Knee gatch definition

So, in May 2023, my friend (Em f23) and I (f28) had a conversation that started off friendly. Just chit-chat and funny anecdotes from the day. She brought up a situation with her coworker she enjoyed. It involved tourettes and one of her coworkers' specific tics.
I made a comment that I genuinely didn't think much of at the time. It was just some trivia I knew of and thought was interesting. Specifically that people with tourettes can 'catch' or involuntarily copy tics from other people with tourettes. It's something I learned from watching content made by people with tourettes. She made a comment like, "Maybe it's not like that, in this specific situation with my coworker."
Here's where I should have realised she was not interested in my trivia. What I definitely didn't realise was that it in fact made her mad, but I kept pushing anyways because I felt I was correct, that the coworker had picked up the tic from a well know streamer because it was literally identical. Em then stopped answering, after a couple hours of silence I asked her if she was actually mad about what I said and she responded with "Its fucking fine." Cue her not talking to me at all for 3 days. On the third day, she said we needed to have a sit-down conversation about boundaries because she "is having big feelings." her words, not mine.
I was so confused about what would have triggered her wanting to talk about boundaries when the conversation we had was a mild disagreement at worst. I would understand if I said something offensive, but I literally just said a fact and my opinion on her coworker, I didn't try to force her to agree, and there's proof of the streamer with that specific tic so it wasn't like I was lying to be able to one up her or something? I don't know, this whole part of the situation is incredibly confusing to me because she never talked about why that conversation triggered her to give me the silent treatment in the first place or how it led her to wanting to talk about boundaries. In the end, the boundaries she talked about much much later had nothing to do with this conversation even though it seemed to be what caused her to want boundaries. Idk, I'm still very confused about what actually caused her to want to have the discussion after the three days of silence and a minor disagreement.
At this point, still May 2023, I was in severe pain, but I did not know it was cancer yet. I was barely making it through each day with how much I was in pain. The tumor is in my leg, growing out of the top portion of my tibia in a way that has made the tibial platue hollow, or essentially a whisper thin shell of bone filled with slime, sorry but that's the best way to describe it. At any moment, my surgeon told me this later, I could have broken that thin bone and had a collapsed knee joint. I say this so you you know when I talk about pain here, I'm talking excruciating levels of pain.
So walking specifically and everything else was extremely painful, and that was taking a lot of energy and brain space. I told her I was in a ton of pain. I was exhausted and barely scraping by just to keep working while waiting for my doctors visits to hopefully figure out what was wrong. I said I would try to find a day to have "the talk," but things just kept getting worse. By the end of July I had seen four different doctors, three of which thought I was just trying to get drugs, the last one was an orthopedic doctor and she took two minutes of looking at an xray and another minute of looking at my leg to say I most likely had a tumor.
The official on paper diagnosis came in September because of the waiting time to meet with the surgeon, but we knew it was a tumor in August. I was put on essentially bed rest from august to the day I had surgery September 27th. I told Em about the tumor the day I got the MRI results which I had in mid August to prepare for the appointment with the surgeon. Her response was extremely upsetting to me.
Em: "That's a lot to deal with. The possibility of having a malignant tumor is scary and can make you really question life. When you're put into a situation like that, it forces you to look back on your life and reevaluate. You find out what you really want out of life and what you waisted too much time dealing with. That's really tough. I'm sorry I made you feel like you couldn't talk to me about your pain. Being more supportive of each other was something I wanted to talk about. Hopefully, you have a sweet and easy recovery."
That response hurt, it felt like she was saying I had a lot to regret in life and like I didn't have much time left to live to fix my regrets. But I thanked her for the empathy she tried to give and moved on. After that she never checked in on me, never asked how I was or what the plan of treatment was. My surgery was scheduled for the end of Spetember, the day after her birthday. I wished her a happy birthday. Then I let her know after the surgery that everything went well and that I was going to be in the hopsital for a few days. I was loopy on strong pain meds so i also told her that my nurse drew me a cute doodle on my white board, she said ".That's great! Hopefully you heal fast so you can go on a date with her. 😉" which was totally out of the blue. I havent dated anyone in the time Ive know or been friends with Em. Im asexual, and an extreme introvert, dating is not really my thing and she knows this. So that comment was very weird to me. After that she never even texted to check in on me or tried to visit me in the 5 days I stayed in the hospital after the surgery. Keep in mind, we are supposedly best friends.
I almost considered our friendship over by then, but I reached out to her when I was pretty much back on my feet to see what was going on and asked her what the conversation about boundaries was about. I apologized for being too chicken shit to ask about it earlier because I don't do well emotionally with getting criticism even when it's valid and I know I need to hear it. On top of that I was (and still am) dealing with fucking cancer. Not an excuse, it is an explanation though. So I apologized.
Her responses here, copy and pasted from our messages:
Em:
"First off I want so say that it's very respectable that you are willing to admit what you did wrong. Thank you for the apology.
Secondly, I don't know if the the conversation is still worth having. I'd be lying if I said I was devastated that we dropped off and didn't communicate for months. To be brutally honest, my life has drastically improved in our time apart. I'm so much more effective and positive. I'm very proud of how far I've come.
That's not to say I believed that you were the soul cause of all of my misfortune. In fact one of the boundaries I wanted to set was actual planned dates instead of spontaneous ones. Because I realized that I was using you like a form of procrastination. I couldn't do the things I needed to do because I chose to hang out with you instead. With my main distraction gone I've been able to thoroughly work through my shit, mental and physical.
When we last hung out I remembered feeling dark and heavy afterwards because it was nothing special. It was just a normal outing for us. I remember feeling angry that what we should have talked about wasn't addressed. Annoyed that it seemed like nothing had changed and that I had not changed. And scared that opening up communication could lead to me falling back into the pit again.
I don't know if we should have the original talk because so much has changed for both of us. We both equally walked over our own thresholds of hell. What I had to say months ago, I believe was true then, but I don't think it will be true now. I think it's quite possible for us to start anew and correct and develop as we go. But I think it would be just as easy to admit our friendship was a great experience. We were there when we needed each other. But it might be time to go our separate ways.
I will say, if we collectively choose to merge back together. I WON'T let it be the same. I don't want you to tell me every tiny dark secret. But I do want you to tell me that you want to stop at game stop and ask me to take you somewhere. Without fear of gas. I want you to tell me if it pisses you off that I take you to only crystal shops or that I talk about spiritually. Because I want to improve. I have no intention of continuing a relationship that doesn't inspire growth or bring me positivity."
So she stopped talking to me, because she had no self-control. She abandoned me during the worst medical crisis of my fucking life, because she doesn't know how to manage her time or her motivation. She punished me, for her problems. To be very specific the spontaneous hanging out was nearly 100% on her. I would ask to hang out rarely, because I never had the chance to because she would be asking to see me multiple times a week.
I'm not a social person, so other than work I don't have much going on and she was my best friend. I wasn't going to say no if I didn't have any other plans. She never brought up that she was procrastinating anything by hanging out with me. Never a peep. Never a hint. Nothing. I had no idea any of that was going on. If I did know I would have been 150,000% there to support her by asking how her goals were going, how her chores were going. Hell I would have helped her do chores as our hang out if she had asked. I did help her with some stuff. Painting her head board, rearranging and cleaning her room, working on crafts when she needed motivation to finish a piece for a friend, being a study buddy when she needed to focus on her mental health books, things like that.
Also in what world is learning to be accountable for your own actions and vacuuming regularly the same as going through cancer? I don't like comparing pain or life struggles usually, but this was a crossed line for me. For her to say her dealing with procrastination was an "equal threshold of hell" as my bone eating tumor and excruciating pain and the fear of it spreading to other parts of my body, it infuriates me still to think about that.
So I am now hurt and angry as hell, that she stopped talking to me over seemingly nothing that I did. I had no idea what was going on with the tourettes coworker conversation that ended in "its fucking fine" from her and then her next message was about her needing to set boundaries. And then she says her life is better without me in it.
Friendship effectively over. Or it should have been.
Here's where I'm a bit of an asshole.
I took her back. I said we could try again. That we both needed to improve but that we could do it better this time. At the time I genuinely believed it. For a couple weeks.
Then the more I thought about laying in that hospital bed, alone, wishing I had someone to distract me from the pain and fear, the more I started to realise her reasons for cutting contact was bullshit. Her wanting to have this big talk about boundaries and the boundaries she wanted were literally nothing I could do they were all her issues with her own decisions and there's was nothing I could change about myself to fix the problem she was putting 50/50 on my shoulders. Her saying her life was better without me when that whole time I was crying over missing her and trying to figure out what I did wrong where I fucked up, what I could do or say to fix it. It all just added up too much and so I sent her one last message.
"I've been doing a lot of thinking and going through my emotions and I think I'm going to step back from whatever this friendship has turned into. I'll be honest I feel betrayed that you didn't even try to support me going through cancer. I understand things were rocky when I got my diagnosis, however if our friendship was important to you on any level I can't understand why you didn't even text me to see how I was doing for months at a time when you knew I was going through one of, if not the most, difficult medical diagnosis humans can get. I felt completely abandoned, especially since the reason we even stopped talking and hanging out was because of your own procrastination issues which I had nothing to do with. If you had even just told me that you needed to get things done before we could hang out I would have supported you unconditionally. Instead you gave a vague "we need to talk about boundaries and being more supportive of each other." And then never supported me in the darkest time of my life so far. It's taken me a while to get to the root of why I feel the way I do, but I don't think I can just let this go like I wanted to. I loved being your friend and it always felt like you valued my friendship too, until you were cutting me off because of your poor time management. I know that will sound harsh, I'm sorry, but it's true. I have my own issues that hurt you, I know that and I really am sorry. I am sorry I could never reciprocate financially, I'm sorry you were the one always picking me up and driving. I'm sorry that I never gave you the birthday or Christmas gifts you wanted. Thank you for all the amazing times. Goodbye."
To clarify the gift thing, I have been very poor for a long time. I am neurodivergent and I struggle to hold down a job. But I hand made her gifts, or cooked for her. The last thing I made for her was a crochet mandala blanket, please look up Radiance Mandala Blanket to see how much effort I went to, she picked the colors and I made her a lap blanket version for christmas 2022. It took her less than a month to complain that she wished she could have picked the colors. SHE DID. I told her to pick a pallet of colors specifically for her blanket and did my best to match the colors she picked with yarn I already owned. It wasn't perfect but I got it as close as I could. I don't like to make a big deal out of things I do for people because giving to the ones I love is literally the easiest thing in the world for me. But to have her act like I didnt try to make it as perfect for her as I could hurt so much.
Anyways, back to me telling her I was done. Her reply back pissed me off, maybe because I was already angry. It felt so patronizing and dismissive. But that might just be because of all the emotions I was already feeling at the time I read it.
Em: "Your feelings are valid. I'm sorry I made you feel abandoned in the hardest time. I wish you the best of luck on your way through life. Fall in love, have your farm, raise your kids, craft wonderful creations, enjoy the many YouTube videos to come, and don't forget to live your best self. I'll take this harsh lesson and apply it to friendships in the future. Live long and prosper, my friend, and have many pleasant wanderings."
Harsh lesson my ass. If it was harsh for anyone it was harsh for me to learn my best friend gave absolutely no shits about me and couldnt be bothered to try and support me through this medical crisis. We haven't spoken since. I have her blocked on everything. So, aita for cutting off Em? Even though I'm angry, I'm conflicted because I still love her, she was my best friend for 6 years.

I'm trying to figure out why in only 9 of 28 games (32%) did he get 15 or more touches? That seems very low for a guy with early round 3 draft capital. I know he has the catastrophic knee injury but 23' was pretty far removed from that incident. And he had a whole season in 22' where he looked great. It doesn't seem like his fellow running backs were anything special at least from a high school recruiting star rating. I could definitely be mistaken here so if any of his fellow rb's exceeded their expectations please tell me.
Also, why was his 2022 season so much better in terms of rushing efficiency metrics than his 2023? Being further out from his total knee implosion, you would think he would be even better in 23' but no. PFF rated the Seminoles’ run blocking unit as the nation’s 49th best in 2022 and as its 20th-best in 2023 and the offense as a whole put up top-20 scoring numbers in both seasons so it's probably not o-line related.
Any ideas are welcome.

I love a good romance, and I read a pretty wide variety of tropes and authors. I am starting to realize something that will immediately pull me out of the story and be one of the only things I remember about a book is if the author describes physical characteristics that seem out of touch or contradictory. For example, I am really enjoying a new to me author— the books are mystery romance books. However, she just described a new character as “a diminutive five-four so petite she looked like she shopped for clothes in the children’s section”. And in the last book described another female character as being hour glass and curvy at 115 pounds and not petite. There is no way a person could be considered curvy at 115 if they are fairly petite. And the average height for women in the US is 5’3” and those women are definitely not shopping in the children’s section. I don’t mind a good 7ft tall male with ridiculously sized junk or even a teeny tiny MFC who is the most beautiful character to ever exist, but I hate when the follow up descriptions don’t make sense. It’s like when the curvy plus sized girl wears a guys shirt and it falls to her knees— that is not what happens. Am I the only one though? I’m probably being too nitpicky. Anyway, thanks for coming to my rant.

MRI images of my right knee: https://ibb.co/album/0VDmwD (I can upload more if helpful)
I've been having knee pain (in my right knee) for about 6 months and it started out hurting when I twisted. It gradually healed for the first three months and I have been able to walk and hike without pain since then, but it still has a very sharp pain on the medial side of my knee during deep leg flexion (pain free until going into child's pose or hugging my knee to my chest).
My PCP referred me to get an MRI to see if this could be a meniscus tear. These are some of the images I got back and it looks like there's some slight signal in the medial meniscus from the images. Could anyone see whether or not there's any sign of a medial meniscus tear here?
The radiologist's impression is that there's a cyst posterior to the posterior horn of the medial meniscus. No definite meniscus tear is seen, but given the presence of a large cyst (2.7cm seen traverse, 3cm in cephalocaudal dimension, 1.2cm in AP diameter), a subtle tear and a meniscal cyst cannot be entirely excluded. The findings may also be related to an unusual ganglionic cyst.
Mild patellar teninosis.
Mild anterior cruciate ligament sprain.
Mild tendinosis of the patella and quadriceps tendons.
Thanks for any help in advance!

