In this post I want to break down how I think about and how I build custom B2B lead gen eco-systems that are designed to engage a cold prospect, educate and help them to then turn into $XX,XXX deals.
I'll share the metrics and best practices from my own experiences from working with around 20 b2b companies with varying deal sizes, starting from $5k marketing packages, to $90k/yr fintech solutions and $200k software dev & IT deals. If you don't agree with my approach, that's fine, there's multiple ways to skin a cat.
Fundamentals are mostly the same and we can split it in 3 main parts.

1. Traffic acquisition
2. Nurture & education mechanism
3. Conversion mechanism.

Where most businesses go wrong is that they try to sell their expensive service to a cold prospect.
That might look like cold emailing and cold "linkedining" (new term) prospects an offer or asking if they're interested in this and that, on the spot.
This is not a good approach for one simple reason - no one want's to be sold to. Not to say that this direct approach doesn't work, for some it works good enough to stay afloat, but it's not something you can use to drive real, inbound interest in your services. Selling to prospects that you get on a sales call from 1 email or DM is extremely hard since you have to do the heavy lifting to educate them on the call and then you also have to sell them.
My goal is to turn this dynamic on it's head. Yes, we want to reach out to cold prospects. Yes, we want to run ads. But not to sell immediately. Rather, we're inviting and getting those prospects into our ecosystem where if they go through your educational materials like reports, case studies, how-to's AND have a real pain, they will come to you to solve it.
Let's break it down.
Traffic acquisition.
There's 2 channels I use to acquire traffic. Sometimes I use both, sometimes one or the other. For the most part that depends on the TAM and what we're selling.
1 - Paid ads (LI and META) are great if you need volume and your deal size varies between $5k - $20k. If you get it right, it's a system that scales easily so you can control demand and growth fairly easily too. It's also very quick and easy to troubleshoot since you can change a variable and see the result in next 3 days.
The ultimate goal of paid ads is to get as many people in your funnel as possible. The only logical way to do it is using lead magnets. Industry specific reports with unique insights that only your ICP would care about, easy-to-code tools that only your ICP would find useful (calculators work great for me), guides and courses made to solve a very specific problem, you get the picture.
We're giving away this free value in exchange for their email address. I can already hear people yelling "But giving away stuff for free only attracts freebie seekers" That's because you don't have a mechanism in place to convert that opt-in into a deal. (I'll go into in the next sections)
To make a great lead magnet I follow this mantra:

1. Has to be industry and role specific
2. Has to solve 1 painful problem for the lead
3. No surface-level, bait-and-switch teasing BS. (using lead magnet as a sales page is a big no-no)

Lead magnet is your chance to build rapport, show your competence and build good will by actually helping your prospects before you ever speak with them. USE IT WISELY. I see many businesses only tease the solution. My advice - give away all your secrets. If you're vague, your leads will think that your approach is basic and you won't capture the interest.
For us, around 20% of lead magnet leads opt-in into the next step of the funnel where we ask much more details. Company name, website, name, phone, etc, etc.
Do this step right and you'll get leads from your ICP opting into your funnel in droves, for cheap.
One little hack I do whenever I launch lead magnet campaigns is create 5-10 lead magnet ideas, create the ads and the landing pages, but don't create the lead magnet itself. Then run ads to those 5-10 lead magnets and see what your cost per lead is AND see what quality leads you attract. My baseline KPI's are sub $15 CPL on the initial launch and 3 out of 10 leads be real, actual companies that fit the ICP.
If you hit that initially, you can reiterate on the ads and the LP and get your CPL way lower.
2 - Cold outreach (LI and email) is great if you're after high ticket or enterprise level deals.
Cold outreach is great for huge target markets and/or very high value accounts. You won't reach Elon Mush through ads, but you could through cold outreach.
Instead of blanket-spamming 10k leads that might or might not need our service we do this.

1. Score companies based on fit (we use AI for this on scale by giving it bad fit examples, medium fit examples and great fit examples while also describing why each is bad, medium or great. Then we ask to output a score from 1-10)
2. For companies that score 7 or higher, look at buying signals. Recent hires, open positions, growth or decline, recent funding, featured in news (why featured in news?) and, of course, technographics.
3. Companies that display positive signals AND are a fit based on scoring, we send a personalized message automatically.

90% of this happens automatically at this point, but don't get confused - it's not AI copy that gets sent out. We have a general template and framework that we base our messages upon and AI fills in the blanks. All that is based on what information we find on the companies and what state they're currently in.
"Hey Adam, saw that Houberz is looking for an engineer with deep understanding of X. I know first hand how hard it is to fill such roles.
I have a case study on how we did Y using X technology, thought you might be interested in giving it a quick read before you pull someone onboard."
This is the general gist of it. Combine it with reaching out to leads that are likely in-market and you'll average 15% reply rates. Blast 10k emails to random list and you'll get 0.5% - 1% reply rates.
That is how we get qualified traffic on the front end.
This is how we convert it into deals.
1.1 - Paid
Once you have people claiming your lead magnet, the magic happens on the thank you page. I've seen many people just have a generic thank you page that does not prompt the next action.
Wasted digital real estate.
Instead of leaving it blank, we either have a call booking page where we pitch a non-sales call that would help fix the lead a specific problem or a signup page for a live workshop.
2nd has higher opt-in rate, but has longer time-to-deal, 1st gives you 1-1 time with high value prospects, but is more expensive..
Ideally, run both. Best of both worlds.
On top of that, when someone opts in and claims your lead magnets, you can then email them on a regular basis as part of your newsletter which gives you another channel to nurture leads and throw offers their way.
2.1 - Cold outreach
As soon as you receive a positive response to your lead magnet offer, you send it over, find that person on LI and connect (so you have another channel and they see that you're a real human) then ask if they're struggling with a specific problem that your service can fix.
If they do, great, share more case studies, share how they could solve the problem themselves and then soft-pitch a meeting in which you propose to "continue the conversation"
For cold, each convo will be different so you will have to come up with helpful and relevant email responses on the fly.
Remember speed-to-lead. The faster you answer, the higher the chance of you pushing the lead to the next step of your funnel.
So do you need both of these acquisition channels? Do you also need to post on Linkedin and dance on Tiktok?
Depends on your business. Generally, the more eyes you have on you, the more deals you'll close. These two channels are foundation for myself and any business I consult, but to supplement that and build credibility, we're also heavily investing in LI organic.
Why? People who watch your ads and engage with your emails will check out your LI eventually. If it's barren, you won't leave an impression. If it's packed with valuable, funny, insightful and humanizing posts, not only your leads will connect with you, but they'll feel compelled to engage.
So it's not one system or another - it's all of them working in cohesion.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Hi!
Divination is a big part of working with spirits and this thread is one that is meant to keep the exchange of services safe for everyone. As we want to keep the anonimity as a standard, you may conduct ”public readings” for the people interested. A bunch of rules and guidelines you must be mindful of before requesting or offering divination services in this thread:
​

