I naturally fell into babysitting around the age of 14. Through friends and family, I got leads for babysitting to score some cash, which definitely beat having to work at a restaurant. The job had its ups and downs, but overall it wasn’t a bad gig at all.
Yet, as many good experiences as I had, they were all eclipsed by one night.
A new family in town talked to my dad at work and it turned out that they needed a babysitter. I happily took the job and found myself watching their 10-year old boy a couple of weeks later. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the family themselves. They were the model citizens of suburban America, complete with the white picket fence and blue shutters. Nothing about their house was strange or even unique. Their son Avery was very mild-mannered and polite. Even their car was basic. Not that these were bad things, but I expected it to be a very boring night.
What I did not expect was the uncomfortable, inexplicable feeling that I got when I set foot in the house. A chill ran through me, but there was no draft. I rubbed my arms as I gazed at their staircase as we passed. They gave me a brief tour of the house before they left a note of instructions and all the usual information I expected from a job.
While trying to figure out what was making me so uneasy about the place, I noticed something about their basement door when I passed it. A padlock was placed on the door, along with a deadbolt in place.
"Any questions?” The father asked as my mind was pulled out of my curiosity.
"No, sir. Everything looks great!”
So they left and Avery and I played some games before I made dinner. A couple of times, I thought I heard Avery call me into the den. Both times, I found him sitting on the couch in what most recognize as the TV-zombie state. He denied having called me, and I went back to making dinner. After the third time, I told Avery it wasn’t funny and that he should stop.
“I’m not doing anything, I’m just watching TV!”
His voice went to that higher tone of pleading, sounding desperate for me to believe him.
“Avery, I know it’s my first time and sometimes you wanna test things out, but I’m trying to get dinner ready so if you call me again, I’m not checking on you, okay?”
“I didn't say anything.”
The child glared at the TV with a pouting face, and I began to feel bad. As many times as I’ve heard lies, I was starting to sense that he was telling the truth. So what was I hearing?
“Hey, it’s fine. I’m not mad. Promise.”
Avery turned his head back towards me, seeming to test if I was the one fibbing now.
“How about I let you stay up a little later if we forget about it?”
“Do you really promise?”
“Pinky promise.”
With our contractual pinkies interlocked, spirits were raised again and I was able to finish dinner. Although I didn’t finish without hearing Avery’s voice calling me once more. I ignored it, and when Avery didn’t mention it at dinner I figured it was him fooling around again. The whole time we chatted as we ate, I couldn’t help but feel that something was not right about this house.
As hard as I tried to not look, my eyes kept diverting to the heavy padlock and chain on the basement door. Curiosity got the best of me and as we were cleaning up, I couldn’t help but ask.
“So Avery, what’s the deal with the basement door?”
“What do you mean?”
His words did not match his demeanor. It was obvious he didn’t make eye contact as he forced his sentence out.
“C’mon, you know what I mean. The padlock, chain, and deadbolt. Y’all have dangerous chemicals down there?”
Avery’s face grew paler and he stared at the wall for a moment.
“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t mean to…”
“Dad said no one can talk about it anymore.”
This really threw me off, and I couldn’t possibly finish my sentence now. A thick veil of tension materialized between us.
“So you…you guys aren’t allowed to talk about it?”
Avery shook his head.
“Ah, okay. That’s cool. No big deal.”
It was nothing but a big deal.
Was their dad doing something illegal down there? Or was it something strange that no one could do anything about it? Maybe their dad was in denial about something going on. There were waaaaaay too many questions going through my head now.
“Hey, how about we put on a movie?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“What am I saying? Everyone likes movies, right?!”
Now excited, we decided on a fun movie that quickly pulled our minds away from the mysterious basement door. Well, that’s not entirely true. Maybe Avery was distracted, but it was killing me. As we ate popcorn, I couldn’t help but watch Avery, wondering what was going on in that little head of his.
Was there something awful going on in the house and there was nothing I could do to stop it? Or maybe the dad was just…
“Stop,” I told myself inwardly.
Mulling over it all endlessly was not doing myself any favors.
So the movie ended, and I ushered the drifting child to his bed. Now, the house was all to myself until twelve, so I had a good three and a half hours to myself. Immediately, I began texting my friend to tell her all about the weird experience I was having that night. She dismissed it, saying that I was getting spooked by a new place. This annoyed me to no end. I’d been at bigger, way creepier-looking houses but never got weird vibes like this.
Then…I heard it.
“Stephanie…..”
I went instantly still and listened intently.
“You didn’t hear that, Steph. Just keep texting your friend and…”
“Stephanieeeee…”
There was no mistaking it this time. It was definitely coming from the basement.
The acoustics couldn’t have been from Avery upstairs. The voice sounded like a little girl’s. In fact, I’m not even sure he could make his voice like that, anyway.
Slowly, I stood up from the couch and approached the door. Maybe like earlier, I was just hearing things. Maybe being creeped out by the house was starting to mess with my head. That made sense…right?
“Stephanie?”
I jumped back from the door, almost wetting myself in the process. There was no way I could dismiss it as anything else now. There was a little girl’s voice coming from the basement.
“H-hello?” I responded.
I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking.
“Is this Stephanie?”
“Y-yes, it’s Stephanie.”
“Can you help me?”
“Who are you? Why are you locked in the basement?”
“My name is Meredith Rosenberg. They’re kept me locked up for a long time now. The police were almost on to them and that’s why they moved. Can you get me out?”
A cold shock washed over me and made it hard to respond. Was I actually babysitting for a family that kept a little girl prisoner?
“Oh my God…um….how long have you been locked up with them?”
“Ever since I can remember.”
I felt somehow hot and cold at the same time, and wanted to throw up. This all made sense now with what Avery had told me. Of course his father didn’t want him talking about the door…
“I just need to find the keys and I can…”
“They’re hidden in the garage underneath the metal shelf. It’s inside a magnetic key holder.”
“Okay, just hold tight.”
In a panic to free the poor girl, I darted into the garage and began feeling the space underneath the bottom shelf and sure enough, there was a magnetic key holder there. Running back, I popped the key holder open and began to insert the key into the padlock.
“Did you find it?”
“Yes, sweetie. I’m almost there!”
“Oh, please hurry! Sometimes they come home early!”
This sent me into even more of a rush, and I barely managed to fumble the key into the padlock. I finally heard the successful click of the padlock, pulled the chain off, and slid the deadbolt to the right.
“I’m coming, Meredith. Hold on!”
I turned the doorknob and threw open the door, only to be met with darkness. Now full of adrenaline, my hands felt around for the light switch. Finally finding my purchase, I flicked the light on which lit up most of the stairs.
“Meredith?” I called out.
Unless I was remembering it wrong, it sounded like her voice was just on the other side of the door a minute ago. In fact, it was quite strange that she wasn’t waiting for me at the top of the stairs. Wouldn’t you immediately run out of a basement that you were locked in for God knows how long?
“I’m down here!” The little girl’s voice called out.
Judging from the distance, it sounded like she was calling from somewhere at the bottom of the stairs. My brain suddenly began piecing all the details of this interaction together and the idea of going down into the basement became absolutely terrifying.
“Meredith, you can come up now! The door’s open!”
I couldn’t hide the tremor in my voice. Why I was scared of a little girl was beyond me, but much like the house itself, something felt very wrong here.
“I hurt my leg, owww! When you said you were getting the key, I went back down to get some of my things and got hurt. Ahhh….”
Her sounds of pain filled me with sorrow, but an invisible force was holding me back from taking another step into that basement.
“Can you move? Maybe pull yourself up on the railing?”
“I can’t! It hurts too bad!”
“Okay, sweetie umm…”
“What’s wrong? Won’t you help me?”
“I-I it’s just…really dark down there and…and I don’t want to get hurt too. Is there any way you can get to the stairs? Any way at all?”
“I tried to sit up, but my shoulder hurts too much.”
“I thought you said your leg got hurt?”
The words hung in the air like a noose. It was only after I said it that I realized there was several things seriously wrong about all of this. A question popped into my head I didn’t even have time to think about until now.
How did she know where the padlock key was?
A deathly silence took up the space between me and wherever this girl was. It was a standoff, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. There were questions I could ask her to figure out what was happening, but I felt that her answers weren’t going to be honest. Perhaps at this point, the truth was too frightful to know.
"Meredith? Are you still there?"
It was a stupid question, but it was the only thing my mind could conjure. The additional silence only unnerved me, so I decided to try and get a better look. Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I clicked on the flashlight. It didn’t do me any good because of the awful range, so I did the one thing I’d already told myself not to do…
I took a step forward...
Maybe it was the angle of the stairs or the lighting, but that one step gave me more information than I ever wanted to know. I caught a better view of the bottom step, which was essentially a ledge into a black abyss. Something looked different on this step, but it took a second to register what it was.
The step was wet, a pool of some unknown liquid overflowing into the darkness of the basement. I knew for sure that the father hadn’t mentioned any flooding so it would be way too random for that. So I stood there, watching in frozen curiosity as the puddle then suddenly rippled…and I realized the abominable truth.
It wasn’t water.
It was a puddle of saliva…and something was drooling into it from the dark.
A wretched chuckle emanated from the horrid void beyond the step, and it cemented me even further into place. It was a wet chortle, and positively evil.
“How did you like my voices?” The thing said from the dark. “I’ve been practicing."
The epiphany creeped down my spine…it was now talking in Avery’s voice. Everything in my body screamed at me to run. I heard the screams but I couldn’t respond no matter how hard I tried.
"A pity though…almost got you."
At this, the most gruesome face peeled back the shadows and revealed itself, along with its unearthly mandibles and small fountain of saliva. My faculties finally came to and I threw myself into the house and kicked the door closed. In mere seconds, I had the door bolted and chained. Leaning against the door, my chest heaved as I struggled to catch my breath.
Just as I felt I was safe, the door shuddered as a terrible blow rocked it. I screamed and ran upstairs to grab Avery.
I practically dragged the poor kid out the door and called the police. It wasn’t until the operator came on that I realized I was about to report a monster in the house. Thinking quickly, I told them that I heard a burglar in the home.
It wasn’t long before the police and Avery’s parents came home. Nothing was found, even in the basement, but I didn’t even care at that point. I just wanted the hell out of that house and away from whatever that….thing was. Avery’s parents kept glancing at me funny the whole time, probably because they knew I had their basement key. I shoved it into their hands before I hugged Avery and got into my car to drive home. That poor kid has to live in that house with that thing, but there was nothing I could do about it.
As long as I am alive, I will never….ever set foot in that house again.
And as for basements go, I can't go into them anymore. I just simply can't...