"We're your mates." Mates? Six mates? How could it be?! "Wait a minute... you said all of you. That's not how mates work. Fated mates are two people, not an entire harem." I hissed as I shook my head. "This conversation is ridiculous because it's not real." Silence filled the space between us for several long seconds. "You really want us to leave?" My stomach twisted at his words. We just met, and yet he sounded devastated as he asked the question. I silently cursed myself for causing the change I heard. If I was a better person, I would say something else. "Yes." "Fine, we'll leave, but only on one condition. Buss each one of us. Then, if you feel nothing, we'll walk out of here without protest." ———————— I would die in this very spot, and no one would have a clue. Six hours... I'd been trapped under this pile of random things for six hours. My hips and back ached from how long I'd been stuck in this exact position. I'd tried everything I could think of, but the massive pile of unknown stuff never moved. Something heavy had landed on my back, keeping me pinned face down on scattered newspapers and the occasional book. How did I know there were books when I couldn't see them? Because of the sharp corners stabbing into me. If that level of depressing suckage wasn't enough, I had to pee. My bladder hurt... felt like it was about to burst. Because of course, the first time I decided to drink spirits, I'd end up faced and trapped under a pile of a hoarder's treasure. To relieve some of the pressure off my cheek, I dug my shoulder into the newspaper floor and tilted my head until my forehead pressed against the mess underneath me. The small amount of relief I felt from the change of position was enough to stop me from going insane. For now. Ding dong. "You've got to be shitting me." I grumbled into the ancient newspapers. Someone at the door wouldn't matter. I couldn't get off the floor... erm, pile of stuff that acted as a floor, to answer the door. Whoever was on the other side would eventually think someone wasn't home and leave. And so would my only chance at being rescued. "Ha." I couldn't stop the sarcastic laugh from escaping. Even if they did come in, whoever they were wouldn't want to sign up for this insanity. I didn't even want to deal with this nightmare my life had become. Thanks mom. Ding dong. Ding dong. Who rang the doorbell multiple times? Seriously, just go away and let me die. Sure, I would be in the hall of shame for dumb ways to go, but I'd already accepted my fate. Not only would I die in one of the most embarrassing ways in history, I'd go with the dullest life experiences. Why? Because I'd always done what I was supposed to do... every single expectation my parents had, I jumped at the chance to please them. I was an idiot. A boring, lame, not once destined to save the world, sheltered little girl that grew in an inexperienced woman. My life was pathetic. "Parker, are you okay?" The deep voice sent shivers through me. I imagined this unknown man growling in my ear. Then my senses came back to me. While I was on the verge of being crushed to death, someone had broken into my house. Great, just what I needed. Good luck mister robber. If you can find anything valuable, then you deserved it. The logical side of my brain caught up to current events. First thing, a robber wouldn't call out my name as he broke into my house. Second, I didn't know anyone with a voice so delicious... uh, I meant distinct. Yeah. Should I respond or hope they gave up and left? My mother would have insisted I remain silent. Her voice slid through my memory. "Men were a distraction to a woman's career." I rolled my eyes at the phrase she'd said throughout my childhood and even after I'd moved out on my own. If I was going to leave this world, it would be after doing something ridiculous. I'd call the man with the delicious voice over, then I could die from embarrassment. "I'm over here!" What I'd intended to be a shout came out more as a breathy moan. I barely had room to breathe. It seemed shouting was impossible. A burning hot pain shot through my neck as I tried to turn my head to see the footsteps that approached. Nope, that wasn't going to happen. My mysterious, silver tongued hero or burglar's looks would have to remain a mystery just a bit longer. "Over here!" Just like last time, his voice made me shudder. With a voice like that, the man had to be hot. I hoped he had a beard... and tattoos. Not only would it make my mother roll in her grave, I'd always loved looking at burly, tatted up, bearded guys. Add in hair that was long enough to pull and I couldn't think of a good reason to ever leave the house. The crushing weight finally lifted off me. I sucked in a deep breath, then immediately regretted it as I choked on the oxygen. My lungs seized as the rush of air shocked them. Hands grabbed my arms and shoulders, then the world tilted as they lifted me to my feet. I bent over and grabbed my knees as my equilibrium spun. Hands patted my back, helping me calm. Actually, there were more than two hands. I counted enough to equal three people. When I got my breathing under control, I dared follow the black boots that stood at the top of my vision. My gaze slid up, taking in black cargo pants that rode low on a pair of hips. Further up, a black tactical vest contained... bottles of cleaning solution. What the heck? The moment I went full vertical, my balance tilted again. I stepped back to catch myself. In front of me stood a massive man, the kind I had to look up to just to catch a view of his chin... his bearded chin. My fingers itched with the need to touch it. I didn't. It would be weird to stroke a hot stranger's beard. Wouldn't it? I shook my head. Of course it would be weird. I turned, taking in the four men and one woman standing all around me. The sound of newspapers sliding preceding my right foot slid out from underneath me. The giant of a man caught me before I fell on my hips in front of everyone. They all wore similar black tactical gear with cleaning supplies. Colorful bottles of solution, a duster, a roll of trash bags, and... was that a broom and a mop with shoulder straps? Who were these people? "Parker, are you okay?" The deliciously deep voice asked from behind me. After a few tries, I accepted the fact that I was speechless. My brain nudged at me, telling me I'd missed a crucial detail. Every brain cell misfired as I looked them over again. Correction, five of them wore black tactical gear. Every single one of them was drop dead gorgeous, and it made me feel out of place. One of the guys stood off to the side with his arms crossed over his chest. I blinked. No, that couldn't be right. I blinked again, but the sight stayed the same. A man stood taller than those closest to him. Peeking over his crossed arms was a ruffled white fabric with black lace woven through it and tied in a bow. There was even a small scattering of chest hair sticking over the edge. The hem of the skirt ended well above his knee, revealing a tattoo that covered his entire right thigh. My gaze traveled up to his face. A plush black beard contrasted with the skimpy maid's outfit he wore. "I..." Words failed me again. I gestured to the man whose outfit didn't fit the others. He rolled his eyes as he tightened his grip on his arms. "They thought it would be funny to prank me. Did you know, not only did they buy this ridiculous outfit, they stole the rest of my clothes, so I'd have to wear this?" "Uh, no. I don't even know who all of you are." For whatever reason, it hadn't dawned on me that all these incredibly attractive people were standing in my house. Like inside, where they could take in the horror of what my mother left me to inherit. Mortification slammed into me. They'd seen the awful mess. "You all need to leave." "Parker?" The burly man's voice from behind me caught my attention. He waited until I turned around to continue. "You don't remember asking us to come here, do you?" Ice slid down my spine. I'd been pretty drunk last night, but since I'd never had spirits before and I'd decided to take shots of everything in my mother's 'social hour' cabinet, I wasn't even surprised I'd woken up with a hangover. "How much did you have to drink last night?" "Seeing how I'm awake now, apparently not enough. Who are you, and how do you know me?" The man bared his teeth at me, making a sound that I could only describe as a hiss. "Never again. From now on, if you need something, you ask us." I dismissed him with a wave of my hand. "Why would I ask you anything?" "Because we're your mates." Hard stop. Mates? A giddy feeling in my belly told me he didn't mean a friend. I held a finger up for him to give me a minute. A sharp pain slid through my abdomen, reminding me I had yet to relieve myself after my drunken night of mistakes. One of the other men spoke up. "I know it's a lot to take in, and you're probably really confused, but we are all your fated mates." I'd read enough werewolf romance novels to know what they meant, and they were dead wrong. Shifters weren't real. "Yeah mate, tell us what you need, and we'll get it for you." "I need to pee." And with that, I stomped out to the nearest bathroom and locked myself inside. Why wouldn't the ground open and swallow me whole? I sat on the bathroom floor with my back propped against the wall and hugged my legs to my chest as I rested my forehead on my knees. Not only had people witnessed the horror I lived in, but they had to be the hottest people in the world. Even the woman had made me look twice and left me shoving a deeper desire I refuse to even consider right now. Knock, knock. "Parker?" It was the giant of a man's voice. Why couldn't they leave so I could be alone? "Go away." I heard sounds on the other side of the door that sounded like he'd sat on the floor. "Come out and talk to us." I pressed my forehead against my knee harder, trying to ignore the giant bearded intercourse god. "Or, just talk to me. We're worried about you." My chest seized as I forced myself to take a deep breath. Irrational anger surged inside of me. Why didn't they understand I didn't want them here? "You don't even know me." The sound of his deep chuckle sent a warm wave of desire through me. Stupid hormones. "Twenty-four hours ago, I would have agreed with you. After last night, I feel like I know you on a level most others never will." What did I do last night? I still couldn't remember what I'd done. I swore to myself I'd never drink again. "It was all lies." "Why are you trying to push us away? What would be so wrong with letting someone in to help for once?" Memories of my parents’ fighting came back to me. It was my tenth birthday. When my dad found out my mom bought a cake for my birthday, he'd attacked her. Everything was a blur until he'd pinned her against the wall. She held a knife to his crotch and threatened him. He'd left and never returned that day. My mind shut down, preventing me from thinking about it any longer. "Because I can't afford to pay you and no one does anything out of the kindness of their heart." I couldn't keep the sarcastic tone out of my voice as I said it. "Parker, you're missing a vital part of this dynamic." Silently, I chanted over and over for him to not use the word mates again. It couldn't be real. Paranormal romance novels weren't real... neither were shifters nor the perfect person walking into my life and devoting themselves to me. That was a fairytale, not reality. "Mates. Just to see a smile cross your lips, I'd clean this entire property. Throw in the others, and we'd do anything to see you happy." He tapped something on the door. "I can scent your annoyance through the door." "Wait a minute... you said all of you. That's not how mates work. Fated mates are two people, not an entire harem." I hissed as I shook my head. "This conversation is ridiculous because it's not real." Silence filled the space between us for several long seconds. "You really want us to leave?" My stomach twisted at his words. We just met, and yet he sounded devastated as he asked the question. I silently cursed myself for causing the change I heard. If I was a better person, I would say something else. "Yes." "Fine, we'll leave, but only on one condition. Buss each one of us. Then, if you feel nothing, we'll walk out of here without protest." I banged my head on my knee. That wouldn't work. They weren't even in the room with me and I already felt things. No way could I buss even one of them without having a reaction. "No." "Is that because you already know what I'm saying is true, or are you just being stubborn?" Before I could think about why he had said it, I jumped up and threw the door open to glare at him. "Are you always a jerk?" The confidence disappeared as I looked up into his eyes. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled it closed behind me, pushing me against him in the process. His gaze locked on mine as he lowered his head until we were almost bussing. "Never, but I'm not above riling you up to help give you the boost you need to confront a situation with confidence." Now that he was so close, I couldn't remember why I'd locked myself in the bathroom. Everything around us disappeared except the door his hard body pressed me against. His free hand caressed my cheek. "Can you genuinely tell me you don't feel the bond trying to form between us?" I clamped my jaw closed. If I didn't admit it out loud, then it wasn't real, but he was right. I could feel a... connection to him and the others. It didn't make sense, and I might not want it, but was most definitely there. His lips brushed against mine ever so slightly, sending a wave of fire through me. I gripped the straps of his black tactical vest to pull him closer, but he didn't budge. He chuckled as he moved from my lips to my ear. "Mate, if I buss you, I won't stop until you're mine. It might not be today or tomorrow, but I will claim you and make you mine." "And if I say we're not mates?" "Your mouth might lie, but your body and soul can't." I heard him inhale deep at my neck. "I can smell your need to claim me. It fills my senses until it's all I can think about. I've just found you and already you've consumed my entire world." It was bizarre, but I completely understood what he meant. Somewhere deep down inside of me, the idea of kicking out even one of them left me feeling raw. Six mates... and one of them was a woman. I'd known I was attracted to both genders from a young age, but I'd always locked that part of me away. My mom flipped at the idea of me dating a single man. I couldn't even fathom how hard she was rolling over in her grave at having six lovers. It was so much to process. "Come on, let's go back to the others." His voice pulled me back to reality. "Not yet." Suddenly, I didn't want to move. When I felt his body pull back, I gripped his vest tighter. My gut twisted as I decided to throw a lifetime of caution out the window. "buss me." He growled deep in his chest as his hands slid down my sides until he cupped my hips. A squeal of surprise escaped me as he lifted me up, then held me against his chest as he pressed me against the door. "You're mine... ours." Then his buss consumed me, mind, body, and soul. It felt as if our life forces bonded together. The mere thought of letting go of this man became too much. It was in that moment I realized I'd screwed up. I'd never be able to give him up, or the others, without ripping my own heart from my chest. I regretted so much in my life. What was one more? I sank my hands into his hair, gripping it at the roots, and tilted his head back. Our buss broke. A smug satisfaction slid through me when I realized he was breathing as hard as I was, but I wasn't done throwing out stupid rules my mother had forced on me. I pulled his head until I'd exposed his neck. The edge of a tribal tattoo peeked out under his shirt. I trailed the tip of my tongue along the dark lines, then bussed a trail along his neck. He moved until only one hand cupped my hips. His other hand caressed the back of my neck, urging me to do whatever I wanted to him. I tightened my legs around his waist, lifting myself higher as my busses moved along the edge of his beard. "That is hot." Another man's voice made it through my lusty fog. "Yeah, can't wait until it's my turn." Someone else said. I pulled back and realized my five other mates were watching us make out. All of them had a hunger in their eyes I'd never seen before...

