My "mother" is a vile, awful person who has committed heinous and despicable acts. I have a long post on my full story on another subreddit on my profile if you want more context. To make an extremely long story short, I grew up in an unstable household. My dad wasn't around and my mom was unwilling to work to support us. I was pawned off to my grandparents who lived with us, and they were more parents to me than my actual parents were. Everything my mom has done has been to fuel her ego, and as with many narcissists, to seek validation to reinforce her nonexistent identity outside external validation. She needs validation constantly on how young and beautiful she looks, how rich and great she is, and how she is an excellent and caring mom. Yet a good mother wouldn't have had me and my siblings and grandparents living in a former drug house infested with millions of roaches, rats, black mold, and on again off again running water and electricity. A good mom also wouldn't have sat around having parties and drinking while I, at 15 years of age and two senior citizens, broke our backs trying to sell and rent party supplies and carrying an 800 lb bounce house to customers that wanted to rent them. I worked at 15 like a Victorian boy instead of going to school trying to make ends meet because my parents wouldn't. My "mother" has done everything evil you can think of, from scamming and stealing from innocent people, catfishing other men (while with my stepdad), pretending to be my sister online for validation and money, forcing my sister to be a model and hook up with much older men for the promise of advancement (she was 17 and these men where in there 30s or older), spies on my widowed sister-in-law, had me living in deplorable conditions and having me eat old food infested with roaches and rat droppings, conducting illegal gambling business and money laundering, and much, much, much more. I have been going to therapy and am currently doing emdr to undo the damage that my evil "mother" has done. She is a master of manipulation, love bombing, and buying people's love, loyalty, and affection. I, for the second time, have gone no contact with her.
Now that there's some context, my grandmother means everything to me. She lives in a convalescent home and my mom has control over her. I wanted to see her on Mother's Day. My mom asked if I was going to come to lunch. I said we were visiting my wife's mom, then coming to the house later at 5. She said that was not going to work because they were going to eat at 1. I said, OK well, if we can't do the restaurant, then take her to the house, so we can all visit her at 5. She said she couldn't do that, and why couldn't we just go to eat with them and then, IF there's time, we could go to my mother-in-law's house for a little bit. I said no, everything has been arranged already, and as usual you don't inform anyone of plans and expect everyone last second to cancel theirs and do yours. We were going to make my mother-in-law a priority, however, there was time for both. She got mad and said she would not be bringing my grandma to the house and I guess that was it. I said, well, I guess it is. On Mother's Day, I called my grandma, and she was upset and crying, asking why I hadn't seen her, and that she had come to visit the house. My mom took her to the house after lunch and didn't tell me. Neither did any of my other family. She said that she wanted to come back home and didn't want to live at the facility. She is fairly healthy and in reality, doesn't need to be at the facility. After talking to her, I confronted my mom and said that I explicitly told you that I wanted to see Grandma, and you said you were NOT bringing her to the house. You did bring her to the house and intentionally did not tell me. Because I did not bow down and follow your commands like everyone else, you deliberately orchestrated this, so I would not see her in an act of revenge to spite me. There was no reason you couldn't have called or texted and told me you were bringing her, especially after I told you I wanted to see her, even if it was at the last minute. It was an intentional act. She just said you are always talking shit about me. I told her it's not talking shit if it's true. She then hung up. This is what she does. If you don't follow the Führers command, bow at her feet, and tell her how wonderful and gracious she is, she will seek vengeance and do things to spite you, to bring glory for herself.
My grandma told me that my "mom" mistreats her, and is collecting pay from the government pretending to be her caretaker (when in reality my mom does absolutely nothing and has no job whatsoever. She dedicates her life to crime, fraud, and scams. She ran an underground casino with my stepdad and when they got busted my stepdad took the fall) but instead dumped her in a conversant home and does not care for her at all. Besides all that, my grandma also stated that she takes all of her social security money and keeps it. This is not surprising because my nephew, who is technically an orphan, having lost both parents recently, is under the custody of my horrible "mother" and he had some kind of inheritance left for him. When my "mother" discovered this, she swept in and wiped it clean. Her greed is deplorable. Wherever there is money, the Sheriff of Nottingham will do anything to get every last coin wherever she can get it. She even charges people $5 to use the washing machine. The most important thing to my "mother" is herself and her endless black hole of needing to be validated and praised, along with the endless black hole of greed. It is her entire identity. I am so enraged, and I can not let these things happen. When will my "mother" face consequences for her actions? She cannot continue to commit evil acts and not only get away with them but also prosper because of it. One of the worst parts, however, is that everyone, even if they have their problems with her, always goes along with what the dear leader says and continues to enable her by telling her she's a good mom and that they appreciate her. She needs to face consequences for her actions, but I don't know what to do. She can't continue to harm people and get away with it. I need help.
TLDR: My "mother" is a vile evil woman who has stolen from my grandma and nephew, committed crimes and exploited people, had me working at 15 to support the family while she did nothing, and lied to me so I wouldn't see my grandma on Mother's Day. I have a long post on my full story on another subreddit on my profile if you want more context.