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I recently saw an orthopedic physician assistant about a patellar subluxation, aka kneecap dislocation. For some context I’ve had 6 knee surgeries, I have EDS and it’s not uncommon for things like this to happen to me that end up just being a sprain so I had let it go for several weeks until I realized it wasn’t getting better, I’m repeatedly dislocating and I’m in a lot of pain. I discussed with the PA about why I had waited so long to be seen and why it had been so long since I’d had a check up on my knees since I’ve had so many surgeries. Now, this PA informed me at the beginning of the appointment she knew my former (now retired) surgeon who did all of my knee surgeries and his PA, I’ll called them “Dr. W” and “A”. I explained that I had not had a good experience with my former surgeon and was very candid about how I went to him for help for my chronic pain he told me “women your age are more dramatic about pain, it’s phantom pain, you’re attention seeking, drug seeking” and at one point straight up asked if I had something else going on in my life to cause this, insinuating I was being hysterical and it was manifesting as imaginary pain. It turns out I have EDS, which causes joint pain, and none of this was in my head. I felt comfortable opening up to her because she’s a woman who not only works in medicine but in the specific field that I was told these things.
Her attitude towards me completely changed. She had been very concerned, told me I clearly had something wrong, had a plan of who she wanted me to see after further testing. Her response was “WHO said this to you? Dr. W? And A?” She was visibly shocked and didn’t seem to believe me. Cut to a couple weeks later, I get the MRI I was told was a formality to make sure I didn’t tear anything but she would be sending me to a patellar specialist. She calls me after the MRI and says “everything looks fine, just wear a brace.” I deflated. I asked “what about everything else we talked about and the other doctor you wanted me to see?” She replies “well, I’ll talk to him but I don’t think you need to see him.” She sends me a message online with the number for someone to fit me for a brace. I said “that’s fine, but I want a referral to the patellar specialist you wanted me to see.” She puts in the referral, I get an appointment, and a week later I’m hit with a passive aggressive message from her saying “I talked to the doctor about your test results and he agrees with me, but I see you already have your appointment.”
I see this going downhill quickly. I check my appointment time and see he only has me allotted for a quick 10 minute appointment and this PA has already admitted to discussing me with him. My partner offers to come with me so he can back me up if things go sideways. What do you know, that’s exactly what happened. The specialist ordered me physical therapy, which is to be expected, but says there’s likely nothing he can do, I’ll have to accept this is just how my knee is now and I have to learn to live with it, and completely unprompted starts singing the praises of Dr. W and how he did such a wonderful job. My partner did try to speak up to help me and not only did that seem to exasperate the doctor, he suggested I seek mental health help. I’ve been in therapy for 8 years, largely for medical trauma. When we left my boyfriend told me he had recorded the whole interaction on his phone.
I wish I’d never opened up to a female PA about being mistreated by a male doctor.

Ladies,
I just got fired from a job I've had for only 4 months this morning. Reason they sited: On boarding performance issues. Which I call bullshit. I'm also going to speak to an employment lawyer to see if I have a case.
I just moved in with boyfriend in March so $ currently isn't an issue but I've never been fired before. And I've been working for 20 years at different jobs. Started the job on Jan 8th.
I'm not sure what to do. I would love to move away from the area and start fresh. But I want to pack my boyfriend up and move him away with me. He has a very stable job with a government entity in our area and he has been there 8 years going strong. I hate the area we live in tho. It's an EXTREMELY HCOL area on the west coast and it's soooo freakin overrated. I would love to live in soul-less suburb in the south west if I'm being brutally honest.
I opted to do the termination even though they offered for me to resign. Any advice you all can offer would be great. My boyfriend and I were discussing getting married and moving to a more affordable state now I have no clue what we/I should do. Thank you ladies for any tips you can offer. Looking forward to hearing from you all.
Wish me luck on this new journey....

Hi Morgan, Longtime listener, first time writing in. My best friend and I are having trouble figuring out the right thing to do in this situation and wanted to get an outside perspective. Buckle up because this is a LONG one because theres a lot of backstory that’s necessary.
Would we be the assholes if we didn’t attend our childhood best friends wedding?
There is a lot of context in this storyline so I’ll try to give a lot of detail. We start in January of 2023, my best friend, Greta(26F) and I(26F) get in contact with one of our childhood best friends, Laura (26F), and plan a visit to catch up on the past 10ish years that we’ve been apart. Laura moved away from our hometown when we were 15. Now Greta and I live about 2 hours from where Laura moved to when we were young, so we reached out and invited her and her fiancé Logan(26M) up to stay with us and hang out.
They come visit, we have such a great time, her fiancé was pretty quiet and distant the whole time, but the 3 of us together were big talkers so I just chalked it up to him not being able to get a word in and they left. In March they came back to visit again and announced to us that they were moving a few states away. We were really sad, but happy for them since they were getting to move somewhere that they’d wanted to be for a while. They were going to elope together after a few months but Logan had a university study abroad for a month in Japan so they were going to wait until after.
So, he leaves for Japan in May, and while he is away a girl reaches out to Laura from the college that Logan attends. This girl tells Laura that her friend had been getting really close with Logan, uncomfortably so and she wanted to give Laura a heads up that she thought they were romantically involved. Greta and I were worried but Laura brushed it off and said it was probably nothing, so Greta and I dropped it because we didn’t feel close enough to Laura to tell her we felt like she should look into it more.
Flash forward 2 weeks into Logan’s study abroad, he calls Laura at 5AM to let her know that he doesn’t think he wants to get married anymore. She’s distraught but has to go into work that morning and calls us after to let us know. We support her, you know he fucking sucks for doing that not only over the phone but right before she went into work, real shady. Greta and I are very worried about Laura because Laura really wants to make it work, but we still don’t say anything because we just want to be there for her.
He gets back and agrees to go to couples counseling, they do couples counseling for 2 weeks, during this time he repairs her car. Replaces a tire, breaks, oil change, the works, he’s been working with cars for a long time, so this was no biggie. Well after that two weeks, Laura comes home to all of Logan’s stuff packed and he tells her it’s over and he’s moving back home. He leaves. She’s devastated. We comfort her, come up and visit her, and tell her that she doesn’t need him and she slowly starts getting over him. Meanwhile she gives us A TON of context about her relationship with Logan. She paid for his college, he has had no job for the past 2 years while getting his degree, so she had been financially supporting them both. She paid for his trip to Japan, he put her in 20K of credit card debt, and more in personal loans, etc. Then in couples therapy told her he wasn’t attracted to her because she made money and he didn’t (so weird).
So immediately Greta and I are like, “Girl, we had a bad feeling, we wanted to tell you but didn’t want to upset you, we’re just glad you’re finally out of that mess”. She tells us that next time we should come to her and be honest with her, we apologize and agree. Then one day Laura calls us to tell us that she almost got into a really bad car accident. She lives in a mountainous area and her breaks went out on her when she was driving on the interstate on a hill, she managed to pull of into a grass median and slow the car down.
She gets the car towed to a mechanic that night and heads to work the next morning. Mechanic calls her midday. He asks he who worked on her car last, she said “My ex” and he said “Is he still in your life?” she said no. And he said “Good, Because I’ve never seen anything like this in my 20 years as a mechanic.” Her brake fluid hadn’t been connected so all the break fluid drained out. Her brake pads weren’t fastened/screwed in to the wheels, the were just placed in there. And he back tire bolts were stripped so hard that he said he tire probably would’ve come off had she kept driving.
Later that week, Logan asks to talk to her, she agrees only to get closure on the situation. Well he calls and begs her to get back together, she says no absolutely not. Then he asks” How’s the car?” She said, “Well I almost died last week”, he immediately jumped to the defensive “Well, that had nothing to do with me, I didn’t do anything” a very guilty response, so we were all convinced he tried to kill her. She filed a police report on him and started moving on. This is in July.
Now we move into part two of this debacle. My partner and I go up to visit her in September and she’s doing well on her own, she’s having fun, dating around, putting herself first, in therapy, just doing really well, were happy for her. She hasn’t really made any friends which is making her lonely but we were telling her to get involved in clubs and meet people, etc.
We leave our trip which was really fun and head back home. 2 weeks later, Laura says she’s met this really great guy, its almost October at this point, she’s gone on multiple dates with him and really likes him, were happy for her, still a bit concerned, but if she’s happy we’re happy. So Laura, Greta, and I plan a girls trip to come up and visit Laura for a long weekend. Laura wants us to vet this new guy, make sure he’s a good dude. She tells us she really values our input and so Greta and I are so excited to go on this trip with an open mind. November rolls around, one month before our trip and Laura announces that the new guy, we’ll call him Will (29M) has moved in with her, bringing his dog with him. Greta and I are a bit shocked but we didn’t say anything bc we’ve both done stuff like that before and Laura was struggling to keep up with rent on her own (she was still in the house that her ex fiancé left her in) so we knew she could use a roommate.
December is finally here and Greta and I hop on a plane and Will and Laura pick us up from the airport, first impression in the car was fine, he seemed nice, he drove us back to their place and we walk into the house. I come face to face with a completely different living room than I saw in September, all of Laura’s art and stuff are moved out of the living room replaced with the following: a giant poster of Elon Musk smoking a joint, a poster model of a rocket, a poster of Jesus riding a dinosaur with a machine gun. And a bookshelf full of Will’s books and Lego sets on display. Alarm bells are going off in my head and Greta’s at this point. We have a little conversation and because it’s late, we go to bed. We sleep in a room that outside of the house in the backyard, it has full heating so its basically just like a bedroom with a deadbolt. I double lock the dead bolts and we go to bed.
At 3am I’m woken up by Greta shaking me in a panic, asking me if I remembered to double deadbolt the door, I told her I did and that were okay and we both went back to sleep. When we woke up the next day, and she told me she had a weird feeling that he was gonna come in our room in the night. I agreed, and told her that was why I double dead bolted the door.
We go through our girls trip which ended up not being a girls trip at all, Will was by our side the entire time. Laura and he talked about looking at ENGAGEMENT RINGS, they bought a ring sizer, she was picking out her faves. He never let us have girl time except for one hour trip we took downtown to window shop. He would come sit in Greta and my room when we were talking with Laura, he would watch movies with us, he went everywhere with us. Not only that but in the middle of conversations, he would pull out his guitar and just start playing in the middle of us talking, or when we sat down to watch a movie. There is one bathroom in the house, and the main house part is very small about 650 square feet, my friend Greta has bathroom anxiety, she doesn’t like to poop in public places so she asked Laura and I if we would grab Will and the dog, and just go for a quick walk around the block while she used the bathroom. It was no biggie, so we got ready and went on a walk, we got 20 feet out the door and Will starts griping about how he doesn’t want to be outside and that Greta is a selfish pooper, and continues to complain the entire time were outside. We don’t even go for a walk, we stop at the corner of the street and just stand there because he doesn’t want to go any further.
At this point I’m annoyed with this guy, he just seems really controlling. To add to it, he didn’t want to go for a hike in the mountains, so Laura didn’t want to go so we ended up spending the entire weekend inside their house basically, even though we were in a beautiful area, and hiking is a group favorite, because he didn’t want to go. We didn’t. Also this is a personal anger of mine but I bought a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts (they were $18, which is crazy) and he ate EIGHT OF THEM. it pissed me off so bad, I had to hide the box that night just so I had 1 donut left over in the morning. Anyway onto the big finale.
Our last night there we finished up watching a movie and the events that unfold all happen within 3 minutes, keep that in mind. Laura had taken an edible so she was pretty out of it, like laying on top of the dog, whispering, just all around sounding really tired. Will says hes gonna take her to bed and Greta and I say were gonna get ready for bed in the bathroom. Bedroom and bathroom are five steps fro each other. I brush my teeth and use the bathroom while Greta is brushing hers and then I walk out of the bathroom and tell Greta that I’m grabbing my stuff to head over to our outside bedroom. I grab my bag from the kitchen counter, which is right next to their bedroom door. The bedroom door is open so I say goodnight to both of them and tell Greta I’ll see her in a sec, she’s just finishing up. Maybe 45 seconds pass and I’m waiting in our bedroom when I get 3 texts from Greta “OH MY GOD” “HELP” “HOLY SHIT”, Greta comes running out of the house, slamming the back door, and I run up to her.
She tells me that they were loudly having sex in their bedroom with the door open, mind you the bathroom is 5 steps from the bedroom. the kitchen counter is right next to the bedroom and Greta had to walk over to it to grab her stuff.
We are freaked the fuck out at this point not only was it super disrespectful but Greta was super affected by it, which who wouldn’t be it was disturbing. Because mere moments before Laura went to bed she was so high. And I smoke regularly so I know what it looks like when someone is super high and I hadn’t gotten that high in a long time. She was very out of it. So this really bothered us both.
The next day, were ready to go home, we get to the airport where they drop us off and once the two of us are in the airport we both look at each other and both just say “that was horrible”, we both felt like the entire trip we had a bad feeling about him and didn’t want to ruin the vibes of the trip so we just didn’t say anything about it. So were sitting in the terminal writing down a list of all the red flags, all the instances where he gave us a bad feeling. And overall just as a person he gave us a really bad feeling. Just gross, nasty, icky feeling. Not sure how to describe it well but I just knew something was off and Greta said she felt the same.
Laura had asked us to give our opinion on what we thought of him so we drafted up a letter to her, with key moments and points that we felt were big signs that he may not be a good guy. It includes everything we went over in this story, I didn’t want to supply to much of our opinion on the situation but I know that my bias comes out in this story a bit.
We wrote to her, and she responded to us with basically “I appreciate your concern, I will take your opinions into consideration” Its worth it to note that they were talking about getting engaged in March of 2024 (It is Early December 2023 at this point) and in our letter we told her that she should give their relationship more time, and get to know him better before they get engaged.
Our relationship with her after that became very one sided, Greta and I tried our best to keep messaging her but she really never responded so we kind of gave up. End of January we get a text from her, a picture of her and him she has an engagement ring on, “We’re engaged!” Greta and I respond with a Congrats! and a heart emoji, we’re super concerned but we have genuinely said all we can in that letter a little over a month before, so It didn’t feel right to say it again.
March she posts her “I said yes to the dress post” with Wills mom and his two sisters. She still doesn’t have any friends up where she lives so it makes sense for her to bring his family along. She didn’t message us about it, which is fair because we hadn’t been talking. We just thought they were getting eloped, because Greta has always said she wanted something small since she isn’t super close with her family (they’re not great).
So we left it there until last week I received an invitation in the mail to their wedding. Its this September on a Monday night.
Greta and I would have to pay around $500 each in order to even go to the wedding, calculating in airfare, shared rental car, shared hotel room, and that doesn’t even include, food, gas, wedding gift, etc. The two of us are not well of financially, we both live paycheck to paycheck so it would be really hard for us to go in general not to mention that the wedding is on a Monday night, so I have to take off extra days of work that I really don’t have. Same with my best friend, were in the same industry so wen have the same days off and all of that.
And I know it took us a while to get here but would we be the assholes if we decided not to attend her wedding?
TLDR: Best friend’s ex fiance tries to kill her in past relationship, she moves on two months later, her new partner moves in with her 3 weeks after dating. We go visit her and meet him, he’s go a lot of red flags, we tell our best friend, she distances herself and gets engaged weeks later. Invites us to her wedding in September that is also on a Monday. AWTA?

