Reading plot worksheets for kindergarten

I had someone tell me that ttrpgs requiring effort isn't entirely true. It upset me because I've been in the hobby for near two decades, running as a gm for a little over a decade (a relatively short amount of time), and I have never once thought that way. I felt dismissed and invalidated.
Before we even get to sit down and begin playing there's dedicated effort spent on getting the group together.
First I find the people that are interested and can coordinate our schedules to sync up and play. Not a small task, especially if you're starting a new group.
Then I always do the optional sesh zero with anyone I haven't run a game for before. Being sensitive to stuff like domestic violence or sexual assault is important to me as ive seen first hand how hurtful it can be to impact someone that way. Explaining safety tools and setting expectations for behavior is key to finding the very simplest of common ground to build a foundation on.
Then I ask questions about the type of game we want to run/play together. Do we want episodic adventures or something more epic in scale lole lotr. Do the players want combat and loot to be the focus or just when narratively fitting? Is setting important? What about handwaiving resources or survival mechanics? Is there plot armor for our furry critter friends? Then I find system that fits into the style of game we're looking for.
Do I own a module that fits within the groups preferences or do I need to write it from the ground up(hours of effort to days of effort)? Do I need to edit it to fit the group? Yes. Do I need to re-edit it day of because someone can't make it? Maybe...
Let's say you're just a player though.
You still need to put in effort to sync up a schedule and dedicate the time to show up and be present. Are you bringing snacks or drinks, do you need to travel? Are you the host because that can be a buttload of work before, during, and after the sesh.
Have you or are you going to read the rules? Take notes? Do you need roll up your own character or use a premade? Do you need to buy a mini or dice?
On average my players are playing for 2.5 to 4hr sessions which is time they're investing that could be spent doing something else. As a working adult, that supply of freetime only ever seems to get smaller and smaller every year.
I want to show my players respect by putting together an experience for them they'll find fun. Each session is a gift I carefully craft to varying degrees of success. I want my players to know I value their time and commitment and I show that by putting in effort into my games.
You are investing effort all along the way of getting together to play...and more often than not some amount of $$ too.
I haven't even talked about actually playing any system yet but I've made a multiparagraph rant post about it... sure some systems require less effort to run/play...but all systems do require effort.
TL;DR: Do players & GMs need to put in effort to engage the hobby?

Hi everyone. Im running a campaing and in the last session one of my player didn't follow the others cause his character was just too drunk ( he is a really good roleplayer ). So the entire second half session he didn't play and didn't join the others. I would like to reward him with a session just for his character, so in a couple of days we will meet at a bar, and drinking beers we will run what i called "Mahmood shenanigans, the adventure of an Alcoholic homeless angry gnome". With us there will be also other two friend of mine, I will provide the PC for them. As you can see from the title i would like either some lore suggestion and some technical suggestion. We will be in a bar so I wont print any map, I will just bring a few D20, player sheets, pen and paper.
Regarding the lore, the players were blackmailed from a detective. The detective knows that they are somehow killers so his told them that if they manage to retrieve a lot of alcohol from the nearby village called "cold spring cider village forever" he will clean their criminal record. The reason why the detective wants all those alcohol is because the PC woke up a giant close to the village and now the giant wants to destroy everything. The detective is busy keeping the giant sleeping with magic and the idea is to inject directly in his veins all the alcohol to keep him a sleep forever. As soon as they arrived in this town they were welcomed too nicely but none of them realized that. So all the group followed a bartender that gave us free drinks besides for Mahmood. Mahmood loves free drinks so why bother follow the bartender just to uncover some hidden city plots ? ( yeah there is a hidden plot in the city, a missing pedant , people killed now and then and this kind of things, I took ispiration from a youtube DND serie). Soooo the group went with the bartender and they were trapped and a lot of things happened, I would say in around 6 hours. I would like to give Mahmood also an adventure. Some ideas ? I was thinking to involve the neighbour village called "cold spring cider village forever and ever". The two villages are always in competition and they accuse each other about weird things that happen to both the villages.
Any idea?
Thaaaaaaaaaaaanks for reading so far ;)

My daughter is currently in kindergarten. Her teacher approached us and said she would like to put her in second grade next school year and skip 1st grade. My daughter started reading at 3 and everyone around has comment that she's advanced for her age. I'm obviously quite proud but a bit concerned about the social aspect. She's physically small for her age 25 percent on the growth chart. What are people's experience with having a kid skip a grade? I'm concerned about classmates being older, making new friends, leaving her old friends behind, bullying, etc.
My wife wants to do it cause my daughter gets bored at school right now.
Thanks

I bloody (pun intended) loved this book. Saw it recommended recently, and I mean, look at my username, I simply had to give it a go. My namesake even made a cameo in the story.
This is vampires done right. It avoids all of the angsty misunderstood vampire tropes entirely, but also avoids the kneejerk reaction that essentially makes them into mindless rage zombies. The vampires are just unrepentantly evil killers.
You've got two vampires who have been locked in a mortal feud for over 1000 years. One of them got the upper hand back in the middle ages and buried the other alive which is where he stayed until he was dug up in the prologue of the book.
The plot flips back and forth between present and past to paint a full picture of everything that's been going on behind the scenes. Never seen vampires in the Roman Empire before so that was a lot of fun.
Definitely a new must-read if you like vampires!

