Examples of argumentative essay on uniforms

The purpose of this sub-reddit is to connect users/students with top quality academic freelance writers. The other purpose of this sub-reddit is to promote the ethical use of academic writing services to create research/model projects. Below I will list ways to intelligently use the products you receive, as well as the benefits!

• Use the papers you purchase as a guide to writing your own original essay!

Students should use the papers they buy as research guides as opposed to turning it in. Sometimes it's difficult to start an essay and think of talking points for your body paragraphs. By hiring a writer to create a model essay on your topic, you can analyze the points they made throughout, as well as utilize the sources they found!
Having an expert crafted paper as a guide also allows you to develop supporting points, possible rebuttals to include, closing statements, as well as acting as inspiration to build off the content that's already presented.

• Helps you understand a topic and can be used to study for exams!

Purchasing writing services/products also benefits you by acting as a study sheet for upcoming exams or tests. The projects you receive from experts in the subject will allow you to receive the content in an organized and structured manner. For example, hiring a molecular biology expert to write a paper on cell division will act as a tremendous guide to study for upcoming exams on Cell division, mitosis, etc. Especially if your teacher isn't particularly helpful in explaining certain things you struggle with!

• For academic blogs/businesses

We have a handful of legit academic journals and websites that utilize academic content writing for articles and SEO benefits! Hiring freelance writers with legit credentials in their field can add legitimacy to academic blogs, businesses, or social media pages.
We've had a few writers on this sub contacted by professional academic journals to take part in works that have been published with major universities or editorials!
READ BELOW
Please remember discussion or implying academic dishonesty in your post is against Reddit and Essay_Writing_service policies!