One less obvious feature of minecarts is that they can be moved from place to place when empty. The condition "move towards direction in X days always" when combined with pressure plates, that get activated on minecarts, allow to do some fun stuff like opening doors and bridges.
Because there is a delay before the door is closed sometimes we have to insert stops where minecart waits for a day to ensure previous one is closed before moving to next one.
Automatic garbage atom smasher Diagram
This requires 3 floors at least. On bottom one we have a bridge that will be smashing garbage, on middle one hatch cover, which is needed because if something gets dropped on a bridge and it is activated it is catapulted upwards, and on top floor just a chute, with dump zone over it + minecart standing on dump south track stop that gets fed from garbage stockpile.
Position 1 is pressure plate linked to hatch cover with condition "Move to east in 3 days always".
Position 2 is just a regular stop to wait for hatch cover to be closed. "Move to east in 1 days always".
Position 3 is pressure plate linked to a bridge with condition "Move to west in 3 days always".
3 days is not necessary, can be set to whatever value you prefer.
With this setup garbage gets dumped to a chute and automatically smashed without any of your involvement whatsoever.
Automated obsidian farm Diagram
When water is dropped on top of magma it turns into obsidian. Since magma and water can be infinite, this ensures unlimited amount of obsidian.
Turns out this can be automated a lot. The only thing you have to do is to remember to check periodically if obsidian is ready to be mined and restart the process when it is hauled away and nobody is inside :)
This design needs 4 levels + drainage. Bottom one Z1 is the level where obsidian will be casted. One above Z2 is empty level for water. When obsidian is made you have to start digging down from this one since you need to get rid of the floor. Level above Z3 is for magma reservoir and finally highest one Z4 is for water reservoir.
This setup needs 8 stops. I have placed some constructed track stops, but these are not necessary, it just looks neater.
Stop 1: Pressure plate linked to doors marked 1. Condition: "Move to east in 0 days when at least 25% of any items". This condition cannot be satisfied since there is no stockpile linked so the process is effectively stopped when minecart is here. To get it going all that is needed is with game unpaused to click - on the condition so it gets turned to "Move to east in 0 days always", wait until dwarf comes and pushes the minecart to the next stop, then click on + to restore this condition. This way when the process is completed it will stop here where obsidian is ready to be mined.
Stop 2: Pressure plate linked to doors marked 2. Condition: "Move to east in 2 days always". This fills magma and water reservoirs. If pressure is high enough one day is enough.
Stop 3: Condition: "Move to south in 1 day always". Used to ensure fill doors are closed before proceeding to the next stop.
Stop 4: Pressure plate linked to hatch marked 4. Condition: "Move to south in 7 days always". This dumps magma onto the bottom floor.
Stop 5: Condition: "Move to west in 1 day always". Used to ensure the hatch is closed before proceeding to the next stop.
Stop 6: Pressure plate linked to hatch marked 6. Condition: "Move to west in 7 days always". This dumps water on top of magma turning it into obsidian.
Stop 7: Condition: "Move to north in 1 day always". Used to ensure the hatch is closed before proceeding to the next stop.
Stop 8: Pressure plate linked to doors marked 8. Condition: "Move to north in 7 days always". Drains the excess water away.

Don't get me wrong. Pay is great, work is steady depending on where you work in the facilities, breaks are nice (again depending where you work, i hear horror stories from the cashiers), and generally? not a terrible vibe on third shift which is a god-send from the normal rabble.
What makes the job awful, much like any location, is the management. We've got several managers, much like any store, and of course they have their "favorites" who get away with everything barring murder. Some that walk around doing nothing all day, some that just sit in the wrong departments chatting, leaving the customers without help, some that ignore the customers asking for assistance as a whole, even a few that due the famous "U-turn" where they go back and forth from the bathroom and breakroom all night before clocking out. Everything we say about these individuals; in one ear, out the other. whether it's to HR, CXM, mod, directly to the individual in question or the boss of the store. Due to the crazy loops and mountain of paper-trailing required, the damage is already heavily implemented before anything can be freaking done about them, making the job twenty times harder than it needs to be.
Then you got the workers who bust their butt to make ends meet getting treated worse than the dirt you stand on because of these headaches. This goes on for every shift, but i need to focus on my own experiences through the third shift stress and tension as it has been getting extremely volatile. Between the problems above and a hard-headed manager interested in rushing to complete tasks over the safety of the worker, and the lack of stable workers since only 3 of us are full time + 2 part timers who do, essentially, full time hours, the strain on the night crew is insane. What sent me over the edge though wasn't the work.. oh no. I can handle the work load because whatever we don't get done is still there the next night. It's not hard to pick up where we left off and by the end of the week 99% of the time everything is done.
Below in the spoiler will be a pretty hefty rant of my experience involving what finally made me register my hard work means nothing. That we're simply replaceable fodder, and that our safety, no matter how much they plaster it as their priority, means nothing.

