Best dermatologist sioux falls

 I’ve been with my girlfriend now for a year and some change, and I fell in love with her a long time ago, right around when we first met in person, but recently I’ve had my mental health degrade a bit and it’s been forcing me into these thoughts about if I’m suitable for a relationship or not. She still loves me I’m hoping and I love her too but with certain things like my mood, sex drive, and interest in anything remotely related to relationship stuff taking a dive, I’m not sure where things are going to be heading. There’s certain things that she picks up on and points out to me such as my attitude and my patience wearing thin especially when shopping for hours. When they are pointed out to me I can’t say I don’t have the attitude cause it’s clear that I do, but I haven’t been able to manage it at all and it makes me scared about where this is heading. I know you can talk about mental health with your significant other and that it’s important to, but she’s from Albania originally and most of her culture says that mental health is a thing but non of them truly believe it, and it shows. Anytime somebody struggles or complains about something that’s obviously not well for them mentally, it’s always a “brush it off” or “just do something else” attitude that ensues shortly after. My girlfriend and her sister will deny and deny these things after I point it out but then they immediately continue the same actions and attitudes towards me the second the conversation is over. You can’t win against them no matter how much “evidence” or reasoning you bring to the table simply because it just isn’t in their culture to worry about it. Not to say that I’m falling out of love but a piece of me really really deep inside keeps telling me to try and stray further and further apart from my girlfriend because it’ll be for the better since it is warning me about my degrading mental health. I think my body needs time to itself but it doesn’t like being alone. I love all of the support and unconditional love from my girlfriend but when it comes to this stuff, it’s just all of the small things that add up which doesn’t help me in this problem. For example, just any little attitude she will show me or when she calls me names in a joking way or tries to say what I’m doing is “cringe” simply because she grew up differently and is clearly not as mature socially as me, it hurts a little on the inside and I’ve actually mentioned this to her before. You can kind of guess what happens immediately after the conversation ends at this point. I’m stuck in the endless loop of not wanting to let an almost perfect relationship go to waste, but also thinking that the longer I pursue this, the more my mental health will degrade and the harder it will be to leave. I’ve had relationships in the past where the first was 2 years long and the second being a year and 9 months. The first one ended because we were both young and she wanted to go find different things about herself before committing to things for the future (we were around 15-16 years old). The second relationship ended because the mental health of my girlfriend was already a mess but I helped her through the rest of high school into the first year of college, but we ended up going to seafarers schools and she took a dive and decided to break things off. This will be the first time I’ve ever had to make a decision on my own terms about whether to break up with someone because I feel as if things won’t go well, or if I do break up and things could have been just fine I risk losing the greatest love I’ve had so far because I was too worried about my mental health. I think the perspectives of those who have made this decision or have lots of relationship experience would be great help. 

TL:DR

 I subconsciously feel my mental health taking a dive but things haven’t gotten bad (yet). I’ve been in a relationship for quite a while now with a person I really love, but I feel as if her actions and lack of association culturally with mental health is helping degrade mine. I’ve never had to break up with someone because me and others have only split ways due to normal circumstance. Not to say I will actually break up yet, but I need help making a decision on this from those who have experienced this or have lots of relationship experience. I’d hate to throw away the best relationship I’ve had so far if this is something that could just turn out better later. 

I’m a full-time nanny in a HCOL area making 22/hour after one raise, which is well below what I am worth. I started my job already having over 5 years experience in childcare but I never knew what normal nanny rates were, so I definitely low-balled myself. I’ve been with the family since NK was an infant, it’s been 2.5 years now. I stayed because I love NK and have a bond with them, but I know it’s time for me to move on.
There are many reasons why I wouldn’t stay if they offered a pay increase. Without being too specific, I don’t feel valued or respected as a professional and I’m extremely burnt out from doing this and school full-time and I haven’t had much time off or a real vacation since I started. Also, it just doesn’t really work with my schedule and NK will be starting morning preschool in the fall, which would mean reduced hours. I have a job in the restaurant industry lined up already.
I plan to give four weeks’ notice either tomorrow or next week. I just can’t help but feel guilty because I know they don’t expect it at all and they really do rely on me. I have a feeling it will be hard for them to find someone to take over this position as they still have me wearing masks all day. Also, I know NK will be really sad, and I’ll be sad to leave them, too. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to gain in posting here, I think I just need someone to remind me that it’s not my responsibility to take care of them over myself. I think I’d also like insight on whether or not I should stick it out until preschool begins.
This community has already helped me in so many ways, and I really do appreciate it. Part of me is sad I won’t be a nanny anymore, but I also know that there’s nothing left for me in this industry. My burnout is preventing me from giving this job my best.