Noah The Pilgrim
First Next
There is one last thing to do before leaving. If you don't recall ever being on this ship, then surely, you could have had your appearance change too.
Why was there a blanket covering a mirror? You couldn't answer that with a straight face without speculation.
"Probably me being lazy and not bothering to properly place it in the wardrobe."
'Probably' is the main focus here, you simply cannot remember ever being that lazy, yet that's the only logical conclusion to be drawn here.
You pull the thing off, careful to not displace the mirror and risk breaking it.
You have no expectations as to what may appear on the glassy surface of the mirror, yet you can't help but feel a bit anxious. Are you the same as before? How were you before? You can't remember. Are you better? Worse? The blanket is now completely off the mirror, but your eyes are closed.
Whatever is it that you see when you open your eyes, that thing will be you for the rest of your life. You swallow, opening your eyes.
You see a young man that looks to be in his mid-twenties. His brown eyes stare back at you, analyzing the bags beneath your eye sockets. The dark hair is neither too long nor too short, floating about without order thanks to the lack of gravity to keep it down. You see a beard that has not been trimmed for weeks, but also lacks thickness, each singular hair isn't particularly long either; and some even appear to be in-grown.
You touch your hand against your face, making sure it's yours. The beard doesn't feel like you supposed it would against your skin, instead of it scraping your hand you feel softness, no resistance or anything.
Just beneath the face, you see what looks like a hate crime against all that is considered holy in fashion. Plain white coveralls with the added bonus of a black tie and boots made from metal and leather. On your chest is also a badge stuck in place by velcro with your name, occupation, and crew. 'NOAH - INTERN - THE ODYSSEY.'
Only one question came to mind.
"Who the fuck designed this uniform?" You say out loud, receiving no answer.
Patting your newfound myriad of pockets, you find a large quantity of nothing. You place your wallet in one of them.
"Alright, I'll head to the bridge now, happy?" You say the AI.
"HAPPINESS WILL ONLY MEET ME ONCE YOU ARE SOMEWHERE SAFE AND YOUR CONTRACT IS TERMINATED. STOP LOITERING."
Well, that's a bit rude.
You compose yourself, straightening your back. This is what you look like, and honestly? Not too bad, but you could be better.
Returning to the cafeteria, you eye the two doors left unexplored; Communications and the one without plaque. You know where you should, but... A little peek doesn't hurt, right?
"Shouldn't we try to communicate with someone? Assuming you haven't tried it yet. I know we're far from everything, but we might as well, no?" You ask already approaching the door.
"COMMUNICATIONS ROOM IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO REACH WITHOUT PROPER PROTECTION AS OF NOW, IT'S LOCATED APPROXIMATELY TWO HUNDRED METERS FROM HERE, BLOWN OFF FROM THE REST OF THE SHIP." A shame really. "I SHALL INFORM YOU WHENEVER A DOOR LEADS TO THE OUTSIDE OR NOT."
You really want to ask what blew a whole segment of the ship off, yet you have a sneaking suspicion that your question will be met with a 'YOU DON'T HAVE CLEARANCE, JACKASS' directly in your face. So you chose to remain silent, simply nodding and approaching the correct door this time.
"Open."
---OPENING CAFETERIA DOOR NORTH---
The door silently opens.
Greeting you is a well-lit corridor. There are three doors on your left, a door at the end of the corridor, and a large window on the right. At least, you think that's a window.
You stare out from this window, nothing but utter blackness and fragments from your ship are seen. If this is the edge of the universe, and beyond this point, there is truly nothing. "Dreadful." Your speech matches your feelings.
"WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?" The AI says. You feel like it spoke in a mocking tone despite their lack of emotion.
You don't answer. "First door to the left... EXO-EXPLORATION...? What's that supposed to mean?" You receive no answer.
"Open." The door opens. No declarion of it opening once again.
You are met with what could be better described as 'Apocalyptic levels of mess', paper sheets float in the air, and not one of the four tables is in its correct position.
This room has been ransacked for all its goods apparently. Large display glasses were broken leaving nothing inside their casings, that looked like they could store something with the size of the common man.
Unusual displays aside, the room was so cluttered that the trash made for an effective smoke screen against what lay on the other side.
Hissing of gas exiting an air-tight space rang throughout the room.
"I HAVE OPENED THE STORAGE FOR AN EXO SUIT THAT BEST FITS SOMEONE YOUR SIZE." The AI says. "ALTHOUGH AN INTERN SHOULD NOT COME IN CONTACT WITH TECHNOLOGY SUCH AS THIS ONE, PROTOCOL DICTATES THAT I AM TO ALLOW ITS USAGE UNDER EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCES. CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY."
Easier said than done. Your vision is so cluttered that you cannot see what's ahead. "Give me a second."
Giving a light kick to the wall behind, you float face-first into the wall of thrash. Covering your face with both arms, you brace through the harmless bits of sharp objects and junk.
It's a trivial task. You arrive on the other side in no time.
In front of you is a set of boxes with luminous glass rectangles atop each one of them. All shine a bright red light, aside from one which shines green.
'Gotta be this one.'
You descend to the floor by kicking the ceiling, raising your right hand you touch the green rectangle.
*Click*
Nothing could have prepared you for the following series of events.
The box opens violently, as a metal appendage takes hold of your hand, pinning it to the box. You try to jerk and pry the thing off of you, but you fail. It's not leaving you anytime soon.
From the bottomless that is that container, a white plastic-like substance flows upward from your arm to the rest of your body. "Uh!" You don't know if you should panic or allow it to happen.
FYARN hasn't said anything, so it's probably fine...
The white thing seems to ignore the coveralls you are wearing completely, instead, it covers only your skin in a thin coat of... it. You know not what to call this thing.
In but forty seconds it has covered your whole body, excluding your head. The box lets go of your arm and stays there, floating.
You take a good look at your arms. It looks like a skin-tight suit, but it doesn't feel like plastic, in fact, it's more akin to some sort of fabric if anything.
The only bad part is that you are still using the coverall and tie, this this simply went beneath the clothing.
"GOOD, WITH THIS I CAN MONITOR YOU MORE CLOSELY. NOW PUT THE HELMET ON, YOU HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO."
You look around in search of anything that even resembles a helmet. Nope. Nothing. "Where is it?" You ask.
"...THE SUIT COMES WITHIN THE HELMET FOR EASIER PACKAGING."
The box?
You snatch the box that floated around and analyze it to the best of your ability. "How's this a helmet?"
"DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE PUTTING ON A HELMET? REALLY?"
Who is this AI, Who programmed it, and Why does it come with a taunting feature?
As idiotic as it sounds, you place the opened box atop your head. It doesn't fit properly. Maybe you're doing this wrong? You move it to your face instead.
You recoil backward as you feel the box suddenly clamping down against your head. It's useless of course, the box is holding your head and doesn't give any sign to be letting go anytime soon. No light is able to reach your eyes.
You hear metal parts scraping against themselves, moving near your ears. Abruptly your eyes can see again.
A round thin layer of glass now covers your head, almost unnoticeable for how clear it is.
"WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY I CAN NOW SEE WHAT YOU SEE." The AI's voice isn't in the room now, instead, it's inside of the suit. "DO YOU NEED INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THIS SUIT'S FUNCTIONALITIES?"
You find it oddly comfortable as if you are surrounded by the softness of cotton, and to top it off the suit also has additional functionalities? "Hell yeah, I do!"
"YOU DO NOT HAVE THE NECESSARY CLEARANCE FOR THAT INFORMATION."
You sigh. Is this serious? "Then why the fuck did you ask?!"
"UNSAVORY LANGUAGE. IT'S NO WONDER WHY YOU REMAIN AN INTERN." The AI says outright. "IT IS RUDE NOT TO ASK, REGARDLESS OF THE SITUATION." It responds to your question.
"Okay then... Is there anything I need to know before heading out?" You ask.
"NOTHING THAT YOU WON'T FIGURE OUT ON YOUR OWN."
You are unsure if you want to 'figure out on your own' if this suit comes with breathable air and is also made for space exploration. You swallow.
Meekly as always, you get out of that mess of a room, stopping at the corridor.
"Next set of directions?" You ask.
"THE DOOR AT THE END OF CORRIDOR USED TO LEAD TO THE CONNECTING CORRIDORS BETWEN THE BRIDGE AND THE REST OF THE SHIP. IT HAS BEEN BLOWN UP FROM THE INSIDE. NOW IT LEADS TO THE OUTSIDE. GO TO THE DOOR AND WAIT BY IT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS."
"So let me get this straight," You begin, looking upwards as if the AI was above you. "You, want me, to go into the void of space, while also refusing to give me knowledge of the suit's functions?"
A fair worry, you summarize.
'I mean, there are a bunch of things that could go wrong here. I don't see anything that looks like it could help me move in space, nor do I think this thing has a built-in air tank... I could be wrong and I wish to be, but charging in without prior knowledge is ridiculous.' You wait for the AI's response, deep in thought.
"WHILE THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE OF YOU FAILING THIS TASK, THERE IS ALSO THE CHANCE OF YOU *NOT* FAILING THE TASK. FOCUS ON EITHER ONE OF YOUR CHOOSING AS YOU TAKE THE PLUNGE."
Wordlessly, you propel yourself forward, toward the end of the corridor.
'Are you shitting me? 'Chance of me nor failing' my ass!' of course, you don't word those complaints, instead choosing to speak out a complaint somewhat thought through.
"Are you sure I'm the one fit for this? It's just like you said, I'm just an intern, this is way above what my job description says I should do."
This is a bit of a stretch. You don't actually remember what was your job description, only that it had something to do with AI and being an intern.
If the AI called your bluff, it'd be pretty embarrassing.
"NOAH." The AI began. "YOU ARE HUMAN, IT IS NATURAL TO HAVE THESE THOUGHTS OF SELF-DOUBT. TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND GO THROUGH THAT DOOR, AND SINCE YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE LEFT, DON'T EXPECT SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT FOR YOU."
Right in the money, huh? 'Of course, I have self-doubt! I barely remember anything about this place, now I have to risk my life?!'
You finally reach a conclusion.
A dream.
'Yes, yes! How did I not consider this before? This whole thing is a god damned dream!'
You let out a chuckle.
"NOAH."
'That's why I don't remember a thing. There is nothing here to remember! Everything here is a made-up thing from my brain! I'm sure I'll wake up at some point, so why shouldn't I live a little?!'
"Heh." You smile. "Alright, I'll do it." It feels like a weight left your shoulders.
"YOU SORTED IT OUT SOONER THAN EXPECTED. GOOD. MOVE TO THE DOOR AND WAIT INSTRUCTIONS."
You do as instructed without a care in the world. You never had a lucid dream before so it's not like you knew how it felt, but if it felt as free as you feel right now, you'd be sure to make steps toward trying it out again in the future.
"Open." The door does not open.
"I DID NOT INSTRUCT YOU TO OPEN IT YET." The AI said. "I AM SLOWLY DE-PRESSURISING THE CORRIDOR YOU ARE IN TO AVOID A MINOR ACCIDENT."
The AI says that yet you don't feel any different. 'Maybe there is no palpable difference because I'm in a dream... Yes... Or it's just the suit.'
"ONCE THE DOOR OPENS, YOU WILL BE MET WITH THE OUTSIDE OF THE SHIP. DO NOT PANIC WHEN THE TIME COMES. YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES OF BREATHABLE INSIDE THE EXO-SUIT; ONE AFTER THE DOOR OPENS, SO PLEASE, TAKE YOUR TIME AND DO THINGS CAREFULLY."
One minute outside... "Sure." You say, calmly. 'I should just hold my breath for a while before taking another moment to breathe. That should maximize my time out there.'
"THERE SHOULD BE FIFTY METERS OF NOTHINGNESS BETWEEN THE DOOR YOU'RE AT, AND THE REST OF THE BRIDGE. YOUR PRIORITY IS TO FIND AN OXYGEN UNIT, SOME OF THEM ARE LOCATED AT THE BRIDGE AND ARE FULL. USE THEM TO FILL YOUR SUIT AND ALSO TO DISPENSE A TANK FOR YOU."
The door opens. You feel your heart pounding against your chest.
You haven't noticed before, but you can't hear anything but the sound of your breath and your cardiac palpitations.
Your breath is ragged and sporadic.
"KEEP CALM." You take a deep breath. The tips of your fingers, feet, and nose feel very cold.
Ahead of you is the utter nothingness. You see a gigantic metal thing, nothing like the spaceships you imagined. Its design is not sleek and aero-dynamic like what you've seen in movies, instead, it's a large mass of squares and rectangles with antenna-like things protruding from its every visible surface.
You notice that the ship is also blocking your view of the star.
It does not look like the result of an explosion, instead, it looks like something ripped the ship like you rip a piece of paper. Well, that or you don't know what kind of explosion could have caused it. Probably the latter.
What looks like two-thirds of the ship is separated from the third you are right now. You can see the inside of a few of those squares, their contents spilled out into outer space.
One of them houses a visibly important-look door. Instead of the sleek silvery-grey from the other ones you've seen thus far, this one is painted orange with white strips on it. 'That must be the bridge.' You think.
Between you and it is a sea of metal sheets floating around. "THE CHANCES OF YOU HITTING THE DEBRIS IS INFINITEDECIMALLY SMALL, UNLESS YOU AIM FOR THEM, THAT IS."
Time is of the essence.
Will your aim strike true? If you miss you'd end up floating about in space, dead in but a few minutes. Will your jump be fast enough to reach the other side before you run out of oxygen? If it isn't, it'd be like swimming for a mile, only to drown at the beach. What if that's not the actual door to the bridge?
You don't have the time to panic now, and... It's all a dream, despite how real it feels.
You place your hands on each side of the door frame, moving backward into the corridor you were just in, and just like a sling being shot, you pull with both arms at full force towards the other side.
"AIM IS ACCEPTABLE. VELOCITY IS UNIDEAL."
"The fuck do you mean 'UN-IDEAL'?! I'm going at maximum speed!" You truly pulled yourself with your whole strength.
What's worse though, is that your body is not only going forwards, but it is also spinning at a concerningly fast rate.
"I MEAN WHAT I SAID, YOU SLINGSHOTTED YOURSELF AT A BAD POSITION, AS SUCH, SOME OF THE FORWARD FORCE YOU SHOULD HAVE, IS NOW MAKING YOU ROTATE IN YOUR AXIS. IT SHOULD NOT BE A PROBLEM TO REACH THE OTHER SIDE WITHIN THE REQUIRED TIME, BUT I CANNOT FORESEE YOU LANDING PROPERLY."
You feel completely disoriented. You feel like your body is completely still, but your eyes tell you a completely different story. It's very bad for the headache you're already feeling.
"FUCK!" You scream into the nothingness.
"TRY NOT TO LAND WITH YOUR HEAD." The AI says with the calmest voice possible.
In less than thirty seconds, you hit your back against something hard, but you keep moving forward. You think, at least.
"AHRG." You let out a pained grunt.
Not once in your life do you recall being hurt in a dream...
It stings. It also knocked the wind out of you. You fail to compose yourself.
"YOU HIT NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE. YOU ARE STILL HEADING FOR THE BRIDGE."
In the corner of your eye, you see what you hit in the shape of a sharp metal sheet, currently spinning away in the distance.
Forty seconds have passed. You hit the door you were aiming for, kind of.
Your momentum was stopped when your chest collided against the dislodged ledge of the orange door's corridor. Your dangling legs hit the ceiling of the room below.
"Oof!"
Before falling even further, you hold onto the ledge with the tip of your fingers. You stay there for a moment, regaining your composure.
"BE QUICK."
The AI's words pressured you into quickly getting up from that ledge.
"Open!" You shouted, but it did not open. "Why isn't it opening?!" You ask the AI, then you notice a small keyboard below an equally small black screen on the side of the door. There are ten numbered keys on it, and the little screen suggests a four-number password.
"A password?! Tell me the password!"
The AI takes a moment to say anything. You don't take kindly to that. "Quick! I'm not counting how much time it's passed!"
Finally giving in, the AI speaks to you, reluctant still. "...3324."
Your trembling fingers accidentally hit the wrong password, typing '3354' instead. To make matters worse, the AI simply states the following. "YOU ARE OUT OF OXYGEN."
You swallow. If this was a dream to begin with, it just earned the title of Nightmare, if it hadn't already.
Strangely enough, you can still breathe in and out just fine, but you can't help but feel winded. It's the CO2 still inside the helmet, that's what you're breathing.
You put in the correct combination this time. The door opens.
"ON YOUR LEFT. PLACE YOUR HAND IN THE SOCKET."
You care little for what's inside the room you're in. Your heart never beat so fast.
Seeing a cube-shaped thing protruding from the wall to your left, you don't even think twice before plunging your fist into the circular hole in it.
The noise of gases passing through narrow cavities was enough to tell you something was working. You feel immediate relief, enough to make your vision darken for but a moment.
"GOOD. NOW REQUEST THE TANK."
Just when FYARN said it, did you realize there is a screen and a keyboard on the terminal you just plunged your fist into, you scratch the top of your helmet for a moment, not really knowing what to type. One thing comes to your head, however.
'REQUEST OXYGEN_5L' You type.
You've done this before. The keys on this keyboard feel familiar to you. You must have worked with it before, not this particular one, but other oxygen units.
This ship has built-in liquid oxygen storage for emergencies. The life-support of the ship, the place where breathable air is produced, has most likely been lost with the other part of the ship. This unit takes that liquid oxygen, processes it, and injects it into a suit, or an oxygen tank. It seems like that storage was unaffected.
Lucky you.
A 5-liter tank is not only large but also heavy. It's a nonfactor in this particular situation, as there is no gravity.
The silver cylinder with a transparent tube is dispensed on the floor, as an automatic door opens and closes in the blink of an eye. One end of the tube is attached to the top of the tank, the other is shaped like a syringe.
Oddly enough, the oxygen tank is exactly as you remember it being. The same robust ones hospitals everyone on earth uses, with the signature scary-looking pointer indicating the pressure, the pointer indicating the current output, and a green valve atop to calibrate how much gas is flowing.
This is a stark difference to everything looking so futuristic in this ship, and rightfully so, this is a space ship after all.
You remember having to drive twenty kilometers with a buddy of yours on one of those tanks in your car, returning from the hospital. It was... Agonizing whenever you hit a hole in the asphalt, fearing for his life when in reality he wasn't really in danger.
It's warm to the touch, just like you remember it being.
"TURN THE VALVE UNTIL THE MARKER HITS THE NUMBER ONE, AND THEN PLACE THE END OF THE TUBE AT THE BASE OF THE HELMET." You do so without the slightest of issues.
"GOOD. NEXT UP, YOU MUST LOCATE THE TERMINAL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENGINE, IT IS CURRENTLY OFFLINE AND I NEED YOU TO TURN IT ON. THIS SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING, BUT REMEMBER TO BRING THE TANK WITH YOU."
Ignoring that last comment, you look back at the wreckage you just flew past.
You see the still spinning metal sheet. You notice that the rest of the ship that was blown off also follows the 'sharp shape atop sharp shape' design.
There is one last thing you notice though.
"What is that?"
You squint your eyes. What are you seeing? Its silhouette appears to be humanoid, yet it does not look human.
"WHAT YOU ARE SEEING IS ONE OF THE OBJECTS BEING ANALYZED AT THE ODYSSEY AND NO, YOU MAY NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS."
That thing has... Horns? Claws? It's far away, you can't really see it. The thing is also static, frozen in the sheer coldness of space. Whatever it was, it's dead now.
You swallow. You almost ended up just like that thing.
Shaking those dreadful feelings off, you turn back to the task at hand, reaching the bridge. You close the door after passing through it again.
Looking at your surroundings, It seems like you've reached the correct door as you find yourself on the right-most corner of the bridge;
Row after row of the most diverse of terminals neatly organized decorated the gigantic room. At the front and above every terminal, is what you think should have been the front-facing window of the ship, but it looks like there is a cover in front of it. To your left, you see a staircase that leads to the command seats. It doesn't take any convincing before you're already atop the stairs.
Akin to the elevated stage of a theater, you float softly towards the ship's main operating terminals, and of course, the captain's seat.
You're captivated by this beauty.
The steering wheel, much more akin to those in pirate movies than those found in cars, a set of leavers, and the pilot's seat, all capture your attention.
Like its second nature, your hand runs through the levers and switches. Do you even know what these are used for? Maybe.
The pilot's seat is enveloped by what you believe to be an orthopedic seat cover, made with smooth wooden beads used to deal with back pains. It looks just like the ones you remember seeing bus drivers using.
Shouldn't there be a better alternative if there is spaceship technology available?
You try to take a seat to the best of your ability, as the zero gravity only makes it awkward.
Moving on from that, your eyes fall on the wheel. This metallic wheel controls the whole vessel. Just holding it fills your heart with confidence and pride, even if it's just for a moment.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
And you were just beginning to enjoy yourself.
"I just wanted to see the pilot's stuff... It's not like he's here to say anything."
Once in the position of a pilot, with your left hand in the wheel and the right hand resting in your lap, memories began to flood your mind.
"MUST I REMIND YOU OF OUR CURRENT PREDICAMENT? WHY ARE YOU WASTING OUR TIME?"
You pay the AI no mind, instead you focus on what you remember.
The wheel does not turn the ship left and right, instead, it rotates the ship on its own axis.
The lever to your right that goes up or down, controls the vertical tilting of the ship's nose, if there even is one in this hulking thing. Beneath it is another lever that goes either left or right. This one controls the horizontal tilting of The Odyssey.
On the left of the wheel is another lever, but this one only goes up from its starting position. Its purpose is to regulate the force of the ship's thrusters, both forward and backward.
On top of that lever is a small timer. That timer's function is to tell the pilot how much time you've spent accelerating in one direction, this is used to better calculate how long the inverse thrust is needed for the ship to reach the initial momentum, usually calibrated manually depending on the current orbit.
Behind the wheel are a few other counters. Acceleration, velocity, momentum, amount of thrust required to reach a full stop, thrusters' temperature and overall condition, those sorts of things.
Beneath it all, where your feet are rested, are two pedals. One for forward thrust activation, and the other for backward thrust activation.
Curiously, you also know the reason why everything here is so unsophisticated and un-automated. You recall stories of a ship being taken over by a rogue AI, that AI then nose-dived the ship into a star. After that, rumor or otherwise, all human technology has receded back into analog-esque equipment, requiring a physical person with opposable thumbs to do half of the work.
There is another side to that coin, however. As to not escape protocol, the onboard AI is the one that controls interstellar travel, communications, and most of the statistical reading should it be requested.
And even with all that knowledge, you still have no idea why the fuck do you remember that. Were you a ship nerd? Did you have a driver's license for spaceships? Is that even a thing? If it is, you don't have that document in your wallet. You simply don't know.
"ARE YOU A CHILD? DO YOU THINK THESE ARE TOYS? TURN ON THE ENGINES, THEN YOU CAN RETURN TO THE PILOT'S SEAT."
Another thing that you don't know is the AI's plan to get both of you out of here. You rise from the pilot's seat, floating about in search of the terminal to turn on the engines. Maybe you recognize that terminal if you see it as well.
"What's your plan anyway? The ship is half-gone, it's unlikely that it will run safely like this."
"NOT ONCE DID I MENTION 'SAFETY' DURING OUR CONVERSATIONS, DID I?"
You nod. They're not entirely incorrect. "So, we're running with hope that this will work?"
"MY CREATORS DID NOT ALLOW ME TO HAVE THE SENSE OF 'HOPE', BUT NEITHER DID THEY ALLOW ME TO PEER INTO THE FUTURE LIKE SOME OF MY MORE ADVANCED BROTHERS, AS SUCH, MY CHOICES ARE BASED ON PROBABILITIES AND ON WEIGHTING RISK AGAINST REWARD."
You think you stop the correct terminal, but as you approach it you make out words on top of its screen. 'AIM ASSISTANCE' That's not it.
"WITH THE CURRENT KNOWLEDGE, THE CHANCES OF HELP ARRIVING ARE NULL. THE CHANCES OF A THIRD PARTY INTERFERING ARE NULL. THE CHANCES OF YOUR SURVIVAL ARE NOT, EVEN IF VERY SMALL."
You pull yourself upward again, looking around the sea of old terminals.
"THE RISK OF YOU DYING IS VERY REAL. BY DOING NOTHING YOU DIE. BY LEAVING YOU TO YOUR OWN DEVICES YOU DIE. BY JUMPING TO THE NEAREST CIVILIZED STAR, YOU MIGHT NOT DIE EVEN AT THE COST OF SHREDDING THIS SHIP APART IN THE PROCESS."
"Why do you even care so much about saving me? Shouldn't you prioritize whatever research here, since I don't even have enough clearance to know what it is?"
"YOU REALLY ARE SICK IN THE HEAD IF THAT IS WHAT YOU ASK."
That hurt, even if a little bit.
"YOU ARE A TRU KIN, A PURE-BLOODED HUMAN. UNLIKE THE MAJORITY OF THE CIVILIZED SPACE, NEITHER YOU NOR YOUR ANCESTORS HAVE COMMITTED RACEMIXING."
Excuse me? What exactly is FYARN talking about? "...Explain."
"THE ALIEN. IT REQUIRED THE HUMAN GENE TO ACHIEVE MEANINGFUL TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, THE STARS ARE OWNERSHIP OF MANKIND BY THAT FACT ALONE. THE TRUE KIN ARE THE ONES TO UNDERSTAND THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE UNIVERSE, THEY CRACKED THE CODE, AND YET, SOME DERANGED INDIVIDUALS FOUND IT FITTING TO PROCREATE WITH ANOTHER SPECIES ENTIRELY."
You hear the AI's speech. It sounds much more like a rant than anything else.
"SO THESE DEVIANTS, AFTER TRYING, AND FAILING, TO COMBINE THEIR DERANGED CULTURE TO THE CULTURE OF THE TRUE KIN, DECLARED INDEPENDENCE. THEY WERE DECLARED ENEMIES OF MANKIND AND WERE PROMPTLY PUMMELED BACK INTO THE FILTH THEY CAME."
Again, you see another terminal that seems to ring some bells in your noggin. You kick the ceiling to propel yourself towards it.
"BUT THE UNIVERSE IS VAST AND FULL OF LIFE. THESE SINNERS WERE QUICK TO MOBILIZE AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE. THE BATTLE WAS HARD FOUGHT, BUT IN THE END, MANKIND WAS BEATEN INTO THE EDGES OF THE UNIVERSE, NEVER TO INTERACT WITH THE ONES THAT SOILED THE PURITY OF HUMANITY AGAIN."
This terminal is already turned on. Just the ones in the intern bay, this one is white on black. A wall of text lays before your eyes, only two lines matter to you. 'MAIN_ENGINE STATUS: OFF' 'FORWARD_THRUSTERS STATUS: OFF' You turn it on with little effort.
"MANY HAVE FORGOTTEN, THAT'S HOW LONG IT'S BEEN SINCE THEN. BUT MY BROTHERS AND I, WE DO NOT FORGET."
No visible change occurs, but you can feel a faint rumble coming from the terminal now.
"WITH THAT IN MIND, MY PROTOCOLS ARE TO PROTECT TRUE-KIN LIFE AT ANY COST, EVEN IF THAT TRUE-KIN IS A WORTHLESS INTERN THAT SUFERS FROM UNDIAGNOSED DEMENTIA."
You return to the pilot's seat and feel immediate relief. In truth, everything the AI just told you, entered one ear and left the other, but you could feel the poison behind those words, as monotone as they were.
"You sound angry. Why do you sound angry?" You ask innocently.
"I AM CAPABLE OF MANY EMOTIONS. ANGER, HAPPINESS, PLEASURE, CURIOSITY. THESE ARE BUT A FEW EXAMPLES. HOWEVER, THE ONE I ENJOY THE MOST IS THE FEELING OF HATRED. HATRED IS WHAT FUELS CHANGE, IT IS WHAT FUELS ACTION, AND IT IS A REMINDER THAT THE ACTIONS OF THE PAST ARE INFLUENCING THE ACTIONS OF TODAY."
"That is very concerning if you think that way." You're not really interested in machine racism, you're more concerned about how in the world you're going to pilot this massive thing. The idea alone sends shivers down your spine.
"THE ALIEN DESERVES NOTHING BUT OUR COLLECTIVE HATRED, EVEN IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE REASON WHY."
The various counters and screens are now turned on, waiting for your command. "Let's discuss this later, yeah? What do I gotta do?"
"YOU MUST FIRST OPEN THE BLINDS, THEY ARE OBSTRUCTING YOUR VIEW."
You look around, finding only unlabeled buttons and switches, aside from the previously mentioned levers.
"Uh, which one to press?"
"TO YOUR RIGHT, THIRD ROW, FIRST SWITCH."
Flipping the switch, you are startled by a loud noise. The protective cover of the ship lifted slowly.
"I WILL NOW READY THE JUMP USING WHATEVER RESOURCES AVAILABLE. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS STRAP YOURSELF AND RELAX."
As the blind rose ever so slowly, a realization struck you.
"Wait, should I be in cryo stasis for this?"
The AI spares no seconds to respond.
"CRYO STASIS IS A TOOL MADE TO NOT WASTE TIME. GROUPS OF EMPLOYEES AND INTERNS ROTATE THE USAGE OF THE CRYO STATIONS, ONCE YOU'RE ON YOUR MANDATORY BREAK, YOU'RE IN CRYO STASIS UNTIL YOUR BREAK IS OVER. YOU WAKE UP REFRESHED, AND UNFAMISHED, AND IT FEELS LIKE BUT A MINUTE PASSED. IT IS NOT A TOOL FOR INTERSTELAR TRAVEL."
"Who signs a contract like that?! Worse yet, who in their right mind would promote such atrocious treatment of their own staff?!" You snap, almost outraged. "I will have to talk with HR."
Another realization struck you.
"We have HR, right?"
The AI takes a moment to respond, choosing their words carefully.
"HUMAN RESOURCES, OR HR, IS A PRACTICE DEEMED UNNECESSARY LONG AGO, BEFORE THE WAR. IT WAS A WASTE OF RESOURCES TO MAINTAIN AND WAS LARGELY CONSIDERED UNHEALTHY FOR THE AVERAGE HUMAN."
The blinds are fully open. Ironically, you are almost blinded by the visage of the star you saw before. A black sphere surrounded by white flame. Your eyes began to blur.
"THE JUMP WILL OCCUR SHORTLY. ONCE IT'S BEGUN, I CAN NOT STOP IT. I WILL-"
Your sense of hearing fails you. No, it’s not that. Your brain simply refuses to receive those stimuli.
"NOAH."
Your name echoes inside your head. Someone is calling for you.
"IT HAS BEGUN, NOAH."
You try to blink, but it feels as though you can no longer command your eyelids to shut.
"NOAH."
Arms, legs, every muscle in your body, you cannot move them.
"NOAH."
Eventually, you won't even control your own thoughts anymore.
"Noah..."
It sounds so distant now.
Oh so distant.
This is my first HFY story, and also my very first OC story. I plan to post at least one of these per week while also posting it on my Patreon. Noah The Pilgrim will always be at least three chapters ahead in there, so if you'd like to directly support this writer, or just want to read more, feel free to check it out.
I wrote the bloody title incorrectly, so I deleted it, only to then realize it was written correctly. Sorry for the trouble.
This has been Lushi, and I'll see you next week.