Back in January the area i live in experienced a pretty big storm. Didn't think much of it at the time, i've ridden my E-bike (my only source of transport) in storms before, even in the snow! But, unlike usual this storm had caused flash flooding. I had reached a particular point in the ride where I couldn't progress. The roads that legally allowed my bike to travel out of where I live had become flooded by nearly 6 inches of high speed water, with spots going as deep as a foot and more due to road conditions. Roads surrounding my route were also being slowly closed off as the storm continued and ubers were cancelling in the area (or outright rejecting rides due to the dangerous conditions.), making it progressively harder to get around. It was 10 minutes til work, and i still had 20 minutes to ride, and a 15 minute ride back home if something went wrong.
I pulled over at this intersection that was flooded and checked the news for the area. Local news networks labeled it a "local emergency", so i called it in, told my boss at night i wouldn't be able to make it due to the unsafe driving conditions and progressively worsening weather closing down major roads. He 'understood', told me it would not effect my points as it was a weather situation, and that several others were calling for similar problems. I returned home now soaked and the bike had to be carefully serviced to avoid any lasting damage from the heavy storm. Not a huge issue but annoying none the less.
Fast forward two weeks and i get brought into the office where the CXM and my boss are... and asked the famous line. "Do you know why you're back here?"
I truly had no idea, so i joked it off, I had won a recent raffle for 3 board-games, so I made the comment it was because I hadn't brought those home yet.
The CXM smiled, then said it was because i had received my 4th point for calling out without sick time. Now, mind you, I have no idea what's going on at this point. I knew i had missed 3 days (once in September, 2 times in october from bike issues leaving me on the road without a way in due to the battery dying.). So i asked where this 4th point was coming from. He mentions the day of the flood, my boss, who is keeping his mouth shut, looks away from me when he says this. At this point I sit down, rather miffed at this point because i was assured that it was okay due to it being a safety concern, and that others were calling out with similar issues without a problem.
I'm stunned at this point. Taking a seat at the wall, the night assistant manager closes the door behind me and the cxm begins to lay into me the normal spiel, about how they expect all workers to be punctual and that this was a writeup, and how i "needed to understand what was being said". The whole time he's smiling, I wasn't. I told him what I was told on the phone, that I was cleared due to the weather conditions and that a point wasn't on my record the last time i checked (which i was checking regularly the first week because i truly expected something like this to happen, and stopped checking 4 days prior to the meeting. This happened 2 weeks later on a Wednesday.) -The cxm says it doesn't matter what i'm told on the phone. And that I should have called an uber. -I told him that ubers were cancelling rides due to the roads closing. -He tells me to order a taxi instead then. Now. I'm getting riled up at this point. My leg it tapping, i'm clearly not happy, and the way the cxm is talking to me is actively pushing for a response like this as he continues to smile and REPEATS "do you understand why you're getting this write-up" over, and over, and over again. -The night shift boss is still not making eye contact with me. -So, I stare straight at the cxm and respond to his question. "I understand that I have 3 points, but the 4th point I do not agree with. I was told that I was okay, and that the local news had declared it an emergency. I do not agree with that fourth point." -They both look at me, and I continue to look directly at the cxm. I'm still pretty relaxed at this point even if i'm agitated mentally and tapping my foot. I just want to get back to work at this point because I know the cxm is on a power-trip based on his body language and how much he's smiling. However, it really shown when that smile went away at me saying that comment. The cxm folded his hands, his smile gone and said "look, you want me to be blunt? I don't care what you agree with, you just need to understand you're being written up for 4 points of missed work. I can't let you leave until you agree."
THAT shifted my whole mood. I went from calm, to alert. My foot stopped tapping, I sat back in the chair and I was glaring at the cxm at this point. I was LIVID. The night manager STILL wouldn't look at me, instead he was watching the cxm. So i stayed focused on him as well. I folded my arms, and gave my full attention to him.
He repeated "Do you understand why you're being given this formal write-up?" again, and I, again, said I didn't agree with it. He AGAIN said he didn't care what I agreed or thought was right. and he just needed me to agree with it. So. I said what he wanted me to say. "I understand i'm being written up for a point I don't agree with"
As if MOCKING me, he again repeats "do you understand you can't keep missing days like this?"
I stayed DEAD SILENT at this point, and he leaned forward and looked at me with a big ol' smile. and told me to "stop staring at me with that death-glare, it's not working on me, buddy"
I was fuming. I was NOT going to be treated like a tool like that for taking my own safety into consideration during a local emergency for the job to tell me I was still in the wrong TWO WEEKS AFTER the event happened.
I was forced to agree, because I was sick and tired of staring at him and getting nowhere. So i repeated the comment like a good little drone and left. God i wish i knew i could have commented in that signing page that i signed under protest, course I was so pissed off i doubt i'd have even realized where to write it if i had known. I signed the "admission of guilt" crap, and immediately went to speak to the main boss of the store. Took two more weeks to get ahold of him, and he agreed it sounded very unusual. Main boss went to HR with clarification on how to handle it because even he wasn't too sure on it.
Two weeks after that, i touched base with the main boss. AND HE AGREED THAT I HAD NOT DESERVED THAT POINT OR THE WRITEUP. HR had come back to him about it coming down to the manager who handles the call-out (in my case the night shift boss), and a second manager who confirms the callout. My only assumption is that my boss agreed and acknowledged it as a weather related incident, and the second manager, the cxm in this case, decided to over-rule that decision.
Every other manager I spoke to thought that point was bogus. THE MAIN BOSS said it was bogus, and HR agreed that it was a case-to-case issue due to their system not having anything concrete for localized weather emergencies (they only have it for snow/ice, and state emergencies.) but even our HR contact agreed that safety takes priority! So here I am, 3 months into this crap I didn't even deserve, all because this dude decided to swing his big-boy stick. Taking the proper channels to have it addressed, complaint sent in about the manager in question, and trying to do things by the book did nothing but hit me with a "well you didn't act fast enough so we can't fix it" response, because it took over a month to get it processed. On the plus side, since I explained the entire incident to the main boss of the store (including the response from the manager who was handling the write-up), He gave me his direct line and told me that if i EVER got caught in a major storm like that to let him know, and he'd be sure to clear the incident himself. So while it happened, the store boss pulled through and assured me it won't happen again since it was a situational decision based on whoever got the call-out to handle. The problem is that the one who made this a problem in the first place is still in a position to do said problem. And that, unfortunately, I am unable to address directly like this. It was untouched for almost 2 weeks, sent in as a point right at the end of the 2 week "edit" period, and then I'm written up a week after that, ensuring I had no way to fight it. This was, in all purposes, an abuse of power. But, i'm a drone. I'm only as strong as the voice of the rest of this cacophony, and that's why they keep everyone at eachothers' throats.

Like I said. It's a rant, so only pop it open if you want to see what triggered this message to begin with. It's the biggest frustration I've had in the many years working here that firmly got under my skin due to the way it was handled and how long it took to get properly addressed, for no other reason than to tell me it was too late to do anything about it. We're just numbers in this machine, readily replaceable and easily used to kick around in the name of "fun" for those in a position of power. Where the rules and regulations are waived so long as you're buddies with the other management, and those working hard and keeping to themselves are an easy source to dump the blame and pressure or exercise someone's "authority".

🦑 Squid Proxy Manager Script

Hello fellow Python enthusiasts!
I've created a Python script that makes managing your Squid Proxy Server a breeze. If you're looking for an efficient and straightforward way to interact with your Squid server remotely, this script is for you. 🎉

What My Project Does

The Squid Proxy Manager script allows you to manage your Squid Proxy Server remotely using a simple command-line interface. Here are some of the key features:

• Check Squid Service Status: Quickly check if your Squid service is running or not.
• Start/Stop/Restart Service: Easily control the Squid service remotely.
• View Logs: Access the latest entries in your Squid access logs.
• View Configuration: Display the current Squid configuration file.
• Update Configuration: Replace the existing Squid configuration with a new one.
• Reload Service: Reload the Squid service to apply changes without restarting.

Target Audience

This script is designed for anyone who manages a Squid Proxy Server and prefers a command-line tool for remote management. If you are comfortable using Python and SSH, this tool will streamline your workflow and enhance your productivity.

Differences

Here are some aspects that make this Squid Proxy Manager script stand out:

• Remote Management: Manage your Squid server without needing physical access, thanks to SSH connectivity.
• Ease of Use: The script provides a simple and intuitive command-line interface, making it easy to perform various tasks.
• Comprehensive Features: From checking service status to updating configurations and viewing logs, this script covers all essential Squid management tasks.
• Error Handling and Logging: Detailed logging and error handling ensure you know exactly what's happening and can troubleshoot issues effectively.

