Bangladeshi adult stories

Hello Everyone. This is 100% a true story.
I thought this would be a good story to share here as it deals with getting petty revenge on someone who was being transphobic and a horrible person. This is a long story but the ending is worth it.
This story takes place back in 2020 and was just reminded of it by one of my best Friends lets call her "Hannah". Hannah and I had a mutual friend, lets call him Zack. I at the time was just starting to come out as trans. This plays a part later.
Zack and I were friends after I meet him throw an EX, the EX was a good man but I am the type of person that does not do well being friends with EXs but was trying because this EX was a good person. This in the end also I keep talking to Zack and at time thought he was a good guy.
Anyway it was late in fall when Zack brought up moving into together due to I was having a hard time with my family and only had a dorm to live in. During this time he also brought up that he had a friend, Hannah, that was also looking for a place to live as her home life was not great either. I said I would have to her first before I said yes to anything. Hannah was on the same page as me and wanted to meet me first too.
So one day Invited them both over to the dorm I was living in, as if anything went wrong the College I was at had great police (had meet many of them during the time I was at college) this made me feel safer meeting new people. Hannah and Zack came over and me and Hannah hit it off well to the point you would have thought we had been friends for years. There were many times her and I would hang out without Zack, which he never liked. Red flag right there. Due to this I started to see the cracks in Zack's shell.
He was very passive of Hannah to almost boyfriend level. Which got worries after I came out as Transgender. Red flag number 2. He would also try to one up me and say things underhanded about me being trans. Now I am a huge werewolf geek and the underhanded things would be like "I will never be an alpha" or shit like that. Now I never called myself an alpha or anything like that. He also said that I would never have a man's mindsight. I never told Hannah any of this because I wanted to stay her friend and do to my trust problems thought she would take his side so that is all my fault.
One night I was talking to Hannah not sharing everything but told her Zack was pissing me off. She had known him longer then I did. She said that it could be do to his religious background and that could be why he was being a ass. That is when she opened up to me about something.
Turned out they where Friends with benefits. Zack was always wanting to make things more then that but Hannah had been hurt bad by an EX, like almost killed. So she did not trust getting back into any relationship. But felt she was safe with him and thought of slowly building up to a relationship. However she also spilled all the tea on him in bed, and I mean all the TEA!
So lets jump forward a few months to Hannah's Birthday. Zack wanted to host it the first night and then she would spend the next night with me. Hannah was going a hard time with family during this time so we planned a Birthday weekend for her. Turns out Zack invited her over for night before so she would be over one night without me so they could be the Birthday *GIGGITYY*. Well as many people know there is something that happens to most women once a month. Yes, Hannah was on her period. To her defense she did not know what Zack was planning for the night she thought he was just being nice because she got into a fight with her family.
So the next day comes around and they pick me up as I did not have a car. Everything seemed off as Hannah's mood was not normal. I wanted to ask what was up but also thought it was because of the fight with her family so I just wanted to make her happy. The day goes on and we are playing her fav video game. She went to bed early which I thought was odd as the two of us are night owls. I asked Zack what was going on. He said nothing but I could tell he was lying but dropped it.
The next day we get to mail in our city as planned and well Zack was doing something and it was just Hannah and I alone. That is when she told me what was going on between them. Apparently Zack was mad because Hannah did not SLEEP with her the night before I showed up. I was pissed, but then she keep going and he keep pushing and begging for it. to the point that when she said she was on her period he just said "THEY COULD PUT A TOWEL DOWN".
That was it for me I was done playing nice to Zack and started to think of ways to tell him how much of a pig he was. I am the type of person where three stracks your out. Hannah and I are huge nerds and you could say she is some where between punk and goth. So we told Zack we where going to Spencer's. Zack said he was going to go to another store as he hated this store. You see in the frount of Spencer's is a nerd, punk and goth best dream, as for the back of the store is full of sex toys and other adult themed things. Knowing this I told Hannah to pick out something she wanted for her birthday anything, and I would get it for her.
Well Hannah was looking at new pricings and wallets I headed to the back of the store to get some goodies for Zack. I payed for the stuff all without Hannah knowing. Best part the store has black bags that you can't see throw due to the things they sell. After I walked up to Hannah and I bought the things she wanted all to her protest. So she told me she would by lunch witch I agreed too because as friends we hate to feel like we are using each other even on holidays.
We left the store and went to the food court and ordered food. Once we sat down Hannah texted Zack where we were. That is when she looked at the large bag I had gotten and she asked me what I had gotten. I handed the bag and told her it was for Zack. The grin on her face was the best thing that I have seen. You see Hannah is also a very petty person and she very much approved of what I had gotten for Zack.
Zack showed up some time later and we planned to go back to his house so she could her car and her stuff to come to my place for the night. That is when the "gift" was given to Zack. I was putting Hannah's stuff in her car for her and wish I could have seen his face when he first opened bag.
You see when I am hurt I get petty but if you upset someone close to me I get PETTY. In the bag he found a large bag of candy and a few lollypop DICKS. But it gets better, I also got him a female blow up doll. There was also two cards. the first said "Congrats on your new girlfriend" which I signed alone and the other said "suck a mountain of dicks" which we both signed.
The next thing I know Hannah is walking out with the biggest grin on her face. With him storming after her when he saw me he said I was just mad that I would never be a "true man". Hannah turned on her heels but before she could do anything I yelled back "he would never be bigger then my pinky finger". He looked so mad and red. Hannah got in her car, we drove off and never looked back.
This may have been to far but I regret nothing.
Hannah says it was the best birthday gift anyone has ever gotten her due to his face he made when he saw all his new goodies. Hannah and I are still great friends to this day and know we have each others backs on anything.

Today I was in this subreddit and looking at articles related to this case, and am just realizing that a former friend of mine is the ex-husband of Mica Miller.
Well... anyone who knows me who reads this will immediately be able to tell exactly who I am, but please I ask that you dm me privately and do not reveal my name if you recognize this story and want to talk.
Around 2017 (I think), I joined a local bible study group. All the members of this bible study were young adults (aged 20-35 approximately) who met online through Bumble BFF or through mutual friends who went to church together, or just word of mouth, so we didn't all attend one single church or even any particular denomination. Our common factor was that we were around the same age and wanted to meet up and study the Bible. We would meet once a week at Starbucks and talk about a chapter or so at a time.
Through this group I became friends with a lovely girl (who I will refer to as Jane, as in Jane Doe because I do not want to dox her), as well as many other friends I hold to this day, and a man that would become my husband.
After I had known her for a while, Jane met a man outside of our Bible study and started dating him (I'll call him John Doe even though his name is out there publicly). She told me John had previously been married, and had been an assistant pastor at a local church, but that his ex-wife had cheated on him with the head pastor of that church. She said John had to leave his position at that church, got a divorce... it basically ruined his life for a while. He had been truly blindsided and devastated. It was explained to me that the guy who slept with his wife had also been a very close friend of his, and was the officiant of John and this ex-wife's wedding.
John and Jane dated for a while, and eventually got married. My then fiance (now husband) and I were friends with them for years after they were married, and they seemed very happy together.
I hate getting specific, but we are not friends anymore after kind of an awkward disagreement about some religious beliefs. I don't want to make it sound like they have sinister beliefs so I will reveal it I guess... My fiance had to move into my condo with me before we got married because of some very inconvenient circumstances involving his lease expiring a month before our wedding and the house we had bought together not being ready yet to move into yet. John, Jane , my fiance and I were all of the belief that staying celebate before marriage is the way we should live (please don't even comment on this part of the story ... I didn't want to leave it in, but I'm trying to explain that our friendship ended over a pretty stupid but not sinister disagreement. I'm not trying to get into a moral debate).
John and Jane thought my fiance and I would unable to remain celebate housemates until marriage. I still don't think it was ever any of their business, but they were adament in insisting that remaining friends with us while we lived together before marriage would be as bad as them condoning sin. They went through w/ cutting us off after my fiance and I moved in together. It's a shame really. My fiance and I actually were completely abstinent until we got married, but of course there was no way to prove that, nor did I think I should have ever had to discuss such a private topic with them (or anyone other than my partner!) at all. But... the friendship has been over and irreparable since then. It's been years now since I've spoken to either of them.
I haven't thought about them for a while, but today I was researching this case and found a Daily Mail article, as well as several Reddit threads with PHOTOS of John Doe and Mica Miller at their wedding. I truly did not realize until a few hours ago that SHE was his ex-wife, but now the stories are clicking together. It was a huge shock to see his face and name in relation to this situation.
I want to make the statement that you all should NOT be digging into John Doe or his current wife. Even though we are no longer friends, I really respect them both and think they are lovely people. I actually think Mica Miller is the villian in John Doe's story. Of course it does sound like she was groomed and manipulated by John Paul Miller, but she did cheat on John Doe. It embarassed him publicly and cost him many friends, and his job.
(Admins, if you need photo proof that I really know these people, I can provide a lot of screenshots or other evidence. I just don't want to dox them or myself here, and truly am appalled that John Doe's real name is even out there at all),

In case you ever wondered, these are the pricks behind payment processors harassing adult content creators so often. They're also extraordinarily anti-lgbt, seeking to deplatform and harass them with the same ferocity they approach anti-porn and anti-abortion activities.
There's not a lot of reporting on them yet, but what is there hints at some pretty deep bastardry, and I'm not clever enough at research to find the deeper meat to it.
https://www.wired.com/story/onlyfans-ban-porn-exodus-cry/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Cry

In the beginning, from eggs laid by a long gone legendary creature, hatched divine beings of great power. With this great power, they used it to create a world in cooperation with each other, of which they named Caelestia. The Realm of Caelestia is an open world role play in which any race or species are welcome. You can create your own adventure story, become a King of a Kingdom, become a leader of bandits, even run your own little shop for a slice of life experience.
Realm of Caelestia is looking for members, 18+ as battles, gore or adult events may occur. We have places open for things such as high society, Kings, Princesses, Thanes, etc. Maybe you want to become a pirate, and if you are interested in slice of life you can set up pretty much anywhere! You can have more than character, no limit at the moment. Caelestia is your oyster! We would love to have you and make this world come to life!
Anything can happen in this world, so please, come and join our little role play :)
https://discord.gg/wJYaBK32aa

Sorry if I come up as dumb or something, I just want advice from people with experience on this.
We're 4 months in on this adventure, we live extremely far frome each other, even in the context of LDR, we're young and dumb. I know you guys don't like teen drama in this sub, but I'd still want some advice.
I've read some happy stories on this sub, and I've noticed they tend to have some things in common: both parts are full grown adults, only waited a couple months to meet and many times they're in the same continent, that's why reading them made me really self conscious about my experience. I'd say I'm too young to know what love is, but what I have with her feels real, she says she's willing to wait everlong for us to meet, but realistically that would take years if it were to happen since we're both just starting our studies. The way she speaks, she says lots of beautiful things to me, she sounds full of hope, but when I think about it, it just sounds like a fantasy.
I'm full of doubt, the only thing I know for sure is that she loves me and I love her, but she's way stronger than me, always full of positivity, talking about a future together so carelessly, I envy her on that aspect.
Is there any hope for us meeting someday in a few years when we have our lives put together or is this just something fleeting?

Hi all, I'm new here, and I just wanted to briefly share the story of my relationship with you all. To put things clear, I am not the addicted one: my now ex-girlfriend is. We are both in our early 30s. Technically I am a video game developer, and I currently develop a famous mod. I am also a teacher, so I see a fair share of problems with video-games in teenagers, and even if do love developing games, I am growing the more worried about the effect they may cause.
Long story short, when I met my girlfriend she was a shy, intelligent person. She had faith in catholic curch (the main one in my country, Italy) and she cared for other people. She was a bit too competitive for my liking, and she really wanted to play games (not video-games, like card games, chess and the like), but no signs of trouble in sight (at least to me). She read books, she went to the gym and all of that stuff.
When COVID came, in 2020, me and some of my friends started to play a game now I even dread to mention: Apex Legends. Now, I'm not into FPS (unlike my friends), but we played like 2-3 hours per day during the pandemic. Reasonable, considering we were to stay at home.
The real problem begun afterwards. She always wanted to play that game. More than going out. She always asked. And when not playing that game, she started playing other games on the phone (stuff like Angry Birds, with daily rewards or something like that). She was depending on me or my friends to play Apex at the time, and for some years I felt something was off and worsening, but overall I never really understood she had a dependency. In the meanwhile, I stopped playing Apex completely due to boredom and, quite frankly, having better things to do.
Then, she started hiding the time spent gaming on Apex from me (we didn't live togehter at the time). She started hiding her phone while playing Angry Birds and later I discovered even other games. She was reluctant to do things and always wanted to be at home. She didn't want to work (even if she is employed, she just complained a lot) and she always seemed bored at everything. She stopped attending the curch and doing any kind of physical activity. I was feeling something was off, but she went to a therapist and we started building our home together, like a regular couple would do.
At the end of last year, my friends stopped playing Apex completely. I was like: cool, now she will be less focused on the game and we are going to live together in our beautiful house soon. Stuff will improve. Boy, was I wrong. She started looking around discord and Twitch to find other people to play with. She found them. Now she plays 8-10 hours a day. To put things in perspective I barely play anything more than 3-6 hours per WEEK. Later on I discovered she was hiding all the time spent gaming to her therapist.
I invested money, time and love in our house and our relationship. I have nothing now, at 31 years old. I feel like I don't love her anymore, at least not what she has become. I tried to fight this, I tried to talk to her. She thinks to play is the best thing right now. She said to me it's just temporary. It's been temporary for years and worsening each year... She asked me to encourage her to play more or join her during her sessions.
A week ago I decided to leave her, being unable to help her and not willing to endure any longer to be less relevant than a fucking game. She doesn't want to be helped and I want to live a... happy life, or at least a decent one. And yet I am unable to not feel guilty for all of this. For introducing her to that game, for not being able to recognize the first symptoms before it was too late.
Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to tell my story and to let you all know that now I can finally see what games can do to adults. I am a developer, and never ever I would have thought to be unable to manage something like this, to see someone you love to become something else entirely. To all of you who fight against this nightmare of addiction, you are doing great! I was unable to save my girlfriend, as she didn't want to be saved. I hope you will.