[Run Zero chapter: https://redd.it/1csb71x not every run will have a chapter; it won't be long before there are multiple runs per chapter.]
Portal load: Agility 1, Bait 3, Trumps 1, Pheromones 1, Packrat 1, Motivation 1, Power 2, Toughness 2, Looting 5, Discipline Challenge, 54 of 54 He allocated, 7.8% AP at start.
[This is probably the lowest helium load I've ever done, and sorta keeping my own advice on a recent Reddit post, Bait and Looting are up. Especially Looting, but it's not like I don't always do something like this.]
The human emerges from the glowing green mist and hits the ground. Groans. Pushes against that ground, trying to get back up. I feel really heavy. I'm not that fat, am I? He's got a dark blue button-down shirt on. A uniform? A shoulder patch. Rolls over- Ah, what's that? His shoulder pressed into something hard and metallic, He reaches over and his hand naturally seems to find a folding handle. He pulls it out from under himself and gets it up on his chest, sort of in a semi-comfortable position to hold it up and look at the screen while lying on his back. Some fiddling around the edges gets the power button pressed and the screen lights up with:
"Manual portal activation 1 successful: Void enabled. / 54 He loaded / Discipline challenge active / Total portal activation 955"
"Kakka," its one of his trimps.
'My' trimps? The human sets aside the portal pad and gets up.
Are you the guy? They all seem to be looking at him, as though they have a frickin' huge problem to solve and they need his help to solve it.
32s: First trap.
Do you bite? It doesn't matter much to us. The trimps look hopefully up at him through the trap's grating, We're so friggin' screwed.
I didn't think four of you could fit in there! He opens it and they all start following him around like imprinted hatchling birds. It seems his tactic of making a catch-alive trap confirmed to them that he was 'the guy' to help solve whatever problem...
26m42s: Z2c15, 58 pop, 7.7s RC with Z1/2; 29m44s: Fresh turkimp c25.
"Hey, buddy," he says to his first scientist, "can you speak yet?"
"Shijou?" it says, then it starts writing, "Hi Tightniks."
"Who do you mean 'Tightniks'?" he asks, "I mean, it's not like I remember my own name, but what makes you think it's Tightniks?"
"Tai," it points right at him with one paw.
"Just pointing at me isn't going to answer that," he chuckles.
The trimp's hands are quite prehensile, but it's hard to tell without it holding something, they don't seem able to make their fingers visually distinguishable. [Puchim@s all the puchidoru, although some have big round hands and some have small pointy hands; Takanya is the latter. Probably Final Fantasy Red XIII as well, but I'm not familiar enough with him to be satisfied.] This one starts climbing up his leg.
"Wait, wait," he stops it. It's a challenge to stoop in this gravity, but not as much of one as carrying a trimp. He gets down on his knees and back on his haunches and-
"Tai," it points again to a spot on his chest just left of his heart, then climbs on his lap and grabs his uniform at that spot, "Tai!"
He looks down and sees "Tightniks" embroidered into the fabric above his pocket. "Ah," he sighs, "Well, if that's my name, that's my name."
"Shijou," it gives him a friendly whack on the shoulder.
2h38m55s: Mskel in Z11c3.
"Hey guys?" Tightniks points at his bone box, waving his finger, "Does anyone remember where these came from?"
"Nope," the yellow one says.
"Yeah, there are 12 more in here than we got kills to account for," Tightniks says.
"I've been getting a sense of deja vu about just about everything," the red one points at the metal box on the strap over his shoulder, "That's a big exception. Any clues there?"
"It says it's for something called a DT Experimental Industries Time Portal," the human shrugs, "I have no idea what it's talking about, honest."
3h25m46s: Block PB, 0.3% AP sub-4h, 540 pop, 8.3s RC, no turkimp
That thing is beeping? He takes a look at his TPCS pad and he's got a message saying that he finished the Block in under 4 hours and there's a little attack bonus- Under 4 hours? It's been over 4 days!! Checking the time on the device reveals that the portal times in terms of a "map frame" out there in space, and the passage of time has been vastly dilated on this planet.
4h15m56s: Zone 15, 954 pop, 11.9s RC with Z14/60, no turkimp.
"Tightniks," the yellow one comes back from the second full bin to the filling third bin, watching the human fold up another of his very first inventions, the very first thing he built after jumping through the mysterious green phenomenon exiting the crashed ship, "Why in blazes are you building so many traps?"
The human had finished another and tossed it into the bin, then picked up the now ever-present portal control pad, gets it out of auto-sleep and called up the "Achievement Points" page. "I have this weird hunch," he says.
"Deja vu? That familiar feeling we always have?" the yellow one inquires politely, slightly tilting its head.
"May I?" Tightniks turns up his hand and waves it up and down in a lifting gesticulation, then points at the trap pile.
"Sure," the yellow one understands, "if you'll put me back down after."
The human sets the pad down, stoops at the knees and gets his arms under the yellow trimp scientist's front limbs and lifts it up onto that stack of traps with a grunt; it is an impressive demonstration of his improving strength against the planet's high gravity. Then he picks up the pad again and points at one of the blank purple squares near the bottom.
"You don't know what that is," the yellow one says, "Are we going after that first one that is readable?"
"Yes," the human nods, "it's for finishing something called a Dimension of Anger, whatever that is, before getting something called Bounty."
"Whatever that is," the trimp chuckles.
"No, I know what it is," the human says, "I remember it being access to a resource-rich area on the other side of a green Wall we'll find with our next map route. It doubles our resource production."
"That would be handy," the yellow one says.
"Hmm," he nods, "But all the traps are for this one," pointing at the third square in the top row of the array the pad labels "Feats", the second of three that are purple.
"Oh," a stylus materializes in the yellow one's paw, "Well, all it says is 2.5%. It doesn't say how to get it. Something to do with traps?"
"Something to do with traps," the human chuckles, "that's only convenient to do now."
4h29m46s...
Other trimps can understand the grey one better than the human, "Shijou shijou shijou?" is what a human ear would hear, but it's really asking the yellow one, "You mean he knew it was going to be here?"
"Yeah," the yellow one nods.
"Well, it's gotta be that pad none of us finds familiar," the grey one insists.
"I don't think so," the yellow one argues, "He showed the reason for all these traps to me on the pad, and the information is not yet available there."
"Well, it can't be just a coincidence," the grey one grumbles.
6h23m16s: Our first void map dropped.
"What is that?" The red one asks the yellow one. It grabs a stick and lifts the strange square object up by an edge from as far away as he can.
"I have no idea," The yellow one says.
"It seems to have some sort of cooling effect," the red one says, looking underneath it, having tilted it up with the stick, "Like it's not just cold, but actually cooling down, as though it were the opposite of on fire."
"Shijou," the grey one says, holding a note.
"It's a void map. Grab it with a blanket and put it on the cart please. - Tightniks"
"Shijou shijou," the grey one clarifies, "The new pad said 'void enabled'. Guessing it's that."
10h06m21s: Zone 21, 1975 pop, 19.6s RC with Z20/232, no turkimp.
"Ooooookay," Tightniks growls, "There is something off about this thing."
"Shijou?" the grey one looks at the yellow one with concern about their human starship pilot friend.
The human stoops, picks up the little green gem on the ridge between Zone 20 and 21, looks at it, huffs, and asks, "Any idea where this comes from?"
"Err..." the red one seems hesitant to say, "I think you made it."
"Really?" the human huffs, "How could that be?" Then he tosses it at Red, "See if anything reacts to it. It might be radioactive, so we should take turns to minimize exposure."
"Really?" Red's holding it now, "What makes you say that?"
"Because I'm pissed off for no reason I can figure out," the human says, "I think it's coming from-" he gasps, "Waitamint!" He starts searching for the portal pad.
"Frags," the red one says quickly, "I think it's arranging a route. You're good with maps," it tosses the gem to the grey scientist.
The human has his portal pad up and reads aloud, "You have the Discipline challenge active. Tweak the portal to- yada yada yada. Tiss tiss t- completing The Dimension Of Anger will cause Trimp damage to return to normal." He snaps his fingers, "That's gotta be it."
"Shijou," the grey one says hopefully, and has a map drawn within a few minutes.
12h30m06s: Portal, 45 He, 3.600 He/hr, 2098 pop, 18.3s RC, 1% AP for Portal-before-Bounty.
The last head of the map's boss monster goes limp as one of the fighting trimps' dagger points goes into it, and the huge thing settles on its tail, resting on the package that seems to be the prize of this map. And there's a popping sound, and then something mechanical.
Is that a scroll compressor? Tightniks looks at the package. The deflating monster's lifting envelope material drapes over everything underneath it. "Red, Shijou!" he snaps and points, "roll up that side of it. Keep this part from sucking down on the extractor nozzle!"
All fifty of the scientists jump in, literally, pushing the gas in the bag towards the compressor. Tightniks as well, rolling up the front.
Until he kicks, and nearly trips over, a smaller package that might be the explanation for the reason why the center of the monster's defense seemed to be a little away from the big package he could see. It's in the right place, he realizes. He gets it uncovered and reads stenciled-and-sprayed block letters on it:
"DT TIME PORTAL / THIS SIDE DOWN"
Perhaps the Dimension of Anger is so named because of the rage suddenly rising up in Tightniks' throat. It isn't so much as the free-floating aggression suddenly has an answer, there is definitely a fresh batch of rage and anger as he grips the nearest Dagger V, Mark 2 with both hands- ...I must have gotten used to destroying it at some point. He lets go of his weapon with his right hand first and dangles his left arm while holdi-
Refocusing on surviving the next few seconds, the pilot turns on the radar for the final approach and takes a last look around, then straight ahead at his forward camera and primary flight display...
He crouches, sets the dagger down gently, then starts clearing the debris from the box's grab iron. He tries to lift it- Damn, this is heavy!
Surprised at this turn of events, his two oldest scientists, Grey and Yellow, rush to either side of him and help out. They get it flipped over and read the other side of the device, Tightniks chuckles a bit at its predictability:
"DT TIME PORTAL / THIS SIDE UP" There's a square cutout in the middle of one side of it, with a sliding cover at the bottom of it.
"Thanks," he pats his scientists, "but back off, please." He gets the cover unlatched, and slides it open to see, first a big rainbow-colored wide data cable and card edge connector, then several fluid ports. "There's something missing," he says aloud as he gets the cover completely off and onto the grass, "this connects to some-" he's got the wide flat cable up in his hand, realizing what it plugs into. He looks at his scientists, lips trembling, "G-g-g-get the pad."
The grey one already has the survival data pad and offers it to him.
"No, the other pad," Tightniks clarifies, "The big one. The big one," he picks up wide flat rainbow cable and its edge socket in one hand, "It goes here," he points at it with the other. "It must have come with me end of the last cycle."
Both the yellow one and the red one bring it, one on each side.
"Thank you," the human takes it, gets its hinge lugs on the trunnions at the top of each corner of the cavity, then gets the cable connector on the card edge in the pad's base recess, "See, that's where it came from." It comes on:
"12h30m05s: You have completed the Discipline challenge, unlocking a new memory-enable coolant loop and restoring your trimps to normal combat discipline."
"Do you have any idea what that's about?" the yellow one points at the edge of the left side.
"That's-" Tightniks examines it, then suddenly realizes, "It's gotta be for the void map."
He's got a port cover open, and the bottom of it says, "NULLIFIUM/VOID HEIRLOOM INTERFACE"
"Shijou?" the grey one brings the blanket-wrapped void map.
The human clears an edge of the map; doesn't seem to matter which one, and then gets it into the slot. It disappears and the blanket settles down while the environment goes deep blue and suddenly goes super cold. "Hoe Lee!" he shivers, wrapping the blanket around himself, "I hope this isn't too much of a Napolean-Hitler Maneuver!" He glances around, but all the trimps don't seem to discomforted by the sudden cold.
12h35m24s: Void 1, 55 He, 4.369 He/hr, 2098 pop, 18.3s RC, first void AP 1% and 0.3% AP for 100 He simultaneously, we got a rare shield, but it's lame with attack, storage, and empty.
As the environment around them return to normal, the trimps cheer over the deflated corpse of the- ...whatever, who give a hoot? Tightniks finds a flurry of messages on the portal screen, two regard APs, one is about having recovered 10 He units, and the big one was about a "shield". Through the touchscreen, he enables it, and gets the status effects that it's talking about.
"Where to now, boss?" the yellow one asks, Tightniks can feel the draft off the cold trimps. They seem to be extraordinarily robust ectotherms, unlike him.
"Let's go back to that friggin' Wall, where it's warmer," he shivers, "We got that AP and could use the resources." As he leads them to the L15 route, he thinks, Maybe I did that void too early. It takes on the level of our most recently entered Zone, and the resources probably go up accordingly. [I did for character reasons after seriously considering running it at Z25 or 30.]
12h49m37s: Nursery unlocked.
"Four hundred thousand gems!" the human squeaks, "Are you kidding me?"
Grey and Yellow glance at each other, the former says "Shijou?" and starts doodling a real answer.
"I'm not sure if you've noticed, but young trimps have special diets for healthy bones," the yellow one explains.
"You eat gems?" the human gasps.
"Shijou," Grey says with a shit eating grin just above a little sign that says, "Babies eat aluminate, and gems are the best!"
"Do they like the taste?" Tighniks tosses a gem from the helium compressor in the direction of the nearest house.
"Uh-Uuuuh!" after it bounces off a paving stone, a yellow juvenile with red head fur jumps into the air to catch it in its mouth. [Puchim@s Yayo. Liek seriously, she jumps after pennies.]
13h32m59s: Zone 25, 84 He, 6.199 He/hr, 2217 pop, 52.6s RC with Z24/568, no turkimp.
It has an unusually light colored body, dark head fur that lies flat, and for trimp tails, wide and not all that prehensile, reminds Tightniks of a- ...he remembers what the animal looks like, but not that his home planet is called Earth nor that the animal is called a tanuki raccoon. Just the tail, the rest of the trimp looks like a trimp for the most part. Oh yeah, the mining foreman. [Puchim@s Yukipo] He turns to Red and asks, "What's wrong with it?"