Hey guys im 17m and i recently got out of my battle with the hard s. pls give this story a read as it serves a reason too seek help, ive summed it down as much as possible for you, its so easy too find a local line for people too talk too with a quick search.
Chapter 1: Early Struggles
My childhood was a whirlwind of chaos, marked by my parents' turbulent separation when I was just a child. The memories of their heated arguments, sometimes escalating to physical altercations, lingered in my mind. Despite the turmoil, my mother emerged as my anchor, tirelessly providing for me while ensuring my father contributed financially through child support.
Chapter 2: False Hero
At six years old, I viewed my father as a savior when he gained custody after a prolonged legal battle. However, the illusion of safety shattered as I faced my stepmother's relentless bullying and unreasonable demands. Home became a battleground where I navigated the minefield of my father's authority, realizing it came with its own brand of cruelty.
Chapter 3: Escaping Reality
To cope with the turmoil at home, I retreated into my imagination, crafting elaborate fantasies as a means of temporary escape. Despite the turmoil within my family, I projected a façade of happiness and humor at school, determined to shield my peers and teachers from the harsh realities of my daily life.
Chapter 4: Silent Suffering
Behind closed doors, however, I suffered in silence, enduring relentless punishments and late-night chores under the unforgiving glare of the outside lamp. My father's preferred methods of discipline ranged from physical to psychological, each one leaving scars deeper than the last. From being forced to scrub concrete with a toothbrush late into the night to enduring verbal tirades that cut deeper than any physical blow, I bore the brunt of my father's wrath in silence, convinced that no one would believe my cries for help.
Chapter 5: Cry for Help
A visit from my siblings on my mother's side stirred a longing within me to confide in someone about the horrors I endured. Their presence was a rare beacon of familiarity in my tumultuous life, offering a brief respite from the chaos that consumed my days. However, the joy of their visit was short-lived as my father's disdain for their presence became apparent. With a heavy heart, I watched as my siblings packed up, knowing that their departure signaled a return to the suffocating grip of my father's tyranny.
Despite the opportunity to seek solace in the presence of my siblings, I remained silent, my father's mere presence invoking a sense of fear and helplessness that rendered me mute. Years of manipulation and psychological warfare had ingrained in me the belief that reaching out for help was futile, a notion reinforced by my father's iron-fisted control over every aspect of my life. Even as my siblings prepared to leave, I remained locked in a prison of silence, unable to voice the turmoil raging within me.
Chapter 6: Breaking Point
The breaking point came like a tidal wave of despair, triggered by my stepmother's relentless tirades and my father's explosive temper. Tossed aside like a discarded toy, I found myself at rock bottom, nursing wounds both physical and emotional. Ready to surrender to the darkness, I bid farewell to my unsuspecting classmates, plotting a desperate escape from my unbearable reality.
Chapter 7: Finding Hope
But fate had other plans. A heart-to-heart with my school counselor unleashed a torrent of suppressed emotions, leading to intervention from compassionate social workers. With promises of a fresh start down under with my grandparents, I glimpsed a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness, daring to believe that a brighter future awaited me.
Conclusion: A New Beginning
As I embarked on the journey to leave my troubled past behind, a mix of relief and disbelief washed over me. Though the road ahead remained uncertain, the support and compassion I received offered a lifeline in my darkest hour. And as the story drew to a close, it served as a poignant reminder that help is always within reach, urging others to extend a helping hand to those who are suffering in silence.

While children are taught moral education and other different subjects in schools, including mythological and religious stories, besides disciplines like languages, sciences, math, there is no focus on spirituality. Unfortunately, people tend to confuse religion with spirituality. But spirituality is different from religion. Spirituality is a way of life. It is beyond religion. Religion is only the kindergarten of spirituality. Religion teaches us the ABC of God, it introduces God to us at an early age. It helps build faith. By giving God a form, as religion does, it can help a child connect to God. Religion also provides us with a certain moral and ethical framework that we can live by, but it stops at that. Spirituality is beyond religion. Spirituality is the science of the spirit. It helps us realize the truth. It helps us realize who we are, who God is, what the purpose of life is and how we can attain it. We realize that we are not the body, mind and ego but the Soul. That God is not a person or saint but a power and we are a part of that power. We realize that God is one and everyone and everything is a manifestation of God.
Spirituality, thus, sets things in perspective. It fosters love
and compassion towards everyone and everything. It promotes togetherness, brotherhood and universal love.
By helping our children become spiritual, we can help eliminate stress, anxiety, stress, depression, anger, hate, jealousy, suffering and misery from their lives. By encouraging spiritual practices, we can help children be happy and peaceful. Our children and our world would be very different if children grew up being spiritual. Spirituality paves the way for a life of happiness and peace.