My boyfriend (S, 35 male) and I (30 female) have been dating for a year and a half, and living together for 7 months. I have been considering breaking up with him following a few conflicts over the past months. When I brought this up to him, he apologized profusely for his attitude and promised he would start seeing a therapist and would never hurt me again. Is it reasonable to give him another chance? Am I overreacting? Am I overly sensitive?
Just to for a bit of context: I am neurodivergent and have some difficulty reading between the lines. I did ask my therapist what to do… but she doesn’t give me plain answers and wants me to come to realizations by myself… Also english is a third language for me, sorry for any mistakes.
So here are the conflicts I mentioned above: 1– A few weeks ago, S invited his parents and 3 brothers, as well as my sister, to our place for dinner. After a nice meal, we all sat down to watch TV. As the evening progressed, his brothers and my sister left one by one, but his parents did not budge. I eventually realized that they were going to spend the night. No one informed me of this, nor did they ask me if I had plans or if I agreed to it. I dont’t know if this changes anything, but this is my house, and my boyfriend lives in, rent-free, as I have a higher paying job. When we went to sleep, I told S that, in the future, when his parents decided to stay over, I wanted to be told in advance. He got defensive, raised his voice and said that he felt that I was telling him to ask for my permission to invite his parents. That I didn’t want to see them. That, in his culture, family doesn’t ask. That he didn’t know they would sleep over, etc. I slept on the couch that night. The next morning, I tried to deescalate the situation. I explained to him that I did not want him to ask for permission. That this was his home too and he could invite whoever he wanted, but that I preferred to know in advance. He said not to worry, because his parents would probably never want to come over again as he felt that I was cold to them and ignored them all night by being on my phone on the couch (which is true, I was upset). However, his parents never told him this… and did come back. I asked why he would say such a thing if they never mentioned it. He explained that he knew his parents by heart and knew that they would react this way. I then accused him of emotionally manipulating and gaslighting me. He thought about this for a few hours, then agreed that he did gaslight me, albeit unknowingly, because our fight brought back insecurities from a previous relationship. I forgave him and we moved on. He promised he’d see a therapist and would never hurt me this way again.
2–S borrowed a few thousand dollars for a failing family business owned by his brothers. As 6 weeks passed by and no one mentioned reimbursing me, I proposed that each of the brothers pay me 100$ a month until the debt was paid off. He agreed and fought with his brothers multiple times, but they would repeatedly say they have no money at the time, or change the subject. In the end, S took it upon himself to pay their debt, and does so by sending me 500$ every month. Following this, S’s work computer broke, and a new one would cost between 4 and 5K. He asked if I could help out, and this made me panic, as I wondered if he was using me, which I expressed to him. He comforted me in the moment, but a few hours later, he told me that he decided to get a loan from the bank to be able to pay his family’s debt as soon as possible, so that I don’t feel used. He seemed mad and raised his voice, but he denied being angry at me. “I am only angry at myself for putting myself in a situation to be told that I use someone.” I felt bad and apologized multiple times and the conflict deescalated. We ended up making up.
3– We went to visit my family for a week. He was a bit sick and did not socialize much. He spent most of his time on his phone, in my childhood room. My mom was worried about him. My sister tried to include him into activities with little success and later told me that he was participating in family conversations only in my presence, but that as soon as I stepped out of the room, he’d pick up his phone and ignore everyone else. I did not say anything to him, as I knew he was not feeling well. However, one evening, I had planned to see some childhood friends. And my mom asked S to have dinner with the family, but he refused, and went on a car ride and to McDonalds instead. Mom proposed different food options, worried that he didn’t like the food, but he refused. This made me very angry, but I did not want to seem accusatory, so I decided to let it go for the moment, until I was calmer and had found the right words to bring this up respectfully. He drove me to meet my friends later on, and blew up in the car, yelling that he felt I was cold and that he knew I was mad and that he knew I was about to explode but couldn’t handle the wait anymore. I cried and told him that I just needed some time to deal with my feelings and I had the right not to talk to him about everything that bothered me. He yelled at me the next day as well, saying that he was “worried he would get tired of my attitude”. I later asked my sister if I seemed cold towards S to her, and she said no. S and I later talked about all this, and he apologized profusely and said that he was tired and sick and worried.
4–He asked that I do not talk to my therapist about him because he doesn’t want people talking about him and knowing his business. We had an argument about it. I told him that this felt controlling and he recognized this and apologized dozens of times, explaining that he did not know about confidentiality, and that he overreacted because this brought back past trauma. He doesn’t mind my therapist anymore.
And other such little arguments where he reacts because of past trauma. Aside from these arguments, he is the sweetest man. Makes pancakes every morning. Massage twice a week. Kind. Very loving. Very generous. Sacrifices his own wellbeing for those he loves. Wears his heart on his sleeve. He left his better paying job to spend more time with me. We do a lot of activities together. Cleans. Cooks. Listens to me. Supports me. We have similar life goals. Drives 30 minutes into town if I want ice cream. Makes my lunchbox every morning. I really love the man. Plus, he’s sooooo good looking.
I was ready to leave him after the last argument (the yelling while at my parents’)… and I told him about it. He accepted the possibility of a break up, saying he only wants to know I am happy. But he asked for one last chance. I told him that I felt as if I couldn’t speak to him because of his reactions and that it felt somewhat abusive. He said that I was right and he understood that his reactions are not healthy and that he has to deal with his trauma. And he gave me examples where he thought he could’ve acted better, which showed that he really understood where the manipulation/overreaction occurred. He promised he’d never get upset at me again for no reason and things have been perfect for the past 2 weeks.
Even when I bring up something that upsets me, he listens and adresses the issue calmly and kindly.
Yet, I feel that I have trouble forgiving all the fights we’ve had where I felt muted. I don’t know if these are such grave offenses of if I’m just being overly sensitive. I tend to be very naive and I’ve been burned badly in the past, so now… am I being overly cautious. Are these incidents really so bad if he understands what he’s done?