I need advice, though this is partially to vent, I want to get my thoughts and feelings out there, so that maybe something someone says can help me. I (F18) live in my childhood home with my father (M55), mother (F50), sibling (NB14), sister (F21) and brother in law (M23). I get along great with everyone, except for my father. I've known my father, mother, and sister as long as I can remember, my sibling is 3 years younger than me, and we've known my brother in law for about 5 years.
In childhood, my father was never really present in our lives. He worked a normal job with normal hours, but when he got home all he did was watch TV. I remember this very distinctly as we were kicked off the TV at 5, when he came home. Even when he was off of the TV, he was distant and never really involved with us. Even when he did take one or more of us out, it was just to something we liked for a small amount of time, then we had to go to a hardware store or something with him for hours. All of us quickly learned to not accept his offers of going to McDonald's for a quick meal. He'd occasionally trick us, saying it was a reward for something, then drag us somewhere anyway.
His distant behavior became worse when his dad died, and his mother came to live with us. To make a long and horrible story short, she put me and my sibling through hell, bullying us about weight, appearance, behavior and anything you could ever think one would nitpick children for. This was when I was 13-14, and it left a lot of issues for myself and my sibling to deal with. At first he denied anything was happening, but then it got so bad I slipped to my therapist that I wanted to end my life, and he took me seriously after that. My father's mother was kicked out, but I was in rough shape.
Ever since then he has treated me like a fragile flower, always trying to say things like "You can always talk to your mom or I", but he knew this wasn't the case. I could never bring up anything with him as he would just tell me to go to mom, and never really supported me emotionally. He has depression and anxiety just like myself and my sibling, but unlike us he doesn't take his meds or go to therapy; he basically just doesn't do anything to improve himself.
But it really got bad when my sister graduated from high school and moved out. She had been with her boyfriend for about 3 years when they got engaged, and were married. This sent my father on a downward spiral. According to my mother, he had a bad drinking problem in the past, and had calmed down for a while, but this is when it started up again. My sister was always his obvious favorite; she looked like him, was athletic, smart, extroverted, and she had none of the mental issues he did. So her "leaving" him was very hard. He just couldn't deal with her growing up. I think it was partially because he never spent time with us, since after that he kept asking me to spend time with him, but at that point I had checked out of the relationship as much as he had.
He started spending more time in front of the TV. It really didn't help that he had an injury at work and had surgery on both of his shoulders, and he was being bullied when he did work. At this time, my mother had gotten a job to help pay for everything, and I was mostly home with my father, and he decided this meant I would do everything-all of the chores, cleaning up after him, cooking... everything my mom would normally do. They operated on his non-dominant shoulder first, so he could've helped, but no, he's just a poor helpless baby. I was 16 at the time, and also trying to learn to drive. His "driving lessons" consisted of him scolding me occasionally if I did something wrong, but not helping me learn at all.
I wanted to find a job, but between school and taking care of the house I was unable to. I got an allowance, but it was rather pitiful, and didn't even partially compensate me for the hours of endless work. Then there was an incident. My mom had told me to watch out for him when he'd been drinking, and I can easily tell when he was drinking. This was a day where I could tell he was drunk, but he came in asking for my help with something. He said that our truck was having issues and he wanted to look at the engine, so he asked me to help him wipe it off. I agreed. I went out with him, and my "helping" him was him watching while I wiped off the hood. Then he started to get angry.
I was focusing on the hood since he said he needed to lift it to look at the engine, but he told me to focus on the windshield. I was obiviously confused, but he grabbed another wiper and started to violently break apart the snow and wiping it off. I was still confused and kept wiping off the hood, but that made him more angry. He was moving in a way I knew would hurt him, but he was now raising his voice with me, angry and showing it. I started to dissociate, as that is my coping strategy, so I don't remember the exchange very well. All I know was there was a lot of swearing and yelling and calling me useless. Eventually he threw down his scraper and stormed off to the house.
I remember I was cold, sad, and I wanted to cry and run off into the woods never to be seen again. I wanted to scream, sob, punch a wall; but I did none of that. All I did was stand there for a while, then remember it was garbage day and take the garbage cans down. When I got inside, he was in his chair, watching TV, whistling to a song. I went to my room and cried. I hated myself, him, and the world so much, and that day I broke a streak of almost a year of self harming. I wanted to do more, but my dog helped me not to.
I wish I had let him go. I wish I had let him drive. At that point I still had some slight love for him, and that made me want to prevent his death. I honestly regret that now. He often got mad and snapped at mom, but it was never directed at me before. I knew that mom, with all the stress she was going through with her job and being both the house- maintainer and breadwinner wouldn't be able to handle that he had snapped at me. So I downplayed it, just telling her what happened and she said he probably either wanted fast food or alcohol, both of which he is addicted to. I still haven't gotten an apology.