Unfortunately, we are so lost in this material world that we are ourselves ignorant about the reality and truth of life. As parents or guardians, we pressurise children to come first in whatever they do. We tell them as we were told — ‘be successful’, because we believe that success is happiness. We want them to win trophies and medals in sports, academics — everything. But the truth is that the so-called happiness from achievements is not real happiness. It is only momentary pleasure. It is ephemeral. The fact is that happiness is success and not the other way round. If we are happy, we are already successful. In reality, success brings with it stress and worry. At times, people resort to immoral and unethical ways to be at the top. Most of us don’t stop at our need, we go beyond to greed. But things can never make us happy. Happiness is a state of being. We have to ‘be’ happy, moment by moment. The truth is that nothing belongs to us. Why do we want to amass a fortune? Ultimately, it will all be left behind. Sadly, we end up teaching children the wrong things. Children grow up wanting to become an ace in the race, but finally, they get caught in the maze.

We must therefore encourage spirituality in children. And below are simple ways of doing it:

First of all, we must understand what spirituality is and incorporate it into our daily life. If we don’t know what spirituality is, what can we tell our children? Children learn by example and we must set an example. If we ourselves are busy chasing success and achievements, hoarding and collecting wealth, how can we guide our children? While making money or wanting to be successful in itself is not bad, the problem is that we become addicted to it. We don’t know when and where to stop. We must ourselves do good deeds and treat other people, all beings and nature with reverence. We must, thus, lead by example.
Next, we can encourage spiritual practices like Yoga and meditation. Yoga is not just about asanas or physical exercises or pranayama or breathing techniques. Yoga means union with God. Nonetheless, _asanas_ and _pranayama_practices do promote well-being and peace. Similarly, we can encourage devotion or Bhakti in children by praying together, by singing Bhajans, hymns together.
Next, we must help children differentiate between the myth and the truth. Most of the stories children read or are told are myths, including that of Ganesha or Shiva. While this generates interest in the Divine, as they grow older, we must help them realize that God is not Ganesha or Shiva. God is not a person, but a Power, the Supreme Immortal Power. We must teach them to go beyond praying to Ganesha or other idols to praying through these idols to God, the Supreme Immortal Power.

We can try to guide children in day to day life. We can help them be mindful of nature, to connect with nature and treat other creatures with respect and love. We can help them choose what they read and ensure that they do not pick up more myths and lies. There are many spiritual parables, and stories that can communicate the truth in a simple and engaging manner. We must encourage children to ask questions about life, death, about God and help them understand reality. We must not tell them to blindly believe or follow what has been told to us for generations.

Finally, if we have the blessings and guidance of a spiritual mentor or Guru in our life, a truly enlightened being, we must allow children to have interactions with the Guru, or listen to his discourses. This spiritual interaction and education from a spiritually evolved person can leave a deep impact on young, impressionable minds.

Hello everyone!
I think it would be funny to do a ranking of decades of Spiderman comics, from the 60's to the present.
For my part, I can only give an opinion up until 90's since I'm not interested in Spiderman post-2000's, but you can include it.