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My father was not a good man, I know this. But when I think of him, I first recall his warmth, his kindness, and his strength. I remember vividly watching him toil away at backbreaking labor to support us. I was amazed by the strength of his hands, and how gentle they were with me. And then my stomach drops into a pit because now I know that with those same hands, he took the lives of countless innocent people.
My earliest memory is of him. I was 4 and I was trying to convince him to let me take in a stray dog I had found wandering an abandoned lot.
“We can’t, it’d be too much trouble to lug the mutt around, we have a hard enough time with just the two of us.” He said.
“We can leave him with lots of food until we come back,” I countered.
“Dogs aren’t like people, they’re bound by instinct. If you leave a month's worth of food out for a dog it won’t ration its food out so that it can eat happily for a month, no it’ll gorge itself and eat all the food available to it, that’s its nature, its instinct. And once there’s nothing left and hunger creeps in it might go out into the world in search of a new meal, and we’ve already learned that its instinct is to consume as much as it can while it can. That’s why we’re around, to control that which is bestial.” He said, his eyes tainted with an existential melancholy.
Even now when I think about it a trickle of cold sweat crawls achingly slow down the side of my brow, he was so close to telling me the truth back then. I wondered if the possibility of passing on his burden was what caused the derailment of his life lesson.
Our life was unconventional, spent in countless cheap, dirty roadside motels as we trekked aimlessly through the states. Sometimes we slept in abandoned lots and dark parking lots and on cold nights we clung to each other, knowing that there was no one else in the world that would care for us, but us. He tried his best to provide for me and I never went hungry, even on our worst days his patience and understanding were unmatched by any man I have known sense.
The first time I suspected my father was involved in something grisly was when I was 9. He had left me alone in our motel with the TV on and a pizza box. He must have been gone for 11 hours at least, and I began to worry that something terrible happened to him. The entire week something had been off, there was a heaviness in the air, and a chill seemed to stalk us. It was the middle of a brutal summer but every enclosed space I found myself in was wicked of its heat until the very breaths I exhaled were visible. I noticed that my father was suffering from some mental fatigue, was more irritable than usual, and had a mounting nervousness that made him quick to sequester us in our hotel. He left that day saying that there was something he needed to do but promised he’d be back. But as the clock neared 1 am I was afraid that I’d never see him again.
The relief I felt when he rushed into our hotel room was short-lived when I saw the state he was in. His dark hair was disheveled, splattered with a slick substance, and his eyes were crazed. What stood out most of all was the angry red lines criss-crossing his face and neck. He told me to get my things as he quickly made his way into the shower. I did as I was told, the panicked tone of his voice infused a frenzy into my movements, and all I owned was half haphazardly thrown into my backpack. My father stepped out of the shower and as he dressed I noticed the deep scratches raked into his forearms and back, even at that age it was unmistakable. Violence.
We drove away from that motel in silence, with no alarm or danger given voice by my father. But an undeniable sense of wrongness lingered in the air, heavy and undispellable, I knew deep in the pit of my gut that we had committed some great evil. Dad however was at ease, as if some great weight had just been lifted off his shoulders, and as days passed I noticed the stalking cold had faded.
3 years passed and I had smartened up by then and as I began to recall and re-examine, I began to piece things together. Through the layers of denial and rationalization, I knew what he had done. I held on to the hope that the motel incident was the last time, that we could move forward and with time, forget. And then he killed Morgan. There was a build-up to it, that same strange chill, the sense of impending doom, and then Dad left like he always did, and when he came back the stalking specter was gone and so was Morgan. I didn’t know him, couldn’t bring myself to even look into him even now. I only caught wind of him through a radio broadcast as we hastily left yet another small town. My dad quickly switched stations and I knew it had been him. I think he knew that I knew then, the nervousness in both our eyes communicating more between us than we’d ever could with words.
I took part in my first murder at 15. It wasn’t planned, wasn’t a rite of passage. It was more like a car crash, flying at 120 miles per hour straight into the embankment. Her name was Laurie Artwood, a local prostitute. I forced myself to look this time even if it was a glance at a driver's license moments before it was tossed into flames. Her name, her face, all seared into the flesh of my mind. It was the moment she stepped out bloodied and starry-eyed as a curtain of blood cascaded down the side of her head. A flap of flesh dangled loosely from her scalp, weighed and dragged down by curly auburn hair. As we locked eyes and hope flushed into her iris I looked away and saw the crimson-slicked and chipped exposed skull. She screamed then and I flinched and doubled back at her, seeing the desperate sprint she made towards the car I had been sleeping in. Dad closed the distance, spriting on long powerful legs, the glint of a deadly metal arc flashing briefly in the moonlight before he brought the ax down with a powerful and meaty THWACK
I saw the light leave her eyes as the floor rushed up to meet her. Dad pried the ax loose with a foot and brought it down thrice more. I watched in horror, spewing vomit and tears as a blood rain coated the floor and car. I was comatose by the time he finally entered the driver's seat, the crazed look from 6 years earlier was mirrored and I knew he had always been like this. He chanted “fuck” under his breath, like a mantra as he scrambled to start the car and when the engine roared to life silence fell like a guillotine. We drove off into the night and I was left with the knowledge that I had killed her with my inaction.
Dawn was starting to peek through the horizon when we finally came to some unnamed backwater town with a self-serve car wash. I watched as Dad fed the machine a handful of quarters and proceeded to wash the car clean. The cold spray made the bitter morning cold all the harsher, and with each passing moment, I felt the question, the demand bubbling up inside me.
“Why?” I asked, quietly.
It cleaved through the whir and sound of pressurized water and Dad heard it, turned to face me, and said “Soon.” so we waited until the water ran clear and the sun rose and off we drove to some far-flung forest edge where he pulled over. A cigarette was lit and Dad took a long drag until his lungs hurt and he couldn’t hold it any longer. He breathed the plume of smoke out painting the world gray and held out the cigarette to me and I answered with a contemptuous glare.
“Alright, I guess it’s time you knew. You’d find out sooner or later, this thing will pass on to you eventually,” he said.
“Thing?”
“You’ve felt it before, I’m sure you have. The way it hungers, the way it loathes, and the way it schemes.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked but in the pit of my stomach, I had an inkling of what he meant.
He reached out and for a moment I froze, but this was my Dad, he wouldn’t hurt me, couldn’t. So I let him take hold of my shoulders and turn me to face the sunrise.
“If it’s here, it means they haven’t found her body yet, you can’t see it by looking through your eyes. Think of what you have and what you’ve lost. What I’ve taken from you because I couldn’t bear the thought of doing this alone.”
I did, I could have had a normal life, friends, a family, first love. Anything but this vagrant lifestyle, knowing the person you cherished the most was a monster and having him drag you into his hell. And then I felt the sting of tears in my eyes, a longing blossoming and the crushing weight of its existence.
“Now show yourself,” he said
And in the glow of the morning sun, it did. I didn’t know if the thing was malformed or degraded, just that it didn’t belong. Multiple forms convened and interlaced within the same space, upon a glance it was a human silhouette, weaved in shadow. But in that same instance, it was a cuboid thing, far too large for the space it existed in, its surface pocked and scarred by clockwork machinery, passages, and labyrinthian tunnels. It was constantly turning, shifting, and restructuring, I didn’t know where to look. If I focused on its maze-like circuitry I would lose myself in the maddening scramble to navigate them. And if I saw the black of its being I would that beneath it all was a maw that opened wide and lapped hungrily at the world around it, feeding on something that still evaded me.
I tried to recoil, tried to move away from it but Dad caught me and held me firm, forcing me to gaze into the thing. Its once semi-translucent form grew vivid and real, solidifying its existence. A cloud of black smoke was being pulled from me into the hungry maws of its shadow self and in turn the machinery and clockworks of its exterior. It was devouring some part of me and it horrified me enough to try to turn and run but Dad’s firm hands held me still as he spoke.
“I think it might have had a purpose at one point, to lessen the weight of some great tragedy. But with time even blessings can become curses. I don’t know why it latched onto us, whether it was born or made, just that it needs to feed. And if we don’t feed it and control its urges, it might go out into the world and gorge itself on the grief it brings. The knowledge that I’m sparing the world from the havoc it could wreck is my sin and burden, and now… yours.”
I stood transfixed, gaze locked on the thing that fed on grief and stalked our bloodline and then it came to me, a question I had pondered but never voiced.
“What happened to Mom?”
I turned to face him and saw him drowning in pain, in guilt, in remorse. He looked away, and I knew. The world spun as bile threatened to force its way up. My lip quivered as I turned away, preferring to face the grief-devouring demon. But it had already faded to a phantasm, a moment later nothing remained.
“They found her.” was all my father said before he got back in the car. The moment of hesitation dragged out for what felt like an eternity but eventually, I was in the passenger seat alongside him, wondering how long this thing would be able to feed on the grief my father wrought that night before he’d have to do it again.
2 years, 2 short years before the grief demon manifested again. I understood now, why it stuck close to us, why no suspicion ever came to us. It was a parasite, leeching from whoever it could with the least amount of effort. I tried telling dad if we let it starve it would go somewhere else, but he feared the lengths it would to feed itself.
“The world is drowning in pain, there’s no shortage of ways for it to gorge itself,” I told him.
“I can’t risk that, no one should suffer this, no one but me,” and he was off, searching for his next victim, unaware it was the last time we’d see each other.
He never found them, not that night. When he returned to the motel he found it empty. I took what I had and caught a bus to anywhere else, and kept going until I no longer could. The monstrous thing followed me for a night but when I greeted the following dawn it was gone and I knew Dad was the one grieving. The lump in my heart wasn’t heavy enough to turn my pace, I kept moving because it was all I could do. I found a job as a laborer, taking whatever anyone was willing to give me and for two years I broke my back scrounging change for nothing. Half a year ago I came home to my shitty apartment, opening the door I was greeted by a bone-deep chill and I froze. In the center of the room upon a thrifted coffee table it stood, crouched itself. The labyrinthian clockwork had slowed to a crawl and their underlying hungry mouths lapped up at the empty air. Some of them grinned at me, expectantly.
A scream tried to tear its way up my body but it was drowned out by something else, a smoldering emotion on the verge of catching flame. As the implication of the demon’s appearance settled in I felt it, grief. And then I cried, I cried for all I had lost and for what I never had. I cried, hoping to drown a space within me that grew with every second. As I collapsed into myself as the mechanisms of this thing unwound and opened and encircled me. The maws bit down deep on the flames of my pain and I drowned in the crushing weight of its presence, suffocated by my fire and its hunger. I was immobilized by it at first, as it fed on the grief cultivated over a lifetime. Days passed, then weeks, and then a month before a moment of clarity. A burden eased and I sought him out. Claimed his body and did what I could. It wasn’t much but the tiny urn they gave me could at least be carried until I found the courage to let him go.
I’ve carried them ever since. Their weight is great and some days I buckle and fall but I know that with each passing day, it gets easier, even if only a little. It won’t ever fade completely, I know that, but one day it’ll be ok. I’ll climb to his favorite cliffside, one that overlooked a redwood forest and there I’ll toss our burdens to the wind, let them be scattered, and be returned to the earth. The demon might stick around a bit longer, maybe much longer than anticipated. But I won’t let it be my cross to bear. I don’t know what it’ll do. Maybe it’ll latch onto someone else, maybe it will coast through the world feeding on the suffering as it passes them. Maybe Dad was right and it’ll gorge on the whole of the world’s grief until it can’t. Somehow I doubt that, not through any logical reasoning but because it’s what I have to believe if I want to live with myself. The only thing I know is that I’ll keep trudging forward until I can’t.
TW