I (34m) have not had a close relationship with my grandmother on my father's side for many years.
While there are several things I could point to, I think the main reasons are she some of the time looks at me, acts like, treats me like I'm still a little boy and in some respects does things that give the impression she expects to have the same relationship we did when I was a child and doesn't know what a relationship between a grandmother and 34 year old man should look like.
This may sound odd but whenever I am around her, I feel like she NEEDS energy from me.
In an attempt to paint a better picture of her, she loves the world of Disney, and in many ways, acts like/thinks real life should reflect the happy, loving, world that Disney characters and their stories exist in.
I've made it very clear over the years that I do not like when she tells the whole family stories about something cute that happened when I was a child, or when she professes her love for me to the family or when she randomly tries to hold me hand, pet my arm, hug me, all like I'm a child.
She has continued to do these things throughout the years, not respecting my boundaries. She doesn't seem capable of seeing me as an adult. I have continued to pull away more and more while trying to be cordial.
There are other things as well that rub me the wrong way but I'll stop here.
I will admit I'm not the warmest person in the world. Maybe it's a me thing, maybe I'm wildly cold hearted but being around her makes me want to withdraw. As additional context, multiple family members have issues with her as well.
This past weekend, at a family event, she got drunk, and started professing how much she adores me, which I just tried to ignore because I don't like when she does that. She then got up from her seat at dinner and came over to me basically begging for a hug. Maybe I should have sucked it up and appeased her but I had had a few drinks and decided I wasn't going to entertain it and ignored her.
My father called me the next day calling me out about this, saying that I was rude, mean, I humiliated her, and that I need to look at myself as a man and he doesn't understand why I don't like his mother. I initially was calm and told him he's entitled to his thoughts and feelings but once he called out my manhood I raised my voice and told him that his mother endlessly needs my energy and she always does this and I'm not doing it anymore. The call ended with him saying that he's not yelling at me but that I have no right to disrespect her, be mean to her, that it's his mother, and I should think about things. I just said ok a few times and he asked, "that's all you have to say?", to which I said yes.
Is this all in my head and I'm just an utter piece of shit for acting like this with my grandmother? Is she in the wrong for continuing to ignore boundaries of mine and being unable to have an adult relationship with me?
It's been many many years of feeling like this and this uncomfortable dynamic. Is there any way to repair this? How so? Should I even repair this?
I guess with my father, it might be best to tell him that this is why I've acted this way towards his mother all these years, but I'm not sure he'll understand that I feel like she needs my energy and attention and that makes me withdraw. Not sure there's another way to make up with my father but open to suggestions and advice.

Hi fellow SLPs, I’m in a really tough place and wanted to seek advice. Pronouns have been changed to protect the privacy of the student. Sorry if this is long-winded, I have a lot to think about.
This is my first year working in public schools. I work with a population of students with complex, high support needs. Mostly AAC, ID, autism, ASL. So far, I’ve had really collaborative parents. They’ve been so open to round table discussion. Lately, I’ve been butting heads against parents who still want to keep their kids in the sub-separate classroom or in therapy services when it is not indicated anymore. I feel this is a denial of FAPE and LRE.
One particular student (ASL is their first language, Deaf+) I’ve had this year has met all their goals (they only had one). The story I got from their staff was that the parent wanted to keep them in speech so they can learn to “speak.” My student has expressed within my speech sessions early on in the year that they do not want to speak. Their language is ASL and they are part of Deaf culture. Their ASL interpreters have affirmed my confusion about why we were working on an “maintaining pragmatic skills via interpreting figurative language” goal when that type of language gets lost in translation. However, they have done spectacular carrying over skills given exposure to figurative language and background knowledge (e.g., Translation of English idioms to ASL, teaching of figures of speech via video examples in ASL) and teaching it back in their own words in ASL. Staff have mentioned their previous SLP expressed frustration about how S/L services have not been appropriate for a while. Previous triennial testing indicated that they could not finish certain tests (e.g. GFTA-3) because they expressed they had a hard time producing sounds.
In a recent meeting for this student’s new IEP, the parent rejected the IEP because I proposed moving to a consult model. Student has met all goals, there are no language or pragmatic concerns, but the parent said they need to stay in speech because “(student) expressed they love speech” and the parent has concerns about communication outside of school in the community. These communication breakdowns occur in unfamiliar places (e.g., not paying attention to surroundings, eloping, not using the restroom or eating in unfamiliar places)…but would this not be a behavioral/psych target if their increased anxiety results in these concerns?
I do not want to give up on this student and want to support them the best I can. I do not think they will continue to benefit from direct therapy (plus having a TOD/ABA on top of speech in the mainstream classroom would be A LOT for this kid who already has anxiety and is a budding teenager who is intelligent and aware of their differences). I have loved and thoroughly enjoyed working with them. Of course I don’t want to let them go - I would work with them forever if I could. I just do not want to overstep my expertise. The student has expressed that they enjoy speech a lot, but this is not a reason to keep them in speech and I feel it is unethical (violation of LRE). Yes, I can target utilization of alternative means to communicate with hearing peers and adults in the community (I already baselined some data and student has fantastic communication repair skills, communicated beautifully via writing and typing). Student already uses the phone to communicate via text with adults and friends.
My ultimate concern is why the team is stepping around this issue to appease the parent when this is no longer in my domain of expertise? Yes, I can work on this skill via a push-in model, but to stretch it a whole year (like the current goal) when they already demonstrate the foundational communication skills at baseline? In addition, student expressed that communication needs in the community setting (e.g., ordering at a restaurant) are done by their family (hearing individuals). In order for this goal to have any impact (again, I am only a school SLP) the student needs the room and opportunity to be independent communicating with hearing individuals outside of the school in order to carryover this skill…
Honestly, I feel like I would be wasting their Medicaid, keeping the student in a more restrictive environment, and we are stuck in the same cycle again.
I appreciate whatever input I get deeply. Thank you for reading.
Note: Using my non-personal account for privacy reasons.

Edited: The title was supposed to say that: I may be a Petty jerk, but at least I got away from a toxic "friend. Auto correct changed it to Jersey, and I couldn't edit the actual title.
Fair Warning, this is going to be a LONG post, but I will try to dilute it as much as possible.
About 12 years ago I left the world of retail (of which I have MANY stories) to begin a career in childcare. Some people prefer different titles, Nanny, Babysitter, Parents' Helper, Childcare Provider, etc. To be honest each of those titles are suitable in different situations.
The first family that I Nannied for went on for about 4 years, and then on again off again for another year. Through this family, I met "Wendy" and her family. Wendy went out of her way to be friendly with me, and would often ask me to babysit her kids (B5 and G1).
At one point, I had moved on to working with another family for a few months. Sadly, that ended due to the parents getting a divorce, and they moved further away.
Wendy found out that I was unemployed and asked that I Nanny for her kids. She was also pregnant with her 3rd at the time. I agreed at a slightly discounted rate because we were "friends". I realized too late that that was a HUGE mistake on my part.
Wendy's live in boyfriend "Cole" also had 3 kids from a previous relationship. B15, G8, and G6 lived with their mother. Yes, am aware of the closeness in age of Wendy and Cole' B5 and his G6. I chose to keep my mouth shut.
Now prepare yourselves for the Rollercoaster of emotions I dealt with with this family.
Initially, both Wendy and Cole were employed. I would come over 5 days a week for 8 to 10 hour days, depending upon whether Wendy got home on time. Here is where my discounted rate bit me in the butt.... $300 a week was still complained about. Wendy asked that I not leave Cole alone with their kids because he basically ignored them and refused to change diapers. I felt pretty icky about that, but agreed. Now I lived 45 minutes away without traffic. I would often leave my house early in anticipation of possible traffic. If I arrived early, I wasn't allowed in until she our alloted time of 7am. I didn't have a key, and would often be left waiting on the porch an extra 15 minutes past our time. If I knew I was too early, I parked around the corner and ate breakfast. Wendy and Cole both got very irritated if I wasn't their door precisely at 7 am. It was a headache that I chose to avoid.
Over the first month, I realized that G2 was emotionally abused by Wendy. She constantly said to or in front of the child how much she hated dealing with the wild child. How she wished G2 was more well behaved like B5. She even wrote unkind things on Facebook, asking someone to take her on the weekend while I was off.
This took a toll on poor G2, obviously. She would get violent with me first thing in the mornings : Hitting, kicking, biting, pulling my hair, throwing things at me, or what ever popped into her mind. Eventually, once Wendy left for work G2 would calm down and become an absolute delight.
When B5 started school, Wendy took a new job that allowed her to work from home at times. Those were not fun days! I asked if I could bring G2 to my house where I have an outdoor play area, a playroom, plenty of kid movies, crafts, books, music, and local playgrounds. At first the car rides were torture with G2 screaming bloody murder for at least half of the 45 minute drive. When she got used to the new routine, those drives became pleasant. Her violent tendencies disappeared when we were spending the days at my home. The drawback was that I also had to drive her home in time to get B5 off the bus.
During school breaks, I also had B5, and if they were visiting G8 and G6. B15 stayed at Wendy's house and just did his own thing. If you thought G2 was torture in toddler form, these two girls would have made Nanny McPhee grow a few more moles, a hunch back, and closed feet.
B5 would get a little bored, being that he was the only boy that was understandable. I purchased an array of boy friendlier toys to entertain him. I already had a lot of girl friendly toys either purchased or gifted from the first family that I had worked with. Of course I had plenty of gender neutral items too.
Wendy and Cole didn't give 2 sh*ts and a shave if the kids watched TV all day, went out to a playground or museum, or were driven 2 hours away, as long as I got them home on time. I easily spent an entire paycheck on activities, gas, food (which they didn't pack), and toys over 2 weeks watching all 4 kids. By the by, when asked for additional money when I did have all 4, Wendy not so politely informed me that the kids are entertain each other, so my job should be easier with all 4.
My husband and I discussed a few times whether I should look for something else. Inevitably the people pleaser in me actually felt guilty even considering it. Yup, I was apparently a glutton for punishment. Gratefully, my income was just extra, for an nice meal out occasionally, gifts for birthdays and holiday, extra hobbies, and basic groceries.
Just before Wendy gave birth to their new baby, she became unemployed. Logically, one would think this was my easy out. NOPE!! I became more of a Mother's Helper / Nanny. At this point Wendy and Cole were beginning to look for a larger house to rent. I did more walk through than I can count. She even asked me to tour a couple without her, and to bring G2 and B5 so she could get her nails done and take a nap. (Seriously, I toured houses on her list without her!)
As we spent more and more time together, I began to learn FAR FAR more about her bedroom life than I could ever desire. G2 and I spent much less time in the peace of my home, and way too much in Wendy's company. G2's behavior began to deteriorate slowly, causing Wendy to lose her temper with her far too easily. This completely broke my heart. I TRIED to redirect them both, and expressed my concern to Wendy. Of course, she then turned her anger towards me.
Wendy would openly discuss her theories about Cole in front of her kids. She claimed that he was cheating on her with his ex because he would shower immediately after seeing her to pick up or drop off the kids. He often made those drives directly after work though. Maybe he was cheating, maybe not. I honestly don't know.
Wendy also enjoyed gossiping about absolutely anybody. The parents of the first family that worked with were having marital issues. This was a favorite topic of hers. Wendy told me about every unkind word her mother uttered in her direction. The apple obviously didn't fall far from the tree here. I was told lots of personal information about people I didn't know. The gossip made me very uncomfortable. I told her that I would prefer we not discuss the lives of people who weren't around to speak on their own behalf. This fell on deaf ears.
I became quite used to her disapproval of my loose fitting jeans and T-shirts. Working with kids, I found my favorite cartoon prints were just as possible with my tiny charges. I NEVER wear makeup or heels because I simply don't want to. My dresses always have leggings under them because it make me feel less vulnerable. I never wear shorts or above the knee skirts/dresses. That's a ME thing, not religious or cultural. I find my "uniform" of choice is ideal for working with kids. Wendy informed me more than once that it embarrassed her to be seen in public with me. She often insisted that I wear something of hers if we had to go anywhere.
My husband enjoys photography, particularly long exposure which is done at night. He has a lot of photography friends of both genders, but his best friend is a female. He also enjoys concerts and kayaking, often with an ex from high school. (He graduated in 1997). I trust my husband and have no problem with him spending time with his friends. Enter Wendy's whispers of accusations. She often "jokingly" accused him of cheating on me with these female friends. I don't enjoy concerts, crowds, or being out late; so I support his doing with people who do. At least I know he with someone if something happens. I have bad knees, which make getting in and out of a kayak difficult. Why should that stop him? Again, I told her that I trust him and that I don't appreciate her accusations joke or not. This annoyed her because she doesn't trust Cole.
I know these are major red flag issues. I know how toxic being subjected to these comments is. I also know how difficult it would be on their kids if I left too soon. I knew they needed someone who wasn't emotionally cruel. I stayed for them.
My husband and I spent 2 of our weekends helping them pack and move to house that ended up 15 minutes from us. We were thanked by words, but that was the extent of the gratitude. Wendy's mother looked after the kids while we helped them move. This was complained about because I was already paid to watch the kids during the week. Insert eye roll here!! Her mom felt my husband should be willing to help them move while I watched the kids on the weekend for no extra pay. Either way, we were doing them a HUGE favor to begin with.
A family that I had briefly Nannied for prior to working for Wendy asked if I could help out every other Saturday. The dad (Nice Guy) traveled a lot for work leaving the Mom (Angelface) home alone with the kids. She just needed a day to run errands, work out, and just have time to herself. Angelface is one of the kindest women on this planet. When I did Nanny for them (2 days a week), she was in tears when she had to let me go. They couldn't justify the outgoing money at the time. She referred me to several friends. I am legitimately friend with this family, and still babysit sporadically.
Through a random discussion, I told Wendy about working with Angelface on every other Saturday. She began to tell me what to charge, how many hours to work, and what days to leave open for her just in case. Insert headache inducing eyerolls!
One Friday, Wendy's cousin arrived for a weekend visit with her baby. Wendy told me that because it was a holiday weekend I would not be needed until Tuesday. I double checked via text, and she confirmed that she and Cole were taking the kids to the beach with her cousin. Monday morning I got a call from a passed off Wendy asking where I am. I reminded her that she had told me that they would not need me. I even took a screen shot of our text. She said that Cole had decided to work Monday anyway so she was alone with HER kids. This pissed me off, so I lied. I told her that I was out of town with my mom and wouldn't be home until 5 or 6 pm. She went on about how much of an inconvenience it was to her, and I should have checked before going out of town. For the second time, I sent her a screenshot of my text verifying that I wasn't needed Monday. She abruptly ended the call saying to just be sure to be on time Tuesday. I had NEVER been late, but opted to mention that as we hung up.
Over time we worked out a new arrangement where I brought now G3 to my house 2 days a week, and we stayed there 3 days a week. I helped with cleaning, errands, helped with the new baby (NB), etc. Mostly, I was Wendy's sounding board. She continued to accuse Cole of cheating, wasting money, and even beating her.
My husband and I offered to let her and the kids stay with us, but she declined. Wendy even told me that since she was so sure Cole was cheating, she was going to find herself a side boyfriend to cheat with. I tried to talk her out of it, to no avail. Sadly, she spoke openly about her new boyfriend in fron of G3. During one of her rants I learned that my pay came from him selling drugs. GULP!!
While cleaning out the couch one day, I came across a loaded gun kept in the couch console thing, along with baggies of pills, "dried plants", and white powder. This completely freaked me out. 2 small children and a soon to be crawling baby sat and played on and around that couch. I STRONGLY considered calling Child Pretective Services and the police. I quickly realized that if I did, they would know it was me. I regret it, but I feared their possible retaliation towards us.
Shortly after finding these thing Cole quit his job. For several months while I worked for them, they were both unemployed. Again, I thought it was an easy out. NOPE AGAIN! For another 3 months, they insisted that they couldn't take care of the house and kids without my help. Very often, I arrived to find now B6 fending for himself for breakfast and getting ready for school. He was told to wake up and unlock the door for me, but they went back to sleep. I was expected to keep the baby from crying, and to keep G3 quiet and entertained until they came downstairs. I often chose to simply take both to my house so we could play naturally. We had a crib, so this wasn't a problem for NB. G3 would just nap on the couch or my bed. When out of school B6 preferred this too. This really should have told Wendy and Cole something about their kids, but of course not.
FINALLY, I was informed after about a year of working for them, they could no longer justify paying me. At this point, I had often considered quitting anyway. I mainly stayed because my heart broke for the kids. However, based on her gossipy and judgmental nature ... not to mention my little 3 day weekend fail; I was concerned about what kind of reference Wendy would provide if I chose to quit.
So in 2019, I found myself happily unemployed. The timing here worked out beautifully because Angelface knew neighbors due to have their first baby in 2020. I ended up working for this lovely family until August of 2023. The mom (Joy) and the Dad (Mr. Cool) were such a relief to my entire mental and physical health. We became friends as well, and over time I told them about Wendy. Between Joy, Angelface, Mr. Cool, Nice Guy, my husband, and family I began to realize just hoe toxic Wendy really was to my mental health. My husband never liked her but understood my feelings towards the kids.
For almost a year Wendy would randomly call or FaceTime me .... more often than not while drunk. She would rave about how much she and the kids missed me. We would get together for a meal, and she had me over for a couple birthday parties for the kids. I found myself almost always being the only sober adult watching the kids as the adults partied. Wendy often went back to her gossiping, trash talking, and "jokes" about my husband spending time with women. She would offer underhanded compliments. "It's so nice to see you wearing a dress instead of those tacky T-shirts." You get the drift. She even INFORMED me that since her neighbor was pregnant I could quit my job with Joy and Mr. Cool. She had told her neighbor that I would work for her now, and since they were next door, I would watch her own kids too. I shut that down saying that I was quite happy working with Joy and Mr. Cool. I even lied about what they paid thinking it would detur her further. NOPE yet again. She said that I should quit anyway so her life would be easier with me around. Once more, I told her that wasn't going to happen.
AT LONG LAST, I am coming to the end of my tortuous endurment with Wendy.
A week later, she called and asked if I had quit yet. I said that I had no intention of leaving an "$800" a week job. (Not even close to that with my 3 day a week job, but she didn't need to know the truth.) She told me to let her know when I quit, then changed the subject towards gossiping about that first family and their problems. I told her that I don't feel comfortable gossiping about people who can't speak for themselves. That pissed her off, so she turned it on me again. She said of course I don't want to talk about them since my husband was cheating on me with 2 different women. I angrily corrected her. She has no reason to think my husband is cheating, and I trust him and our friends. Just because she thinks her boyfriend cheats, and she cheats, that doesn't mean everybody does. She then said we could talk when I calmed down and after I quit my job.
After hanging up, I proceeded to block Wendy on everything! Facebook, phone calls, texting, face timing, Instagram, and even Snapchat (which I hadn't used in over a year). I also blocked her mom, and any body that had been friendly simply because Wendy knew them and wanted me to have their information too. I gave her no warning at all. I was beyond passed off, and refused to be talked out of my very gratifying decision.
I told my husband, family, and friends that was now free of Wendy. Not a single person tried to tell me to make ammends. The only guilt that I feel is towards those poor kids. For once though, I put myself first. Joy and Angelface were both extremely supportive when I told them that I had Ghosted Wendy. Both even mentioned how proud they were of me for FINALLY truly stand-up for myself. They were NOT fans of Wendy!!!
I never ended up quitting my job with Joy and Mr. Cool inorder to babysit Wendy's neighbor. I also continued to babysit for Angelface and Nice Guy.
About 7 or 8 months ago, I ran into Wendy at a playground between our two homes. She was with now G5 and B2. I had Joy and Mr. Cool's daughter with me. I was polite, almost obscenely so. I was friendly towards the kids, who were stand off-ish. I offered to let Little Miss play with them, but they weren't interested. Little Miss wanted to do her own thing, so off we went to play. We left after only 15 minutes because Little Miss said "that lady" is scaring her.
That night, my husband got a Facebook message from Wendy. She described my cruelty towards her kids by ignoring them. She said that it was so hateful that I blocked her on everything after all she had done for us. This message went on and on. My husband left it unread for months before my morbid curiosity caused me to open the silly thing. We never responded, but instead he finally bl9cked her too.
Ok, if you read that bloody novel of a post, you are a ROCK STAR!! I don't have any regrets towards my eventual choice, except towards the kids. It breaks my heart knowing what kind of parents they are enduring. I often regret not calling CPS, but there isn't a shadow of doubt that would have retaliated .... most likely violently.
I did eventually get back in contact with that very first Nanny family. They had indeed broken up, but both are happier and healthier now. I warned them that Wendy enjoyed gossiping and spreading rumors about them. Neither were surprised, and both had broken contact with Wendy long ago. They supported my choice to break ties with her as well. Shocking, right!?!
I no longer work full time for Joy and Mr. Cool, as they wanted Little Miss to get used to being around more kids before starting school. I do still sporadically babysit for them and Angelface and Nice Guy though. The two couples have referred me to several other families in the neighborhood, so I stay pretty busy with much more sane individuals.
Maybe I was a jerk, and petty. I'm cool with being thought of that way towards Wendy. At least now, I have much kinder people in my life.
EDITED/UPDATE: It has come to my attention that some may feel unfulfilled on the petty revenge side. For this former doormat, removing myself as her very cheap childcare was my revenge. I realize that many may not feel it was enough, but at the time, it was a MAJOR achievement for me. I had worked 8 to 10 hours a day for 5 days a week to receive $300.
When "invited" to parties, I ended up providing free childcare while the other adults got drunk. I don't like the taste of alcohol or the feeling of being buzzed or drunk, so I don't partake. I feared what would happen to the ignored kids, so I found myself watching them.
I never had a lot of friends, so for a long time, I truly thought Wendy was my friend. It took conversations with my husband, my mom, Angelface, Joy, and others for me to see the reality of my situation.
Some may say this post is in fact gossiping about her. To a point, yes I will agree. I did change everybody's names though.
Ultimately, I have always questioned whether or not I was fair or did the right thing by Ghosting and blocking Wendy. I often second guess my choice; especially when thinking about those kids.
I have tried to be more alert about the people around me since this experience. I do still find myself being too nice and accepting of some ways in which I am treated. I have tried to build more boundaries though.