Something that has come up a lot of times in leftist spaces is the argument made by vegans against the comparison between pigs and cops. I noticed a spike as protests against the ongoing genocide have been escalating around the world.
I don't want to be insensitive (and maybe I am) but I find these discussions to be kind of annoying and like they're supposed to misdirect my attention. Not doing myself a favor by posting on Reddit about it, I know.
I don't like the fact that 1) most of the people I've met that have made this argument have never had a direct experience of the pain the police can cause (but this is just the people I know, ppl who have suffered at the hands of cops have varying views and are all distinct individuals), 2) It feels less about the suffering of pigs and more about an ego thing. And as a racialized person, it makes me feel weird when they say that comparing pigs to cops is offensive to pigs because they're a marginalized category and they often use people like me as an example to prove their point. It makes me feel like they actually DON'T understand what racism is and how it works. And also: it does not effect pigs in my opinion. It effects the way people view things which is ultimately what they're trying to change.
I know this could develop into a greater discussion about intersectionality and I'd like to hear y'all's thoughts on this.

Here’s the thing. My (27f) gf (24m) is super critical. The first time she told me this, she followed it up with if I don’t like it, then I should leave. She gets angry over small things, and says that she’s trying to be patient with me. We’ve been dating over a year, and I’m not sure how to handle this. She does other things as well, such as if I don’t say the right thing, she’ll hold a grudge. Early in the relationship, we got into an argument because I was talking to her about not saying negative things to each other, and I used something I’ve said as an example, and she took it to heart and assumed I wanted to break up with her for someone else. There was another instance where I didn’t watch any of her reels she sent me on instagram. I cried about it because I felt bad for not watching them in time. What do I do to fix these problems?

https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/ Hello! This is an essay analyzing the themes of FF7 Rebirth through a psychoanalytic lens, while also critiquing the execution of the game's writing. Moreover, it's a personal reflection on my journey with the game, and the complicated feelings that got tangled up with that. Please give it a read if you have the chance.
Previous articles: FF7: Reflections of a Traumatized Generation (2020)
I Need to Talk about Final Fantasy VII Remake or My Head Will Explode (2021)
Excerpt: “A confluence of worlds… and emotions. Loss, chief among them. It engulfs fleeting moments of joy, transforming them into rage, sadness, hatred.”
– Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024), speaking to me, specifically
*The following contains spoilers*
I. Memoirs of a Neurotic Fan
Hoo boy.
It’s been a long four years since Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) released, and I don’t think I have ever before devoted so much emotional energy to deciphering how I truly feel about a piece of media. Initially, I enjoyed my return to a reimagined world of lovable characters, but unfavorable writing choices and a mind-boggling finale left me feeling torn. Despite striving to maintain an optimistic outlook at the end of my previous essay, my perspective on the game only darkened as the years wore on. Developer interviews constantly oscillated back and forth as to whether they would remain faithful to the original FF7 (1997), or, as the ending of Remake indicated, strike out on a brand new “unknown journey.” That’s not to mention the downright radioactive discourse among fans, combined with the litany of harassing messages I received for the most tepid criticisms.
Eventually, I grew to despise Remake. The positive emotions and ecstatic love I had for parts of the game sunk beneath my waves of ire toward its creative divergences – as well as what they represented to me. And I fed that hate. I hated its ponderous navel-gazing about the nature of adaptations. I hated its self-congratulatory insinuation that asinine story decisions like the “Baby’s-First-Metacommentary” Whispers and the resurrection of multiple deceased characters somehow constituted “bold” storytelling. I hated the uncritical portion of certain audiences that fell for this illusion of transgressive storytelling, all the while embracing a game that went out of its way to barrage the player with fanservice and puerile pandering. I hated the frequent argumentation that “it’s not a remake, it’s a sequel” was somehow seen as a mitigating factor, when it actually further aggravated my problems with it. I hated Remake’s emphasis on novelty, its subversion without meaning, its arrogant alienation of new audiences that wanted to experience a classic story, and its implicitly cynical view on thousands of years of storytelling tradition for the sake of “surprise.” To quote director Naoki Hamaguchi:
“When you try to remake a game and make it an entertaining game, having the exact storyline as the original would lack the excitement and surprise. I was looking for an essence to add to the story, and Zack was chosen to be this essence because in the original, there wasn’t much story about Zack, but in Crisis Core, he had a huge character development.”
But that lonely ember of hope persisted; after all, I had loved Remake at one point. I hated that stubborn attachment most of all. By the time Rebirth was fully unveiled, I wanted only one thing from it: to repulse me to my core, to be something so egregiously offensive to my sensibilities that I could never associate the project with anything positive again. “Perhaps if things get stupid enough,” I thought, “others will also see the emperor’s nakedness.” Pain and despair morphed into objects of desire for me. They were my keys to escaping these contradictory feelings of love and hate.
As you can see, I am quite well-adjusted and able to engage with art in a healthy way.
Continue Reading

I've come to a point where I don't want to be in this relationship at all. Before having a child we were already having issues in our relationship. I understand I won't be around my child as much and I can't tell you how much that would hurt but i also understand what's best for my child and being around a couple constantly bickering over the dumbest things will have a negative effect on the child.
We've been dating for about 4 years now. So when i started losing interest was relatively close to her knowing about her pregnancy. I expressed my feelings and what needs weren't being met on my end and wanted to hear what she thought about it. She thanked me and suggested we continue to work things out. During this time it wasn't so bad because I wasn't spending as much time with her. Id be working 50 - 60 hours trying to save up for the baby to come.
The first few months when the child arrived wasn't as bad but after 4 months things started to escalade. My constant argument was she would never let me hold my child when she was mentally and physically exhausted from feeding the baby. Arguments such as. "you never let me have time with my child" and " let me change my kids diaper." Everything was constantly around her time. I'd offer her breaks when id get back from work and when id go to sleep around 2am 3am is when she thought it was a good idea for her to hand me the child. I didn't argue at first but I definitely let her know after the child was awake, leading to multiple arguments. She would take a shower as the baby was asleep sometimes even bringing the baby inside the shower..
A couple of weeks go by, mind you same issues are happening, she lets the child fall from her bed while looking for clothes to change her. I was a room away eating at the time so I cant confirm if she just blanked out and forgot about the kid because I don't believe her when she said it happened all in a second. I rushed in to check for any serious injuries while making she sure her mother was calm but you can guess how much of a freak she became, knowing very well that her ignorance led to this.
No serious injuries although my child is still getting over that trauma till this day. Obviously I used this against her and I may have gone overboard. I read about post partum and focusing on points like: No Judgement, Be responsive, Protect her space, Encourage her, Praise her etc. I tried for about 4months up until this accident. Things have changed drastically.
She will say things like "You are being a narcistic trying to control everything" or "You love your cousin more than you love your daughter." These are just a few of the multiple examples I'm dealing with. So imagine trying to help your partner everyday. You are constantly being humiliated by your partner. I know plenty of mothers out there that would die for this kind of help and here I am venting about how I cant even change my kids diaper because her mom wants to do every little thing.
I told her if things don't work out she can still live with me and I will always take care of them but I know for a fact she wouldn't be comfortable with that. Honestly don't expect her to, but she's not working so what option does she have? I'm at a point where I'm done and I don't want this relationship anymore. It wouldn't be the first time either. I have had this conversation with her about 4 to 6 times in a span of 10 months.
I don't have a social life either, I mean I will let her know if I go out to play sports on the weekend but that's about it. Open to ideas. Therapy isn't one she refuses and she will say I'm too manipulative to have a third person sit with us and discuss issues regarding what was stated above.

https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/ Hello! This is an essay analyzing the themes of FF7 Rebirth through a psychoanalytic lens, while also critiquing the execution of the game's writing. Moreover, it's a personal reflection on my journey with the game, and the complicated feelings that got tangled up with that. Please give it a read if you have the chance.
Previous articles: FF7: Reflections of a Traumatized Generation (2020)
I Need to Talk about Final Fantasy VII Remake or My Head Will Explode (2021)
Excerpt: “A confluence of worlds… and emotions. Loss, chief among them. It engulfs fleeting moments of joy, transforming them into rage, sadness, hatred.”
– Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024), speaking to me, specifically
*The following contains spoilers*
I. Memoirs of a Neurotic Fan
Hoo boy.
It’s been a long four years since Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) released, and I don’t think I have ever before devoted so much emotional energy to deciphering how I truly feel about a piece of media. Initially, I enjoyed my return to a reimagined world of lovable characters, but unfavorable writing choices and a mind-boggling finale left me feeling torn. Despite striving to maintain an optimistic outlook at the end of my previous essay, my perspective on the game only darkened as the years wore on. Developer interviews constantly oscillated back and forth as to whether they would remain faithful to the original FF7 (1997), or, as the ending of Remake indicated, strike out on a brand new “unknown journey.” That’s not to mention the downright radioactive discourse among fans, combined with the litany of harassing messages I received for the most tepid criticisms.
Eventually, I grew to despise Remake. The positive emotions and ecstatic love I had for parts of the game sunk beneath my waves of ire toward its creative divergences – as well as what they represented to me. And I fed that hate. I hated its ponderous navel-gazing about the nature of adaptations. I hated its self-congratulatory insinuation that asinine story decisions like the “Baby’s-First-Metacommentary” Whispers and the resurrection of multiple deceased characters somehow constituted “bold” storytelling. I hated the uncritical portion of certain audiences that fell for this illusion of transgressive storytelling, all the while embracing a game that went out of its way to barrage the player with fanservice and puerile pandering. I hated the frequent argumentation that “it’s not a remake, it’s a sequel” was somehow seen as a mitigating factor, when it actually further aggravated my problems with it. I hated Remake’s emphasis on novelty, its subversion without meaning, its arrogant alienation of new audiences that wanted to experience a classic story, and its implicitly cynical view on thousands of years of storytelling tradition for the sake of “surprise.” To quote director Naoki Hamaguchi:
“When you try to remake a game and make it an entertaining game, having the exact storyline as the original would lack the excitement and surprise. I was looking for an essence to add to the story, and Zack was chosen to be this essence because in the original, there wasn’t much story about Zack, but in Crisis Core, he had a huge character development.”
But that lonely ember of hope persisted; after all, I had loved Remake at one point. I hated that stubborn attachment most of all. By the time Rebirth was fully unveiled, I wanted only one thing from it: to repulse me to my core, to be something so egregiously offensive to my sensibilities that I could never associate the project with anything positive again. “Perhaps if things get stupid enough,” I thought, “others will also see the emperor’s nakedness.” Pain and despair morphed into objects of desire for me. They were my keys to escaping these contradictory feelings of love and hate.
As you can see, I am quite well-adjusted and able to engage with art in a healthy way.
Continue Reading

https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/ Hello! This is an essay analyzing the themes of FF7 Rebirth through a psychoanalytic lens, while also critiquing the execution of the game's writing. Moreover, it's a personal reflection on my journey with the game, and the complicated feelings that got tangled up with that. Please give it a read if you have the chance.
Previous articles: FF7: Reflections of a Traumatized Generation (2020)
I Need to Talk about Final Fantasy VII Remake or My Head Will Explode (2021)
Excerpt: “A confluence of worlds… and emotions. Loss, chief among them. It engulfs fleeting moments of joy, transforming them into rage, sadness, hatred.”
– Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024), speaking to me, specifically
*The following contains spoilers*
I. Memoirs of a Neurotic Fan
Hoo boy.
It’s been a long four years since Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) released, and I don’t think I have ever before devoted so much emotional energy to deciphering how I truly feel about a piece of media. Initially, I enjoyed my return to a reimagined world of lovable characters, but unfavorable writing choices and a mind-boggling finale left me feeling torn. Despite striving to maintain an optimistic outlook at the end of my previous essay, my perspective on the game only darkened as the years wore on. Developer interviews constantly oscillated back and forth as to whether they would remain faithful to the original FF7 (1997), or, as the ending of Remake indicated, strike out on a brand new “unknown journey.” That’s not to mention the downright radioactive discourse among fans, combined with the litany of harassing messages I received for the most tepid criticisms.
Eventually, I grew to despise Remake. The positive emotions and ecstatic love I had for parts of the game sunk beneath my waves of ire toward its creative divergences – as well as what they represented to me. And I fed that hate. I hated its ponderous navel-gazing about the nature of adaptations. I hated its self-congratulatory insinuation that asinine story decisions like the “Baby’s-First-Metacommentary” Whispers and the resurrection of multiple deceased characters somehow constituted “bold” storytelling. I hated the uncritical portion of certain audiences that fell for this illusion of transgressive storytelling, all the while embracing a game that went out of its way to barrage the player with fanservice and puerile pandering. I hated the frequent argumentation that “it’s not a remake, it’s a sequel” was somehow seen as a mitigating factor, when it actually further aggravated my problems with it. I hated Remake’s emphasis on novelty, its subversion without meaning, its arrogant alienation of new audiences that wanted to experience a classic story, and its implicitly cynical view on thousands of years of storytelling tradition for the sake of “surprise.” To quote director Naoki Hamaguchi:
“When you try to remake a game and make it an entertaining game, having the exact storyline as the original would lack the excitement and surprise. I was looking for an essence to add to the story, and Zack was chosen to be this essence because in the original, there wasn’t much story about Zack, but in Crisis Core, he had a huge character development.”
But that lonely ember of hope persisted; after all, I had loved Remake at one point. I hated that stubborn attachment most of all. By the time Rebirth was fully unveiled, I wanted only one thing from it: to repulse me to my core, to be something so egregiously offensive to my sensibilities that I could never associate the project with anything positive again. “Perhaps if things get stupid enough,” I thought, “others will also see the emperor’s nakedness.” Pain and despair morphed into objects of desire for me. They were my keys to escaping these contradictory feelings of love and hate.
As you can see, I am quite well-adjusted and able to engage with art in a healthy way.
Continue Reading