"It's in a bad mood," the red one answers.
"I can tell," Tightniks glares angrily at the red one for a moment, cools off, takes a breath, and asks kindly, "Why is it in a bad mood?"
"We've never been out this far," the yellow one offers, "...well, with the portal captured at least. Now, it was in a good mood before it got near the cart after we started this zone. Something new on the cart?"
Tightniks approaches the mopey mining foreman and asks it, "What's the matter, little fella?"
It sighs, then starts struggling to climb [see 1x6] onto the compressor cart. Tightniks helps it up with a lift, then it goes to the portal pad and turns it on, opens up the coolant page, the challenges tab there, and sort of sighs and looks questioningly at him.
"Metal challenge:" the pad reads, "Tweak the portal to bring you to an alternate reality, where the concept of Miners does not exist..."
"Oh," Tightniks realizes, then huffs, "That explains the bad mood." He sits down with the mining foreman trimp and brushes its tail, "Don't worry, my friend. You'll be back after one cycle, and I'm sure I'll miss you and your miners. These guys," he nods at the scientists, "we're scared they wouldn't be back when I first used it on purpose, but they came back. If there's a 'Science challenge' later on, I'll have you and not them-"
The scientists flinch.
"It'll be okay," he assures the mining foreman he hasn't yet realized has fallen comfortably asleep in his lap, "It'll be okay, buddy."
16h11m02s: Gymnastic Z25 taken and gyms rapidly increasing now.
The 710 fighting trimps are majestic with their new gymnastic skill and nearly impossible to hit. Only occasionally did the gorillimp do damage. They took it down easily.
Then the dragimp they faced next blew them away with a fireball that made Tightniks flinch. It took him a second to get the dragimp back in his bee nickels. The next group was all ready to relieve their fallen comrades before they went down, even without the welcoming traps for the wild volunteers (of which Tightniks has just started into the 41st bin of ten thousand.) The dragimp can do nothing to them; anything that hits gets deflected by their V-8 shields; they never got sufficiently blindsided.
[Funny: V-8 is a veggie drink similar to clamato juice I can't find anymore, but it's really five-eight, which just happens to be the squadron number of the cast in Space: Above and Beyond. Herp-a-derp!]
19h11m12s: Spammed some random biome maps...
"Tai?" the grey one looks up at the human holding a little sign, "Last couple zones, you've been mapping a lot of random biome routes we never used. Is there any point to that?"
"Stats," the human says, fitting another one together, "Oh, and this," he tosses the trimp the completed forest route map."
As it registers in the portal system, the pad starts beeping and flashing its screen.
"What?" Tightniks sneers incredulously, "There's an AP for that?" He checks and sure enough, there's a 5% Achievement Point for making a 'perfect' map, by a full notch the biggest AP so far.
The yellow one was relaxing on the corner of the latest filled up trap bin, the 49th, notices, and leans back, "Yarey yarey..." shaking its head.
19h13m28s: Uberhouse taken.
"Shijou," the grey one stands at Tightniks feet holding a small book.
Tightniks takes a brief break from his trapmaking and stoops for his oldest scientist.
"Shijou," the grey one bobs the small book in its hands to offer it to Tightniks.
"Flush toilets and septic systems?" Tightniks reads, "You do this yourself?"
"Oh, don't you wish," the red one snickers, "No, it was in that perfect route you mapped up."
20h39m26s: Zone 30, 161 He, 7.794 He/hr, 4656 pop, 20N, 74.5s RC with Z29/1735, no turkimp, 2.5% AP for sub-60 He Z30 start...
"Oh?" Tightniks has an Ax V-3 over one shoulder and screws the helium hose connector to the portal system with one hand. He grunts, sounds kinda disappointed, sets the ax down and continues working on his massive pile of traps; he's almost finished the 55th of, he just learned, 100 huge bins.
The mining foreman had struggled up onto the cart to see, and just looks baffled. It usually looks a bit lost just as part of its demeanor, but this time it looks really quite confused, and makes rather bemused sounds too.
"Oh, what is this?" Red jumps up on the cart, sounding like it's gotta be silly.
The mining foreman climbs back down and spots a purple ore vein, makes a happy sound and pulls its shovel out of its back pocket to start digging into it.
[OC: This is not even close to an exaggeration vs. OG Puchim@s Yukipo who, in 1x2, just pulls out her shovel from nowhere and digs a hole through Project 765's indoor tile-and-concrete office floor to have a nap in the cold open of a 137 second long cartoon episode. Never run out of mushroom boxes! Also, 2nd season Golden Week gold medallion, she and Yayo dig into a volcanic island and hit an oil gusher ...you don't need to know much geology to realize...]
"Really?" Red groans, "Sheesh."
What's on the pad? "Hoarder: Have over 1 million traps at once, 2.5% damage."
20h48m06s: Gateways.
"Hmm," Tightniks pauses from his trap building and gazes over where they came from.
"Thinking of something?" the yellow one asks from the stack he's building under his feet as he puts the most recent trap on the pile.
"Yunno, we have a lot of territory back there that should be pretty pleasant to live in," Tightniks says, "You'd think we should be able to just map an enemy-free route that trimps can just sit down and live peacefully in. I'd love to be able to do that."
"Shijou," the grey one is at his feet with a massive shit-eating grin, not really "hiding" a big piece of documentation behind its back. Obviously it's not so dumb as to realize that it isn't concealed. It then pulls it out and offers it to the human, "Shijou."
"What's this-" the human gasps, "Are you kidding?"
"Shijou."
"Well?" the yellow one prompts, "Let's friggin' try it, shall we?"
21h34m53s...
For some odd reason, that quiet little mining foreman is on the trap pile, fiddling around. Seems to be trying to arm one, has the spring catch on-
"Hey, buddy!" the human notices, "What are you-"
SPROING and it goes flying through the air. Does a few flips and turns, and then sticks the landing, strikes a pose, and makes a happy sound. [op cit. 1x57]
"What the-" Tightniks says, scratching his head, I wonder how much more damage the fighters could avoid if they could do stuff like that.
"Shijou," the grey one is carefully copying out the trimpese from a tattered and dusty scroll.
"What is that?" Tightniks asks.
"Where mining buddy learned that flip," Yellow says from the cart with feet playfully dangling, "another gymnastic book we picked up a few NMEs back. Probably another chapter from the same book, actually. It seems to have been torn apart and scattered."
"Is that right, bud-" the human looks around, can't seem to find the mining foreman, "Buddy, where are you?" It can't move so fast as to get out of sight this quickly!
"Po-wee!" it cheers from the bottom of its latest hole, which is beside a pile of rich bluish-greenish copper ore, onto which another shovelful flies out of the hole onto it.
22h44m17s: Zone 32, 205 He, 9.016 He/hr, 9548 pop, 30N, 37.7s RC with Z31/2712, no tkp.
"You should probably go," Red whispers.
The exhausted human has just sat down for a nap after tossing yet another trap into the huge bin stenciled "61".
"Really, I mean it," the red trimp scientist gently sets a paw on the pilot's shoulder, "Listen to sense please. Charge all this helium and use the portal; it'll make us so much stronger."
"Only 392 thousand to go," Tightniks sighs, "All the ones I've made go to waste if I use it now. I know it's only a two-and-a-halfer, but if I go now, I'll never be in de-" his head slumps into the nodding-off of post-all-nighter fatigue, "moo."
Red and the mining foreman help the snoring human gently down onto his side. The former quietly asks the latter, "Do you think he's doing the right thing?"
The mining foreman makes a particularly delighted squeak, grabs its latest flask of leafy-flowery infusion, which is just now cool enough not to punish such a maneuver with a nasty burn, and upends the whole thing in a couple seconds. It then bounds off joyfully towards the big pit mine over there. It does not often lead the general laborers because of the gymnastic and shield driven block fight, which needs wood, but it happens to be doing so today.
Yellow stands next to the grumbling unhappy green lumber foreman trimp, who is standing on the head of its dual bit ax with its chin on the end of the haft sticking up from the head on the ground. "Cheer up!" the yellow scientist gently prods it in the elbow, "There isn't a Lumber challenge."
1d00h20m05s: Zone 33, 229 He, 9.410 He/hr, 10120 pop, 50N, 40.8s RC with Z32/3390, no turkimp.
"It's a familiar smell," the human says.
"There's no way we've been out this far since whatever it is that shtfed Trimp civilization," Red grumbles. [Word based on acronym SHTF, which stands for "stuff hits the fan" in its G-rated version. Long time ago, similarly derived "nsfw" was a kerbalese cuss word.]
"I think it's from before that," Tightniks clarifies, "from before the time loop stuff."
"I'm worried our fighting group is nearly a third of our population," Yellow sighs.
"Casualties bother you?" Tightniks asks, "I thought we talked about that."
"It's taking forever to breed up new groups, and these things, *snap* ow," Yellow didn't quite touch that one the right way, "you've got 661 thousand of are too small to help. If you don't go now, this will probably be our last Coordination and we won't be able to finish the next zone."
1d06h52m14s: Gymnastic Z35 finally away.
"Did you know it was there?" The red one asks the human as they watch the grey one transcribe another lost chapter of the Gymnastic book.
"No," Tightniks huffs, in a few minutes' break from his trap building, "But I'm not surprised, I hope it gets us Zone 36. In any case, as soon as I finish that millionth trap-"
The mining foreman makes a mournful sound.
"Don't worry, buddy," Tightniks pats it on the head, "I'll brush your tail again last thing before I go." He's working on bin #88.
1d08h00m10s: 12802 pop, 80N, 43.7s RC with Z34/5298, down from 27.4s; '31m00s...
Tightniks, wearing wool-lined leather gloves mixing shimp and bovimp ingredients, plugs the void map that they got from earlier in the zone into the portal, bundled up against the expected cold. He hopes that the fresh Gymnastic Z35 and Coordination Z34 will get them through it.
1d08h33m03s...
"Do you think you can get it back out of there?" Red asks the shivering human as he reaches for the portal.
There are a pair of ejector levers beside the void map slot which clicked when he inserted it, but the void map disappears, so it remained an open question as to whether they could get it back out. Making sure not to have his hands over the void map slot, Tightniks gets a thumb over each one and there's resistance like something is in the empty slot. He grunts and pushes down until they suddenly snap down, the ejected void map rematerializes. "Well, that's a relief," he sets it down and the starts doffing his coats and sweaters to let the warm air of the normal world reach him.
"Try again later?" Yellow asks.
"Yes," the human says.
"What, are you kidding?" Red scoffs, these things level up with the zones!"
"Later on in this zone, obviously," Tightniks grunts with a huff, and then turns to see the grey one holding its little sign with those exact words on it, can't help but smile.
1d09h08m09s: Snimp in Z36c74...
Having just finished yet another trap for bin #95 of the hundred that he needs for the million-traps AP, he tosses it in and looks to the front. There's not much left of that snimp, but it just killed a third fighting group. "The training bonus from running ten laps in an on-level map route doesn't transfer to the void, does it?"
"Shijou," the grey one says with a note of confirmation.
"And I'm getting close to done this pile of traps we need for that 2.5% AP damage bonus."
"Shijou," it says again.
1d09h08m21s: Snimp in Z36c75...
Tightniks sighs, "...and there's another one. So much for that void map with its heinous critically accurate fast voidsnimps and ugly boss fight." And he returns to building traps.
1d10h14m08s: Trying again...
"NULLIFIUM/VOID HEIRLOOM INTERFACE," Tightniks tightens the stuff around himself and then finishes getting the void map inserted with his gloves, and his fingers come together as it puffs out in a brief blue mist in the void environment.
"Timba timba," Tightniks hadn't even noticed that the lumber foreman was up on his head, pats him on the head, wants to get back to work. [No Puchim@s resembles the lumber foreman.]
"Oh, there you are," the human says, "Sorry, I wanted to finish the run with the mining foreman in charge of the resourcing workers. I don't know what's about to happen to it when I hit the Metal challenge."
"Who the devon talked you into into trying this thing again?" Yellow grumbles, looking up at the indigo sky and mysteriously shrunken and dim sun, hands- ...forepaws on its waist, not discomforted by the cold, but bothered by the re-attempt. [This cuss-word after Disturbed song "Inside the Fire".]
"Shijou," the grey one grins above a Rosetta-stone-like sign it's holding with "It was me." in forty-seven languages both human and trimp.
"Zone 37 is hopeless in the time it'll take me to finish building the traps," Tightniks says.
"Won't the cold slow you down?" Red inquires, "It seems to get to you for some reason we don't get."
"Timba timba," the lumber foreman confirms from its perch on Tightiks' jacket hood.
"Yeah," he huffs, tightening it down, "but it slows down the portal clock by the same amount, so who cares?"
1d10h38m48s: Voidsnimp in c12...
Even in the void, Tightniks has gotten used to the sounds of the combat and trimps dying en masse, but when he heard that voidsnimp screech, which is similar to a "drill" robot from an Earth video game he has almost totally forgotten called Descent (Interplay 1995), he almost involuntarily turned to see, Even way back here, they can damage us despite all that gymnastic training? Then it landed the critical hit and wiped them out, as all critical hits do on this void route. He still finished the trap he was working on before going back to the portal, "Forget this, we're just getting the zone blimp." He pops the map from the portal's void slot, and starts getting his void gear off. His uniform long since wore out, so he's wearing something much more cave-manny. [I picked that sound because that sucker was dangerous and terrifying and carried the nearly hitscan Vulcan cannon. There was no Descent II equivalent, but the Thiefbot was pretty annoying.]
1d10h45m30s: 1M traps AP for 2.5%. 1d10h47m36s: Zone 37, 345 He, 9.916 He/hr, 13120 pop, 100N, 33.6s RC with Z34/5298, 2774 pop short, no turkimp.
Tightniks had nearly finished the long procedure for loading and configuring the portal, then sat down with the mining foreman to brush its tail like he promised.
The scientist trimps tried to hit the portal's activation plunger, but it refused to travel the full distance closed for any of them. Quite tired themselves out trying. The only one not exhausted into total silence was the grey one with its exasperated "Shijou..."
The mining foreman refused to go to sleep, and watched intently as Tightniks finally reached over and set it home with one hand. Its last nervous little sigh was the only thing he remembered-
The ship is without power, and Tightniks can't run the radar much without draining the batteries...