When I (23F) first started working at my job, I met my former friend (21F)(let's call her K). K and I knew each other because her training partner was in my orientation class. When we first met, she briefly complained that her ex bf (23M)(let's call him D) had followed her to our work and he got a job at our work as well.
K and I worked in the same department, different areas. When K and I got close, I told her that I got promoted and was working in another area. K told me that D was also working in the same area and to not talk about her at work. I didn't pry into what had happened between the two of them because how people mourn their broken relationships is different. I just moved along my business and just do my job per usual. I didn't officially meet him until a couple weeks later, and the first couple of instances, I treated him as I would treat any coworker and just did my job, never asked to hang out outside of work, just treated my coworkers with respect until I have a reason not to.
Then, out of nowhere, every room I had walked into and he saw me, D gave me a look of disgust with me, a snobby look, as if I was below him. D had gone so far as to exclude me from group conversations with coworkers and I didn't really know why because I never brought up K with him or with anyone. It wasn't until I told her what had happened and she was like "Yeah I told him that we knew each other because we're still talking as friends." In my mind I was like "?????" I thought it was uncalled for and unnecessary. I informed K that D intentionally excludes me out of conversations with coworkers that I was also friendly with and K told me, "If he likes you, he likes you, if he doesn't, he doesn't", but insinuating that I did something wrong, so I just decided to keep my distance from K for awhile.
I didn't like D at all at this point, not because of his association with K, but because he was the worst person to work with! He was always bitching and complaining about moving carts and complaining in front of customers about how he's tired and how he hates working, etc etc. There was a time where he was the only guy not doing anything and standing around and I politely asked him to move a cart and he threw a fit in front of customers and demanded another girl nearby to do it for him. He wasn't on any work restrictions, nothing, just didn't want to do his job. I understand not liking your job, but it's never an excuse to under perform at your job. And because of him, many others decided to throw a fit about working to the point where, I had to attend meetings about it. The times I treated him nicely, he gave me a dirty look. All the times to where I just ignored him and did my job, he also gave me a dirty look. It got so bad that management decided to announce that anyone refusing to do their job would be reprimanded, rightfully so. I was so mad about it to the point where I requested that I be demoted back to my original workplace (which I love so much) and to just call me in when necessary.
Some time passes by and K and I become really close, I don't pry into her life because tbh, I didn't have a lot of trust for her when it comes to talking about work, so I just kept it at what was going on at where I first got hired at work. K told me around August that her and D were no longer on speaking terms and that she had gone no contact because she claimed that he was abusive and narcissistic. We became very close to where we were constantly talking to each other everyday.
K was living good after cutting out D in her life. She started becoming more social and more lively, she went on vacation, she was just glowing in a way that you knew she was happy. On the other hand, based on my conversations with her, I could tell that she was struggling to come to terms with being abused by this guy. Ex: her supervisor came into my office and we were talking about how amazing K was and I told her that story, K became scared that I even had a conversation with her supervisor, but until I told her that we were talking about how amazing she was, K started to cry tears of joy.
And then things took a turn for the worse. A couple of weeks ago, K told me that she just wants to just isolate herself and that she felt lost in life. I told her that I'd be praying for her. And then, I had asked her if she wanted to come to the movies with me and a couple of my friends. K asked me who was going and I told her my friend (lets call her S) S (20F) was going to go. S and I have worked with D and S told me that she's also had issues with D, but didn't go into detail as to what happened. K immediately informed me that she and D had recently started talking again and that if she heard me or S talk about D in a negative manner, then she would tell him. I told her that my issues with D are nothing personal, my issue was that he wasn't a good employee and basically called him an inconsiderate asshat. I told her that he had the right to not like his workplace, but it gave him no right to under perform his job. K told me that she'd pass this message along and I firmly told her no because she didn't know what the new updates were and new disciplinary actions were because she didn't receive proper training at my work area and therefore not eligible.
I reminded her that it wasn't a good idea to be speaking to D again, considering that she was happy post life after D and based on what she has told me, that it was abusive. I told K that she needed to reconsider her stance on where she stood with D.
A week passes and S and our friend E (21M) decided to take an impromptu visit to our workplace to have some fun. I texted K if she was working and K told me she was. I told K that we'd be visiting mine and S's area first before visiting K and she seemed excited. While we were in line talking, S had spotted from the corner of her eye that D was working and so S and I hid behind our friend E and had E briefly talk to D in order to get serviced (basically just telling D that we were a party of 3). Once the coast was clear, S confides in me and E about her history with D. Her history with D started when D asked her to hang out a total of two times throughout the course of their friendship, but said that D had a crush on her, writing her paragraphs, but she wasn't into D because he wasn't her type, and when she told him honestly and politely, the friendship had soured, and D had resorted to degrading her.
We came to K's work area and I had introduced S and E to K. The next morning, K texted me saying how it was so nice to see my face because it was a long night and that it was so nice to meet S and E. I told K that E's birthday was coming up and so was mine and that we were talking about taking a trip to Universal Studios Hollywood. K told me that she was a huge Universal Studios enthusiast and to give her a date to go and she'll request the day off.
I made a group chat with all of us in it, to plan out our trip to Universal. S and E hit it off with K. And then a couple of days ago, when I came home from work, I noticed that K had unadded me as a friend on Snapchat. I texted her, asking if she was okay. I got a response the next morning of K texting me, "Please don't talk to me. You've really caused issues and you'll find out later." I was upset and taken aback. This is not the K that I knew. One of the rare times K and I had a disagreement, we would always talk it out like adults and then apologize to each other. K didn't explain to me as to what I did wrong. I couldn't think of what could I have done wrong. The only recent disagreement that I had with her was her speaking to D again.
After work that day, S texted me to ask if I was okay. I told her no because K abruptly ended our friendship with no explanation whatsoever. S called me because she too wanted to know the reason why. S and I came to the conclusion that because K and D were still talking to each other and that because S and D had a history, he found out that K was going to Universal with us, and in order to keep her under his control, he fed her lies about S and I, enough for her to stop talking to me. S told me that she was upset that his actions with her resulted in the demise of our friendship and I told S that it wasn't her fault that, D was scared of being exposed, so he played the victim card.
S told me she'd pull up the receipts of their conversations. The receipts she pulled up was abhorrent. It was misogynistic, sexist, manipulative, and arrogant in the worst way possible and he used religion against S as well as used many of his victim cards (race card, religion card, etc). S was also explaining to E and I many different instances of what had happened and that she felt bad for K because if he spoke this way to a friend, imagine how he spoke to K. I immediately felt so much empathy for both S and K because they had been both dragged through the mud, with D villainizing S for having a preference for another type of guy, and D villainizing K to others. So the next day, at work, with S's permission, I told majority of my colleagues that D was an inconsiderate asshat, misogynistic, and an abusive person towards people, and outright a narcissistic person while showing everyone the screenshots of his conversations with S. AITAH for exposing D to colleagues for his behavior? (sorry for the long read)