1. We reccomend to keep the offering of service free of charge but you can always promote your site (ex: if you liked this reading you might wanna consider supporting me by purchasing the future ones at *insert personal web page*)
2. You can pay for a reading by performing a reading for the person that provided yours
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Be respectful and happy divinating!

We are a Greek Mythology inspired RP with elements of Percy Jackson taking place in ancient Greece.
-All literacy levels welcomed.
-Unlimited OC slots
-You can play as any Gods, Demigods, Mortals, Canon or just anything.
-weekly events
-a safe place for everyone
-Open to any suggestion and non toxic!
-an easy-to-follow template
-Fair RP system
-New lore so everyone is involved.
Something dark and sinister is rising in the backgound and it is up to you and other heros of camp halfblood to save, or to be the ones to see the destruction of the Greek world. The strings of fate is in your hands.
Perm invite link, invite your friends!
https://discord.gg/st2gEh4gU2
.

Is it too much to ask that this makes it onto the channel but that my family doesn't realize it's me?
Probably, but here we go.
Who: Mom, Brother, SIL (sister-in-law), Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, Dad, and me
When: between 2020 and 2022
Where: the beach and the mountains
What: a wedding
Why: true love ❤️
Our story goes way back to before the wedding in 2022 but after the engagement of Brother and SIL in 2020. It starts in 2021 on a week long vacation to the beach for Mom's 50th birthday. We were staying in a very picturesque condo with 3 separate bedrooms that had direct beach access and the unit was absolutely beautiful with the most amazing views off the patio. On this vacation were 6 people: Mom, Brother, SIL, Aunt, Cousin, and me. We were roomed in pairs: Brother and SIL, Aunt and Cousin, Mom and me. This vacation had been planned months in advance and Mom was so excited she planned out a week of fun activities including a sunset cruise to see dolphins, mini golfing, restaurants, of course beach time, and more.
It was supposed to be a lovely week that was unfortunately marred very quickly by a nasty fight. We arrived late on a Friday and were scheduled to be out by the following Friday. Sunday night after dinner there was a massive argument between SIL and I. I don't even remember all the details now. It culminated when she called me a brat and I called her a b**** and we stormed off to our separate rooms. From here there are 2 versions of the rest of the night.
Mom's Version: While I had a massive panic attack - because I'm Mentally Sick™ - Mom went to the bedroom where Brother and SIL were. She tried to talk to them and tell SIL that she was been very mean to me. She implored SIL to apologize to me, but SIL was being stubborn and refused to talk to me. Mom eventually left the room and came to help me calm down in our room.
SIL's Version: While I had a massive panic attach - because I'm Mentally Sick™ - Mom went to the bedroom where Brother and SIL were. SIL says that Mom started screaming at her and Brother calling them all sorts of nasty names and other terrible things. She even accused SIL of being an abusive person. Meanwhile, Brother was having an epileptic seizure on the bed due to the stress of it all. SIL started crying and having a panic attack of her own as well. Eventually, Mom left the room and came to help me calm down in our room.
I believe that there is some truth in both. I think Mom thinks she was talking nicely and that SIL was being a hard a** but she was coming across a lot louder and meaner than she thought. I also think that SIL was being a little stubborn but for good reason. If she had come out to talk to me I think the fight would have escalated further and the place would have burst into a ball of flames.
Regardless, SIL and Brother stayed in their room for the next day and a half. They only came out for food and water and didn't speak to anyone else. Aunt and Cousin tried to stay out of it but were very much in the middle and it put a bad stain on their vacation. Things cooled off by Wednesday (Mom's birthday) and we all got along mostly for the rest of the week. I apologized to SIL and she apologized to me and we've been good since then. Sadly, the same is not true for SIL, Brother, and Mom.
Throughout the following months things continued to deteriorate between Brother, SIL, and Mom. I don't know all of the details of what contributed to the downfall of their relationship. I do know that Mom continued to make wild accusations at them and then backtrack and try to apologize. This cycle continued up until the wedding.
There was one big accusation that Mom made during this time that was the nail in the coffin for her. She accused Brother of marrying SIL only because she was pregnant. What's absolutely crazy about this is that Brother proposed a year and half before the wedding. They also had their location and date reserved over a year before the wedding as well. So this wasn't even close to being a possibility, but it reallyyyyyy set off Brother and SIL.
While Mom initially got a Save the Date for the wedding, she did not receive a wedding invitation when they sent out the actual invitations. She was crushed by this news that everyone else in the family got an invitation and she, the mother of the groom, did not. Mom eventually started to tell those in the family who were going - primarily Aunt, Uncle, Dad, and I - that we shouldn't be going in solidarity with her. She said that we were "choosing sides" and "against her" because we still planned on going.
Here's the thing: Dad was officiating the wedding and Uncle was a groomsman. Also, Aunt and Uncle were supplying their homemade wine for the wedding. This left Aunt and I in a tricky spot where we wanted to support Mom while she was going through a rough time, but didn't want to skip the wedding. After all, why should we forfeit our spots when Mom kept doing things to dig herself a hole.
Are you ready for the cherry on top of this putrid mess of a wedding cake? SIL and Brother did end up inviting Mom to the wedding and sent an invitation. But they did so 2 weeks before the wedding with some stipulations. She had to sit in the back during the ceremony, she wasn't allowed to go to the reception, and her 28 year old boyfriend was not allowed to come. I think there were other things as well, but those are the main ones. This sent Mom into a frenzy where she continued to make more accusations at Brother and SIL for having the restrictions and not trusting her to behave. She also continued to accuse Aunt and I for taking sides after their "disgusting behavior."
I tried to talk Brother and SIL into inviting her and at least allowing her to come to the reception. I promised I wouldn't allow anything to happen and if something did I would take Mom out. All this to no avail.
Mom decided not to go the wedding. Her reason: she already had other plans that she didn't want to cancel. She reserved a cabin in the woods for some "me time" with her boyfriend and our half-sister. Yeah, not sure how that's "me time" but that ain't my business I suppose. *insert Kermit drinking tea*
I understand that she wanted to go to the cabin she had already paid for for a weekend away. I understand that this whole incident was traumatizing for her as well since she was being excluded from her only son's wedding. She still made the decision to not go though even with the conditions to her invitation.
At the end of the day though, it was a beautiful wedding. Everything went smoothly and though Aunt and I missed her quite a bit, we were able to have a wonderful time despite her absence.
I still stand by my choice to go to the wedding because it's not like me not going would stop the whole wedding. Nothing would have changed other than I would have missed out on a fun party and one of the most important events of my brother's life. However, I want to know what you guys think. Should I have gone? Should I have done something more to try to support my mom?