My father was not a good man, I know this. But when I think of him, I first recall his warmth, his kindness, and his strength. I remember vividly watching him toil away at backbreaking labor to support us. I was amazed by the strength of his hands, and how gentle they were with me. And then my stomach drops into a pit because now I know that with those same hands, he took the lives of countless innocent people.
My earliest memory is of him. I was 4 and I was trying to convince him to let me take in a stray dog I had found wandering an abandoned lot.
“We can’t, it’d be too much trouble to lug the mutt around, we have a hard enough time with just the two of us.” He said.
“We can leave him with lots of food until we come back,” I countered.
“Dogs aren’t like people, they’re bound by instinct. If you leave a month's worth of food out for a dog it won’t ration its food out so that it can eat happily for a month, no it’ll gorge itself and eat all the food available to it, that’s its nature, its instinct. And once there’s nothing left and hunger creeps in it might go out into the world in search of a new meal, and we’ve already learned that its instinct is to consume as much as it can while it can. That’s why we’re around, to control that which is bestial.” He said, his eyes tainted with an existential melancholy.
Even now when I think about it a trickle of cold sweat crawls achingly slow down the side of my brow, he was so close to telling me the truth back then. I wondered if the possibility of passing on his burden was what caused the derailment of his life lesson.
Our life was unconventional, spent in countless cheap, dirty roadside motels as we trekked aimlessly through the states. Sometimes we slept in abandoned lots and dark parking lots and on cold nights we clung to each other, knowing that there was no one else in the world that would care for us, but us. He tried his best to provide for me and I never went hungry, even on our worst days his patience and understanding were unmatched by any man I have known sense.
The first time I suspected my father was involved in something grisly was when I was 9. He had left me alone in our motel with the TV on and a pizza box. He must have been gone for 11 hours at least, and I began to worry that something terrible happened to him. The entire week something had been off, there was a heaviness in the air, and a chill seemed to stalk us. It was the middle of a brutal summer but every enclosed space I found myself in was wicked of its heat until the very breaths I exhaled were visible. I noticed that my father was suffering from some mental fatigue, was more irritable than usual, and had a mounting nervousness that made him quick to sequester us in our hotel. He left that day saying that there was something he needed to do but promised he’d be back. But as the clock neared 1 am I was afraid that I’d never see him again.
The relief I felt when he rushed into our hotel room was short-lived when I saw the state he was in. His dark hair was disheveled, splattered with a slick substance, and his eyes were crazed. What stood out most of all was the angry red lines criss-crossing his face and neck. He told me to get my things as he quickly made his way into the shower. I did as I was told, the panicked tone of his voice infused a frenzy into my movements, and all I owned was half haphazardly thrown into my backpack. My father stepped out of the shower and as he dressed I noticed the deep scratches raked into his forearms and back, even at that age it was unmistakable. Violence.
We drove away from that motel in silence, with no alarm or danger given voice by my father. But an undeniable sense of wrongness lingered in the air, heavy and undispellable, I knew deep in the pit of my gut that we had committed some great evil. Dad however was at ease, as if some great weight had just been lifted off his shoulders, and as days passed I noticed the stalking cold had faded.
3 years passed and I had smartened up by then and as I began to recall and re-examine, I began to piece things together. Through the layers of denial and rationalization, I knew what he had done. I held on to the hope that the motel incident was the last time, that we could move forward and with time, forget. And then he killed Morgan. There was a build-up to it, that same strange chill, the sense of impending doom, and then Dad left like he always did, and when he came back the stalking specter was gone and so was Morgan. I didn’t know him, couldn’t bring myself to even look into him even now. I only caught wind of him through a radio broadcast as we hastily left yet another small town. My dad quickly switched stations and I knew it had been him. I think he knew that I knew then, the nervousness in both our eyes communicating more between us than we’d ever could with words.
I took part in my first murder at 15. It wasn’t planned, wasn’t a rite of passage. It was more like a car crash, flying at 120 miles per hour straight into the embankment. Her name was Laurie Artwood, a local prostitute. I forced myself to look this time even if it was a glance at a driver's license moments before it was tossed into flames. Her name, her face, all seared into the flesh of my mind. It was the moment she stepped out bloodied and starry-eyed as a curtain of blood cascaded down the side of her head. A flap of flesh dangled loosely from her scalp, weighed and dragged down by curly auburn hair. As we locked eyes and hope flushed into her iris I looked away and saw the crimson-slicked and chipped exposed skull. She screamed then and I flinched and doubled back at her, seeing the desperate sprint she made towards the car I had been sleeping in. Dad closed the distance, spriting on long powerful legs, the glint of a deadly metal arc flashing briefly in the moonlight before he brought the ax down with a powerful and meaty THWACK
I saw the light leave her eyes as the floor rushed up to meet her. Dad pried the ax loose with a foot and brought it down thrice more. I watched in horror, spewing vomit and tears as a blood rain coated the floor and car. I was comatose by the time he finally entered the driver's seat, the crazed look from 6 years earlier was mirrored and I knew he had always been like this. He chanted “fuck” under his breath, like a mantra as he scrambled to start the car and when the engine roared to life silence fell like a guillotine. We drove off into the night and I was left with the knowledge that I had killed her with my inaction.
Dawn was starting to peek through the horizon when we finally came to some unnamed backwater town with a self-serve car wash. I watched as Dad fed the machine a handful of quarters and proceeded to wash the car clean. The cold spray made the bitter morning cold all the harsher, and with each passing moment, I felt the question, the demand bubbling up inside me.
“Why?” I asked, quietly.
It cleaved through the whir and sound of pressurized water and Dad heard it, turned to face me, and said “Soon.” so we waited until the water ran clear and the sun rose and off we drove to some far-flung forest edge where he pulled over. A cigarette was lit and Dad took a long drag until his lungs hurt and he couldn’t hold it any longer. He breathed the plume of smoke out painting the world gray and held out the cigarette to me and I answered with a contemptuous glare.
“Alright, I guess it’s time you knew. You’d find out sooner or later, this thing will pass on to you eventually,” he said.
“Thing?”
“You’ve felt it before, I’m sure you have. The way it hungers, the way it loathes, and the way it schemes.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked but in the pit of my stomach, I had an inkling of what he meant.
He reached out and for a moment I froze, but this was my Dad, he wouldn’t hurt me, couldn’t. So I let him take hold of my shoulders and turn me to face the sunrise.
“If it’s here, it means they haven’t found her body yet, you can’t see it by looking through your eyes. Think of what you have and what you’ve lost. What I’ve taken from you because I couldn’t bear the thought of doing this alone.”
I did, I could have had a normal life, friends, a family, first love. Anything but this vagrant lifestyle, knowing the person you cherished the most was a monster and having him drag you into his hell. And then I felt the sting of tears in my eyes, a longing blossoming and the crushing weight of its existence.
“Now show yourself,” he said
And in the glow of the morning sun, it did. I didn’t know if the thing was malformed or degraded, just that it didn’t belong. Multiple forms convened and interlaced within the same space, upon a glance it was a human silhouette, weaved in shadow. But in that same instance, it was a cuboid thing, far too large for the space it existed in, its surface pocked and scarred by clockwork machinery, passages, and labyrinthian tunnels. It was constantly turning, shifting, and restructuring, I didn’t know where to look. If I focused on its maze-like circuitry I would lose myself in the maddening scramble to navigate them. And if I saw the black of its being I would that beneath it all was a maw that opened wide and lapped hungrily at the world around it, feeding on something that still evaded me.
I tried to recoil, tried to move away from it but Dad caught me and held me firm, forcing me to gaze into the thing. Its once semi-translucent form grew vivid and real, solidifying its existence. A cloud of black smoke was being pulled from me into the hungry maws of its shadow self and in turn the machinery and clockworks of its exterior. It was devouring some part of me and it horrified me enough to try to turn and run but Dad’s firm hands held me still as he spoke.
“I think it might have had a purpose at one point, to lessen the weight of some great tragedy. But with time even blessings can become curses. I don’t know why it latched onto us, whether it was born or made, just that it needs to feed. And if we don’t feed it and control its urges, it might go out into the world and gorge itself on the grief it brings. The knowledge that I’m sparing the world from the havoc it could wreck is my sin and burden, and now… yours.”
I stood transfixed, gaze locked on the thing that fed on grief and stalked our bloodline and then it came to me, a question I had pondered but never voiced.
“What happened to Mom?”
I turned to face him and saw him drowning in pain, in guilt, in remorse. He looked away, and I knew. The world spun as bile threatened to force its way up. My lip quivered as I turned away, preferring to face the grief-devouring demon. But it had already faded to a phantasm, a moment later nothing remained.
“They found her.” was all my father said before he got back in the car. The moment of hesitation dragged out for what felt like an eternity but eventually, I was in the passenger seat alongside him, wondering how long this thing would be able to feed on the grief my father wrought that night before he’d have to do it again.
2 years, 2 short years before the grief demon manifested again. I understood now, why it stuck close to us, why no suspicion ever came to us. It was a parasite, leeching from whoever it could with the least amount of effort. I tried telling dad if we let it starve it would go somewhere else, but he feared the lengths it would to feed itself.
“The world is drowning in pain, there’s no shortage of ways for it to gorge itself,” I told him.
“I can’t risk that, no one should suffer this, no one but me,” and he was off, searching for his next victim, unaware it was the last time we’d see each other.
He never found them, not that night. When he returned to the motel he found it empty. I took what I had and caught a bus to anywhere else, and kept going until I no longer could. The monstrous thing followed me for a night but when I greeted the following dawn it was gone and I knew Dad was the one grieving. The lump in my heart wasn’t heavy enough to turn my pace, I kept moving because it was all I could do. I found a job as a laborer, taking whatever anyone was willing to give me and for two years I broke my back scrounging change for nothing. Half a year ago I came home to my shitty apartment, opening the door I was greeted by a bone-deep chill and I froze. In the center of the room upon a thrifted coffee table it stood, crouched itself. The labyrinthian clockwork had slowed to a crawl and their underlying hungry mouths lapped up at the empty air. Some of them grinned at me, expectantly.
A scream tried to tear its way up my body but it was drowned out by something else, a smoldering emotion on the verge of catching flame. As the implication of the demon’s appearance settled in I felt it, grief. And then I cried, I cried for all I had lost and for what I never had. I cried, hoping to drown a space within me that grew with every second. As I collapsed into myself as the mechanisms of this thing unwound and opened and encircled me. The maws bit down deep on the flames of my pain and I drowned in the crushing weight of its presence, suffocated by my fire and its hunger. I was immobilized by it at first, as it fed on the grief cultivated over a lifetime. Days passed, then weeks, and then a month before a moment of clarity. A burden eased and I sought him out. Claimed his body and did what I could. It wasn’t much but the tiny urn they gave me could at least be carried until I found the courage to let him go.
I’ve carried them ever since. Their weight is great and some days I buckle and fall but I know that with each passing day, it gets easier, even if only a little. It won’t ever fade completely, I know that, but one day it’ll be ok. I’ll climb to his favorite cliffside, one that overlooked a redwood forest and there I’ll toss our burdens to the wind, let them be scattered, and be returned to the earth. The demon might stick around a bit longer, maybe much longer than anticipated. But I won’t let it be my cross to bear. I don’t know what it’ll do. Maybe it’ll latch onto someone else, maybe it will coast through the world feeding on the suffering as it passes them. Maybe Dad was right and it’ll gorge on the whole of the world’s grief until it can’t. Somehow I doubt that, not through any logical reasoning but because it’s what I have to believe if I want to live with myself. The only thing I know is that I’ll keep trudging forward until I can’t.
TW

So, independent. Living in metro city. Earning decent amount of money. I belong to a lower middle class family. My parents separated when I was kid. Don’t know how dad’s love feels like. Completed whatever degree I could afford nearby my small town. Been abused by blood relatives. Still keeping mouth shut because “ijjat”. Fast forward to me leaving home to be independent finding decent job in decent company. Unfortunately, I tend to fall in love quickly. Childhood trauma just hitting you hard. Never feeling like home, I searched for my home in every man I dated or was in relationship with. I always ended up meeting guys who were not earning but pampered by their parents. I never expected anyone to spend on me. I only needed little love on the side of words of affirmation. I never harmed anyone knowingly. In recent times I dated a guy. Due to certain situations he was not earning. We vibed so much, went on dates, laughed, talked it was perfect. I did not care about the fact that I am the one who spends till now. Yes, now I feel like talking about money because I am feeling bad. Him being by my side was enough for me. Guess what! I am ghosted after good one year. He was dealing with some issues and I tried my best to be there for him. Of course I did not want to fix him or anything. I was giving him time to deal with things. He nicely dealt with it! By ghosting me. Trust me its not only him. Ex guy too dated for 2 years and then he suddenly realised his dad won’t agree for marriage. Other one went off and cheated with the girl he told not to worry about. What do men want? Like seriously? I am really scared. I feel like running away. I feel I need a break but I can’t go back to house where I was abused and they won’t welcome me. To survive in this city you need money. Bills will be due. Office drama is another topic to discuss. These people with privileged bums. How can they behave like this? Like dude, I am not some stupid girl. You could have just said no I can not be with you anymore. Little acknowledgment? I am clueless! Now I feel I don’t want anyone anymore. I will rather get two dogs and take care of them and die off when time comes. I miss the girl who believed in love. Now its all just numbness. Scared and still pretending to be fine. Thank you for letting me vent out. I am sorry in case this post is not well constructed. Kept typing my feelings out.