I may be the A-H and a bit Petty, but at least I got away from a toxic "friend".
Fair Warning, this is going to be a LONG post, but I will try to dilute it as much as possible.
About 12 years ago I left the world of retail (of which I have MANY stories) to begin a career in childcare. Some people prefer different titles, Nanny, Babysitter, Parents' Helper, Childcare Provider, etc. To be honest each of those titles are suitable in different situations.
The first family that I Nannied for went on for about 4 years, and then on again off again for another year. Through this family, I met "Wendy" and her family. Wendy went out of her way to be friendly with me, and would often ask me to babysit her kids (B5 and G1).
At one point, I had moved on to working with another family for a few months. Sadly, that ended due to the parents getting a divorce, and they moved further away.
Wendy found out that I was unemployed and asked that I Nanny for her kids. She was also pregnant with her 3rd at the time. I agreed at a slightly discounted rate because we were "friends". I realized too late that that was a HUGE mistake on my part.
Wendy's live in boyfriend "Cole" also had 3 kids from a previous relationship. B15, G8, and G6 lived with their mother. Yes, am aware of the closeness in age of Wendy and Cole' B5 and his G6. I chose to keep my mouth shut.
Now prepare yourselves for the Rollercoaster of emotions I dealt with with this family.
Initially, both Wendy and Cole were employed. I would come over 5 days a week for 8 to 10 hour days, depending upon whether Wendy got home on time. Here is where my discounted rate bit me in the butt.... $300 a week was still complained about. Wendy asked that I not leave Cole alone with their kids because he basically ignored them and refused to change diapers. I felt pretty icky about that, but agreed. Now I lived 45 minutes away without traffic. I would often leave my house early in anticipation of possible traffic. If I arrived early, I wasn't allowed in until she our alloted time of 7am. I didn't have a key, and would often be left waiting on the porch an extra 15 minutes past our time. If I knew I was too early, I parked around the corner and ate breakfast. Wendy and Cole both got very irritated if I wasn't their door precisely at 7 am. It was a headache that I chose to avoid.
Over the first month, I realized that G2 was emotionally abused by Wendy. She constantly said to or in front of the child how much she hated dealing with the wild child. How she wished G2 was more well behaved like B5. She even wrote unkind things on Facebook, asking someone to take her on the weekend while I was off.
This took a toll on poor G2, obviously. She would get violent with me first thing in the mornings : Hitting, kicking, biting, pulling my hair, throwing things at me, or what ever popped into her mind. Eventually, once Wendy left for work G2 would calm down and become an absolute delight.
When B5 started school, Wendy took a new job that allowed her to work from home at times. Those were not fun days! I asked if I could bring G2 to my house where I have an outdoor play area, a playroom, plenty of kid movies, crafts, books, music, and local playgrounds. At first the car rides were torture with G2 screaming bloody murder for at least half of the 45 minute drive. When she got used to the new routine, those drives became pleasant. Her violent tendencies disappeared when we were spending the days at my home. The drawback was that I also had to drive her home in time to get B5 off the bus.
During school breaks, I also had B5, and if they were visiting G8 and G6. B15 stayed at Wendy's house and just did his own thing. If you thought G2 was torture in toddler form, these two girls would have made Nanny McPhee grow a few more moles, a hunch back, and closed feet.
B5 would get a little bored, being that he was the only boy that was understandable. I purchased an array of boy friendlier toys to entertain him. I already had a lot of girl friendly toys either purchased or gifted from the first family that I had worked with. Of course I had plenty of gender neutral items too.
Wendy and Cole didn't give 2 sh*ts and a shave if the kids watched TV all day, went out to a playground or museum, or were driven 2 hours away, as long as I got them home on time. I easily spent an entire paycheck on activities, gas, food (which they didn't pack), and toys over 2 weeks watching all 4 kids. By the by, when asked for additional money when I did have all 4, Wendy not so politely informed me that the kids are entertain each other, so my job should be easier with all 4.
My husband and I discussed a few times whether I should look for something else. Inevitably the people pleaser in me actually felt guilty even considering it. Yup, I was apparently a glutton for punishment. Gratefully, my income was just extra, for an nice meal out occasionally, gifts for birthdays and holiday, extra hobbies, and basic groceries.
Just before Wendy gave birth to their new baby, she became unemployed. Logically, one would think this was my easy out. NOPE!! I became more of a Mother's Helper / Nanny. At this point Wendy and Cole were beginning to look for a larger house to rent. I did more walk through than I can count. She even asked me to tour a couple without her, and to bring G2 and B5 so she could get her nails done and take a nap. (Seriously, I toured houses on her list without her!)
As we spent more and more time together, I began to learn FAR FAR more about her bedroom life than I could ever desire. G2 and I spent much less time in the peace of my home, and way too much in Wendy's company. G2's behavior began to deteriorate slowly, causing Wendy to lose her temper with her far too easily. This completely broke my heart. I TRIED to redirect them both, and expressed my concern to Wendy. Of course, she then turned her anger towards me.
Wendy would openly discuss her theories about Cole in front of her kids. She claimed that he was cheating on her with his ex because he would shower immediately after seeing her to pick up or drop off the kids. He often made those drives directly after work though. Maybe he was cheating, maybe not. I honestly don't know.
Wendy also enjoyed gossiping about absolutely anybody. The parents of the first family that worked with were having marital issues. This was a favorite topic of hers. Wendy told me about every unkind word her mother uttered in her direction. The apple obviously didn't fall far from the tree here. I was told lots of personal information about people I didn't know. The gossip made me very uncomfortable. I told her that I would prefer we not discuss the lives of people who weren't around to speak on their own behalf. This fell on deaf ears.
I became quite used to her disapproval of my loose fitting jeans and T-shirts. Working with kids, I found my favorite cartoon prints were just as possible with my tiny charges. I NEVER wear makeup or heels because I simply don't want to. My dresses always have leggings under them because it make me feel less vulnerable. I never wear shorts or above the knee skirts/dresses. That's a ME thing, not religious or cultural. I find my "uniform" of choice is ideal for working with kids. Wendy informed me more than once that it embarrassed her to be seen in public with me. She often insisted that I wear something of hers if we had to go anywhere.
My husband enjoys photography, particularly long exposure which is done at night. He has a lot of photography friends of both genders, but his best friend is a female. He also enjoys concerts and kayaking, often with an ex from high school. (He graduated in 1997). I trust my husband and have no problem with him spending time with his friends. Enter Wendy's whispers of accusations. She often "jokingly" accused him of cheating on me with these female friends. I don't enjoy concerts, crowds, or being out late; so I support his doing with people who do. At least I know he with someone if something happens. I have bad knees, which make getting in and out of a kayak difficult. Why should that stop him? Again, I told her that I trust him and that I don't appreciate her accusations joke or not. This annoyed her because she doesn't trust Cole.
I know these are major red flag issues. I know how toxic being subjected to these comments is. I also know how difficult it would be on their kids if I left too soon. I knew they needed someone who wasn't emotionally cruel. I stayed for them.
My husband and I spent 2 of our weekends helping them pack and move to house that ended up 15 minutes from us. We were thanked by words, but that was the extent of the gratitude. Wendy's mother looked after the kids while we helped them move. This was complained about because I was already paid to watch the kids during the week. Insert eye roll here!! Her mom felt my husband should be willing to help them move while I watched the kids on the weekend for no extra pay. Either way, we were doing them a HUGE favor to begin with.
A family that I had briefly Nannied for prior to working for Wendy asked if I could help out every other Saturday. The dad (Nice Guy) traveled a lot for work leaving the Mom (Angelface) home alone with the kids. She just needed a day to run errands, work out, and just have time to herself. Angelface is one of the kindest women on this planet. When I did Nanny for them (2 days a week), she was in tears when she had to let me go. They couldn't justify the outgoing money at the time. She referred me to several friends. I am legitimately friend with this family, and still babysit sporadically.
Through a random discussion, I told Wendy about working with Angelface on every other Saturday. She began to tell me what to charge, how many hours to work, and what days to leave open for her just in case. Insert headache inducing eyerolls!
One Friday, Wendy's cousin arrived for a weekend visit with her baby. Wendy told me that because it was a holiday weekend I would not be needed until Tuesday. I double checked via text, and she confirmed that she and Cole were taking the kids to the beach with her cousin. Monday morning I got a call from a passed off Wendy asking where I am. I reminded her that she had told me that they would not need me. I even took a screen shot of our text. She said that Cole had decided to work Monday anyway so she was alone with HER kids. This pissed me off, so I lied. I told her that I was out of town with my mom and wouldn't be home until 5 or 6 pm. She went on about how much of an inconvenience it was to her, and I should have checked before going out of town. For the second time, I sent her a screenshot of my text verifying that I wasn't needed Monday. She abruptly ended the call saying to just be sure to be on time Tuesday. I had NEVER been late, but opted to mention that as we hung up.
Over time we worked out a new arrangement where I brought now G3 to my house 2 days a week, and we stayed there 3 days a week. I helped with cleaning, errands, helped with the new baby (NB), etc. Mostly, I was Wendy's sounding board. She continued to accuse Cole of cheating, wasting money, and even beating her.
My husband and I offered to let her and the kids stay with us, but she declined. Wendy even told me that since she was so sure Cole was cheating, she was going to find herself a side boyfriend to cheat with. I tried to talk her out of it, to no avail. Sadly, she spoke openly about her new boyfriend in fron of G3. During one of her rants I learned that my pay came from him selling drugs. GULP!!
While cleaning out the couch one day, I came across a loaded gun kept in the couch console thing, along with baggies of pills, "dried plants", and white powder. This completely freaked me out. 2 small children and a soon to be crawling baby sat and played on and around that couch. I STRONGLY considered calling Child Pretective Services and the police. I quickly realized that if I did, they would know it was me. I regret it, but I feared their possible retaliation towards us.
Shortly after finding these thing Cole quit his job. For several months while I worked for them, they were both unemployed. Again, I thought it was an easy out. NOPE AGAIN! For another 3 months, they insisted that they couldn't take care of the house and kids without my help. Very often, I arrived to find now B6 fending for himself for breakfast and getting ready for school. He was told to wake up and unlock the door for me, but they went back to sleep. I was expected to keep the baby from crying, and to keep G3 quiet and entertained until they came downstairs. I often chose to simply take both to my house so we could play naturally. We had a crib, so this wasn't a problem for NB. G3 would just nap on the couch or my bed. When out of school B6 preferred this too. This really should have told Wendy and Cole something about their kids, but of course not.
FINALLY, I was informed after about a year of working for them, they could no longer justify paying me. At this point, I had often considered quitting anyway. I mainly stayed because my heart broke for the kids. However, based on her gossipy and judgmental nature ... not to mention my little 3 day weekend fail; I was concerned about what kind of reference Wendy would provide if I chose to quit.
So in 2019, I found myself happily unemployed. The timing here worked out beautifully because Angelface knew neighbors due to have their first baby in 2020. I ended up working for this lovely family until August of 2023. The mom (Joy) and the Dad (Mr. Cool) were such a relief to my entire mental and physical health. We became friends as well, and over time I told them about Wendy. Between Joy, Angelface, Mr. Cool, Nice Guy, my husband, and family I began to realize just hoe toxic Wendy really was to my mental health. My husband never liked her but understood my feelings towards the kids.
For almost a year Wendy would randomly call or FaceTime me .... more often than not while drunk. She would rave about how much she and the kids missed me. We would get together for a meal, and she had me over for a couple birthday parties for the kids. I found myself almost always being the only sober adult watching the kids as the adults partied. Wendy often went back to her gossiping, trash talking, and "jokes" about my husband spending time with women. She would offer underhanded compliments. "It's so nice to see you wearing a dress instead of those tacky T-shirts." You get the drift. She even INFORMED me that since her neighbor was pregnant I could quit my job with Joy and Mr. Cool. She had told her neighbor that I would work for her now, and since they were next door, I would watch her own kids too. I shut that down saying that I was quite happy working with Joy and Mr. Cool. I even lied about what they paid thinking it would detur her further. NOPE yet again. She said that I should quit anyway so her life would be easier with me around. Once more, I told her that wasn't going to happen.
AT LONG LAST, I am coming to the end of my tortuous endurment with Wendy.
A week later, she called and asked if I had quit yet. I said that I had no intention of leaving an "$800" a week job. (Not even close to that with my 3 day a week job, but she didn't need to know the truth.) She told me to let her know when I quit, then changed the subject towards gossiping about that first family and their problems. I told her that I don't feel comfortable gossiping about people who can't speak for themselves. That pissed her off, so she turned it on me again. She said of course I don't want to talk about them since my husband was cheating on me with 2 different women. I angrily corrected her. She has no reason to think my husband is cheating, and I trust him and our friends. Just because she thinks her boyfriend cheats, and she cheats, that doesn't mean everybody does. She then said we could talk when I calmed down and after I quit my job.
After hanging up, I proceeded to block Wendy on everything! Facebook, phone calls, texting, face timing, Instagram, and even Snapchat (which I hadn't used in over a year). I also blocked her mom, and any body that had been friendly simply because Wendy knew them and wanted me to have their information too. I gave her no warning at all. I was beyond passed off, and refused to be talked out of my very gratifying decision.
I told my husband, family, and friends that was now free of Wendy. Not a single person tried to tell me to make ammends. The only guilt that I feel is towards those poor kids. For once though, I put myself first. Joy and Angelface were both extremely supportive when I told them that I had Ghosted Wendy. Both even mentioned how proud they were of me for FINALLY truly stand-up for myself. They were NOT fans of Wendy!!!
I never ended up quitting my job with Joy and Mr. Cool inorder to babysit Wendy's neighbor. I also continued to babysit for Angelface and Nice Guy.
About 7 or 8 months ago, I ran into Wendy at a playground between our two homes. She was with now G5 and B2. I had Joy and Mr. Cool's daughter with me. I was polite, almost obscenely so. I was friendly towards the kids, who were stand off-ish. I offered to let Little Miss play with them, but they weren't interested. Little Miss wanted to do her own thing, so off we went to play. We left after only 15 minutes because Little Miss said "that lady" is scaring her.
That night, my husband got a Facebook message from Wendy. She described my cruelty towards her kids by ignoring them. She said that it was so hateful that I blocked her on everything after all she had done for us. This message went on and on. My husband left it unread for months before my morbid curiosity caused me to open the silly thing. We never responded, but instead he finally bl9cked her too.
Ok, if you read that bloody novel of a post, you are a ROCK STAR!! I don't have any regrets towards my eventual choice, except towards the kids. It breaks my heart knowing what kind of parents they are enduring. I often regret not calling CPS, but there isn't a shadow of doubt that would have retaliated .... most likely violently.
I did eventually get back in contact with that very first Nanny family. They had indeed broken up, but both are happier and healthier now. I warned them that Wendy enjoyed gossiping and spreading rumors about them. Neither were surprised, and both had broken contact with Wendy long ago. They supported my choice to break ties with her as well. Shocking, right!?!
I no longer work full time for Joy and Mr. Cool, as they wanted Little Miss to get used to being around more kids before starting school. I do still sporadically babysit for them and Angelface and Nice Guy though. The two couples have referred me to several other families in the neighborhood, so I stay pretty busy with much more sane individuals.
Maybe I was an A-Hole, and petty. I'm cool with being thought of that way towards Wendy. At least now, I have much kinder people in my life.
EDITED/UPDATE: It has come to my attention that some may feel unfulfilled on the petty revenge side. For this former doormat, removing myself as her very cheap childcare was my revenge. I realize that many may not feel it was enough, but at the time, it was a MAJOR achievement for me. I had worked 8 to 10 hours a day for 5 days a week to receive $300.
When "invited" to parties, I ended up providing free childcare while the other adults got drunk. I don't like the taste of alcohol or the feeling of being buzzed or drunk, so I don't partake. I feared what would happen to the ignored kids, so I found myself watching them.
I never had a lot of friends, so for a long time, I truly thought Wendy was my friend. It took conversations with my husband, my mom, Angelface, Joy, and others for me to see the reality of my situation.
Some may say this post is in fact gossiping about her. To a point, yes I will agree. I did change everybody's names though.
Ultimately, I have always questioned whether or not I was fair or did the right thing by Ghosting and blocking Wendy. I often second guess my choice; especially when thinking about those kids.
I have tried to be more alert about the people around me since this experience. I do still find myself being too nice and accepting of some ways in which I am treated. I have tried to build more boundaries though.