I'm going to skip over some time here, as honestly his behavior is too frequent and habitual to mention every frustrating thing, so I will fast forward to the worst of it. A few months before my sister's wedding, it got really bad. He had yelled at my mom a few times, and every time we just took the dogs into our rooms, and we had gotten door knobs with locks specifically for this sort of thing. It happened often enough that all it took was a text to the other, and my sibling and I knew what to do. The worst happened on March 23rd, 2023. I don't know how it started; we never knew, but it didn't matter. The worst part is, my sibling was stuck in the bathroom when it started, right next to where my dad was screaming at my mom. They can't use that bathroom now when he's home because of this.
All I knew was I got the text and got our 2 dogs in my room. All I could hear (I was on the 2nd floor and this happened on the 1st) was how my mom was a bad person, getting the kids to hate him, she was a female dog, etc. Again it's a little fuzzy, but it got worse when he got to the 2nd floor. When you get to the top of the stairs, to the right there is their bedroom, and down a short hallway there is a bathroom and 2 bedrooms, one being my sister's old room. He went in to their room, and all I can remeber is him screaming over and over, "And you can just go F YOURSELF", all while slamming their bedroom door.
He did this for a while. All I know is that I, my mom, and my sibling all recorded it, but I am not willing to listen through that recording to figure out how long he was yelling at the top of the stairs, but the recording is 10 minutes and 47 seconds. Eventually his slamming of the door got too forceful, he broke the whole door frame, and the door ended up wedged in the staircase. He knocked himself out in this process somehow, and was out for a while. When his friend came (mom had called him), he even tried to fight him, but he was put into bed. He says he doesn't remember this whole night.
There was an intervention after, with mom and his friend, and he agreed to stop, or at least slow down. He didn't. There were some more screaming fits, and the last major one was in the beginning of December. But now, instead of screaming, he'll just get mad and snap at mom for nothing. I hate seeing her cry, and this affected my sibling and I as well. My sibling hates him, and is just waiting for him to die. They felt conflicted about this at first, but after father corrected himself after using their correct pronouns and made a comment around them about how anyone who's trans is just mentally ill, they lost the tiny sliver of affection they had for him. I have done my best to be a good older sister, assuring them it's normal, and helping them come to terms with their feelings. Now they just say we really are just waiting for him to die, and they feel nothing towards this idea.
Father has gone to therapy once, after a screaming fit where I wrote down how much him doing this made me want to die, but he says he doesn't want to go back. He continues to drink, and to not take his meds. My reason for this post was yesterday. Mother's Day.
Despite both mom and I working later than him, he still does minimal house work. If he does anything, it is to empty the dishwasher into the dish drainer, then bug mom for praise. Mom, sibling and I do almost all of the housework. I thought maybe he'd pitch in on mother's day, but no. I told mom she was not allowed to do any housework, and I did all of the laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc. The only thing I couldn't do was cook. But then, as I'm cleaning off the countertop and the table, father walks in and asks mom, "So what are you planning on doing?"
I wanted to punch him. He had been drinking, too. He'd been at least slightly drunk since noon. But HOW DARE HE. I think that was when I lost all hope for him. Then mom said, "I was just gonna leave it to you", and he had the audacity to look surprised, and even a little mad. He then walked away, I think to get stuff, but I don't care. I looked at mom, and she had the same baffled, amazed, and angry look I assume was on my face. But she looked a little sad, too. He couldn't do even this one thing on his own, on mother's day.
I had been angry with him for a long time, but at that it just grew into this huge raging fire. I hate him. With every bit of me. His disrespect and unwillingness to fix himself made me want to scream at him, give him a taste of what he gave us. But I couldn't. For the rest of the evening, mom couldn't just sit there; he needed to know the temperature and time things needed to cook, and she was just so frustrated.
Everything's at a boiling point. I want to tell him off, tell him how I feel, how much he's hurt everyone, and just how much I hate him. But I know I can't. If I do, he'll take it out on mom. Mom's too stressed already, as her job is hard and she's saving to separate if needed. She won't divorce him, since he could take the house, though they are both on the title, and she doesn't want to risk it. He's unhealthy as it is, my sibling is right; we really are just waiting for his liver to give out from all of the alcohol. But still, I am having a hard time living in the same house.
Sorry for the length, I get long winded when emotional. I'm just ignoring him for now, but I feel like my emotions could explode any day. Please give any advice you have. Thank you all.
TL;DR!: My father who is abusive has made me reach my limit, but I can't say anything. If I do, he'll yell at my mom, and I don't want that. I can't move out and she doesn't want to risk a divorce, in fear of losing everything, what do I do?

