I’m gonna lay out the whole context here, and it’s 2 years long so bear with me. A TL;DR isn’t really possible as there’s so much important context to whether or not IATA.
We’ve been married almost 10 years and she’s from overseas. She came here through our marriage. We were happy and doing extremely well for ourselves.
The problem started to 2 years ago. My friends wedding. Afterward we went out and then went to another friends house to continue partying. At the party one of the wedding guests started having a pity party about how he’s depressed because all these happy couples are around and he’s single.
For context. This guy is weird. He’s disrespectful to women, capitalizes on captive audiences (waitresses most often), and is overall a loser. He’s got a good job but that’s about it.
My wife, listens to his sob story and says “I have a sister!” and immediately starts FaceTiming her sister. This is something I’ve said isn’t okay. We’re not tinder, and we’re not matchmakers.
Beyond that her sister has a history of treating her poorly. She constantly told my wife she’s stupid growing up, well into adulthood. She blocked my wife for a whole year because my wife called her and told her not to go on boats with men she doesn’t know. Told my wife to live like she doesn’t have a sister. For a whole year I consoled my wife a couple times a week.
Anyways we were both drunk and with people so I’m not gonna start a fight right there. I figure I’ll talk to her about it maturely later. So I do. In the meantime, I switch to speaking Arabic with her sister and tell her this isn’t okay and isn’t what she wants.
Her and my wife to this day claim I was happy and supportive. They claim I was too drunk to remember. But there’s a few things wrong with this. I drove home, I take drinking and driving VERY seriously and would never, ever do it. In fact, if I know I’ve drank too much, I’ll hand my keys to a friend before the liquor starts hitting, just to avoid any possibility of making that bad decision.
Secondly, I switched to Arabic. I’m white. Arabic is a language I learned. When I speak it, I speak it very, very deliberately and remember the conversations perfectly. I know exactly what I said.
Anyways, when I talk to my wife later, I’m told how it’s wrong to prevent her from helping her sister and how her sister really likes this guy. A guy she talked to for 5 minutes. I told her it’s wrong to think of it as “helping” her sister in the first place and that her sister is a grown woman who can find her own partner.
So my wife says “okay I’ll tell my sister to stop talking to him”. That was the end of it. Or so I thought.
A few weeks later I’m at a different event and this guy let it slip they’re still talking. Immediately I’m upset and text my wife about how she lied to me.
She said her sister was really falling in love with this guy and separating them would be wrong. She said she did tell her sis to block him but when her sis went into a depression she told her she can unblock him and talk to him, behind my back.
Upset I told her we need to talk about going behind my back and how disrespectful of my boundaries this whole ordeal was. She said “it’s okay I’ll tell her to block him again”.
Over. Or so I thought for the next few months. A few months later I again am at an event with this guy and this time he’s smart enough to lie about them talking. But I’m a salesman and a bullshitter. You can’t bullshit me unless I trust you. I knew immediately he was lying but I let it go. I did ask my wife and she said no they’re not talking. So I believed her.
Well, a year and a half goes by. In that time her sister and her fought about how her sister could come to the US. We said we’d help her but it’s a lengthy process. At the time I had little animosity toward her sister and would’ve loved to see her come here and be near my wife again. She wasn’t happy with that and said it takes too long. This is her sister’s mindset.
Anyway. Her sister gets a B1 visa in the meantime, temporary business visitor and wants to come visit my wife. Lies through her teeth about her intentions to the immigration officer, telling them she wants to stay 90 days. They approve her for 60.
So we file for an extension ASAP so she can visit for 3 months. Staying with us the whole time. I wanted her to have fun on her visit so I arrange for my friends and I to go out. This guy shows up. She talked to him and told him our plans.
Immediately they disappear into the casino and come back holding hands and all kinds of PDA. I’m fuming because I know she’s a conniving word I won’t say here. I don’t say anything though and we go through the night and I let it go so I can have fun.
The next day he’s picking her up from my house and they’re out for the whole day. The next time my wife is off work, same story. Well, I thought you were here to visit her? And that’s where I put my foot down.
I got told it was wrong to try and control her, wrong to try and separate them, etc. etc. etc. Finally she blocks his number and he calls from a separate number. I turn off her SIM card because I’m not gonna support her going behind my back in my own home. He calls me and tells me he really loves her and just wishes I’d accept it.
I tell him very plainly I will never, ever accept it because it all stemmed from him, her, and my wife going behind my back. Primarily my wife, as she’s the only one of the three I should be able to trust is telling me the truth.
At this point, I feel as if my wife had an emotional affair, although it’s with her own family. She repeatedly chose to go behind my back, against a boundary I had told her repeatedly before this situation at my friend’s wedding after party ever transpired. If that’s not an emotional affair, I don’t know what is.
So I tell him bluntly to not call me anymore and I’m not going to change my stance, and his feelings don’t mean shit to me. He started to give me a sob story about how we’re friends and he I should be happy for him and I cut him off and told him to save his breath.
My wife is upset at me for how I talked to him. Another emotional affair. Trying to protect the feelings of this dude.
The next day, while my wife is at work I’m eating lunch at our dinner table and studying schoolwork her sister comes to the table and starts talking to me about this guy asking if I talked to him and I tell her plainly I did and what I told him.
She goes into a story about how she really loves him, she’s an adult woman and I shouldn’t be intervening etc. I told her I agree I shouldn’t ever have been involved and neither should my wife. I told her to save her breath with any talk of her feelings because I don’t care. She started crying telling me I’m cruel etc.
I told her at this point I’m done being nice. I’ve been lied to for 2 years and it’s over. I’m done being my laid back self and I’ve been pushed repeatedly and I’m standing up for my marriage and my boundaries.
I did turn her SIM card back on so she could call my wife and I, her hosts.
The next morning I wake up to my wife in tears calling me to her sisters room. Her sister is bawling her eyes out and packing her bags to go home. I talk her sister into coming for a car ride with my wife and I to talk things out.
Immediately in the car my wife starts berating her sister about how she’s selling her for a man and a whole host of other things. I calm my wife down and tell her that’s not okay to say to her sister. Because against what they thought I don’t want and would’ve never wanted this to cause a separation between them. I know how much my wife values family.
In the car her sister tells me she really loves this guy and that she can see them being a family one day etc. etc. etc. I tell her plainly don’t ever bring him around my house, if they do marry and have kids, don’t ever bring them around my house, and don’t consider me her brother in law because I will never do anything for her again after she goes home.
My wife is shocked, she’s shocked and they both wonder how I could be so cruel. I said I’m over it. I’m over hearing about this guy, I’m over being used, and I will never again trust her. She said she understands and resumes talking to this guy.
A few days later we’re in the car going to a family event with my family and I get asked if he can come. I said no, very politely. I said no, he’s not part of my family. I was told how terrible I am, and my wife and her sister both jump out of my car in a bad part of Chicago, an area neither of them know.
My wife calls my family and tells them I kicked them out of the car. So my family starts blowing up my phone screaming at me. Once I explained the situation my family said they’ll come pick them up but I hung around and kept driving by to make sure they were okay. Eventually my wife calls me and says they’ll get in.
So I pull over and they open the doors and my wife goes “I’m scared I don’t feel comfortable getting in the car with you”. So I drive away pissed off. This is a 85,000 car in a bad part of the city where carjackings happen every other day.
I go park somewhere but keep an eye on them to make sure they stay safe. A homeless guy passed them and my wife calls me to come get her. So I do and we go home.
Again her sister packs her shit and cries that she’s going home. I tell her to relax, sleep on it and we’ll talk in the morning. She does eventually and in the morning she decides she’ll stay.
A week goes by and I hear nothing about this guy from her. My friends and I all joked about him and made light fun of him. He caught wind of it and cried to my wife’s sister who told my wife, who came to me and aggressively told me to stop and leave them both alone. I got pissed off because this was a private convo between me and my friends and if he heard it and got his feelings hurt it’s on him.
This spiraled into a huge argument with me, my wife, and her sister. In the argument I asked her sister plainly if she planned to leave at the 90 day mark. She said no.
So I kicked her out of our house. Her and my wife went for a walk and I yelled out the front door to get her shit to the curb before the walk before I do, because if she doesn’t do it herself it’ll be thrown on the wet ground. They both thought I was joking before then I assume. Her sister comes in and packs her stuff and gets out. I said if you plan on staying here illegally it won’t be in my house. If the choose is between here or the streets, it’ll be the streets.
She went to stay with the boyfriend and his parents. His parents must not have liked her too much because within a couple weeks they made them both move out.
This was in January of this year.
Since then, I’ve been repeatedly goaded into accepting this. My wife has tried to get me to visit her sister, etc.
It came to a head recently at a wedding we went to for another friend. Her sister and this guy were there. I didn’t say a word to either one the entire night and all was fine.
Except my wife spent the whole night at their table because he wouldn’t dance or do anything to have fun. She can’t handle the idea that her sister might find something she doesn’t like about this guy. She has to be there just in case the relationship goes on life support.
This pisses me off, obviously. She’s more invested in their relationship than she’s been in ours for the past 2 years. Grown adults.
Well, today she was going to her sisters house. She had 2 bags. An ulta bag and a discovery bag. I asked what that is, and she said it’s for her sister. She pulled out taco shells and said it’s just small stuff she wants her to try. But I could see through the bag and saw beauty products. I’m not an idiot.
I looked in when she went to the bathroom and saw a fucking armoire full of shit. I looked at the receipt. $300. I was fucking livid.
I continued getting ready for work and said “her husband can’t buy her that?”. It’s confrontational, yes. But I said it politely, and was open to talking about it.
I get met with immediately hostility. I never raised my voice but I made it very clear I wasn’t being nice about this or anything anymore.
I told her “maybe she could pay you back and find you a new husband”. I’m going to give her a choice. Me or her sister now. Because this has gotten fucking ridiculous.
We pay for her to come here. She hired an immigration lawyer apparently, but doesn’t have money to pay me back for the flight or even pay for the Ubers they take or anything. My wife is trying to make up for this losers shortcomings. He’s too much of an idiot to see that her sister is using him.
By the way, this isn’t her first fiance. It’s not even her first western fiance. She’s been engaged to at least 3 different guys. One from France, another from Belgium, and a third from Canada before this guy. She was looking to immigrate. He’s a fucking idiot though so, oh well.
My wife’s sister is very materialistic. My wife is fortunately down to earth but is so far up her sisters ass because she thinks if she doesn’t do everything her sister wants that her sister will cut her from her life again. Which is exactly what would happen.
I told her that’s on her sister. I’m not asking her to never talk to her sister. I’m asking her to stop treating her sister like she’s a child and putting their relationship before ours. Stop bending over backwards for a grown woman who will throw you away the moment you’re inconvenient.
But it’ll never happen it seems and it’s the reason I’m strongly considering divorcing her. I’m over this fucking shit. Oh, and by the way, my wife claims that she’s scared of me etc. now when she tells the story to other people.
I have never and would never hit my wife. I’ve never given her any reason to be afraid of me. So to put that out there on me is absolutely fucking bullshit and I’ve lost all trust in her.
AITAH?

Hey and hi! I previously posted these Character Chats in order to fill the void when the comic was on involuntary hiatus, and I'm pleased to hear that it was received positively and people were asking for more. I couldn't really commit to it once the hiatus was over, since I've got a job and all. But good news, my whole team got laid off! I've got a lot more time on my hands now, so I think I'll keep this series going for a few weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays or so. If anyone complains about me surfing reddit at work during my notice period... well, what are they gonna do, fire me?
Today my giant novely ouija board has selected Prince Aaronev Tarvek Sturmvoraus. Our first Spark, and first main character, but somehow our third Valois out of five picks.
Tarvek is a member of the large and complicated Valois family tree, descended from our pal Andronicus Valois, the Storm King. He is the son of Prince Aaronev Sturmvoraus VI of Sturmhalten and an unknown mother, and the older brother of Anevka Sturmvoraus. He and Anevka share the same grandmother with the von Bliztengaard siblings and Violetta, making them all cousins. The Selnikovs may also be close family members, as their main residence is in Sturmhalten. Tarvek also calls Zulenna a cousin at one point.
The Storm King conspiracy among the Fifty Families was said to be fizzling out in the time before the comic, but the Mongfish family (i.e. Lucrezia) got involved and whipped them all into shape. Besides making most of the Knights of Jove Lucrezia loyalists, part of this involvment was ensuring there was a suitable male heir to the Storm King using Spark sceince, which ended up producing, at minimum, Tarvek and Martellus von Blitzengaard. The degree to which Tarvek's mother was involved and consenting is unknown. While we don't know how much was done, Tarvek is a powerful Spark, physically fit, and quite intelligent, so mission accomplished I suppose (though Tarvek does wear these tiny pince-nez around, so he may have poor vision - nice going, Lucrezia).
We don't have a family tree or anything, so we need to take the story's word that Tarvek's claim for being a direct heir of Andronicus is one of the most direct, if not the strongest overall. Two of the strongest claimants, Tarvek and Martellus, share a grandmother, so presumably their legitimacy is either through her or her late husband. Grandmama is once referred to with the title "Dowager Princess of Sturmhalten", it's possible Aaronev inherited his title as Prince of Sturmhalten by being her son. On the other hand, Tarvek also says that his descent comes down through his mother, so maybe she's Grandmama's child instead? Or it's wrong to trace back things to this set of grandparents after all? The family tree is thrown for another loop when Orotine declares Martellus a third-place heir rather than the commonly assumed second-place, so now who's in second place and how's that guy related to Tarvek's family tree, and... it's at this point I throw up my hands in exasperation.
Tarvek spent some of his early childhood as a political hostage on Castle Wulfenbach, being raised with other hostages by von Pinn. Tarvek recalls this time fondly, and in particular became good friends with Gil, whose identity was still hidden. When the two of them were hunting for secrets, hoping to discover Gil's lineage, they discover a red-herring left by the Baron. While Tarvek didn't buy it and tried to dig further, he got caught. Along with some snitching from Gil, this got him expelled from the Castle. Of course, everyone was spying abord the Castle, and Tarvek was just the only one kicked out. My assumption is that the Baron wasn't worried about Gil's identity being exposed, but didn't approve of Gil getting close with Tarvek for one reason or another and arranged to destroy the friendship.
He spent his remaining childhood in Sturmhalten, where he was wrapped up in family scheming, including Aaronev's schemes with the Other. Besides Aaronev, he also spent time with Anevka and Violetta during this period, and received some Smoke Knight training. He later goes to Paris for his higher education, where he was a good student and made friendships with influential young people like Colette and Neena. He was also involuntarily dragged into Gil's college adventures, where he became, uh, "acquainted" with disreputable characters like Bangladesh Dupree and Zola. He's called back to Sturmhalten after completing his education.
As a young adult, Tarvek's goals are initially to learn all he can from the Other conspiracy in Sturmhalten, destroy them afterwards, use this knowledge to overthrow the Baron, become Storm King, get the Fifty Families under control, and bring peace and prosperity to his new empire. However, Aaronev is in charge in Sturmhalten, and has different ideas. Tarvek detests his father and the Other conspiracy he's involved with, but cooperates with them to stay in their good graces and learn all he can. Tarvek attempts to act as a moderating influence on Aaronev, but Aaronev is too far gone to pull back. Aaronev ends up capturing nearly all the young female Sparks in Europa beneath the Baron's nose, and destroys them utterly trying to implant copies of Lucrezia into their minds, while Tarvek doesn't do much more than watch.
Aaronev eventually subjects his daughter Anevka to the treatment, nearly killing her. The Circus of Adventure happens to be in town, and as an expert on the Muses, Tarvek recognizes Tinka as a van Rijn original when she performs. Tarvek has his men abduct Tinka, and uses her as the basis for building a masterpiece clank which would connect to Anevka's mind and allow her to move and speak while her body was comatose. For what it's worth, he does try to pay the Circus after the fact, but they naturally ran like hell out of town. Tinka is eventually damaged beyond his ability to repair by Aaronev.
After this, he also conspires (or pretends to conspire) with Anevka to use her clank body's voice box to imitate Lucrezia's ability to command revenants, and use that ability to overthrow Aaronev and the Baron. When the Circus comes back to town with Agatha in tow, she's found out as Lucrezia's daughter at a show, with more beans being spilled later when Agatha's drugged with a truth serum. Aaronev tries to throw her in the Lucrezia-machine, but Anevka launches her coup right then, and finalizes her voice box by studying Agatha's own voice. Tarvek, having fallen for Agatha basically immediately, attempts to smuggle Agatha out of town under Anevka's nose, but the Geisters eventually get Lucrezia in her head anyway.
Tarvek, at this point, wants to integrate Agatha into his plan to use Other technology to usurp the Baron, which means keeping her safely at his side. This means both cooperating with Lucrezia to learn from her to begin with and protect Agatha's body, and also sabotaging Agatha's efforts at surrendering herself to the Baron for the greater good. One his deals with Lucrezia is making a clank head imprinted with a Lucrezia copy, designed to fit onto Avenka's clank body. Tarvek lures in Anevka for Lucrezia, and after some back-and-forth betrayals, eventually deactivates Anevka's head and puts her in storage, essentially killing her for the time being. Juggling Agatha, Lucrezia, and now a second Lucrezia proves too much for Tarvek once the Baron's troops arrive in Sturmhalten, and he ends up slashed in the gut, shot, and abandoned in the ensuing chaos.
Tarvek ends up in the Great Hospital in Mechanicsburg, as one of many of the injured from Sturmhalten. Violetta, who had been assigned to Mechanicsburg by Tarvek to keep her out of the proverbial firing line, manages to get him out of custody in the hospital... but inside of Castle Heterodyne instead, which is something of a lateral move. After connecting up with Agatha, Taevek comes down with Hogfarb's Respelendent Immolation, either due to traipsing about Castle Heterodyne of all places while wounded, or, Tarvek speculates, as a poisoning attempt from his own extended family. Gil is recruited to help with curing him, and after extensive bickering, infections, distractions, complications, and one apotheosis, he's back in good health. Tarvek attempts to help fix the Castle, and aid Agatha however he can, including fighting with Lucrezia and Vole, and attempting to strangle Zola. His bickering with Gil during this time mostly puts him on the defensive and has Tarvek trying to justify his actions, but he eventually does has a quiet epiphany.
He eventually gets grabbed by Other in a case of mistaken identity, and his quick analytical skills wind up placing him in charge of the Wulfenbach fleet's grand strategy temporarily - it's at gunpoint, but Boris assesses that he's really doing what's in the best interest of the Empire. He has to scurry off when Klaus comes onto the scene, placing him in a perfect position to recruit the Empire's Vespiary Squad and their weasels when Klaus turns on them. Notably, he risks life and limb rescuing a squad member, who he needs of course, but also Jorgi, who mostly annoys him. He sends the Vespiary Squad to hiding places abroad. As the battle for Mechanicsburg wraps up, Tarvek ends up stabbed with a poisoned dagger by Martellus just before the time-stop.
Post time-skip, Gil dedicates extensive resources towards getting Tarvek out of the time stop. Tarvek isn't able to do much before being kidnapped by the Immortal Library, and then kidnapped by Mister Obsidian on behalf of Grandmama. He does manage to breathe a bit in Paris, before being kidnapped by Mister Obsidian again on behalf of Seffie, to be sent to England. But en route aboard a pirate vessel, he's (shockingly) interrupted by a kidnapping attempt, this time for Grandmama again. Martellus sent assassins after Tarvek to interrupt the interruption, leading to bloody battle between Seffie's pirates, Grandmama's Smoke Knights, Martellus' Knights of the Hunt, and poor Tarvek. After being rescued by Gil, Tarvek flips the script, and he and Bang kidnap Gil instead, changing course to England.
In England, he can finally, you know, not get kidnapped for a bit. He decides to join Agatha in the Royal Society, and despite nearly getting strangled by Higgs, manages to reach Agatha and help work on curing her of Lucrezia, and curing Gil of Klaus. After interminable delays like a undersea cult, briefly seeing beyond time, punching Tweedle, and a revenant attack, they eventually pull it all off.
Later, in the war against the Polar Lords, Tarvek is essentially given the role of Gil's official treacherous vizier. On paper, helping the Empire helps keep him safe to further his own ambitions, but in practice, Tarvek seems more focused on doing good by his friends than anything to do with becoming Storm King.
Whew! And that's the short synopsis!
As a Spark, Tarvek's specialty is masterwork clanks in the van Rijn mold. His Anevka clank maintains full sentience even after any organic parts it was attached to died off, and continues to be used by Lucrezia to devastating effect. He also has a knack for rapid analysis, such as being able to understand the Wulfenbach fleet's strategy with just a glance. It's possible his political aptitude, scheming skills and ability to anticipate people's actions are a byproduct of his spark, but it may also just be the natural result of his upbringing. He is unusually composed for a Spark, and is very rarely seen in the Madness Place, and never for very long.
Beyond the Spark and his cunning, Tarvek also received some Smoke Knight training, making him skilled in martial arts and sleight of hand. That said, he'd prefer not to get in fights, and his first resort use his Spark or guile to get out safely (his second resort is just shooting them, with a gun). He also has a passion for fashion design, particularly lady's fashion.
Besides his conquer-Europa ambitions, Tarvek seems primarily driven to help and protect the people he loves, but his preferred tactics for doing so are often underhanded, or screw over people that he doesn't particularly love. Tarvek is the kind of guy who has to come to the conclusion that mind-control slavery is bad in general, rather than bad for people I know. He does come to that conclusion on his own, so kudos for that, but for a lot of people it's not even something you have to think about. Tarvek is also quick to use "they'd kill me if I tried, I had no choice" as a defense, but never quite understands that there was always a choice available he didn't consider - die trying. That all said, Tarvek is in generally improving his character over time, and wants to do the right thing, both in the "greater good" sense and doing right by other people individually, and finds himself frustrated at himself that he's often failed. I don't want to discuss Tarvek's ethics too much further here, since there's a great deal to talk about and this is supposed to be a discussion thread! Why do I have to do all the work?
Major Relationships:

• Agatha: Tarvek fell for Agatha pretty damn hard, internally logging her as "future bride", and even at his scummiest times in Sturmhalten was trying to act in her best interest, and just ignoring what she actually wanted and also fucking it up anyway. By the time of the Castle arc, Tarvek has mostly thrown away all of his own ambitions in favor of working for Agatha's, even in moments when he feels pretty hopeless about his actual prospects as a suitor. One major advantage in his court is that he's able to actually articulate his feelings like an adult.
  
• Gil: It's been a true roller coaster for these two, from friends to enemies to rivals to allies to secret lovers. It takes a great deal of bonding for their distrust of one another to fall away, and after the time skip Tarvek lists Agatha and Gil (and, by implication, Violetta) as the only people left he really cares about, and the two of them spend a lot more time hugging than you would have expected.
  
• Violetta: Tarvek spent a good deal of his childhood with Violetta, and earnestly tried to protect her. In natural early-Tarvek style, it was by ignoring her wishes and leaving her in the dark, but points for trying. They have a bickering siblings type of relationship, and Violetta is fine trash talking him despite the power imbalance between them. Tarvek is pretty disappointed that he's rebuffed when trying to sincerely express that he's glad she's alive, since she expects childish taunts out of him.
  
• Aaronev: Tarvek really hates Aaronev for all the horrible things he's done, especially for putting Anevka through the machine, and spends about two seconds mourning after he's killed. Tarvek had been play-acting as a loyal son for years, and it's a bit tragic that Aaronev bought his act wholesale - what little interaction we see suggests that Aaronev, scumbag that he is, did really like Tarvek.
  
• Anevka: Tarvek did not take it well when it seemed Anevka was going to die, and went to extreme measures to save her. But Tarvek doesn't assign the same level of personhood to the Anevka clank after the original Anevka dies (he's generally not the best at the whole "clanks are people too" concept), and eventually "kills" her by turning her off and throwing her head in a box, where she probably still remains if Sturmhalten hasn't been razed to the ground.
  
• Lucrezia: While most people hate the Other on a conceptual level, Tarvek has spent enough time with her to really begin to hate her on a personal level. He's aware of her foibles, such as her susceptibility to flattery, and tries to take advantage when he can. His more personal knowledge also makes him better able to detect when Lucrezia is taking over for Agatha than most.
  
• Higgs: Like many, Tarvek cottons on that Higgs has a secret in Castle Heterodyne. Tarvek does try to keep it under his hat and make excuses on his behalf, but can't resist teasing Higgs despite him being incredibly dangerous. Tarvek openly confronting Higgs about his identity later on nearly gets him strangled to death. Despite that, Tarvek and Higgs have formed a good rapport, and have solid mutual respect. He's even one of the people Tarvek pours his heart out to when he thinks Violetta is dead.
  
• Neena: Neena has a bit of a crush on Tarvek, and Tarvek for his part does some light flirting at the ball but otherwise doesn't think about her much at this point. It's an odd match for someone like Tarvek, since Neena is earnest, enthusiastic, and completely lacking in guile. Maybe that's exactly what someone like him needs - stranger things have happened!
  
• Martellus: As two men aiming for the same throne, Martellus and Tarvek are natural enemies. Tarvek obviously dislikes Martellus - and even gets a good punch in - but doesn't take any moves to stop Martellus' forward momentum, and makes no moves towards legitimizing his claim as Storm King beyond not being dead. His strategy may be to just give Martellus enough rope to hang himself with, but it may also show genuine disinterest in this whole Storm King business.
  

One thing that stands out to me is that the advice for getting laid while you are either cohabing and/or are going through a divorce is abstinence. It's good advice, to be sure, but in reality works about as well as teaching only abstinence in school - leaves you without the knowledge you need to succeed!
Basically, the steps below are designed to destroy her map of you. She knows what you do, she knows your routine, and women are pretty good at knowing the importance of suddenly different things. You will have to destroy her ability to know what to expect and normalize unpredictability.

1. Set a pin for your phone!

1A. Start by imagining you have something to hide on your phone. Put it on vibrate, keep it on your person at all times around her, if you set it down, set it down facedown. Don't answer a single text message in front of her, but you can and should use it to check the weather or emails, or surf the web. She probably won't say a single thing, but she is GOING to notice this change and now she's suspicious. Silence her messages - she's used to you responding quickly and she WILL find reasons to contact you just to see if you respond quickly. You will need to slow down communication with her - normalize your replies taking a long time. If she calls don't always pick up. Let it go to VM, or text her that you are busy, or will call back, or whatever. The goal of 1A is to break her expectation of you replying quickly so that it doesn't really stand out when you go on dates later.
1B. Pick a few days each and every week to be out of the house. Don't share what you are doing immediately, make her work for it. She may or may not ask for a while, but she's paying attention. What should you do? Well, I suggest buying some new clothes, try out a few gyms, go for a hike, try out new places to eat by yourself, check out bars and find a few cool ones at different parts of the area you are in, try out a musical instrument lesson, go to car meets, go to biker meets (Harley dealerships have huge bike meets and they cook), play poker, go fishing.... It doesn't matter WHAT you do specifically, just that you ARE actually doing things, and you SHOULD be doing things you would never normally do. Take pictures. You should do this for a minimum of 1 month.
***Why? Well, you don't really know who you are as a single man, and this step is partly to help you figure that out, while shattering her map of 'what you do.' At the same time, you are learning to be less dependent on her for emotional support, simply by slowing down communication with her and creating that distance.

1. This step depends on her, not you. She is going to question you about all these new things and probably outright accuse you of having another girl. Tell her you don't have one (don't get defensive), and if you can show a picture of what you were doing that triggered her accusations, then do it. Tell her you are doing new things because you are a single man again, and you need to discover who you are without her now. Tell her you have no interest in another relationship - that you have decided to work on yourself and focus on being happy. All of those things are true, and you should save the bulk of what you'll say for when she confronts you. The goal here is to get her to accept the IDEA you might actually be working on yourself and shutting her out - she's not going to buy it, but this casts doubt in her mind you found another woman, and that's good enough to continue to step 3.
   
2. CHANGE YOUR PHONES PIN CODE! She probably has it by now. We are about to actually have something to hide.
   
3. Sign up for whatever online dating apps, but you need to turn OFF banner alerts! This should be obvious, but don't bring her back to your house, no matter how sure you are your STBXW isn't going to be home or show up. Condoms... this will get you caught. Either buy and dispose of the whole pack (never bring them home) or find a really good spot to hide them in your car that she'll never find.
   
4. Great, now you found some girl and she's making you happy, right? Getting laid, she probably makes you feel like a Million $s. Good. You'll want to see her constantly because you just realized how terrible you have actually been treated, don't. Your STBXW will say some hurtful and mean things and you'll want to drop that you are and have been banging someone else... don't. If your STBXW feels like she's getting more suspicious end things with 'new girl,' let the situation cool and find a new, new girl... or don't, and continue to work on yourself.
   

Why go through all of this? Because even if you stop at step 3 you've helped yourself! Interestingly, like many can attest to, the moment you find another woman she'll be interested in you again. The mere idea that you could do new things and be happy without her will bring her right back - like the happiness sucking harpie she is.
Lastly, I want to say one more time, that I think NOT sleeping around until after your divorce has been signed by a judge is by far the smarter thing to do. What I am describing here is essentially OPSEC for having an affair, but this level of effort is required because while she may be able to get laid without consequence, the system is not 'for you' and she will make sure you get every inch of the justice d*ck without any lube if she finds out you are plowing the younger, hotter, fun version of her.