So the title pretty much gives a bit of an overview. I, (15 f) have a sister who we’ll call Angie (18f), and one more sister who I’ll call Julie (30f another thing to note is that Julie is my half sister, we have different fathers) my father (51) married a woman who we’ll call Nancy (55). When I was 8 years old in 2017, my mother passed away from cancer. It hit my family hard. My father remarried in 2022 after dating Nancy for about 5 years. Now to get into what’s happening. Angie and Nancy used to be on better terms but their relationship has deteriorated. Angie constantly claims that Nancy is saying mean things ex. “You put so many miles on my car today because you decided your job had to be out here.” And according to Angie “All the stress you were causing me put me in the hospital.” And according to Julie “she did that because she felt as if her mother didn’t love her.” (That one in particular worries me)
Now, Angie has been saying that Nancy has a said these things (there are many more examples-) but my father ignores everything Angie claims Nancy has said. I know that things are only from Angie’s point of view and she’s the one telling the stories but I think it’s concerning that my sister is saying all this and my father won’t look into it especially after Julie’s attempted intervention about a year back. Julie and her boyfriend talked to my dad and Nancy about what had been going on and how Angie felt bullied by an adult and nothing came of it but my father saying that we couldn’t tell what was going on the house to Julie anymore.
Now with a recent huge fight my sister had with Nancy I’m concerned and asked my father for family therapy. He said okay and that Nancy would probably do it but I cant convince Angie to. I want to intervene so there are less problems but my father doesn’t really listen, even after the conversations I’ve had where I try to bring up what Angie says has happened, he listens but acts more so like Angie is lying about everything. I’m not going to act like Angie and I are complete angels, as we have said some things that have definitely upset Nancy.
However at this point I feel like what Angie has been saying is really concerning and I want to get help for it. My father is confused as to why I’m bringing up issues now instead of before but when they got together I was still only 8 so I feel like I wouldn’t have noticed things that were bad. At this point Angie feels like my father has chosen Nancy over us and I’m starting to feel that way too. I want to do something before our relationships are broken beyond repair. I’m sorry if this post was a mess, I'm pretty upset right now. Either way, does anyone have any advice? I know I can’t make Angie go to therapy if she doesn’t want it but I also know that it could help us to not fight as much in the future and repair what’s damaged- so random strangers on the internet, what do I do?

I'm trying to plan all of this out for my family, but I haven't been since they changed from Fast Pass, and I have never park hopped. I know its ambitious, but we are all adults so it won't be the end of the world if we can't fit something, and we don't have to worry about kids needing to rest throughout the day, etc. We are going next week, May 21-26, but we are staying at the Margaritaville resort and we are only doing 2 Disney days with park hopper. I have so many questions and I am very overwhelmed because the more I read about genie and park hopping the more confused I get lol.
We are planning to do AK to Epcot on that Wednesday, have a break Thursday, and then do HS to MK on Friday (so we get the later park open time for MK). We are also definitely going to do genie + and are very open to doing ILL as well if needed.
Some must do's in each park:
Day 1
AK: FOP, Safari, dinosaur, lion king show, navi river*, and everest*
Epcot: Cosmic rewind, soarin, nemo, test track*, and have some time to walk around world showcase (we have 6:20 reservations at tutto Italia)
Day 2
HS: runaway railway*, ROR, slinky*, toy story mania, and build lightsaber (we dont have much interest in HS, but my brother wants to build a lightsaber so we don't really have to stay here that long if we need more time in MK)
MK: pirates, tron, 7 dwarfs*, space mountain*, jungle cruise, pirates, haunted mansion, big thunder*, fireworks
*My family isn't huge on rides (esp rollercoasters) except for me and I have been on most of these rides, so these ones aren't a huge deal if we have to skip but I would like to go on if we do have the time.
So here's my questions

1. What are the crowds typically like at that time? Do you think it will be less busy since Tiana is opening so soon after, maybe people will want to wait to go until that opens?
   
2. This is the big one. HOW do I go about arranging getting on as many of these rides as possible? I am lost with how genie works and would appreciate sooo much if someone could tell me what times I should try to book what rides/in what order I should try for etc. I understand generally the difference between genie + and ILL, but I get confused once you throw VQ in there too (have never used this). Idk what I should try to do first thing in the morning, what rides we should run to first at open, etc. Also with park hopping, how does that work? How do you time things so that your lightening lane entries and VQ don't clash?
   
3. Continuation of the last question kinda, but I don't understand the rules of when you can book your next lightening lane entry? And how does that work with not being able to enter the second park until 2pm?
   
4. Can I have someone log into my account on their phone so we can try to book both a VQ and a genie + reservation at the same time? Also, these both start at 7am if I'm off property correct?
   
5. Does ILL "run out"? Do you also have to book that first thing in the morning? Or can you typically book that whenever throughout the day?
   

I was born on Feb. 24th 1996 and thought I would share a list of 10 things which I feel made up some of my childhood (everything I refer to will be cultural, not entirely personal). I’d love to hear how many people also experienced these things regardless of your age. Also feel free to share defining moments of your childhood!

1. Beanie babies. Although the “craze” occurred in my earliest years of life, beanie babies made up an important part of my childhood. We had at least 150+ that my mom began collecting around 1994 (I have older sisters born in 1990 and 1993). We continued getting new beanie babies throughout the early 2000s. I distinctly remember going to toys r us in 1999 for beanie babies and having to wait hours in a line- it was miserable, I was three. My mom never got sucked into a craze like that again lol.
   
2. Gameboy Advance SP which I got for Christmas ‘03. I played Zelda, Mario and Kirby. Then, Nintendo DS- Nintendogs and Super Mario Bros 64 were my favorite games.
   
3. Barbie’s. I even got the OG pregnant Barbie with the magnetic belly in 2003 before it was pulled from shelfs, and it was my favorite Barbie of all. I specifically recall getting it from toys r us and being so excited! I would spend hours playing with them, making up elaborate stories and situations for them.
   
4. The Sims 1-4. The Sims 1, along with Freddie Fish and Spy Fox, was one of my first computer games. I played it before I could read well, so 5 and 6. I gave every single one of my Sims’s the same name because it was the only one I knew how to spell other than my own (it was Anna for guys and gals lol).
   
5. Cable TV. Here’s one I’m sure I’ll share with everyone born before like ‘07. Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network, ABC and Animal Planet primarily from 1998-2007, so whatever shows aired during that time I watched (even those that weren’t targeted for my age due to having older sisters). In middle and high school (2007-2014) I mostly watched Fox (not news), ABC, reality shows, discovery Channel, Animal Planet, MTV, Comedy Central and Adult Swim. Around 2012 or 2013 I mostly used streaming. My favorite show in high school was Skins and I modeled my life after Effy- I turned out okay though I swear. Adding to this section, VHS, DVDs and Blockbuster were also a huge part of my childhood. We walked to blockbuster frequently as a family until I was 11 or so.
   
6. Tamagotchis. These guys had a huge resurgence in the mid-00s. I brought mine everywhere with me and most pics of me from 04-06 include at least two tamagotchis somewhere lol.
   
7. Home phones and Feature phones. Got my first flip phone for my 12th bday, got a slide both ways phone when I was 14, a knock off blackberry when I was 15, and my first iPhone at 17 in summer-2013 before my senior year. All of my phones before my iPhone were pay as you go phones so I pretty much only talked on my house phone until I was a senior in HS. My sisters and I got our own landline in 2005 and it was a fight everyday. I’d talk to my best friends for HOURS almost everyday, and usually one of my sisters would be listening in on the other phone 🙄
   
8. iPods. I first pirated music from Limewire, then from YouTube to MP3. Starting with the second gen IPod Nano in 2006 (prior to this I only used CDs) and ending with the iPod touch 4th gen in 2010 which i used until I got my first iPhone. I probably spent months of my life pirating music from 2006-2013.
   
9. Robot animals. Furby. Shelby. Poo-Chis. RoboBaby. Fur Real Friends. I LOVED every robot animal and they were a huge trend for kids in the late 90s-mid 00s. I 100% believe games such as nintendogs ended this trend.
   
10. Flashlight hide and seek, kickball, capture the flag with neighbors. It seemed like every neighborhood had a group of kids that would meet up regularly to play these games in large groups throughout the 2000s. I have no idea when this disappeared, but i continued this until 09, then I outgrew it. After ‘09 I barely ever saw kids playing in the field we used. It’s like it just died with the 2000s.
    

I could obviously go on but I’ll leave it there!

Hey all, I finally had my first reddit worthy experience; it might not be hall of fame horror but it’s packed with lesson to be learned.
Our table in question is an all adult (late 20s to mid 30s) respectfully rated R “friends only” crew. This is the story of how someone went from being in our wedding party to kicked out of our adventuring party.
Our crew: Myself, first time DM with a management day job. My spouse, Fighter, who’s a brand new player. Another married couple: Land Druid and Wizard, who generally host the game. Wizard and Land Druid have a kid who's great and only relevant for context on some of the bad behavior later. And finally our star of the hour, a Moon Druid problem player I'll be referring to as Rude Druid.
The story begins before Fighter and I were married and I had gotten into playing at a virtual 5e table with some work colleagues during the quaren-times. Once we all got our "go outside pass" I decided to try my hand at running a table. Fighter and I were not yet living together and we'd made a friend through an app who definitely had some "quirks" but was a fun hang and we had a lot of shared interests, one of which being tabletop. The three of us had discussed getting a 5e game rolling if we could fill out a party and Rude Druid previously was a "forever DM" so was excited to get into the player seat even though it would mean commuting about an hour to attend. Fighter met and made friends with land druid and then we all met at a “yard games and hang” party some time later where I and Wizard shared their interest in tabletop and boom-bam-pow a campaign is born. Various members of the group have various neural divergences as well as histories of (lets politely say) big bad events in their past that made a thorough session zero a must. We all agreed on where our lines and veils were and months of happy dice rolling ensue without issue.
Along the way there were some yellow flags:
Since two players were playing druids and crowd control (CC) became a major mechanic, the DM invested in some gridded combat tools and put significant effort into making CC a fun and valuable part of combat and would mix in “smart” enemies and “dumb” ones to allow for the druids to have their awesome moments but not completely take over every combat. Rude Druid constantly tried to break the grid rules of their AOE spells and even got in an open argument with DM who insisted they adhere to the published rules. One such disagreement ending with the classic Rude Druid: “I’d allow it at my table”DM: “We’re not at your table, we’re at my table and we’re following the grid combat rules”That should have been the end of that right? Would you believe the DM had to call out the player for attempting to break AOE rules several more times? Rude druid also used wild shape to access an area unavailable to the rest of the party, which was fine until they then went on to refuse to rejoin the rest of the party and insisted on their own little side adventure. They even refused the party directly asking the player to come back so they could play as well. Eventually the DM said “We’ll now cut back to the party, you may rejoin whenever you feel like it” and had to remind the player about the “don’t split the party” agreement discussed in session 0. Sadly the yellow flags turned crimson and led to some major boundary crossing. While DM had offered their guest room to the druid for nights they didn’t want to drive home, the expectations got out of hand. They first switched from driving to taking public transport, which was their prerogative, but then expected rides too and from the transit station during working hours. The fighter took care of the driving for a while because they worked a later shift and the two were friends. But then the schedule expanded to needed to be taken for food, expecting to go rock-climbing every time, etc etc and the DM’s “you can crash here and head out whenever” turned into an expectation of a 24 hour commitment of the Fighter being the druid’s personal entertainer and driver. Fighter actually left the game for a short time to deal with life stuff and druid tried to guilt other members into taking over the extra driving, which we all refused. Rude druid is also the most disgusting eater that I’ve ever experienced in my life and both I and another member of the party have misophonia which we’d brought up multiple times making it clear “this is extremely unpleasant for us. Please get it under control”. The sound effects got so bad the hosts had to resort to BANNING snacks from DND night because it was impossible for 2 of us to participate in the game. I promise you, it was so bad you’d have done the same.In the midst of all this DM and Fighter got married, navigated some difficult decisions on housing, moved in together, and now DM no longer had a spare room to offer. Shortly after moving in fighter had two major illnesses that included multiple trips to the hospital and the DM made it clear that the offer of a spare room was no longer on the table for obvious reasons. We all expected the druid to control their alcohol consumption and drive themselves home after the sessions. Rude druid instead invited themselves to crash at the host couple’s house and forced an extremely uncomfortable “that’s not okay, we don’t really do that”. It’s at this point that I’ll remind you that the host couple has a kid and I’ll roll the clock back to a point in time when rude druid quit their job. While telling the story included details that used explicitly violent language. We assumed it was probably hyperbole, but several of us have experienced violence in a way that makes us very not okay with what they were saying. We expressed that sentiment at the time making it clear none of us were ok of threats of violence, even if they weren’t genuine. Rude druid went on to reiterate their anger several more times at various different sessions and to this date I don’t they would have done anything violent but it was WAY over the line and NOT the kind of person you welcome into your home with a young kid. Yet they still seemed completely shocked when trying to stay over at their house was met with a hard no. And finally came the day that we all had enough and the decision was made not to invite them back. Two members of the party were in the final semester of advanced degrees on top of their full time jobs and made it known that they needed to pause the game until after finals because they didn’t have the time or mental energy to commit to the game. The DM and other player immediately understood, wished them the best, and agreed to shelf the game until after graduation. Rude druid did everything in their power to guilt them into continuing to play stating that it would be “good for their mental health” despite this player being the exact opposite of who you’d want mental health advice from. Around this same time the entire crew also attended the DMs birthday party where Rude Druid tried pressuring DM and Fighter to stay while over imbibing in various substances legal in the state this story occurs. This player had to have a pipe physically taken out of their hands and told “you have to drive home, sober up” after repeatedly helping themselves to another attendees scoobie snacks and being an outright jerk to a number of other people in attendance. We had to do a bit of an apology tour with other good friends who were rightly pissed off at various drunken selfish antics and promised that they’d never have to deal with rude druid again.
Our collective limits had been reached, all the other party members got together and unanimously agreed to 86 the player from all of our lives. I wish rude druid the best and I truly hope they can learn to ever consider anyone other than themself, but I for one will not be there to see it.
Happy ending: the players all graduated with flying colors, the game is back on, and rude druid’s character has technically become an NPC that’s “over there” but honestly won’t ever come up again. The game lives on and the rest of us are still good friends with a newly raised bar for what it takes to sit at our table.
As promised, here’s a few easy rules to live by so that you won’t ever experience rude druid’s fall from grace.