1. 80's: Roger Stern modernized the character and that would work a basis for the following years. He introduced a great villain like the Hobgoblin whose story would continue to be developed by other authors later. Also the black suit was introduced and the subsequent arrival of Venom, which they managed to turn into one of Spidey's most important foes despite having passed 2 decades since its launch, which is not easy. In addition, one of the character's key arcs was launched, Kraven Last Hunt. For all this and more, I would say that it is the best decade of the wall-crawler.
2. 60's: The origin of Spiderman, this age is iconic since all the characters and bases that would define the character to this day emerged. Yes, it is true that Lee and Ditko's first comics can get a little boring nowadays, but even so, seeing the first appearance of so many characters makes it worth reading. Later, the era of Lee and Romita Sr, keeping in mind that they are stories from the 60's, they manteined a high level and have not aged that much, in addition to that they also presented new iconic characters such as Rhino, Shocker or Kingpin, and great arcs such as the revelation of Norman being the Green Goblin or Peter ceasing to be Spiderman. Without a doubt, if this decade had not had this great level, Spiderman would not have become Marvel's flagship.
3. 70's: This decade during the first years has a good level until approximately number #150, although then the level of the stories begins to decline a little until the arrival of Stern in the 80's. Even so, in these early years we have memorable moments such as the death of Captain Stacy, the drug trilogy, the introduction of Morbius, the first Clone saga or the first time Harry becomes the Green Goblin, stories that continue to be remembered nowadays. And how can we not talk about the death of Gwen Stacy, probably the key moment in Spidey's entire history, which was a paradigm in the world of comics and which is still remembered 50 years later.
4. 90's: The decade most criticized in general by Spiderman fans, where it is said that the level of the stories dropped a lot to focus on action and spectacular drawings. I have not yet had the opportunity to read the Clone Saga since it will not be republished in my country until a few years, so although I know what happens during it, I cannot say if it is as bad as people say until reading it. Although personally the first years of the 90's do not seem so bad to me, Carnage is in charge of leading the gallery of rogues those years until reaching Maximum Carnage, which I enjoyed a lot, it is true that it is not a story that marked an era for its plot but even so the drawing and the battles seem very fun to me. Also during this time, we probably had the best stage of the Spectacular Spiderman title thanks to DeMatteis and Buscema with the whole story of Harry Osborn's return as the Green Goblin and his subsequent death, which is curious that they wrote in Spectacular and not in Amazing due to his importance in Peter's life. In conclusion, the absence of reading the Clone saga and although objectively it is probably the worst of these 4 initial decades of Spidey, it doesn't seem as bad to me as people try to make it out to be.

And now after having given my ranking, it is your turn to give your opinions.
Thanks for participating!

We are both in our mid 30s (me = F, friend = M) and have known each other since kindergarten (or even earlier, but I don’t remember). We’d spend a chunk of time at each others’ places, hang out during summer holidays until we grew up, moved to different cities for our respective careers, and lost touch, very naturally. (Life happens and all that. No hard feelings.)
I recently got back in touch with him after ages. He said he was coming to town and that we should catch up. I was excited to meet him after years apart. And when we did meet it was very spontaneous. Conversation flowed smoothly and easily as if we had spent no time apart at all.
He’s very active on dating sites, told me all about his dates, showed me his matches on a couple of different apps, and we joked around it a little until it was time for him to go.
After he left, we stayed more in touch compared to earlier and talked via calls/texts almost everyday. A couple of months after his initial visit, he was back in town for some more work. Same pattern. We met a bunch of times, talked about a lot of topics including his dates.
I’d had him over at my place a bunch of times for lunch or dinner on both his trips. The last time he came over, I was just hanging out on my bed scrolling through reels and TikTok videos. He came and lay next to me (no biggie, we had slept next to each other a bunch of times on his past visits). We are both single, so not like anyone’s cheating on anyone by sleeping in the same bed with a friend of the opposite gender. This time, however, in a very natural way, he placed his feet on top of mine and leaned in. I didn’t react. He didn’t move away, nor did he move closer. We lay like this for a little while, and I thought he may have been resting his feet by accident, so I moved my feet back. Few minutes passed, and he moved his feet and placed them on top of mine again, this time lightly tickling my feet with his toes but staring into his phone the whole time. Similar patterns repeated throughout his trip on different occasions. Leaning on my thighs, placing his head on my shoulder, lightly spanking me awake etc. He was never touchy feely over all these years and I’m never touchy feely as a rule. So it just seemed odd.
I never thought of any change in our dynamic. Was it just unintentional and am I reading too much into this?

Whenever I read a good book, at the back of my mind, there’s often this lingering question — how do you just sit there and come up with this intricate story with all these characters and plot lines? I’m not very creative, so I can’t fathom how someone could do that. For instance, Anna Karenina or The Lord of The Rings. People’s creativity and inventiveness never cease to amaze me.

There’s a manga I used to read in the past that I do not remember the title of. I wad hoping to get back into it, but I just cannot remember the d title or names of the characters ctets. However, I do know bits of the actual plot.
Beginning plot: Mc is a young girl that finds out that her best friend (a young girl) is transferring to a different school. There’s a wall around this school in question. Mc tries to find a way to get in, and the principal of that school ends up accepting her in because all the students there have powers. Mc in question also has hidden powers that are currently weak. Her power was to deflect other powers? Basically neutralize in a way? Later on in the story, she later discovers that she can remove other people’s powers from the individual as well. Note that they are kept in the school and cannot leave bc bad ppl will try to kidnap and sell them.
That’s all i can remember for now :(
Edit: if it helps i do remember it having a similar art style to fruits basket (manga version) and its def on the cuteolder manga style too.