My wife, Mia, and I were driving cross-country. It was our first attempt at the “Great American Roadtrip.”
Mia and I rented a small RV; more of a camper than a full blown RV. We packed up a couple suitcases with plenty of room for any souvenirs and we hit the dusty trail.
We started our journey on the “Mother Road”-- Route 66-- driving south from Chicago until we connected to i-70 and shot straight west through Missouri.
The goal was to see those parts of the country we had never seen before, stopping anywhere that seemed interesting. From the plains of Kansas up through the badlands of Wyoming and South Dakota.
In Missouri we saw the world’s largest cap gun. In Kansas we visited the Evel Knievel Museum and the World’s Largest Belt Buckle.
We love all those kitschy, tourist trap places.
Eventually, we made it to Colorado and after a few hours more of driving through amber waves of grain, we saw them... the Rocky Mountains.
We made an exit and headed north through the winding mountain highways.
The Rockies were gorgeous. Snow capped in the middle of summer, some of the peaks pierced through the white fluffy clouds.
We saw a sign that read “Traffic Tunnel - 3 Miles.”
A little further and sure enough, there it was, a large tunnel bored directly through the mountain in front of us.
A large sign read, “Pike Tunnel - Longest Traffic Tunnel in the Nation! - Please turn your headlights on now.”
“How long is it?” asked Mia.
“That’s what she said,” I quipped.
But she was right, there was no information beyond the detail that this was the longest tunnel in the nation.
“Can’t be more than a mile or two,” I said as I watched the little white car ahead of us slip into the darkness. A moment later we joined it.
The tunnel was lit by fluorescents that gave everything a greenish yellow tinge. On the left hand side was a raised walkway behind a railing for maintenance access.
Initially I was struck by the incredible amount of work that went into the construction of this man- made marvel.
“We’re under a million tons of rocky mountain right now,” I said.
“How many years before this caves in?” Mia responded.
I shot her a look--
“Let’s save the cave-in talk until we’re out on the other side.”
“I’m just saying, nature will take this back eventually,” she continued.
I scanned the empty road ahead of us.
“Where did the other car go?” I asked.
We were now alone in the tunnel, no cars ahead of us nor behind us.
“Huh... they must have sped off ahead. Maybe they’re scared of a cave-in?”
My Spotify playlist had stopped playing. Mia looked at the phone.
“No cell service.”
She turned on the radio and spun the dial only to find static.
“You’re not going to be able to pick up a station in here,” I said.
She turned the volume down.
“Just wanted to check... If only we had some CDs. This tunnel really keeps going.”
“I would have thought we’d be through it by now,” I replied.
I looked at the RV’s odometer, 45,600 miles. I picked up speed. I wanted to try and catch up to the little white car.
Up until this point, the tunnel was a straight shot, but now the tunnel started to curve to the right. It may have been my imagination but it also felt as though we were descending…
Mia felt it too and she started to get antsy.
“Where did that other car go? How long is this tunnel?”
There was an urgency in her voice.
I was getting nervous, claustrophobia was not usually a problem for me but when I looked down at the odometer and I saw that it had gone up by 3 miles, my mind began to wander to unsettling places.
We were descending in altitude. I could feel it. I could see a slope in the lights on the ceiling and the railing of the maintenance walkway. I could feel a pressure in my head, and I was getting cold.
“Could you grab me a coke from the back, Mia?”
I couldn’t have Mia getting anxious, that would only start a chain reaction and make me freak out which would then make her freak out.
She unbuckled and ducked into the back of the RV to where we had a cooler stocked with drinks and food.
Just as she stepped into the back, I saw something.
There standing on the side of the road was a MAN wearing a reflective safety vest and a hard hat. He was WAVING to me as I passed him by.
Something about him looked... strange…
I watched him in the side-view mirror as we passed and he was still watching the RV, still waving at the back of our vehicle as he faded into the distance.
Mia reappeared from the back of the RV, Coke in hand. She popped it and handed it to me.
“You look worried.”
“I’m fine,” I smiled and took a sip of the Coke.
“Eric, slow down!”
I slammed on the breaks as I saw what made Mia scream. In the road in front of us was a roadblock.
Two reflective traffic sawhorses blocked both lanes of the tunnel. Beyond the roadblock, the lights of the tunnel were dark. There was nothing but a void of blackness.
Standing in front of the roadblock was another man wearing a reflective vest and a hard hat, only this time his hard hat had a light on top which obscured his face.
We came to a jolting stop.
I turned to Mia
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied. “It’s a cave-in isn’t it?”
“God, I hope not.”
I rolled down the window, leaned out and yelled to the man in the hard hat.
“Hey! What’s going on?!”
The man was about 5 yards away. He took two steps towards us and then raised a hand to his mouth and yelled.
“Just doing some maintenance!”
“How long is it going to take?!” I yelled back.
The man made a hand gesture as if he didn’t hear me.
“How long is it going to take?!” I called again.
He made the same gesture. I unbuckled my seat belt and grabbed the door release.
“What are you doing?” Mia asked.
“I gotta know what’s going on.”
“Eric, just stay here, it might not be safe.”
“I’ll be just a second,” I said.
I pushed the door open and stepped down from the RV.
“Stay in your vehicle!” the man yelled.
He took a couple steps towards me with his hand out telling me to stop.
“What’s the hold up?!” I shouted.
The man was a bit closer now but I still couldn’t see his face through the shining light on his helmet.
“Please stay in your vehicle!” he shouted.
There was something off about him.
Then I heard it–
“EEEAAAUUUUUUGHHHHHHHH!!!”
A scream, or something, rolled from deep in the tunnel. The worker turned and looked into the darkness. Then he ran past the barricades and soon all we could see of him was the light on his helmet.
The light disappeared a moment later.
“What the hell was that?! Is someone hurt?” Mia asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Should we do something?” Mia asked.
I just sat there and watched the pitch black tunnel in front of me. I had no idea what to tell her. I checked the sideview mirrors. There was still nobody behind us.
“Where are the other cars?” I asked.
“They must have gotten through before the roadblock... Or maybe they caused the roadblock?” Mia replied.
“I saw another worker a little ways back. We could try to go back and talk to him.”
“We’d be going straight into any oncoming cars.”
“There’s a maintenance walkway. We didn’t pass him that long ago. We can probably catch him on foot.”
“Maybe we should just wait for the guy to come back.”
She reached over and grabbed my arm. I squeezed her hand.
She was right.
I looked out at the tunnel ahead of us. I turned on the RV’s high beams but all I could see beyond the roadblock was more tunnel and more road.
I checked my phone. Unsurprisingly, there was no service still.
We waited, but the man never came back.
“It’s been twenty minutes,” Mia said, “How come there hasn’t been another car behind us?
I was having the same thought. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out. I looked back at the road behind us. It went back about 200 yards before curving out of sight.
There was no sign of that first worker I saw on the maintenance walk way. I looked at the roadblock ahead of us and clicked on the RV’s high beams. There was nothing beyond the roadblock but more tunnel. It didn’t look like it was under construction, just very dark.
“I think we should keep going,” I said.
“What about the roadblock?”
“We’ll move those sawhorses out of the way and just drive past,” I said as I opened my door.
Mia looked at me, then she cast her eyes to the dark tunnel ahead of us. I knew she was processing the same limited options that I was.
Driving backwards would be a huge risk in the instance of another car finally coming along.
Getting out and walking would take God knows how long, we could have driven 10 miles at this point.
Forward was our best option.
“Let’s do it,” Mia said.
We jumped out and quickly pulled the two sawhorses out of the right lane. I pulled the RV up past the barriers, then we jumped out again and put the sawhorses back where they were. We didn't need another car to come barreling through.
We were finally moving again, slowly. It was pitch black save for the high beams of the RV.
We crept forward at around 15 miles per hour. As the tunnel turned and twisted, my eyes started to play tricks on me. I kept seeing shapes at the furthest point of the tunnel.
I kept seeing something standing just at the end of the next bend but as we roll forward, there was nothing there.
“Where are the workers?” Mia asked.
“I don’t know.”
I was done rationalizing. This was all wrong. Traffic tunnels are never this long.
My mind started to wander to all the road trip urban legends I’d read about; The Killer in the Backseat, The Disappearing Gas Station, The Pale Man In The Corn Field.
Did we stumble into some strange outlier location? An in-between point on the endless roads that cross this country?
Then I saw it–
“Look! A person! Thank god!” Mia shouted.
As we rounded a curve in the tunnel, a group of maintenance workers entered our view.
The three of them stood on the left side of the road behind two more sawhorses topped with flashing lights.
Two of them faced towards us, the third was facing the other two.
The one with his back to us wore a light on his hard hat. Was this the same guy we saw earlier? How did he get this far away?
I approached slowly and rolled down the window.
“Hey! You left us waiting back there!” I yelled.
There was no response.
In fact, all three men were completely silent, and it was hard to tell in the flashing light of the sawhorses, but they looked to be standing COMPLETELY STILL.
“Hello?!” I yelled again.
I pushed open my door and stepped out onto the pavement.
“Eric wait--”
I held up a finger to Mia.
“Just a second.”
I slowly stepped towards the 3 men.
“Hello?”
No response… What the fuck?
The bright lights of the sawhorses obscured their faces.
I kept moving closer.
“Hey, what’s going on--”
Then I saw it.
Their faces... They were plastic.
In front of me stood three mannequins.
I backed away toward the RV, then I turned and walked hurriedly to the vehicle.
I was seriously freaked out but I didn’t want to alarm Mia. I climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.
“They’re mannequins.” I said.
“What?”
“They’re mannequins.”
”Why?... What?...”
“I don’t know…”
I looked back over at the three figures and my blood ran cold…
The Hard Hat Mannequin had somehow TURNED AROUND to face us. All three figures appeared to be watching us now.
Then we heard it--
A loud resonant banging on the side, and then the roof of the RV.
“What the hell was that?” Mia whispered.
We listened, holding our breath. Then--
A shuffling sound--
Something was moving ON or IN the RV.
“Stay here.” I said.
I got up.
“Eric, wait!”
I moved to the back of the RV.
It was dark. I went for a drawer in the kitchenette space and pulled out a flashlight.
I moved to the rear of the RV, the bedroom. My flashlight illuminated an empty room.
“Whoever is back here, I have a gun…”
A shitty bluff. But I didn’t see anything.
I shone the light out of the windows of each side of the RV. Nothing.
Then I heard it–
A shuffling sound, from right above me.
I looked up and screamed–
“Fuck!”
On the roof of the RV, staring through the skylight was a woman with vacuous black eyes and a dead smile.
Her stringy black hair dangled down towards me casting thing black shadows across her horrible pale face.
“Mia, drive! Fast!” I screamed.
Mia JUMPED over to the driver’s seat, shifted into gear and STOMPED on the gas. The RV was clunky but it could move when it needed to.
We lurched forward and I fell back.
I trained my flashlight up onto the skylight again and the woman was gone.
I scrambled to my feet and looked out of the side windows.
Did Mia shake her off? There was no sign of the woman. I moved to the passenger seat, breathing heavily and sweating.
“What happened?” She asked, keeping the RV at a steady 50 mph.
“There was a woman on the roof,” I said flatly.
I realize now that I was in a kind of shock.
“A woman?”
“Her eyes were black.”
Mia just looked at me, then back at the tunnel ahead of us.
“There’s something wrong with this tunnel.” I whispered.
Mia pointed at the road ahead, “Look.”
I looked out at the tunnel. There were more mannequins. A LOT more mannequins. They were positioned on both sides of the road.
They were all facing us and even though I never saw them move, when I looked in the side-view mirror, they were somehow STILL facing us, turning to watch us as we drove past. Watching without eyes.
“Just keep driving.” I said.
As we drove on, the mannequins crowded the sides of the road more and more. There were thousands of them. Eventually they were so close that some of their outstretched arms hit the side of the RV.
They were closing in on us. Squeezing our path forward. One stood in the middle of the road.
“I don’t think i can get around it.”
“Run it over. Don’t stop.”
The RV smashed into the mannequin. Its head shot forward and bounced against the windshield and the vehicle shuddered as it rolled over the body.
Soon there were two in the road. Then three.
I could see where this was going. Pretty soon there would be too many for the RV to ram through, but goddammit we were going to get through as many as we could.
“Speed up, Mia.”
CRASH!
The sound was surreal, smashing into mannequin after mannequin at nearly 60 miles per hour.
Hands, legs, heads and torsos flew.
The windshield cracked, the RV shuddered and screamed and eventually slowed down, despite the screaming engine.
I’m certain the axle was jammed up with lifeless, plastic body parts. Eventually we came to a stop.
“She won’t move,” Mia said.
She pressed on the gas but it was no use, the RV just rocked a little bit.
“Try reverse.”
She shifted and pressed on the gas, we got some decent movement before running into another jam.
“Fuck.”
“Should we get out and look?” Mia asked.
“I’ll go,” I said as I grabbed the flashlight and popped the passenger door. Mia unbuckled her seatbelt.
“We’ll go together.”
We stumbled out of the RV on the passenger side. It was like stepping into Hell.
Countless, lifeless faces stared out at us from the darkness. The only light came from the headlights of the RV and my flashlight.
We clumsily made our way along the side of the RV. The ground was littered with mannequin pieces.
I thought to myself, if we could get a couple yards cleared out behind the rear tires, we might be able to back out and get enough momentum to reverse all the way back out of here.
Instead, when we got to the back of the RV, my stomach flipped and my heart sank.
I was expecting to see a trail of flattened mannequins, instead the RV was now surrounded by thousands of perfectly intact mannequins standing at attention. As if their ranks had some how been replenished after our vehicular assault.
“This is impossible.”
She started to cry. I held her close.
“We’ll keep moving.” I said.
“It will never end. The tunnel makes no sense. It only curves one direction.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“This whole time the tunnel has only been curving to the right. it would sometimes straighten out or go left for a few yards but before too long we were curving to the right again. We’ve either been driving in circles or spiraling downwards.”
“So we’ll go back the way we came and hope we’re not going in circles.” I said.
We had been driving for hours at this point. Walking back out the way we came would take days. But now that I thought about it, Mia was right, we’d only been curving to the right.
This tunnel seemed to be very gradually taking us downwards into the earth.
Going forward would not get us any closer to escape.
“We’ll need food from the RV,” Mia said.
I nodded and we stumbled our way back to the front of the RV, the mannequins’ lifeless faces watching us the whole time.
I stepped up to the passenger door and nearly fell back when I looked through the window.
“What the fuck?” I breathed.
What I saw were two mannequins sitting in the driver’s and passenger’s seat.
How they got in there? I have no idea, but what really made my blood run cold was that they were dressed EXACTLY like MIA and I.
They wore identical sets of clothes. The one in the passenger seat had my same New Order T-shirt and black jeans. The one in the driver’s seat had Mia’s green striped sweater and denim shorts.
Their plastic faces stared out through the shattered windshield at the endless crowd of mannequins staring back at them.
Mia stepped up and saw the uncanny display.
“What the fuck?” Mia echoed.
I pulled myself up into the RV and slowly stepped around my mannequin doppelgänger. I avoided looking into its face but I swear i could feel it watching me as I stumbled around it.
Mia followed and we made our way into the back of our dark RV. Luckily we had just stocked our cooler full of deli meat and water not long after crossing the Colorado state line.
I handed Mia the flashlight and pulled open the cooler. I filled a backpack full of food and water.
I turned and saw them–
My mannequin double had somehow moved. It was standing in the aisle watching us.
Mia’s doppelgänger was still seated in the driver’s seat but had turned to peer back at us with its eyeless gaze.
Mia saw the look in my eyes and turned. She screamed when she saw them and backed into me. I put my arm around her and we stood there a moment, letting our skyrocketing heart rates return to Earth.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
I slid the backpack onto my shoulders.
Mia joined me at the door. I looked into her eyes. “Are you ready?” She nodded. I kissed her.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you,” she said.
The look on her face killed me. She was terrified. I’m sure the look on my face was similar.
I opened the door and we stepped out…
We again stumbled to the back of the RV. Once we were clear of the RV and all the crushed mannequin body parts, it became easier to find footing, though weaving through an endless crowd of lifeless people was a slow process.
It was pitch black. Without the flashlight we wouldn’t be able to see a foot in front of us.
As I walked, the beam of light created the illusion of movement in the crowd. At least I hoped it was an illusion.
The limbs of the mannequins seemed to stretch and turn, but the only sound was that of Mia and I shuffling our way through the crowded tunnel.
Things went on like this for what felt like hours. Mia and I were sweating and aching. I was about to suggest we stop and rest, but then I saw it and I froze…
Out in the crowd, beyond rows of blank faces I saw a pale face, black hair and a dead smile.
I saw two vacuous eyes staring right at me.
“Mia, do you see her?” I whispered.
“See who?”
I slowly raised my arm and pointed.
It was the woman, or whatever it was, that stared back at me through the skylight on the roof of the RV.
“Oh my god!” Mia squeaked.
I could see now that the Pale Faced Woman was tall. A few inches taller than the mannequins.
As I pointed, she stared back at me with that terrible grin.
“What do we do?” Mia whispered.
I raised the flashlight and pointed it right at the Pale Faced Woman. I thought maybe this would scare her off.
I was wrong.
The light only made her appear more unsettling as she stared back, unflinchingly.
“What do you want?!” I yelled.
She only stared back at me. She was as still as the mannequins.
“We have to keep going.” I whispered.
Mia didn’t respond. Her body was tense as she held onto me.
“We’ve come this far, we can’t turn back again,” I continued.
I pulled Mia’s hand and we continued on our way through the mannequins, keeping the distance between us and her as wide as possible.
As we moved past, she kept watching us. Though her movements were imperceptible to us, her eyes never left us. Like one of those portraits whose eyes appear to watch you no matter where you stand.
Finally, we got far enough that she was out of sight. But the thought of her being somewhere behind us only unsettled me further and I quickened our pace.
As the hours wore on, there was no sign of the Pale Faced Woman and the crowd of mannequins began to thin out. They still populated the tunnel from one end to the other, but there was more space between them, allowing Mia and I to walk more freely.
The mannequins on the maintenance walkway on the side of the tunnel seemed to thin out as well and I decided it would give us a better vantage if we were walking up there.
I helped Mia climb up the railing that bordered the walkway, then I climbed up behind her. The walkway was elevated 3 or 4 feet above the roadway. We could easily see over the heads of the mannequins in both directions.
There was, of course, no end to the tunnel in sight.
We kept walking.
The mannequins continued to thin out, but they were different now.
There were mannequins dressed as maintenance workers again, but also mannequins dressed as families and businessmen. There was even a group of mannequin nuns standing in a single file line, heads bowed in prayer.
Needless to say, we passed none of this on the way in to the tunnel. I was feeling very hopeless that we were going to be able to find our way out.
I was far beyond speculating how this was at all possible. It’s NOT possible. And even if it were, there is no good reason for someone to do this to us.
The only explanation was the supernatural. Then I saw Her. Rather, I saw THEM.
Arranged in the middle of the tunnel was a circle of mannequins with long black hair and tattered cloth.
They looked exactly like the Pale Faced Woman, minus any facial features. I kept a close watch on them as we passed to make sure they didn’t start following us.
“A door!” Mia shouted.
Mia pointed a few paces ahead of her. There was a door leading into the wall of the tunnel.
We ran towards it. Mia grabbed the handle, turned it and pulled. It was heavy and Mia had to brace her foot on the wall to get it moving.
The metal door groaned as if it hadn’t been opened in years.
Finally, it was open enough to see past.
It was a hallway. It went out about 5 yards then turned right at a 90 degree angle.
The strangest part was the design of the hallway.
It wasn’t cement or pavement like the tunnel.
The walls were wood paneled and the floor was covered in a thick carpet, like a house from the 1970s.
“I say we see where this takes us.” Mia said.
There was no reason to disagree, but I wasn’t going to get us trapped in there.
I opened up my backpack and took out a water bottle. I opened it and handed it to Mia. She drank half, then I drank the other half.
I slowly closed the door, shoving the empty water bottle in the crack to keep it from closing all the way.
I turned to Mia-- “Okay, let’s go.”
We slowly made our way down the quiet hallway. We got down to where the hallway cornered to the right and that’s when we heard it–
KA-CHUNK!!!--
I whipped around. The door had closed behind us. I ran back to it and tried to push it open, but it was no use. There was no way it closed on its own.
Someone had to have removed the water bottle. Our path had been chosen for us.
There was no turning back.
We continued down the hallway. We turned right. The hallway continued, then turned right again. That should have led us right back to the tunnel. But it didn’t. This part of the hallway went on far longer than was possible without running into the tunnel. Then it turned right again.
It went on like this. Sometimes a section of the hallway was 20 feet long, sometimes it was 20 yards long, sometimes it was 3 feet long. But it always turned to the right.
At first it was a relief to be somewhere other than the cold, dark tunnel. But the hallway very quickly became claustrophobic and before too long, I heard someone walking behind us.
We had stopped to take a break and I heard a third pair of footsteps on the carpet coming from behind us. I backtracked to the last corner.
I was terrified as I slowly peeked around the corner, tense and waiting to see the vacuous eyes and inky black hair of the Pale Faced Woman... but there was nothing there. I wasn’t about to backtrack any further.
“There was no one there.” I whispered.
Mia slumped against the wall and slid down to the carpet.
“I think I need to rest.” She said.
I put my backpack down on the ground for Mia to use as a pillow. She laid her head down and was passed out in seconds.
I had no idea how long we had been walking at this point. I stood leaning against the wall. My body was telling me to rest but I couldn’t risk falling asleep. I had to keep watch. I knew SHE was following us.
I took in the details of the hallway for the first time. The carpet was a dull brown and the walls a cheap wood paneling. The hanging lighting fixtures were shaded by stained glass, something you might see in an old diner.
Who built this place? Did someone pick out the carpet and the lighting fixtures? Did a team of workers blast these tunnels into the Earth? Or has this place always existed? Was this Purgatory?
I began to feel dizzy. I was panicking. My heart felt like it was trying to escape my chest. I slumped to the floor and tried to slow my breathing.
I closed my eyes... –
I SHOT up in a panic. I had fallen asleep while I was meant to be keeping watch.
I snapped to my feet and looked around.
Mia was still asleep on my backpack.
Then I noticed that the hallway had changed. A few paces away there was now a plain wooden door in the wall.
I slowly approached it. I put my ear to the door and I could hear what sounded like TV static and the low murmur of voices.
I discreetly grabbed the door handle and turned it slowly. I felt the latch bolt clear and I carefully cracked the door just enough to peek inside.
It was dark, so it took a second for me to register what I was seeing. I saw a small board room. A long table in the center was surrounded by seated men in suits.
At the end of the table stood another man next to an old CRT TV that was playing static. This was the only source of light in the room and all the men around the table were turned towards the tv.
Suddenly the screen flickered from static to a solid dark background. And some warped new age style muzak began playing.
Then the words appeared on the screen that terrified me like nothing else before. In plain text the words read–
“YOU WILL LOSE HER.”
I froze as I knew these words were meant for me I watched with terror as the men seated around the table slowly turned toward me in unison.
They were mannequins.
The TV screen then clicked off and they continued staring at me as I could barely make out their forms through the near pitch darkness.
I quickly pulled the door shut. And whipped around to look at Mia, I had a horrible feeling of dread that when I turned around she would be gone, like the message on the TV promised–
“Eric? What are you doing?” Mia was leaning up and staring at me.
Thank God. There was Mia, right where I left her.
I pointed at the door and said, “This door appeared and I--”
“What door?” she interrupted.
I turned and sure enough, the door was now gone.
I explained what happened to her, but I left out the message that appeared on the screen.
-- YOU WILL LOSE HER –
Those words still burned in my brain. I tried to force them out.
We drank water, ate granola and then got moving again.
Hallways. Endless hallways.
After a couple hours of walking we started to hear music. There were small speakers in the corners of the ceiling.
I recognized it as the same new-age muzak that played on the TV in the board room. The melody drilled into our minds. Combined with the dull aesthetics of the quiet hallways and the endless right turns, the music had a hypnotizing effect.
The lengths of the halls became more uniform. That is to say, the straight section of hallway was about 7 paces, then a right turn, then 7 paces and a right turn.
“I think we’re walking in circles... or a square,” Mia said.
I looked at her and took out a bottle of water. I peeled off the plastic label and dropped it on the floor.
Then we kept walking.
7 paces, right turn. 7 paces, right turn. 7 paces, right turn. And there it was... Mia was right.
The label from my water bottle lay in the middle of the hallway. Somehow we had been led into a loop. I lost it.
“FUUUCK!”
I kicked the wall repeatedly and screamed. Mia just leaned her back against the wall.
This was our dynamic. If one of us lost it, the other became zen and thought of a solution. More often than not, I was the one to lose it.
I finally stopped freaking out
“There has to be a way out. A door,” Mia said.
“We would have seen it,” I replied.
“A hidden door,” she said.
She turned around and ran her hands along the cracks of the wood paneling.
“Most likely on the outer wall,” she said.
She beat her fist on the wall, listening for a change in the sound. I exhaled heavily, sweating and tired, and I started searching the wall as well.
We checked the whole first wall, nothing. We checked the second wall, nothing. The third, nothing.
The final wall... Nothing. I gave up and slumped on the floor. Mia immediately went over to the other side of the hall and started checking the inner wall.
“What are you doing? I thought you said it would be on the outer wall?” I asked.
Then we heard it.
Mia beat the wall and instead of the dead thud, we heard a resonate BOOM –
A door…
I shot up and started tapping the wall with Mia until we found where the door ended. It was the width of about 4 wooden panels. I lined myself up in the center, lowered my shoulder and pushed–
IT MOVED! It barely moved but it was enough to confirm this actually was a door! I re-centered and tried again, lowering my center of gravity, I pushed as hard as I could. The door pushed inward about 3 inches, then Mia joined in. We slowly moved the door, 5 inches, then 10, then 15, then 20.
Then Mia slipped inside.
I had a moment of panic as she disappeared into the darkness and those haunting words came back into my mind, “YOU WILL LOSE HER.”
I darted past the doorway, falling through the threshold and hitting the concrete floor.
I looked up and there was Mia, thank God. I promised myself I’d never let her out of my sight again.
“The exit...” Mia said.
She looked and sounded as if she were a thousand miles away. I got to my feet and followed her gaze. What I saw nearly brought me to tears.
We were back in the tunnel, but there was light. About a mile down was the mouth of the tunnel, and daylight pouring in. Beautiful daylight. I grabbed Mia tight and kissed her.
“Thank God...” she cried.
We started moving. Nothing was going to slow us down this time. We sped up into a RUN down the maintenance walkway towards that beautiful sunlight.
As we approached, something else came into view. Parked in the middle of the roadway was a large vehicle…
It couldn’t be…
It was!
Our RV sat in the road waiting for us. We ran all the way to it, pulled open the passenger side door and climbed in. There were no mannequins to be seen.
I fell into the driver’s seat and Mia handed me the keys. I turned over the engine, the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. I shifted into gear and floored it towards the sunlight.
As we got closer, I could see the green of trees and the blue of the sky. We were maybe one hundred yards away.
I turned to Mia, tears in my eyes…
And what I saw turned my blood to ice.
Just beyond Mia’s window, that horrifying pale face grinned at me.
The Pale Faced Woman was somehow floating outside of the RV.
Before I could say anything, her hand smashed through the window and gripped Mia by the throat, then in one horrible motion the thing PULLED MIA SCREAMING THROUGH THE WINDOW AND…
Disappeared…
I SLAMMED on the breaks just as the RV passed through the exit of the tunnel and sunlight flooded the cab of the RV. I threw it in park and shot out of the door screaming.
“Mia!? Mia??!!”
I screamed over and over. I rounded the front of the RV and looked back at the tunnel –
-- and what I saw shattered my mind…
The tunnel was gone.
There was only open road.
I had lost her.

