom calls. these are not mandatory; they give tips but are not mandatory. These people are FREAKING out when they miss one. I tell them that if they think it will help, watch, but really, there is no new info in them.
They all will pass info back and forth that they THINK they gleaned from the calls, but 90% of the time, they did not listen. They are FREAKING out about how we are graded, even though the score used is listed in the assignment. For example, one uses a DLC score and an SPI score. We get graded on the DCL. The SPI score will never be 100% because it is a competency score of graduates ready for boards, and we are not even close to that level yet.
I tell them, they tell me I must be wrong. I show them proof, and they argue, they email the professor, who asks, "Did you ask "Stange"?" they then tell me they don't think I am correct and ask other professors.
They complain that unit review questions are "wrong," which is not gonna lie. They often are. But 100% of every one they post, they are wrong. they get mad when I point out why they are incorrect.
They are all complaining about their grades on their papers this past week, but NOT A DAMN ONE used a reference. Of course, you will not get a good grade if you are not using references, citing them etc,
Then they were obsessed with Ref Works, which is quite useless. I suggested maybe using PERRLA, which is $75 a year, but it does the same thing and more. They tried to make me look crazy, as they claimed they had never needed anything like that. One said, " I have a PhD and NEVER had a problem with being told I plagiarized." and "What a waste of money"
This is hilarious for 2 reasons: APA formatting and archiving references are not ONLY about plagiarism, but they are all buying $200 note-taking templates and books we are not using for classes that are really expensive. But whatever, I have 100% in all the classes right now; they are all close to 80% and struggling.
THE NEXT DAY, the school started getting worried about this group and cheating because they were in the group that I was mentoring and gloating about cheating. The professor also told her she needed to use scholarly references, not random websites. And Ms. "I have a PhD," says she was dinged for a 99% plagiarism score. HOW? You claim you have a PhD but never learned how to find references.
So I taught them about the library, what to look for, how to cite, etc. They then asked what my score was; it was 1%, thank you very freakin much.
MEANWHILE, we have 6 courses, each one has close to 20 HOURS each of reading and work. They are so overfocused on unnecessary things. We are graded on the completion of certain tasks, NOT mastery. Stop making lists of assignments if you can't do them correctly. Stop telling me what you think I need to study. Obviously, you and I are on the same course. If you have not taken it before, and even if you have, you can't tell me what the test is about.
So in my cohort, I have the highest grade. Not that I am smarter, but more because I don't waste time doing what is not important, I follow directions, and I do master-level work, probably higher. A LOT of the next few weeks, the courses are designed to be next to impossible to complete if you don't follow steps, pay attention, and work smarter, not harder.
And really, when you use the TOOLS in our canvas and do things that they are told for you to complete and do them, then there really is not as much work as it seems.
I keep trying to point this out to my cohorts, they keep trying to reinvent the wheel and focusing on things that are not going to give them a return on their time worth the effort.
And back to the one lady without a job, barely passing the 70% requirement for assignments. She wants to lead, again I could care less. However, beware who you choose to follow peopel.
But now she is making a "weekly study guide" with her $200 good notes Skin. People are asking her what the extra assignments she is adding are and where she is getting dates and assignments from, and she's all over the place.
So I posted, "How about we all work smarter, not harder, and use the tools we already have?" and I posted a tutorial, AGAIN, on how to use the tools we have, how we are graded, where to find sources, again suggested PERRLA, etc.
She then started blasting me for not appriciateing her leading the group. and I said "Beware who you choose to follow".
AITAH? I mean, these people need help, and you are not a great student, nor are you good at your guides. Why reinvent the wheel when you can just get better grades if you follow the instructions already provided?

sorry the title is so weird (and wordy! 😅), i have a question but i have no idea how to actually phrase it, so unfortunately that might be as good as it gets.
first of all, all bodies are nonbinary bodies, i knew that and truly believe that. 💛 second of all, i was assigned female at birth, but that’s a one-time thing that happened to me and truly doesn’t mean anything. my body is nonbinary because it’s mine; however, it would be irresponsible of me to not mention how the shape and size of my body, while i personally am comfortable with it and not interested in changing it, impacts my everyday life and how people view me. i absolutely support and affirm medical transition, it’s just not for me. i absolutely support and affirm people that want to change their body shape through weight-lifting or something, but that’s not for me. i understand if people read this or have seen pictures of me and just can’t help but suggest total body recomposition, or dieting, or anything like that; I can’t control you or your reactions to my body, i can only politely ask that you refrain from suggesting ways to change my body. but no worries if not!
so anyway. i guess i feel like an outsider in the nonbinary community, and maybe the queer community in general. i’m bi/pan/unlabeled to an extent, and nonbinary/genderfluid, but am read nearly entirely as a cishet woman by almost everyone around me. if people do (rarely) guess that i’m queer, they guess i’m a cis woman lesbian - and these aren’t necessarily people that understand that lesbians can be of different genders, so that kinda feels weird.