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia last year, but I don’t necessarily think it makes sense with all of my symptoms, as I tend to have a lot of joint pain, and fibro is mostly pain in the muscles.
I definitely have hyper mobility in my back and neck, and my fingers, as well as my hips and my knees. I have almost all of the symptoms of hEDS but I don’t have a history of connective tissue problems (that I’m aware of) so I’m not sure what that means for a diagnosis, if I should even be looking for one right now.
I’m mainly just coming on here to ask, what was your diagnosis journey like? what illnesses were ruled out before you were diagnosed with hEDS? how many doctors did you go to, how long did it take? I just need some information to ease my mind about this process because it’s been really stressful not knowing where to even begin with getting treatment.

This is part number 3 of my story of how I started to (and still am) dating my platoon leader. As I've said before, I'm on my way into the civilian sector after completing my contract with the Army, and Matt and I are still happily dating. As always, I'm open to feedback/critiques/polite constructive criticism. This is a fairly tame chapter with one of many "firsts" we've conquered as a couple. I recommend starting at the 1st chapter so you can get the whole story, or else you'll miss some descrptions/details. I've tried to be a little more detailed with the naughty bits, so I hope you all enjoy! ♡Avery
After spending a second night in Matt's bed, this time naked, with his cum leaking out of me following last night's massage turned naughty, I woke up looking like a hot mess. I caught a glimpse of myself in his bedside mirror and decided I had to run down to the car to get my well thought out overnight bag that somehow never actually made it into the house last night. I throw on some of Matt's gym shorts and a tee, leaving the discarded purple thong from last night's massage on his night stand. He seemed to like it, so why not leave him the souvenir right?
When I get back inside, my handsome hunk (yes, mine. He asked me out last night, still have butterflies!) Has gotten out of bed and has moved into the kitchen to fix breakfast for us. I told you he's a gentleman when he wants to be. Anyway, over breakfast he asks me if I'd like to go out on an actual date with him today. Nothing fancy, but a walk down along the river trail a few miles from his appartment after a coffee.
I'm super excited to hear that he wants actual dates, not just stuff we hide over at his appartment and I agree right away. I head upstairs and in a minute....or 30....I'm back downstairs in my favorite pale blue sundress with a cute print design, that fairly reasonably accentuated my toned butt, and shows off what cleavage my B cup breasts can produce.
He's clearly happy about my outfit when I come downstairs, as he looks me up and down. All through the car ride and coffee, he can't keep his hands off me and I love it! A hand around my waist as I go through a door he's held for me, gently holding my hand in line, or his fingers brushing my legs at the hem of my dress as he holds my hand while he drives. Our conversation is all over the place as we get to know eachother on a deeper level, and eventually it makes it's way to "experience ". As it turns out, we're both relatively inexperienced in terms of anything crazy but we have similar fantasies and things we'd want to try.
As we finish coffee and head out to the river, one of those "things we'd want to try" comes up again, and it seems as though we're headed somewhere that we might just pull it off. We both want to experiment with trying something in a public place. The trail along the river is relatively quiet....okay just about as private as you can get without actually going inside. But its outside and it's new and so I get a rush just thinking about fooling around with him out here. I'm definitely not brave enough to try actual sex out anywhere, but who knows, maybe I could have some fun out here?
We get out of the car and walk maybe a half mile down the trail without seeing anyone. Matt takes my hand and leads me off the trail and into the woods aways before pulling me close and kissing me. I fall into his embrace and let my tongue explore his mouth as his hands explore my body. As the minutes pass and our make out intensifies, his hands make their way into my dress, pulling out my breasts and gently squeezing my small, dark brown nipples as I moan into his mouth and run my fingers through his hair.
This continues until a feel a hand under the hem of my dress, gently caressing it's way up my thigh and I'm acutely aware that I'm outside and vulnerable. I whisper into Matt's ear to touch me but don't take anything off. Next thing I feel is a finger pushing my panties (pink lace with a cheeky, not quite thong back) to the side, running their way between the damp parted lips of my vagina. A finger slips inside me while his thumb massages my clit, drawing heavy breaths and moans begging him not to stop. His pace increases and my legs begin to tremble as he brings me to orgasm with two fingers buried deep inside me and a thumb massaging my clit. I bite into his neck, hard enough to leave a mark as I try to keep from crying out at his touch.
As I come back down I realize that he has fully devoted his attention to my pleasure, and this has caused an increase of it's own in his shorts. I ask Matt if he's comfortable pulling himself out here, since it's not like me who has a dress to provide a minimal sense of modesty. He nods a yes and I drop to my knees in front of him, unbuckling his shorts and letting them fall away.
I kneel there with his six or seven inches (i don't walk around with a ruler guys) in front of me, and I want nothing more than to give him the same pleasure he just gave me. I grasp his shaft in one hand as I lick him from base to tip with the tip of my tongue. After a few more wet, sloppy licks to lube him up, I press my head down on his shaft, taking in to the back of my throat as I begin to work his cock in my hand. I bob my head up hand down, as deep as I can take him, almost to the base as I try to keep myself from gagging on this healthy cock that brings me so much pleasure. I work his shaft with a twisting motion as I try to bring him closer to the edge of cumming for me, and I feel his hands in my hair pressing my head down to take him deep.
My pace increases as I feel him start to swell. I twist and suck, trying to being him sweet release until he takes his hand to the back of my head and holds me down to the base of his cock and shoots a thick rope of cum down the back of my throat. I swallow it down and continue to pump his cock into my mouth, being sure not to spray any onto my dress. I swallow every last drop of him before getting up and helping him get his shorts up to make us both modest once again.
We continue our walk for another hour or so, both loving the fact that we each just had our first public sexual experience, and talking more about all the things we'd like to try going forward in the future.
Thanks for reading guys! I'm sorry this didn't have full on sex, but I promise our story gets steamy as we go forward! Again, I appreciate any feedback and critiques, just be polite!
♡Avery

To answer the commonly asked question once and for all, I have done a deepdive and summarized the findings of all relevant research I could find.
I've established a benchmark for what level of sub concussive head impacts can be tolerated and for how long without developing CTE to compare with Judo.
It's crucial to recognize that while concussive impacts are associated with clinical signs and symptoms, sub‐concussive impacts are defined as occurring below this range and do not result in clinically‐diagnosed concussions. However, studies have proposed that an accumulation of these low‐level repetitive impacts does compromise the brain over time and may result in CTE later in life. (Source 1,2,3)
CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) is the neurodegenerative disease that may be defined by symptoms of dementia, memory loss, and emotional instability. It's famously observed in American football and other athletes of full contact sports. (Source 1)
The two measures I will quote for head impact are G force for linear acceleration and rad/s2 for rotational acceleration. Rotational acceleration is believed by many to be a primary mechanism for diffuse brain injury, which is seen in CTE. Rotational acceleration is more dangerous than linear acceleration because it creates greater tension on bridging veins and brain (Source 3, 12)
Benchmark from American football study (source 2)
In all cases, the average head impact was ~1500 rad/ s2 and 19 G. What differentiated the players without CTE from the ones with CTE wasn't the magnitude of the head impacts but rather the accumulation of these sub concussive impacts.
Players without CTE = 4500 hits over 10 years with 6.57 M rad/s2 and 87k G accumulated to the head
Players with low stage CTE = 5500 hits over 12 years with 8.32 M rad/s2 and 107k G accumulated to the head
Players with high stage CTE = 7600 hits over 15 years with 12.26 M rad/s2 and 150k G accumulated to the head
Another study suggests that 1230 rad/s2 is to be used as the lower threshold for low severity injury, but does recognise that a definitive threshold separating impacts causing injury from impacts resulting in no injury is currently not known. (Source 1)
Now that we have these benchmarks, let's look at the Judo research to understand how much impact the brain sustains from being thrown on the ground with perfect ukemi (break fall).
First study (source 4)
Performed by two judo black belts with Tori doing Osoto Gari and Uke performing ukemi (break fall) on tatami with a forehead sensor.
Second study (source 5)
14 black and brown belt practitioners with forehead sensors performing ukemi on 6 different throws. (tomoe-nage, tai-otoshi, harai-tsuri-komi-ashi, seoi-nage, deashi-braai, uchi mata), and only impacts over 16G was captured with their measurement equipment.
Results
10% of 70 Uchi mata throws resulted in an impact over 16G. These inpacts have an avg of 28 G impact on the head and 3940 rad/s2. Uchi mata had the highest incidence of sub-concussive head accelerations.
Osoto gari had linear force: between 8.7 - 11.9 G, median 10.3 G Rotational force: between 506 - 852 rad/s2, median 679 rad/s2
The other five throws in the study had a very low incidence rate of exceeding the 16G threhold, at around 1% of the throws. When they did exceed the threhold, the results were 21-28 G and 1600-2800 rad/s2
Conclusion
Given the chosen threhold of 1230 rad/s2, which has been suggested as the lower limit for diffuse brain injury. It appears that for most of the time, Judo is safe when Ukemi (break fall) is applied correctly. Uchi mata had the highest risk of exceeding the threshold and would be dangerous in about 10% of the time, despite proper Ukemi. Osoto gari is often close to the threshold at 852 rad/s2.
However, there is currently no definitive threshold for impacts causing diffuse injury to the brain. It should be noted that Judo is often on the border to dangerous when throws are executed with high power. (Source 1)
Thought experiment
Each club and practitioner's training patterns and Ukemi skill may vary, but if we were to assume that you take a hard fall (exceeding the safe threshold of 1230 rad/s2) in 10% of the larger hip throws, as shown in source 5. Then, you might sustain 3 hard falls per training. Given 3 training sessions per week, 40 weeks per year, you will accumulate 360 hard falls per year (3×3×40). This means that after 12 years of practice, you will have endured 4500 hard hits. This is the same as an American football player without CTE. But if you were to continue at this pace for an additional 3 years (total 15 years), you will have accumulated 5500 hard hits. This is the same as a player with low stage CTE. After a total of 21 years of Judo, you would then have developed high stage CTE (7600 hits).
Now, if this calculation assumes only 1 hard hit per session, the outcome would be enormously different. It would then take 45 years of Judo before you risk developing low stage CTE.
This thought experiment highlights the importance of limiting your number of hard landings per training as much as possible. Note that these hard landings occur despite proper Ukemi in blackbelts, according to the cited studies. It means that you need to be careful with the intensity of Randori you tolerate from your partner and maximize the use of crash pads during static training. It's also advisable to avoid training with larger partners (>18 kg/ 40 pounds heavier than you), if possible. (Source 4,5,6)
If you are comparing judo to other forms of martial arts it should be noted that although judo carries risks it is much lower than for example MMA sparring where the average linear acceleration in head impacts are 38 G and the average rotational acceration is 2567 rad/s2 per hit. This means that the average hit in MMA is dangerous high above the safe threshold. (Source 7)
Additional conclusions from the cited studies to help minimize risk in Judo:
Novice vs experienced judokas
It's important to also make note that novice judokas experience much higher impacts compared to blacks belts. This is due to their lower proficiency in Ukemi (break fall) Just to mention a few things, the experienced judokas have greater knee exten­sion when falling backwards and their motion is greater in the extended position when the hand contact the mat and at the end of the motion. Novice judoka tends to flex the knee more than experienced judokas. Greater knee extension during the backward fall helps to control the velocity of backward falls better. Experienced judokas roll more on the back while landing and immediately lift the hands after slapping the ground to not impede the rolling motion. The timing of the ground slap is of importance.
Novices often hit their head on the tatami mat because of their delayed response to throwing techniques and their inability to instantly contract their neck muscles to perform a backward breakfall. Therefore, to reduce the risk of head injury in judo, it is desirable to actively introduce training in which an athlete is pushed by another person and the athlete instantly performs a backward breakfall. (source 6, 9, 10, 11)
Fatigue and Ukemi effectiveness
Ukemi (break fall) effectiveness is significantly affected by fatigue following high intensity exercise. To stay safe, it's recommended to rest properly between your set of throws or Randori rounds to let your heart rate come down before engaging again. (source 8)
Expected vs. unexpected throws
Additionally, it is shown that anticipating the impact improves the effectiveness of Ukemi and helps lower the impact forces to the brain. This is why being surprised by a throw in, for example Randori, carries much higher risk than static training, especially for novice practitioners. Therefore, it is necessary to develop backward breakfall training that incorporates unexpected conditions, while considering safety (Source 3,6)
Weight difference
Higher body weight of the thrower than that of the person being thrown is a factor in the occurrence of head injuries, with the risk of head injury increasing when the thrower is ≥ 18 kg heavier than the person being thrown. These findings suggest that practice with such a weight difference between judo practitioners should be avoided (source 6)
Undermat
The use of an under-mat did not prove to be adequate in reducing head impact. Although it lowered the linear acceration of the head, it did not impact the rotational acceleration, which has more severe outcomes (source 10)
Neck strength
No correlation was found between cervical (neck), muscle strength (anterior flexion), and head rotational acceleration. Although it is important to have at least average neck strength, improving neck strength further is not the simple solution to reducing impact on the head and neck. Instead, mastering optimal Ukemi technique to be able to disperse energy more through better movement patterns is a more viable solution. (Source 6, 10)
The most dangerous judo throw (immediate danger, not in terms of long term CTE risk)
From 1983 to 2011, 118 fatalities were reported in junior high and high schools in Japan. It was pointed out that being thrown by “osoto-gari” was the major cause of fatalities (18 cases, 25%). In an experiment involving adolescents who were not judo specialists, the risk of head injury was higher when the “osoto-gari” or “ouchi-gari” throwing technique was used than when the “ippon-seoi-nage” or “tai-otoshi” throwing technique was used.
The reason for this has been suggested to be that novice judokas were likely to take a more flexed upper body posture than the experienced judokas, especially from the middle to late phase of the osoto gari break fall. The flexed posture may lead to greater velocity due to the smaller contact of the arms made to the ground in that posture. Therefore, maintaining a straight posture during the breakfall motion may lead to a reduced risk of head injuries associated with osoto-gari. (Source 6, 13)
Sources can all be found by searching the following names on google:

1. Angular Acceleration Responses of American Football, Lacrosse and Ice Hockey Helmets Subject to Low‐Energy Impacts
   
2. Leveraging football accelerometer data to quantify associations between repetitive head impacts and chronic traumatic encephalopathy in males
   
3. Rotational Head Kinematics in Football Impacts: An Injury Risk Function for Concussion
   
4. Ukemi technique prevents the elevation of head acceleration of a person thrown by the judo technique 'Osoto-gari'
   
5. Florentin, T. and Henry, S. O. (2017) "HEAD ACCELERATIONS OF SIX TYPICAL JUDO THROWS AND BREAK FALL TECHNIQUES
   
6. Effects of unexpectedness on the risk of head injuries in judo novices and experts
   
7. Concussion and the Severity of Head Impacts in Mixed Martial Arts
   
8. Influence of fatigue on head angular acceleration in judo high-intensity exercise
   
9. Biomechanics of judo backward breakfall for different throwing techniques in novice judokas
   
10. A Systematic Review on the Biomechanics of Breakfall Technique (Ukemi) in Relation to Injury in Judo within the Adult Judoka Population
    
11. Biomechanics of the judo backward breakfall: comparison between experienced and novice judokas
    
12. Biomechanical Analysis of Judo-Related Head Injuries: A Pilot Study over Ages and Experience Levels
    
13. TRUNK BIOMECHANICS DURING BREAKFALL FOR OSOTO-GARI AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH JUDO-RELATED HEAD INJURY RISK IN NOVICE JUDOKAS
    

Hello, I recently just picked up basketball. Although I’m not unfit, I’ve never played a ball sport seriously in my entire life so I feel I athletic (don’t know how to land properly, lazy running), for the past week I’ve been playing almost everyday outside on asphalt and on both my knees basically identically the outside of the knee cap is hurting and swelling. I will definitely bring down the frequency of play, but would anyone recommend going to Physiotherapy or getting a knee brace if this is serious?