THIS WILL BE SFW NO SMUT!!
Hi everybody! Would anybody be willing to play a K-pop idol for me? I will be playing an oc and I’m looking for someone to play an idol. I will give information about me, My rules, and anything else that comes to mind.
Firstly let me tell you about myself. My names Min-ji. I’m from South Korea, I’m 20 years old and going to college to be a doctor! I am also in a dance class and I teach some dance classes but I am free 95% of the time and should be able to respond rather quickly, if not I will let you know if I’ll be busy. I love the color green and black. I love watching k-dramas, and I love pandas!
Next are my rules! They aren’t very serious rules just simple things:

1. Please write in 3rd person
   
2. Please have discord
   
3. I will be using a oc and id prefer if you played a canon
   
4. Please respond quickly. I know we all have lives but I’m looking for a quick responder.
   

That’s all!
You can choose the member! But I’ll give you some groups to pick from.
•Seventeen
•Ateez
•Straykids
•P1harmony
•Enhypen
•TxT
•Riize
•if you have others just ask!
Now I think that is all for now. Of course we will discuss anything else in the chat, such as plots, tropes, and anything like that.
‼️‼️If you message me please give me 2 facts about yourself so I know you read the whole things! ‼️‼️
Bye now, I hope to see you soon💕

Did anyone else find the Elizabeth/Not Elizabeth scenes so cringe it’s funny?
So many shots of a brunette with no shots of her face, then the imposter 😂
I’m sorry but I honestly thought it looked so bad… At first I thought maybe it was just because of Covid protocols or something but that doesn’t make sense since Boone is in other episodes…
It feels like she just didn’t want to even finish the season… I could be reading too much into that though.
I am really tired of the task force excusing her. “She wouldn’t do that” and the “if you knew what she went through “ etc
But Elizabeth is constantly emotionally manipulating the team, killed people (from Tom Connolly, to chemical Mary), trying to blow up Red, Ressler etc & using murderers to further her weird agenda…that is her.
Once again Elizabeth yeeted Agnes somewhere while she runs around committing felonies. She’s up there as one of the worst tv moms I’ve ever seen (next to abusers of course).
I hated the cyranoid plot in this episode for various reasons. Mainly, if they took the ear piece/contact lens I think I’d be fine…but the doppelgänger part was just stupid.
And Elizabeth’s plans don’t even make sense. The way Elizabeth played games just to drop off the thumb drive to Cooper… she literally could’ve just left it with him or physically taken it to him before… she was blames everyone but herself. Like being in the run, that’s all on her. She chose that over being with her daughter. As usual she makes things worse for herself.
So now she’s on the run with her kid. Sorry, her kid is probably with 24/7 Nannie’s while her mom makes nice with criminals even Red doesn’t want to deal with 🤦‍♀️
Crack parenting 👌
The writing this season is…not great 😬
This is probably my least favourite episode so far of the series.

Hi, I hope you're all having a good day!
So I'm looking for a book with what's in the title. I don't want romance as a main plot point. I'm reading Rise of the Dragons atm and it matches pretty much everything, so books like that are great! Wolves and/or dragons are a bonus I'd love 😊
Thank you in advance!

I'm looking for a book we read in English class. The plot was similar to the Goonies I think where it was a group of kids in a small Australian town that explore a mountain cave and find a Roman Longship. The story keeps flashing back to the crew of the ship in ancient times where I think it was a banished kid and a group of soldiers that had been sentenced to sail to the ends of the Earth. One of the kids is bullied because his grandmother is orthodox Christian and people had seen her wearing all black and lighting candles and they call her a witch.

I just started babylon 5 yesterday and I began with the gathering. It was good I liked everything, although everything is old but that doesn't matter for me because everything else covers for that. The plot of the movie was interesting and got me hooked right away. Best part for me is the characters, I was interested in them and now I'm more interested before starting the show, I already feel connected to them. I would say that the most characters I'm interested in is g'kar, londo I think?, and Sinclair. I have high hopes for g'kar for some reason. I don't know anything about the show or the characters btw it's entirely something new for me.
I'm continuing today hopefully. I'm very excited and I already think I'll be a fan of this series, so I'll be a member of this reddit 🫡. Thanks for reading.

Hello all,
I remembered really enjoying military thriller author Matthew Reilly's fiction as a teenager, especially Ice Station (1998), about a team of US Marines sent to defend a research station in Antarctica from foreign military forces after the scientists discover an alien spacecraft buried deep beneath the ice.
I've tried re-reading it since but I can tell that the quality of the writing and plotting is quite poor.
Therefore, I'm looking for some well-written, suspenseful military thrillers, preferably with some artistic merit to them, not just airport fiction.
Any suggestions are very much appreciated!