🚀 Usage

1. Installation:
   
   • Ensure you have the required libraries installed: bash pip install paramiko termcolor
2. Running the Script:
   
   • Use the script with appropriate arguments to manage your Squid Proxy Server. Here's an example command to check the Squid service status: bash ./squid_proxy_manager.py 192.168.2.111 22 username password --check-status
3. Updating Configuration:
   
   • Create a new configuration file (e.g., new_squid.conf) with your desired settings.
   • Run the script to update the Squid configuration: bash ./squid_proxy_manager.py 192.168.2.111 22 username password --update-config new_squid.conf

💻 Script Example

Here's a snippet of the script to give you an idea of its simplicity and functionality:
```python

!/usbin/env python3

import paramiko import argparse import logging import sys import os from termcolor import colored
class SquidProxyManager: def init(self, hostname, port, username, password): self.hostname = hostname self.port = port self.username = username self.password = password self.client = paramiko.SSHClient() self.client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())

def connect(self): try: logging.info(colored("Attempting to connect to {}:{}".format(self.hostname, self.port), 'cyan')) self.client.connect(self.hostname, port=self.port, username=self.username, password=self.password) logging.info(colored(f"Connected to {self.hostname} on port {self.port}", 'green')) except Exception as e: logging.error(colored(f"Failed to connect: {e}", 'red')) sys.exit(1) def disconnect(self): self.client.close() logging.info(colored("Disconnected from the server", 'green')) def execute_command(self, command): logging.info(colored("Executing command: {}".format(command), 'cyan')) try: stdin, stdout, stderr = self.client.exec_command(command) stdout.channel.recv_exit_status() out = stdout.read().decode() err = stderr.read().decode() if err: logging.error(colored(f"Error executing command '{command}': {err}", 'red')) else: logging.info(colored(f"Successfully executed command '{command}'", 'green')) return out, err except Exception as e: logging.error(colored(f"Exception during command execution '{command}': {e}", 'red')) return "", str(e) # More functions here... 

def parse_args(): parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Squid Proxy Manager") parser.add_argument('hostname', help="IP address of the Squid proxy server") parser.add_argument('port', type=int, help="Port number for SSH connection") parser.add_argument('username', help="SSH username") parser.add_argument('password', help="SSH password") parser.add_argument('--check-status', action='store_true', help="Check Squid service status") parser.add.add_argument('--start', action='store_true', help="Start Squid service") parser.add.add_argument('--stop', action='store_true', help="Stop Squid service") parser.add.add_argument('--restart', action='store_true', help="Restart Squid service") parser.add.add_argument('--view-logs', action='store_true', help="View Squid logs") parser.add.add_argument('--view-config', action='store_true', help="View Squid configuration") parser.add.add_argument('--update-config', help="Update Squid configuration with provided data") parser.add.add_argument('--reload', action='store_true', help="Reload Squid service") return parser.parse_args()
def main(): logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO, format='%(asctime)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s') args = parse_args() logging.info(colored("Initializing Squid Proxy Manager script", 'cyan'))

manager = SquidProxyManager(args.hostname, args.port, args.username, args.password) manager.connect() try: if args.check_status: manager.check_squid_status() if args.start: manager.start_squid() if args.stop: manager.stop_squid() if args.restart: manager.restart_squid() if args.view_logs: manager.view_squid_logs() if args.view_config: manager.view_squid_config() if args.update_config: if not args.update_config.endswith('.conf'): logging.error(colored("The provided file must have a .conf extension", 'red')) elif not os.path.isfile(args.update_config): logging.error(colored(f"Configuration file {args.update_config} not found", 'red')) else: try: with open(args.update_config, 'r') as config_file: config_data = config_file.read() manager.update_squid_config(config_data) except Exception as e: logging.error(colored(f"Error reading configuration file {args.update_config}: {e}", 'red')) if args.reload: manager.reload_squid() finally: manager.disconnect() logging.info(colored("Squid Proxy Manager operations completed", 'green')) 

if name == "main": main() ```

🌟 Benefits

• Remote Management: No need to be physically present to manage your Squid server.
• Ease of Use: Simple command-line interface for quick operations.
• Versatility: Supports various Squid management tasks, from checking status to updating configurations and viewing logs.

📢 Get Involved!

If you find this script useful, feel free to give it a try and share your feedback. Contributions and suggestions are always welcome! Comments however, that are unhelpful and serve no purpose to better the script or the author in their python scripting abilities are not welcome! Keep the nasty to yourself.

Access the script

You can find the script here on GitHub.
Happy coding! 🚀

So I've been seeing this girl for a while now. We have kissed already but it's nothing too serious so far. Today, she messaged me asking how I was doing. I replied that I was just heading home from another city and asked "Why do you ask?"
Suddenly, out of the blue, she responded with: I see that you're already tired of me.
I replied: What do you mean?
She answered: I feel like you’re already tired of me.
I asked: Why do you think that?
She said: Because we hardly have any contact with each other and when we do, it’s only for a short time. That makes me feel like you’re tired of me.
I replied: Well, you had your final exams recently, so I didn’t want to bother you.
She said: I told you that you never bother me.
I replied: I understand. But besides the exams, I feel like I haven't really been able to catch a common language with you.
She said: so what's next?
I replied: I don't know, maybe we should talk about it, like back when I told you about my feelings, but you ignored me?
I replied with another one: From the start, it’s been a bit awkward. I’ve tried to have conversations, but it rarely work out. (she would always answer with a really short sentence or just single word and don't ask me back anything) You never initiated any conversations, physical contacts or gave compliments, (yes, she never gave me any compliments, even a simple "you too" after my compliments towards her or something like that) so I thought you were just shy and decided to give you time to open up. I’ve been patient, but after a couple of months not much has changed. The last time I told you face-to-face that I struggle to talk with you, you didn’t say anything. No reaction at all, which honestly discouraged me a bit.
She responded: I told you I’m quiet and I can’t keep a conversation going, even if I want to. (I don’t remember her ever saying this)
Her response to the part where I mentioned telling her I struggle to talk to her face-to-face was: What was I supposed to say to that? (anything???)
Her response to my part about discouragement was: So I discouraged you, I see 🙂
I didn't respond to this because I had to think about this whole situation.
Then she sent another text: So I was right, you are tired of me. If you don’t want to have contact with me, just fucking tell me.
So, what do you guys think about this whole situation? What should I do? She seems to be manipulative and gaslight all the blame on me when I try to discuss the situation. I like her but don't know if it's worth pursuing anymore.
TL;DR: I've been seeing a girl recently, and she accused me of being tired of her due to our limited communication. Despite my efforts to be patient and understanding, She gets defensive and manipulative when I try to discuss it. Looking for advice on how to handle this situation and improve our communication.

Hey! I have a bedroom available within a 2B/2B for a lease takeover that’s very close to campus and an RTD stop. The room is available for move in immediately and ends 9/8/24. The space would include your own private bedroom and a bathroom to yourself, pet friendly space, washer and dryer in unit, parking garage with gated entry (or street parking, can opt out of garage spot). Security deposit is all covered. Rent runs $1300 and split utilities have never been over $100, usually to the lower end consistently. Large living room and kitchen in open layout. The roommate in unit is a 32M, quiet and tidy, enjoys gaming, and WFH. He often stays in his room in case anyone else works remotely too and has any concerns. Really nice community amenities on site. Lots of natural lighting in unit too. If anyone is looking for a room or apartment, feel free to message me for any questions! I’m pretty new to Reddit and don’t use social media, but can certainly monitor comments here too. 😊

I'm getting back into creative writing as a hobby, and I'd like to write something for self-publication, probably on RoyalRoad. I've been spitballing ideas with myself of what I want that to look like, and a few ideas have come to mind that I'd like to sound off in this community and see if this even makes sense outside of my own brain.
CYOA LitRPG
This idea started out with me thinking about the "RPG" in LitRPG. The gamification takes place in the fiction itself; there are mechanics and numbers that the reader can understand as quantifying parts of the fiction and give them an extra level of information to engage with while they read. But the text itself isn't really a game, much less an RPG, it's just about one.
So that got me thinking about the Choose Your Own Adventure books I used to read as a kid (anybody else remember those?). At different points in the story the reader was presented with the choice of several courses of action the protagonist might pursue, and the page number to flip to if you want the story to go that direction. So I started thinking, what if there were a serial LitRPG that operated on the same principle? At the end of each chapter, it would tell you which chapter is next in this branch of the various possible plots and you would turn to that chapter. At chapters where there is a choice for the reader to make, it would instead explain the options and the starting chapter for each of those plot branches.
Now obviously the downside of this is that it's a HUGE amount of extra writing and organizational work, and may be hard to keep a coherent publishing schedule for. However, it could be really cool as it allows the reader to engage a bit more directly with some of the Roleplaying Game-ness of LitRPG.
The Other Idea I Don't Have A Name For
Bear with me on this one, because it's probably been done before and I'm just ignorant. If there is an established name for this or you have recommendations, please let me know. Basically I had this idea when I came across an Instagram Reels series where they were playing chess, and the most liked comment after 24hrs would be the next move every turn. This pretty quickly devolved into commenters making up crazy stuff like merging Rook-Knights and doing en passant with bishops and all kinds of fun craziness. But it gave me this idea.
A LitRPG (or any genre but LitRPG seems especially fun for this) where the readers actually drive the plot. At the end of each chapter, readers can comment what they think the protagonist should do next or what they're general plan/strategy should be going into a situation. Obviously this is very similar to the CYOA style branching-plot model but more open, and needing less excessive amounts of writing and organization. It would also only feature one plot, so it would require a lot more attentiveness to what the audience as a group is interested in rather than being able to cater to a bunch of individual readers.
Conclusion, and Thanks For Reading!
So yeah, those are the two ideas I had. I don't know if I'm going to act on either of them, but they seem cool in theory and I wanted to share it with this group. Do you know of other projects that have done something similar? Is there a name for the second type of thing I was talking about that I just don't know yet? Do you think these are cool ideas? Terrible? I'd love to hear what you think in the comments. I know this was a long post so thanks for taking the time to read if you've made it this far, and have a great day!

Alright straight to the point, I'm 18m, she's 18F (not her real name but ill call her Kat), basically about 5 months ago I got a job at this small salad place as it just opened meeting this girl Kat in the process. Kat is a sweet (as well as a fun mean side to her) little person that over the past few months of me working there, I've slowly developed feelings for. It's gotten to the point where every time our schedule comes out, I take note of all our shifts we have together and find myself constantly looking forward to them unlike any of my others! And during those shifts (our store is not that busy so we get a lot of downtime) I always find myself hanging out with her for most of it just doing simple things like talking about our pets, school, feeding the birds out the drive through window, showing each other funny videos, casually roasting each other, ect. This girl has honestly been unlike any other crush I've had in my life. Usually how it goes for me is I meet a girl say, In one of my classes, we talk a bit from time to time, I develop some small feelings for them, I then start becoming a nervous wreck around them, eventually stop talking to them at all cause I have no idea how to act around them. But with Kat it's been different, I'm not a nervous wreck around them and I don't have to worry about changing my personality when around them, it's oddly sorta freeing tbh. That said, there is one big hiccup in this whole thing in that Kat has/had, a bf. This of course complicates things for me in how to approach her in terms of a relationship.