I spent my years as a little girl trying so hard to be anything else OTHER than "just a little girl" because I was raised in a heavily religious and Latino household where being born a girl basically determined that you'd be forgotten and ignored. Any accomplishments you put in the effort to complete in the hopes of maybe some sort of parental attention was almost always steamrolled over to make room for other sub-par things your brother, uncles, or nephews did.
So I became this little angry girl who studied hard. Up until puberty at 11 quickly beat my spirit to pieces with a wave of depression that wouldn't ever fully go away or recede far enough into the horizon enough for me to get comfortable ever again in my skin without fear of drowning in my own emotions that at that time I simply labeled "useless and stupid."
I was 5 years old when I remember my Dad ripping and cutting these little heart shaped dangly charms off of the hem of a pastel printed dress I really liked. He didn't like that they skimmed my little kid ankles. He called the outfit "whore practice" clothing and made sure I knew only girls "asking for bad attention" wore "outfits like that." I quickly stopped wearing my earrings too as he once yelled at my mom so hard about the size of these tiny hoop earrings she had once put on me. He accused my mom of buying me "adult" earrings so after that she never got me another pair. To make matters worse he abused my mother, oftentimes ruining her dresses and outfits too because he claimed she was "dressing to get another man" so she could leave.
I had to be the strong one, at 7 years old. I would sometimes watch Cardcaptor Sakura (when it aired in English in the U.S., late 90s/early 00's) or Sailor Moon and I would draw pictures of what I imagined I would look like if I had a cool magical dress. These girls got to fight crime while being pretty. Pam Grier could fight crime and look gorgeous, but I had to watch her in secret on my own time. Tarantino really hit me hard with how strong he makes his female leads too. I mean sure yeah weirdo foot stuff, but Uma Thurman is depicted as this angel faced beautiful charming woman but who is dedicated and deadly and can kill if her life is at stake or anyone tries to get in her way. The women in Death Proof totally kicked ass while being pretty at the same time. I had a girl crush on She-Ra and also on Star Fire and Lady Death from the horror comics my uncle would borrow and I'd find, not even realizing how raunchy the art was. The women were strong. The women were fiercely beautiful. They could fight.
My mom would then marry another idiot when I was 10. A conservative raised little mommy's boy shit stain of a man who took joy in picking on literal children for things they could not control. Total narcissist. His mom was a 1950's housewife who had passed away but her control over how he dressed and acted eventually spilled onto me. Why am I in a dress today? which boy am I trying to impress? Nevermind that it's 96 degrees Fahrenheit in a middle school with no A/C, I MUST be wearing a knee length skirt at 12 because OBVIOUSLY a boy told me to wear it so he could touch me.....there was no rational thinking. I was taught that being even a little feminine or expressing femininity was a definite horrendous declaration of "omgeee please touch me, I'm stupid and want 100 babies!!!" By 14 years old I didn't own a single other skirt or dress except for some black dresses meant for funerals and one white skirt I buried in the back of the closet.
I ate my feelings. I ate and ate and ate and ate because I felt so empty. I was limited from 14 to 17 to only big flared oversized jeans and boys tshirts. My stepfather was a big believer in clearing your plate plus he just loved food. He was over 400 lbs himself, and while my siblings and I didn't go to regular doctors exams we simply just gained weight recklessly as we would be punished for leaving anything behind on our plates while our stepfather would make weekly $300 purchases on more and more and more just food food food. So then, at 14, I just had no idea I would never see 225lbs again until over a decade later. By 16 I was nearing 300 lbs and wanted to die. I was watching other more normal healthy weighted girls grow into beautiful women all around me. Filling out dresses, wearing cute tops, actually being able to purchase clothing they liked with no worries. I'll never forget shopping for the dress I wore for my Senior Yearbook photos. My mom planned a "girls day out" for us to go and find a dress at a mall. I was ecstatic. I asked my mother maybe 15 times if she was SURE and CERTAIN we were going to get me a dress. The literal DAY OF the trip my stepfather had a "change of heart" and insisted the entire family go to the mall together. I found a dress. Bright Teal/Blue. Checker patterned. It had a wide rounded scoop neck, a very flowy skater-type skirt, and the Mannequin at the store had the dress paired with red flats and these beautiful blue-bird earrings. I put the dress on and in that instant I just felt so pretty that I almost forgot who I was and out loud asked "are you FUCKING serious?!" when I stepped out of the fitting room with it on and my stepdad just kept loudly snorting and laughing at me. He made me put that beautiful dress back and honestly my heart was so broken that even 7 years ago when I was 25 I was still actively looking for it on Mercari and at other Plus Size secondhand clothing sites. I ended up wearing this absolutely hideous brown and beige old woman slip style wrap dress with this ugly tacky red border. I looked like someone's secretary job having mom and the dress just further highlighted my lack of actual breasts and lack of a waist. So when Prom rolled around and my stepfather even TRIED suggesting this big shiny pretty pearlescent pink ballgown for me I bit back and DEMANDED all black. I was pissed. I had no date. I let my mom buy the Prom dress out of spite and even afterwards I cut it to pieces just for shits and giggles because I was so angry.
Then one day I actually followed through with my threats and ran away from home. I was free for the first time at 17! I could wear what I wanted!
Except I couldn't because I proceeded to pursue toxic relationships with controlling narcissistic men because of the way I was raised. The first guy insisted that me wearing a dress meant he could just have me be "free use" which I hated back then, I didn't know anything much about sex at all as I was sheltered and constantly grounded for minor shit. I totally just was not ready to be cutting potatoes for breakfast in a nightgown at 5 a.m. just to find myself mid-sex with potato skins still stuck on my hand while I'm trying to get the person to just STOP for like ONE SECOND so I can get on with wtf I was doing. FFs. The second guy decided that me wanting to wear a lot of bright colors meant he could belittle me for "listening to goth music but dressing like a total narc fed", except he would hit me. Like we were once just walking. Literally JUST walking. I was wearing just plain old brown flipflops and ran out of clothes so I threw on my old white skirt. I forgot it had little sequins sewn onto the hems. It started raining so I asked for his jacket so I could cover the skirt so it wouldn't get wet and become see through and he proceeded to slap and punch me "for making stupid decisions" and then belittled the sequins and shit as "little girly" details and decorations that I apparently should have known better than to dare to throw on just to walk to the corner store at 6 in the evening on a summer day. The skirt was ankle length, long as shit. Then I met the third guy who decided that any time I so much as wore anything that wasn't pants, it meant I was cheating. I stuck around in THAT relationship for 6 long grueling years. We didn't sleep in the same bed anymore after the second year as he would belittle me for my weight and lack of femininity, but then anytime I wore a dress it would turn into a fist fight. He would say that me wearing a dress in the house was me feeling guilty for cheating and trying to "look cuter than I normally am" so he wouldn't hurt me. He really messed my brain up. Around that time I was so desperately alone and withdrawn from everyone and everything that I would often spend weeks and weeks with no positive human interaction other than cashiering at my job I hated. I would lie and say I was working just to actually take the bus freely all over the city and I would buy cheap nightgowns from secondhand stores to wear in my room at night while I did college homework. I wasn't allowed to wear makeup with him, I wasn't allowed to wear dresses or anything pretty. Like a sad little child I would time when I knew he had to get online to play his video games and I would use that time to put on a whole face of makeup, shave my legs and wear the nightgowns just to "pretend" I was a very feminine and pretty woman in her own apartment enjoying life. It always made me cry to have to shower afterwards and take the makeup off.
I was 31 and had just been fired from one job while working my first day at a new one. I'm not sure what happened in that instant or maybe if I just had an "oh shit" moment but I just had a strong urge at that moment to just wear a dress again. I had a long week of nonstop dreaming and thinking about my 20s. How sad is it that society tries as hard as it can to make us think that our 20s are supposed to be this MAGICAL time you can NEVER get back? My 20s were so bad I'd literally probably actually toss myself off a bridge if I woke up and realized this was a dream and I'm actually still 22, homeless, dating a total shitbag who hits me, and being too traumatized to just stand up and DO SOMETHING. I also feel like there needs to be more of an understanding that not everyone's 20s are going to be awesome. My mother is a jealous asshole and didn't like that I dated three men in my 20s. She straight up believed it should be one and done since she hated herself for divorcing my Dad but SHE needed to understand that not everyone is just hunky dory OKAY with settling for the first smarmy toad that lands in their pond. I'll never forget her little shit eating grin and face when I brought #4 home and she said "oh sweetie I just hope you one day find someone who can just get your toes to curl." She thought all the break ups were strictly sex related. I asked her and she just steamrolled over it with "well you cant just dump everyone the second they turn you down for sex or ask for more, sometimes you need to be patient!" Like excuse me? Ah yes because as a woman in her 20s it was *impossible* for anyone to think that most of my break ups were about my money being stolen, people not keeping a job, apartments always having "surprise new roommates" that never clean their messes, or straight up abuse. Nope. Both of my parents and most of my relatives apparently assumed any break up between 20-somethings is just "lol, the sex is bad." As if we don't have any sort of character depth to us.
So I guess the point of this is that I am beyond grateful that 31 and 32 coming soon here are bringing me these sudden realizations that I probably should've had in my 20s. Its liberating to wear a damned dress to work and not WORRY about 1478349237498743987 scenarios that can go wrong. Its so much fun to finally fully dive into makeup and what different things do and what they're for. I feel like when I dress up and feel good about myself its truly just for me and it brings me joy. Not even 6 years ago I would have been absolutely panicking about the dresses in my closet I've collected but today I finally wore one outside. Its a skater dress and very flowy and I feel pretty and unafraid. I feel like I can do anything even dressed this way. I feel like this is what being in your 30s is supposed to be. Finally not giving a shit what other people think and accepting that different people feel pretty doing different things. Wearing a dress or dressing up shouldnt make you feel powerless

I'm tagging this as a discussion and not a rant, because I do want input. I want people to be honest with me. I'm going to low-key rant, but then I want to know how you would feel if it were you - and maybe if you agree with my also chronically ill friend.
I was in a pretty serious car wreck on May 10th. I have some pictures from when I went to see my car finally on Thursday (? I think) and... and honestly, it was worse than I thought it was at first. I had snapped one picture for my mom but I was very, very stunned at the time. Later got diagnosed with a concussion, so that makes sense that I was out of it), and the picture didn't pick up the damage... At all. My entire front console and dashboard separated from the frame of the car. The passenger door can't open. My windshield severely cracked, it's a miracle it didn't shatter all over me. My wheel airbag went off, but the knee airbag malfunctioned (impound lot guy said he sees that a lot with my model car and to report it to the highway safety commission). Parking brake jammed on, hood bent in half, entire front part of the car crushed underneath the car in front of me.
I was EXTREMELY lucky. I cannot stress... How lucky. And this friend who I'm about to bring up agrees with that, because even when I sent the only picture I had, I think they understood more than I did how close it had been. I was transported by ambulance, with concern for a spinal injury as well as abdominal bleeding and minor concern for shoulder injury. Most assuaged, I was released the same day (many hours later), all good. Obviously, extremely in pain and with some anti inflammatories, muscle relaxers, and they gave me Rx lidocaine patches. (On top of my normal pain management meds). They diagnosed whiplash and that was all.
The following week (so last week), I went to my PCP, who ordered a wrist X-ray for severe bruising that had popped up and the pain that never stopped, and he diagnosed a sprain when it came back clear (although that hand keeps going numb, so we'll see). He diagnosed the concussion as well and muscle spasms in my back and shoulders, the one shoulder's acute pain from the seatbelt, gave me a higher dosage muscle relaxer and stronger anti-inflammatory. I mentioned my ribs, again (as I had in the ER), but then played it down. That was my own fault. He mentioned my being out of breath, and again, I played it down.
The very next day I was even more out of breath and I had to go to urgent care to get a drug test for my job (because I had been working at the time of my crash - company policy). While there, I asked if she could glance at my ribs - and she noticed the deep bruising. She ordered an X-ray when I told her the whole thing, because, in her words, she was slightly worried about the possibility of a pneumothorax and wanted to rule it out.
I mentioned this to my friend group discord chat. The very last part - that I was now getting a chest x-ray because of what that doctor said. The friends response was... odd. They seemed to want to be riling me up? Like, immediately began going 'prepare for surgery' etc., almost... egging on the worst case scenario. And I basically went... can you, like, not joke about this? I already have enough going on, I really don't need more anxiety.
And they went, "who said I was joking?" and the some other comment I can't remember. And then said "In my opinion you seem to thrive on the negative medical things that happen in a way."
So yeah. I'm usually extremely calm. But I very coldly went "What the fuck does that mean?"
They told me I SEEK OUT medically complex things to worry about and hyperfixate on. Then said that I had "rampant hypochondria."
...huh??? I'm sorry, what? This is all coming from someone who ALSO has complex health. I so don't get it. This person basically said, oh, I'm saying this for your own good, because I was a hypochondriac too, etc etc. and basically... I was like I have no clue what the fuck you're talking about. Because I don't go do research and look for anything at all. Anything and everything I updated my friends on is told to me by my doctor's as either the next step, a possibility, like an ACTUAL likely possibility that we are actively exploring as a team together focused on my health; or it's HAPPENING. And my feelings on that might be anxious because I don't know what comes next, because we don't have answers. But being anxious about something that is actually REALISTIC and being actively explored and presented by DOCTORS as a possibility is not hypochondria.
This friend then tried to fight me on that definition, which is just .. absolutely wild. Because again, hypochondria is undue and abnormal health anxiety. I dare anyone with my health to not be anxious about it. 😂 I literally get compliments and comments from the people in my daily life about how they cannot imagine how I'm doing it. And that's after they see ONE episode. And some of that is coming from people who ARE HEALTHCARE WORKERS, literally!!!
I'm just... I'm still so wildly stunned. I'm so caught off guard. I'm hurt. I'm angry. I'm betrayed. This person is the LAST one I thought it would come from.
I make it a POINT to never compare. Whenever others try, they say 'oh, but I shouldn't complain XYZ," I am SO quick to correct that. We don't play that game, here. Not in my house, not in my bubble, not in my circle of love and support and friendships. But this friend also said in this whole thing that they're uncomfortable talking about their health issues because of... Me talking about mine??? And I basically said a much longer version of that ^, but then added, y'know, I'm sorry you feel uncomfortable but at the end of the day, you can't put that on me or anyone else. It's really ableist to be thinking like that. Everyone is different and me sharing updates with y'all because you've told me you want to hear them and you love me just like I want to hear yours and love you all , has nothing to do with your ability to share your stuff too? And if that's an obstacle for you that's something you need to work on, not take out on me.
There's so much more. I'm just going to stop there. I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm sick to my stomach. Of all the people in that server, a server I have been in for... I mean, over 5 years, now, I want to say? My second family? What was supposed to be. What claimed to be. Of all of them, one person stood up for me. And maybe because only one was online. But no one else except one of the teens has reached out, and of course I let him know I was alright and wished him luck, gave him my email for if he ever needed something. (It was very sweet that he checked in, I really only responded because I didn't want him to worry.) But I won't maintain a 1-1 conversation with a minor. Especially as a teacher, that's highly inappropriate - my typical rule is I won't even converse with minors 1-1 on the internet, I just won't. This server has many minors who stick together and a few educators who look out for them, so I know they're safe and all. Everyone there takes safety very seriously at least.
I'm just... Ridiculously disappointed. More than disappointed. I don't know if I can trust people again, honestly. I've worked really hard to open up. It took me... years, after a lifetime of trauma and being guilted for having human needs, much less adding in disability and extra things. I don't see it happening again.