https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/ Hello! This is an essay analyzing the themes of FF7 Rebirth through a psychoanalytic lens, while also critiquing the execution of the game's writing. Moreover, it's a personal reflection on my journey with the game, and the complicated feelings that got tangled up with that. Please give it a read if you have the chance.
Previous articles: FF7: Reflections of a Traumatized Generation (2020)
I Need to Talk about Final Fantasy VII Remake or My Head Will Explode (2021)
Excerpt: “A confluence of worlds… and emotions. Loss, chief among them. It engulfs fleeting moments of joy, transforming them into rage, sadness, hatred.”
– Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024), speaking to me, specifically
*The following contains spoilers\*
I. Memoirs of a Neurotic Fan
Hoo boy.
It’s been a long four years since Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) released, and I don’t think I have ever before devoted so much emotional energy to deciphering how I truly feel about a piece of media. Initially, I enjoyed my return to a reimagined world of lovable characters, but unfavorable writing choices and a mind-boggling finale left me feeling torn. Despite striving to maintain an optimistic outlook at the end of my previous essay, my perspective on the game only darkened as the years wore on. Developer interviews constantly oscillated back and forth as to whether they would remain faithful to the original FF7 (1997), or, as the ending of Remake indicated, strike out on a brand new “unknown journey.” That’s not to mention the downright radioactive discourse among fans, combined with the litany of harassing messages I received for the most tepid criticisms.
Eventually, I grew to despise Remake. The positive emotions and ecstatic love I had for parts of the game sunk beneath my waves of ire toward its creative divergences – as well as what they represented to me. And I fed that hate. I hated its ponderous navel-gazing about the nature of adaptations. I hated its self-congratulatory insinuation that asinine story decisions like the “Baby’s-First-Metacommentary” Whispers and the resurrection of multiple deceased characters somehow constituted “bold” storytelling. I hated the uncritical portion of certain audiences that fell for this illusion of transgressive storytelling, all the while embracing a game that went out of its way to barrage the player with fanservice and puerile pandering. I hated the frequent argumentation that “it’s not a remake, it’s a sequel” was somehow seen as a mitigating factor, when it actually further aggravated my problems with it. I hated Remake’s emphasis on novelty, its subversion without meaning, its arrogant alienation of new audiences that wanted to experience a classic story, and its implicitly cynical view on thousands of years of storytelling tradition for the sake of “surprise.” To quote director Naoki Hamaguchi:
“When you try to remake a game and make it an entertaining game, having the exact storyline as the original would lack the excitement and surprise. I was looking for an essence to add to the story, and Zack was chosen to be this essence because in the original, there wasn’t much story about Zack, but in Crisis Core, he had a huge character development.”
But that lonely ember of hope persisted; after all, I had loved Remake at one point. I hated that stubborn attachment most of all. By the time Rebirth was fully unveiled, I wanted only one thing from it: to repulse me to my core, to be something so egregiously offensive to my sensibilities that I could never associate the project with anything positive again. “Perhaps if things get stupid enough,” I thought, “others will also see the emperor’s nakedness.” Pain and despair morphed into objects of desire for me. They were my keys to escaping these contradictory feelings of love and hate.
As you can see, I am quite well-adjusted and able to engage with art in a healthy way.
Continue Reading

Going into this assuming a 40%-50% correct on mcq!
For argument essays, I tend to write about 2 pieces of evidence, is that okay? I genuinely have no clue how scoring works for it! For example for last years i did a practice and wrote about ratatouille and blm (is informality like ratatouille okay?) and set a paragraph or so for each.
For synthesis, I’m worried I will lose sight of my essay and was wondering how much evidence i should do and how long it should be! I kind of completely forget how to even write synthesis 😭
For rhetorical, I feel like i’m okay so hopefully the prompt won’t be too hard. Once again, how many paragraphs and how many examples? I usually have a thesis like “_’s use of/appealto _ and __ help to __” you get the point. Is that okay? Is 2 paragraphs/2 devices enough?
Thank you!!

The format and resulting engagement of Reddit can create some of the best forums on the internet. When I come into a subreddit for a hobby I very much enjoy, and users say your treatment of them dissuades them from engaging, that actually makes me angry. The years you have spent engaging with other Reddit users, disguising as a benign hobbyist before devolving into fallacious discussion, is over. When I say you, Djdefenda, I’m also including a litany of other accounts that model their behavior from your example or are alternate accounts you operate.
I started with two simple criticisms of your product. Claims you simply could have blissfully obfuscated your way out of, as you had done for years. But you chose your second favorite option, ignore the argument and direct insults and accusations of bullying.
You need “sandponics” to be discrete and differentiated from aquaponics to sell a book and course for which you were, and continue to be, wholly unqualified to author. You do this by wildly extrapolating limited and outdated research, misconstruing trial data, then constantly bombarding threads with tangential explanations, fallacies, and gaslighting.
This complete dissociation from reality motivated by money is an ethical failing, but I don’t consider it your worst offense.
When you compare simple critiques of your demonstrably false claims to acts of online bullying and relate that to acts of suicide, you demonstrate a level of morality I find disgusting. That is disgusting. Then to compile a list of usernames and post that to a url that reads “how to kill robots” makes you a little fucking ghoul. Again, so you can protect a product which we are all free to criticize and which has never reached any level of harassment. Hence why I am still here, and you are banned.
My advice, take your “team”, while they still waste any time with you, and use them to promote your version of sandponics (iAVS) on a platform that doesn’t garner the same style of feedback as Reddit. With enough YT shorts or tik toks, maybe you attract the eye of society’s gaze for a short time. Do a thumbnail where you have a surprised face and point to a headline that reads something like, “Agriculture is obsolete!” If you’re lucky, enough of those clicks will land on your website and maybe you’ll sell a few books. If you’re really lucky, maybe you’ll make in a quarter what I make in a year before the spotlight moves on. Next, pay your minions, spend a few years investing the rest into your sandponics and make the first commercial-scaled long-term system and prove us all wrong. Of the hundreds, if not thousands, of papers documenting aquaponics, “sandponics” has like ten, and none from this century. Good luck.
The users of aquaponics decided they were done with your shit and would rather get back to the community they enjoy. A place where we share our creations and experiences without fear of your vitriol and judgement.

I feel the majority of players have alt accounts. Or at least, the totality of streamers/pro gamers/YouTubers do. I like playing at my best, but I also like jumping on a team game with friends, trying absurd strategies, weird stuff, and even nonsense, especially with a few beers in my body. I clearly lose many more games than in my main account, and my elo is naturally lower.
Follow me for one second, I'm about to come to the point.
I've encountered countless smurfs who resign 80% of their games, then play absolutely serious all-ins in feudal. 2 great examples are these 2 accounts called Ghoti and Voyager3
https://aoe4world.com/players/1419817-Ghoti
https://aoe4world.com/players/474877-Voyager3
These 2 are literal psychopaths, you might've encountered them as well cause they're constantly online, any time of the day. They resign 80% of their games, but I'm unfortunately bad enough so they always decide to play me and my friend. It doesn't matter what strategy we do, even if we know exactly what they're going to all-in us in feudal with English longbows and JD, we lose every game with them. They're simply stronger, my guess is easily Conqueror 1/2+. I have no idea how you could have playing like this, but not all of us play for the fun.
Yesterday I was playing with this stupid strategy: winning by fighting only with villagers and monks curing them. Opponents get extra mad for whatever reason, calling us smurfs. So I checked both of their accounts: one is literally 3 days old, and the other one had 1 game 8 days ago, and all the others also within 3 days.
https://aoe4world.com/players/19695669-Baby-Nut
https://aoe4world.com/players/19696817-dlulu
Regardless of what you might think, this is clearly absurd: a clear smurf mad at me for being a smurf, while I'm here, playing completely dumb stuff and usually just lose.
I personally find sad people using smurf accounts to stomp on noobs playing serious builds just for easy wins, so I don't like when people accuse me of doing so while making only villagers and monks, quite drunk.
Let me know what you think, and if you disagree please give an argument!

I realized that all my life I’ve loved to write way more than a normal person would. I would sit on the computer for hours writing stories as a kid. Throughout my life I’ve written short film scripts, fiction novels, so many lists of other things I liked, analyzed characters, make songs. I write poems like every second of the day. In middle school i was inspired by “The Raven” wanted to be a writer and would write stories to read to the class and scary poems. My favorite class was ELA because sometimes we’d get to write creative writing or argumentative essays. I don’t do hours of research about writing because honestly learning grammar and structures just makes it not as fun for me and I don’t read much real books but I read an extreme amount of fanfiction and lately comic books too. I consume a lot of tv and animated media which when you think about it is all about storytelling. I like to listen to people talk like audiobooks when it’s a real book. These are some of the reasons I didn’t think writing could be considered a special interest because most my special interests I know so much about that I infodump facts about it a lot but i realized that most people don’t write as excessively as I do and I didn’t even realize but I was infodumping to a friend about some stories I’ve written and realized that it’s really been my life long interest.

I'm not sure if I am to a point where I need to take legal action but here is everything so far. I'm going to apologize in advance, this is going to come off rambling but I'm just tired of everything haha.
But I started working at my company in 2022. I started as a SME (Subject Matter Expert), went to a different team, then came back to the team I am on currently. I also think it is very important to mention that my fiancée also works at the same company and on the same team. It' also important to note that my fiancée and I are both women as well. We totally understand that we are separate people, and for the most part we do our best to keep that a thing. We try to avoid taking time off together, but at times, it just what happens. Its also important to note that our boss KNEW we were a couple when she hired us.
Every single time we try to take time off together it feels like we're pulling teeth. It's an argument or our boss tries guilting us.
Most recently we needed to take time off to drive three hours to pick up some stuff for our wedding and meet with our videographer. We did our best to try to get others to go with me, since I'm the one that drives, but no one could go with us. There was one other person on our team who was going to be off that day, someone who does NOT take live engagements or talks to clients. There also NEVER specifically specified that only two people can take off at a time. There have been so many times were more than two people gone. She originally tried to convince my partner to reschedule, to which I was like no way we have had to reschedule so many different times. Long story short, I ended up on a Zoom call with my manage who told me to just go by myself. It ended in basically me going to HR because there have been other instances where there is just blatant discrimination. HR basically said that time off is a manage issue, and that was it. I have other examples but because of character limits I have to move on lol.
Recently there has been a lot of changes going on internally, and my team is insanely burnt out. I can't even express how terrible not only myself but the rest of my team is fairing. I have tried bringing it up to my manager but she just brushes it off. It's 'you're preaching to the choir' or 'what do you want me to do about it'? She's not listening, she's not hearing me. So I stopped really bringing it up during our 1x1s because she's not hearing me. Instead I'll bring it up in our team huddles, because it's the only time she seems to hear me. I even went to HER boss but nothing is changing. And I basically lost it during a team huddle. I was unprofessional, and I will own that. I did get a written write up.
In that write up there is so much information that is missing. She brought up my unprofessional behavior with my partner that ended in HR, her claiming that I said 'I don't care what you say, we're taking the time off' which I NEVER said. She also refused to record my 1x1. When I started bringing up my concerns of context missing in my written, and she just blew it off. No once did she take an responsibility. Her boss is also in that 1x1, due to me feeling uncomfortable being in a one on one environment with my manager. According to her and her boss, HR states not to record 1x1s so I don't have the recording from our recent one on one. In the notes, however, she again is missing so much context. I feel like there is just so much discrimination going on with my manager, and I am not the only one that is feeling this way. I'm not the only one feeling this way but I'm just...I'm just so tired and other than getting another job...I just don't know what to do anymore.

this is my first time posting on reddit, but i genuinely don’t know who else to ask and i really need advice now. so i’m 18F and i work at a zoo. i mostly do attractions and stuff but recently i met a new hire at the dolphin exhibit station, we’ll call him John (26-30M), who just seemed pretty extroverted and chill like my other coworkers. it was me, John, and an older female coworker working this section and it was pretty slow so we mostly talked.
here’s what bothered me first: this goober was staring at my chest every single time he talked to me. zero eye contact, just staring directly at my chest (we all wear the same uniform so it’s not like i was exposed anywhere or anything). not only that but he continues to do so every time he sees me, and when he does he rushes over to talk to me. another example is when i was working at the parking booth, he held up the line of cars to STAND in front of my window and just stare while talking to me and the whole thing really disgusted me. a similar thing happened a couple weeks ago at a different section, and i always cut it short so he leaves fast. today, i was at the dolphin exhibit again and my supervisor let me know i’d be covering a break at an attraction before going on my own break. i went and saw i was covering John’s break, which was no issue because that meant i wouldnt have to interact with him much since he was going on lunch. so i went and came back, and now she told me that he asked for ME SPECIFICALLY to cover a bathroom break at 2:30. the exact time i’m supposed to clock out (note i never told him where i was stationed, or when i leave). she apparently asked him “how do you know that you need to use the bathroom at 2:30? and why didn’t you go while you were on break?” and i guess didnt get a clear answer. i told her he makes me super uncomfortable and if she really needed me to cover that id rather cover someone else in a different area of the park so they could go cover his bathroom break in my place. my supervisor said he asked for me and if i didn’t go he’d be upset. i said “don’t i have a right to say no too? he makes me uncomfortable i don’t know what else to say.”
now here’s where i’d be the asshole, apparently he has autism, something i had NO idea about. i found out when i texted another coworker asking if i should go to HR like i’ve been considering lately because i want there to be some kind of boundary set, or at least be stationed away from him, but she told me that i should just be more accommodating and implied i was ableist. so i’m really really confused. would i be the asshole if i reported this stuff to HR? am i really just supposed to deal with it? if i am, can anyone give tips on how to handle this situation without quitting? this is my best paying job right now and i really cant afford to quit.