From what I could tell, they (at least kat was) were pretty close but recently broke up almost a month ago. A quick rundown on what I know about this breakup is that her Bf initiated it, and that there was probably cheating on his end about it, and that Kat is really beat up about the whole thing. They've apparently been dating for a year and a half and was Kats first and only relationship so far. Basically what I'm saying is, she's going through a rough time right now, she's been getting better especially compared to when shit really hit the fan, but still not in the best state right now. So I'm just here to ask, what should I do? I don't want to jump in and make things even more complicated for her, and at the same time, I don't know when would be a good time to make a move. On one hand I don't want to be like one of those guys that takes advantage of someone in an emotionally vulnerable state, but at the same time with her job, which is the only place I can see her (we go to different schools) she's been having talks of quitting so I don't wanna wait too long and miss an opportunity to see and possibly ask her out before she does that. Sorry this post is long, tbh I mostly wrote this to just clear my thoughts and lay it out in writing to think through it, but if you do have any advice please let me hear it as I'm stumped and any fresh thoughts would be more than welcome.

In America, congress passed a bill saying that anti-Zionism is anti-semitism. And I'm glad that Jreg brought up the Haavara Agreement. That gets brought up a lot in the communist discord server I'm using.
The Haavara Agreement occurred in 1933. And it's like a peaceful cleansing. It's when you get a group of people that you hate to voluntarily leave. When modern day neo-Nazis talk about a peaceful cleansing, they're thinking about things like that Haavara Agreement.
Because of this "war" Israel has increasingly become a pariah state, who's only clear ally is the USA. But Israel has become a pariah to pretty much the rest of the world. Israel has the largest amount of Jews being sitting ducks, with it's only clear ally being the USA.
In recent polls, the majority of Americans are against Israel, and the majority of Democrats would love it if America withdrew its support of Israel. If America stops supporting Israel, and Israel being heavily reliant on America, what will they do if they lose American support and another country decides to bomb it?
This "war" has not ONLY been a bad look for Israel, it's been a bad look for the USA. The other superpowers Russia and China have shown nothing but support for Palestine.
Which makes me think of JJ McCullough video. Where he said that the creation of the UN was so that what occurred in Nazi, Germany will never happen to another group of people ever again. That it was firmly believed that what caused Nazi, Germany in the first place was authoritarian regimes, and that this sort of thing would be completely impssible with a democracy. That a democracy will never allow this to happen, which makes it a superior system.
We are living in a time, where people all over the world watched in horror what Israel has done during this "war." And the world has also watched the USA's staunch support of Israel, including threatening to arrest members of the ICC if they arrest Netanyahu, and threatened to invade The Hague, should Netanyahu face arrest.
America bullies Europa into sanctioning China and Russia and boycotting their goods. But again, I'm thinking about that statement that JJ McCullough made. The UN was created so that what happened in Nazi, Germany would never happen to ANY GROUP of people ever again. "Never again" meant any group of people.
But now, instead of the world sitting back in horror as the Holocaust happens. People now are sitting back in horror as more Palestinians are getting erased from the face of this world. Israel is NOT in a war with the West Bank But in the West Bank, houses are being burned down. Palestinians in the West Bank are being shot down like cattle. And what sort of "war" is it when it's completely one-sided?
To me, this action, not only risks turning Israel into a pariah. It also risks turning the US into a pariah. It might seem impossible. But we normally bully Europeans to sanction and disassociate from China and Russia. We just threatened the sovereignty of the Netherlands. The US govt made it clear that we will punish anybody who dares to act against Israel. We also demand that you disassociate from China and Russia because of the type of govts that they have. As comedian Jon Stewart frequently points out. There is some chrystal clear hypocrisy and double standards going on here.
You have two superpowers which are completely aligned with the rest of Europe when it comes to Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people. And you have one democractic, superpower, that bullies you and threatens you if you so much as arrest Netanyahu.
No govt should be bullied into doing anything that it doesn't want to do. I wouldn't be surprised if Europeans would rather get along with China, on the condition, that it respects its soverignity and doesn't push it to do things that it doesn't want to do. Like some sort of treaty where the Europeans remove the sanctions, and in return, China doesn't pressure Europe to doing things that they don't want to do. For Europe to be able to make independent decision that's without the influence of a superpower.
Don't get me wrong. As a US citizen, I hate the idea of the US becoming an pariah country. But there has been an uptick of news of various people leaving the Biden administration because they feel like his actions harms America's credibility to the rest of the world. So many comedians are cracking jokes about America's hypocrisy, and people are leaving the Biden administration because they agree with the comedians. Including us cracking down on TikTok because people criticize the Israeli govt a lot on TikTok.
How could we brag about being the world's freest country and value liberty and freedom more than any other country. While we crack down on protesters and crack down on apps because of speech that we don't like? Where we are reliant of censorship and a militarized police presence to crack down on speech that we don't like.
Our Fouding Fathers believe that Free Speech is the most important freedom that you can ever have, along with the freedom to protest and boycott.
I cannot predict the future. I don't watch CNN, but I do read CNN. When you read CNN, they are very critical of Israel. But, youtubers have pointed out that when you watch CNN, it's different. I wouldn't know. But from my experience, there are main stream news outlets critical of Israel. And there are big named comedians like John Oliver and Jon Stewart, who're critical of Israel. There are over 1,000 Hollywood celebrities that signed an open letter from a website of Artists4Ceasefire.
I don't know what will occur in the future because there are people with a lot of fame and a lot of wealth who are critical of Israel. It's unlikely that we're going to start arresting Hollywood celebrities for having speech the govt doesn't like.

My fellow gamers, for too long has our community suffered the indignation of an intolerable culture that has denigrated, besmirched, exploited, and has outright demonized our culture of unique individuals with a genuine love of a hobby that they see as profitable and progressive. They have taken beloved IP’s (Intellectual Properties) and twisted them into their own personal ideological crusade of undermining and humiliating the core aspects of characters they deemed as “Toxic” or “White Supremacy”. Through the guise and protection of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity) & ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) they have used our influence in the entertainment industry to push their narratives and agendas that have stigmatized our culture with numerous anti-consumer practices that they call “being progressive”. But the truth of the matter is they were never really looking to be a part of our community, they simply wanted to use our community as a tool of activism and propaganda in the entertainment industry as it was extremely profitable, and they wanted inclusion in that division. Ever since GamerGate & Female Frequency, we have had to endure the incursion of forced ideologies, xenophobic behaviors and inferior overpriced products that have never been in our best interest and have been flat out disgraceful towards foreign media.
Before Gaming had become a major source of entertainment, we were often categorized as anti-social or societies rejects where because we found more enjoyment in playing fictional characters and not spending as much time out and about, we never fully assimilated in society (which is a good thing if you ask me). From 1998 to 2007, at the height of innovation, creativity and production, Gaming had reached a golden age in which it had revolutionized society. Hollywood Execs who had ruined the movie industry turned their attention to video games as a source of income since video games had outperformed movies in terms of profit. No one was concerned about gaming, much less diversity or inclusivity until it became profitable. This makes people like SBI look extremely disingenuous as they were not interested in gamers as a community with its own culture. They simply wanted to use it as another weapon in identity politics.
Microtransactions; the hidden enemy to gamer progress and inducer to mental laziness of our community. Microtransactions have been around for a long time; however, it has never been more potent and apparent than in recent years. It has aided in the dismantling and segregation of players on the ideology of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and has created another sub-culture of gamers who have no real drive to be better outside of how much money they put into the game. This has degraded our culture as well as we have become “fat” off transactional gaming but at the same time we have been “starved” of purposeful gaming where our achievements were our sustenance. I am not saying that microtransactions are bad, but when they are exploitative and predatorial like they have been and don’t give gamers room to grow, we become lethargic and unwilling to improve ourselves as gamers. Oversaturated microtransactional games are one of the many reasons why we have become complacent and unwilling to fight against the exploitative tactics used by big brand game companies such EA, Ubisoft, ActivisionBlizzard, NaughtyDog and so many other western business model companies. Western style games were not like this in the past, they had much more depth and actual effort put into them with the gamer in mind. This has not been the case for over a decade and our connection to western developers has been whittled down to just being transactional. That is one of the reasons why you see so many remasters and remakes in today’s gamer community. They have lost their willingness to improve as developers of games and simply accept corporate/share holder rules.
Game journalists also do not have any real integrity or purpose outside of being funded for their involvement in promoting IPG (Identity Political Games) in a positive light to the public whether it’s positively received or not. They are not interested in what we have to say, they all support the same agenda and that is why they are a dying breed. Within the next couple of years, they will be out of the job and more than likely they will not be able to stay in the industry giving how they have responded to past articles that have clearly been scripted on the premise of diversity and racism. Not only that, but most of them are also extremely hostile to the community as they stereotype and defame the individuals that are a part of the community they are supposed to serve. We have been mentally liberated from their lies and coercive tactics as we tend to laugh at their obvious attempt at virtue signaling while hiding their misdoings so that they can play the victim.
My gamer brothers & sisters, I would not suggest the following action that we must take now without good cause. I have weighed our options and the best option for us now is this…...CULTURAL SECESSION. Naturally this is a form of segregation where they would more than likely claim they are being segregated by the dominant culture of the gaming community but that is incorrect. For years now we have been the ones who are often marginalized and ostracized for the smaller portion of our community. And when we aren’t, we’re exploited for more funds so that these companies can stay in business only to subject us to low quality products that coincide with the “WOKE Agenda” that are often huge expenses to these big brands i.e. AAA/AAAA games that will eventually flop for its obvious forced diversity and bug infested product which will undoubtedly piss off the consumer to the point of wanting a refund. Losing copious amounts of capital and stock in the process, not to mention their reputation is permanently marred.