I've liked my best friend for ages now but I could never tell her cuz I didn't wanna do anything to risk our friendship. She means so much to me and I couldn't lose her over a stupid crush. It's not like I hide it as well, everyone in our school knows and tells me I should ask her out. But we've had conversations about relationships and stuff and it's pretty clear that she will never like me.
My friend was one of the people who shipped us and kept asking both of us why we weren't dating. But out of nowhere he told my best friend he liked her even tho they've never talked irl and are basically strangers. Turns out she has a thing for him as well and they're planning on dating sometime soon.
What sucks is that he didn't tell me at all. That piece of shit had the audacity to tell me to ask her out and ship us and ask her out the next day. He was also acting like nothing happened at all and talking to me like normal. They didn't plan on telling me either, but my best friend went behind his back and told me and expected me to be happy for her.
We've been having exams and I'm under a lot of stress and there's a lot going on in my life all at once and she's been pushing me away. When I was noticeably upset after she told me she liked him she complained how I was too needy and felt like I was draining her emotionally. I had been willingly helping her through anxiety for almost a year at that point. I didn't ask for anything back and all I wanted was a best friend who genuinely cared about me. It was taking a toll on me emotionally as well but I cared about her too much to tell her.
We used to text all the time every day but now she's only online like every 3 hours and sometimes ignores my messages. We're a month away from leaving school and chances are I'll probably not see her cuz she lives far away, but I was hoping we'd still remain close and text just as much. But she straight up said that times change and shit happens and friendships change and that we shouldn't force it.
So I lost my best friend who's also my crush and blew any chances I had by not telling her. I really needed to vent and wanted someone to talk to cuz I have no one. I used to be able to tell my best friend everything but not anymore. Any advice?

I’m going out on a limb here, because this post is going to be a strong dose of woo. But I feel I have a duty to warn, and you people seem just weird enough to be able to get it. Read this in the voice of John Oliver if you have to, it might help.

TL;DR: Things are going to get worse before they get better. A mundane and lame, but not altogether surprising, amount of worse. Around 2045-2050, is when things finally turn around. Time to get your shit together, people.

Backstory: Back in the late 70s, a former Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, Stephan A. Schwartz, got involved in remote viewing. Schwartz started a long-term project that ran from 1978 to 1995 to ask remote viewers to look at one day in June, 2050 to see whether or not the Cold War turned into a nuclear war. He collected data from hundreds of remote viewers over thousands of sessions, over decades of time, and aggregated down the places of only broad consensus. The points where nearly everyone agreed over years and years.

What came out was while we didn’t nuke ourselves, things like the fall of the USSR, the rise of HIV/AIDS, climate change, and terrorism replacing the Cold War seemed like crazy talk at the time, but it's what the remote viewers said. To date, points of wide consensus have held accurate because they’re non-specific. It's not “on Sept 11 this will happen…” it’s “something happened, and now terrorism is why the world is a more dangerous place.”

You can watch here in 2017 where Schwartz talks about a “series of epidemics” occurring. HIV/AIDS was the first one, and last I checked, the opioid crisis, huge increases in non-communicable diseases, and COVID are all massive public health problems on a scale we didn’t used to have - even at the level that in 2017 to consider them. Then he describes Zoom meetings, and how they’re in VR by 2050. So, like I said, things get worse.
/backstory

In the last few years, Schwartz started up a new version of the 2050 project, asking remote viewers to look at the year 2060, and report on wide consensus. A summary of his work is here, with findings on the last page. (This is not investment advice… or is it? ;) I’ve been waiting around on a book with more details for 2 years now, and still nothing, so I have this and interviews as most of what he has out there to go on.
I’m a remote viewer, and I’ve had years of profound, sometimes bonkers experiences that have forced me to stop being so materialist and accept that sometimes remote viewing works. And that the universe is buck wild, but whatever.
Anyone can learn to remote view, just like anyone can learn French if they spend a lot of time every day working on something that seems cool at first, but is ultimately borderline pointless to do without a solid reason. In reality, both have too many rules and are kind of annoying to keep up every day when you’re not using it professionally. But, objectively, learning French is still worse.

….But I’ve also studied and used social science data for work, and looking at broad consensus is how we evaluate things like aggregating survey data. So I put a lot of stock in both the 2050 and 2060 projects simply based on the methodology.

You know what I don’t put a lot of stock in? Astrology.

So I made the mistake of asking astrology about the general themes forecast for the US for 2030-2045, expecting some sort of hilarious contradictions. Like “oh, 2034, Saturn is in Leo - the US elects its first kitty-cat president :3 YAY!””

Nope.
Fam (can I call you fam?) - look, Fam, let me tell you, it did not go well for me.

TL;DR of that post: Nothing contradicts Schwartz. Even the timeline of bad to worse lines up. And I didn't even tell them why I was asking about that time frame before I got a few responses back.

We go from now to bad in the early-mid 2030s, bad to worse in late 2030s/2040, then spicy worse until 2045, then come up for air by the time kindergarten-age kids of today are old enough to rent a car and drive it through Mad Max: Tornado Dustbowl II.
OK, so two woo-woo data points. Who cares, right? Just stupid woo coincidence, right? How many pretend "skeptics" are screaming "confirmation bias!" at me right now? It's not zero.

But....Then we have the unfortunate triangulation of the fact that some of the less pleasant climate change models pointing to a 2.5+ degree world, which is entirely right smack-dab in the realm of possibility right now, agree with the severity of the remote viewing predictions. Expectations of a Blue Ocean event are on track for 2036-2038ish, and the remote viewing data says something happens around 2040 that is a big deal.

The 2050 and 2060 projects both agree that there are migrations: “people flee the coasts, then the Midwest becomes uninhabitable.” But like, more uninhabitable than right now. Constant tornados and floods and drought and general bad times kind of uninhabitable, not like, thinking spaghetti in your chili is still food (I’ll fight you about this, Cincinnati! Come at me!)

Now, if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably just a podcast host desperate for content. Respect.

But for real, if you’ve made it this far, it’s important to acknowledge the fact that this is a warning. This is knowledge, not to create fear, but to inform your sound choices. To be used to guide your life. Data to keep you safe and happy and doing whatever else normal people do these days. Fidget spinners? Are those still a thing? Anyway, point is that if you’re scared, you’re doing it wrong.

And look, this is a topic I’ve looked at for a long time, so there’s no way that you won’t have questions about the nuance. I would, too. Maybe questions like “I’m not clear - are you on drugs now, or do you NEED to be on drugs?”
But I’m going to get off the internet now, and let comments pile up for a while, because we have, like….8 years left to post on IG about plates of food someone else made and you just paid for. Or however you spend your time. I have 8 years left to understand why fidget spinners are a thing before I’m taking out the ball bearings and using them for ammo.

People, get your shit together. Find community. Be compassionate and kind. Learn to garden. Get in shape. Touch grass.
And vote, FFS. Not for America’s first kitty-cat president, I mean, not YET. Vote for humans now so we can have cats later.

Hello, I'm a very new Steward for my Local. Sorry for the very long post, it's kinda half me venting a bit. It may be a bit disorganized, too.
I feel like my Unit is in a very weird, concerning spot that I don't feel is normal, and I was hoping to get some advice/opinions on it.
My Unit is in a casino, with the rest of the local being about 250 miles away. It's weird situation of the AFL-CIO getting involved with the Union that was at my Casino before, and to prevent the workers from going under, some retired Union members at the place stepped up and we got subsumed into our current Local because our fees couldn't support ourselves. From what I understand the distance from our head Local office and Staff reps makes it difficult to get things proper.
Over the last 3 years, the three Stewards that were on the shop floor were fired for one reason or another. One of them got hired on to work our Units office, and another is still fighting for their job back after 2 years (Which is wild in itself, from what I understand of Just Cause and whatnot they should NOT have been fired. The company is dragging their feet intentionally.) In the interim, they were hired on to do Stewarding work full time, because otherwise there would have been no Stewards at all. She, along with the help of our treasurer, have done it themselves until I came on board. And her job was made that much harder by the sheer hostility management has towards her, which they take so far as to constantly basically ban her from the property unless she notifies them ahead of time, and insulting and shutting her down in meetings. It's pretty bad. So as such, I'm the only Steward we have on the Casino property, currently. I also just became our Units Recording Secretary. I have to constantly watch my back at work, which can be difficult as a food server in an unhosted, fast paced environment where management constantly shifts rules.
We have been skirting the 30% membership requirement to stay. Over Covid, the company tried to get rid of the Union, and almost was successful. In our last vote and just barely made it. Our treasurer, who has been in the game for a very long time, has said that the company is one of the most anti-union workplaces he's ever seen. And our contract, he says is one of the worst he's seen. He states that it has been hard for us to do anything about the anti-union practices due to low membership and just lack of hands to be able to do anything. There's just so many issues that the other Steward is very much overwhelmed with calls and texts, and we're talking 5+ different calls almost every day about problems, and that's mostly only from the beverage department.
In fact, the anti-union activity performed by the Casino has been so bad that most workers don't even know they are in the Union (Right to work state, yay!!). In our contract, we cover people even if they aren't active dues paying members. There's constant daily miscommunication and mistakes that honestly have gotten so bad that it has to be intentional. It's absurd.
I'm pretty nervous about how to really handle things, since I feel like the situation is pretty delicate. It has been hard for me to learn from the other Steward and the Treasurer, since they are both so busy all the time (I feel bad that our Treasurer has to help us so much already, he handles like 5-7 other contracts or something.) Thing also take days at a time to get accomplished, it's very frustrating. I've got a few books I'm reading, all by Robert Schwartz (Just Cause, how to win Past Practice, and the Legal Rights of Union Stewards) which have helped me understand, somewhat.
I have mostly focused my efforts on trying to get the Unit set up to handle the issues better. I'm a very techy person, and I've been coding a website and reporting tool so that we can streamline receiving complaints and making it easier for members to report things. I'm hoping to use the website as a tool to also spread information and communicate better to the members. A big complaint that I've observed and heard is that, while yeah the other steward has been doing it herself the entire time, there's a severe lack of communication. There's a general feeling from the members that the Union is useless and does nothing. Trying to get members to properly do things like call for a representative or even report really everything that goes on is like trying to pull teeth.
That's the biggest hurdle I think we face, really. Gaining the trust back from the members. Something I personally feel can be addressed through teaching, and just sheer better communication. I would try and talk to the other Steward about the issues, but she gets immediately so defensive and stubborn that it becomes next to impossible to discuss almost anything with her.
There's more I could tell about the place, but this is already long enough.
I'm so damn frustrated with everything here, but I'm absolutely determined to help these people that are being used and abused by the Casino. It absolutely pisses me off because it's all in the name of money and profit. This industry is really harsh on its workers, it's insane. But I'm grasping at straws and I'm finding it hard to rationalize the stress I'm taking on. I feel as if I'm fighting the Union as much as I am the Company.
-Are there not resources in the overarching Union (International?) to assist with Locals/Units that are failing?
-Is anyone else here in a Casino union that perhaps has experience dealing with the greedy nature of the company?
-Any tips on handling a very hostile management?
-The other Steward and the Treasurer constantly say that due to our sheer lack of bargaining power we can't accomplish anything. How really true is that?

(This is a repost from 4 weeks ago.)
Hi everyone,
With VoG challenge starting I wanted to post this to hopefully help some people complete Atheon challenge easier. It’s a pretty long guide since it contains pretty much everything I know about this challenge.
The challenge is that every guardian needs to destroy exactly one Oracle every time before Time’s Vengeance starts. (The weird wording is intentional - this is important for one of the items below.) So you do need a full team of six guardians to do the challenge. (FYI, I tried doing it with three guardians destroying two Oracles each, and it didn’t work - the “challenge failed” message came up as soon as the last Oracle was destroyed.)
In this guide, I will use “Venus” for the green/past/right and “Mars” for the brown/future/left timeline. I also use “teleport” to describe the time shift. I know these are not correct, but that’s how most people describe the Atheon fight.

Weapons and Subclasses

Load out wise, the best weapons are (in order):

• Sleeper Simulant (use an exotic chest armor with heavy ammo perk to get 12 shots)
• High impact sniper (Ex Machina, Event Horizon, Devil’s Dawn, Black Spindle archetype)
• Machine gun
• Rockets (only if you don’t have any of the above, and be very careful - jump straight up in the air to shoot them)
• Primaries from this raid (for Oracles)

Do not use supers other than Weapons bubble and Shadowshot tether. Time’s Vengeance will reduce supers’ cool down but their damage will not be buffed like regular weapons. Unless you run out of ammo, even a Celestial Nighthawk Golden Gun is worse than Sleeper - the GG’s dramatic animation is too long. All Titans should switch to Weapons with Bastion and Illuminated. (If you don’t have Illuminated, and there is someone else who does have Illuminated, do not use your bubble unless the other person is not available, or you may cost the team 10% of DPS). All Hunters should switch to Nightstalker with Black Hole. The Titan and Hunter who gets to the middle first should call out “I’ll do the bubble/tether” so others don’t have to worry about it. Also, call out again when the Weapons bubble is activated (near the back edge of the island preferably) so people know when to go back to find it. For the tether, jump straight up and shoot it on the ground at Atheon’s feet (not hitting Atheon directly will make the tether last longer). Only one person needs to tether. Shooting three Sleeper shots then tethering is about the right timing. Warlocks should be on self-res, as staying alive is paramount in case you can’t one-phase Atheon. Do not try to throw grenades, you will have to jump high in the air to do so, which wastes time. I takes about 23 seconds with 5 max light guardians shooting Sleeper with Weapons and tether active the whole time to destroy Atheon.