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF ABUSE, CHILD S*XUAL ABUSE, S*ICIDE
tl;dr: I'm trying to figure out if my husband could be a narcissist, or emotionally immature, or some mashup of both. Could someone explain this to me like I'm five?
(If this isn’t the right group, please point me in the right direction)
I tried my best to condense, but it’s a really long one. I’m sorry.
A breakdown of the pertinent info:

Me: F, mid-fifties, just returned to PT work outside of home Husband: M, mid-fifties, always worked a regular job, main wage earner Married: 30+ years w/adult kids (no longer at home)

For a while, I've thought my husband has definitely shown signs of narcissistic behavior. I won't list everything, but a few things are that he is definitely argumentative (over seemingly insignificant issues), jealous, needy for my attention and flies off the handle if he feels ignored, his only "love language" seems to be sex (and any lack of it means I don't love him), he loves the silent treatment which is always followed by a huge blowup and then love-bombing, he always one-ups me (he works harder, he feels worse, he is more tired, etc). There's more, but I'm trying to keep this short. I will say that he has never physically hurt me, but he has spent a lot of energy being emotionally abusive.
I would say that is his main thing; constantly saying how much I don't love him and how much I don't care about him if he feels the least little bit ignored or has to spend any time alone. My going back to work at a PT job has just turned that fire into an inferno because I've gone from a SAHM/SAHW to working PT, and sometimes just by necessity he is by himself (I want to say that, in the thirty years he has worked his job, I have been by myself more times than I can count because he has worked scheduled/unscheduled/spur-of-the-moment overtime, and I just rolled with it because, really, what other choice was there? Unemployment for the main breadwinner?). He absolutely cannot handle being alone, while I find being alone refreshing and rejuvenating. In fact, I'm the opposite; I'm like, "Do you love me? Then go away and leave me alone for a while!"
But here's where I have been doing some thinking. I know that many of you are going to say that there is no way, but I do believe he loves me. I've seen the man behind all that. And I do love him, despite all of the problems and issues, and I believe as much as he understands it, he loves me too. I am determined to work on this marriage. It occurred to me the other day, when he was mad and throwing a fit about something; I thought; "He's acting like a toddler who needs a snack and a nap." And so my mind started wandering along those lines for a bit.
You see, my husband has had a hard life. Both of us grew up in dysfunctional families with abusive parents. His father was definitely a narcissist, and physically abusive to his wife and at least to my husband (the GC sibling seems to have escaped most of it) and I've heard was sexually abusive to family members as well. He put his wife in the hospital more than once because of severe beatings. He threatened to drive off a bridge with the whole family in the car. He threatened all of them with a gun and a family friend had to come over and save them. He regularly beat my husband for the crime of not eating his vegetables at dinner. When my husband was 22, and I was pregnant, his father tried to hit him over the head with a huge wrench. (My husband is a strong man; that was a dumb idea.) There’s apparently a lot more my husband won’t talk about and/or doesn't remember.
But his mother wasn't an angel, either (let's be clear, SHE DID NOT DESERVE SPOUSAL ABUSE OF ANY KIND. NO PERSON DESERVES ABUSE. However, you can not deserve abuse and, at the same time, not be a nice person). She believed the world revolved around her, she was never wrong and the smartest person in the room, and my husband was expected to be at her beck and call whenever she wanted him for whatever reason. She abused him in her own way. Hurting people hurt people. When I came along, he was nineteen, and I treated him like an adult; that went over like a lead balloon because she treated him like a child.
Shortly after we got married and had our first child, she purposefully ceased to live, which threw my husband into a deep, deep depression for a few years. It was rough. I tried to get him to go to therapy, but he flat refused. We worked through it and eventually had another child, and he can finally talk about it now, thirty-some years later. But he rarely visits her grave, and I’ve never forced him to go if he doesn’t want to.
At very significant points in his emotional development, my husband had some major life crises happen:

He had to retake first grade because his mother was put in the hospital by his father's abuse; he shut down to the point he wouldn't do his homework and had to be held back (which is hard enough); he would have been around 7 years old He spent his childhood dealing with an abusive father and wondering if he was going to literally not be alive His parents finally divorced when he was around 14 years old After that, he and his mother and sibling were constantly financially insecure His mother purposefully ceased to live when he was twenty-three, after we had just had our first child He has told me that he doesn’t remember large chunks of his childhood (which I understand is a trauma response)