*Earnings were 17¢ per share, well-below estimates of 35¢.
*Revenue was down, but after q4 and the abysmal Mega sales, revenue expected to be down.
Moving forward:
There is a price war with EVs in China caused by Tesla last month. Tesla & Li are both profitable and can weather short term dips. With rough waters ahead, the question to ask is whether or not BYD ($1,250 profit per car) & NIO (9.5% margins) can weather the increasingly price competitive landscape. Long term, there's going to be market consolidation in the Chinese EV marketplace.
You can't trust Li's estimates. They're currently embroiled in freshly filed class-action lawsuit over boasting unrealistic sales estimates of the Mega.
When a company announces layoffs, it's a double-edged sword. Reports are coming out that Mega factory employees are being laid off on 5/16. Li knew the sales were bad, but waited months to complete layoffs (they did 3 day weekends instead of just ripping the bandaid off). It's bad to announce layoffs because it means your sales are down, but ultimately if the foot has gangrene you cut it off to save the leg. '24 q1 margins of 19.3% (82m) vs '23 q1 margins of 19.8% (128m) show Li's delays in cutting the work force amounted an amputation below the knee (it could've been better making layoffs sooner, but it could've been worse not doing any layoffs). I don't know every reason why margins are down, but not reducing the workforce fast enough and several thousand dollars in price cuts (to counter Tesla's price cuts) likely were the biggest contributors to the reduction in margins. The margins are still better than others, but not where they need to be for Li compared to past performance (they can do better reducing operating costs).
The delay in earnings was a bad sign (I'm not sure if it's a causal relationship in this instance) and could have been the writing on the walls for the earnings report.
It was a blood bath today, but the balance sheet is strong. Li is in an impressive position to make it through headwinds, but time will tell how long this takes. I'm liking the July calls. With a market cap of $22b Li is going nowhere. This is a $40 stock. The balance sheet is among the best compared to US & Chinese EV car makers. I was a buyer at $26 trying to catch the falling knife. I'm definitely buying at $21.xx. It could go lower, but it's trading dirt cheap.

I AM NOT OOP. OOP IS u/ADHDabsurdity
Originally posted on tifu
1 update - short
Content warning: gross skin stuff
Original post - August 2nd, 2023
Update - May 20th, 2024
TIFU by realizing I wasn’t washing my “hair” right for 20+ years
Uh okay. So warning.. this is very much gross.
Over the past several weeks I have been feeling these weird skin-like but not fully-attached lumps on my head. I’ve been scratching and picking them off fully (or so I thought) and didn’t give it a second thought.
Well, today my boyfriend takes a good look at my scalp in one of those spots that I was scratching because he was curious as to what I was doing. Apparently I was really going at it without noticing.
He practically gasped and asked me if I had hit my head, or if it hurt. I was stunned for a moment (it only felt like a little dry skin) and that began my panic induced examination. As it turns out, my entire scalp is covered in ranges of flaky to thick lumps of dandruff. And because I have a lot of hair, it isn’t noticeable on the outside unless you start going through layer by layer…
I obsessively begin to scratch and scrape my entire scalp to the point where it’s now in pain. There’s flakes and chunks entangled throughout my hair.. I am freaking out. I start Googling, thinking I must be dying, all my hair is about to fall out, etc.
Yeah.. no. Apparently you are supposed to scrub your scalp when you shampoo… I never knew this. Also I immediately put my wet hair in a bun or braid every time I washed it so it didn’t dry for literally 24 hours and caused more dry skin buildup. I really hope that after years (plus scraping for hours today) I haven’t really fucked my scalp up.
TL;DR : I haven’t scrubbed my scalp for 20 years because I didn’t know you had to. I have been scraping chunks of dry skin off my scalp for the past few hours. I feel disgusting.
EDIT: Firstly I’d like to say thank you to everyone for your advice and kind replies! I also wanted to answer a few of the common questions I saw.

1. “How did you not notice this for so long?” - I don’t think it was this bad my entire life, as I’ve said I’ve only seen flakes sometimes. It got like this sometime recently. I don’t particularly make note of checking my scalp on a periodic basis. Also if you haven’t already noticed by my username, I have ADHD. Out of sight out of mind. I don’t even intend to be gross… but like many others with ADHD we can struggle with habit, routines, etc.
2. “Why did you not just go to a doctor?” - I’m in America and healthcare costs are high. I can’t afford to go see one at this time even with insurance.
3. “Where did you put shampoo then?” - I put it on my head (obviously) and throughout all my hair. I think since my hair is so thick that when lathering the shampoo in, I may not have been really getting it onto my scalp enough. I’ve made note of the shampooing twice to help with that though, so thanks to those who said that!
4. “Did your parents not teach you ‘xyz’?” - Apparently not. Not everyone has good parents. I definitely did not. I’ve had to figure out many things throughout life on my own.

Most replies were very positive/helpful though. Thank you! I will be getting a new shampoo as I’ve been using a very cheap brand. Hopefully that helps!
Relevant Comments
NovaHorizon
Go see a dermatologist! That doesn't sound like a pure hygiene issue.
obsidianbonefish
Sounds like psoriasis on your scalp. The flakes are thick and oily. A dermatologist can prescribe something for it.
nicolasbaege
Maybe seborrheic dermatitis, since the oily part is a bit unusual for psoriasis. Some unlucky people even have both. But yeah, a dermatologist needs to look at that.
Update - 10 months later
Hi. It’s me again. I posted nearly a year ago about my “disgusting” scalp. Most comments were super helpful & positive. Others… called me a gross human being.
Anyhow, as it turns out, many of you were correct. I have psoriasis. I wasn’t washing my haiscalp wrong like I had thought. (I thought you had to scrape it basically.. like many other commenters had me believe.) but I am not an unhygienic person. Quite the opposite.
After posting that, I started to develop dry patches behind one of my ears, and around my eyebrows. No amount of washing, or lotion, makes them go away. So yeah. Turns out I wasn’t washing myself incorrectly. I just have psoriasis… I guess even this update is basically another “TIFU” by thinking I was not washing myself correctly; when I just had a skin condition.
Thanks to everyone who gave tips for dealing with psoriasis! And I’m glad my post called light to an issue that is more common than people think!
TL;DR: My real fuck up was not that I was washing myself incorrectly. I have psoriasis.
Relevant Comments
raulmonkey
Long time psoriasis sufferer can give you some advice. First this: if anyone does not like the look of your patches they can look at the mountains or gardens or whatever they do like it's their choice. Do not stress about it.
2nd try to get plenty of sun 3rd sea water or salt water will clear the excess skin but will not get rid of the redness. 4th stress is definately a factor. 5th sometimes small patches go away if you ignore them. 6h special hair shampoo work for short periods of time so alternate between a few products. And keep well away from some anti dandruff shampoos (old head and shoulders from the 80s and 90s made mine worse don't know about now though). And lastly my psoriasis formed mostly on scar tissue (elbows knees and cuts) so watch out.
DarthZartanyus
The points about sunlight and stress here are super important and not talked about enough. I have pretty bad plaque psoriasis all over my body. Huge patches of flaky, gross skin on my face, elbows, and knees. The more time I spend outside in the summer, the better it gets. I was able to spend a month at the lakes last summer and it basically went away. Came back during the winter with a vengeance though so I'm hoping I can get back out there again this summer.
I have an Uncle who gets it pretty bad too and he says Skyrizi has worked great for him. I haven't been able to get a prescription myself yet but it's probably worth asking your dermatologist about it if that's an option for you.
That’s super interesting/informative to hear! Thank you for sharing. Before psoriasis, I have had another skin condition; Keratosis Pilaris (aka chicken skin), and it has always been bettealmost gone with warm weather and the summer months. I wondehope that my psoriasis will be the same.
Marked concludedish?
No brigading, no harassment.

Me: 41/F. I've been going to the gym 3-4 days a week for about 6 weeks, so I'm definitely in the habit which is great. It's a small apartment gym but we do have dumbbells and kettlebells. Here is my "normal" routine:
Warmup: 9 minutes treadmill (walk 1 minute, run 7 minutes, walk 1 minute) 10 squats with dumbbells 10 bent over rows each arm with dumbbells 5 pushups 10 lunges with dumbbells 10 chest press with dumbbells 30 mountain climbers Repeat the above list twice Cooldown: 13 minutes treadmill (walk 1 minute, run 11 minutes, walk 1 minute. I enjoy this part the most so I usually end up increasing the run to 13 or 14 minutes.)
If you could recommend ONE change to the above, what would you recommend? Could be adding something or swapping something out. I can't do pullups yet so none of those.
I can only change one thing at a time because I have knee issues - if I change 3 things, and my knee hurts the next day, I won't know what caused it. My goal is the long view: I would like to stay out of the nursing home when I'm 80. Not needing to get "ripped" or have washboard abs or anything.
Thanks for any advice for ONE thing to change!! I'll be back on here in another few weeks for another thing to change!

I've had a few different attempts through the years of trying to get onto kb programs (S&S, The Giant, Easy Muscle...) and I always seemed to ramp up too quickly, along with poor form that always led to low back pain and quitting the program.
My intent this go-round was to acknowledge how "detrained" I am (with inspiration from some of the discussion on this topic I've seen from Mark Wildman), and that I may need to focus on basic strengthening before diving into full blown high-rep ballistics programs. I'm a bigger guy but even when I weighed less, I've always been "skinny-fat" so I'm using lower weights than you would expect for a guy my size.
I'm enjoying the progression I'm seeing so far on my home-cooked workout. Posting here just to share, and see if anyone wanted to share their two cents as far as discussion/critiques/recommendations. I think the ultimate goal is to see where I wind up when the linear progression slows down, and then jumping into something like The Giant.
I'm basically doing 2 sets of each exercise, starting at 5 reps. Increasing a few reps each workout, then if I get to 10 reps both sets I jump up a weight (but maybe only for the first set, keeping the lower weight on the 2nd set just to keep the progression slow and steady). So my progression for each exercise is independent of the others (but may coincide)
I'm working on my jogging in parallel with this.. Feels like there is definitely mutual synergy between the two.
THE PROGRAM
Warmup: Prying Goblet Squats, Glute Bridges (1 set with needs squeezing together, 1 set with knees flared out as wide as possible), and halos. Currently using 20kg bell
Pushups: 2 sets. Most recent workout = 2 sets of 10
Single bell C+P (2 hands on bell for swing portion of movement): Intended to be my main hamstring/glute work. Using the 2 hands on the swing portion is mainly to keep from hurting my low back. Once I feel like I'm getting stronger and "ready" (along with extra focus on form), I will move to double bells. Most recent workout = 2x10L, 2x10R with 16kg
Gorilla Rows - Most recent workout = 2x10e/s with 20kg
Somersault Squat - Most recent workout = 2x10 with 32kg
Double kb OHP - Most recent workout = 1x10, 1x8 with 2x20kg
Loaded Carries, 2 bells - I walk the the block of my back alley, which is inclined, up and down and back up. 710 feet, which I break up in 2 stretches, and cover roughly half in racked carry and half in what I guess is "regular" farmers walk? Most recent workout = 2x20kg, 710 feet
Single Bell Curl From Bottom of Squat Position - Just added this as a finisher. Most recent workout = 1x8, 1x5+hold with 28kg bell
Having fun and happy with progress so far. If you've made it this far thanks for reading and appreciate any thoughts! Cheers

Race Information

• Name: Colfax Marathon
• Date: May 19, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Denver, CO
• Website: https://www.runcolfax.org/
• Gender, Age: M 33
• Time: 3:49.00

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	3:45	No
B	3:50	Yes
C	4:00	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	8:34
2	8:31
3	8:23
4	8:25
5	8:25
6	8:15
7	8:30
8	8:10
9	8:07
10	8:21
11	8:09
12	8:10
13	8:17
14	8:15
15	8:34
16	8:19
17	8:15
18	8:27
19	8:22
20	8:59
21	9:18
22	9:40
23	10:38
24	10:08
25	10:02
26	9:34
27	2:04