The Challenge

To make portals opening as smooth as possible, put 3 people on Venus side and 3 on Mars side. Stay inside the circle so you can start building the portal immediately when teleport happens even while you are detained. Do not jump on the monolith before the teleport, as it will aggro Atheon and he’ll start shooting at you and cause a lot of splash damage to you and your teammates.
The ideal situation is that the “inside team” gets #1/#2, the “outside team” gets #3-#5, and Relic holder gets #6. Two people from the outside should go in as soon as the portal opens, and the last person goes in when someone comes out. One notable exception is that if nobody is on the correct portal, then Relic holder needs to get #3 and outside team will get #4-#6. Make sure you watch the kill feed (above your super bar) to confirm you have indeed destroyed an Oracle. After the teleport, avoid unnecessary emoting so you won’t clog up the kill feed.

The Inside Team

The main goal for this team is to have Oracles #1 and #2 destroyed and get the non-Relic guardians out as soon as possible. So if you’re not grabbing the Relic, this is what you need to do:

• Shoot Oracle #1 or #2 (#1 is straight ahead on Venus and slightly left on Mars, #2 is slightly right on both) as soon as they spawn. It may help to call out immediately (“I got #1” “OK then I’ll get #2”) to avoid any confusion.
• Run to the portal as soon as you destroy your Oracle. There will be no cleanse at the bottom. Once you get cleansed at the portal, get out and call out “I’m out, you can go in” to the last person outside.
• Do not ask for cleanse, it will just clog up the comms. If you need a cleanse, quietly stand next to the Relic. The Relic holder will cleanse you every now and then.
• If you are #2 and you are sure your teammate #1 will not need help with his Oracle, you can run immediately to the portal and turn around to shoot Oracle #2. Oracle #2 will spawn around the time you get to the portal.
• If you are #2 and you are shooting your Oracle from the spawn and someone else destroys it instead, don’t try to shoot another Oracle, instead immediately run to the portal. You should have enough time to get there to receive a cleanse before you go completely blind.
• Once you’re out, help clear Supplicants and go to the middle island to be ready for DPS. If you’re the Weapons bubble or tether, tell people that you got that role. There will be three Supplicants that spawn on the other side that should have made it to the portal ring by then, so make sure you shoot them while you’re waiting.
• If you get out and notice you were not cleansed at all, go back in and wait just inside the portal for another cleanse.
• One more thing for the inside team to watch out for is the Relic holder accidentally destroying an Oracle. #1 on Venus is halfway up the stairs, and #2 is on the floor level, both destroyable by a single Relic slam. If the Relic holder destroys Oracle #1 or #2 while trying to kill the adds, you need to notify him (he’s probably too busy dealing with the adds to notice). If this happens, the inside team should take #1-#3, and the outside team takes #4-#6.
• And as always, throw a grenade at the Minotaur at the bottom on Venus, and don’t do anything to the adds on Mars. In any case, do not shoot the adds. The Relic holder needs to kill all three adds to build his super quickly. Even if you don’t kill the adds, it will cause them to wake up early if you shoot them and cause all sorts of havoc (like Hobgoblins throwing up their shields on Mars, or the Minotaur running up the stairs on Venus).

The Relic Holder

If you are the Relic holder, you want 300 Intellect (for Relic super) and 300 Discipline (for cleanse). Do not pick up the Relic if you don’t have 300 INT and DIS. Also don’t pick up the Relic if you’re the only Weapons bubble or tether. As a Relic holder:

• Call out which side you are, and remind people about the grenade/no grenade.
• Run down the right side behind the short pillars, not the middle stairway. Make a mini double-jump at the bottom and smash the adds with the Relic slam. On Venus, if they are not clustered together, you want to make sure you take out at least one of the Goblins (smash the one that’s closer to the Minotaur). One mistake that can cost you is to attack the Minotaur only when they are spread out, and by the time you get rid of it, you’ve had two Goblins shooting at you the whole time and have little to no health left.
• Once you’re done with the adds, run to the portal. If the portal is still not open, that probably means the outside team are all on the wrong side, so use your Relic super to take out Oracle #3. This is the one that is floating pretty high in the air on the right side (looking back from the portal, it will be left if you’re facing the portal). If you take out Oracle #3, call it out (“Relic holder took Oracle #3, last person take #6”).
• Stand near the portal so that the cleanse shield overlaps the portal. This will make sure anyone who runs through the cleanse on the way out will not go blind outside. Face the portal and watch your radar. When you see a green dot or two catch up on you, cleanse them.
• After the first set of guys are out, call in the last person and turn around. Make sure everyone is shooting Oracles in order (they don’t have to be destroyed in order, but each of them will wipe you after a set time, so it is better to shoot them in order). Cleanse occasionally.
• Once Oracles #1-#5 are destroyed, do one last cleanse and tell everyone to get ready for DPS. If possible, do a 3-2-1 countdown before smashing Oracle #6 so everyone knows exactly when Time’s Vengeance starts. Rush to the middle and activate the shield.
• Watch Atheon’s health bar as time progresses. Assuming most people started shooting as soon as Time’s Vengeance started, if Atheon’s health is about half or less at the 15 seconds mark, you should be able to kill him in one phase. If so, tell people to “commit”. If not, when Atheon’s health is about 1/3 left, tell people to get out and start clearing supplicants near portals. Turn around with your shield and leave after everyone is gone.
• If you had to destroy Oracle #3, then cleanse and leave after #5 is destroyed to go to the middle. The last person in doesn’t need any cleanse; he can shoot #6 and turn around to get to the middle in plenty of time before he goes completely blind.

The Outside Team

This team’s job is more complicated because there are many variants. The key is to immediately elect who is going to be the last guardian out. So if you are left outside:

• Watch your radar while the teleport is happening. You will see an extra green triangle on your radar that indicates where the inside team went. If it shows up on top-right, that’s Venus, if it’s bottom-left, it’s Mars. (The little triangle directly left or right is probably outside guardians on the opposite portal.)
• First thing to do is to elect the person to go in last.
  • If you are the only one on the correct portal, tell people you are going in first. Build the portal and go in. Make sure you don’t leave the ring until you see the message about the portal being active.
  • If you are the only one on the wrong portal, tell people you will be the last one to stay out.
  • If everyone is on the wrong portal, tell the Relic holder that he needs to take Oracle #3.
  • In any case, make sure two guardians go in and one stay out.
• Remember that nobody needs to stay inside the portal ring once the portal is activated (and there are no Praetorians to steal the portal from you), but one person needs to be outside at all times. If you’re the last one outside going to the portal from the wrong side ring, you don’t have to go to the ring that builds the portal at all.
• If everyone runs in by mistake and see the “lost in the dark corners of time” message, the last person can immediately run out to avoid a wipe if you are quick enough (although by this time most likely the team has freaked out from the message and is on a way to a wipe anyway).
• Before going in, try to toss an AOE grenade to the Atheon side of the portal to keep Supplicants at bay to help the one guardian that will be defending the portal by himself for a while. You can also shoot a tether there.
• Oracle #3 will be the one that is straight ahead as you go through the portal, and pretty far away.
• On Mars, #3 and #4 are almost overlapping but #4 is much closer. If they are both up, make sure you shoot #3 first.
• On Venus, #4 is below your sight line to your left.
• On both sides, #5 is above your left shoulder and #6 is above your right shoulder.
• If you are the first one in from outside, do not shoot Oracle #2. You destroying #2 will likely confuse the inside team member who was trying to shoot it, and if he didn’t run to the portal first like one other tip above, he may go blind before being able to destroy another Oracle.

A Special Trick

Now, one last tip - if Atheon is almost dead after a DPS phase, but so are any of your teammates, the outside team should go all out to attack Atheon. You can complete the challenge by destroying Atheon this way if you have done the previous Time’s Vengeance correctly.

• Use whatever you have to destroy Atheon. Offensive supers (Nova Bomb etc.) are good again here since weapons are no longer buffed by Time’s Vengeance.
• Oracles will still wipe the team if you do not destroy them all. If you have already destroyed Atheon (and gotten loot) and get wiped this way, you will be waiting in the wipe screen for several minutes while the game searches for a checkpoint to restart. Finally the game will realize there are no usable checkpoints and dump you back at the beginning of the raid. X-D
• In the off chance that the outside team is still trying to kill Atheon, do not destroy the last Oracle (#6). Doing so will start Time’s Vengeance and you will fail the challenge.
• If you have fewer than 4 guardians left while doing DPS, then all Sunsinger Warlocks should jump off and kill himself just before Time’s Vengeance ends. Then resurrect yourself after the teleport and try to destroy Atheon.

That’s all, sorry for the wall of text. Let me know if you have any comments.
Have fun, PSN: Lightfoot (without the “one” at end)

This is not really IT's department and people get rubbed the wrong way if you tell them their department is doing their job wrong but HOLY CRAP what is wrong with my company's hiring process?!?!?!?!!!!?! It took about a month to bring me on and that was fairly rapid since it was an overdue emergency on their end, I just hated my current job but they didn't know I was leaving. For the most recent hire in IT, it took over 2 months because they kept not getting back to him. and we're not some clueless, top-heavy Silicon Valley 6+ interview company. It was just people not doing their jobs fast enough or something. My best guess is the managers at each branch are "too busy" (or too old, slow, and bad at typing) managing their teams to have that many interviews, BUT THEY'RE BUSY BECAUSE THEIR TEAM IS TOO EMPTY AND OVERSCHEDULED!
They keep wondering why people duck out at the last second after being offered the job or decline mid-interview process. Hmm maybe because you can't pay rent or a mortgage with IOUs and nobody is smart enough to have 6 months living expenses? I guarantee we're getting zero unemployed people because nobody would tolerate that.
So this affects me because we have a referral system and my friend wants to leave his current job at Amazon and come work here. I worked with him for about 4 years at a business I used to own and I know he's solid! So not really desperate or time-sensitive but I keep checking in and he says "they haven't gotten back to me" and that was after 2 successful interviews. Today, we had to transfer one of the last workers in that position to another of our locations because he moved. So we're down to like 1 or 2 people instead of a team of probably 5 or 6 that we need. We're probably just going to start dropping multi-million dollar contracts because the hiring people can't get their shit together!!! We can't just not show up. These are recurring maintenance scheduled jobs!!! WTF?!?!?! Does my company not know how to do math?!
As far as my job, it takes about 50 minutes to set a new hire up in our system, longer if they get a laptop or some special software. So IT has got it down. We are the only department that has it down, apparently.
So how long does your company take to hire people? Unacceptably long, way shorter and we're the anomaly, or I'm just impatient and this is incredibly typical?

A few months ago, I entered a giveaway at my local mall for a Bahamas Vacation for 2. On the slip I filled out my name and phone number. The slip stated explicitly at the top: "NOT A TIME SHARE- Names will NOT be sold." At the bottom of the slip it states: "By filling out this entry card you are accepting: You may be contacted, and considered a "Winner". All winners will receive a "Free 4 day 3 Night Vacation in the Bahamas:, winners will still be responsible for all normal travel expenses, including transportation resort/service fees and taxes." At the very bottom it reads "LICENSED AND BONDED FLA, SELLER OF TRAVEL REG. NO. ST37536" This was a month or 2 I filled it out, today they sent me a text message stating that they are with WattersonTravel. com, in the message they included a photo of my original slip and a congratulations, along with the mall I filled it out at. I replied stating that it was me, they messaged me back saying that I won the "FREE 5 day 4 night" trip to the Bahamas, although it stated on the slip is was 4 day 3 nights. They also included a number to their office that I would have to call to registebook, which I have 4 days to do. Upon calling the number I am met with a prerecorded message with all the details about the trip. There are 3 hotels in which I can choose from, along with a 1-night pass on a cruise ship to the Bahamas leaving from Florida, there and back I believe, along with an extra night at whatever hotel/resort I chose. After the very long drawn out recording explaining all the hotels and details I am connected with an agent who will set up an account for me on their site ( WattersonTravel. com ), and informed me that I will have to pay a 18 or 19 dollar booking fee per person beforehand and then my account would be created and activated so I can book, They then immediately asked how I would like to pay for that, master card visa etc. I told them I would like to do this tomorrow and the man didnt sound to happy about it, but was still polite. Is this a scam? Does anyone have experience with this, should I go for it or stray away??

My boyfriend (22m) and I (20f) have been LC/NC with MIL since last July. I blocked her on Facebook in May after sending her a nasty message her for missing her son’s 21st birthday party. (Shallow, yes I know. I was just angry.) She had 2 months notice about the party and made excuse after excuse about why she couldn’t come, ultimately it ended up being because we didn’t want her alcoholic husband to be there and she refused to go without him. She never even sent him a birthday card.
My bfs birthday is at the beginning of May and this year MILs husband sent him a message asking what he wanted for his bday during the second week of April. My bf does not like him, wants nothing to do with him and has explained this to his mom. So the message was never read because he has his notifications blocked. I saw it about a week and half after it was sent while looking on his phone and told my bf. He was annoyed but texted MILs husband back, we didn’t hear anything for over a week and then MIL invited us up to dinner at her house but they wanted to wait until we all had a day off. We gave them our availability and she said they were waiting to get Sundays off together and that day would be best. They live about an hour away so we said sure whenever is fine after the 6th because my dad was coming to stay with us for a week. This upset MIL and she said she wanted to do it the weekend after his birthday, we said that’s fine then. It didn’t end up happening and we were gonna let her tell us when they were ready.
Now it’s 3 weeks later and my schedule just changed so I’m working Sundays. I asked my boyfriend to let his mom know and she said that she is trying to find a new job because they cut her hours at work. MIL and her husband always work at the same place and her hours always get cut…
I just need to vent because this is not how my family is, birthdays are special and to be celebrated with all of your favorites because you need to enjoy life. I wish this women would even take a second of her own time to spend with her son, even on the phone without her husband talking too. She didn’t send him a card or anything this year either. We live and hour away and she commuted to a job an hour and 15 mins away for over a year!!!! I want to believe she cares about her son but everything she’s ever done and how she treats him tells me she doesn’t.
Disclaimer: Yes I understand everyone’s family’s are different but she goes over the moon for his siblings and even grandparents birthdays. Her oldest doesn’t even get a second glance.

When I'm at work I'm okay. I'm a gardener and grounds maintenance so it's very rewarding and puts me in a good mood but I dread going home. I have friends but they're all on different schedules and some of them are flakey and my best mates live 2 hours away. I went and got some food on my own today just so I didn't have to go home. I did a bit of DJing earlier which was fun but I got bored and now I'm just sat here, I don't even like watching things because we used to watch so many things together.
When I do manage to meet some friends it's so good but 90% of the time I'm on my own and it's just hard to keep myself busy. It's been 2 months, she left me on text, ghosted me and I found out she's seeing someone else even though she said she would meet me for clarity regarding the situation. She have some half assed reasons but it was so one way and I never got to ask any questions. I did no contact but had to message her when I found out she's seeing someone else to get my things back. Honestly it's just painful and dealing with the pain in the evenings is so hard, I end up just getting in bed super early.
On the weekends I try to see friends, this Friday/Saturday I'm going to a dnb rave on my own as it seems so much effort to get my friends to meet and they always flake on me, honestly I don't know if I'll go, I live in a really isolating village so it's so much effort to get anywhere to do anything.
I've also booked a boxing class as it's something I did as a kid and something i always wanted to do when I was with her but just never committed.
I'm doing all the things I can to heal but it just feels hopeless and I just feel so lonely. My mum is serverly mentally ill and there trauma revolving that, my sister lives 4 hours away and my nan is not very well either so I help her when I can but we don't have a very loving relationship either and she is depressed and lonely from getting cheated on by my step grandad 10 years ago, my dad is no where to be seen and my grandad abandoned everyone and never sees us and he has no interest in me. It's just so hard when you don't have support and as a man. I've been thinking about therapy but not something that is at the top of my list as of yet but I will down the line, I'm already very self aware and I've done a bunch of reflection and trying to improve In the areas where I fell short in the relationship.
I guess I'm just struggling in general. I grew so much in that relationship, I used to suffer from depression but since my gardening job I feel so much better, but this is really weighing me down. I know I'll get through it, but the betrayal i experienced has brought back my trauma a little bit and it fucking hurts that she didn't even think for two seconds how this could affect me.
I needed to rant, thanks to anyone taking the time to read.

Hi all! First off, so glad this sub reddit exists because it was a life saver when I was making decisions on my own ACLr and knowing what to expect from surgery. I'm a 2x cancer surviver, Paramedic, Rugby player, and now have been a caregiver to my partner who just celebrated 3 months from her own ACLr. I collected a bunch of advice and tips and tricks that I have used both during cancer treatment, my own experience with ACLr, and now through care taking my partner through hers. I know there have been guides before, but mine is a bit different and aimed at caregivers so I thought I'd post it here since ya'll helped me so much instead of it just circulating the rugby community every time a teammate or friend has to have ACLr or some other reconstruction. Hope it's allowed and helps!
A Cancer Patients Guide To Knee Reconstruction Recovery
A Comprehensive Guide To Surviving and Thriving In the Pre and Post-op Period Built From The Perspective of Caretaker and Patient.
Before The Date
__/__/____

Preparation

It is important to adequately prepare for surgery in the weeks and days leading up to the procedure. A significant period of immobility and reliance on support can be expected immediately post-op and will vary by procedure and personal experience. Physical modification of living space and thorough preparation allows for the immediate post-op period to be free of emergency store runs and the small inconveniences that can add up to big frustration. Not having food and drink nearby as well as other essentials may be a small deal now, but can turn into a big deal when you can no longer get those things for yourself. While physical preparation (home modifications, adaptive tools, meal prepping, etc.) are important, mental preparation is crucial to the long term success of the repair. Making small, achievable goals in the immediate post-op period and maintaining a long sighted view of recovery will make the pain and immobility that is initially experienced more bearable. Additionally, social support through a partner, family members, or friends is an essential part of recovery, as is maintaining contact with sports teams or other social groups during rehabilitation.