i do need to take accountability and responsibility, and understand that i’m not doing myself any favors. i live in a small, semi-rural (i guess?) community that skews conservative, but that doesn’t even really matter because i work all over the state, and i’m rarely, if ever, not at work. i work in a woman-dominated sect of the healthcare field, which requires me to wear “women’s”-cut scrubs as our uniform. i have, and like having, long hair, though i do have shaved sides. i like makeup, though i don’t wear it every day; though i feel like i do a more gothy kinda thing than everyday femme glam, it obviously doesn’t read that way. i’ve fucked up my ribs and spine by binding incorrectly 🥴, so some days i can’t even wear a bra. (i am not pursuing top surgery due to not wanting to pursue top surgery, it’s just nice to experience the fluidity of being able to bind sometimes. it’s just now that the sometimes are a little more rare. 🥲) the name i use, which i dislike, is a derivative of my deadname; my deadname is actually kinda rare, but i chose the wrong name and people can easily figure out what my deadname was, and use it willingly, which does suck hard. and, most glaringly, i have a huge ass, and huge legs, and huge hips. there’s no clothes that hide the curvaceous nature of my body - and, on more masc days in my free time, i dress like it’s still the 90s, baggy off-brand JNCO jeans and all, so believe me, it’s not like i haven’t tried! 😂
but like… so this is it though, huh? i’m in my (MID-TO!!!😅)-late 20s, and it’s not like I have anything to look forward to, presentation-wise or body-wise or coming-out-wise or community-wise because this is as far as i’m going, and as such, this is as far as i can go. i recovered from an eating disorder, so my entire transition has been transitioning from a lower mid-sized girl to a chubby girl with a nose ring. like, that’s the entire change to my appearance that i’ve had (well actually 🤨👆🏻 it’s three nose rings, but who’s counting?). and it’s not that i WANT to change my appearance (i mean, i love body mods and definitely want more of those! 🩷), but i feel like i’m expecting the world around me to bend to my will but not putting any effort in. i want to be treated as entirely genderless; i vibe with genderlessness, part of my genderfluid identity includes being agender. i’m very VERY not visibly genderless, though, and it’s probably genuinely insane of me to even get SAD (as i do 😢) when people look at me and treat me as such.
so this is it. i’ll just post affirming things for other trans people on Reddit, and live out my days as a cishet woman IRL, because coming out just hasn’t worked for me. despite, like, my literal username 😂, i can’t embody jackshit. i’ll post some nudes on the lewd subreddits, get a couple upvotes, but not change hearts and minds even within our OWN community about what people like us can look like. 🍐 I’ve met other nonbinary people IRL, and they don’t believe me, i’ve ruined friendships and even my career over this. i’ve developed a criminal record over this, unfortunately. (i didn’t hurt anybody!! i just mishandled workplace conflict about my gender and body type and the apparent differences between the two so poorly that it resulted in an angry coworker severely sabotaging the workplace and pinning it on me in an attempt to get me fired. 🫤) i’ve been sexually-assaulted and harassed in queer spaces for trying to exist outside of the stereotypes people place on my body, i was SA’d in a queer bar back in college for wearing short-shorts and a crop top with big thighs, big hips, a not-flat belly, and a binder creating the illusion of a flat chest.
i don’t mean this bad or anything, please don’t worry about me, but i just don’t see much of a point of living if i can’t do it authentically. like, i’m still GONNA keep living, but i’ve made a mess of it up until this point and, for the foreseeable future, i’m gonna continue to make a mess of it as well. there should be no wrong way to live openly as nonbinary or to exist in a body, but it seems like i come up with a new way to do it every single day. i want so badly to help people from the inside, but it looks like i’ll just be sorta on the outskirts. my body is not perceived as nonbinary, and that’s a really hard hurdle to overcome as someone who wants to engage in advocacy to make sure EVERY body type gets to be a nonbinary body type. i feel genuinely uncomfortable with the things that make me comfortable; im comfortable with my body shape and size, in that i don’t want to change them, but i’m also uncomfortable with the fact that they matter to people AT ALL.
i just want to EXIST, and it’s starting to feel like that will never be possible, because it’s literally the most baseline thing to possibly do, so if i can’t figure it out, that’s really really bad. i don’t want to be read as a woman. i don’t want people to use she/her pronouns for me. i don’t want people to laugh that off when i say that (which they do). i dont have anything against women, i definitely share some aspects of my life with women, and a woman can be anything, but so can a nonbinary person. i’m not limited by womanhood in that i think womanhood is limiting, im limited by womanhood in that i’m not experiencing womanhood in any of its infinite forms, but people are insisting that i do. why can’t i live openly? why can’t i live fluidly? will i spend the rest of my life having to fight my own body just to be able to BE ALIVE? that’s fucked up, lmao. 🤪
i hope this made sense??? idk if it did, im really sorry. basically: how do i live? how do i live in a body? how do i live in THIS body? how can i help others? how can i help the nonbinary community, as someone who no-one will listen to because i can’t live authentically? how can i live authentically?
thanks in advance, friends!!! 💛💜