Hi Charlotte, I have a wedding story for you of a wedding I had the misfortune to attend, buckle up guys, this was a train wreck.
I (31f) was always very close with my Grandma. She taught me things like how to knit, she loved teaching me how to cook and when we did family walks in the huge local park, she would "take us to get lost in the woods", because she knew how much my brother and I loved adventures.
My Grandfather always had a parade of mistresses when my Dad and his brothers were growing up, and because my Grandmother was traditional and didn't believe in divorce, she got stuck with these women being practically waved in her face. Sadly til the very end, she loved my Grandad dearly. Myself growing up, from since I can remember, the latest mistress, we'll call her X, was in the picture.
My Grandma sadly developed alzhiemers which meant that my Grandad was even less discreet, parading X around to the point where he would invite her to meals we went to where my poor Grandma was present, the worst one being one where my mother was also present, and the dynamic was Grandad flirting with my mother whilst X gave him daggers, my Grandma not really understanding what was going on, and me just wanting the ground to swallow me up.
Almost 10 years ago my Grandma's health declined, and I would go and visit her at the nursing home, and take care of her each day. My Grandad would visit her and bring X along with him, which I found insulting, but boy had I seen nothing yet.
Sadly she died, and we had a beautiful cremation service followed by a wake at a fancy hotel. Some drama was caused by my Dad's mistress turned girlfriend (I know, it runs in the family), but overall it went smoothly.
A few weeks later, Grandad arranges the scattering of the ashes. He specified no Grandchildren were allowed, which upset me considering I had been with her til the end, but it soon became apparent why. My Dad came home and told me that Grandad, at the ash scattering, announced he was getting married to X, his mistress. I was mortified as to how distasteful it was, but he chose the hotel where he held the wake for my Grandmother, and they would be married in three months time.
I didn't want to go for obvious reasons but my Dad said I had to go so that he wasn't alone. It was the biggest shit show I've had rhw misfortune to witness.
A friend from a former job came along, her job being to ply me with alcohol throughout the day, and boy did I need it.
First of all, all members of my Grandad's family had to wear a flower corsage. I usually think they are cute but I didn't want to be associated with this shit show.
The ceremony itself was okay, I just tried not to pay attention and counted down til we could go to the bar, but afterwards my friend whispered to me "I especially enjoyed the part in the vows where they said with the exception of all others!"
For the drinks reception I had to endure my Grandad's pretentious friends coming to me to tell me how lovely it must be to see my Grandad getting married, and according to my friend, I had a fixed serial killer smile whilst she would run to the bar and swiftly press drinks in my hand.
We all had the meal and then the speeches, oh god, the speeches, I have never wanted to crawl under a rock so badly. First there was the best man speech, where he told the story of first meeting Grandad and X, telling everyone "it soon became clear what the arrangement was!" with a wink to the audience, and ended with a joke about my Grandmother being a frigid cow.
X's speech was sentimental bollocks about finding love, which is all well and good, but he was married to my Grandma at the time.
Her brother made a speech about how Grandad used to wait for X on the drive in his (insert expensive car here), again, whilst married to my Grandma.
The final straw was during Grandad's speech where he accidentally called X by my Grandma's name, and I walked out.
When I waited in the bar area, a staff member said she recognised alot of us, and I told her "Yeah, for Grandma's wake, this is my Grandad marrying his mistress at the same venue", and after thinking I was joking at first, the nice lady offered me the rest of the glasses of champagne that didn't get used during the toast as they would be tossed out anyway, and I gladly took them off her hands.
Overall I've never been so mortified in my life, not only was the whole thing incredibly tacky, but my Grandma would have been rolling in her grave.
My Uncle managed to escape this circus living abroad, but when he came to visit, they brought out a slice of wedding cake they saved it (English wedding cake keeps for months) and he later told me that when he left, he tossed it out of his car window as he drove off, hoping they saw him.
To add to the tackiness, when Grandad died, he left X a statue of a naked lady he had actually bought for my Grandma, and when we asked why, it came out that he bought it for Grandma, because it reminded him of X, and also to remind my Grandma that X was in the picture.
Sadly this shit runs in the family, as my Dad also had a few mistresses, but luckily I was mostly kept from that as my Mom divorced him when she found out. I have a wonderful boyfriend who luckily hasn't run a mile given my insane family story, and we plan to get married. The family joke is that we should marry at the same hotel as the one used for Grandma's wake and then Grandad's wedding, as we might get a family discount on the third event, but I think I have too much PTSD associated with the place.
Hope you all enjoyed my family wedding drama story, and hopefully this gets read!
*Edit - to add to this whole dumpster fire, when my Grandad died he asked for half of his ashes to be scattered where my Grandma was scattered, and half in the place he used to take his mistress for dirty weekend trips.