General PEARLs

• Pre-surgical rehab is an essential part of recovery and can improve immediate outcome so if it is a resource available to you- use it!
• Learn the basics of your procedure such as reconstruction technique, graft type, surgeons recovery timeline, where you will do your rehab, and what you should expect going into and coming out of surgery. Knowledge is power and can give a sense of control and set reasonable expectations in a situation that is otherwise out of your control.
• Seek out positive experiences and recovery stories from other people who have had your procedure and gather as much advice as possible from resources such as ACL. Know that some people will have negative experiences, everyone is an individual, and that much of your long term recovery is in your control.
• Expect and learn to advocate for yourself or the person you are taking care of. Be vocal and honest with any needs you may have and understand that issues may come up in the immediate post-operative time that you as a patient or caregiver may have to contact your surgeon to resolve. Familiarize yourself with who to call and when *before* you leave after surgery, as well as being quick to call with any questions or problems that arise. It is better to be told that what you are experiencing is normal than to sit with the anxiety of the unknown.
• Create a folder with all relevant information: Surgeons name, procedure information, follow-up appointment dates and times, phone numbers, emergency contacts, facility of choice in an emergency situation, and any other important information. Maintain this folder throughout your recovery and add paperwork as it comes.

Days Leading Up To Surgery

• Contact support people and confirm any arrangements that have been made including but not limited to: Who is taking you to/from surgery, child or pet care, transportation to first PT appointments, meals, etc.
• Recommended Items we found essential:
  • Ice Machine (Polarcube, etc) if at all possible
    • Recommend checking facebook marketplace or other second hand options, as they cost hundreds new but can be found for $40 or so used.
    • Studies have shown these do actually reduce pain and lend to earlier mobilisation and our experience has shown this to be essential not just immediately post-op but in the weeks and months afterwards so if you *can* obtain one you absolutely should.
  • Large sweatshirt and oversized shorts for surgery day, especially if you wear a bra, as putting clothes on after surgery can be a struggle and it’s easiest to just throw on a sweatshirt and shorts that fit over your post-op bandages and brace.
    • In particular, we found a blanket hoodie to be very useful both for going home and the first few days as it could stay on when moving around/when napping.
  • Neck Pillow
    • Helps with reading or other activities during long hours spent in bed or on the couch and really helped in the first two days to prevent neck strain and provide head positioning during napping.
  • Large pillows for body positioning and elevation of the leg
    • We found cheap, giant, dog beds from places like TJ Max or Marshalls to be more affordable than specialty products
    • A large, thin, dog bed (or blanket) rolled into a tube and secured with stretch bandage or tape around the surgical leg and brace helped significantly with comfort during sleep so that the leg was padded, comfortable, and the other leg didn’t get roughed up from the brace.
  • A shower chair
    • Can be found used at second hand stores like Goodwill, or cheap online
    • Easy substitute is a chair covered in a trash bag
    • Allowed showering the second day post-op which was a huge mental boost and relieved physical discomfort and achy muscles
  • Extra large leg cast cover
    • Can be found cheap online
    • Placed around outside of brace covering the entire leg initially, we then found it easier to place on the leg and place the brace outside of the cover for the remaining healing period for the incisions: We did this after the first PT appointment when it was safe to take off the brace for short periods while laying down. We acquired a second post op brace from a friend (you can find on eBay for cheap) and it was amazing to have, as we could let it dry after showering and immediately put her post op brace back on.
  • Foldable stool
    • Great for elevating the leg during transfers, while on the toilet, etc.
  • Lap Desk
    • Great for eating on the couch or in bed, but we also found it useful as a side table for holding drinks/meds/remotes/books that could be taken to whatever room they landed in at the time
    • A small table works as well, really just anything that can be used to set things on within arms reach
  • Assortment of sodas, water, seltzers, snacks, etc.
    • There is no way to know what you will want and when, but when you want it it’s nice to *have* it available
    • Appetite often decreases after surgery so make sure to have favourites on hand so that when you *are* hungry you have it immediately before your body changes its mind
  • A big bucket
    • We used a soft plastic beach type bucket from the dollar store, it was extremely useful to have to put small items in, a small towel, a spare water bottle, extra meds, baby wipes, etc.
    • Also doubled as an emergency puke bucket, as you never know when a sudden bout of nausea might hit in the first day or two after surgery
  • Extra reusable ice packs and bags of ice
    • Your home ice maker will not be able to keep up with the demands of constant icing the first week or so
    • Reusable ones are great for ‘hot spots’ and short trips where you can’t take the ice machine
  • Extra steri-strips and assortment of bandages
    • Sometimes there’s extra leakage, sometimes your steri-strips come off and you need to slap a new one on, sometimes you’re allergic to the ones they put on you at the hospital. Always consult a medical professional, but it’s handy to have these on hand just in case.
    • We also used a bulky padded bandaid to keep the brace off the healing incisions once the large post-op dressing was taken off which helped immensely.
  • Compression sleeves
    • Aside from helping with swelling these also provided a layer of protection under the post-op brace
    • We found cheap ones at Wal-Mart (copper brand) but also just bought a cheap pair of leggings a size down and cut off one of the legs to use before getting a more expensive one once swelling had fully subsided after a few weeks. Your leg will change so cheap works great at first, then you can get something a bit more substantial when you know what you’ll need long term. Now she wears high compression socks to sleep 3 months out.
  • Slide on shoes
    • Self explanatory, bending down to put on shoes becomes a chore after surgery. Avoid flip flops or other styles that can become a trip hazard.
  • Baby Wipes/Dude Wipes/etc.
    • Wiping down after you get home from surgery can help prevent that icky feeling and restore some sense of normalcy, then can be used over the next few days before you can shower more normally
  • Lotion and chapstick
    • Hospitals dry out your skin big time, and lips are often cracked post surgery from intubation/LMA placement
  • Small, easily labelled tupperware containers
    • Regular pill containers are too small to hold pain meds, OTC pain meds, anticoagulants such as aspirin, supplements, and edibles or other small things you take with your medication. We got small tupperware boxes with lids from the dollar store.
    • We found it very convenient to have six sets of meds set up and labelled with times which meant we never missed doses and could leave the next dose of meds at bedside, take them with us when going to appointments, and keep up with what had been given and when.
  • Small notebook to record med times and other important information
  • Two extra changes of clothes already setup and ready to go
  • Compression device
    • We are athletes so we already had leg compression sleeves but these days off brand versions can be bought online cheap. Studies have shown these lead to reduced pain, increased mobilisation, reduced the chance of blood clots, and there is even some evidence they help with bone healing.
    • We used it 3 days post op and beyond and her range of motion was significantly improved after the first time.
  • A yoga strap
    • Excellent for strapping to the brace and moving the surgical leg
• If possible, pick up post-op medications prior to surgery to prevent any unexpected delay in obtaining them. If this is not possible, verify that the prescription can be filled the day of the surgery by your selected pharmacy and that it has been filled prior to leaving after your surgery. Controlled substances cannot be transferred to another pharmacy without a new prescription sent directly from the provider. You do not want to be trying to get in contact with a physician in the hours after surgery, unable to manage pain, before the pharmacies close for the night.
• Do a thorough clean of your living area, it will make the time after surgery when you cannot independently do normal activities more bearable and a neat organised space is easier to function in when your body is not cooperating. Take special attention to removing tripping hazards and clearing a wide path from wherever you plan to spend your recovery and the bathroom.
• Plan to spend the first couple of days in one spot and on one floor and set up that area the day before surgery. If you have a downstairs bathroom a floor mattress or well setup couch can be your landing pad until you are more mobile and is the easiest during the immediate post-op period. That being said, if you don’t, it’s easier to get upstairs by sliding up on your bum immediately post-op when your pain is still well controlled than realise that you have no bathroom downstairs a few hours later when the pain has started to set in. Wherever you intend to land, plan on staying there at least a couple of days and bring all your supplies to that area. Plan to lay with your surgical leg on the outside of what you are laying on, this makes transferring easier.
• Have your recovery bed setup the day before surgery and prepared for when you return before you leave the day of, including blankets and your supply table setup.
• Meal prep, whether that means cooking or getting easy to make microwave meals is up to you. You won’t feel like cooking and neither will your caretaker the first few days. High protein, easy to eat meals are key! We had chicken and broccoli casserole, egg and sausage frittata, and lots of applesauce the first few days and it was a lifesaver not to have to think about meals.
• Spend some time mentally preparing for the long haul of recovery and make long term plans that fit within your timeline. For example, we planned to attend a rugby game five days after surgery *but* planned nothing else for that day and the next day. We also planned hiking trips the next fall, and other events appropriate for her timeline along the way that could be looked forward to and keep up morale. Remember that this is temporary and that it is okay to be recovering and resting, expect hard moments and days but keep things planned so you don’t get stuck in those down places.
• Eat your favourite meal and eat well the day before surgery. Your body needs fuel to recover and fasting the day of surgery sucks. As weird as it sounds, after multiple surgeries, the pre-surgery night meal of whatever I want is one shiny thing in a crappy situation to hold on to.
• Plan for what you want your first meal to be and consider making a playlist for the ride to and from surgery. Small things, again, help maintain a sense of control and comfort in a situation where you are largely out of control and these things can be done with friends or support people in the days leading up to reduce anxiety and pass time.
• Hit the gym, take a walk, do a hike, visit places or do things you enjoy but won’t be able to do in immediate recovery! We took my partners knee to one last tournament before her surgery, it helped pass time and kept spirits high.

Day Of And Immediate Post-Surgery Phase

• Maintain fasting starting at whatever hour you are told. Some people can drink clear liquids up to a certain point, others are completely nothing by mouth. Your instructions will guide you on this.
• Before leaving home double check that everything is set up how you need it and place a blanket, pillow, drink, and snack of choice in the car. You may or may not need it but if you do it is important to have. Make sure your ice packs are in the freezer ready to go!
• Bring your own post-op snack if you are picky or have food allergies, otherwise you’re stuck with whatever graham cracker and applesauce combo the facility gives you.
• Go with the flow, or as I always say “surrender”. Feel what you feel, have a cry in the car before you go in, listen to your playlist, bring your blanket or other comfort items into pre-op, tell your support person what’s going through your mind, tell your pre-op staff how you’re doing, ask all the questions, and most importantly just do what you have to do. For some people surgery can be overwhelming and the loss of control frightening, but fighting only makes it worse, so whatever you are just be it. I’m pre-op pacer myself, but some people just snuggle up under some warm blankets and wait. Either way, just let the waves take you where they go and know you’re along for the ride. Remember that future you with a healthy joint thanks you for what you’re doing today.
• Speak frankly with your anesthesiologist and utilise any pain control or anxiety control options given to you. There is no award for least meds taken or toughest patient of the day. If a nerve block is available, know that you can request sedation for its placement, and utilise that option if at all possible.
• Caregivers should bring something to keep them entertained and be prepared for a long period without update once surgery has started. Honour your feelings as well, it can be tough to watch someone you care about go through this! Consider having someone to act as a support person for you as well through text or phone, that way you can divert your own worries or struggles to them and away from the person having surgery while still making sure you are also taken care of.
• Make sure that pain is well controlled before leaving after surgery. You have more options there than you will at home and getting things under control once pain has become unbearable can be very difficult.
• Make sure you note when the next dose of medication is due, what medication they should be taking, and write it down.
• Double check contacts from your surgeons office and add any post op paperwork to your folder in case you need the information later.
• If your post-op meal requires picking up, or your prescription, try and do that immediately after leaving surgery even if you are not hungry yet. This is the most comfortable you will be for a while and your support person will be unable to leave for at least that day and night. I have been known to peruse the big gas station after surgery in search of snacks, my partner however simply waved to the nice people at the drive through and napped the rest of the way home before eating some hours later.
• Once you get home crash wherever you plan on spending the rest of the time. Don’t have friends or family over that first day. Just go ahead and sleep through the rest of the anaesthesia and get comfortable.
• Try and keep your home cool, and consider keeping the room dim for the first few hours if not days. Sleep is precious and pain meds can make you hot, and getting hot can lead to nausea. It is better to have the home cool and the person snuggled under blankets and comfortable than be trying to cool someone down who just had surgery and got too hot and is now dizzy, nauseous, and miserable. The least stimulation for the first little while the better, and naps will happen throughout the rest of the day and over the next few days. A cool, dim place lets this happen much easier than a bright, warm place where they might be overstimulated or awakened by noise or activity.
• If allowed, try and activate the quad muscle immediately after returning home and once every few hours by having them squeeze it and feeling for contraction while in the brace. Some people will be able to begin range of motion exercises immediately and if so, make sure to do them as soon as allowed even if that means just helping them by doing gentle manual range of motion movements in the brace.
• If it’s not already on, begin continuous icing as soon as you come out of surgery either by meticulously timing the replacement of ice packs or with the ice machine. Make sure to check the ice machine, replace ice as often as needed, and keep it on *continuously* for the next few days. For us this meant I checked it at every medication dose throughout the night and added ice during that time as well. We went through frozen mini water bottles and bags of ice like crazy the first week.
• Elevate the surgical leg as high as possible, placing support under the heel and calf but not directly under the knee to promote extension and prevent more headaches with gaining range of motion later on.
  • We found that icepacks directly under the knee helped tremendously with the discomfort associated with this.
• Anticipate that bathroom trips will not be fun or easy and take them extremely slow. As a caregiver allow the person to guide you on what they need and don’t need your help with and avoid grabbing or moving someone unexpectedly. Standing, acclimating to being upright, and then proceeding to the bathroom is the best way to do things and rushing will only result in frustration for both of you. A rolling chair or wheelchair can be helpful, but for some people standing up and sitting down is harder than just moving on to the bathroom. Pay attention as a caregiver and know that it is possible they may need your help getting off the toilet or back from the bathroom so be close by and available should that happen. For the first few days do not lock the bathroom door in case of an emergency.
• Place chairs or things to sit on around your path to the bathroom, kitchen, etc. And consider a small backpack or using a rolling chair to carry items around the house.
• Once you know when your next dose is, set alarms for each time your doses are due. If using the med boxes this makes doing meds and keeping track very easy, as they are each labelled with a time and all we had to do was open the box and take the meds instead of finding each bottle and dosing each med individually each time. As the days went on we were able to re-label and time the boxes as needed and remove meds as needed or adapt to what was needed when sleeping or up during the day.
  • For example day 1 would look like:
    • First post-op doses at 4pm box: 250mg tylenol, 10mg oxycodone, 5mg edible.
    • 8pm box: 250mg tylenol, 10mg oxycodone, 800mg ibuprofen, 10mg edible, 12.5mg diphenhydramine (itching and sleep), stool softener, and regular night time meds.
    • Midnight box: 250mg tylenol, 5mg oxycodone, 5mg edible.
    • 4AM: 250mg tylenol, 5mg oxycodone, 800mg ibuprofen, edible (if nauseas or restless).
    • 8AM box (preparing to get up): 250mg tylenol, 10mg oxycodone, 5mg edible, aspirin, stool softener, normal morning meds.
    • 12pm: 250mg tylenol, 10mg oxycodone, 5mg edible, 800mg ibuprofen.
    • Repeated on time, reducing pain med dose as tolerable, and refilling boxes 1x a day.
• If possible do scheduled tylenol (paracetamol) and ibuprofen (or another NSAID), alternating them on the dosing schedule, and take them religiously even through the night. This also goes for additional pain medications, which you will also need to wake to take through the night if you are prescribed for at least the first night.
• Staying on schedule might mean waking up in the night, but it’s better to be awoken to take meds than to wake up in pain and spend several hours trying to get it under control. You may find you seldom need them if your nerve block is in place, or you may just not need very much at all during your recovery. It is easier to trial run this after the first day by stretching out the time between doses from 4 to 6 to 8 and then potentially off entirely, but everyone will have their preferences.
• Eat a small snack with every med dose and keep emergency meds (extra pain med doses, nausea meds, etc.) at bedside as well as the next set of meds due so they can be taken when it is time.
• We found that edibles were a great addition to pain and nausea control after surgery. There are medication options available and having at least one option for nausea is advisable for the first few days after surgery when anaesthesia and medication can really make you want to puke.
• Expect absolutely nothing in the first few days post-op. Some people will feel well enough to move around, others will not be able to do anything but get up to use the bathroom. Expecting nothing is better than expecting more and being disappointed or frustrated. I would highly suggest not making plans until your first follow up 7 or so days after surgery.
• Be obsessive about icing, meds, any PT you have been given, and keeping track of appointments. Give yourself the best start to your recovery that you can and you will thank yourself later!

Sorry it’s my first time on Reddit Me (23M) and my gf (22F have been together for 2 1/2 years. For context, my girlfriend we will call her Amy does a lot of hunting, fishing etc. Amy’s family goes out to the woods every year and does a big fishing event with the whole family. Lots of her family I have not fully met, like her aunt and her cousin who I will call John. Now for the story; I was at Amy’s house and we had a disagreement, we do not argue much but we figured everything out together. This disagreement was about her not wanting to do stuff for me like a back massage or something along those lines. She used the term “manipulation,” to describe how showing I was in pain instead of just asking her for a massage, we discussed it all and she eventually apologized. I was about to leave her house when she asked to come with to my house to stay the night. On the way back she seemed off, I asked her what was wrong and she told me about last Summer when she was at camp. She said that she had been intoxicated and sat in John’s car (her cousin). They talked and overtime he began to pressure her into kissing him, they kissed and she got very uncomfortable and left the car. After that I kept asking her questions about it and the story began to change. First, it was she got out of the car right after it happened, next she froze and didn’t know what to do then left and eventually it ended at her waiting until he fell asleep to leave the car. All of these changes made me insanely suspicious that there was more to this story. I still had her over to stay the night, while here I said I would text John to get his side of the story if something did not align with what Amy told me I told her we would have to to break up because she lied more than once. I asked her what she thought he would say. She replied “ I don’t know how he will see it, it seemed different to him I don’t think he got the message I was uncomfortable very well,” again I had more concerns. If she had made it abundantly clear that what he did was not okay, why did he not leave her alone? I also asked why he was still on all her socials, she answered, “ we are family it would be weird,” I’m sitting in my room completely shaken, I have been with this woman for over two years and we had our ups and downs but I have done everything I can to make her feel as special and treasured as I could. She said she wouldn’t have told me if we couldn’t move passed it and I don’t know what to do.