Story Time
Well, fellow band mates. It has been a good ride. I started this subreddit when I was in high school back in 2010 or 2011 so my friends and I could share a photo of someone falling asleep in class. and here we are almost TWENTY THOUSAND members. I could not have imagined this many people would join. Through the years I've tried my best to mod this sub. and I will admit I have not been the best at it. I'm 28 this year and I just don't have the same amount of time I did when I was in school. I used alien blue back in the day to mod this sub because reddit.com (now old.reddit.com) was absolutely trash to use. That lasted until around 2017 when reddit purchased alien blue and promptly butchered it. since then I have been using a mix of old.reddit.com and Apollo for IOS. for the last I don't know how many years I have used Apollo exclusively to moderate this sub due it it ease of use and functionality.
What has changed?
Well, today u/iamthatis announced that Apollo will be shutting done on the 30th of June ahead of the new pricing scheme. I patently refuse to use reddits native app and the tools on the website are not sufficient enough for me to mod this sub.
To get the full story check out the pinned comment on the apolloapp subreddit.
It has been a great ride with you all, and I want to thank each and everyone of you for contributing to this community. I wish you all the best. Keep your slides oiled and you reeds moist.
Sincerely, u/octomagnus
I will be monitoring this thread. feel free to ask questions. I will try to answer them as best as possible.

first creepypasta, i am welcoming of feedback
just barely 2,000 words
I'm going to get everything off my chest, I have been seeing them since I quit my job and I do not think I will be able to convince you, so you must listen to me, before they come. I must tell my story, and I won’t be able to tell it twice; What I have seen shakes me to my core. But you must believe me.
I had just got out of university and found my first job on the underground, maintaining the tube tunnels beneath London: kilometres of wide cylindric tunnels that are black as night even during the day. The job seemed great, lots of pay for monitoring cameras and walking about underused passages to every now and then fix a broken pipe. I did both the night and daytime shifts with each having their own rules. You know the usual things, always check the cams always for broken equipment within the tunnels, if so, always check what trains are running in that area and which tunnels they are taking. Safety first. They were the rules management gave me, but upon arriving for my first day shift, I found a very different set placed upon my small desk. The page had almost yellowed with the left-hand side having 3 separate regular holes stapled into it. There were 2 glaring underlined phrases at the top and bottom of the page, Day Rules, and Night Rules. It read:
Rules for the day.
rule 1, always be checking cameras, especially the one pointed at the Y intersection, outside station ***********
Rule 2, if you need to leave the monitoring station, to repair a pipe or anything broken within the system always take a strong torch, they do not like strong lights.
Rule 3, when outside the monitoring room for any reason, do not under any circumstances make loud noises, unless masked by a train or something else, otherwise you will wake them up.
Rule 4, it should not be active during the day, but if you fail to follow rule 3, it will find you, you will see it, stay completely still and resort to your torch if you feel threatened.
Rule 5, if you see any movement from the right tunnel of y intersection mentioned previously, do not exit the monitoring room
Rule 6, never enter that right tunnel
The place where the night rules had been listed was absent, a hole in the page as though somebody had torn straight through it.
This unnerved me to say the least, with the little voice in the back of my head telling me it was fake, still I decided to follow the rules despite my scepticism, it is not as though they directly impacted my work or made me do anything to ludicrous.
So, I did as I was told, I watched cameras, listened to music, scrolled through reddit. That shift was overall quite relaxing. I managed to find the camera the rules were talking about in the top right of the monitor, it showed the two tunnels, with a singular red bulb giving light to the area, I squinted. There seemed to be something in the tunnel, it was short and thin almost unnaturally so, slightly hunched over by the side of the tracks just within the right tunnel. A lever? I ignored it, my mind is playing tricks on me it did seriously look like the lever for the junction with how almost ruler straight the outline stood. I noticed a burst pipe on another of the cameras, it was in one of the small maintenance tunnels, not too far from my room. I got up from the desk, picked up my torch from the hangar, put on my protective gear and headed out into what seemed to be a void. Lengths of endless dimly lit tunnels, I kept looking at my map. The monotonous corridors stretched on, endless lengths of concrete and metal. I heard something, it was quick and quiet, I struggle to remember, it almost sounded abrasive like something blunt scraping against the concrete wall. I reached the burst pipe, bringing out the tools on my belt to start repairing it, there were long thing gashes across the pipe, not large, quite small, but deep enough to break the thin metal casting on the series of pipes. It's odd I haven’t seen anything on cams. The quiet caused me to flinch, slowly broken with the regular hum of the white light above me, looking up from my work every so now and then, I managed to get into a rhythm. I should have brought my headphones.
A sudden pop pulled me out of my stupor, followed by a crash and the sound of breaking glass. I almost hit the roof of the tunnel, as it became cloaked in darkness. A knot began to form in my stomach as I felt tension creep across my face, rule 3, whatever the rule meant by something finding me, whether it was a prank by the night shift guy last night or whether the rules were actually real I did not want to find out. I decided the best form of action would be to quietly sneak back to the monitoring room, it was not that far and the lights at the distant end of the tunnel were still on. I started to move ever so quietly putting one foot Infront of the other, keeping my ears pricked, not easing the sudden paranoia.
I was close, I could see the door to the monitoring room at the other end of the corridor as I rounded the corner, suddenly bathed in light, it became slightly blurred as my eyes struggle to adjust, walking forward, and rubbing my eyes.
I turned around, I don’t know why, maybe it was instinct, or divine intervention, but that does not matter now. What I saw curling from around the corner, was a pair of hands, gently grasping around the hard corner, I almost missed them, they were nearly as pale as the grey wall. The nails gave them away. Black and long, ending in cracked and blunt ends.
I didn’t want to look any further, I dashed to the monitoring room. Slamming the door shut, locking it in an instant. Falling to my knees.
I told myself I had hallucinated, I cried and whispered to myself that I was hallucinating. It is just my surroundings, being cooped up in a room underground, the fuzziness in my eyes that were getting used to the glaring lights of the hallway endlessly watching or being cooped up in a room underground and watching cameras will do that to a person.
Cameras
I scrambled into my chair, whizzing the mouse around, the screen popped up. The camera outside my room showed nothing, nothing outside my door, nothing in the hallway, nothing where the light bulb had popped.
My shift was nearly over. But to leave I would have to walk outside and back through those passages to get back to the train station I had entered through. I waited a while, just sitting there, watching the second-hand rise and fall.
I finally wrestled the courage to peek through the small window, through the grating, I pulled the handle, it made a clicking, then a large groaning noise as I tiptoed out of the door. The tension in the air was palpable, and the eerie silence stung my ears.
I had gotten halfway by the time it started, at first, I could barely hear it, a distant sound that blended in with noises of creaking rails, pipes and the sound of trains going by, it sounded like the wind, I told myself, but as it became louder and louder, I stopped, and listened. It was like someone throwing marbles or dashing the concrete with gravel, it happened in short rapid bursts. I had just rounded a corner. The noise was still far off, 40 metres maybe? Then it stopped, silence once again filled the tunnel.
I started to walk on slowly, keeping my head turned to one side. It all happened at once. Several large pops, the high-pitched breaking of glass. The sound became aggravated, almost clumsy, coming towards me rapidly.
I started to run, rounding corners as fast as I could, I wanted to make sure not to see what was making the noise, who knows what might happen to me if I did.
My panting was gradually drowned out by growing noise of footsteps and talking. Slamming the steel gate shut.
After the first day, I was to say the least, confused, and perplexed. I just sat at home thinking about it, again and again. It terrified me. I wanted to quit then and there, save myself the trouble if I was right. But I had student loans to pay, and the sum was not getting any lower. So as the schedule demanded, the night after, I descended.
I still held on, that I might have imagined it, that maybe, it was all a bad dream. But I could see where the bulbs had popped, a thin stretch of mangled wires and sharp glass.
I stared into the hallway and an abyss stared back, only 5 lights had blown but that corner seemed to lead to nowhere.
As I pushed through the darkness, I noticed the walls, small, thin, slightly curved lines, like the leaves of a palm tree scratched into the concrete, they covered the following walls, like a malign infection growing in the concrete.
I opened the door to my workstation and started to work, I took no chances this time I watched the cameras more, switching between them and anything that I could use to pass the time, the slow blinking red light at the Y intersection. I thought I was going to go insane, as the hours dragged by. I was ripped from my work as a ghastly sound played over the cameras, all of them seemed to play it at once, a guttural scream, as though the last breath of an abandoned and dying child were being released. It howled, it whined on and on. I laid low in my chair, as though it could see me, but after 2 minutes the sound stopped, and it walked out of the tunnel.
My mind was a whirl of thought and maniacal screeching, should I leave the office? If so, where should I go? How fast is it? Do I have enough time to reach the surface?. I felt the seconds fly by. I caught it again, I nodded, so that’s what was making that sound last night, I almost marvelled at it, in the concrete tunnels, a vicious blaze curling through the passages.
I pulled the last remnants of my sanity together and started to run, I knew I would be at a disadvantage in the small tunnels, so I headed towards the tube tunnels close by. I stopped panting, grasping my chest and the air, I froze, not speaking, not panting. A pair of hands curled round the side of the corner behind me with palpable glee, as it took its first step around the corner, I could finally gaze upon the nightmare. It was tall, hunched to stop its head scraping against the roof, yet its long arms reached down and touched the floor, it covered its eyes looking downwards, the individual parts of its spine rose like a concave herald. That smile, thin yet taught. Plastered across a malshapen body and skull.
I dashed towards the nearby maintenance door, that sound following me, the sounds of marbles scattered on a hard floor, as that sound was etched into my brain, I could now pick out each individual nail scraping against the walls.
I do not remember much more after that, the smell of metal and brick dust, the blinking red light in the distance, illuminating the wide opening. I followed the tracks, running until I could not run anymore, I must have slammed it hard enough. A light in the distance, a station, I wretched away the last of my stamina.
I stood, scared, shivering holding my flashlight tight, the light reflecting the golden archway, bathing the platform, the crest, recognisable to all and below it, Per purum sanguinem, the large, bolted door, slightly adjar.