I'm using the Astra Theme, I picked one of their starter templates and I'm editing it with Elementor. I would like to add a text to the template that says "Welcome John" where John Doe is replaced by a parameter name that I pass in the URL, how can I do this? Is there a better approach to displaying a dynamic name onto a template?
Example: if the link is mywebsite.com/?name='Mike' then the text will be "Welcome Mike" just like what's shown on this video
I'm building an invitation so that's why I require each invitation to have the name of the guest. Thanks for any help!
EDIT: Preferably a free approach

I appreciate this may come across as controversial, but I should stress that this is of course just my opinion, not an attempt to convince you that this is objective truth.
Most of the ways that I find the story and character development to be lacking in XVI..are direct parallels to the formulas, tropes, and devices that are very present in XIV.
And here is the crux of it.
I have played XIV for a little over 10 years. As a result there's a level of investment, familiarity, and nostalgia that is able to stand in for the shortcomings in how it delivers its narrative. I think the absence of these favorable conditions in XVI has made the shortcomings stick out noticeably.
Of my complaints, these are the three that stuck out the most:

• A hollow "Everyman" protagonist

I understand/know little-to-nothing about Clive beyond his current motivation at any given point. Every time he speaks it feels as though it's either very directly in service to the plot, or plainly summarising events in a very one-dimensional way. He comes across as little more than a self-insert high-morality character, and I genuinely think if Clive had been a silent protagonist the story could have moved along without missing a step.(Not unlike the role you play as the WoL in XIV.)
Given that there are *some* characters with hints of nuance, I can only assume they intentionally made a very inoffensive and vanilla protagonist to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. They created a character that's relatable in the sense that he's the kind of "decent guy" that many of us think we are, or would be in that scenario...and little else.

• Time Skips to fabricate familiarity.

The time skips felt like a narrative crutch to compensate for the team's reliance on familiarity and "callbacks" to create investment in its characters and their relationships. In-lieu of a 10 year long mmo subscription and characters you have organically built a connection to and history with, XVI gives you timeskips that suggest its relationships run deeper than they really do, and *very* frequent conversations where Clive and an NPC wistfully reminisce on what feels like an artificial history. Time skips are not inherently a bad storytelling device if they meaningfully serve the plot. Here, it felt mostly unwarranted as not enough about the status-quo really changed.
I could go on, as *many* of XIV's weaker narrative traits also become more and more apparent as XVI gets further in. But I should probably address this in relation to FFVIIR...since I've drawn a comparison.

• XVI doesn't invite you to reflect on themes, it inundates you with them

First of all, it goes without saying that this is naturally an unfair comparison. After all, FF7 benefits from 25+ years worth of run up when it comes to investment, familiarity, and world-building. So I fully acknowledge that imbalance in any argument in favour of its character development and narrative.
With that said...I think both parts of the FF7 Remake (individually and collectively) have managed to do so much more in creating characters with depth, a fleshed out world with history that's intriguing, and using both of those things to explore themes without beating you over the head with them at every single turn.
XVI seems determined to present you with its themes in a very repetitive & limited way. Much like XIV... usually by having you witness excessive abuse of power, cruelty, and visceral brutality..to the effect of tellIng you without question that "the antagonists are really evil!". In the context of XVI's story, it of course makes sense. But in a good story, ideally something about our understanding of this should develop or go deeper than just the surface.
FF7 isn't perfect. It has plenty of its own moments of very plainly spelling out how awful the bad guys are. However, I think FF7 takes much more time to *show* you the implications and consequences of its world more creatively; having it unfold continuously and allowing the characters (and the player) to develop their own ideas and understanding.
Key above all, I come away from FF7 feeling as though it's themes exist as an outlet to say something as much as they do to motivate the plot.
By contrast, in XVI...I get the impression that its themes are there only to contextualise action, add flavour, and demonstrate the protagonist's virtue.

Hello fellow forum members,
I hope you're all doing well! Today, I'd like to delve into the world of menstrual discs and discuss which ones are currently considered the best options on the market. With so many choices available, it can be overwhelming to decide which menstrual disc is right for you. That's why I'm hoping we can share our experiences and insights to help each other make informed decisions.
Firstly, for those who might not be familiar, menstrual discs are innovative menstrual products that are worn internally to collect menstrual fluid. They offer a discreet and eco-friendly alternative to pads and tampons, and many people find them more comfortable and convenient once they get the hang of using them.
Now, onto the main question: which menstrual disc reigns supreme in today's market? Here are a few top contenders based on user reviews, features, and overall popularity:

1. Flex Disc: One of the pioneers in the menstrual disc arena, Flex Disc has garnered a strong following for its comfortable fit and mess-free design. Made from medical-grade materials, it's known for its ease of insertion and removal.
2. Softdisc: Another notable option is Softdisc, which boasts a flexible, disposable design that molds to your body's shape for leak-proof protection. Its thin profile and comfortable feel make it a favorite among many users.
3. Nixit: For those looking for a reusable option, Nixit is gaining traction as an eco-friendly alternative. Made from silicone, it offers a high capacity and can be worn for up to 12 hours, making it ideal for busy lifestyles.
4. Ziggy Cup: While technically not a disc, Ziggy Cup deserves a mention for its unique flat-fit design that sits comfortably against the cervix. It's reusable and offers mess-free period sex, making it a game-changer for many users.

I invite everyone to share their experiences with menstrual discs, whether positive or negative, as well as any tips or recommendations you may have. Let's empower each other to find the perfect menstrual solution for our unique needs!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and insights.