Over the last few days, I can’t help but think my husband might respect and value his mother more. I’m not sure if I’m just overthinking this but here are a few examples.

1. His mother would give him unsolicited advice on personal things and he would just nod his head and agree to it. A good example is when I was pregnant, his mother told him the placenta should be buried under a tree and I got no say in this. She would want to speak with my husband personally without me being there and my husband wouldn’t say anything to this. Another example was that she told my husband she’d book tickets (not ask) when I’m about to deliver and stay with us indefinitely. And my husband didn’t object to this.
   
2. When it came to exciting work news or an update, he would call his mum every Tuesday at 8pm because this is the time that suited her and tell her things I had no idea about. When I asked him about it, he said he tells his mother and not me because he’s run out of things to talk to her about.
   
3. Her mother once yelled and screamed at me because she was telling her husband and his sister that they are broken children because of their father. I stepped in and said that’s very uncalled for. She yelled and screamed at me for interfering. My husband sat there and said nothing. I asked him why he didn’t and he said if he said something, it would make her more mad.
   
4. His mother was telling my sis in law that I was a liar when she asked me not to form a relationship with my child and father in law. And when I approached the matter with my husband, all he said is she needs therapy and it takes time for people to change and I need to be more empathetic to this whole situation, because that’s his mum.
   
5. She tried to fight me over text, call me rude and disrespectful while I was having painful contractions. Never contacted me throughout the pregnancy. Wrote long hateful text messages. When I was 7cm dilated, my husband reads out a message from my MiL telling me how I should be breathing. My BP shot up and I was at risk of preclampsia. They were more concerned because this is how my mum lost her first child and almost died. When I asked him why he did that, he said he thought it was a positive message from his mum.
   
6. She stopped talking to us because we set boundaries for everyone about who can visit our baby and she didn’t appreciate it. We didn’t hear from her for 2 months and my husband said he won’t respond until she adheres to our boundaries. I thought finally, a breakthrough and he is standing up. I then find out, he’s been sending her photos of our baby this whole time. When I asked him about it, he became defensive asked what’s the big deal. And I explained that what she has done has been very hurtful and quite unforgivable. He keeps saying that’s my mother, and you want me to ice her out which I’ve pretty much done. I’m like you’re sending baby photos of our son and she doesn’t even want to apologize and reconcile with me. And he said he’s using the baby photos as a way to entice to speak so he can try reconciling. I thought this was weird. And honestly, he never would have told me about it, if I didn’t ask. He then says that I have to be open minded because that’s what his therapist told him. I said I have been but I don’t appreciate us giving so many chances and your mum can’t even pick up the phone to reconcile but can talk crap about me to your sister. He then proceeds to give mother an expensive Mother’s Day gift- spent $110. It’s my first Mother’s Day this year, and he got me a mug and flowers- $50.
   

Please give it to me straight, because I’m tired of feeling let down. In all honestly, I feel more upset at myself because I’m letting my self worth being dragged through the mud.