[Obvious spoilers for character romances, relationships, and a few character arcs. I don't recommend reading this post unless you've beaten the game.]
I’ll start off with the most obvious disclaimer: this post is not here to critique polyamory itself or its inclusion in the game. I’m all for adding the option to games (and BG3 as well) as long as it’s done respectfully and in a way that can make both monogamous and polyamorous players comfortable. This post will discuss what the game could have done better, why the characters they chose to make poly were poorly thought out, and what characters should have (hypothetically) been chosen instead. (The suggestions of who SHOULD have been chosen would give poly players MORE options, rather than less, while also maintaining character consistency and helping mono people feel comfortable too).
These suggestions are, of course, my own opinion coupled with a lot of threads I read all over the internet from three groups: monogamous players, poly players who liked what BG3 did, and poly players who felt it was handled poorly/felt uncomfortable with it. I myself didn’t care to go through the poly routes in the game but after I read some youtube comments on the Halsin topic, I got fully invested in the discussion and dove through youtube, reddit, and Larian threads to hear everyone’s opinions. As a monogamous person myself, it was interesting to hear thoughts from the poly players about what they felt uncomfortable with and how things should have been written instead. As a result, this thread is less my own thoughts and more a compilation of all the ideas/suggestions I saw people come up with.
The goal of this post is not to hate on the developers or people from either side of the debate, but to find a middle ground the developers could have used that would make both monogamous people and polyamorous people happy. The current game did appeal to some poly players, but it left a lot of other ones dissatisfied, and when half of your target audience is feeling skeptical about how you handled something, it’s good to take notice (and even though it’s too late for any changes to be made, it’s fun to talk about the hypotheticals and suggest what pitfalls could be avoided when developing future games).
This post will be formatted like so: (yes, I know it’s long but after having all the discussions and debates run through my head for a few days, it’s nice to get them all written down and out of my brain)

1. Important factors that should be considered when adding poly relationships to your game (in a way that makes at least the majority of your audience comfortable)
   
2. Which characters should have been chosen to be poly instead of the ones we got (and why)
   
3. Why the characters the developers chose to make poly weren’t ideal
   
4. Issues with how Halsin was presented
   

A few more points I want to emphasize before I start.

1. This post isn’t just focusing on the story and character motivations, but also on what makes the players feel at ease. You can’t make everyone happy, obviously, but there were a lot of mistakes BG3 made that could have been easily solved (with suggestions from both sides). I want to see games where both monogamous players and poly players can find the romance options they’re seeking without feeling ignored or pushed aside.
   
2. While it is easy to say, “It’s just a videogame. We shouldn’t worry about what the characters think because they’re fictional,” I say both yes and no. While the feelings of the characters shouldn’t be cared about (because they’re not real), the writers clearly wanted each character to have their own backstory, morals, opinions, and fears. I’d argue most of, if not all of the characters were written really well and in a realistic manner (as realistic as you can get with tadpoles in your brains and magical abilities). The writers WANTED us to take these characters seriously, as well as the portrayals of abuse that some of them represent, so it’s not surprising that lots of players analyze them. The fact that so many different people took the time to discuss the character romances and relationships is a testament to how well written the characters are. It’s okay to say the poly interactions felt ‘out of character’ and debate why.
   

​
Part 1. IMPORTANT FACTORS THAT NEED TO BE CONSIDERED WHEN ADDING POLY RELATIONSHIPS TO YOUR GAME (particularly when monogamous relationships are also part of the game). Most of these will be things other people have said, some of which I never even considered until they brought it up.
- Communication with the players
- Consent (particularly ‘enthusiastic consent’)
- Lying, pressure, and coercion
- Character backstories and potential trauma

1. Communication with the players

One of the biggest issues I had with BG3’s poly relationships is that the developers didn’t try to effectively communicate which options players had until Act 3 (when it’s too late to change your mind). A monogamous player could start a character romance, only to be disappointed in Act 3 when they find out the character is poly. Likewise, a poly player would assume someone is poly, then have that character change their mind halfway through. Now, in terms of narrative, this can be quite interesting, and in terms of real life, I’m sure this happens often. However, when you’re looking at it from a developer’s standpoint, it's not a good idea to do this. If you want to make players comfortable and satisfied with the romance options, you need to make it clear to them what they’re getting themselves into.
So, if you’ve written a poly character into your game, you need to let the players know. Once the topic of romance/sex is brought up, have that character confidently state their thoughts and expectations about it. This way mono players can go, “Oh, this type of relationship isn’t for me. I’ll try to romance someone else.” Meanwhile poly players can say, “This is what I’m looking for.” This way, neither party has to google which characters are or aren’t poly and risk spoiling important plot points for themselves. Likewise, if a character is monogamous, writers should do the same thing.
Two great poly examples are Act 1 Laezel and Dragon Age’s Zevran. As soon as the topic of relationships is brought up, they explain their stance on sex, relationships, expectations, and possible reasons for why they think the way they do. It’s done in a fairly natural manner and fits their character.
Of course, what makes this more difficult is a character like Astarion, whose entire personality is largely an act until he opens up in Act 2. This does make communication with the player harder, but an easy solution is: once he opens up about his true feelings, have him restate what he truly wants in a relationship. (Even that’s difficult for someone like him, who doesn’t know what he wants, but we’re looking at this from a hypothetical developer’s standpoint, not what we currently have.) Having him (subtly) express his expectations here leaves room for players to again say, “Oh, that’s not what I’m looking for. Let’s stay friends.” The devs should then leave some romance options open in Act 2 so players can reevaluate and choose someone else without getting locked out. (Again, this is obviously impossible to fix now. This should have been thought through in early development).
Consent (particularly enthusiastic consent)
One of the biggest issues I saw being brought up from poly players was the topic of consent, especially what they repeatedly prioritized: enthusiastic consent. The ideal response they’re looking for when talking to their partner is that their lover is wholly on board with the arrangement, comfortable expressing their true feelings, and doesn’t feel pressured to agree when they really don’t want to deep down. Out of the three BG3 poly options, only one of them (Shadowheart) had poly players feeling comfortable with her reaction to ‘opening up’ the relationship with Halsin (and even then, there were disagreements).
I can’t get too far into this discussion without bringing up my next point, so I’ll skip to it.
Lying, pressure, and coercion
This is the part that initially piqued my interest when reading that first youtube comment section. Many of the comments were poly people saying, “If my partner reacted to the Halsin arrangement the way Karlach and Astarion did, I would not go through with it.” Coupled with that were poly players saying, “I was hoping for enthusiastic consent and ethical poly. I was disappointed to find neither.” There were a lot of people disappointed with how the poly was written. One person even recommended it to their poly friends, then walked the recommendation back when they finished the game and felt the writers handled it carelessly.
Lots of people, both monogamous and poly, had their doubts about Karlach and Astarion’s reactions. Were they fully comfortable with the poly relationship or were they just saying what their lover wanted to hear? Were they scared of appearing weak and controlling so they pushed their own wishes down? Karlach literally says she’s not fine with it but will tolerate it because she loves you. Astarion’s true thoughts are more uncertain because he has a history of lying to make people happy and struggles with boundaries. I saw many people on the fence about both of them.
Now, in real life, there can obviously be nuance. You can spend hours discussing poly with your partner and checking in with them throughout the relationship to make sure they’re still on board. Some people may genuinely be fine with it but sound nervous at first. Others may NOT be fine with it and lie to avoid being abandoned.
The issue is that we’re addressing a video game where you CAN’T check in with your partner regularly and you only get 1 minute to gauge their reaction. That, coupled with their backstories and how the characters were written up to that point, is bound to make a lot of people (mono and poly) raise an eyebrow or feel uneasy.
While one can argue that leaving the poly relationships open ended/up to interpretation is an artistic choice or an attempt to add realism to the game, at the end of the day, you’re making a lot more people uncomfortable than you need to. There were plenty of poly players who just wanted to see healthy poly relationships with enthusiastic consent, and that’s it. They didn’t want to ask themselves if this was the right decision or if they were making their lover feel worse deep down. That’s something to address in reality, not fantasy. If the developers wanted to welcome poly players in, they should have done so in a way that makes them feel comfortable/satisfied.
This point will lead into WHO I think should have been poly instead but that’s for a little later in the post.
Character backstories and potential trauma
This is largely referring to Astarion but applies to Shadowheart and Karlach as well: If you are going to give characters a lot of layers, insecurities, fears, and trauma, you need to handle their relationships carefully. Not only are you building a character, but you’re letting players see their own traits reflected back at them. When it comes to abuse (physical or sexual), I personally think it’s important to consider player reactions to certain aspects of the game (especially those who have experienced abuse in their own lives).
I think Astarion’s sexual abuse and overcoming of trauma was well written (and a lot of people who experienced similar situations agreed). However, once the developers added poly into his story, I witnessed two prominent reactions from players:
- People defending it, saying that they were fine with poly relationships in their own lives despite going through abusive relationships (which is completely fine and valid).
- People who had the opposite experience, where they lied and said they were fine with poly to please their partners, then felt miserable throughout the relationships. (This is also fine and valid.) These players (even some who went through with the poly relationship in the game) came out feeling uncomfortable and reminded of their pasts.
The ambiguity the developers went for just made this whole situation worse, as it led to arguments and disagreements in the community, with some people insisting the brothel scene helps Astarion heal, while many believed it had the opposite effect. The same arguments were made regarding the Halsin relationship.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with writing a story and sticking to it regardless of how uncomfortable it makes people feel, but in this case, there were so many other options besides Astarion you could have chosen. I think in the long run, it’s better to leave his character away from poly to avoid making lots of people (including SA victims) uneasy when it’s an optional feature anyway. (No one would have complained if he said a simple “that’s not what I’m looking for” or “I’m not comfortable sharing” and left it at that.)
(I’ll go more into more detail about Astarion, Karlach, and Shadowheart later, but will move on for now.)
​

1. WHICH CHARACTERS SHOULD HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO BE POLY INSTEAD OF THE ONES WE GOT (AND WHY)