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.

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.

If you find this valuable, we'd love your support for Supa Screenshot on Product Hunt today: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/supa-screenshot ❤️

Startling fact: as high as 80% of users who sign up for your product end up never coming back after the first day.

This means only 20% of top-of-funnel users come back to use your product in a meaningful way.
It also denotes the importance of first impressions — which are paramount to converting, retaining, and expanding your customer base.
And where first impressions typically form is within your initial onboarding experience.
But despite this, onboarding is frequently overlooked as a one-time checklist – often becoming stale as your product, messaging, and GTM tactics evolve.
And we’ve been guilty of this too at Supademo, where we struggled with a pattern of less-than-ideal customer activation, slow time-to-value, and low onboarding completion.
In an effort to improve these metrics, we focused on hypothesizing and implementing a series of tactics to reduce friction and accelerate time-to-value.

Ultimately, these:

• Increased onboarding completion rate by ~10%
• Increased activation rate by ~20%;
• Decreased time it took to achieve the "aha! moment" by ~39%

Here’s an actionable guide on the five tactics we implemented to improve our product onboarding:

1) Reverse trial directly into our highest-tier plan

Companies often find themselves wrestling with the choice between offering a Trial or adopting a Freemium model. As Elena Vera says: “opt for neither, because Reverse Trials are simply.. better.”
A reverse trial lets the product do the talking rather than gatekeeping with marketing lingo. It also helps customers test-drive plans that best fit their use case — without the paradox of choice.
What we did:

• Avoid overwhelming users by focusing on only highlighting core features up-front
• Nudge users to try premium features based on usage or time-based triggers
• Clearly indicate what happens at the end of the reverse trial (i.e. downgrade to freemium with limited features)

2) Use social proof everywhere

Communicate benefits through customers' voices – not just your own. This helps build trust, credibility and authority, which are crucial to their willingness to invest time and complete onboarding.
What we did:

• Added social proof throughout our entire product onboarding flow
• Tied specific social proof to specific pages (team-based testimonial on “invite your team” page)
• Linked use cases emails with case studies that map directly to the one mentioned

3) Force users to experience our "aha moment"

When building a complex product with many bells and whistles, it can be challenging to surface key features intuitively. Since our “aha” moment is tied to creating a Supademo, we “forced” users to as one of their first onboarding steps.
What we did:

• Make the first recording semi-mandatory during onboarding, removing paradox of choice
• Automatically enable and apply features meant to “wow” users or drive virality by default. You have limited time to impress new users!
• Added templates and Supademo examples everywhere — in-app, personalized onboarding emails, etc

4) Push for team usage

It's commonly accepted that team-based, collaborative SaaS platforms like Slack tend to have higher retention and lower churn. Lateral usage in the org = wider surface area for penetration, more use cases and higher odds of reaching an internal champion.
What we did:

• Automatically show matching workspaces based on domain – with an option to request access, auto-join “open” workspaces
• Encourage users to invite right during onboarding — with the goal of converting them while at peak interest (i.e. initial onboarding)

5) Personalized, action-triggered onboarding emails

Instead of dripping a handful of generic email sequences to every signup, we decided to add personalization via dynamic Supademos and product-triggered onboarding emails. With little effort, we get notified of our highest potential/most engaged leads while personalizing at scale.
What we did

• Welcome email with a personalized product tour at scale, using dynamic variables
• Automated, plain text founder emails to drive responses and feedback
• Emails when success metrics are met – with encouragement and clear next steps to guide to deeper adoption
• Short, two-sentence feature tips weekly - spacing them out so it's less intrusive and helps us stay top-of-mind — while increasing odds of catching users at the right timing

Hopefully, this helps other founders here iterate on and improve their product onboarding experience!