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It features an ensemble cast that includes Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll, and Chris Pine. In the film, a young wife living in a 2250s company town begins to believe there is a sinister secret being kept from her by the man who runs it.
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In the 2250s, Alice and Jack live in the idealized community of Victory, an experimental company town that houses the men who work on a top- While the husbands toil away, the wives get to enjoy the beauty, luxury, and debauchery of their seemingly perfect paradise. However, when cracks in her idyllic life begin to appear, exposing flashes of something sinister lurking below the surface, Alice can't help but question exactly what she's doing in Victory.
In ancient Kahndaq, Teth Adam bestowed the almighty powers of the gods. After using these powers for vengeance, he was imprisoned, becoming Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Nearly 5,000 years have passed, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has gone from man to myth to legend. Now free, his unique form of justice, born out of rage, is challenged by modern-day heroes who form the Justice Society: Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Atom Smasher, and Cyclone.
Production companies : Warner Bros. Pictures.
At San Diego Comic-Con in July, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had other people raising eyebrows when he said that his long-awaited superhero debut in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts would be the beginning of “a new era” for the DC Extended Universe naturally followed: What did he mean? And what would that kind of reset mean for the remainder of DCEU's roster, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the rest of the Justice League, Suicide Squad, Shazam and so on.As
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts neared theaters, though, Johnson clarified that statement in a recent sit-down with Yahoo Entertainment (watch above).
“I feel like this is our opportunity now to expand the DC Universe and what we have in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which I think is really cool just as a fan, is we introduce five new superheroes to the world,” Johnson tells us. Aldis Hodge's Hawkman, Noah Centineo's Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell's Cyclone and Pierce Brosnan's Doctor Fate, who together comprise the Justice Society.) “One anti-hero.” (That would be DJ's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.)
“And what an opportunity. The Justice Society pre-dated the Justice League. So opportunity, expand out the universe, in my mind… all these characters interact. That's why you see in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, we acknowledge everyone: Batman , Superman , Wonder Woman, Flash, we acknowledge everybo****here's also some Easter eggs in there, too.So that's what I meant by the resetting. Maybe resetting' wasn't a good term.only
In addition to being Johnson's DC Universe debut, “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is also notable for marking the return of Henry Cavill's Superman. The cameo is likely to set up future showdowns between the two characters, but Hodge was completely unaware of it until he saw the film.
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Unfortunately, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is not currently available to stream on Disney Plus and it's not expected that the film will release on Disney Plus until late December at the absolute earliest.
While Disney eventually releases its various studios' films on Disney Plus for subscribers to watch via its streaming platform, most major releases don't arrive on Disney Plus until at least 45-60 days after the film's theatrical release.
The sequel opened to $150 million internationally, which Disney reports is 4% ahead of the first film when comparing like for likes at current exchange rates. Overall, the global cume comes to $330 million. Can it become the year's third film to make it past $1 billion worldwide despite China and Russia, which made up around $124 million of the first film's $682 million international box office, being out of play? It may be tough, but it's not impossible. Legging out past $500 million is plausible on the domestic front (that would be a multiplier of at least 2.7), and another $500 million abroad would be a drop of around $58 million from the original after excluding the two MIA markets. It'd be another story if audiences didn't love the film,but the positive reception suggests that Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will outperform the legs on this year's earlier MCU titles (Multiverse of Madness and Love and Thunder had multipliers of 2.2 and 2.3 respectively).
As for the rest of the box office, there's little to get excited about, with nothing else grossing above $10 million as Hollywood shied away from releasing anything significant not just this weekend but also over the previous two weekends. When Black Panther opened in 2018, there was no counterprogramming that opened the same weekend, but Peter Rabbit and Fifty Shades Freed were in their second weekends and took second and third with $17.5 million and $17.3 million respectively. That weekend had an overall cume of $287 million compared to $208 million this weekend Take away the $22 million gap between the two Black Panther films and there's still a $57 million gap between the two weekends. The difference may not feel that large when a mega blockbuster is propping up the grosses,but the contrast is harsher when the mid-level films are the entire box office as we saw in recent months.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which is the biggest grosser of the rough post-summer, pre-Transformers: Rise of the Beasts season, came in second with just $8.6 million. Despite the blockbuster competition that arrived in its fourth weekend, the numbers didn't totally collapse, dropping 53 % for a cume of $151 million. Worldwide it is at $352 million, which isn't a great cume as the grosses start to wind down considering its $200 million budget. Still, it's the biggest of any film since Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, though Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will overtake it any day now.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts came in third place in its fourth weekend, down 29% with $6.1 million, emerging as one of the season's most durable grossers and one of the year's few bright spots when it comes to films for adults. The domestic cume is $56.5 million Fourth place went to Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, which had a negligible drop of 5% for a $3.2 million sixth weekend and $40.8 million cume., in fact )
, which isn't surprising considering it's the only family film on the market, and it's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts to grossing four times its $11.4 million opening. Still, the $72.6 million worldwide cume is soft given the $50 million budget , though a number of international markets have yet to open.
Finishing up the top five is Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which had its biggest weekend drop yet, falling 42% for a $2.3 million seventh weekend. Of course, that's no reason to frown for the horror film, which has a domestic cume of $103 million and global cume of $ 210 million from a budget of just $20 million

While this post is still on the subject of the fountain in Imre, I feel it would be best to post this one in it's own thread.
The Commonwealth is formerly half of the Aturan Empire, and this is what is meant by it collapsing. It obviously didn't go away as it still exists in the world, but around 300-400 years ago Nalto caused a good chunk of the Empire to declare it's independence, becoming the Commonwealth.
Why is this important?
Because Atur, the city, has only existed for 500 years as has the Empire. Atur is both a Kingdom and has a Capital named after it. Therefor, the pit of Atur is not in the city of Atur, as the city did not exist yet... It existed in the Kingdom of Atur, which once controlled the Commonwealth.
The pit of Atur is likely in current day Imre, under a fountain in my opinion... But here are some quotes to show that Atur means more than a city and is relatively new (500 years):
"Most stories say seven, but even that's conflicted. Some say three, others five, and in Felior's Fall there are a full thirteen of them: one for each pontifet in Atur, and an extra for the capitol." - Atur is both a country and a city.
"My father's stables have longer bloodlines than half of you Aturan nobles." - Aturan nobles are relatively new compared to others..
The currency is also relatively new, with many people still holding on to Cealdish currency. Rothfuss has gone into great detail over currency, and I believe it is one of the few clues we have towards what exactly is meant by the collapse of the Aturan empire and Nalto debasing the currency.

Hi everyone,
I'm a grad student and I want a job this sem. I took a class this past spring sem I wanna TA for , the prof is supposed to email about a dozen or so people who did well in the course as potential TA's. I asked one of the past sem's TA's and he said that can take a while, since first the department has to contact profs with the number of TA's they'll get in the fall. This class is taken by new Master's students, and they often join the program over the summer so it can take a while.
Any Khoury Master's students get a TA email? I just wanna know if it's a "no" so I can confidently try to find a different job. The TA I spoke w said I likely have a 50/50 chance so I don't know.
Like I don't wanna cold email profs for potential work if I don't know about TA'ing since that's the best fit for me, I think.
Anybody know anything? Thanks.

Okay so some background information, -my mom is my only parent (my dad died when I was 11) - my mom was not raised by good parents. Her mom was more in the streets and left her to raise her little brother and her father was the type to throw money at the situation instead of parenting. - my mom had my sister at eighteen and definitely was not ready to be a mom
Okay so now for what happened.
My mom started dating this man in December 2019. For the first few months she was all about him, at his house every weekend, talking to him every second of the day which I didn’t mind because I was doing my own thing. The only problem was when I would call her she would only want to talk for a few seconds before rushing me off the phone because “he didn’t like her talking to people around him” and he wanted all her attention. Also when she would come home with me she would only whine about wanting to be with her boyfriend and I noticed she started to be irritated with me and yelling at me a lot more. This did make me a bit upset because like I mentioned she’s my only parent and my sister was in college at the time so it was just me and her.
This problem only got worse as time went on because he lost his job (covid) and that resulted in him losing his car and house as well so he moved in with us. Well since my first introduction of him was my mom being more mean to me I didn’t really welcome him with open arms and we bumped heads a lot. Also it was a bit of an adjustment to have a man living in the house. I’m a teenage girl and it’s always just been me my mom and my sister so I was used to not really having to “cover up” when walking around the house but with him there I did along with other house rules that were changed. The house rules were fine because they made sense it was just a bit annoying.
My mom also just started to be a bit neglectful, she would buy everything he wanted at the grocery store but then would say we didn’t have enough for the things I wanted. When they would go out they would bring home food but only for the two of them claiming they just picked it up when they were out and didn’t think about me. When they would argue she would find a reason to yell at me as a way to take her anger out. When we went places without him she would be irritated and sad because she missed him. She also acted as she just didn’t care for me, in 2020 I was 14 years old so yes I was able to take care of myself but I still relied on her for things that included money (food,clothes,etc) and she was not providing. Now my mom has never been mom of the year so some of these things se already did but it was heightened with him which caused me to never like him or want a relationship with him. It also seemed as I had more of a roommate than a mom. This lasted from March 2020 till a year ago today (June 8th 2022) when he suddenly passed away. So for two years I was mistreated by my mom and she cared about him more than me. Also this our entire covid lockdown so I had nowhere to really go to escape from this.
I turned 16 last June and got a job in July so this past year I’ve had money to fend for myself and honestly I can say my relationship with my mom is a little better without her boyfriend. It was very sad that he passed away but my mom wasn’t as mean and was back to acting like my parent.
About two weeks ago I went to see little mermaid with my friends and to get food after. I’ll admit our city isn’t very safe and it was about 10:30 at night so my mom was rushing me to get home. I never really go places except school related events (sports games, dances) and I was making sure to check in my mom about everything along with her tracking my location on her phone but she was still yelling and going crazy. I felt it was a bit unfair that she was acting like this especially due to the fact that during those two years she treated me like scum and didn’t care what I was doing. Like I mentioned it was more like I had a roommate so I was not used to her acting like this. Plus we never set any rules for me going out (curfew or anything) so I was very shocked. When I got home we argued for a bit and I told her how I felt. I told her literally everything about how I felt mistreated for those two years and that I felt it was unfair and also too late for her to be a parent now especially since I’m turning seventeen next week and entering my senior year of high school in the fall. Literally next year I plan to be in a different city in college.
Now she did apologize for treating me bad and I let her know that the words “I’m sorry” doesn’t make up for two years of mistreatment but nonetheless I appreciate and accepted her apology. Now she’s trying to be a better parent and I can see that so I feel like maybe I’m too hard on her? Like I mentioned her parents weren’t the best and also she’s doing this alone so am I simply being harsh for telling her it’s too late for her to try and parent me? Should I simply just forgive and forget those two years?