Sorry for how long this is, I've got that ADHD trait where everything feels important for context. I'm also still trying to process everything.
So I (30F) just had my first baby six months ago. My dad passed away 12 years ago and I lost ties to his side of the family, partially because most my uncles (he has 4 brothers) live in different states and partially because my dad was the person to plan everything. So, most of my family I'm in contact with is my mom's family.
Typically, if my family invites me to family events or holidays they do so through my mom or my uncle (mom's brother) texts me or calls me. My mom, though, has been struggling with her mental health since my dad passed and the only people she really talks to are me, my brother (who lives with her), my grandma, and my great aunt. She occasionally interacts with her brother and sister. My grandma is your typical bitter, white, racist old lady and is kind of toxic toward my mom (she belittles my mom's feelings, usually places blame on my mom, plays clear favorites with her kids, etc.). So my mom has dealt with anxiety any time she's going to visit my grandma for holidays or to stay with her if she is having health issues or to watch my aunts house (she lives next door). My grandma lives about an hour from us. My mom lives 5 minutes away from me.
So the last few big holidays my mom didn't want to go to her house because of the anxiety, and as I had a newborn and was recovering from a c section (had the baby 11/19 so a week before Thanksgiving) we decided to do small holidays. For Thanksgiving I invited my mom to come over and she offered to cook Enchiladas (rather than a whole feast - which I was fine with). She brought the food over, her and my brother ate, but I wasn't hungry, yet, so I just hung out. She held the baby for a few minutes, then they both just left after the baby started getting a bit fussy. Didn't offer to help clean up, left the food on the stove (which was on) and left. I was still recovering from surgery and my partner had taken the opportunity to get some sleep since he didn't think I'd need help as my mom was there. So, I couldn't put the food away and just leave my crying newborn baby alone. Not to mention I wasn't stable enough on my feet because of where I was in my recovery. I don't remember what we did for Christmas, she did come by on her own (without my brother) and gave us gifts and hung out with the baby. She also came over one other time for a few hours to watch the baby so me and my partner could get some rest. She was at the hospital when I was in labor and after having the baby but didn't really do much to help except get me food and maybe help change a diaper. When we were discharged I told her not to worry about coming to the hospital but she was welcome to come to our house, but she said she didn't want to intrude and let us adjust to having the baby at home.
I text with my mom every few weeks and it's been clear for years that her depression has gotten pretty bad. If she talks about herself it is incredibly negative, or she is angry with everyone around her. I'm really the only one who sure hasn't been angry with. I've spent the past few years essentially being her only support system (next to my grandma and my brother - who is also battling his own mental health). I've also spent the last few years trying to get her to see a mental health professional.
She finally admitted she needed to address the anger she was having with my grandma and her incredibly low sense of self-worth. Over the last year or so I have been working with her to get her into a therapists office. I've found therapists that I think would be a good fit for her and contacted them on her behalf (I started by just sending her their contact info, but she kept coming up with excuses of why she hasn't, like she forgot to stop into the office of one she wanted to go to that was next to her masseuse or she was too anxious to call because she'll sound like an idiot). She didn't hear anergy back from them (but she also probably just didn't see any emails since her email inbox is so full with spam.) She finally asked her primary to see a psychologist and made an appointment. I texted her a week before mothers day just to check in with her to see how it went. Found out she got scammed (not from the psychologist) and it made her feel like she was dumb and couldn't do anything right. I did what I could do balance the line between comfort and trying to challenge her negative thoughts of herself. We didn't discuss mother's day.
Fast forward to the day before mother's day, my MIL's boyfriend invited me, my partner, our baby, my SIL and their grandma to breakfast on Saturday. (I also want to add, my MIL and her boyfriend watch the baby every weekend, they cleaned our house when I was in the hospital, then they helped us when we came home so I could shower and get check ups set up.) I still didn't hear back from my mom, so I texted her at 10am on Saturday asking if she wanted to go to breakfast on mother's day. During breakfast my MIL asked what I was doing and I told her I was planning to go have breakfast with my mom, but my partner had to work in the afternoon and didn't have anything else planned. I didn't hear anything back from my mom still, so when my MIL texted me that night (around 11pm) saying she wanted to see me to get pictures of me and my son on my first mother's day, I gave her my schedule and she told me to let her know a time in the morning. That night my son was up every two hours, so I didn't get any sleep until my partner took over around 4am. I woke up around 9:30ish and just ended up ordering breakfast. While we were eating we made a plan that while he was at work I would go see his mom and when he gets off we'd go thrifting then go roller skating (because mom's skate free on mother's day). I texted his mom times and everything was set. Then my mom finally texted me back saying happy mothers day and assuming I'd received an email inviting me to go to my grandma's house for mother's day. I had not, and told her. She said apparently I was left off the email my uncles fiance had sent (which she also was the first time - so I was left off multiple emails) and she said that it was an accident and that I was welcome, then asked if I had plans. I didn't think my uncle's fiance left me off intentionally, but I already had plans and told her this. Didn't hear anything for a few hours then realized I forgot to say happy mothers day and sent her another text doing so and that I love her.
I still haven't received back any response. I haven't heard anything from the rest of my family (except my brother on my dad's side who lives in another state and is completely unrelated to this). I did not go to the mother's day thing, I wasn't going to cancel the plans I already made and I wouldn't have had enough time to squeeze in a visit since it was an hour away and an hour back and would've been an all day thing. I'm incredibly disappointed and crushed, and really, really miss my dad. It was my first mother's day and the only one who put any kind of thought into it was my mother in law and my own family - my mom included - seems to consider me an after thought. They're supposed to be the ones to provide support and love through all of this. The janitor from my work sent me a happy mothers day, redditors I chat with who don't even know my fucking name wished me a happy mother's day, someone I just started talking to like 2 days ago wished me a happy mothers day, but my own family couldn't even send a text??? Ouch.
Sorry again for how long this is, I'm just kinda fucked up from the whole thing.