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

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

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

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

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

1. Communication with the players

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

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

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

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

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

New Features and enhancements
New AI-enhanced tools join Smart Tempo and the Pitch Correction plug-in to augment your artistry.
Bass Player and Keyboard Player join Drummer to complete a set of Session Players — all built with AI making it easy to create performances that respond to your direction.
Session Players can follow the same chord progression using Global chord track.
Add warmth to any track with ChromaGlow, an advanced plug-in with five saturation models designed to simulate the sound of vintage analog hardware.*
Separate a stereo audio file into stems for vocals, drums, bass and other parts with Stem Splitter.*
Session Players, ChromaGlow, and Stem Splitter also come to Logic Pro for iPad 2 — making it simple to move between projects created in Logic Pro for Mac.
Play any of six deeply-sampled acoustic and electric basses with Studio Bass.
Perform any of three meticulously-sampled pianos with Studio Piano.
Loops that contain chord tags will automatically populate the chord track when added to a project.
Three new Producer Packs are available: Hardwell, The Kount, and Cory Wong.
Original multi-track project of Swing! by Ellie Dixon available as in-app demo song.
Downmix and trim options allow custom mixing for non-Atmos channel configurations.
Exported ADM BWF files have been expanded beyond Dolby Atmos and can contain settings for stereo and other multi-channel formats.
Bounce in place adds automatic real-time recording for External Instrument regions or tracks that utilize external hardware using the Logic Pro I/O plug-in.
Route MIDI signals generated by supported software instruments and effects to the input of other tracks for creative layering during playback or recording.
Edit more efficiently using key commands for moving, extending, or resizing marquee selections.
The Nudge Region/Event Position key commands now also nudge Marquee selections.
The Transpose Region/Event key commands now also move or expand the Marquee selection up/down.
Pattern regions can now be created on Drummer tracks, and Drummer regions can be converted to Pattern regions.
New key commands include Trim Note End to Following Notes (Force Legato) With Overlap and Trim Note End to Selected (Force Legato) With Overlap.
Bounce in Place and Track Freeze can now be performed in real time, allowing for use of external instruments, I/O plug-ins, and external inserts.
Mastering Assistant analysis now can be performed in real time, allowing for use in projects that incorporate external I/O or instruments.
The Dolby Atmos plug-in now offers Downmix and Surround/Height Trim controls.
The Recent Projects list can now be configured to show up to 50 projects.
* Requires a Mac with Apple silicon.
Stability and reliability
Scripts with 1071 characters or more in Scripter no longer cause Logic Pro to quit unexpectedly.
Fixes an issue where creating a an event in a lane assigned to Note off in Step Sequencer could cause Logic Pro to quit unexpectedly.
Fixes an issue where Logic Pro could fail to launch with an Error Initializing Core MIDI message when the system is under heavy load performing other tasks.
Resolves an issue where Logic Pro could quit unexpectedly when a 64-bit floating point IR file is loaded into Space Designer.
Fixes an issue where Logic Pro could hang when opening a project while the Project Settings > MIDI window is displayed.
Logic Pro no longer quits unexpectedly when creating multiple Aux tracks with multiple existing Aux tracks selected.
Improves stability when bypassing control surfaces with Musical Typing open when EuControl software is installed.
Fixes an issue where Logic Pro could hang when quitting a project containing a large number of instances of Sampler.
Fixes an issue where Logic Pro could quit unexpectedly when replacing a playing Live Loops cell with another loop.
Performance
The UI is now more responsive when adjusting Flex Pitches directly on regions in Deviation mode.
Performance is improved when editing Transient Markers in Take regions with Flex enabled.
Performance is improved when making Flex Pitch edits in the Tracks area with a large number of selected regions.
Alchemy's Performance is improved.
Performance is improved when moving regions in projects with a large number of tracks and regions.
Projects containing a large number of flex-pitched regions now open more quickly.
Resolves an issue where loading a project saved with a Summing stack selected that contains Software Instruments that have no regions and/or with the tracks turned off could load the Software Instruments into memory.
Accessibility
VoiceOver now announces the state of Automation mode buttons on channel strips.
VoiceOver now announces the status of the Pause button in the LCD.
VoiceOver no longer announces hidden controls in the Smart Controls view.
VoiceOver no longer reads the values of pan knobs that are currently hidden in Sends on Faders mode.
VoiceOver now announces the state of the Details button and the Follow button in the Drummer Editor.
VoiceOver now announces left-click and Command-click Tool selections in the Control Bar.
VoiceOver now announces the name of the Time Quantize button in the Piano Roll.
VoiceOver now announces changes in value when the Next/Previous key commands are used to change Quantize values.
VoiceOver now announces state of key commands for Cycle, Mute, Track Solo, Input Monitoring, Track On/Off, and Lock/Unlock Track.
VoiceOver now announces the selection state of focused tracks.
Spatial Audio
Fixes an issue where adding a new 3D Object track for the first time to a Spatial Audio project could cause the Renderer to switch from the current model to the Apple renderer.
The Dolby Atmos plug-in now offers a 5.1.2 monitoring option.
Fixes an issue where setting a project to Dolby Atmos could output to 7.1.4 even when the mode defaults to Apple Renderer.
It is now possible to monitor Dolby Atmos projects directly via HDMI to a surround capable receiveamplifier.
The metering for Height channels now shows as post-fader on the Master channel as expected.
Loading a Master Bus channel strip setting in the 7.1.4 channel format now preserves the 7.1.4 channel layout as expected.
Session Players
Resolves an issue where loading a user-created Drum Machine Designer patch could set the input to a bus and fail to load the Drum Machine Designer instrument.
Using the Create Drummer Region command in a Marquee selection now creates a region that corresponds to the Marquee.
Smart Tempo
In cases where there is not an existing Smart Tempo Multitrack Set, selecting an audio file in the Smart Tempo Multitrack Set window and disabling the “Contribute to analysis” check box now causes the Update button to change to Analyze as expected.
Pressing the Space bar now immediately stops a Free Tempo recording.
Fixes an issue where projects previously open in the same Logic Pro session could unexpectedly affect “Contribute to Analysis” in the Smart Tempo editor.
Recording
Audio regions recorded to unnamed tracks now include the project name and track number in their name.
Mixer
The channel strip Stereo Pan control and the Pan menu now can be adjusted when Caps Lock is enabled.
Creating a single Multi-timbral Software Instrument in the New Track Sheet no longer creates two Software Instrument instances in the All view of the Mixer.