As he was being 'constructed', there was built a severely flawed frame structure around these emotionally damaged areas; the ability in his ‘frame’ to withstand a structural state of stress is severely defective. He never really learned how to regulate his emotions, how to work through them or deal with them in a healthy way. His mother never got him therapy for the abuse he had endured since birth; if anything, she compounded it (that’s a whole post in itself because, wait for it, she was a counselor). The only relationship he had modeled on a consistent basis was a dysfunctional, abusive, unhealthy one. (He did have maternal grandparents who were loving and kind, but they couldn't be there 24/7.) His aunts and uncles were all also in dysfunctional marriages/divorces, so no help or escape there. As a result, he has nothing to draw from when he feels stress, irritation, anger, sadness, irritation, loneliness; he struggles to even identify the differences between all of those emotions. He is extremely simplistic in his thought processes when it comes to emotions: He feels good/bad, energetic/tired, loved/unloved, happy/sad, full/starving; sometimes he’s capable of mildly annoyed if he's in a really good mood, but mostly his emotions are one extreme or the other (they do not change wildly; he picks one and usually sticks with it for a while).
If he feels stressed in one area of his life, then EVERY area of his life, in his mind, sucks. Very black/white. No grey at all. I’m not sure he knows grey exists. He thinks life should ALWAYS be a happy feeling, and if there is any bad/sad/stress/negative emotion, then that ruins it all and he can only concentrate on that, like a pebble in his shoe.
It’s like if someone gave each of us an oatmeal raisin cookie (mine has my allergens/intolerances removed):
Neither of us are big fans of raisins, but we both like oatmeal cookies. I will just eat around the raisins, or I will pick them out. If that is impossible, I’ll just eat the raisins, even though they aren’t my favorites, because I like oatmeal cookies and I try to look at the positive. “A minute ago I didn’t have a cookie, but now I do have a cookie, even though it has raisins that I don’t like, so life is pretty okay at this moment.” (I try to find something positive, even if it’s just a little thing, and focus on that.)
He will spend his time bitching that his cookie has raisins. He doesn’t like raisins. Don’t they know he doesn’t like raisins? How is he supposed to eat this cookie with raisins? And if I point out that he can make the best of it and just try to pick out the raisins, then he gets all upset. “But I should have got a cookie with no raisins. I shouldn’t have to pick out the raisins. Even if I pick them out, I can still taste them. Life sucks all the time.” (He finds something negative in everything, even if it’s a little thing, and builds it up to overshadow all the good things.)
So, I’m thinking that he has probably inherited some narcissistic tendencies from his father (and some not-so-pleasant stuff from his mother as well), and then he’s added emotional trauma to this, which makes me think emotional immaturity has been stirred into this particular pie (or cookie, if you will). Could this be so?
Here’s a very recent case in point. He works nights. I mostly work days, but my job is such that I sometimes need to be ‘on-call’, and so occasionally I need to go in at weird hours/times. It’s a great job and I love it, and it’s a perfect fit for me and my skill-set, but he’s having a hard time adjusting to me not always being around like I have been for most of our marriage. (Remember, to him not being around=not loving him.) He feels like he’s not the center of attention any more, even though I’ve tried to make up for it.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are temporarily sharing a car. We're making the best of it, but it’s a hassle and we are both tired of it (using public transportation is not an option in our rural area and neither of us have coworkers who live close to us). His shifts can be 8-12 hours, depending. Well, on certain days of the month, he works mandatory 12-hour shifts. They are always on specific days. I made work plans based on that schedule, which never changes. But yep, you guessed it…this past Saturday, it changed. He told me that I didn’t need to take him to work that night since he was only working 8 hours, and I was all, “What? No, I really need the car because I already told my boss I would work tonight because I know you always work 12 hours on this day.”
Just how I was supposed to know the schedule changed, I’m not sure, but he completely lost the plot. He started yelling at me while we were still home and it didn’t stop until I dropped him off at work an hour later. I just shut down. He covered every subject; I didn’t love him, I didn’t care about his feelings, nobody EVER cares about his feelings, I always leave him alone, I never have sex with him so that PROVES I don’t love him (I have sat him down and told him, repeatedly, about some physical issues I am having at the moment that really don’t make sex much fun for me which I am under a doctor’s care for, and I have reassured him that I love him very much and I want to have sex with him but I need to get these physical things under control; to his credit, he has never forced me to have sex), I work too much, I shouldn’t have taken the stupid job anyway (he is the one who told me I should probably get a PT job), I don’t get paid enough (I make the going rate for what I do), I don’t clean the house enough, the dishes need washed, I don’t feed him properly, I’ll probably spend all day Sunday running errands for my mother (who is eighty, a manipulative narcissist herself, has health issues, I’m an only child, I have had to step up and help her) and not be home with him, and why am I so upset, what am I starting to cry about now???
Then Sunday, Mother’s Day, he must have felt guilty because he helped me carry in groceries and was nice to me all day. Not in a love-bombing way, not over-the-top or weird, just nice. He’s been nice to me today as well. He did mention in passing that on these scheduled 12-hour shifts that the crew on the other shift always leaves extra work for him to do, and then denies it, and he knows he’s going in to a mess and a ton of extra work (he has a hard, physically demanding job), so that puts him in a bad mood. I don’t know if that was his round-about way of apologizing or what. Yes, he probably was stressed out about going in to a mess at work, and my taking the car didn’t help, and he didn’t handle the stress/anger in a healthy way (to put it mildly). We both could have communicated better about work schedules, but I was just basing my decision to work on his never-changing schedule. It was frustrating, but it wasn’t the end of the world, and it all worked out. His reaction was totally out of proportion to the event.
So is that narcissistic behavior or immature behavior? It’s like he gets mad, he blows up, he comes to himself, he apologizes/acts sorry, loves on me, treats me good, sloooowly builds up anger again, gets silent silenter silentest…blows up again and the whole thing starts over. Why is this still happening? Shouldn’t we be past this by now? It’s hard to explain, and I know some of you won’t understand (and nor should you, based on what you have been through, which is truly horrific, and I am so sorry), but it’s like he comes to himself and realizes how he is acting, but later the hurt and anger take over again. And the cyclic pattern in his life continues.
Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about whether he might be more emotionally immature than narcissistic, or more narcissistic than emotionally immature, or some combo of both, and what I could do to help him and strategies to deal with it myself. NGL, it is really taking a toll on me emotionally. I feel like I have been run through the wringer every day. Some days I cry and cry (when I’m alone, never when he is here, he gets mad when I cry because he can’t handle negative emotions and he would never acknowledge he caused the negative emotion), some days I just shut down and sleep for 12 hours. I have a couple of mental health apps on my phone that I use.
We are at a time in our marriage when I feel like we should be enjoying ourselves (our adult children have moved out and we are a little more financially stable than we were the last time we had no kids at home), but it feels like everything is just falling apart. I feel like we shouldn’t be arguing about this same stuff after thirty-plus years, but here we are, still arguing about whether I love him or not.
Thank you for reading my long and boring post. Just typing it all out helped.