7
A Matter of Pride and Integrity
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Level 2-based: Trade remains an essential expression of solution-focused processes. It is fundamental for high spirits, joy, and optimism in society. Trade is a tool of peace, not of war. Holding innit the power to unite not divide. Because trade is an expression of valuring and respecting harmony between people of most different cultures and walks of life.
Let's recess from all the noise and appreciate again this fundamental principle of entrepreneurial wisdom: people spend money if a product solves a problem. Therefore, entrepreneurs innovate and solve problems for adequate compensation, enabling progress and happiness in society.
Rising from the dirt, the archetype of the middle class ended the Middle Ages. From scientists and philosophers concepts, it was merchants and engineering craftsmen who brought about a new reality of better living conditions through practical solutions.
I would like to invite you to enjoy a wide horizon and reflect upon dignity and integrity from this practical point of view.
Let's remember and embrace pride in the honorable goodness that trade brings.
To create directly applicable solutions, entrepreneurs need:
Freedom:
Unbound by logically insufficient morals, entrepreneurs are usually the second-fastest group in society to adopt modern concepts, right after the persecuted who stand up for what is ethical. This usually includes the new approach to morals early philosophers.
Unstiffled by inefficient regulatory bodies in order to get stuff done.
Unburdened by the motivation to benefit from stirring up drama and terror. Entrepreneurs prefer honest, frank, and direct communication because it is faster. And isn´t time is money?
Justice:
A reliable justice system manifested in sensical laws and rational enforcements to sort out disputes.
Capital:
Duh.
Go ahead and let me know what else entrepreneurs truly require to prosper. It might turn out to be an effort investment with a high return, as I will gladly integrate valuable and valid premises into my governmental concept.
To be fair, entrepreneurial success does mostly not require fairness.
Entrepreneurs tend to forget its value until it threatens their own business, such as in questions of intellectual property expressed in patents.
But as society is one big body that is unhealthy in whole, if one part is sick, the unspeakable and immeasurable sufferings of the working class [1] and the ensalved [C 0] made me a fan of union work. Environmental cautions are equally important as they are valuring creation itself and are better thought of as one when honoring other aspects of goodness.
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Indeed craftsmen and entrepreneurs value profound virtues at heart. In rational self intrest, to sell products that are pratical solutions, entrepreneurs value:
intelligence to increase the engeerning abilty of staff in a competitive market. In self-interest, they support the education of people and the fostering of talent and genius.
Creativity in aesthetics. Since the visual appeal of a product boosts sales, artists and entrepreneurs can both profit from collaboration. Though AI will likly take a big cut of those.
International diplomacy: They are quick to abandon differences and stereotypes in gender, race, religion, etc. Because a paying customer, is such and done.
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7.1 Few groups in society honor this many positive concepts.
The argumentation line of anti-business protestors tends to lack empathy, ironically precisely what protestors critique. Proposing wishful utopian concepts that are highly irrational and can never come to be, many activist´s point of view lacks the wide horizon of ackowledging how society truly flourishes.
This is the result of entrepreneurs not prioritizing communication over centuries.
Showcasing and offering interactive experiences to embrace the greatly positive goodness that entrepreneurship presents to society is crucial to reduce tension. When it comes to business self-interest does not equal a less honorable results for society.
But scams and exploitation steal the spotlight. If occasionally necessary cleverness in navigating outdated regulations freely gets confused with undermining sensical regulations for personal benefit, the aspects of goodness are seen as the enemy. Those who don't adopt the listed great virtues turn out to be scammers, not entrepreneurs.
At the expense of people's health and sanity, as well as irreplaceable environmental and cultural destruction, respect for such buiness ventures shatters.
Insight and participation are keys to sorting out conflicts before classes are at each other's throats.
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7.2
Finding myself occasionally rubbing noses with the startup scene in Berlin, I have developed respect for the energy and character of founders.
To build a business from scratch, founders have to push through risks with everything they have and are. In such turbulent waters, many find themselves praying for good odds now and then. Gratitude, if fate plays in one's favor, contributes to faith. Equally, crushing those efforts does not contribute to the experiences that foster faithfulness.
Rising to the many challenges of business, which morph into challenges of personal character development, successful entrepreneurs typically possess a equally intelligent and experienced as curios character.
8
An entrepreneur's manifestations of safety and well-being are wealth and influence. They are earned through dedication: skill and hard work.
One legitimately manages possession and power proportionally to one's expertise and experience.[L2] This principle is fundamental to bringing solutions into reality and enabling positive progress. Entrepreneurs naturally apply and defend it like no other group in society. Your effort resonates deeply with me.
8.1
On the other side of the spectrum, reality-detached, ego-driven governance can never allow innovation, as the cleverness necessary to produce solutions is the same cleverness that can disrupt any system.
Entrepreneurs have always been the most considerable danger to illegitimate rule, right after philosophers. Providing humanity with the service of their razor-sharp minds, philosophers lay out a better future theoretically. Yet, it is entrepreneurs who hold most of the keys to providing the practical solutions necessary.
Historically, entrepreneurs, together with middle-class intellectuals, have conspired and incited revolutions if a regime threatened their possessions. This was the key factor leading to the demise of many influential monarchies in Europe, ending, for example, the maximum of royal power in France and Austria. Despite the necessary close ties in their ranks, these autocrats were deeply scared of entrepreneurs' flourishing influence and self-awareness. Through dedication, cleverness, and bravery, craftsmen and merchants freed themselves from the brutal incompetence of monarchs, either through bloodshed or peaceful means. Like when they raised an astronomical sum and bought the freedom of Bremen, a trade city.
An entrepreneur can repurpose chains into strings and remold them into wings. If autocrats attempted to undo this process, it was their undoing.
8.2
The same dynamic is the reason why the Chinese Communist regime is currently cracking down on its entrepreneurs and why they are at the forefront of planning out its fall.
I experienced this Level 2 dynamic up close. I got to know some locals in Myanmar when traveling after my high school graduation during the short fruitful period before the current unrest. It is the same story:
The military regime opened up the country for tourism , with the intent to keep almost all of the profit. Hotels, for example, have to hand over the majority of profit to the government, and licenses are handed out only to regime-obedient people. Still, running a hotel was considered a desirable business opportunity, one of the few ways to reach a middle-class living standard. Thus, obedience to the regime became rational self-interest.
But As the country opened up, more and more different business opportunities arose. Entrepreneurs from amny countries also came to Myanmar because its economy was depleated and in many ways decades behind. Myanmar became an inviting opportunity to be the first to run already proven business models and succeed with the rise of the new middle class.
The military regime in Myanmar has a manner of seizing possession of whatever they want, destroying people's businesses and genuine efforts in a snap. Eventually, this new middle class wanted at least safety for their possessions and criticized the unreasonable ransacking while pushing for a system of more legitimate rule.
As the military regime saw its power challenged, it wanted to undo the process of the newfound middle-class confidence brutality. This is a major factor leading to the current unrest, which appears to be a political expression of a coup against election results. But at its core, it originates largely from the most basic human desire for safety through possessions. It needed a reliable framework in government and justice systems.
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The latest involvement of the chinese regime, seeing the chaos as an opportunity to exploit and establish dominance, comes to show that, of course there are always many factors throwing a society into chaos.
However, the challenges Myanmar's society faces could have been sorted more smoothly if people were not deprived of basic necessities. With a large portion of the population hungry and uneducated, they are pushed to the brink of a resource war. Today, Myanmar withers in shambles too due to the economic sanctions that targeted its regime but hit its people.
A key factor to understanding how this chaos has ensued, is to be aware that it was a strategy by tyranny, the response to the positive initial force challenging it.
8.3
The key factor of entrepreneurial spirit, the wish for freedom from tyranny, gets underestimated these days. It is an eye-opening part of human history, currently in the shadows.
Why does it never get mentioned, not encouraged to be thought about, analyzed, and honored publicly? Out of tradition? An actual benefit in secrecy? Or is it because today's high-multiplier-factor individuals are afraid to be measured against? Are today's governments afraid of the built-up in self-esteem, the pride in competence, entrepreneurs are rightfully eligible for?
Just like in gardening, you can plant the most beautiful flowers, but you need bees and such to buzz around and bring it all together to flourish sustainably.
In governance, you can have all the right concepts, but you still need entrepreneurs to vitalize daily life and make society prosper.
Competent, legitimately acting governments have nothing to fear from the positive processes that come with entrepreneurship. If a government wants to establish itself as legitimate, it is imperative to encourage analysis and public recognition of their accomplishments and significant contributions to human history.
Rather than shrouding them in secrecy, humanity is best of to taking notes from brave and clever individuals. Skill and experience are best always valued.
The rising roar of Europe's free trade cities echoes the lands till this day. Similarly, e.g. "special economic zones" rise to lift millions into a better life.
the many positive processes stemming from providing practical solutions that offer realistic chance at better life speak for themselves. They are fundamental if a society rises from tyranny upon savages into prosperity for the cultured.
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8.4
Yes, I am aware of the terrors upon the environment, workers, and children in particular; that must be depicted on the other side of the medal. I see a sincere will to extinguish the terrors of unfairness in the entrepreneurial community itself. There are plenty of solutions, often in a conceptual state, sadly, but also practically proven bittersweet marathon-winning techniques, like sincere union collaboration, offering direct and fast harvest of efficiency-improving ideas.
I witnessed union congresses over several years. The top management must be future-focused and aware of external competition to deliver awe-evoking numbers. Yet, at the pulse of tasks, the middle and lower management tends to become aware of internal dangers ahead first.
Some years ago, a major German tech giant considered it reasonable to cut costs by focusing on layoffs rather than the costly process of educating and hiring young people. Early on and very practically, the middle management noticed the effects of the demographic change kicking in. During interviews around the same time, the lower management noticed that it became more challenging to find staff curious and capable in regards to new technologies. Said company now faces a significantly lesser talent gap than its competitors, a major competitive edge, all due to its union insisting on educating and hiring young people at consistently high numbers years ago.
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Out of the rational self-interest that is food on the table, staff is usually far from loyal. They just approach the company's well-being with a different perspective: a manager strives for refined profit for the next year or quarter, while a worker sees supporting a company as a marathon to ensure a constant salary for decades. Both are leverage for long-term growth, but a marathon needs different training techniques and equipment resources than a sprint.
Yet, just because there are reasonable approaches, it does not mean all people want to apply them. Thought and action are two completely different leagues. To uphold integrity takes will and effort that people with experienced, grown ethical concepts show.
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In regards to protest and activism, I would like to state my stance clearly:
I am not in favor of killing positive processes.
Therefore, I am not in favor of killing businesses out of sole concern, be it environmental, political, medical, or other. Panic and fear are not to be trusted as guides to a better future. Complex problems require listening to minds that have calculated the complex solutions, turning opposing interests into beneficial profitable processes.
The summary stays the same despite all: offering directly applicable solutions gives humans a realistic chance at better living conditions. Thus, entrepreneurs push a society into an optimistic spirit. Entrepreneurs play a vital role in creating a society that promotes, rewards, and functions on stability, morality, sanity, and peace.