Resolves an issue where remaining tracks in a Multitimbral Software Instrument Track Stack could unexpectedly rename the channel strip.
Adjusting the activity status of a speaker in the Surround panner no longer causes the signal to unexpectedly mute.
Groups now immediately show as inactive when switched off for a selected set of channels in the Mixer.
Metering now correctly works on individual channel strips with plug-ins that send to more than two channels and are routed to a surround bus.
Option-clicking on a send in a selected group of channel strips now sets all corresponding sends to 0 dB as expected.
Fixes an issue where performing Undo after adjusting the fader values of grouped channels with Group Clutch enabled and then disabled could cause the faders to jump up to +6 dB when one member of the group is touched.
Setting multiple selected channels to No VCA now works as expected
Alchemy
The oscillator section in Alchemy offers a new Wide Unison mode.
All controls for Additive Effects now accept typed-in values as expected.
Values typed into parameters related to milliseconds (MS) in Acoustic Reverb are no longer interpreted as full seconds.
Resolves an issue where performance control destinations for modulation could show as duplicated.
Sampler, Quick Sampler, and Quick Alchemy
The Playback direction button in Quick Sampler now immediately updates when clicked.
The view now scrolls correctly when dragging the Trim marker in Sample Alchemy.
It is now possible to adjust the level of a group in Sampler up to +24 dB.
The Up/Down buttons for navigating zones in Sampler now remain available after adjusting the start or end positions of samples.
The general Zoom/Scroll key commands now can be used to trim the current view in Sample Alchemy.
Handles and Trim Handles in Sample Alchemy behave correctly when click-dragged, even when the plug-in window does not have focus.
The Ancient Vocal Chop and Baily Glide plug-in settings for Quick Sampler now open in Classic mode, as expected.
Plug-ins
The MIDI Scripter plug-in now shows in Logic Pro when running in dark mode.
Fixes an issue where clicking on Sampled IR in Space Designer could activate Synthesized IR mode unexpectedly.
Resolves an issue where repositioning the playhead could cause audio to cut out on channel strips that use Step FX.
The preset Note Repeater in Scripter now works as expected.
The wet/dry setting on Ringshifter is now always set to 100% wet when inserted on an Aux.
There's now a DI Delay Compensation switch in Bass Amp Designer to improve phase correlation when blending between Amp and Direct Box in the plug-in.
StepFX now includes presets using Sidechain.
The Beat Breaker preset called “Basic / 2 Slices, Speed 66%” no longer plays the slices at 50% speed instead of 66%.
Resolves an issue where ES2 could produce glitching sounds when using Sine Level or Poly Voice mode on Apple Silicon computers.
Mono > Stereo instances of Console EQ no longer can cause unexpected feedback.
Using the Delete all Automation key command while an Audio Unit window has key focus no longer causes the Audio Unit window to go blank.
The menu for the compression section of Phat FX can now be opened by clicking on the Up/Down arrows.
Beat Breaker now offers new default patterns divided evenly into 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 slices.
Mastering Assistant
There is no longer unexpected latency with bounces from projects that use the Clean or Clean + Excite mode in Mastering Assistant.
Mastering Assistant analysis is no longer incorrectly triggered in projects that contain no regions, but are previewing audio from Ultrabeat, etc.
Mastering Assistant no longer allows the -1 dBFS peak limit to be exceeded in certain cases.
Automation
The Consolidate Relative and Absolute for Visible / Automation menu item now only displays when automation types that support relative automation are active in the lane.
Region-based Automation is now pasted as Track-based Automation when pasted to an area of a track that does not contain regions.
Pitchbend now works as expected with zones in Sampler that do not have Flex Pitch enabled.
Selecting Region-based automation points on a region now deselects previously selected automation points on other regions
Disabling Region-Based Automation no longer dims the Power button for MIDI CC data lanes in the Piano Roll.
The movie window now updates to show the correct frame when moving Region-based automation points.
The Autoselect automation parameter now works as expected when clicking any plug-in control.
Automation of the Gain plug-in no longer exhibits unexpected latency.
Region-based automation is now drawn correctly when recorded into projects that start earlier than 1 1 1 1.
Automation lane views for all tracks are now maintained when switching into Flex view and then back to Automation view.
Flex Time and Flex Pitch
Flex Pitched notes now play as expected when clicked while Record or Input Monitoring is active on the track.
Flexed audio tracks using Monophonic or Slicing mode no longer produce clicks at tempo changes.
Takes and comping
Fade-ins are now applied when flatten and merge is performed on Comps.
Renaming a take that encompasses the entire length of an audio file no longer unexpectedly changes the file name.
Comps in Take Folders are now preserved when performing Cut Section Between Locators on a section that includes the end of one Take folder and the beginning of another, with a gap in-between.
Track Stacks
Record-arming a Track Stack now arms grouped audio tracks in a Track Stack it contains.
Dragging a subtrack out of a Track Stack that is assigned to a VCA now removes the assignment for the subtrack.
Fixes an issue where Track Stacks could sometimes be dimmed when some, but not all, subtracks are muted or off.
It's now possible to replace stacked instrument patches that are inside a Summing Stack with single track patches.
Track Alternatives
Loading a patch on a Summing Stack containing sub-tracks with Track Alternatives no longer causes inactive alternatives to be deleted.
Track Alternatives can now be created for the Stereo Output track.
Selection-Based Processing
Using Selection-Based Processing on a Marquee selected section within a Take Folder no longer creates an unexpected comp.
Selection-Based Processing on a comp now retains the comp.
Score
The spacing of notes is improved in cases where there is a dotted note on a line with the stem is pointing upward.
Command + Z to undo now works after deleting a Score Set.
Upward bends in TAB staves now display correctly.
Importing an instrument track no longer can cause Score Sets in the current project to disappear.
Imported Score Sets can now be deleted from a project.
Live Loops
“Join Region and Fill Cell” now works as expected.
Recording a performance in Live Loops now temporarily puts all tracks into Automation: Latch mode.
Fixes an issue where changing patches for a Live Loop track could cause the length of cells to change unexpectedly.
It's now possible to paste MIDI notes into a Live Loops cell.
Step Sequencer
It's now easier to use the disclosure triangle to open sub-rows in Step Sequencer.
Pattern regions now play back correctly immediately after being nudged.
Pattern Regions now immediately play as expected after using the Slip/Rotate tool to drag their contents to the left.
The “Separate pattern region by kit piece” command on Drum Machine Designer tracks is now applied to the correct area of the Pattern Region, in cases where the left border of the region has been moved to the right.
The length and number of steps of a newly created Pattern Region accounts for Time Signature changes correctly.
The maximum possible pattern length of a Pattern region is now 4 bars of the current time signature.
Step Sequencer now allows pattern lengths to be added based on 5/4 and 7/8 time signatures.
The Step Sequencer Inc/Dec controls now work in Loop Edit mode.
Fixes an issue where Pattern Regions on frozen tracks be edited unexpectedly.