So thanks to u/ParmigianaDMelanzane and his picture earlier of the Baldurs gate 1-3 editions he posted. I noticed saveroks helm on the cover. So after a very quick check of the plot of Bg1 and bg2, i noticed that Bhall really just cant stop getting in his own way, whether it’s his avatar or his chosen spawn that keep messing up his own plans, if not for Bhaal the events of Bg3 probably would have gone different and the dead 3 or elder brain could have won. I will mention i have only played 3 and didnt read too much into the story if 1 and 2 beforehand

I am currently doing a research project in which I need to fit some dielectric data to a single pole Cole-Cole model, however am having trouble with the fitting function. This is my code currently:
% Read data from excel file, with data listed in 3 columns (called 'Frequency;, 'e_' and 'e__')
data = readtable("melanomatest.csv");
% Remove frequencies below 2GHz
data(data.frequency < 2e9, :) = [];
% Filter outliers using moving median
filteredData = rmoutliers(data, "movmedian", 50);
% Smooth real and imaginary components separately using Savitzky-Golay filter
fe = sgolayfilt(filteredData.e_, 3, 101);
fi = sgolayfilt(filteredData.e__, 3, 101);
% Define Cole-Cole equation
cole = @(p, xdata) p(1) + p(2) ./ ((1) + (1j .* 2 .* pi .* xdata .* p(3)).^(1 - p(4))) + p(5) ./ (1j .* 2 .* pi .* xdata .* 8.85e-12);
% Adjust initial guesses for parameters
p0 = [5, 31.4, 5.96e-12, 0.066, 0.005];
% Optimization options
options = optimoptions('lsqcurvefit', 'Algorithm', 'levenberg-marquardt', 'FunctionTolerance' ,1e-20);
% Fit the model
[p, resnorm, ~, exitflag, output] = lsqcurvefit(cole, p0, filteredData.frequency, fe, [], [], options);
% Check if the optimization was successful
if exitflag > 0
disp('Optimization successful!');
disp(['Residual norm: ', num2str(resnorm)]);
disp(['Exit flag: ', num2str(exitflag)]);
else
disp('Optimization failed to converge.');
end
% Plot original data, fitted curve, and residuals (optional)
times = linspace(min(filteredData.frequency), max(filteredData.frequency), 1000);
fitted_curve = cole(p, times);
residuals = fe - fitted_curve;
figure;
subplot(2, 1, 1);
plot(filteredData.frequency, fe, 'ko', times, real(fitted_curve), 'b-');
xlabel('Frequency');
ylabel('Real Component');
legend('Original Data', 'Fitted Curve');
title('Fitting Cole-Cole Model to Data');
subplot(2, 1, 2);
plot(filteredData.frequency, residuals, 'r.');
xlabel('Frequency');
ylabel('Residuals');
title('Residual Plot');
The fit produced does not accurately match the data points, and I think the reason is that only the first parameter (p(1)) is being adjust from the initial values, but the other parameters are not altered from their initial estimates.
Note: I am currently only fitting for the real part of the measured data ('e_') in this code, and the last portion of the code (from "Check if the optimization was successful" to the end was done with ChatGPT).