• It’s your responsibility to get safely to and from the game. If you’re driving then keep yourself sober. If you can’t handle that, then you shouldn’t consume at all.
• Don’t invite yourself to other people’s house. It’s never okay to impose like that. It’s fine to ask “would anyone be willing to have me” but remember that it’s within everyone’s right to not volunteer.
• Value other people’s time. Remember that no one owes you 24 hours of chauffeur service just because you’re unemployed and bored.
• Don’t split the party or break the rules. Optimization is fine, cheating is not. DnD is a social game and everyone, including the DM, is supposed to have fun and take turns sharing the spotlight.
• Chew with your mouth closed FFS.

For context, I’m 22 and no longer living with my parents. I’ve never heard any similar stories of parents like mine (yet) and it makes me feel a bit crazy, and I’m not sure where to take the relationship. My parents, mostly my mom, could be SUPER loving. Like saying how I’m perfect, they’re proud of me, I’m the best thing that ever happened to her, I’m her treasure, cuddles, bending over backwards for me. We did have nice moments and I’m not discounting that.
BUT the household is/was volatile. From early childhood I can remember being called a bitch, selfish, slut, I’m abusive and horrible, how I ruin everything and make everyone’s life miserable (I had childhood depression/isolated myself), making fun of me, saying I’m pathetic if cried, freaking out in public at me (smashing my stuff, threatening to beat me, yelling, swearing, etc), some physical abuse, my hair was left completely matted for a year (?!), silent treatment, threatening to send me away etc etc the list goes on. Honestly I’m also pretty upset that my mental health was ignored to the point where I had to go on meds behind their back, my SH wasn’t discussed, I almost starved myself to death and they didn’t even notice I was hospitalised. Anyway, I can add more but basically it was very inconsistent, but I KNOW they love me and didn’t mean to hurt me long-term. But how do you even broach that topic or try to move past that?
I still feel like I’m walking on eggshells even though I’m an adult. I don’t feel like I can talk about it to them properly because they’re both very emotional, and I don’t want to hurt them. I have some contact with my parents (text every few days, visit for a couple days every couple months) and I’d like more contact with them. We have a decent relationship now and I’m grateful for all their support (e.g. paying my rent which is how I could move out this year) and I do really love them but I feel uncomfortable when I’m around them, but then I feel really guilty for that and I feel guilty for having less contact with them than they want. I feel guilty for considering it potentially abuse too.
If nothing else, were anyone else’s parents like walking oxymorons?

Kingmaker: A Game of Thrones in Brevoy
System: Dungeons & Dragons 5e
Format: Discord Text pbp
No. of Players: 5
[Notice: This is a 18+ campaign. It contains NSFW and adult elements.]

The same message has appeared on bounty boards and in taverns across Brevoy.
HEROES WANTED!
Those able of body and brave of heart are invited to the mansion of Lady Jamandi Aldori, Swordlord & Chief Defender of Restov, to embark on an expedition into the Stolen Lands.
Bandits and monsters have been allowed to infest our southern borders for far too long. Those selected will be divided into groups and given a charter to reopen old trade routes and secure the surrounding territory. The brave-hearted mercenaries and adventurers who choose to take on this quest will face unimaginable danger, but whomever succeeds shall receive honor, glory, and a noble title granting dominion over the lands they've claimed to pass on their children.

For generations, the Stolen Lands have spanned the southern border of Brevoy. Many attempts have been made to settle them, but to date, none have succeeded, making these 35,000 square miles of wilderness the largest swath of unclaimed land in the entire region. As tensions mount in Brevoy, one ambitious swordlord hopes to change that fact.
Lady Jamandi Aldori is issuing charters to several groups of adventurers, sending them south into the Stolen Lands to reopen old trade routes and defeat the bandits and monsters who have made them too dangerous to use. By sending free agents south, this swordlord of Rostland hopes to alter the political balance of power in Brevoy without sacrificing her own position or forces. Yet, as with most complex and brilliant plans, the future holds plenty of opportunities for disaster.

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."

Hello! I'm a longtime DM and a huge fan of A Song of Ice & Fire. I'm looking to run a campaign that's heavily influenced by the series I hold so dear. If you're a casual fan who's only seen Game of Thrones or House or the Dragon, you're more than welcome! The main things I'm looking for here are quality roleplay and enthusiasm. If you've got that, I promise we can have a good game together.

"Winter is coming."

Kingmaker is an Adventure Path originally designed by Paizo for the Pathfinder RPG but has been converted to be compatible with the 5th edition D&D ruleset. I'm taking so serious liberties with it but the bones of the adventure remain the same. Kingmaker is a high fantasy campaign that thrusts the player characters into a unique situation of building their own kingdom and carving out their own niche upon the world. You may be a scion of a lesser branch of the great families with ambitions that can't be hindered by your place in the succession. You could be a commoner whose witnessed your humble community suffer at the hands of the lawless bandits pillaging the countryside and will take on this great challenge so your family can live free. Perhaps you are a bastard child of a powerful figure and now seek to carve out your own kingdom knowing that you stand to inherit nothing you don't build for yourself.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."

I've got a couple of expectations for the characters that will be brought into the adventure. I am looking for characters with reasons to have a desire to venture into hostile territory and work as a team to build a kingdom. Good or evil doesn't matter but chaos doesn't serve to further the group. So, no chaotic alignment will be allowed. This is not the campaign for chaotic evil players looking to betray the other players, loners or free-spirited vagabonds.

"Backstabbing doesn't prepare you for a fight, and that's all the realm is now. Backstabbing and scheming and arse-licking and money-grubbing."

Political intrigue is a pillar of the series inspiring this and a big part of my plans, but in order to keep charisma from being everyone's primary stat I will be using a reputation system to even the playing field when dealing with individuals of consequence. In certain circles, a knight renowned for their honor and bravery is going to be as respected and influential, if not more, as a traditional face will be anywhere else. I think this will do a lot to allow the party to have a proper balance of classes with no one feeling handicapped in the social aspects.

"Let me give you some counsel, bastard. Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you."

You may have noticed the tag, and the catch is: This is an adult only game, featuring erotic roleplay where characters can engage in sexual activities with no fade-to-black, etc. Lewd events, plans, consequences, and more are all on the table in this campaign. If you've watched either of the shows on HBO, this probably isn't much of a surprise to you. I'd like to be clear that just because it's on the table, this game will not become a raunchy, never ending orgy. There is usually meaning behind how sex is used in the series and that's what I'm looking to emulate.

"Distrusting me was the wisest thing you've done since you climbed off your horse."

GRRM often uses the intimate scenes to peel back layers to a character. Sometimes to paint them in a different light, other times to drive them further into the role he wishes to present them to the reader in. Some examples would be Tyrion's lingering trauma and emotional vulnerability, driving him to purchase the closest thing he believes he can have to real love being a way to earn Tyrion the reader's sympathy. Contrast that with Cersei's narcissism making her seek lovers, she can view as idealized male versions of herself, the only match worthy in her deranged mind. Or how Littlefinger justifies his pitiless ambition, being something forced on him by a cruel and unfair world that's kept him and his one true love apart by no fault of their own.

"Love is the death of duty."

PCs are encouraged to find and nurture romantic relationships with other characters or NPCs. Weddings are considered the truest way of sealing alliances, after all. Beyond the love lives of the characters, there are many other scenarios. A corrupt noble might be willing to trade information to carry on an affair on their spouse. A sex scandal could undermine the legitimacy of a claimant in a contested succession. Barbarian raiders may attack a village under your protection and take the women as slaves. Spies might attempt to seduce you in order to secure a position in your court and feed information to a rival house. A neighboring tyrant might earn your ire when reports of him abusing his authority to take advantage of an unfortunate captive or innocent reaches you.

"The things I do for love."

Because I'm sure it needs to be said. ERP will not be my main focus while running this; it may or may not even happen on my end. I'll already be responsible for the story, so trying to match everyone's taste in smut on top of that might be biting off more than I can chew. That being said, I'm all for your characters sharing a tent during the long weeks of adventuring because I think a good amount of sexual tension adds player investment and fun to the story. While I'm not promising anything, I'm not firmly ruling things out on my end either. You all could charm your way into a few NPC's pants to loosen a secret from their lips or secure a favor down the road. You might decide to blow your coins on prostitutes while visiting the capital. If the scene serves the story (or I'm just feeling horny that day), I may indulge you! Just wanted to make sure you're aware that just because I am open to ERP does not mean I'm making a commitment to provide it to everyone, expecting all players to take part in it, or putting it ahead of the actual campaign in any capacity.

"There are no other men like me. Only me."

If it's not apparent by now, I'm very serious about making this game something great. I love the ASOIAF books; I love the adventure path; I love the cRPG, and I desperately want to do justice by all three influences. Expect a bit of gritty realism and tragedy in this story. Your triumphs will be hard fought. Your holdings will face constant peril. Your enemies will always be lurking with their knives out for the moment you drop your guard. However, the rewards for your success in this campaign are unlike any other. I truly don't think there is another adventure that matches the sense of accomplishment that comes from taking a stretch of hostile wilderness and carving your own thriving kingdom from it.

"Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."

A little bit on my approach to DMing this. I plan on running this very differently from traditional D&D 5e. Combat is obviously what the system does the most of, but if you've ever watched GoT or HotD you'd see the main characters don't draw their swords all that often. In fact, a lot of the main cast never have their own fight scenes. I like this less is more approach a great deal and think it'll bring a lot to the pbp experience. Outside of encounters with a named enemy, I won't be using initiative. This is so the RP isn't held up by any individual's schedule. I'll also be utilizing the minion rule from 4e where all the monsters have 1 HP. Their AC remains the same, so if you have trouble hitting them, the danger remains but low damage rolls won't cause encounters to drag unnecessarily.

"Hard truths cut both ways."

Matching the tone of the books this campaign is inspired by will take collaboration. I want the heroes of this story to have lives that involve more than their swords and spells. If you’re just looking to roleplay a non-stop fantasy porno, this isn't the game for you. But if you are interested in writing a character who is enriched by getting to explore their desires, be influenced by lusts, make compromises out of attraction, and maybe even experience heartbreak if their trust and affection wound up in the wrong hands-- then you're exactly who I'm looking for!

"If I do not press my claim, my claim will be forgotten. I will not become a page in someone else's history book."

If you can't be bothered to respond to the RP for days at a time, I'm going to kick you out! Plain and simple. I won't be reaching out. I won't be constantly giving you reminders. There will be no stoppages for you to get your shit together. It's a big world, and I'm not going to hesitate to find someone else interested in actively participating in the adventure if you go ghost. I understand that IRL always comes first, so if you have the common courtesy to reach out and explain your circumstances that prevent you from putting together a couple paragraphs every day, then I will still be replacing you, but I will move your character out of the story for you to pick up later on when you can. If you can't manage to let me know what's going on, then I'm just going to forget about you and move right along so everyone else can continue the fun!

"I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards and broken things."

My plan to be pretty rules-light with this campaign since while I run a lot of D&D, I haven't run that many text games. I'm still confident I can handle it, but I'm just throwing it out there in case there are bumps along the road. If you're more experienced in the pbp arena than I am, I'd greatly appreciate your advice as things are coming together. We will be using dndbeyond and the standard discord bots. In my experience, these games work a lot better when the story is put above mechanics, so keeping things to PHB races and PHB/XgtE subclasses. If you're looking to do some awesome game-breaker build you've theory crafted for months. This may not be the game for it. I don't plan on meticulously tracking things to make sure you get your sentinel feat trigger each turn.

“Oh, my sweet summer child, what do you know about fear?”

Alright! That's my pitch. Sorry you had to read all that, but hopefully you're still interested and can see I don't have a problem handing out paragraphs, so this game ought to be in good hands. I look forward to reading your applications and will be leaving the form open for the next week while I work on the discord server.

“The night is dark and full of terrors.”

So that was a lot, but any of you who are still interested please don't hesitate! I'll be happy to have you and look forward to playing with you. As well as hopefully some fun debates about who we're rooting for in HotD season 2 as it airs.

“There is only one god, and His name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: 'not today'.”

The application link is down below! I'm going to leave it open for a week so folks don't miss out. I will be checking it regularly, so if I find a bunch of folks I like over the first couple days, I'll reach out to them, but I'm sure we all know how these sorts of games go. People may drop out or prove unreachable, so even if you're not someone who hears back from me immediately, we might be writing together soon!
The Stolen Lands await you!
https://forms.gle/bnmHsUt2Qmq5D1jK8

When I moved out for college, I was excited, and even though it almost makes me feel ashamed to admit, I was only homesick for a few days. To make a long story short, I was lucky enough to get a great job working remotely, and unlucky enough to run into some serious health issues after graduating, combined with the pandemic, meant that I spent the next few years living at home. At some point I started to feel like a loser whose life was put on pause, but I have a great relationship with my parents so I couldn’t relate to my friends when they would tall about how they could never love with their parents again. Either way, I figured I had to think about moving out. I also had adopted a dog during covid so I figured I wouldnt be too lonely. I found a great apartment outside of new york city, has a backyard for my dog, is a bit far from my friends (about an hour from mine to theirs at worst, can be a 30min drive when traffic isnt bad) so I’ll see them maybe once every week or two. This should be the start of my ‘adult life’, so why can I only think about finding someone to sublet this place and moving back in with my parents? Initially I thought it was because my dog was so anxious (he is scared of trucks/loud noises so I still cant get him to go for walks), but now I really think this is not the place for me. I could just fly in whenever I wanted to see my friends. Adding to that, my fathers health has really started declining, and it has made me realize how little time we actually have with them. Living alone has also fueled my anxiety, because my health problems have yet to be diagnosed, and I didnt realize how much my parents presence was calming me despite this. Has anyone else dealt with this? Is it possible to be an adult and still live with your parents? I will stick it out for a month to see if anything changes, but I have never wanted to go home more. Thinking about all of this has made me realize that unlike most of my friends, I really dont like the city life, I love going to bed early and waking up with the sun. I just dont know if forcing this on myself is worth being able to say that Im an adult now. Obviously I probably cant live with my parents forever, but I dont have any friends that live outside of big cities… Im really lost here, what would you do? For reference, Im about a 7hr drive from my parents now so it isnt the hardest thing to go back and visit, but I cant do it very often. I just have no idea what I would do other than move close to my friends.