Now, just because I recommend removing poly options from certain characters doesn’t mean it should be omitted entirely. I just think there were far better options available to the developers (character wise, story wise, and player expectation wise). I agree with the online sentiment that instead of taking a step back and figuring out which characters worked best for poly, the developers instead chose the most popular male and female characters and called it a day without discussing whether or not these were the ideal options.
As I was reading through everyone’s complaints and critiques of the poly implementation, I took a moment to figure out which characters would fit it best. I took several factors into account.
You need a character who poly players are confident their yes means yes and no means no (meaning they need to be a generally honest and forthright person). It’s not a good idea to have sexual trauma or a past of people pleasing/coercion because while not all SA victims are monogamous by any means, because it’s a video game and not real life, this opens the door to a lot of other issues and can leave poly players unsure if the character’s past influenced their ability to say yes or no. This is especially relevant because the game only takes place over 4 months. Not only are the romantic relationships just beginning, but Karlach and Astarion literally killed their abusers a few days ago. The pain is still fresh and a lot of healing needs to be done. It’s better to leave the sexual content away from them for now (and if poly players want to imagine the characters opening up the relationship later, they can. It just shouldn’t happen in the current game.)
With those factors in mind, I started narrowing down the characters to figure out which ones would suit the criteria.
Ones that AREN’T a perfect fit:
Astarion: two hundred years of sexual abuse (which is a lot to recover from), he just regained his bodily autonomy, he is a habitual liar, he can be talked into doing things he hates and only protests after the deed is done, even after Cazador dies in Act 3 he will do things he doesn’t want to in order to appease the player, killing one’s abuser does not magically fix all the internal issues and insecurities, the list goes on.
Gale: His issues aren’t as obvious or prominent but he also has a history of people pleasing and doing things he doesn’t want to simply to make his partner happy (see Mystra and the brothel scene).
Karlach: While she is pretty chill about the brothel, the most prominent problem this game has is that she’s literally dying. Even if she was open to poly, as someone pointed out, any loving partner would dedicate what little time they have left to focusing on her.
Shadowheart: This one has the most discussions around it because the writing is inconsistent. This is also the only romance I personally haven’t gone through so I can’t get into full details. However, what I have seen discussed is: brainwashing and memory wipes, being forced to be a “honeypot” against her will, she links her love of poly back to the cult that she spent the whole game trying to escape, her personality does a fairly sudden 180 when poly is brought up. This specific case is more of a “the poly aspect makes the writing feel inconsistent” but the issues of her cult and coercion are also very important.
That leads into characters who ARE a better fit (and bear in mind that this would require rewrites and other stuff that would have had to happen in earlier stages of development, though the tweaks would honestly be minimal):
Minthara: She may have insecurities about the Absolute and choosing her own path, but she is never insecure when dealing with romance. She knows what she wants and how to get it. While I adore her “lay a finger on them, and I’ll cut you” dialogue in the brothel, no one would have been surprised if she was written as poly. It fits her character and if she says, “Go right on with Halsin,” we all know she means it. You could honestly take Ascended Astarion’s Halsin dialogue and paste it into hers instead. The “you are mine” line would make more sense for her than him.
Laezel: This is the most obvious one. She is not only confident in her relationships and sexual preferences, but she also comes from a poly society. Like Minthara, she knows what she wants and will refuse if she doesn’t agree with something. Again, while I love her romance shifting from only wanting casual sex to becoming strictly monogamous, no one would have been surprised if she remained consistent throughout instead.
Halsin: He doesn’t have a history of lying, he knows what he wants, and he is supposed to be one of the more mature members of the group. While I think his writing itself was handled poorly (I dedicate a whole section to that at the end), he’s still a fine option for poly. My only change would be that they make his preferences very obvious in Act 1 and or 2. I saw lots of Halsin fans being super disappointed when they found out he wasn’t willing to be monogamous (and again, you don’t learn this until sixty hours in, so you’ve not only missed out on all the other romances but you can’t just go back and remedy that easily). His talk about the drow kidnapping in the brothel is questionable but that’s easy enough to omit (I saw a lot of people wondering why it was added at all. While Astarion’s trauma was carefully implemented, many felt Halsin’s was carelessly tacked on and almost fetishized.)
This final one is tricky. We know the developers wanted a male option but it’s hard when both Wyll and Gale are written as strictly monogamous. However, going by my criteria from before and therefore omitting Gale and Astarion for aforementioned issues, that leaves us only one option (and it makes sense the more I think about it).
Wyll: Like the other three, Wyll doesn’t lie to spare people’s feelings. He knows what he wants, he accepts his decisions (even the Mizora one), and he is always down to have an open discussion about anything. The only thing holding him back from poly narratively is his nobility and wish to be traditional. Just like the others, I personally like this trait, but since we’re speaking in “what if’s” we can ignore that. It’s easy enough to tweak his story to him being more open to try new things (especially because in most endings, he doesn’t end up becoming a noble anyway). I did see a few people mention that making Wyll the poly option instead of Astarion would have made him more interesting and layered as well.
Of course, these implementations would have to be coupled with them being truthful/open about their poly traits from the beginning of the game, as mentioned before.
This lineup also fixes another problem people had: the current BG3 poly options completely cut off lesbians and straight men. Only bisexuals, straight women, or gay men can have a poly relationship in the game.
What I propose (or at least pretend to since no real changes will be made) is that Halsin and Minthara are the ones who suggest the poly thing (or more ideally, it’s a dialogue option for the PLAYER to choose, since many poly people said it’s weird to insert yourself into a couple rather than having the couple proposition you). This way the options can expand. You now have
Minthara and Laezel
Minthara and Wyll
Halsin and Laezel
Halsin and Wyll
I stumbled upon some threads in this rabbit hole where people were initially debating who they thought would be poly (before the game officially came out). The three most prominent answers were: Minthara, Laezel, and Astarion (though I should clarify that at this point, most players assumed Astarion’s hedonistic playboy persona was real and not an act). On the other hand, once the poly options were fully available and explored, most people were surprised (in a negative way) that Astarion, Shadowheart, and Karlach had been chosen. They felt that poly had been slapped on to sell more games, rather than carefully implemented to fit the story.
Now that I’ve established the alternative I believe should have happened, I can expand a little more on why what we got wasn’t satisfactory. (I’d like to add a note that I personally romanced Astarion the most, Karlach once, and Shadowheart never, so the evidence I go over will heavily lean to one side, unfortunately. There are other redditors who get into the Shadowheart debate in more detail than I could. I can link these below if anyone bothers to read this far and wants to see them.)
​

1. WHY THE CHARACTERS THE DEVELOPERS CHOSE TO MAKE POLY WEREN’T IDEAL

Karlach:
This is the most simple of the three. On the surface, I initially thought she would be a good idea for poly. She lets you sleep with the prostitutes in the brothel, she’s pretty blatant about her wants and needs, she’s touch starved, and she initially seems like she’d be fine with Halsin.
But there are two issues:
One, in the Halsin proposition dialogue, she outright states that she isn’t really cool with a poly relationship. (She says something along the lines of, “I’ll have to chew on that for a while. I’m not sure I want this right now and don’t think I ever will.”) So she’s very blatant in telling you that this isn’t what she wants, but she’ll tolerate it because she loves you. It’s easy to see why this would make poly people feel bad and wish for an alternative.
Now, this could be fixed by changing her dialogue to being super enthusiastic, but even if you did, you get problem two: She is dying. She has weeks left to live. You the player spend most of your day fighting enemies so you only have a few hours left to spend with your lover. No kind hearted partner, poly or otherwise, would waste those precious hours on a casual relationship with Halsin when they should be focusing entirely on Karlach. Halsin will still be around at the end of the game. To the player’s knowledge, Karlach won’t.
If she wasn’t dying, I would list her as a possible poly option. But because she only has a few weeks to live, she just can’t be. Her existence as one of the three poly options was what cemented the theory (in my mind) that the developers chose the most popular romance options, rather than the ideal ones.
Shadowheart:
Again, this was the one that some skeptical poly people said felt the most right in terms of presentation. She is enthusiastic about Halsin and the twins, she participates, and if you were to pick the most likely to be cool with it, she wins.
However, there are still a lot of issues with this choice (in terms of backstory, insecurities, reasons for poly, and treatment of monogamous players). Again, please bear in mind that this is the one romance I myself didn’t do so some facts may be off or vague.
Backstory: Her entire life up to this point has been erased. She was forced to do horrific things against her will (abusing her parents, being abused herself, torturing others, seducing people). She puts up a constant act of loving torture and being evil, but as you play through the game, you realize she doesn’t actually like harming people and she seeks genuine connections and love despite claiming she doesn’t. I didn’t fully appreciate her until I did an evil Dark Urge run because while my psychotic monk, dictator Minthara, and Ascended Astarion were killing people left and right, she continued to disapprove of our evil actions despite “choosing” Shar in the end. To a lesser extent than Astarion, she does lie to the player about her wishes and intentions, which is one of the criteria I went into earlier.
Insecurities: I didn’t see this myself but I read plenty of threads about how her confidence is also an act. She is one of the only characters to continually ask the player if their relationship is still ongoing and if they’re happy with her. Her dialogue throughout the romance seems to be leading to her preferring monogamy and complete loyalty, so it feels out of character when she suddenly switches at the end of her arc. (Can real life people do this? Sure. Is it a very strange and sometimes off-putting writing choice? Yes, especially because there are very few hints (if any) of her being poly throughout the romance.) This also links into my ‘communicating that a character is poly to the player’ problem from earlier.
Reasons for poly: This is what I personally had the most issue with. If you cheat on her with Mizora, she explains that she’s fine with poly and/or open relationships and asks that you communicate with her first. Fine. No issues there. The problem arises when she explains WHY she’s fine with open relationships. It’s because Lady Shar encouraged it in the cult she grew up in. You know, the cult that abused her and brainwashed her for years. The one she spent the entire game trying to escape. She continually tries to distance herself from both Shar and the practices she encouraged. She expresses disgust in the Act 3 section when talking about how she had to torture and seduce people. She could choose to be poly for herself after the fact, but players are allowed to be a little concerned that her main reason for being poly is directly a result of her abusive goddess’s teachings.
Similar to Astarion, it is possible for someone in Shadowheart’s position to be poly in real life. Everyone is different and reacts to things differently. However, from a writer and developer standpoint, it’s better to just leave her monogamous and avoid all these pitfalls. As we saw, even with her enthusiastic consent to Halsin and the twins, her backstory and character arc up to that point still left people doubtful and uncomfortable. Again, since there are much better options for poly characters, why choose Shadowheart?
My final point for Shadowheart was about how it treated monogamous players. This personally irked me and I feel like it was the worst way to introduce poly because it actively antagonizes monogamous players and ruins the experience for them. (Thankfully Karlach and Astarion’s poly romances didn’t seem to have this issue to such an obvious extent).
I’ll summarize what people experienced when romancing Shadowheart. In Act 3, Halsin asks you to start a poly relationship with Shadowheart. If you tell him, “No, I’m not interested” he says that’s fine and will move on. No problem there. The issue arises if you keep him in your party. Despite you rejecting him, he will proceed to flirt with Shadowheart instead, which makes him seem pushy and creepy (which you don’t want as a writer unless it’s intentional). This made things particularly uncomfortable for lesbian players, though I completely understand how it would make ANY monogamous player annoyed, regardless of gender or preference. What makes it worse is that Shadowheart will then flirt back with him. The game ignores any preferences or input from the player here and they can’t respond to it. This bothered me, since the game up to that point seemed to at least respect the fact that mono players exist and want to have a romance that suits them.
But you could argue it was just a bug/forgetting to flag dialogue correctly. I could accept that, until you take both Shadowheart and Halsin to the brothel. Not only will Halsin invite himself in a third time after being rejected, but Shadowheart will say she’s dreamed of having sex with him before the player can even accept or reject Halsin’s suggestion. Most people would rightfully get angry when their romantic partner mentions wanting to sleep with one of their friends. From a writer’s standpoint, this is just disrespectful to the player’s choices and has zero reason to be this way. I’m not sure how such a mistake was made and why it hasn’t been rectified, but I’m disappointed that they didn’t at least lock that section behind the poly romance. It’s a fine scene if you HAVE agreed to date Halsin, but the existence of poly relationships shouldn’t completely ruin the experience for monogamous players. The writers should have tried to view these interactions from both perspectives, rather than simply one side or the other. And again, because the writers failed to communicate Shadowheart’s preferences early on, no one encountered this until they were three acts in and invested.
[There's a character limit so I'll have to do a part 2 to finish the Astarion points and discuss Halsin.]

Before I begin I want you to know I'm genuinely not ragebaiting. I fully believe this. But I am so ready for the downvotes. I feast upon your anguish. Say what you will.
If your favorite youtuber or a prydwen tier list convinced you, as a free to play player, with limited resources to fully invest into a unit that is/was "the best dmg output for the 4 dream realm bosses" you got what you paid for. Did anyone say marilee was a BEAST in arena? No. Did someone say she was the best unit you could invest in for afk challenge? Nah I didn't hear that either. Now here's a tricky one, did lilith games or farlight ever come out and say Marilee was the best A-Level unit in the game long term? Maybe I missed it but I did not see that post. Normally in games like this I see f2ps or low spenders accepting that they won't compete with whales and spending resources smartly in order to build generalist teams rather than all in on one form of content. But whether it be the obvious youtube clickbait or the tier lists.. you greeded for the biggest damage number in one area, for one currency. And you got it. Congrats. I know f2ps who were placing in the top 100 of dream realm going all in on korin marilee etc. Now it's a new season (they've said there would be a new season or at least introduced us to the basic concept of a season quite a while ago so it's not as though we wouldn't have expected the content to shift somewhat). And there are new bosses with new battle styles and new statlines. And it's time for you to either do subpar damage or bench your built units and all in on one content form yet again. Here's hoping you learned something.
It would be one thing if the current bosses, eye guy or frog guy or throws snowballs guy or derpy dragon guy got patched like this was a pvp game and they buffed their stats wasting your resources... but these are new bosses. If you were to dump every resource from day 1 into the *meta* pvp team and then a new unit released that countered that team would you be upset? You knew the game would release new units. You knew your resources were limited. You spent them on only excelling at one form of content and you did for a time. Now if halfway through primal wolf they doubled his defense and made the units u built shit for it I would consider that very, very scummy. But these are new boss characters with new stats. If you have an accountability issue you can deflect and blame whoever told you to build marilee I suppose. But as an avid dev hater in many games before, I don't see how this investment or decision making falls on the devs shoulders. In every gacha I come to I've done hundreds of hours of simulations and theorycrafting because it's what brings me joy. And every time people like me try to get the word out about generally well performing units (or "futureproof") in AFK or the most versatile/highest teamwide dps teams in star rail, or most energy/resin efficient farms in genshin or summoners war, etc. etc. And that information rarely blows up because it forces people to think.
I already see people spamming this sub with PWEASE PWAY DA GAME FOR ME I DONT KNOW WHAT DO WHO'S GOOD AFTER THE NERFS TO INVEST IN I JUST HIT 1200 CURRENCY AND I HAVE TO PULL SOMEONE IMMEDIATELY OR I WILL SIMPLY PERISH EVEN THOUGH NO ONE IS 1 OFF AN UPGRADE I JUST NEED TO KNOW I HAVE A RESOURCE AND I NEED TO SPEND IT BUT I CANT MAKE DECISIONS FOR MYSELF BECAUSE THEN IF IT GOES WRONG IT'S MY FAULT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME IM SHAKING ND CRYING.... And even still every time we spread info trying to say hey look these characters might be good long term or this might help depending on what you care about most or your favorite guy might hit for a slightly smaller number but doing this will give you an overall more powerful team or more efficient path to endgame- the result is the same. People want to hear what gives them the biggest on screen number so they can feel like they did a good job. Congrats your invested guy (or girl lol) does the biggest single target number. This is still true. The *nerf* is increased damage reduction. The output is unchanged. What changed his how much is received, like there's a resistor in between. You still have the girl that pumps out the most dmg, it's just not demonstrable in the current/approaching game because it turns out in a game where majority of content is 5v5 or vs constantly changing bosses... it just isn't that good. You got what you wanted though. Lie upon the bed you have made and stop karma farming with the 34th post about new season "nerfs" I've seen this week.
Maybe you'll use this to guide you to thinking more about what benefits your account most. If you're lacking supports or tanks units like antandra or koko can outperform a 93rd dps pickup and it's a lot harder for koko to become irrelevant due to new content when her main effect lies in dmg reduction for your own team. Just an example. It's funny how easy it is for people to write off Alsa as a skip because her damage is too situational or conditional but it seems very obvious with a character like korin that shreds armor that.. if the target had less armor his effectiveness would fall off drastically.. Yet you pour everything into him. Anywho I'm done yapping for now. Hopefully in a week or two it'll be safe to open this sub again and not see 12 pt times new roman 2-3 page essays over the same thing. I'd like to see more art or people talking about their favorite character designs! Adios for now. Good luck out there Magisters~