Region-based automation now displays properly on Pattern regions in tracks that have been partially frozen, and on regions that have been frozen and then unfrozen.
It's now possible to assign MIDI channels per step in a Pattern Region.
MIDI
Reset messages for Software Instruments now work correctly.
Sustain messages are now sent correctly when playing back regions with Clip Length enabled in cycle mode.
There is now an “Internal MIDI in” setting in the Track Inspector to allow for recording MIDI from any other software instrument or External MIDI Instrument track.
The “Send all MIDI settings” key command now sends program changes to external devices assigned to empty tracks.
Resolves an issue where 3 bytes of random MIDI data would be sent when playing back regions containing SysEx data with MIDI 2.0 disabled
New 'internal MIDI in' feature allows recording of MIDI from other tracks, including MIDI FX plug-in output and 3rd party MIDI generators.
The “Delete MIDI events outside region boundaries" key command now correctly creates a starting CC event in the region to match the last matching CC of the same type in the track.
Fixes an issue where Chase could cut off notes that are preceded by notes of the same pitch on tracks with third-party instrument plug-ins.
Editing
The Humanize transform set now works as expected when the Randomize functions for Position, Length, or Velocity are set to very small values.
The menu item Delete and Move in the Event List is now only displayed if regions are displayed in the window.
When MIDI 2.0 is selected in the Settings, clicking on an Event in the Event List no longer plays events back with MIDI 1.0 resolution.
Fixes an issue where using the Cut command in the Audio Track Editor could switch the view to another editor.
When a region in the Project Audio window is double-clicked, the Audio Track editor now opens as expected.
The content link buttons for the Piano Roll and Score show the correct color as expected when toggled using the mouse.
The Event List correctly updates to reflect changes made by using key commands to select notes in other editors.
Resolves an issue where the Velocity tool in the Piano roll could affect the values of non-note events.
Fixes an issue where applying the Transform set Double Speed could cause the notes to disappear from the Piano Roll.
Step Input
Extending the length of note entered using Step Input now works correctly.
Global Tracks
Adding multiple audio Apple Loops of the same key to different tracks of a new project now changes the project key as expected.
Clicked in Tempo points are now placed at their correct positions in projects that start earlier than 1 1 1 1.
Share and export
When No Overlap is enabled, regions bounced onto existing regions no longer overlap them.
Audio files bounced from Logic Pro now include the proper Encoded Date in the metadata.
Fixes an issue where MIDI regions could be truncated when bounced in place.
Fixes an issue where audio files including Volume/Pan automation exported from mono tracks that use plug-ins could export as stereo files.
It is now possible to bounce sub-channels of multitimbral instrument tracks as individual files.
Import
Resolves an issue when dragging multiple audio files into a project, choosing the “Place all files on one track” option could create a second track and places the first file on one track, and the rest on the second.
Output channels in the Mixer can now be imported from other Logic Pro projects.
Apple Loops
The Loops browser now correctly shows the same enharmonic key an Apple Loop was tagged with.
Apple Loops now preview using the Key Signature active at the current position of the playhead.
It's now possible to add Aliases to bookmarks and untagged loops.
Dragging an Apple Loop from the loop browser to an existing track no longer changes the input for the track.
Fixes an issue where MIDI Apple Loops could jump to the start of the nearest bar position when dragged from the Loop Browser to the middle of a bar.
Video Support
A secondary screen that is running a full screen video with Show Animations off will no longer remain black after closing the project.
Key Commands
The “Increase (or Decrease) last clicked parameter” key commands now work for controls in the LCD.
The “Record off for all” key command now works on Software Instrument tracks in cases where one or more audio tracks are also record-enabled.
There is now a key command to add to the current selection of regions or cells that are assigned to a toggle solo group.
The Zoom Toggle key command now works in the Step Editor.
Compatibility
GarageBand projects that use Pitch Correction now sound the same when opened in Logic Pro.
Undo
If Undo is used immediately after creating a project, the New Track Sheet is displayed as expected rather than leaving a project with no tracks.
Undo/Redo now works as expected with Audio Unit v3 plug-ins.
Changing the Automation Mode, or changing a Track On/Off state now creates an Undo step.
Performing Undo after adding a surround track no longer corrects Drummer tracks in the project.
Logic Remote
Logic Remote immediately updates to show time and signature changes made in Logic Pro.
Control Surfaces and MIDI controllers
Controls on Control Surface devices that use Lua scripts now provide feedback when learning assignments for them in Logic Pro.
Illuminated buttons on control surfaces now show the correct state for Show/Hide Track Editor.
General
The LCD now displays the Cycle start and end times in both SMPTE time and Bars/Beats when the secondary ruler is displayed.
Search in the All Files browser now finds matching items in bookmarked folders.
Fixes an issue where the visible editor in the Main window could unexpectedly switch when rubber-band selecting regions.
Audio Take folders created in Cycle mode now loop as expected after recording when Loop is enabled in the Region Inspector.
It's now possible to create external MIDI tracks when Core Audio is disabled in Logic Pro.
Resolves an issue where deleting a Flex marker from an audio region while a Marker List is visible could switch the key focus to the Marker List.
Track information pasted into a text editor now includes the TIME position when the Use Musical Grid setting for the project is not enabled.
Input monitoring buttons are now displayed on audio tracks when Logic Pro has fallen back to an alternate audio device because the selected device is not available.
Previewing an audio region in the Project Audio window no longer causes it to jump to the top of the window.
Command+Option clicking on the On/Off button of a track now toggles the button for all tracks, as expected.
Copy/paste of regions now works when Automation view is enabled.
Right-clicking on a looped segment of a region now opens the contextual menu as expected.
It's now easier to see when black keys are depressed in the Musical Typing window.
The right arrow key now reliably moves the text cursor in the Bounce > Save As file name panel.
Groove Templates created from audio regions now work in Smart Quantize mode.
Dragging multiple regions from the same audio file from the Project Audio browser to the Tracks area now works correctly.
Audio regions are no longer moved to unexpected positions when trimming, if absolute Snap mode is on, and the region anchor is moved away from the start of the region
Fixes an issue where pasting a Marquee selection with No Overlap and Snap Edits to Zero Crossings mode enabled could delete a non-overlapping part of an existing region.
Autozoom now triggers when a region's upper right corner is dragged in the Main window, or the Audio Track Editor.
The Playhead no longer may briefly appear to be in the wrong position when zooming horizontally.
The Time Ruler now immediately updates to reflect changes made to the “Bar Position [bar position] plays at SMPTE” setting.
The File browser correctly shows the full path when using Save As.