Context is at the end of this post __________________________________________________
In the stormy northern seas lies the island of Amaria. Under the polar lights in cold forests live the descendants of the once great Varaki, who in turn followed the mammoth herds across the steppes for countless eons. These are the gods and spirits of this land. They live in every tree, every lake, every star, deep below the ocean and beyond the polar lights in four domains.
The underworld, a place of transition between life, death and rebirth. It was made after the creation of the material to help souls find their way back to life. The spirits of this domain all take the shape of dragons with red eyes and golden patterns.

• Räkimarak: Lord of the underworld and of all its riches. Every stone, flint and gems alike, belong to him. A great violet dragon with enormous antlers. He reviews the lives of all that died and guides them to the new lives they deserve. Father of all dragons of the underworld.
• Idaka: Wife of Räkimarak, goddess of love and beauty. She resides at the darkest place, where her light shines the brightest. A violet dragon with a frill and wings of red rose petals with golden patterns. She stands for all encompassing unconditional love and reunites loving souls in their next lives. Mother of all dragons of the underworld.
• Kimorak: Firstborn son of Räkimarak and Idaka, guide of souls who escorts the souls of the dead into the underworld. A great black dragon with golden horns. Every mortal he touches sees and feels their life in great detail from the point of view of those they affected. In the process, mortals always see something they need to see.
• Galorak: Lord of caves and their denizes, bats. A small black dragon with bat ears and a bat nose. Caves are entrances to the underworld and bats are its sacred animals. They are not to be harmed. But since they are also messengers of death, one must keep a safe distance. Don't disturb the bats or Galorak may convince his older brother to take you too soon.
• Letorak: Messenger of the underworld. A small black dragon with golden antlers. Whenever Kimorak takes a soul, they often have something to tell their loved ones. Something they didn't have the time or the courage to say in life. It is Letorak's task to convey these messages through dreams.
• Vhedurak: The white dragon who heals souls between death and rebirth, so they don't take wounds from one life to the next.
• Ohnarak: Craftsman of the underworld. A great yellow dragon who can make anything out of the riches of this realm.
• Vahirak: Builder of the underworld. A great brown dragon with antlers he can use to dig new caves or cover up old ones as needed.
• Voomarak and Vothorak: The great hunters keeping the underworld free of demons preying on scared souls. Two emerald dragon who can turn invisible. The younger brother Voomarak has golden horns and is also the patron of boys and unmarried men. The older brother Vothorak has great golden antlers and is also the patron of married men.
• Mokorak, Kaharak, Roporak and Sukorak: The four golden-headed red dragons guarding the entrances to the underworld. Mokorak has the ears and nose of a bat, Kaharak has four horns, Roporak great antlers and Sukorak the wings and head of a barn owl.
• Tathorak: The great beast, god of violence and bloodshed, the only dragon of this realm who is not a son of Räkimarak and Idaka. A huge gray dragon with three heads, three tails and three pairs of wings. The most powerful beast in the cosmos, but devoid of empathy or understanding. He is imprisoned at the second deepest, darkest point of the underworld, where he guards the only being living even deeper below, the Nameless One.

The boundaries. This is the realm of souls and spirits, dreams and nightmares, the skies and oceans and all waters deep and shallow. This domain has existed before time even began. It is endless and timeless.

• Kavijohka: The moon, a great silver dragon with glowing teal eyes. Sister of Räkimarak and goddess of wisdom, cunning and battle.
• Vellamun: The ocean, husband of Kavijohka, a great blue dragon with red eyes and golden patterns. God of the unknown and lord of all waters. Sometimes, he stretches his hands out to land, creating bogs and swamps.
• Lukilan: The morning star, son of Kavijohka and Vellamun. He is the lightbringer who gives people the power of sight. An azure dragon with emerald eyes and a golden morning star on every scale and a third eye on his forehead.
• Sojulan: The great traveller, son of Kavijohka and Vellamun, a black dragon with red eyes and the neck and wings of a black swan. He travels between the waters, land and air and protects all fellow travelers.
• Turikan: Lord of storms, thunder and lightning. The loudest and most unruly son of Kavijohka and Vellamun. A blue dragon with red eyes and a golden lightning pattern on his scales. His tail is like a hammer, hurling lightning bolts at the ground as he roars.
• Lumika: Goddess of magic, daughter of Kavijohka and Vellamun, a silver dragon with teals eyes and scales shimmering with polar lights. She continues in the footsteps of her mother.
• Ilunika: Goddess of grief, daughter of Kavijohka and Vellamun, a silver dragon with teal eyes and the neck and wings of a black swan. She travels to and from the world of the living and the dead to take the grief of letting go upon her. Whenever she crosses the boundary, she has to go through the ocean and that is where tears comes from. That is why they are salty.
• Avastaja: The great trickster. A shapeshifter, usually appearing with the attributes of a barn owl. Most often as an owl-headed human or a fox/dragon with the head and wings of an owl. The youngest child of Kavijohka and Vellamun who defies all boundaries, uses the powers of all his/her siblings (except for Ilunika, because Avastaja has standards) to protect the jesters and jokers. But he/she is also a scolar and explorer, who uses Lukilan's light to find new ways to mess with people.
• Aiwana: Wife of Avastaja and goddess of memory. A shapeshifter, usually taking the same shape as her husband/wife Avastaja. She paints everything she sees into the skies and caves of Amaria and lives in every single one of the most sacred objects of all Amaria, the fairy memory stones. But Avastaja is rubbing off on her and sometimes, she plays tricks on you.
• The Ashirana: Goddesses of the arts, each of which has its own Ashiran patron. One for painters, wood carvers, musicians and for storytellers.

The world of the living. This is our material world.

• Kadath: The sun, greatest of all dragons with shining golden scales and golden eyes. God of justice who sees all... during the day that is. At night, his sister Kavijohka rules and she has a different idea of justice. Sometimes, she tries to turn the day to night, causing an eclipse. But in the end, Kadath always wins these confrontations. Especially when people light fires and cheer him on.
• Inari: Mother nature, goddess of life and all plants and animals. A great green dragon with wings and a frill made of flowers. She provides all food, but only as long as nature is in balance. Unlike her husband Kadath, Inaro does not care about justice, only balance. Those who anger her are punished mercilessly, no matter how long it takes, sometimes more than they deserve.
• Ilmania: Goddess of healing, firstborn daughter of Kadath and Inari. She was the first fairy, a tall woman with long pointy ears. Her descendant, although far shorter, are still endowed with her healing powers and compassion.
• Vrila: Protector of the home and hearth, patron of married women and the goddess of affectionate familiar love between equals. Secondborn daughter of Kadath and Inari. A woman, always accompanied by a cat and carrying a sling. The weapon of a lady, which requires skill and finesse instead of strong arms and can be more deadly than a bow in the right hands.
• Aria: Protector of girls and unmarried women, goddess of erotic love. A young woman with hair reaching to her ankles. She often reincarnates among mortals for fun. That is why the Amarians do not look down on women looking for fun. They might be dealing with a goddess in disguise.
• Mahaseta: The great white mammoth, goddess of the old world of Varaki. She and Inari together created dogs to protect humanity from dangers of the material and other worlds. All forest elephants and mammoths are her children and as such, sacred. But she was not born a goddess. Mahaseta was born a human. When Avastaja wanted to prove to the others that the material world and humanity are worth preserving, he appeared to Mahaseta in the most terrifying form and ordered her to sacrifice one of her own children to him. But Mahaseta refused. First she begged for the lives of all her children, then she offered her own life instead and when Avastaja refused, she spat in his face. No punishment could be worse than having to murder your own child. With these words, Mahaseta ascended to godhood.
• Retaro: Son of Mahaseta, who became a god by his mother's love. A great white tiger with blue eyes. Guardian of Amaria, lord of the forests and god of the hunt.
• Red Lady and Blue Knight: Also known as the Blue Lady and Red Knight. A pair of lovers who find each other in every new life they are born into. Living as mortals, they are the paragons of loyalty for all Amarians.

Evil. This is not actually a domain, but a state of mind. A very lonely one.

• The Nameless One: God of Evil, who goes by many false names. He lures mortals in with impossible promises to make them do his bidding. The Nameless One orders blood sacrifice and the killing of those who disobey him. He demands to worshiped and praised every day and is jealous of all those gods who receive praise without asking for it. Thus, the Nameless One also seeks to be the only one. No matter the cost to everyone else or even himself.

__________________________________________________
Context: I am currently working on a stone age fantasy novel and I'm sooo close to finishing it, but the last couple chapters are taking longer than expected. It's set on a forested island named Amaria\ at a time when people are making their first steps towards sedentary life and domestication** of plants and animals. Here is the pantheon I worked out for the Amarians.*
You can read my novel for free on Wattpad and Inkitt. I am planning to publish it on Royal Road too. If you know any other platform that might be good for fantasy stories, feel free to tell me.
\Amaria is short for "Amara Aria", which translates to "Gift of the gods/spirits". Aria means gift and Amara is the plural of Amar. The term Amar can not be literally translated into English. It's an umbrella term for all sorts of nature spirits, gods as well as entities one might compare to angels or saints. So it refers to a person with transcendent characteristics and always carries positive connotations.*
\*Dogs have been domesticated by the ancestors of the Amarians for tens of thousands of years already and are central to their culture. It is believed that they have the same souls as humans, so eating a dog would be considered cannibalism. So far the only other note on domestication I have in the books is the pruning of hazelnut trees to get more nuts. That's something I will change in later drafts. Nightshades will be far more important to the civilization emerging on Amaria in the coming millennia.*

Hi! I was recently diagnosed by my doctor after routine blood work with type 1 diabetes. I am questioning this diagnosis and am looking for some insight from people more experienced than me, because I feel that my doctor is not taking my questions seriously.
I got my fasting blood draw done for my routine physical last week, a1c was at 11, blood sugar was at 285. I am aware and fully accept that this indicates diabetes. I have a family history of type 2 on both sides of my family, probably about half of my adult family members on both sides, so honestly I was expecting it to come up at some point. I am 23 years old, and work a very active job at an animal shelter cleaning kennels, walking dogs, and assisting with lifting animals for surgeries. I am a bit overweight but not obese, I used to be but 3 years ago switched birth controls and have lost weight slowly and steadily since.
When my doctor called Monday with results, she asked some questions:
"Do you drink a lot of water or stay thirsty a lot?" "No"
"How often do you get up to use the bathroom at night?" "Usually once, sometimes not at all"
"Have you lost weight?" "Yes, 60 pounds over the last 3 years after switching birth control, only like 10 pounds the past year though."
She then said that she is diagnosing me with type 1 diabetes. I asked for an in person appointment to discuss my treatment options and she made me one with a different provider as her schedule was full.
A few hours later, she texted to let me know she had sent me in an insulin prescription. I looked and she had prescribed 30 units a day (5 fast acting for each meal, 15 long acting at night) which I felt like was a lot.
I did some googling in the meantime and felt like I didn't have any of the symptoms really. I also talked to a coworker who is type one and she advised me to hold off on the insulin until speaking to an endocrinologist since I feel fine. I decided to ask about the test for markers to determine the type I have since I have a big family history of type 2.
I went to my appointment with the second doctor that afternoon. I asked him about the test for markers and he said he had never heard of it. He looked up what it was in front of me and decided to order it. He also ordered another fasting blood draw for glucose levels and a1c. When I asked him why they thought it was type 1, he said "it can't be type 2 because you're not obese" which from what I've read is incorrect. I had him send me a referral to an endocrinologist. And he gave me a glucose tester with instructions to track my levels. He seemed to think I was in denial about having diabetes, kept saying "you definitely have it" which I'm not denying I just want to know for sure what type. I also asked why start me out on so much insulin instead of going into diet/exercise details or trying oral medication and his response was "that's a good point".
Does this seem normal? I feel that my doctors thus far have not seemed very knowledgeable about the disease from what I have been researching on my own. I am definitely planning on a second opinion from an endocrinologist either way. Thanks!

So me and my bf stopped talking like 2-3 days ago we weren't fully dating but we basically were (we told everyone we were dating) also we're online btw anyway we got into a argument the day we stopped talking I said multiple times that I'm done he said he would miss me and he would give me space I said ok later that day he told me to delete pictures of him and basically remove anything I have of him I was confused but said Ok because it was late and I didn't really wanna get into it we didn't talk for a day or two maybe and then I went on widget able because I was bored and wanted to take care of our pet in the app you can send notes to each other and basically text and I noticed he sent a request to end co-parenting I am unfamiliar with the app so I asked him if there is a way I can get ownership of the pet while ending coparenting I figured he would know and after I asked he said I could keep it and he would just delete the app which was fine I said ok and moved on then after he said he still thinks keeping it is a bad idea I asked why and he said he just doesn't want it around I told him if he deletes the app it won't be "around" he still went back and forth with me and ending the conversation with "k" I never replied at this point I'm still confused to why he's being distant since not even a day before all of this everything was fine (I ask for space often and he never acts likes this) then later on I notice he unfollowed me on Instagram and I see I'm still following him I confront him not in the best way but not in the worst way either I say "remove my follow weirdo" which is not out of the ordinary anytime someone unfollows me and keeps my follow I find it weird and confront them about it or silently unfollow them which tbh is what I should've done this time but I didn't because I was angry and confused and also had a bad day and he replied "I did" we went back and forth on how he didn't I said whatever and left it alone he said "stop contacting me I have a girl" this is where I kinda got pissed off because #1 I said whatever the conversation was DONE #2 I never asked if you had a girl or not #3 HE KEPT REPLYING TO ME JUST STOP REPLYING I said Awesome "I have a bf" this may or may not be true just know I am extremely petty and he knows I regret almost everything I said in this conversation after I said that he replied with k and I said "stop replying 🍆" (I said d*ckhead) then he said something else and deleted it which literally made my blood boil I hate deleting messages especially in a non joking setting I said "what are you deleting messages for 😺" (wasn't actually the cat emoji and I said p*ssy) and he left me on seen which made my blood boil EVEN MORE I often leave him on seen when he's just yapping because it's a lot to reply to also I SAID I REGRET THE WAY I WENT ABOUT THIS CONVERSATION THERE ARE WAYYYY BETTER WAYS I COULD'VE REPLIED OR NOT REPLIED AND I KNOW THAT anyway everything I said he saw and uh here's where it gets really bad and I am going to get a lot of hate for this but you have to realize he has been pushing my buttons and not everything he said here was mentioned he also did other things that he knew would make me mad I said "since we're done fr fr I cheated on you a majority of our relationship" NOW HEAR ME OUT IF SOMEONE SAID THIS TO ME I WOULD LEAVE THEM ON SEEN TOO AND THIS WAS A LIE I HAVE NEVER AND NEVER WILL CHEAT ON ANYONE IT'S GROSS AND JUST SO UNESSARY I said this because we made a contract or deal that we wouldn't talk to anyone else until we get back together officially we both agreed and if we did it is considered being unfaithful and for it to take 2 days actually more like a day and a half for you to find a girlfriend there is no way you stayed loyal also idc about him having a girlfriend I just find it odd and think he is lying he also has a history of lying he lied about have a girlfriend before and cheating on her so yeah that's all I just want to get other people's thoughts on this situation btw from what I know we never broke up or I was done with the relationship I just needed space and I feel like he took it the wrong way but what do you guys think ALSO he has reddit and he's pretty active in this subreddit so if you see this then erm Hi.? OH AND I think I should add this I am not a jealous person like at all I used to encourage him to become friends with girls and he would tell me about girls flirting with him at school to make me jealous or just to get a reaction out of me which never happened because I trusted him and if someone does leave me for someone else then like what am I supposed to do even when I was cheated on in the past it didn't really hurt and I really didn't care