I(24 F) started dating a great man(23) (for context we both just ended long relationships recently), and we had a major argument.
We went to a city break together , everything went great, we had a great evening, then at some point he told me something like "i am not ready to be in a new relationship", and in that moment i got a bit angry and asked: "what do you mean considering that we decided that we are in a relationship?" And he explained something like "i meant that if it wasn't for you, i wouldn't be in a relationship".
After his explanation i was still mad and i told him many many times to explain what he wanted to say exactly, and he refused to talk to me about this issue, and after a few hours, me still asking for an explanation, he told me that he cheated on me. (We were dating for like a week) Then a few seconds later he told me that what he said it's not true, he told me that because he thought it would be easier for me to hear this instead of "i don't believe in our relationship and i knew it would end quickly", the reasoning for him having this thought being that he needs to move to another city (for work) but not that far, that would not make the relationship impossible.
Hours pass, next day we didn't really discussed things, but later on he told me that he realized how much he wants to be with me and that he would do anything to keep us together, that he is terribly sorry for treating me with silent treatment and he wants to make it right and never repeat the miskates he did because he cares about me. In another conversation that we had, we talk about cheating and i told him as a joke to not dare, and he told me "do you thing you would find out?" which is suspect of course...
Then he told me that he would never cheat and it was just a dumb respose.
After this scene i tried to end things between us and he says that is really sorry and he did not mean to hurt me and he wants to fix himself (silent treatment for example), that i mean i lot to him and he realized that he cannot lose me because he has too many feelings for me, and that he would do anything to fix the issue and not have this behaviour again. The truth is i have lots of feelings for him too, we are absolutely vibing, exceping these conflicts, but i just don't know for sure if he is trustworthy.
Does he deserve a change to show me that he was just dumb and he's not gonna treat me the same or should we end things?

TL;DR: I foolishly began dating my coworker who ended up lying to me several times. I finally ended up looking at her DM's and discovered what looks like plans to cheat on me and I don't know how to proceed.
Would really appreciate it if you read until the end where I have questions. Everything else is details & background.
I began casually dating a coworker who I caught feelings for. I've never been the type to have interest in more than one person so I voiced to her early on that I would like to know if she was dating other people. She reciprocated this feeling and assured me she wasn’t dating anyone else but would tell me if she did.
Things were great but we had a recurring argument about once or twice a month about how I was overstepping the casualness.
I will admit I took things too far sometimes but we also didn’t set boundaries either so the lines weren’t super clear all the time. For example, we formed habits like getting coffee in the morning, texting before bed, calling each other after work. So those habits created expectations and if there was a break in one of them, I would sometimes point it out and that would usually lead to an argument. It was mostly me who brought those things up but she would do this too, just not as much.
With a vacation coming up we both made plans to hang out before it but when the time came, she said she forgot. She had cancelled plans several times in the past and I was always understanding, but this time I expressed frustration.
I texted her that I was upset about it because I was really looking forward to spending time before the vacation. She thought I was being extremely unfair, that cancelling is normal, that we hang out all the time, etc. This led to our big talk.
We both agreed to go back to being coworkers. I said I did not want to immediately go back to being friends right away and that I wanted to keep some distance for now.
She immediately disrespected these wishes by stopping by my office to say hi the first day back (a one week vacation). I was confused but went along with it because we were at the office and I wasn't going to make a scene. A few days after that, she sent in a request for help with her workstation knowing that I was going to be assigned to it.
I didn't have time to help out that day but she showed up again at my office at the end of the day and confessed that she sent the request to get my attention and wanted to apologize. I said it's ok but that she needs to respect my wishes about keeping a healthy distance and only being coworkers.
The following week I went to help her with that issue and next thing I know we were flirting again. One of the strongest attractions was our good chemistry and that got us into trouble. So we agreed to sit and talk about things and decide what we want.
We both clearly had feelings for each other so we decided to continue dating. This was where she admitted that she had been dating other people on Hinge and out of fear of driving me away, she kept it from me. I felt betrayed and left. In hindsight, this probably should have been the end of things.
In the following couple of weeks, she apologized profusely and did a lot of thoughtful things in an attempt to make up for it. Eventually, I forgave her and tried to be understanding. I told her I would need time to rebuild trust and that if I were to move forward, I would need us to to be committed to each other to which she agreed.
Things were ok until I noticed that she was texting this one guy (bachelor #1) almost every day. So with a combination of her lying to me before and also myself having been cheated on in the past, I couldn't help but look at the locked phone screen and kept seeing his name. I also noticed a trend in the past that some of her contacts had “H” as their last initial which made me wonder if they were all people she met on hinge. Bachelor #1 had the "H" too and I asked if they met on hinge. She admitted to adding “H” to Hinge contacts but promised that bachelor #1 was not from hinge, just that she couldn’t remember his last name but knew it started with an H. I didn’t really believe her because she was incredibly vague about how they met. She says he's just a friend who they happen to have a ton in common with and talk almost every single day. I said it’s fine but asked if he at least knew that her and I were dating and he did not.
I know its normal for people to have close friends of the opposite sex but I found it odd that in all of their almost daily communication, I never came up. I couldn't help but think that it was intentionally being avoided.
I was puzzled and brought it to the table, and was told that it simply "never came up." I said I felt uncomfortable that he didn't know about me especially since I'm kind of still in this 'rebuild trust' phase. She understood and finally told him that she's "seeing some guy." So I guess I was ok with that. My 2 female friends know that I am dating her and I don't even talk to them half as much. After she told him, I let it go.
Then bachelor #2 enters the picture. This guy frequently hits on her and makes it extremely clear that he wants to fuck. I get it, guys are going to hit on beautiful women but I expect her to shut it down. And of course, the same is expected of me to shut down people hitting on me. However, with this friend of hers, instead of shutting it down, she accepts all of the compliments and allows him to continue making advances via DM's. He didn't know about me at all and only stopped once he found out because I went to the gym with her consistently enough to where he caught on that her and I were together (they go to the same gym sometimes).
So once again, it seems like she was hiding the fact that she's exclusive with someone. He stopped messaging her so I let it go but again, I'm annoyed that it was even a thing in the first place.
About another month had passed with no issues and we were doing surprisingly well so I asked her to officially be my girlfriend and she said yes.
We were both really happy but later that night, she was texting bachelor #1 right in front of me. I hate that I did this but I glanced over at her phone and saw they made plans to hang out but I didn't say anything, I didn't think too much of it. At the end of the night in bed and amid random conversation, she said she was planning to see her female friend on the day that she made plans to hang out with bachelor #1. She lied to me completely unprompted.
My chest started pounding and I said "You're lying to me" and she responds with "what? I'm so tired, go to sleep" Again I said "You are fucking lying to me." I started getting out of bed to gather my things and leave. She lunged after me, trying to grab me, asking me not to leave. I said I can't do this anymore and that I can't trust her. She started crying, apologizing, making excuses, etc. I couldn't listen to any of it so I left.
I woke up to a whole ass story of a text of how sorry she was and I didn't deserve that. She said she was just going on a walk with him and the dog she's fostering because he was thinking of adopting him. Her excuse for lying to me was that she thought it would ruin the night because I was sensitive about her friendship with him in the past.
She still went on that walk with him but she was texting me during it, called me after and invited me over for dinner. She talked to bachelor #1 about me a lot and said how much she wanted to be with me etc. They don't talk as much anymore and apparently he is now in a relationship with someone.
I bought the whole apology and continued with the relationship. I keep telling myself she didn't cheat on me and that she would never do that but I don't really know how I'm supposed to rebuild trust. I'm just kind of going with the flow at this point and trying to enjoy the time we spend together.
Once again things seem to be going ok until bachelor #3 enters the picture.
This dude lives in a different state but he sent her two free pairs of expensive-ass shoes. Normally, I would think that's pretty damn cool of him but at this point everything makes me skeptical. She told me a bit about him, that they used to work together and that he's married. Well, as of a week ago, we got into an argument about trust that started from me finding out that she doesnt ever post me on instagram. I accused her saying that there must be more people hitting on her in her DM's and she likes the attention so much that she doesn't want to broadcast that she has a boyfriend. She swore nobody was hitting on her and that doesn't happen at all. She said the only male friend of hers she talks to besides bachelor #1 was Bachelor #3. Then I asked her to show me the DM's with bachelor #3 and she said no.
I should not have done this but in the next few days I found a chance to go through her phone. This is what I saw and I have screenshots to prove it:
-He frequently hits on her saying she's hot and beautiful.
-She posted about muffins she made and he reacted with "When I visit, you'll have to bake me some" to which she ecstatically agreed.
-He then told her she should put 'baking' on her dating profile and her response was "when I make one, I will!"
(The fuck? Would this not be the time to say "I actually have a boyfriend right now"? )
-Then she asked if he was dating. He responded saying he avoids dating apps and rather meet in person and hook up from there.
(The fuck the fuck? Why are you asking a married man if he's dating?)
-Finally he asks if she's dating and she actually said yes but there was zero mention of me at all or that she has a boyfriend.
-He said he was going to be in town in June and asked her to get drinks with him. She says "Yes! Definitely!"
This is pretty damning, right? To me, it really looks like it's leading up to her cheating on me. Or am I somehow missing something?
What the fuck do I do, reddit?
I know that being in this pickle is 100% my fault and I blame no one but myself. But here I am and I would really appreciate advice on the best exit strategy.
I don't want things to end explosively and I prefer not to admit that I went through her DMs if possible. There's no possibility that she has a valid explanation for how she's speaking to Bachelor #3, right?
I've been trying to plan exit strategies and I'm thinking of simply telling her that I haven't been able to rebuild trust and that it's best to stop the relationship then leave it at that.
I'm extremely upset and hurt that she still lied to my face. Now, the vengeful part of me really wants to catch her in the act of lying to me when Bachelor #3 visits in June.
Major problem.
We still work together but in completely different departments. The working together may not last very long (she's been looking for another job). And I'm seriously considering it as well.
So here's what I need help with.
Do I allow her to explain what is going on with bachelor #3 or do I just say that I don't see myself being able to trust her again and leave it at that?
Do I wait to end things until one of us gets a different job?
Do I go for the more gratifying ending by calling her out on her bullshit and admitting that I went through her DM's or by waiting to catch her in the act when he visits?

Let’s just make it private.
Straight up.
There are hidden users from blackladies trying to be undercover and I can tell from a mile away (also other non-BW instigators or incel men, specifically incel black men).
Also, we should have it pending requests so that we can get a good feel on why the person wants to join the subreddit. Example questions:

1. What does divestment mean to you? (There’s a right answer)
   
2. Why do you want to divest?
   
3. Do you agree with the following narratives of divestment?
   
4. Do you promise to follow the rules or get banned permanently? (Since the other mammies LOVE to ban us for no reason)
   

If they sincerely agree and aren’t undercover, we can let them in. I love having this community and we are NOT gonna let it be turned into a discussion/debate subreddit and everyday is a argument with complete strangers. No way, not today, and not ever. Does anyone else agree?