The Journey to Here

My journey as a runner is a pretty common one: I ran cross country in highschool, but never put a lot of effort in to learn what I was truly capable of. My times ranged from low 20 to mid 22 5ks, but for me it was mostly social. I knew little about running and my coach knew little more, so training was really just a daily 3-5 mile easy run. I was also running in basketball shoes, and used that same pair for all three of the seasons I participated in. I experienced a lot of injuries and never pushed myself very hard, but it left me with a lingering question of what could happen if I took it more seriously.
After highschool I dropped athletics entirely. I was studying animation in college, a notoriously demanding industry that demands blood if you want to succeed, so for the college years and my early career I was working 60-90 hours per week to make a name for myself. 12 years later and countless hours of computer sitting and my fitness was so abysmal that my lower back was in pain 24/7. I was weak, in pain, and tired of that status quo, but now in more senior positions in better companies I was finally working a more reasonable schedule, so it was time to turn things around. I joined a fitness club that had a mixed focus of strength and cardio and got to work.
Year 1: By the end of the first year of fitness I'd reached a much healthier, balanced level of fitness and was really starting to push myself in the treadmill segments. Slowly an idea crept into my head: I want to know what I can accomplish in running if I really put in the work. Weekly mileage for year 1: 15 miles per week. 5k time: 29 minutes.
Year 2: Year two was similar to the first: a balance of strength and cardio, but now with extra focus on running. I pushed hard every time I touched the treadmill, went easier on the weights, and started adding a run or two every weekend I could. I also got to know my new best friend, repetitive use injuries. Those 12 years of neglect had resulted in significant connective tissue degradation, so I was in a constant cycle of finding a new injury, adding targeted strength routines to get through it, getting back to running without pain, pushing myself to new PRs, then hitting another injury. Shin splints, runner's knee, and IT band syndrome were the big three. To end this year I set the goal of a half marathon, chose the Colfax half marathon, and came through just under my two hour goal. Weekly mileage for year 2: 25 miles per week. 5k time: 24 minutes.
Year 2.5: After finishing my half marathon I knew I'd be back for the Colfax full marathon the next year and made a plan: build mileage, build strength. I committed to a strength routine that included the targeted strengthening for every running injury I'd ever had and some that I expected to have in the future and worked on building my mileage higher than I'd ever done before. By six months I was alternating 30 and 40 mile weeks to see how my legs would respond and was feeling good! I finally felt ready to start a real marathon training plan. Weekly mileage for the half year: 25-40 miles per week. 5k time: 22:40

Training

I selected the Hanson Beginner plan. It (mostly) builds from 40 mpw, which I felt comfortable with, and I liked its preference to running more days per week, rather than stacking lots of miles on the weekend. I set 3:45 as my goal time, based on my 5k time, and felt great for the first 8 weeks of the 18 week plan. I felt like I was improving faster than the workouts were getting demanding, so I lowered my goal time and paces to 3:40.
I was pushing my connective tissue's limits again and had several injuries sitting just below the surface. Runner's knee and shin splints in particular always threatened to become a problem again, but the real problem was a newcomer: insertional achilles tendonitis. I started feeling it around ten weeks into the plan, but it became showstopper on my week 13 long run. I was feeling great, but anxious about my ability to hold my paces over a marathon distance, so I ran 12 of my 16 miles at marathon pace as a confidence booster. That pushed my achilles straight over the edge, and the resulting pain kept me from running for the next full week.
After religiously hitting every pace and mile in the plan for 13 weeks, I was now off track and the last 5 were all by feel. I still following the general layout of the plan, but lowered the paces and distances a bit to ensure that my achilles pain was decreasing week-over-week. I also subbed 1-2 days per week for cycling, to reduce impact. The downside of all of this was entering the race very uncertain of where my actual fitness was, but it was definitely the right choice.

Race

On race morning everything felt right: my achilles was mostly pain free, the legs were raring to go, and my nutrition and gear tests over the prior weeks had left me feeling confident. I wasn't sure what time to aim for, so I decided I'd pace for 3:45 and back off to 3:50, as a conservative approach. Of course, being conservative is easier in theory than when in motion.
I started in the same corral as the 3:40 pacer, but resolved to not let the temptation of staying with them influence my pace. I kept to that for the first couple miles, but running in plated shoes made the pace feel so easy compared to my training tempo paces in foam trainers, so I started pacing more to effort than to the number. My pace slowly crept up, especially through a 4ish mile section that is mostly single file where I didn't want to slow anyone down. After enough low 8 miles, I was surprised to have caught the 3:40 pacer and decided to stick with them, both as an aggressive goal and to stop my pace from creeping any higher.
I hit the half marathon marker in around 1:49, a six minute PR, and still felt amazing. This continued all the way through mile 20, which is where I realized I'd made a terrible mistake. I carried no water, instead choosing to depend on the aid stations, but I got greedy and tried to drink while running through them. I'm no good at that, though, and probably got less than half of each cup's worth of water and was gone before I could grab a second. Paired the hottest day of the year, I realized I was starting to show symptoms of dehydration. My quads started seizing pretty hard, and my right hamstring felt like it had a golf ball embedded inside, and I knew the last six miles were going to look nothing like the last twenty. The 3:40 pacer also realized he was behind and ran this mile in 7:45. Adios, friend. A generous soul was handing out water bottles at just the right time, so I grabbed one of those and drank the whole thing over the next two miles and drank two cups of water at each remaining aid station. By the last mile I was starting to feel ok again, but the damage was done: I'd left nine extra minutes in that last 10k.
It didn't help that the last 10k was mostly uphill and starting straight into the sun as the temperatures reached the mid 70s. Can we start this course on the opposite side of the loop next year?

Post-Race

They say recovering from your first marathon is worse than any other, and I really hope that's true. My quads and hamstrings are completely shot. Nonetheless, I'm really happy with how yesterday went: my fitness was higher than I expected, I learned a lot, and I managed to keep my achilles injury in check. I'm excited to work on recovering from these injuries completely before building back up again stronger. It's taken a lot to get this far, but it's exciting to see my body beginning to handle paces and distances that were unimaginable just a year or two ago.
Colfax is a relatively young marathon for such a big city, but it's organized extremely well and it's awesome seeing so much of Colorados's robust running community come together. I highly recommend it! Colfax doesn't have many posts dedicated to it here, which is part of why I wanted to write this. It features one of the biggest marathon relays in the country, which adds a fun bit of chaos for the marathoners - you're passing people all the time, from groups that sent faster runners first, and getting passed by those that took the opposite approach, and there were several times I found a group of people to run with and learned to recognize them before they abruptly disappeared. The course is varied and a lot of fun, though I did miss the zoo mile that the half marathon features.
I also wanted to show a little more realistic progression timeline for those of us that aren't prodigies and aren't coming from athletic backgrounds. It's taken three years to get my running fitness to where it is today, and it's still far from what many here would consider impressive. Consistent training and addressing injuries in PT-informed ways has yielded consistent progress, and I hope it will for years to come!
Made with a new race report generator created by herumph.

Hello, apologies in advance for this wall of text. I am here to get some feelings off my chest and process the emotions involved with having a dog that is dying. I would just like to hear folks' thoughts and opinions on how they've handled and dealt with the final days of their dogs' lives. I put a shorter, yet still long TLDR down there. I would appreciate your input and thoughts. I'm so sorry to all of you who have lost your pets and I'm hoping everyone is otherwise happy and healthy.
Indigo is my first dog. She is a 45 lb mixed breed (Australian cattle dog/staffie/chow) that I rescued from Tennessee and we have been inseparable since. I wanted a dog my whole life and so when I finally got my first full time job and had my own apartment, I adopted her when she was 11 months old. She just turned 9 in December. She had been really healthy for most of her life and we used to run 3-5 miles daily. She helped me lose 30 lbs and get into the best shape of my life one year. I traveled everywhere with her and took her backpacking and camping and canoeing and she made me fall in love with nature. She is everything I wanted in a dog. I taught her how to walk off leash in a busy city and everyone that met her loved her. She could chase a frisbee down the length of a football field and catch it out of mid air. She was smart, kind, athletic, caring, calming, generous, and just the best thing to ever happen to me. We had so many good times together and I just remember those as the best times of my life. I lived with her before my gf moved in with me. I worked hard and bought a house to give her a huge 1/2 acre backyard to play in. She was the flower girl at my wedding. She was amazing with babies and I always tell my wife we should have babies sooner because I want them to know Indigo. I cannot imagine my life without this dog and all of my hopes and dreams involve Indigo being there by my side.
As she got older, she started to slow down a little. At 7, her annual exam revealed arthritis in her front legs and the beginnings of hip dysplasia in one of her back legs. We transitioned away from high impact activities, tightened up her diet, and started giving her supplements for her joint health. She seemed to bounce back and we were able to do our daily walks and hikes and play sessions just fine. In the past two months I noticed her sometimes losing her balance or standing still but looking disoriented, with her head pulsing slowly (stroke?). I mentioned that to the vet and they said to let them know if it happens again but that it was probably nothing to worry about.
We had a beach weekend a few weeks ago and Indigo came back from it with an irritated eye. I had her checked at the vet and she was fine, told us it was probably some irritation. We got her senior bloodwork done during that appointment and I was told one of her liver enzyme ALP was elevated so they want us to come back in with her fasted to repeat the test. The repeat test showed the enzyme went up even more. The raised 3rd eyelid turned into a stuffy nose which got bad really fast, to the point where I was worried she wasn't getting enough oxygen. The intake nurse went over CPR codes and this was the first time I even considered that this may be the end for her. She strongly recommended with everything Indigo had going on, that they code her red for DNR but I couldn't handle that emotionally and asked her to be coded yellow.
I took her to the emergency, where they did a full workup and told me she has:

1. A leaky heart with low contractility, which means she may not be getting enough blood, potentially causing her to have strokes.
2. Multiple nodules on her spleen and liver that need to be biopsied with an invasive procedure to see if they are cancerous or not.
3. Sludge in her gallbladder that she will need to take meds for for the rest of her life.
4. A nodule on her adrenal gland on her kidney producing too much cortisol
5. Potentially something in her nose/face/brain area that is putting pressure and causing neurological symptoms.
6. Potentially a nasal / respiratory infection but they don't know what.

All the tests and having to be boarded for 2 days came to a total cost of around $5,000.
Their recommendation is:

1. Get an MRI at a local center to the tune of $4K-$5K for the MRI along with a $300 consult fee to confirm if there are any masses in her brain/face/nose area
2. Based on those findings, decide on whether or not she should be put under anesthesia to get the livespleen biopsies done
3. More blood work to test for thyroid issues because they forgot to do that one and "it could be another piece of the puzzle".

When I got her back she was stumbling, unable to walk straight, bumping into things, her third eyelid on the unaffected eye was raised very high and red. She refuses to eat or drink anything, I even tried tempting her with all her favorites and peanut butter and human food but no interest. I've been using a syringe to squirt water into her mouth so she will drink and most of the time she tries to cough it back but I've been able to get some water in her this way. The emergency vet gave us wet food to give her and I've had to kind of force it down. I feel so bad that she doesn't want to eat or drink anything. She's lost like 10 lbs and all I feel is skin and bones on her. Everything I read online when I try searching all these symptoms is that she's dying, her organs are shutting down, and she has no sensation of hunger or thirst. She looks so sad, will lay in the same spot for hours at a time. She sometimes raises her head and nuzzles me and my heart can't take her suffering anymore.
I spoke to the MRI place and they gathered some more info on Indigo and told me about the MRI procedure. I've had 4 myself, so I'm not worried about it but I'm wary of the practice. After confirming my appointment he told me about where to park while they work on their "state of the art facility that is being constructed and when finished will be a 18,000 sq ft facility with various specialties under one roof...". What I'm getting at is that it sounded very promotional and clearly they have the money to build a brand new building so it's not like the $5K cost for the MRI is going towards paying back the machine, which was my impression as to why MRIs are so expensive.
I'm not a veterinarian and I am not looking for medical advice here, but based on all the info I have in front of me, it seems like my dog has late stage metastatic cancer. Confirmed nodules in the liver and spleen and potentially more nodules in the nose/brain area...I can't think of anything else that could cause multiple organs to develop nodules within the course of a few weeks. The fact that all these symptoms came on so suddenly is so scary but I think it's pretty clear my dog is dying as much as I don't want to admit that.
I have been paying Healthy Paws for her insurance since I had her, $35/mo when we started and I now pay $122 /mo. We get 90% reimbursement after a $250 deductible. I got it because I didn't want to have to think about making hard decisions when it came to getting care for her but all in all, because she was pretty healthy, I didn't even end up using it until her hip displaysia symptoms that came up a few years ago and even then, we only broke even on the insurance that year. While researching today I came upon the term "stop-treatment point", which is "the dollar amount at which clients refuse treatment or choose to stop treatment for their pets". Apparently it was $1407 in 2009 and $1704 in 2012. I can not find any information about that figure in more recent years, but I can guarantee it has to be at least double that by now. https://www.dvm360.com/view/veterinary-practices-performing-more-euthanasias-despite-increase-stop-treatment-point#
TLDR; I have spent ~$5,000 for an emergency visit that gave no definitive answer on why my 9 year old 45 lb dog is being lethargic, refusing to eat or drink, loosing her coordination and the ability to walk or even stand up straight. They want me to spend $5,000 more for an MRI to get more information and possibly rule more things out. After the MRI there will probably be even more tests they want us to do. From the information they have found and given us so far, she has a weak heart that's not pumping well, multiple organs that have potentially malignant tumors (kidney, liver, spleen), and an unexplained nasal/respiratory illness. They don't want to do the biopsy because it's more invasive and would rather us do the MRI to rule things out before moving forward with the biopsy under anesthesia. To me that sounds like late stage metastatic cancer and the nasal thing is secondary maybe due to a weak immune system.
We thankfully have pet insurance (90% reimbursement, $250 ded). While the peace of mind from having pet insurance is making it easier to say yes to having endless diagnostics and treatments, I'm beginning to think that it is working against me now. As if running up the vet bill and getting paid will make me feel like I got my money's worth and that feeling is driving me to agree to all these invasive procedures. The cynical part of me thinks the vet practices see this as an opportunity to milk some money from the insurance company, all the while I am accepting of all this because of the perception that I am doing "everything I can to save my dog" but really I feel like I am just subjecting her to more suffering.
But here's the thing, Indigo hated being in the emergency for those two days. I don't want the last weeks of her life being spent being put under anesthesia and cut up and hair shaved just to be told we don't know, you need to pay $5K more for some testing and maybe we can rule out some other things. I love my dog and I don't want her to pass on. I am in denial because I've had 4 knee surgeries in the last 3 years and Indigo and I missed out on a lot of the trips we had planned because I was always recovering. I am writing this out so that my brain will start processing it ahead of time. I refuse to leave her side but I am scared to look at her sometimes because I feel like the next time I look, she won't be breathing. I have to force her to take food and water and she just lays in one spot. She can't move about without bumping into things or collapsing every other step. I haven't seen her smile in a week. She sleeps very peacefully though, and I have caught her running in her dreams and that makes me feel a little better.
If it is time for me to end her suffering, why won't they just tell me that? Am I being too cynical? How did things go when your beloved pets were passing away? How does euthanasia work? How did your vet handle things? Thanks in advance for your kindness and empathy. What do you do with your dead dog's body?