We must separate on every cultural level in terms of entertainment and ideology. We must reject everything from the west that promotes toxic western beliefs, practices, and exclusion from other cultures (i.e. Southeastern Countries such as Japan and Korea). Japan & Korea have been the targets of unjust discrimination from Western Developers, Western Journalists, Western Localizers (The Wokelizers) and Western Society Prejudice regarding their sense of aesthetics as Westerners hate the aesthetic sense of these countries. The reason why they resort to such base tactics isn’t just because it weaponizes the ideal female form but it’s also because they have deep-seated insecurities about their own looks so when they see attractive female characters, they use terms such as “unrealistic” or “hypersexualized” to establish the moral high ground. But the truth is, they want to feel superior to that which is ideal, so they insult and dehumanize this figure that portrays natural female beauty because they see it as an insult to their own social superiority in what they believe is a hierarchy of them being at the top of all other women. Because of this and so many contributing factors, their movies flop harder than the Fat Chocobo landing on a group of enemies and their games seismically fail just as much if not more. We must sever our connection to Western Developers, Publishers, and ALL Western-Centric Entertainment for they seek to mentally enslave us to their Xenophobic ideology.
Let’s define Western Culture and its traits. Western Culture/Society is composed of more than several different ideologies that work in unison with one another to facilitate dominance over multiple aspects of society. Business, Social, Political, Technological, and sometimes even Global Affairs are affected by these ideologies that portray a specific mindset of Western beliefs. What are those ideologies you ask?

• Perpetual Victimhood: By weaponizing the fact that they are marginalized and of a small portion of western society, they can push their agenda to absurd standards that ultimately ostracize the main demographic. And when companies don’t capitulate, they are labeled as anti-progressive/misogynist’s or cohorts of White Supremacy. They use this to cancel their targets and silence them through societal defamation to keep the public on their side. They also use this mindset to justify their own lack of self-agency as they tend to throw companies who do adhere to their demands but miserably fail to turn a profit under the bus so that they can maintain face in front of the public while denying their actual involvement. They will never accept “Sense of Agency” when it’s negative but will gladly accept it when a positive outcome shines on them as if they are entitled to it.

Official Wiki GamerGate Page)
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• Societal Terrorism: This is another form of ideology weaponization that they use in order to make companies “toe-the-line” with their agenda. By weaponizing cancel culture, they exert dominance over these companies but in exchange they also reimburse those companies with DEI & ESG funds that raise their credit score as well as having social status with the marginalized demographic. However; cancel culture has not succeeded in years and developers and publishers probably only want the money and the DEI ESG rating. But they have to maintain the image of having social economic power so that they can continue to strong-arm other developers into compliance and promoting financial benefits of DEI & ESG. In other words, if you are not for sale, they discredit and stigmatize you in the industry.

Asmongold Clips.
https://youtu.be/Iq86DnmX2xY
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• “Its not us, its you who’s wrong” Mentality: This mentality is especially annoying as they tend to use it to hide their incompetence. They often look down upon gamers who are not in the industry to hide their obvious lack of knowledge on game development thinking that their job title grants them special status that they believe gives them the right to be condescending. But the truth they never wanted revealed has already strangled their careers of all credibility. They were never GAMERS, they were INVADERS. Community Colonists that seek to indoctrinate next generational gamers into their hive-mind and brand previous generations of gamers as villains.

@GeeksandGamers
https://youtu.be/1HbrTkqQFuM
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• Double-standard Enforcement: By labeling something as “unrealistic” or “hypersexualized”, they can claim this is morally wrong if it promotes traditional dynamics between men and women. Heterosexual relationships are condemned while at the same time Same-sex relationships are praised. Additionally, heterosexual relationships with main white male characters turn antagonistic and spotlight stealing. This is deliberate as to promote the “Girl Boss” ideology to indoctrinate women into the Feminazi state of mind. While at the same time, should a male character also adopt the “I don’t need male/female” ideology its seen as Toxic Masculinity which isn’t even a real thing. The idea of a strong male character is taboo while enforcing strong female characters is the ideal.

@MugenLord
https://youtu.be/to5Uciy_yeg
@EndymionTv
https://youtu.be/7TPTR8-qmbk
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• Dehumanization/Demonization: This is something that most military branches use in order to remove conscious inhibitions such as mass slaughter is wrong or categorization. By enforcing ideologies to denounce humanity in certain targets, it deactivates your conscience by saying this is not human therefore its ethically okay to treat this target without compassion and deny the fact it has sentience. We gamers fall under this category for journalists, developers, companies and society at large. This is a tactic we are familiar with to an extent as it implies that we are not normal when we do not do what everybody else is doing. “Geeks are the worse” or “Nerds need to fall into a pit of lava” are verbal dehumanization forms that most people in society say and we as Gamers tend to be relegated to those categories. This is their way of imposing the social hierarchy on us by establishing superiority. We know this as Gamers as we see it very often in the games that we play and some times experience it in real life.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gamergate#The_end_of_their_relevance
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• Deflection/Projection: This is basic psychology 101. By redirecting the conversation away from their mistakes and back on to the opposing view to avert blame and justify their innocence they can avoid criticism. However; deflection is a CONSCIOUS decision, meaning they have no real argument to justify their incompetence. If you can consciously process the situation, you have self-agency which means you don’t have a legitimate excuse. Projection is something else entirely. Most times, Projection doesn’t work on conscious decisions rather it is automatically deployed when feeling threatened, anxious or both. Instead of accepting accountability for feelings or actions that are deemed socially unacceptable they accuse others of committing that unacceptable behavior thereby exonerating themselves and proving that those feelings and/or actions are not their own.

@TheTrentReport
https://youtu.be/bPIPSKruYRo
These traits are so nefarious and unconscionable that I have a hard time believing that anyone could harbor them. However, given the social, political, and economic climate that we are in, those in power who use their influence on controlling society most definitely possess these insidious traits. Everything that they do is all about control and since video games are the biggest market in the world, they want control over it and the communities built around it to accrue more wealth and to use that wealth to subjugate other cultures. Mainstream media is a tool as well as mainstream organizations and sites to help accomplish this goal.
The government recently announced its intentions towards what they believe is “GamerGate 2.0” and now even the ADL has made an official appearance, referring to gamers as “extremist’s”. We know EXACTLY what they are doing, and they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore because they don’t think we are aware of their motives. This is just a pretext for them to exert even more control and we know why, it’s because they want the influence we as a community have to must serve them. So here is what we do my fellow gamers-
“In light of recent events and years of mainstream stigma, we the members of the Global Gaming Community [GGC] must officially renounce ALL TIES to the corporate western video game market. We have been financially exploited through predatorial monetization schemes, pelted with numerous articles of disdain and intentional misrepresentation from game journalists, news outlets regarding us as dangerous individuals and, even subjected to inferior products not only riddled with bugs but also products meant to push political agendas. For the preservation of our community and its unique culture, apart from a few select game development studios we officially sever all connections to western owned video game companies & their mainstream affiliates. From this point onward, we will no longer support western corporate developers, journalists and publishers that do not coincide with the goals of our community.”
Naturally this is completely optional. If you are okay with the state of the gaming community as it is, feel free to ignore this. But if you wish for real change and a break away from oversaturated monetization in the games you play and the push for radical ideological reform, then you are in the right place. Lets sever these rotted miasmic ties once and for all so that our community can be preserved and made better for future gamers. If you agree with this, share it with whoever you think might be interested. The more gamers who get involved, the easier it will be for us to finally break free from mainstream game companies and their associates.

I stumbled across this subreddit and although I'm strictly not over 40 myself, my relationship lends to being with someone older than me, so I'm looking for thoughts and opinions from people in that demographic. Hopefully that's okay....
For a little context, I was in my first and only relationship which lasted 18 months. It was an age gap relationship, she was 43/44 at the time, so 12 years older than me — I'm 33 now and she had a little daughter who was around 10 who I treated like my own. She was married for 14 years, divorced for 3 before I come along and was a breath of fresh air and “put the wind back in her sails” as she put it and the "love of her life" and "soulmate" and all that stuff…But ultimately, in August 2022 after our holiday as a trio to Mallorca, she told me she no longer found me attractive, or attractive anyway, she was never in it from day one when she met me, only saw me as a friend.
She told me she thinks she should be with someone more her age, established, has the executive job title (as she finds the self made type an “attractive” quality), fancy car, house, body. I think she saw a power imbalance because of the age gap and she was a high earner herself.
I think she has/had her own issues she never dealt with, because I was never toxic or abusive or shouted or argued and did everything to try meet her needs. I would've moved mountains and walked over broken glass for her. There were these emotional wobbles every few months, where she would burst into tears upset telling me she wasn’t sure what she wants, she doesn’t want a relationship and can go through life focusing on her career, daughter and doesn’t need or want a guy. But being nieve would ignore that, calm her down, reassure her I’m there for her, sleep on it and go again and then the cycle would repeat after a few months - another wobble and another. I guess ultimately I'll never really know the true reason as I guess people say things in the heat of the moment.
She turned incredibly cold and heartless after I tried to save things, be reasonable and text, and then all of a sudden we were in no contact at all. After a year of being blocked everywhere except for WhatsApp, she unblocked me on Instagram just before the most recent Christmas, but never reached out. Could be something, could be nothing. I guess 6 months later, it's nothing.
I guess I'm a little lost still, all this time later, and would welcome thoughts and an open conversation for comfort..