Im in relationship with a wonderful man.
*In a HEALTHY and nurturing relationship. It's been 6 months we're together and I'm very happy.
But my ex is still in my life, unfortunately. In short, we've been living together for almost 2 years (in my apartment). He had substance abuse issues. It ended bad and was quite emotionally traumatic. We first broke up in March 2021. Then (OH HOW STUPID I WAS) we tried to rekindle things in the fall of 2021 and really ended things in Jan 2022.
I shouldve really cut things off back then but I still very rarely kept in touch with him. Maybe it was some sort of a Stockholm syndrome, maybe I genuinely wished him best, maybe I was plain stupid, or maybe Im just a kind person and was manipulated. I dont know and that's not relevant to the story.
So from Jan 2022 until Oct 2022 we spoke occasionally. That's when I really started to notice his severe mental health issues. In short, he hears voices (he calls it "they"). He gets aggressive. He doesnt take care of himself. He cut off contact with his family. He thinks everyone is a spy plotting against him (even said that i was one too). Im not a doctor but to me it screams schizophrenia.
In late Oct his mom asked me to contact him to ask something (since he doesnt talk to her), which I did. He told me she can F off. Idk why but it was the last drop for me and I REALLY burned that bridge. No contact, etc- i didnt want anything to do with him.
He called me once in Feb (from random #) and was saying absolute nonsense. The only reason Im not being aggressive with him is that I dont want to trigger him. I was genuinely paranoid for some time bcs I saw his aggressive behavior. (One note though: it was always directed at others and never at me--- he Was emotionally abusive and manipulative with me but was never physical).
One other thing he ALWAYS used to do is just to "appear" without notice. That used to REALLY piss me off when he was just arriving at my door unannounced expecting id let him in.
Anyways. He did it again today. We havent spoken since Nov 2022 and today I got a call from my concierge saying that he had arrived. I shouldve left a notice saying not to call me if he comes but since the concierge didnt know, he called me by my name and bcs I didnt know how the ex gonna react, I decided to come down. One last time.
He was again saying nonsense. I was again saying how he should start therapy or get help. I asked him wth is he doing here and he replied with "I just wanted to talk to you since i thought we're friends. I respect you" followed by incoherent spy stories + how he's living on the streets + how he's the shit + how "they" are making him lose jobs + how he survives on $300 cheques from the government +and then he asked me for money. He also thought id invite him in for a glass of wine. Yes, it was that bad.
I cant reason him, dont want to trigger him, dont want to ever be in touch with him and dont want him in my life. I even lied and told him im moving out soon so that he wont back. As we said bye, he said "if youre still gonna live here, see you in a year i guess." TF.
As I said, I dont think he'll hurt me but i also dont know what to expect from him. I told him ab therapy sooooo many times and was even looking for resources at some point. Thing is though, no one will help him if he doesnt want it. And he absolutely does not.
Good thing is that aside of these rare times when he appears unannounced, he's not doing much else. It is still extremely uncomfortable for me though. And idk if there is anything else I can do at this point. Ive been 100% no-contact with him since last November.
Is it something I should share with my current bf? Im not even sure why I want to tell him, bcs i know he wont be able to do much except for just listen. I think it's more so for emotional support. And i also think it's just something he should be made aware of... But i also dont want to freak him out.
tl;dr : my ex has bad mental health issues and keeps appearing in my life even though I cut all contact with him. I dont know if I should tell this to my current partner or keep it to myself.

When I was on a trazy autumn tour in Busan back in fall 2022, I befriended an American couple working as teachers who were working at a public school in Seoul. When I told him about the struggle I had trying to find a good teaching job in Seoul and Incheon as I could only find job offers in Changwon and Jinju, the husband told me that the best way to get a good teaching job in the big cities was to get married and list my marital status as married.
This American couple told me how when he was single during his first year in Korea, he had a difficult time finding good jobs in big cities and only managed to get one job offer in the rural area of Jeollanam-do. He told me his future wife, another American he met at an expat bar, asked him to marry her because she heard from a recruiter that married couples have access to all the good jobs. After he married her, he claimed he got loads of job offers flooding his inbox. He went from getting one or two job offers in Jeollanam-do to 20 offers in Seoul and Incheon. According to this couple, they were only married on paper and lived in separate apartments as their housing allowance was very generous due to their married status. They said they didn't married out of love, but to have a better life in Korea as their recruiter said that married couples are seen as more trustworthy compared to single teachers. They both only have a TEFT certificate. They went on to brag about how they were given more time off of work compared to their single coworkers and how they were given free stuff by random people. Based off of their facebook posts, they seem to be telling the truth.
My question is if it is true that married people have an easier time finding good public and hagwon teaching jobs compared to single people? Is it true that schools in Korea view married teachers more favorably compared to single teachers? Since I (a latino male in my late 20s) ended up having to accept a job at a government-funded hagwon in a small city and I didn't like how I wasn't allowed to take time off to go to the hospital while the married coworkers were allowed to take two weeks to go to Japan. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Conceptual Approach on How to End [Nuclear] War + A Matter of Pride and Integrity
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1
Approach
Fire cannot be fought with fire. If two nations at war are flames not battling but merging, then what is the water?
Pacifism and gutlessness alike.
Are we aiming to achieve the cessation of needless destruction and the preservation of people's livelihoods? If so it is not sensible to equate pacifism with weakness. It matters not whether one lays down arms out of fear for their own life or love of pacifism. What matters is the result.
To break the cycle of violence, I propose granting temporary political asylum to every Russian soldier who decides to desert, as well as any Russian who decides to escape conscription, and and Russian who rejects service to and subsequently substract assets from the regime.
Fewer people to fight make for fewer battles to be fought. It is necessary to consider offering refugee to millions of soldiers, all even, if possible and nessicary.
1.1
Such an approach could be seen as a major provocation and be met with the threat of, or actual use of nuclear arms. Typical targets of such strikes would be major cities in which the infrastructure is essential to a country. These cities should train their citizens for a controlled, as calm as it gets, emergency evacuation early on. It is appropriate to openly clarify which cities are likely to be targeted and encourage citizens to plan ahead and seek shelter with family or friends in the countryside. This part of the concept is a tool of prevention.
With a good enough chance to consider this approach worth publishing, evacuation will not actually have to be performed because the Russian soldiers who deserted, as well as pacifist civil refugees, will be stationed around the threatened cities.
Yes, they will be human shields. Consequently, a strike against, e.g., a European city would be a strike against the Russian population as well. This method aims to weaken the Russian army and regime until they are unable to operate by provoking empathy.
Undoubtedly, deserters and civilian pacifists will be called traitors by their regime, and some people will agree. Some will not mind a nuclear retaliation strike that kills civilians of another country as well as their fellow citizens.
I assume however that the broad majority of Russians would not support killing their own people, including their brothers, mothers' sons, friends, and loved ones. Therefore, a nuclear strike or even the threat of one could equally strike down support for the regime.
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1.2
For this approach to work, it is crucial that the number of deserters and refugees is high enough. The optimal number of people would be reached when every person in the country at war, such as Russia, knows someone dear who left, a friend or a family member.
With a nation as large as Russia, this would be a considerably huge amount of people. A likewise sufficient target would be to establish a general perception, a feeling of lingering goodbyes. Knowing someone kind who left can tip people's empathy towards reflecting about unity.
The number of people willing to desert is often estimated to be low. I think this is a misconception, mistaking current numbers for set, rather than an expression of the circumstances in which Russians have to make their decision. For a deserting soldier as well as a pacifist citizen, the situation is dire.
1.3
Here is a basic approach to chance many come to think about, if forced to join military forces:
If one stays in the army, there is a chance of dying in battle, but there is also a relatively high chance of being stationed elsewhere than the front line, and thus not having to fight. Or just being wounded and sent home. Weighing possibilities, the greatest chance of least harm seems to be staying in the army.
If the decision to desert is not seen as a way to end the war, soldiers caught deserting historically faced severe punishment, ranging up to death sentences, from both their regime and that of the counterparty. Thus, a soldier willing to desert has hardly anywhere to go in a territory of conflict.
Civilians are also not likely to help a deserter, as they are rightfully wary of a foreign soldier's motivations. The preference of civilians to not engage in supporting desertion efforts could be shifted if they are promoted as a means of ending the war and tehrefore protecting thair own livlyhood. Even Agumenting in terms of honest self intrest rather than wishful altrusim, we can come to realize that soldiers which desert and the pacifist civilians who flee are not traitors, but rather individuals who value life over war.
It would be of utmost importance to stress that deserters will not be harmed, and that their loved ones are welcome too. A soldier's family could face retribution if he/she deserts, but the family stays behind, thus pressuring the soldier to stay in the army. Therefore, we must provide a safe and welcoming place for deserters and their families.
Offer the highest chances of the least harm until the arms are put to rest, and people are highly likely going to accept it with gratitude. [L2]
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1.4
The current legal approach to desertion is blurry in many places. Deserters and pacifists do not know if they are welcome or if they will have the possibility of living in dignity. This makes it hard for civilians to leave their livelihood in Russia behind.
We must remember that living entails more than simply being in a place. If Russians are unable to access their own funds, how will they be able to maintain their way of life?
Transferring monetary leverage away from the regime should be made easy for those leaving it behind.
1.5
People also need time to build trust and think this opportunity through, considering their personal circumstances. The sooner the process of promoting political asylum and refuge starts, the more leverage this approach can provide. More time to think is more time for people to decide that they want to accept that outstretched hand.
Therefore, I propose promoting desertion and leaving as a pacifist with major resources of media and broadcast penetration, as well as, if anyhow possible, at the front line. A crucial factor for successful promotion are direct and personal communication channels. Therefore, means such as social media access, messaging, and video chat services should not be restricted.
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1.6
A regime opposing peace efforts will try not to let its soldiers and citizens escape. Therefore, safe spots should be set up in strategically easily accessible points of infrastructure.
From this perspective, resuming flights is essential. Without flights, escaping is expensive and unsafe.
A good initial new step would be to establish a safe escape path into the EU through Ukraine. Other countries bordering Russia that would like to join the effort are best encouraged to do the same.
In this context: If defending not invading forces soldiers prefer to lay down arms, I propose having them support this process instead.
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1.7
Estimated Outcome
Every civilian welcomed, who is beloved by other civilians back at home, reduces support for the regime. Every soldier fighting less in this redundant war is a drop. Enough drops make rain, extinguishing the fire.
This approach can be applied to multiple fighting parties simultaneously. I believe that it can be reused to extinguish all aggressor's attempts to wage war.
All people, including Chinese, American, Russian, Middle Eastern, etc., could find refuge in the country they bet against.
Through joint effort, we can avoid a doomsday of international retaliation strikes.
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1 P.N. [Personal Note]
At present, I consider this a check move.
However, check to checkmate can be a needlessly lengthy process if the losing player has not calculated the outcome of all possible moves like the winning player has. To speed up the process, acknowledging positions is important. Therefore, I want to address a few more challenges that one could be wary of.
Go ahead and state further challenges I might not be aware of, as it enables me to give my best to calculate further solutions. After all, there may be a problem that cannot be solved and may render this approach ineffective, but I have just not realized it yet. [Missing A]
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2
Presents being a 'living shield' the greatest chance of least harm?
The answer varies depending on the individual making the decision and the point in time. The harder a regime represses its citizens, the more often the answer becomes 'yes.' A morally bankrupt government, abandoning legitimate action, has to resort to oppressing its citizens more and more as resistance grows proportionally. This process is a spiral in favor of leaving.
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2.1
Another argument is chance.
How likely is a strike against the particular city where a refugee gets stationed? To address this thought process , I suggest implementing a very transparent and uncheatable mean, like a spin on a simple wheel of fortune. Decided by chance upon arriving, refugees could get assigned different stays, ranging from large to small cities, but also a considerable number of desirable countryside locations such as beach vacation homes. Conversely, being assigned to a capital city would be the least favorable outcome for the refugee. However, the danger approaching is the reason why I share this concept. I see no point in hypocrisy in this regard.
While the ones welcomed should be able to access their funds and transfer them away from the regime, most will still be dependent on support in their host country. Existing bureaucratic support, for example, makes it likely that they will stay where they are assigned to.
Even if they do not, as long as everyone welcomed transfers leverage in terms of service or resources away from the opposing regime, it is still a step towards weakening it until it is unable to operate.
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3
Fragile ego: Keeping this factor in mind while executing any peace efforts is crucial.
My grandfather told me about people hiding in the sewerage system during the Second World War. Civilians used them as makeshift bunkers during bombings. When Berlin was conquered and the war was lost, a Nazi in charge gave the order to flood the pipes, and countless civilians died needlessly. The motivation behind this atrocity was solely the man's fragile ego, which preferred others to suffer and die rather than becoming disillusioned witnesses to the Nazi regime's collapse. It was a thoroughly irrational action, as the regime's fall was evident to everyone in the world.
The citizens of Berlin were later told that the flooding was an accident, but my grandfather insisted that it was not. His uncle was a very high-ranking Nazi, possibly the deranged individual who gave the order. He never said it directly, so I am not quite sure. Unfortunately, my grandfather is no longer alive, and I cannot ask him for clarification. However, family ties were close enough for my grandfather to be evacuated into the same bunker as the highest-ranking of the fascist party.
Rumors continued to circulate within the family after the end of the war because a negligible number of Nazis were convicted. And even those received mild sentences for their crimes. My grandfather's uncle lived out the rest of his life equally as insane as unbothered.
The account of the flooding stayed with me as it offers a glimpse into the mind of what was apparently an end-stage derailed psychopath. Without care or respect for others' lives, only his hurt pride mattered to this man. It is our present reality that fiends in commanding positions of warfare around the world share the same mindset. This means that even if the approach described here weakens the regime from within the country and reduces support enough to halt the battle, if an irrational person has their thumb on the wrong button, millions could die nonetheless in one person's final manifestation of an blown up ego.
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3.1
One approach to dealing with this type of individuals, which has been heavily propagated lately but gets used almost never, is assassinations. They are often not a viable solution as it can easily be perceived as cowardly and despicable behavior. Assassinations can therefore be used to incite a vengance mode in society and war alliances. WW1 beeing the prime example.
Assassinations are only sensible if the individual being assisted has no support from the broad majority of the population, and citizens perceive it as being freed from tyranny.
Another challenge is that the individual being assisted can usually be replaced instantly, meaning the overall effect on the regime can be negligible depending on various circumstances, such as how well organized the regime is at that specific point in time.
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3.2
Therefore, moving positions from check to checkmate means transitioning from country negotiations to personal diplomacy. People always want something and fear something else. Currently, it appears sensible to prepare early for very specific solutions based on the character of the person in charge. Certainly no easy task: a peace treaty precise as a brain surgery. If intelligence efforts are deployed early, it could make the difference.