Hi all! After a crazy, but incredibly fun and rewarding year earning my pilot certs, I wanted to make a write-up of my experience in hopes that it’ll be helpful for any other aspiring or current pilots. To summarize, I went from zero aviation experience to CFII in 13 months, Part 61, paying as I go and on the pretty cheap side. I do want to emphasize that I was ~incredibly~ lucky and had some very generous people who helped me out, and I could not have done this as efficiently and cheaply if it weren’t for them. I’m going to list all my takeaways below, but I think my biggest piece of advice is to network as much as you can because there are some amazing, generous people in this community that want to see us all succeed.
Background:
For context, I’m in my mid to late twenties and have been in the workforce for about 5 years. Through a combination of factors I decided to make a career switch to professional pilot but was hesitant because I did not want to take on debt. I have a family member who is an airline pilot who helped me devise a plan. I moved home and kept working my job remotely so I was able to put all my paychecks towards flying.
Private Pilot – 3 months, 75 hours TT, $12k
I did my private in a Piper Archer owned by my local FBO. The owner allowed my family member to be my instructor and gave me a small discount for pre-paying hours. We flew almost daily. I also took ground school at another local FBO in-person, and that was much more helpful than having to learn everything on my own because I was brand new to aviation. I took the private written exam as soon as my ground school concluded which was also the week of my checkride (bad idea in hindsight, but it worked out).
I solo’d around 25 hours and took my checkride with about 60 hours in the Archer (15 additional hours were in a friend’s airplane). The checkride was challenging, but straightforward and I was well prepared. The DPE said good things about me afterward and I was officially a private pilot! I’d be happy to answer questions or do a writeup in a separate post on any of my checkrides but for the sake of brevity I’ll skip that for now.
~Key takeaways from private:~
Fly as often as possible and make sure your instructor is aligned with that. Also stay on top of ground school. Also, don’t rush to take the checkride before you’re ready, it’s okay to have a lot of practice first. Lastly, I know DPE availability is a big issue in lots of areas and can cause people to have to wait on a checkride even though they’ve been ready for months. In my experience, if you try hard enough and call around, you will find someone. However, it might mean you have to travel a little bit which I know is not possible for everyone.
Instrument – 2 months, 150 hours TT, $14k
I was feeling a little fatigued after private so I was slow to start studying for instrument. I started by doing a lot of flying for fun, mainly flying in the Archer by myself on little cross countries to check off some of the requirements (in hindsight I should have found someone to split time with).
I did my instrument at a flight school in one of the adjacent states. This particular school specializes in accelerated programs, but they do not have a formalized instrument course. I went in-person and spoke with the director of flight operations to discuss my options. Since I had to take PTO to do this, the goal was to finish my instrument in one week with the checkride at the end. I paid a flat rate for the airplane and instructor time. I also stayed over there during that week so I had to pay for housing as well.
Before I went over there, I did some prep in the Archer that I did my private in and took the written exam (Sheppard air). I also purchased Sporty’s Instrument course and used that to prep and for the endorsement needed to take the written. The week I spent at the flight school was honestly a blast, and I was able to take my checkride on day 7 with 20 hours in the plane and about 4 hours of sim time. Again, happy to discuss the checkride in the comments or another post.
~Key takeaways from instrument:~
TAKE THE IRA, FII, AND IGI EXAMS AT THE SAME TIME. You only have to purchase the IRA Sheppard course and can take all 3 exams back to back. Also, again stay on top of ground school because instrument flying requires a lot of technical knowledge. But it honestly is really fun!
Commercial – 3 months, 263 hours TT, $8k
The biggest challenge for commercial was time building, of course. This is where networking saved me. I made friends with another instructor who frequented my local FBO who also owns a plane. He needed the time as well so we flew together a lot and I paid for the fuel. I also had another friend at the airport who owns a plane that he doesn’t fly often and offered to let me time build in that (again, I’ve been so lucky to come across some very generous people).
I did my checkride in the Archer that I learned in with my family member signing me off, and with the same DPE who did my private. Commercial was probably the easiest one I had done so far, but it still was no joke! I will say I was amazed with how much easier things came to me by this point versus when I first started, which was a great feeling.
~Key takeaways from commercial:~
Network, network, network. Spend as much time as you can at your local FBO or flight school and make friends with everyone. Like I’ve said, there are some very generous people out there who love to help out new pilots, and I could not have made it this far without them.
Also, in retrospect, it would have been a really good idea to have done commercial from the right seat. I’ve heard of a lot of people doing that and if I had, I would have been able to knock out CFI a lot sooner and cheaper.
Multi-engine add-on – 1 week, 298 hours TT, $4.3k
Shortly after getting my CPL, I had a week of PTO and decided to knock out my multi add-on. I found a flight school with a Seminole and got ahold of their MEI, and we figured we could knock it out during that week. I contacted the DPE who did my private and commercial and we scheduled my checkride for the end of the week. This flight school was about 2 hours driving from home, and I was able to stay with friends while I was there.
This one was a little challenging because this was in January in the midwest and we were seeing a lot of low IFR days. We ended up getting weathered out the first half of the week, but luckily the Seminole was an easy transition for me and we got me trained up in 3 days, 8 hours of flying. I took the checkride as scheduled and passed (I will say I have had extremely good luck with weather for all of my checkride days so far).
Sidenote: Prior to this checkride, I also took the AGI and IGI exams and asked the DPE who did my multi checkride to sign off on the ground instructor certificate at the same time. I did this because I’ve heard it helps when applying to CFI jobs (shows a little extra effort) and it was easier to do it this way versus having a FSDO issue the cert. Cost me $50 to the DPE.
~Key takeaways from multi:~
Do your research to find an airplane at a good rate. I paid $395 per hour which included the instructor, but I’ve seen some schools charging a lot more. Also, I looked into schools with accelerated courses that you pay as a package, and based on my experience I would not recommend because I was able to do it much cheaper my way.
My instructor did a good job of making sure I knew all the aircraft systems well enough to teach them in case I go for my MEI (which I would like to do soon). Since the MEL is light on material, I highly recommend this. Also, when I was doing research I was told to look for a Seminole or DA-42 because they’re easy trainers, which I would agree with based on my limited experience.
CFI – 1 month (on top of all my experience thus far), 316 hours TT, $5k
This was the scariest one for me. I had heard all along that CFI is the hardest and longest checkride and for the most part I would agree. I originally was planning on going to a school with an accelerated program for this, but after asking around I decided to do it on my own (with my family member signing me off).
This one was heavy on ground school. I got some lesson plans from various people as I heard that’s what everyone has prepared for the checkride, but I hardly ended up using them. I also had a friend send me PowerPoints he made for the technical subject areas. I edited them/made them my own and these are what I ended up using for the checkride along with a couple props.
As far as studying goes, the thing I found most helpful was watching random YouTube videos before bed every night. Although it was all review, I picked up a lot of tidbits that weren’t quite drilled into my brain as I still feel new to aviation overall. As the DPE described it, to be a good CFI you basically need to be a nerd about everything aviation and that’s what I tried to do. I would guess that I studied a few hours a day for a month and a half or so. As for the flying part, I had a little bit of right seat experience prior to buckling down for CFI (probably under 5 hours), so I’d guess it took me about 5 more hours to feel comfortable in the right seat. I took the checkride with the same DPE who did my private, commercial, and multi and passed! The checkride was 8 hours total so definitely a long day. As we were debriefing, I went ahead and scheduled CFII with him as well.
~Key takeaways from CFI:~
Start nerding out now (if you aren’t already). Keep a running collection of links and videos that explain concepts well or teach you something interesting, they will be useful for the checkride. Also, don’t buy lesson plans. As my DPE put it, there are really only like 5 lesson plans for any given topic and we all steal them from each other, so no need to reinvent the wheel or pay for them if someone else can give them to you. I’d also recommend really getting to know the PTS, because it lays out very clearly what you are required to do on the checkride (for example you know you’re going to need to teach runway incursions so it’s a good opportunity to be really prepared). I’m sure my last point is most applicable to those doing CFI on their own since you won’t have a school telling you exactly what to expect.
CFII – 1 month, 368 hours TT, $1.3k
CFII was possibly the easiest checkride to prepare for. I did this one in a friend’s airplane – a Mooney with a G750 and GFC 500 autopilot. It probably took about 10 hours of flying (I already have lots of time in this plane) to be ready. For studying, I reviewed Pilot Cafe, YouTube videos, and obtained some lesson plans from a friend. I did not use PowerPoints or anything for this one. I also had already completed the written exam back when I did my instrument rating. I’m not sure what else to say about this one, but I did it with the same DPE again and passed. It feels amazing to be done with checkrides for a while!
~Key takeaways from CFII:~
Select an airplane with a good autopilot. This made the flying portion of the checkride super easy. For the oral, I highly recommend working with instructors who send students for a lot of instrument checkrides. I feel like there are so many very specific questions that DPEs like to ask on instrument/CFII checkrides, so it helps if you have someone who knows what those questions are going to be. Also, FlightInsight on YouTube and Boldmethod were my favorite resources for this one. Lastly, make sure you know your avionics and autopilot really well, including reading and being able to teach all of the limitations that are in the user manuals.
Notes regarding cost:
I did a decent job of tracking all my expenses throughout this process. I noted in the title that the total cost to me was about $50k, which consists of the ~$45k that I discussed above plus some additional expenses. I also did my commercial ASES rating at Jack Brown’s seaplane base which cost me about $2.5K total (of course this was just for fun). The remaining amount consists of things like buying a headset, books, random accessories, and even some things I called “unnecessary expenses”. I temporarily paid for a membership at a flight school that I barely ended up using, so I put that in that category. While I did everything pretty cheap, I was definitely not perfect!
Here is a further breakdown of my expenses:
Airplane rentals/fuel - $36.9k
Instructor fees - $2.5k (bear in mind I got a lot of free instruction from friends & family)
Ground school - $1.3k (includes actual ground school and books)
Flight accessories - $1.2k
Written exam fees - $1.2k (8 exams total)
DPE fees - $5.8k (7 checkrides; this includes seaplane)
Medical fees - $290
Housing - $900
Misc/unnecessary expenses - $1.2k
Total: $51.7k
Overall Takeaways:
- For those doing Part 61/pay as you go, I highly recommend finding an independent instructor with a flexible schedule. This was key for me because I had a work schedule to work around.
- NETWORKING/MAKING FRIENDS. Go to every fly-in you can, always stop into the FBO to say hi to people, etc. etc. Having friends in aviation was monumentally helpful for me and saved me SO much money. Cannot stress this enough!
- If you are on a timeline, make sure you set specific milestones and when you are going to hit them. Make sure your instructor is on board too.
- Do your research! Reddit has been a fantastic resource for me throughout this process. Talk to people who have achieved the things you want to achieve. I really cannot thank you all enough for all your help and insights on your experiences!
Again, I am more than happy to answer any and all questions. I also apologize if anything is jumbled or confusing; this took a long time to write and I’m sure I missed things. I will also disclaim that while I did a good job of tracking all my expenses, I was not perfect and YMMV for sure. I just hope this gave a somewhat helpful picture for those hoping to do something similar to what I did.
As for next steps, I am aiming for the airlines one of these days! I have a couple interviews at flight schools coming up so I am planning to quit my job and finally start flying full-time soon. I want to do my MEI sometime soon as well but I haven’t figured out how I’m going to pay for the PIC time yet.
I also want to say that I absolutely love general aviation and hope to always be involved in it. I have made so many friends, had some incredible experiences, and learned way more than I could have ever imagined in the past year. For anyone thinking about flying, hopefully this is your sign to just do it! Feel free to comment with questions!

So me and my bf stopped talking like 2-3 days ago we weren't fully dating but we basically were (we told everyone we were dating) also we're online btw anyway we got into a argument the day we stopped talking I said multiple times that I'm done he said he would miss me and he would give me space I said ok later that day he told me to delete pictures of him and basically remove anything I have of him I was confused but said Ok because it was late and I didn't really wanna get into it we didn't talk for a day or two maybe and then I went on widget able because I was bored and wanted to take care of our pet in the app you can send notes to each other and basically text and I noticed he sent a request to end co-parenting I am unfamiliar with the app so I asked him if there is a way I can get ownership of the pet while ending coparenting I figured he would know and after I asked he said I could keep it and he would just delete the app which was fine I said ok and moved on then after he said he still thinks keeping it is a bad idea I asked why and he said he just doesn't want it around I told him if he deletes the app it won't be "around" he still went back and forth with me and ending the conversation with "k" I never replied at this point I'm still confused to why he's being distant since not even a day before all of this everything was fine (I ask for space often and he never acts likes this) then later on I notice he unfollowed me on Instagram and I see I'm still following him I confront him not in the best way but not in the worst way either I say "remove my follow weirdo" which is not out of the ordinary anytime someone unfollows me and keeps my follow I find it weird and confront them about it or silently unfollow them which tbh is what I should've done this time but I didn't because I was angry and confused and also had a bad day and he replied "I did" we went back and forth on how he didn't I said whatever and left it alone he said "stop contacting me I have a girl" this is where I kinda got pissed off because #1 I said whatever the conversation was DONE #2 I never asked if you had a girl or not #3 HE KEPT REPLYING TO ME JUST STOP REPLYING I said Awesome "I have a bf" this may or may not be true just know I am extremely petty and he knows I regret almost everything I said in this conversation after I said that he replied with k and I said "stop replying 🍆" (I said d*ckhead) then he said something else and deleted it which literally made my blood boil I hate deleting messages especially in a non joking setting I said "what are you deleting messages for 😺" (wasn't actually the cat emoji and I said p*ssy) and he left me on seen which made my blood boil EVEN MORE I often leave him on seen when he's just yapping because it's a lot to reply to also I SAID I REGRET THE WAY I WENT ABOUT THIS CONVERSATION THERE ARE WAYYYY BETTER WAYS I COULD'VE REPLIED OR NOT REPLIED AND I KNOW THAT anyway everything I said he saw and uh here's where it gets really bad and I am going to get a lot of hate for this but you have to realize he has been pushing my buttons and not everything he said here was mentioned he also did other things that he knew would make me mad I said "since we're done fr fr I cheated on you a majority of our relationship" NOW HEAR ME OUT IF SOMEONE SAID THIS TO ME I WOULD LEAVE THEM ON SEEN TOO AND THIS WAS A LIE I HAVE NEVER AND NEVER WILL CHEAT ON ANYONE IT'S GROSS AND JUST SO UNESSARY I said this because we made a contract or deal that we wouldn't talk to anyone else until we get back together officially we both agreed and if we did it is considered being unfaithful and for it to take 2 days actually more like a day and a half for you to find a girlfriend there is no way you stayed loyal also idc about him having a girlfriend I just find it odd and think he is lying he also has a history of lying he lied about have a girlfriend before and cheating on her so yeah that's all I just want to get other people's thoughts on this situation btw from what I know we never broke up or I was done with the relationship I just needed space and I feel like he took it the wrong way but what do you guys think ALSO he has reddit and he's pretty active in this subreddit so if you see this then erm Hi.? OH AND I think I should add this I am not a jealous person like at all I used to encourage him to become friends with girls and he would tell me about girls flirting with him at school to make me jealous or just to get a reaction out of me which never happened because I trusted him and if someone does leave me for someone else then like what am I supposed to do even when I was cheated on in the past it didn't really hurt and I really didn't care
TLDR: Me and my ex broke up 2 days ago and yesterday he said he has a new girlfriend he also has a history of lying about his dating history to seem cooler or make people jealous

Sorry it’s my first time on Reddit Me (23M) and my gf (22F have been together for 2 1/2 years. For context, my girlfriend we will call her Amy does a lot of hunting, fishing etc. Amy’s family goes out to the woods every year and does a big fishing event with the whole family. Lots of her family I have not fully met, like her aunt and her cousin who I will call John. Now for the story; I was at Amy’s house and we had a disagreement, we do not argue much but we figured everything out together. This disagreement was about her not wanting to do stuff for me like a back massage or something along those lines. She used the term “manipulation,” to describe how showing I was in pain instead of just asking her for a massage, we discussed it all and she eventually apologized. I was about to leave her house when she asked to come with to my house to stay the night. On the way back she seemed off, I asked her what was wrong and she told me about last Summer when she was at camp. She said that she had been intoxicated and sat in John’s car (her cousin). They talked and overtime he began to pressure her into kissing him, they kissed and she got very uncomfortable and left the car. After that I kept asking her questions about it and the story began to change. First, it was she got out of the car right after it happened, next she froze and didn’t know what to do then left and eventually it ended at her waiting until he fell asleep to leave the car. All of these changes made me insanely suspicious that there was more to this story. I still had her over to stay the night, while here I said I would text John to get his side of the story if something did not align with what Amy told me I told her we would have to to break up because she lied more than once. I asked her what she thought he would say. She replied “ I don’t know how he will see it, it seemed different to him I don’t think he got the message I was uncomfortable very well,” again I had more concerns. If she had made it abundantly clear that what he did was not okay, why did he not leave her alone? I also asked why he was still on all her socials, she answered, “ we are family it would be weird,” I’m sitting in my room completely shaken, I have been with this woman for over two years and we had our ups and downs but I have done everything I can to make her feel as special and treasured as I could. Am I the asshole for thinking maybe I should still break up with her?

Sorry it’s my first time on Reddit Me (23M) and my gf (22F have been together for 2 1/2 years. For context, my girlfriend we will call her Amy does a lot of hunting, fishing etc. Amy’s family goes out to the woods every year and does a big fishing event with the whole family. Lots of her family I have not fully met, like her aunt and her cousin who I will call John. Now for the story; I was at Amy’s house and we had a disagreement, we do not argue much but we figured everything out together. This disagreement was about her not wanting to do stuff for me like a back massage or something along those lines. She used the term “manipulation,” to describe how showing I was in pain instead of just asking her for a massage, we discussed it all and she eventually apologized. I was about to leave her house when she asked to come with to my house to stay the night. On the way back she seemed off, I asked her what was wrong and she told me about last Summer when she was at camp. She said that she had been intoxicated and sat in John’s car (her cousin). They talked and overtime he began to pressure her into kissing him, they kissed and she got very uncomfortable and left the car. After that I kept asking her questions about it and the story began to change. First, it was she got out of the car right after it happened, next she froze and didn’t know what to do then left and eventually it ended at her waiting until he fell asleep to leave the car. All of these changes made me insanely suspicious that there was more to this story. I still had her over to stay the night, while here I said I would text John to get his side of the story if something did not align with what Amy told me I told her we would have to to break up because she lied more than once. I asked her what she thought he would say. She replied “ I don’t know how he will see it, it seemed different to him I don’t think he got the message I was uncomfortable very well,” again I had more concerns. If she had made it abundantly clear that what he did was not okay, why did he not leave her alone? I also asked why he was still on all her socials, she answered, “ we are family it would be weird,” I’m sitting in my room completely shaken, I have been with this woman for over two years and we had our ups and downs but I have done everything I can to make her feel as special and treasured as I could. Am I the asshole for thinking maybe I should still break up with her?