I (22F) have gone on a couple dates with this guy (28M) and so far things have been going well. He’s done nothing to raise alarms for me outside of bringing up our age gap a little more than normal. I honestly see us dating seriously in the future. I really like him. I was really excited to go on my next date with him later this week, to the point where I was happily rambling about him to my friend. My friend asked what he looked like so I pulled up his dating app profile because it would be easier than just verbally describing him.
This is where things went sideways. My friend looked at his pictures for a few seconds before saying “I think I’ve seen him before.” At first I thought she had also seen him on the dating app in the past, but she clarified and told me she thought she had seen him on TikTok. I don’t use TikTok so I asked her what she saw out of curiosity, but she couldn’t remember exactly, just that he looks like someone on one of those podcast clips she had seen in the past.
The next day she texted me a link to a TikTok video with him in it, saying she was able to find the account again. When I opened it and scrolled through the videos (had to download TikTok for this) I was honestly shocked at what I saw. It was clips upon clips of this guy speaking with another man about women and dating. High body counts being bad, how girls go for scummy guys and sleep around, red flags and standards they think are stupid, how so many women are hoes and not “good girls”, all pretty generalizing. And the way he was talking about women in general just lacked any compassion or empathy.
I was almost heartbroken. He was nothing like this when we were together. It was like he was a completely different person. I even mentioned to him that I’ve had sex with a lot of people and it didn’t seem to phase him, which I appreciated at the time. It made me sad to think he may have been assuming these negative moral qualities about me this whole time. I don’t understand how someone can express such different opinions depending on the crowd they’re with.
I don’t know whether I want to confront him about it or see if he tells me about this part of his life first. Either way I want to hear his side of the story and express to him how this makes me feel. What should I do?
TL;DR I found the podcast of the guy I’m going on dates with where he says some pretty incompassionate stuff about women and it’s left me sad and confused

Few days back i was using Snapchat and i was sexting with my fwb so suddenly she asks for my D pic and i was nervous bc i was showing it to her for the first time so i was pretty nervous how she's gonna react. As soon as i clicked the pic when i was about to send i accidentally clicked on last snap button(which sends pic to person we last shared snap to) and guess what it was my cousin and friends i immediately tried deleting the pic but worst possibility happened my cousin saw my dick pic and she was shocked why tf i was sending my private pics to her i apologised immediately i got really anxious my body turned red and the situation for me was really fucked up i kept on apologizing and it felt terrible for a moment but she was really understanding she tried to comfort me idk why that thing was turning me on ik it's really fucked up and it's worst feeling sending dick pic to your cousin accidentally and she opens within second and you can't do anything about it. It still feels so wrong idk what can i do about it i don't think i can ever face her again we were really close more like a best friends but i feel i ruined it all.

As we are getting a trailer for a much changed version of the Second Age today, I decided I would share what a first season in a series might look like for the story of Tolkien’s Second Age, while staying very close to the timeline and characters. I’ve taken some ideas I’ve seen from other creators who have made similar attempts at this, namely Council of Rings and Tolkien Untangled, but most are my own. As of now I’m not aware of a complete outline that exists for the first season of this sort of adaptation. In any case, this outline is essentially a summary of a complete text with 10 chapters that exists but is still in progress.
I’ve split the season into 10 episodes, as I think that’s ideal, and into pairs of 3-episode arcs I call Sagas, which will cover certain time periods. But each of these sagas will more or less function like a contained story, following certain characters during periods of their lives. And each is about 3 episodes between 50-60 minutes, meaning each is the length of a long film.
I started with a compressed timeline where season 1 would take place between 1200-1600, starting with the year Annatar arrives in Ost-in-Edhil. In this timeline Tar-Aldarion would essentially switch places with Tar-Surion. I think that the actual canon timeline allows for a very interesting look at the differences in passage of time between elves, Númenoreans, and Middle Men. It's more challenging but also more rewarding. The drawbacks of the canon timeline are that Aldarion dies close to mid-season, whereas in the compressed timeline we could follow Aldarion as he ages throughout the season. Therefore the whole season takes place between SA 725 and SA 1600.
That being said, there are still a few alterations and non-canon additions. The big alteration is that Annatar steals the nine when he leaves Eregion around SA 1500, instead of when he destroys Ost-in-Edhil around SA 1695. The other non-canon additions are Middle Men characters, which there are few examples during this time period, that Annatar can begin to seduce with the Rings of Power.
This was just a bunch of fun for me, but I hope this effort will demonstrate that we can have a great story that stays faithful to Tolkien’s timeline and characters.

Sagas of the Second Age: Season 1
Saga 1 (Episodes 1-3): The Mariner (covering events from SA 725-750)
Elrond. In the first prologue scene around SA 440, Elros as an old man arrives in Mithlond to visit his brother Elrond. Elros is fulfilling a promise to Elrond to visit him when he senses death is near. The two brothers spend time together before Elros departs back for Númenor.
Aldarion. Three hundred years later around SA 725 in Númenor, Aldarion and Erendis witness the corination of his father Tar-Meneldur in Armenelos. The next day, Aldarion sets out from Númenor with his grandfather to spend a year at the court of High King Gil-galad, but he is told by Meneldur not to go beyond Mithlond. Eventually, Aldarion decides to travel outside Mithlond, against his father’s wishes. Elrond offers to join him, seeing an opportunity to spend time with his brother’s descendant. Together they discover the dwarf cities of Ered Luin, and then the future site of Vinyalondë at the mouth of the Gwathló. Aldarion discovers the that the Men of Middle-earth are not as evil as he was told by his family in Númenor, and that some even speak the same language of the Edain that he does. Elrond and Aldarion then travel to Amroth’s kingdom in Belfalas. While Amroth is showing Aldarion the black lands of Mordor in the distance, they are ambushed by orcs, and narrowly escape with their lives. Before departing back for Númenor, Aldarion says goodbye to his new friend Elrond and the High King Gil-galad. Back in Númenor, Aldarion meets Erendis again and proposes to her. She asks if he is done with his travels, he says he is, and she accepts.
High King Gil-galad. Gil-galad endeavors to heal the trauma of Middle-earth. While Aldarion is travelling the lands of Middle-earth, he goes to settle a conflict between kingdoms of Gwaithirum and Breeland. A battle ensues between these kingdoms of Men and Gil-galad is unable to stop it. Before Aldarion departs back for Númenor, Gil-galad tells him that he would very much welcome his help in mediating the conflicts of the tribes of Middle-earth, as Aldarion speaks their language. Gil-galad perceives the return of the shadow of Morgoth, and departs to discover the source.
Galadriel. By lake Evendim, Galadriel admits Celebrimbor into her company. Despite the history of their families and some initial distrust between them, they realize they have a shared vision for continuing the great works of Gondolin. Together they discover the dwarf kingdom of Kazad-dûm. Galadriel is able to convince the dwarves of the mutual benefit of their cooperation in crafting. Durin III is eventually convinced, he agrees to allow and to help with the establishment of the future capital of Eregion: Ost-in-Edhil. There the works of the Noldor and dwarves will benefit each other for many centuries.

Saga 2 (Episodes 4-6): The Stirring of Númenor (Covering events from SA 1075-1350)
Elrond. About three hundred years later in SA 1075, Elrond arrives in Númenor to see his friend, now king, Tar-Aldarion. He is also tasked to ask the Númenoreans to prepare for war, as Gil-galad is now certain of the return of the shadow of Morgoth. Tar-Aldarion, now an old man, has reached an age where he must yeild the sceptre, in the tradition of the Kings of Númenor. He decides to leave Númenor’s official response to Elrond as a decision to his sucessor. Aldarion has only had one daughter Ancalimë with Erendis, and it is clear that there has been much friction in the marriage. His sister’s son Soronto is the nearest male heir. This situation causes a conflict in Armenelos between supporters of Soronto and supporters of Ancalimë, also between those who want to heed Gil-galad's call and those who don't. Ancalimë is seen as the elf-friend, while Soronto is staunchly against the armament of Númenor. Aldarion decides to change the law succession in Númenor in favor of Ancalimë. When Ancalimë is crowned, she reverses her initial position to heed Gil-galad, and decides to preserve Númenor as a land of peace.
Galadriel. Ost-in-Edhil is a great city now, and both elves and dwarves are seen thriving. A visitor from Aman arrives who calls himself Annatar. He demonstrates himself to be akin to the Noldor in his love and expertise with crafts, and says he was a student of Aüle. He wins the favor of Celebrimbor and the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, the crafter's guild, and soon becomes the favored partner of Celebrimbor. As the friction between Galadriel and Annatar increases, Annatar moves the Gwaith-i-Mírdain turn on Galadriel. She decides to depart to Lórinand by route of Kazad-dûm with her daughter Celebrían, while Celeborn stays behid in Eregion. Galadriel is graciously welcomed in Kazad-dûm, and her relationship with the dwarves grows greater. At last, she arrives in Lórinand and meets the King Amdír.

Saga 3 (Episodes 7-9): The Rings of Power (covering events from SA 1500-1590)
Celebrimbor. More than a hundred years later, sixteen Rings of Power are forged in Ost-in-Edhil. Celebrimbor and the Gwaith-i-Mírdain agree that seven of the rings should be gifted to the dwarven kings, as a token of thanks for their help in building Ost-in-Edhil. Celebrimbor, however, decides that the rings are too dangerous for Men. Annatar and Celebrimbor have a heated disagreement on this point, and Annatar accuses Celebrimbor of withholding the bliss of Aman from Middle-earth. Annatar absconds with the remaining nine rings. Sensing that he has been deceived, Celebrimbor crafts the Three in secret. He gives two to Gil-galad, and the remaining to Galadriel, and admits that he was wrong to doubt her.
Gil-galad. Minastir, the heir of Númenor, stays in the halls of Gil-galad as Aldarion once did. Minastir meets with the descendants of the Middle Men Adlarion befriended, though many more generations have passed for them than for Minastir. Aldarion’s travels are a tale that some believe to be myth. Gil-galad and Minastir travel the lands of Eriador and mediate the conflicts of Middle Men.
Elrond. Elrond travels to Númenor for the first time in several hundred years on order of High King Gil-galad to implore once more that the Númenóreans to prepare for war. Tar-Teleprian, the second Queen of Númenor, rules in Númenor now. When Elrond arrives and presents the request of Gil-galad, there is a conflict between supporters of Ancalimë’s policy of isolation and those who believe that they should heed Gil-galad, the latter being lead by the Lord of Andunië – Silmariën’s heir. When Elrond presents further evidence that the shadow of Morgoth has returned, Tar-Teleprian ultimately decides that Númenor must prepare for war.
Annatar. Annatar begins seducing the Kings of Men and gifting rings. Annatar arrives in the halls of a Gwaithirum king called Halmir, a descendant of one of the generals of the battle in the first saga. Annatar tells Halmir that the Noldor are withholding the power of prolonged life from mortals, and gifts him a ring. As Halmir is an elf-friend, his ancestors all being loyal to High King Gil-galad, he refuses Annatar’s suggestion. Eventually, Halmir succumbs to his curiosity and doubt and puts the ring on, entering the Realm of Shadows. He perceives immediately that his decay has been slowed, and indeed that the Noldor may have deceived him.

Saga 4 (Episode 10): Orodruin (1600)
Sauron crafts the One Ring in Orodruin, and Barad-dûr, the largest fortress ever built, has been completed. We Annatar standing on at the height of Barad-dûr wearing the One, below his vast legions of orcs.
As soon as the One Ring has been crafted, Galadriel, Celebrimbor, and the others realize they have been deceived and that Annatar was in fact Sauron, and they remove their rings.
The Men who received Rings of Power from Sauron realize too late they are deceived, as they are completely subservient now to the will of Sauron.