'"Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity”, by Simon Johnson & Daron Acemoglu (two well-known MIT economists), is critiqued by BIEN member Geoff Crocker who argues that this book, just published in May 2023, presents a selective narrative, unsupported assertions, and wrong assertions about basic income. This opinion is contrary to extensive praise of the book, that you can read about here.
With regard to basic income, Crocker writes “The superficiality of their argument is particularly evidenced in their dismissal of universal basic income (p416-417) which they regard as ‘defeatist’ and ‘fanciful’, arguing instead for conditional targeted benefits and creation of new work opportunities from technology. They make no reference to the literature on UBI, to the huge deficiencies of conditionality creating unemployment and poverty traps as well as intrusion, humiliation, and low take-up rates. Working hours per week have reduced consistently over many decades and are set to continue to fall. In-work poverty and rising household debt show that work and wages are insufficient for household income. Technological automation is sucking income out of the economy and increased non-labour income is required, the best proposal being UBI.”
Read the full review here.'
From: https://basicincome.org/news/2023/06/geoff-crockers-critique-of-power-and-progress/

Boyfriend and I will be riding the Zephyr this month and are wondering which option we should go with: Salt Lake City to Emeryville or Denver to Salt Lake City (or vise versa). We already have a roomette booked for the first option, but are considering switching to the second since we heard Denver to SLC has the best views. Here are our options:
Salt Lake City to Emeryville (17h 40m)

• Pros
  • Already booked
  • Second best views (SLC to Sacramento)
  • Get to experience falling asleep and waking up on a train (will probably be sleeping from SLC to Reno)
• Cons
  • Second best views (lol)

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Denver to Salt Lake City (15h)

• Pros
  • Best views
  • Won't miss out on any views since we won't be sleeping
• Cons
  • No overnight portion so we won't get to experience falling asleep/waking up
  • Coach is sold out so we'll have to get a roomette even though we're not sleeping

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Salt Lake City to Denver (15h)

• Pros
  • Best views
  • Train departs at 3:30 AM so we'll get to experience sleeping on a train
• Cons
  • Might miss some views in Utah since we'll be alseep

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What would you do if you were us? Thanks!!!

Sorry in advance for the novella, but I needed to vent.
So for context, I work for a for-profit company that provides mental health services and resource referrals to our clients. This puts me and my coworkers in the position of acting as social workers for our clients sometimes. Typically our clients are high need, and reach out to us in times of crisis or as a last resort for help and assistance. It really highlights the failures in our social service systems here in the US and can be very emotionally taxing as anyone in the field can tell you.
The upside to this position is that it’s completely remote (which is perfect for me and my pup) and the benefits are great as far as US standard go. Also the work environment is the best I’ve ever been in. I’ve only been here for a year and some change but I get a full month of PTO, pretty good insurance, dental and vision included, and the company contributes to my HSA and matches my 401(k) after a year of working there. My boss is also super understanding and lets me take unpaid time off whenever I need a mental health day and don’t want to use my PTO or I have doctors appointments as long as I make up the time. (I’m salaried not hourly.) The pay isn’t the best and the work can take a toll on your mental health, but all and all it’s a pretty sweet gig. I also got my bachelors in public health, so I’m pretty familiar with this type of work.
My best friend had been unemployed for a couple of months and was getting desperate to find a job. You don’t need a higher education to do what I do and in all actuality, the job itself isn’t that hard, but it is emotionally taxing as I’ve previously noted. My friend remarked that the job sounded easy and begged me to pass along their résumé. At first I was hesitant because I didn’t think they understood how emotionally difficult what I do is, but my friend assured me that they could handle it.
I think it’s worth mentioning that we both came from a work environment that was super toxic for queer, feminine people and I didn’t want to gate keep this opportunity so I passed along their resume. Within a week they were hired on. My friend and I have the same job now and while I’m not there superior I do have the work and field experience so when I saw that they were struggling, I offered to help train them. At first things went OK. They were a bit slow on the pick up but eventually they got the hang of things. Some thing I noticed however was that they never really answered the phones when they were schedule for phone time, which is a crucial part of the job (it was literally in the listing). When I asked them why they told me it was because it gave them anxiety, and that some of what the clients would talk about was triggering for them.
I don’t want to minimize my best friend’s trauma or anything. However, they knew going into this that answering phones was part of the job. It’s been six months now and not only are they making every excuse in the book or just outright not answering phones but all they do is shit on this job and tell me they hate it and the field. They complain that this job is for white women with a savior complex that don’t understand trauma. I was surprised they would make this generalization about our coworkers since they didn’t really know any of them. It seems now every day they do is complain about the job that I got them which really puts me off.
The final straw came after a company meeting where we were all sharing our reasons for why we worked in this field. Many of the stories were clearly deeply personal and had my coworkers tearing up. After the meeting my friend pulled me aside and asked if we could go on a walk on our break to which I agreed. On this walk, they complained that the stories were part of their savior complex, and that they had never been through real trauma. I was shocked and hurt, because I also shared my own story, and while it wasn’t traumatic it felt like I was being attacked for wanting to help people. My friend then mentioned that they were going to try to go back to school to finish their undergrad and would ask to see if they could work part time. I’d already mentioned to my friend that I was going back to grad school in August and had planned on asking if I could work part time.
I’m honestly pretty upset that after everything I’ve done and everything they went through they are acting this way. Im planning on asking my boss next week if I can work part time once my grad school program starts in the fall. Even if I can’t do part time, I plan on telling my best friend that I no longer wish to continue our friendship. I’m not mentioning it now because I don’t want things to be awkward at work. I know I got myself into the situation but I’m still shocked. Anyways, rant over thanks to anyone who got this far.
TLDR; I’m ending my 5 year friendship with my “bestie,” after I got them a job at the place I work.