Hi everyone, Excuse my bad english
I made this throwaway account for anonymity reasons.
I need help and advice on what to do with my (F19) older sister (23) who has nothing going on in her life, sleeps all day but bought a gym membership for 300 euros per month. I started writing because we just had the smallest fight but it struck me so hard that i came here. The story:
Ever since we were little we were the best of sisters, we had our fights but they were just little things, because i only remember good times with her when we were young. Im honestly crying that it came to the point that past midnight I'm writing on reddit for advice as i was truly hoping i wouldn't have to come here to seek solutions for this. She was the smart kid, always staying up late to study, always helping mom with difficult tasks where you needed brains like government documents and school registration. Every document the school sent us, my sister would read, understand and translate to my mom. My parents immigrated to this country when my mom was pregnant with her, we were born here, my parents know the language here but i would say its level B1 or even A2. For privacy reasons i wont be disclosing which country.
In high school she was acing all her classes and i was the one failing all my classes. I didn't know how to study lol, literally i didn't even know what it included. My sister stayed up so many nights to help me out with homework, she would tutor me time to time, but sometimes i would get on her nerves. It isn't until her first year at university (she chose a really hard course with sciences and math) that she changed completely. Its as if a clone returned and not my sister. Her first school year was 2019-2020, she was failing almost all of her classes, she was being really rude to us (my mom, dad and me) which i understand when its stressful, and being the older sibling i understood that there's so much responsibility that falls onto your shoulders and a sense of 'i must achieve great things for my famil' (because we weren't rich, we weren't starving but money could have avoided so many problems we faced. And so after three years of failing her courses, and lying to us that she was succeeding, she dropped out when I was in my last year of high school. My parents were really disappointed and sad, more so at the fact that they came here to give us a better life but my sister was not able to do anything good with the privileges she got that my parents hadn't. I understand though that just because we had it better than our parents, doesn't mean we know exactly how to live life good with success. But still i think you can understand how my parents felt when she dropped out, after everything they've done to sustain us. And so when i was deciding what to study at uni, my mom forced my sister to sign up for uni again, she chose law, i chose smt easier cuz i like it. And not even halfway through the first semester she secretly dropped out. The whole school year she was lying to us that she was still studying and at school following classes. When my mother finally found out she again caused a huge scandal saying that she doesn't like being lied to. My sister then said she was working on a business of hers that she finds more important. And that this will bring more money than a degree. She promised us that she would be brining in thousands per month when i start my second year at uni. Well, here we are end of my second semester of my second year at uni and she has no business, she works at a little shop (i too as a student), she bought a gym membership to some high end gym where per month she pays around 250 euros for the membership, she doesn't go there everyday like she said she would. She hasn't changed anything in her life like she said she would. She has great ideas for business and since she was young she was a very creative kid, she would always make little diys, i remember how she would draw every time, she has real talent, she would make clothes for my dolls and all sorts of accessories for them out of paper and carton. But ever since she dropped out of uni twice she just sleeps until lunch/noon, gets up does nothing all day other then do a little bit of information search for her business ideas, go to her gym twice in two weeks or smt and overall always have an angry mood. Shes always angry, we had many talks with her, family and her, just me and her, she would promise to change and do better but nothing came out of it. My mom has a doctor whos she close with, the doctor asked for my sister to come to her to talk and see whats wrong, but my sister said she doesn't want to go as she would start crying. And we cant force her. I don't hear much from what my dad thinks of this, only the things that my mom tells me. She said that my dad is very disappointed with what my sister is doing all day everyday, no degree, a meh job, no career, no skills shes developing, nothing. SHe doesn't even have a drivers license, says its not a priority, but she does always ask for rides from the parents.
she told me one time that the advice our parents give is not good enough for her, she needs advice from a rich dad. But my dad isn't that kind of dad, his advice is study good and get a good job, so is my mom's. I don't know how to help her, I've tried everything, I'm just desperate for help as any time i delve deep into this subject i cry at how sad she must be inside. And it makes me even feel ashamed and guilty that i am studying and building my future career while shes just sleeping all day claiming to be working on a business.
I'm so sorry for the long text i don't know how to properly structure it.
but i saw the rules state to add TLDR TL;DR My older sister dropped out twice , is wasting money on a expensive gym membership and has no career, works at a little shop 'temporarily she said', seems to hate us as she lashes out at us a lot. She needs rich dad advice but my parents can't give that to her.
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After all that we now know, watching their dynamic, and their faces on the couch sessions gives such an enlightening perspective. You can hear the snide remarks that before seemed harmless: during the mother(s) in law visit when Robbin says "You have to keep your independence and not let what your husband thinks of you define you, CHRISTINE" (she didn't say Christine, but you now we know that's what she was inferring, confirmed by the confused look on Christine's face when she said it. A lot of Season 16 is where it's really noticeable, IMO, if you see them on the couch together - watch Robbin do not so subtle eye rolls when Christine says something or when Christine says something not so glowing about Kody; how Christine watches with an intense stare/glare at Robbin when she's talking or how she sometimes just looks like "please, someone save me", blank eyes; how Meri just seems so disconnected from the group - her facial cues are anger and disinterest. Kody and Robbin were on a path to being the rulers of the family in every aspect, from almost the beginning. The rewatch could be a master class on narcissistic manipulation and the disintegration of a family, including tragedy. Shame on them.