By Juan Diego Velasquez
Mateo Muñoz
Juanjose moreno
Grade: 9°2
Today we are going to talk about the characters of Moving Castle and how for me I need to express them a little more, this work created by Studio Ghibli and written by Diana Wynne Jones, this is a very good movie but today we come to talk about the characters, the main character. It's Sophie and the other protagonist is Howl who is the owner of the moving castle and we have a demon called Calcifer who is in charge of moving the castle and then there are the secondary characters like Marco Turnip Head, Turnip Head, this one I think. It had an unexpected ending but that in the end in the rest of the film he had several appearances in which he was helping the characters but I think we could have investigated more about what happened to him and how he ended up doing the same with Marco which appears in Howl's castle as a helper but they don't show us how she got there, the villain is the witch of the wasteland who is a good character but she could have given us more of her role as a villain, they tell us that she loved Howl and that's why she followed him but that is not the reason, the reason is that there is a moment in the movie in which the villain fell into a trap that left her in bad shape and that makes the character fall since being a villain or better yet, such a powerful witch leaves a bad taste in mouth that howl I think it's very well done it has its concerns that feel real which is good and sophie I would have liked them to tell us more about their past that's all about the characters
The main theme of this part of the review is the animation and the music, without many twists due to the story and how Sofie visits many places with many types of backgrounds, you can appreciate in a fantastic way how the animation is capable of doing things incredible with the 2d to the point that sometimes you don't know if they used gci, it is majestic without any doubt, this was achieved with the incredible ghibli animation team and its director hayao miyazaki, a well-known man in the industry and who definitely He is the genius behind every detail of water, sky and fire, with a character completely made of fire, the music is incredible despite having about 3 songs in total, they are all enjoyable and are played at the right time, to knowing when there is something wrong, something uncomfortable or something beautiful, all this is possible thanks to the music director: Joe Hisaishi, who with a small team was able to make 3 works which were highlighted by time and remained recorded in the memory of all the people. Anyway, there are many reasons to praise this movie but if I can highlight one in particular it would be how beautiful it is, I haven't seen such beautiful things in a long time, the attention to detail is incredible.
A Beutiful movie to watch in family.
Howl's Moving Castle is a film that stands out for its engrossing story and exquisite animation, distinctive marks of Studio Ghibli. The movie is an adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones's book "Howl's Moving Castle" and was directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.
The plot centers around Sophie, a young woman working in a hat shop who, after an encounter with the mysterious wizard Howl, is cursed to become an old woman. Determined to break the spell, Sophie embarks on a magical adventure, finding allies like the fire demon Calcifer and the wizard's apprentice Markl. Together, they inhabit Howl's moving castle, a marvel of magical engineering that moves and changes shape.
The animation of the film is simply spectacular, with meticulous details and landscapes that come to life, reflecting melancholy and hope in Sophie's eyes. The characters are charismatic and complex, each with their own vulnerabilities and strengths, adding depth to the narrative.
Moreover, the film addresses profound themes such as self-love, war, and redemption, presented in a way that will resonate with both children and adults. The soundtrack perfectly complements the magical yet dense atmosphere of the film.
In summary, "Howl's Moving Castle" is a masterpiece that combines boundless fantasy with a sincere reflection on the human condition, all wrapped up in animation that is a true visual treat. It is a film that deserves to be seen and revisited, a testament to the art of storytelling through animated cinema
(Thank you for reading)
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Last year I got way into Ayn Rand. Started with Fountainhead (because of bio shock and cumtown lol), loved it. Read a few more of her books like the New Left, and Virtue of selfishness AND then Atlas shrugged. Atlas Shrugged lost me. I stopped at around 900 pages. The writing and story just wasn't compelling but I still liked a few of the concepts.
Anyways, Im curious what others think of her stance in technology and industrialization with todays perspective. From what I gather, she hates the hysterical hivemind. How nothing seems to get done when everyone's playing a game of telephone, differing every problem to the next grunt who's just as clueless to a solution as the last. She loathes altruism/virtue and sees it as a manipulation tactic to create weak spineless pander goblins who only feel redemption from the approval of others (or god). And while these don't directly correlate to technology, I feel that modern technology awards hysteria, groupthink and performative virtue. (Kind of social medias only function these days, if you ask me)
I remember a part at the beginning of Atlas Shrugged where she writes about how if peoples microwaves were taken away (in hopes to save the environment) they would probably start a riot. Everyone can preach their good intentions but the second convenience is threatened it becomes a personal attack on life itself.
From what I gather, she has a catch all attitude about technology. Yes, some of it will be bad but the progression of humanity should be pursued at nearly any cost. MAN VS THE WORLD. However technological advancement today seems less about discovering or dominating the world and more about creating a new one, via the internet, VR or even iPads in cars. I guess thats all very new and ultimately Lindy will see what sticks, but if this is the progression- it will be MAN VS THE WORLD MAN CREATED.
I have trouble seeing what todays technological advancement is leading to, other than infantilized obese Disney adults who have no self discipline. They're probably gonna have to rebrand the WHEEL CHAIR as some new luxury time saving go cart because of the gout and oil flowing through the average Americans clogged arteries. If money talks, it seems like (from observation) most of what the average person spends their money on is: digital entertainment, horrible oil infused foods and weed/booze.
Bit of a ramble but im interested if you have thought about her writings of technological and scientific advancement in todays terms where you can literally make money by being an "Influencer". Do you think she would still stand her views of technology?

This is party 2 of a discussion regarding how poly could have been handled a little better in BG3. I recommend you read through the first part here: https://new.reddit.com/BaldursGate3/comments/1crb2s7/how_the_polyamory_could_have_been_handled/ so you can get context and I sound like less of a rambling weirdo.
​
Astarion:
Out of all the discussions, people were the most confused by this choice. Not only does making him poly at the last minute feel contrary to a lot of statements he himself makes throughout his romance arc, but it also runs counter to what other characters say about him and his backstory as a whole. He is one of the most insecure characters in the game, he was trained for two hundred years to lie in order to avoid punishment, and he has far more trauma and healing to do than the other characters. Astarion is the most likely to lie about the Halsin relationship in order to avoid appearing weak or demanding. Out of the poly players who expressed disappointment, Astarion was the one that bothered them the most, since many felt he wasn’t fully consenting.
Most of my reasons for why he’s not a good poly option (from a development standpoint) have already been stated in earlier sections, so most of this will be spent diving into the “Is he fine with poly or not?” debate, which had me intrigued. (This will be the longest section and won’t be as connected to the overall topic, so if you want to skip to the Halsin part, feel free.)
I’ll start with the main arguments I see defending him being poly.
Argument 1: He says he’s fine with Halsin and the twins, so we should take him at his word.
While this can definitely be argued, and it’s not good to treat an adult man like a baby, his constant lying as a defense mechanism and current issues with sex/relationships do need to be taken into account (if not by the players then at least by the developers). There were plenty of people (some of them victims of SA) who talked about their own experience of tolerating poly because they were scared of their partner leaving or finding them too demanding/narrow minded. This led to their self-esteem and views on relationships growing worse rather than better. For someone like Astarion, who outright admits he has never had a healthy relationship and doesn’t want to lose this one, it’s understandable that people view his response as a coping mechanism rather than his own genuine feelings. There were also two different mental health professionals who reminded players that although a few victims of abuse do enter poly relationships, statistically most do not and it is far more common for them to agree to poly relationships out of pressure (which often make the person’s mental issues even worse in the long run).
Argument 2: He claims to be fine with open relationships during Act 1.
This is countered by the fact that everything he says about himself in Act 1 is a lie (unless he’s specifically talking about Cazador). He lies about wanting to sleep with you, he lies about his identity until he bites you, he claims to only care about sex (then later admits it makes him feel disgust and loathing), and he brags about his former conquests (which you later find out he regrets and feels guilt over). His statements that he’s fine with open relationships are made when choosing between him and another Origin character in Act 1 or 2, but this is also said at a time when his act is still up and he isn’t in love with the player. If you choose between him and another Origin character AFTER he confesses and let’s his guard down, he insists that he is NOT fine with sharing. “You’ve decided to replace me?” If the player says they care about both him and the other person, he’ll say, “Don’t give me that. I can see what this is.” Then he promptly breaks up with them. This second reaction is not only said using his genuine voice (whereas before he was still using his fake one), but a few poly people mentioned that this isn’t a normal reaction from someone who is fine with poly.
This isn’t to shame people who want to think Astarion is fine with it, or to judge players who went through with the poly relationship. Instead, this is once again asking the developers why they chose this option, rather than someone who wouldn’t spark so much debate or remind abuse victims of their past without giving them a dialogue option to address it. (This is a similar issue with Astarion’s brothel scene. They should have either removed it by having him say he’s not comfortable again, or at the very least, let players talk to him about it after.)
I think it’s pretty clear that after reading the discussions and evidence both sides provided, I myself lean heavily to one side. However, the main defense I personally have for the opposite side is that the writers were sometimes vague about Astarion’s true preferences and wishes. I especially felt this during the origin playthrough, where his narrator would constantly flip between him liking hedonism and despising it. It gave the impression that two opposing authors were wrestling while writing him, unable to decide where he truly stood on things. It felt similar to how the devs tried to write a respectful story of overcoming abuse and the fear of being sexualized, only to turn around and repeatedly sexualize the character in both the game and promotional material. I really wish the writers and developers had picked a lane and stuck with it.
Now I’ll get into the evidence for the counter theory: That he’s not actually open to sharing, but says he’s fine with it to avoid appearing weak or losing his partner. I personally prefer this theory because it makes the writing seem more intentional, adds more nuance to an already complex character, and feels more realistic. However, even if this is what the writer or actor were trying to convey, it’s still a far worse alternative to simply keeping him out of the poly options in the first place.

1. His hedonistic playboy persona is stated to be a façade. Anything he says in act one about being poly and wanting open relationships is stated when he is both wearing his mask and before he trusts the player. Every statement about relationships here has to be taken with a grain of salt because his mask is centered around attracting victims for Cazador. Since he hated bringing “sweet innocents” to his master, it makes sense that he would initially try to attract the opposite (“criminals and brothel goers”) by sleeping around and making a show of wanting casual relationships.
   
2. Once he gets comfortable in the relationship, he makes it clear he is looking for someone who will make him feel safe and value him for his personality over his body (“I don’t want you to think of me in terms of sex. I don’t think I want anyone to.” “How do you want me to see you?” “As a person. Is that so much to ask?”). If the player chooses to sexualize him, he will go through with it, then regret it later and break up. He makes it very clear in Act two that he’s not actually looking for casual hookups because they make him feel “ashamed and alone”. So it is odd that he’s fine with Halsin (who seems to care more about the sex and the body than the emotional bonding) and the brothel (which is solely about sex). One can argue that he’s fine with the poly relationship because he’s not taking part, but Halsin DOES wish for him to take part ‘eventually’.
   
3. Jumping off of that, Astarion’s dialogue makes it clear he wants a partner who cares about more than just sex, but if you tell him you want to date Halsin solely for the sex (and because Astarion’s not doing it with you), he will say that’s fine and he doesn’t mind the player seeking sex from others. This seems to counter his previous statements and arc. It’s especially strange that even if you reinforce his greatest insecurity (that his refusal to have sex has made his partner immediately seek out other people), he will still claim to be fine with it.
   
4. In terms of dialogue, the actor for Astarion seems to be very intentional when using the fake theatrical masking voice vs. the more genuine softspoken voice he uses when he’s comfortable and being honest. The fake voice is blatantly obvious throughout the Act 1 romance, in Act 2 if you force him to obey the blood merchant (his voice goes from genuinely scared to flirtatious and over the top within seconds), and in Cazador’s mansion where he’ll speak genuinely to you, then be over the top when addressing Cazador’s servants. He’ll often use jokes and loud laughter to conceal his true feelings and insecurities. Meanwhile his laughter in the confession scene, graveyard scene, and Spawn epilogue is quiet and subdued because he’s being genuine. It feels like a strange coincidence that when addressing both the Halsin situation and the brothel situation, his voice becomes very loud and high pitched again, he immediately starts making jokes, and his laughter is over the top. This hints at him not wanting to go along with either situation, but he’s putting himself through it because this is what his partner wants and since he’s tolerated sexual stuff he hated before, he can do it again. Plus, after killing Cazador, he wants to ensure no one views him as weak. He has to prove to himself and his lover (at least in his mind) that refusing to take the Ascendant powers was good and he’s strong enough to not need it. I can understand players not picking up on the voice changes (because not everyone is going to replay the game or even care) but those who did notice it believe it’s done intentionally (either by the actor or the writer or both). If it’s not intentional, then it’s a strange decision to make from a developer’s standpoint.
   
5. Throughout the threads I read, most poly people made it clear that poly relationships require complete trust, clear communication, and general confidence. Astarion himself admits to lacking all of those traits to some degree. If you don’t romance him, he will literally not trust any of the characters right up to the epilogue (he’ll hold a knife behind his back while talking to the Dark Urge). Even though he does seem to genuinely trust his lover by Act 2, he will still lie to them several times. He lies about being fine with the drow twins (he states he’ll leave if he hates if but never does despite disassociating), feigns confidence when the player says they’ll become a mind flayer (he says he only cares about them becoming ugly but expresses his true fears only after the fight, that he’s worried they are no longer the person he fell in love with by losing their soul), he manipulates his lover when confronting Cazador despite being conflicted about it himself and wanting reassurance, and (on a more minor note) he continuously claims he’s doesn’t care about Yenna or the Gur children despite getting upset when they’re in danger. This is a character who, even after he kills his tormentor, struggles to be honest with his partner. That isn’t a good combination when addressing poly. (Again, it could be worked through in real life, but is better avoided in video games where there isn’t time to address it).
   