So, a little background. I (33m) and my ex (29f) dated for about 3 years, and it just didn't work out. But we have maintained a pretty good friendship since ending the relationship over a year ago. My ex's father passed away when she was around 17 due to alcoholism. From her father she has 5 half siblings. The youngest one (brother), I'll call P, is now 14. P's mother has been addicted to drugs (meth, coke, and pills) and alcohol all of P's life. They have been homeless since his father passed away when he was around a year old. His mother, I'll call S, has exhausted all local resources such shelters, public services, and such due to breaking the rules and continuing to use drugs. I don't know how her two youngest children have never made it into the system; but her older 4 had been taken away when they were very young and put into the foster system. Anyways, S and P have been homeless, living in motels when possible, shelters when possible (before they stopped allowing her), staying at whatever rando's place they can, and sleeping storage units and in S's car when she had one (she no longer does). S has had multiple CPS reports made over the years but her two youngest children have always been left in her care. S is known to leave her kids of days at a time and be under the influence in front of them often. Also, S did not care about P's schooling. He would miss weeks of school at a time, would be failing every class possible, and was basically on the path of becoming a high school drop out in the next few years.
My ex finally got herself in a position where she is able to take on the care and responsibility of P. He had shown interest in living with her and wanting to better his own life. So, for the last 7 months P has been living with my ex, and I have been doing what I can to be supportive and a good male role model for P (I go to all of his sports tournaments and practices, help him with homework, have "guys nights" where we go to the movies or watch basketball games, facetime or text him a few times a week to check in and ask about his day, etc.). My ex has taken S to court to file for custody (court date is this week). They had a court hearing a few months ago and permeant placement was granted to my ex with visitations for P and S under my ex's discretion. P has not seen his mom in about 6 months. In those months S has maybe called to speak to P less then 8 times. She has done nothing to improve her situation or to show that she is capable of providing for P. She has occasionally sent P erratic messages saying things such as "you're not my son anymore" and other really mentally damaging things you just don't say to your own child. S also has an active warrant out for her plus she recently cut her ankle monitor off.
Despite all this, P really loves his mom. They are very much trauma bonded. Sometimes P will say things about his mom and me and my ex will look at each other because we know it is total BS. But P believes these things because it's what his mom told him. Some of the BS is that S and my ex's and P's dad were married (they were not), that she can't get a job because someone stole her identity (she is the one who committed identity theft, not the other way around), and that her facial tick is from a car accident years ago (but it's actually from the drug use). P is 14 so he is getting to an age where he knows what drugs and alcohol are and he knows the way his life was when he was living with S was not good. But he also will defend his mom no matter what. We do not bad mouth his mom in front of him. But we do try to ask questions to get him to realize things on his own and connect the dots. P knows his mom is using but has started feeling guilty and thinks if he was with S she would not be using and drinking as much. My ex tried to explain that with or without him there S would still be doing these things, she just doesn't do them right in front of him; and also that S is an adult and makes those poor decisions on her own. P is constantly stressed and worried about his mom and her substance abuse. He feels responsible for her despite knowing living with his sister gives him the best opportunity of being successful in life. He has been going to school consistently, he has no failing grades, he is playing organized sports and has a stable home environment for the first time in his life. But the longer his been living away from his mom, the harder it gets on him mentally. With court coming up this week I think its waying more and more on him and things that he didn't want to believe (that his mom is unfit) are becoming reality and will be backed up by a court of law. We do tell P he will still be able to see his mom once the court situation is figured out, but we are worried for his safety and whereabouts when he's with her and would like her to have some sort of stable place for him to visit her at (a park or McDonalds would even work). We also let P know that he can call/facetime his mom any time he wants but he rarely asks to (just like S rarely calls him).
Anyways, I guess the whole point of this is, what would you say to your younger self if you could? If you read all this and could relate to P then please tell me what the thought process and mindset was for you when you were in that position as a child. I feel like when P is an adult, he will appreciate his sister stepping in to take care of him but right now I know it's hard for him to understand all his feelings towards his mom. It's like he's torn between his mom and a stable life. He knows which is better for him but at the end of the day that's still his mom.

Still treating them like family? And lets them near little girls when that person had drugged and SA’ed me as a teen for 7 years?
Right when I was about to file a civil lawsuit against my stepfather, my mother suddenly turned cold and called me evil. Then abruptly cut off all contact with me. And I fell apart. It took so much therapy and lost jobs to finally feel ok. 3 years later, I had to reach out to my mother to settle student loans details. To my surprise, she all of a sudden is acting kind, sad that she has been lonely, and I am here now suddenly comforting her.
Then yesterday I found out that turd stain was hanging around my little sister (who wants to be with her father), that he has a gf who is a lawyer with a son (luckily not a daughter), and I have this rage bubbling inside me to out him to everyone. Bc he deserves to be on neighborhood watch listed as a child sexual predator. But he is not and he is free to live his life and has a job at local very popular amusement park (think animation) as a security guard. Where he is around little girls and young teens. It’s infuriating and I can’t stop fantasizing about outing him!
How do you deal with this? I am going to file a lawsuit against him in the next 5 yrs as I have about a decade to get lawful justice (researched statute of limitations). However, only when I have enough resources to do so.
A (very long) backstory, mother abandoned me at 5 yrs old, I had a father who was a drug addict and wildly physically abusive. She shifted the blame of abandonment due to my father using me as a bargaining chip “you leave me and you leave her, or you stay with me, keep getting DV’ed and you can stay with your daughter”. She chose to leave.
Then years later we reconnected, she took me into her home where my little sis was just born and her bf of 5 yrs lived, and he immediately became a creep. I was 13 yo then. Slowly, he groomed me into believing he was looking out for me, turning me against my mother, told me all the bad things she said behind my back (which was honestly true, my mother was donwright neglectful and hated my face bc she said it looked like my dad.)
Then… after a year of pretending to be a friend to a 13 yo, he crossed physical boundaries and I tried to run for help.
Sadly, my mother didn’t care to listen even when I was sobbing for her to listen. And he rushed up, took me by the arm and told me to come with him in the car. And begun driving me to school. There, he cried, emotionally manipulated me, and said if I told anyone, my little sister would be without a father like me, my mother would be homeless bc of me. And that it would be all my fault.
And a few days later, he’d cross the line again. But this time, I cried in the bathroom scrubbing myself over and over again bc I felt so dirty, disgusted for what he had done to me. He had me drink shots of liquor, gave me illicit drugs, and would go to town when I’d black out. Other times, I would be asleep and he’d come in pants down, and just made me do it.
7 years of this and I am still getting flashbacks of times I had blacked out. Now hearing he is living free, unseen by the law as a criminal and pedo, with access to young girls, I am furious.
How would do you handle your own fantasies of outing the abuser? How do you handle connecting with family members who pretend nothing happened?
His mother (the pedo’s) literally told me I was TEMPTATION at 13 yo and that’s why he couldn’t resist SA’ing me. I was so shocked to hear that. Even looking at my lil sis who is now 17yo, she looks so young. How could a mid-30 yo man find a 13yo as temptation? How could his mother say that? Ugh!!