6. There are also plenty of situations where he agrees to do things he outright hates. In Act 1, we know he is (at least somewhat) disgusted by having sex with the player or Laezel, but he’ll do it. In Act 2, he tries to be genuine about not wanting to touch the player until he no longer feels disgust, but if the player pressures him, he will cave and obey. He does break up with the player afterwards, but it is only after he has gone through with the act. In Act 3, he will state three times that he doesn’t want to take the tadpole, but if the player pressures him by bringing up his darkest fear, he will give in. Worse, he will give in and STILL stay with the player romantically despite them clearly manipulating him to do something they know he fears. He does thankfully break up if you fail the checks, but if you succeed, he goes through with it. If he’s willing to cave to something as huge as altering his entire body, it makes sense that he would cave to something he views as more minor (like tolerating unwanted sexual acts in a brothel or sharing his partner).
   
7. I didn’t know this until I saw others mention it but there are points where he will flirt with NPCs if he is single (the girl in the sewers), but he uses neutral dialogue if he is dating the player. This reinforces the theory that he doesn’t actually plan to sleep around or be with others as he claims (though there are some dialogues that I think slipped through the cracks where he still flirts with others despite being in a committed relationship).
   
8. If Halsin propositions you after Cazador has been killed, Astarion no longer asks if you’re doing this because he hasn’t been fulfilling your sexual needs. However, he does give another response that feels out of place: “I’ve realized it doesn’t matter if anything (in our relationship) changes.” Parallel this with what he said at the graveyard, that “no matter what happens, I don’t want to lose this (relationship).” It’s very odd to have him say he doesn’t want to lose the relationship, but then the next day he is totally okay with losing it. Granted, it is nice to know that even if the characters break up, he’ll be fine, but it does feel contradictory for his character, especially with how devastated he acts if they DO end the relationship. If the Halsin statement is just an act and he’s overcompensating, however, then it feels more intentional on the writer’s part.
   
9. I’ve seen lots of people say that Ascended Astarion also shouldn’t be fine with poly, and I agree, though it’s for different reasons than Spawn Astarion. Unlike SA, I think Ascended would absolutely do the brothel scene because 1. He’s actively suppressing his trauma and playing a new character and 2. He feels in control in the brothel and is the focus. However, with Halsin, he doesn’t have any control. For someone obsessed with possessing his lover and ensuring they can never leave him, letting them sleep with Halsin doesn’t fit his writing. He isn’t participating. He doesn’t know what they’re doing behind his back. For all he knows, Halsin and the player might be discussing how to kill Astarion or escape him. In some deleted party banter, Halsin literally tells Ascended Astarion he doesn’t approve of the abusive spawn/master relationship they’ve formed. With that knowledge, not only should Halsin not be willing to join a poly relationship that he thinks is unhealthy, but he has a motivation to help the player get away from AA (and AA would know this). I could see Spawn Astarion hesitantly agreeing to the Halsin thing despite not wanting to share, but AA just wouldn’t. It feels contrary to both his and Halsin’s writing.
   
10. This is the second most convincing piece of evidence for me: The Drow twins. If you ask Astarion to join a ‘group activity’, he’ll use his fake voice and flighty laugh and agree to go through it, saying he’ll run away if he doesn’t like it and comparing the act to burning in the sun (a little concerning that he’s already comparing the two). Then during the act, he will immediately ask the player what they want “us” to do. Not only is he lumping himself in with the prostitutes, but he is also doing something that an Origin playthrough reveals is a trigger for him (he tells the drow twins that being ‘told what to do’ reminds him of his time as a slave). If the player tries to check up on him, he ignores them and says he wishes he was drunk. Then he disassociates and never brings it up again. This has been viewed two ways: either he doesn’t want to have casual sex anymore and wants to be in a one-on-one relationship, or he does want to do stuff like this but just needs to heal more before he can. I lean toward the first assumption because he is acting flighty and fake BEFORE the sexual act even begins. If he really wanted to do it but changed his mind after, it makes more sense for him to sound genuine at first, then fake halfway through.
    

But the main thing that sticks out to me is his reaction to you asking for only ONE drow twin. If you do, he will accuse you of having a thing for prostitutes and call it embarrassing, then glare at you for the rest of the conversation. This is especially sad because not only have the player’s actions made him feel like a prostitute again, but now he seems to be wondering if you started dating him BECAUSE he was a prostitute, not for who he really is.
Compare this to the Halsin situation and the drow ‘group activity’. For Halsin, he says he was expecting this for months. He’s had several months to plan his reaction and decide what he’s willing to tolerate. Hence, he has a very rehearsed reaction. With the twins, he had less time to anticipate this but probably also worried about it (especially if the player asked about them earlier and he said no. Now he expects the player to try again and has planned accordingly). Again, this response feels rehearsed and fake. The only response where he uses his real voice is when you ask for one of the twins alone. This is something he likely wouldn’t plan for, so we get to see his gut reaction for the first time: he doesn’t want you to do it.
Now some people argue that he’s fine with Halsin and not the other Origin characters because Halsin is just a fling and won’t try to take his spot. If that’s the case, he should be fine with the twins too. If anything, they are even less of a threat. Yet he doesn’t want you to do it and responds accordingly. If he truly was poly, he would respond like Karlach did and tell you to have fun, or like Shadowheart telling you to give him a heads up first. But we don’t see that.
One other thing about the twins that I felt I could point out: if you or the twins ask to do a group activity before Cazador is killed, Astarion says he’s not comfortable with this yet. The “yet” part has been pointed out to show that he’s fine with it after Cazador has been killed (even though he still disassociates later). However, another explanation of the “yet” part is that he’s trying to soften the blow because he’s scared of using a blunt NO. We see this with Araj, the blood merchant. Even though he is absolutely disgusted with her treatment of him and how she’s “defiling” him with her fantasies, his rejections of her are very soft and nervous. Even when reinforced by his friend/lover, he says “It’s still a no, I’m afraid” with a smile. Turning down sexual encounters is tough for him, even when he has people backing him up, so I can see him using words like “yet” or “I’m afraid” to soften the blow. I know several people in real life who do this, despite later admitting there was no “yet”.
There’s another part of this dialogue with the early twins that I want to point out (really overanalyzing here but if we want to believe the writers do things intentionally/with a lot of forethought, I think it’s okay to read into the words they use). When Astarion says he’s not comfortable with the twins, the player’s response is “I wouldn’t ask such a thing of you”. This will raise his approval and make him respond positively. The promise you give him is not “I’ll ask them later, after we’ve killed Cazador” or “I would have liked to but okay” (that one doesn’t trigger his positive response). He only approves of you saying you won’t ask him to do things like this (stated in a tense that implies you will NEVER ask him to do such a thing, regardless of Cazador’s stabbed or unstabbed state). This could have been the writer hinting that if you bring him back after, you’re going back on your promise and thus have to see the disassociating scene. That…or the writer wasn’t thinking too hard and we are simply thinking too much.

1. With all that out of the way, we’ll get to the final point that solidifies this theory for me personally. It’s the statements of Shadowheart and Minthara if you ask to do a three-way relationship with one of them and Astarion. Shadowheart’s response is: “I think you’re overestimating his willingness to share. He may seem like a carefree hedonist, but there’s something fragile beneath the façade.” Minthara says something nearly identical, that sharing would wound his pride and he is far too fragile to handle it. You could even add Astarion’s line from the other end, where if you ask Astarion to share with you and Karlach, he will say they shouldn’t because Karlach loves the player and relationships are fragile (implying that he either thinks open relationships don’t work if there’s love involved, or perhaps he himself can only do open relationships if he doesn’t love the other person).

The main argument I’ve seen disproving these statements by Shadowheart and Minthara is that they’re just plain wrong about him. If so, it’s a strange writing choice to not only have both of them be wrong about the exact same thing, but they’re both high wisdom characters who are proven to understand Astarion in a lot of ways other characters don’t. (All three of them have been enslaved and manipulated, Minthara comprehends the depths of his relationship with Cazador within minutes of being in the camp, and Shadowheart is one of the closest to Astarion in terms of friendship and liking him.)
If Astarion actually is fine with poly, then it means both Shadowheart and Minthara are wrong. That means the writers either made a mistake or made a very weird writing choice.
However, if Astarion is actually pretending to be fine with sharing as they say, not only is the writing consistent but these dialogues become very clever foreshadowing. I want to give the writers the benefit of the doubt and believe they did a good job with Astarion, so I prefer to lean into the theory that he’s pretending because it makes more sense for him overall.
That was quite a long tangent and somewhat unnecessary, but he’s a character whose mannerisms and statements are meant to be heavily analyzed, so it’s fun to go more in depth. Let’s move on.

1. ISSUES WITH HOW HALSIN WAS PRESENTED

We’re finally at the last point, and in a way the direct cause of this entire thread: Halsin. Now, I have no issue with Halsin being poly (again, he’s listed as one of my four ideal options for it) but I do have several issues with how he was written and presented. The Shadowheart part I will skip over because I already got into it, but there are many other problems to address and most of them could have been fixed very easily.

1. He is not presented as poly until Act 3. I was reading through a thread full of people who loved him and several of them were early access players who had requested he become a romance option. However, the reason they requested him was very important. In EA, all three of the male options seemed immature (Wyll), condescending (Gale), or straight up evil (Astarion). Meanwhile Halsin was, in their words, a mature man who seems like the type to settle down with them in a cottage and help raise their kids. This is the impression he gives and what drew many people to him. As a result, many of these players were extremely disappointed to reach Act 3 once the game was out and discover that not only was he the complete opposite of their initial impression, but he won’t even stay with the player after the game ends (in most cases). Honestly, if I was a developer and saw that they liked him for those earlier reasons, I wouldn’t make him strictly poly because that wasn’t what the players wanted. They wanted him because he was muscular and a good, stable man. It was a very odd choice to turn around and give the players the opposite of what they asked for. But if the devs were truly determined to go the poly route, they should have at least gone back to Act 1 and 2 and slipped in some hints that he was poly. I saw some newer players who recently played the game for the first time and wanted to romance him for the aforementioned reasons (stable, mature, kind, huge). They ignored all other romances until Act 3, then got hit with the “I’m only poly” discussion. Had they known he wasn’t monogamous, they wouldn’t have blown off all the other options.
   
2. But let’s ignore that. We’re focusing on the world where he IS completely poly (though some were arguing that it should at least be an option to ask if he’ll try being monogamous with the player.) The way he is presented still has a lot of issues according to poly players. For one, the way he tries to butt in on the relationship is done in a really sketchy manner (especially considering what some of the Origin characters have gone through/are currently going through). It would have been far better to do what they did with Minsc and give the PLAYER the option to hit on Halsin, rather than the other way around. Have them offer poly to him, and then he can discuss it from there. Having the proposition come from Halsin himself puts him in a negative light, and it’s pretty clear the writers didn’t actually want to portray him as a bad person so they messed up here.
   
3. The flagging for Halsin’s dialogues is awful and despite seeing people report it for eight months, that hasn’t changed. Even if you pick the most neutral option, he will still hit on you by saying “I think you feel the same way”. Not a good idea. “I HOPE you feel the same way” would have been infinitely better. Women often have to deal with people assuming their friendly, professional conversation is something more when it isn’t. It’s not a great idea to bring that into fantasy games too. It hit too close to home for some.
   
4. Even if you use the most neutral option at the Act 1 party (“Go have fun and mingle”), your main dialogue option the next day is “Sorry for coming on so strong last night”. It’s a strange thing to say. Again, I’m not sure how developers missed this and why it was never patched out. I saw people reporting it since the release.
   
5. He will also ask for a relationship at neutral approval. In most of my playthroughs, I stopped talking to him beyond the Thaniel quest and avoided asking about his personal life. He still led his proposition with “I think you feel the same way”. How does he know when we only spoke to him three times? They should have at least required you to go through all his extra dialogues before triggering this.
   
6. When Halsin says he loves you, you have two options: reject him straight away, or ask about his opinions a little more. Oddly enough, if you ask a bit more and THEN reject him, he’ll have a proper response. “That’s fine. I understand. I won’t ask again.” However, if you reject him as soon as he starts talking to you, his response is very off putting. He’ll protest and say, “but you asked me about my former lovers” or, if you didn’t even do that, he’ll claim “you looked after me with the care of a lover, not a host.” These pushy assumptions turned a lot of people off. This is entirely on the writer, in my opinion. He should have realized how weird these sounded.
   
7. Halsin is the only person you can’t dismiss from your camp at any point through dialogue. All of the origins have to be pursued and recruited intentionally. Halsin is the only exception. This makes some sense because you need him to cure the Shadowlands, but for Act 3, he literally has nothing to do. They should have given players an option after the Ketheric fight to dismiss him and tell him to take care of the Shadowlands. It makes a lot more sense narratively and would help avoid a lot of the more awkward parts later.
   
8. Halsin’s initial dialogue about monogamy vs. polyamory is mostly fine, with him comparing it to gardens and wolves vs. bears. But (and don’t quote me on this because I can’t recall the specifics), if you ask your partner to do poly and they say no, Halsin will be a little more judgmental about your partner, saying he was hoping they would be more “open minded”. Statistically, the majority of BG3’s players are going to be monogamous, so it’s strange to see nearly every character (monogamous or poly) criticize monogamy in some way. It is called selfish, narrow minded, and old fashioned by at least 3 characters to my knowledge (Halsin, Act 1 Astarion, and even Gale (who is monogamous himself)). If the developers truly wanted to be inclusive, criticizing one’s lifestyle and having no characters openly defend it in the game (even those who practice it) is a disappointing choice. In this case, it might be an unintentional mistake (maybe they feared that by defending monogamy, they were somehow demonizing polygamy or polyamory), but it would have been better to just leave the criticisms out of it entirely if that was the case.
   

And that’s it. I think that’s all the points from myself and others that I wanted to compile. I don’t think any of this will be changed in BG3 but I hope all of these points and opinions will at least improve any future games. It’s great that BG3 was able to make nuanced characters with their own opinions and preferences—I much prefer it to “everyone is poly and no one gets mad if you cheat” games where characters feel more like statues than living beings—but I do wish they thought the poly options through more carefully (trying to make poly people comfortable while leaving room for monogamous players to enjoy the romances too).
The only feasible fix the developers could make at this point to avoid all the issues mentioned is keeping Halsin poly but removing his connections to other Origin romances (or at least Karlach and Astarion). At this point, that’s the only thing that could realistically be done. I also wish they made characters break up with you if you cheat on them in the brothel, since that’s what many people including myself would do.
Again, these opinions are my own (and those that aren’t come from a variety of comments across Youtube, Reddit, and Larian’s forums). I enjoyed getting to see so many different viewpoints and appreciated how civil (most of) the people on both sides were. It’s an interesting topic and here’s hoping game studios handle it better in the future.
If anyone reads this far and wants links to the threads, forums, and youtube comment sections, let me know.