If you hold resentment towards your mother in law for wrongdoings is this a sin? She is mentally unstable & has caused a lot of grief in my marriage in the past.
I’m doing my best to move forward, there are no wrong doings, but I have a pit in my stomach anytime I hear her voice. & stay away when she comes over. I can’t help but to think I’m holding some resentment towards her bc of that.
Is this a sin? How do you honor the dishonorable?

Context and upbringing:
As long as I remember I always wanted to hurt people. Not animals, just people. I was a loud and charismatic child, though always ready to jump at someone if I felt like that. For some reason no one tried to stop me from occasionall bullying. Maybe because I was pretty charming towards everyone.
It all changed when I was 8 years old. I, can't remember why, lifted a boy and tried to run with him. I slipped. He fell with me and hit his head at the wall. He didn't lose consciousness immediatly, but couldn't stand and started to cry. At the moment I didn't feel anything. Maybe only that I messed up, though not because someone was hurt, but because I could get grounded. Grounded I got. Boy was vomitting and laying in bed for several days and that was first time I actually got problems because of my cruelty.
In my country as a kid you can't go to prison unless you commited very horrific crime, but you can get in special category in law system. Let's call it "The List". If you get there you will have big problems with getting in good university, finding a job and etc. It simply means that you commited crime, though not very severe, and now police watches over you. It damages your reputation a lot.
For some reason, I still don't know why for sure, his parents forgave me after 2 days of deciding what to do with me. Those were two messed up days, my mom crying, my dad silent, my siblings absent(can't remember why though) and I realised what was happening and what I could het with that. Maybe I went traumatised, because even after amnesty I never ever again started a fight myself (and always tried to avoid it at all costs) and started to slowly change from extrovert to complete introvert-sociophob.
I was 8 at the moment of "accident" and my peak of loneliness and self-destruction was at 14 years old. No friends, excpet few people I never opened to, no girlfriend (because I was scared of them like they were aliens), complexes(overweight, acne and no geneticly good face) and hatred. Hatred was a problem I underestimated, but I will leave it for now.
At 14 I started to go to the gym. My older brother was picking on me so I went without much enthusiasm, but I trying my best there since it was better than simply losing my time.
Time went by, I had nothing in my life but my PC, school and gym. I was a good student so my marks were good. Gym started to pay off after about a year or something. My social skills were still dead, but I decided that I should learn masks and small talks (I couldn't do it as easy as most).
At 16 I learned about self-improvement. Tried it. Liked it. Decided to dedicate my time for it. Ended up with a lot of hate toward myself since I couldn't beat my laziness, but couldn't just brush it off anymore knowing that I could do more. I did improve though in every aspect of life. It was just not ideal, so I couldn't praise myself for it as I shoud have.
At 16 I thought that I was somewhat ready for a girl and in a bold manner (like an actual autist) asked the most attractive (in my opinion at least) girl in my school. To my surprise se accepted even though my initial goal was simply to beat fear and ask her at all. Date went AWFULY. Every alpha-male would die from cringe if they saw me that evening, but I was happy. I got lots of experience and threw a nice jab at my fears.
Fast forward two years. I am 18, studying in university since my studies paid off. My looks are better than ever. My self-esteem is somewhat adequate. I even got in a relationship and lost my v-card (something I considered impossible) to a 9/10 (on my scale). I broke up with her though, because I was tired of wearing a mask of a perfect caring boyfriend and her illogical and idiotic whims were getting on my nerves. I am a dick for that, but I really tried to be as good as I could. The biggest reason of my breakup was that I couldn't ignore hatred any longer. And that's how we finally get to the main part
Main problem and present:
I feel deep resentment towards human species. I imagine torturing and killing people from 13 years old and I can't simply brush those thoughts off. My mother did good job at programming me, so I have sense of moral. I know this is bad, so I project my thoughts only on "bad guys". I can sit for hours imagining how I would torture and maul pedophiles, children shooters, rapists and others scums. Sometimes when I watch videos with accidents where people get hurt I catch myself smiling. I don't like it since those people are innocent in those videos. I fear it. I am 18 and those thoughts are stronger than ever. My psychologist (which I finally went to) after 4 sessions decided to leave me because my case is "too complex", so she gave me numbers of better specialists. She told me that I do have clear psychopatic tendencies and that I am true narcissist. What should I do? I, don't know how, developed strong sense of justice and moral and my main dream and goal - is finding a true, pure love. I know that I don't want to think this cruel sick way. I know that I want to change, but how?
I decided to actually face this hatred and try to fight it because of anime "Vinland Saga". I want to be at peace, I want to bring peace. I want to be a kinder, better and stronger person. Genuinely good and kind. I even considered suicide to not let even a chance that I hurt somebody, but my family loves me deeply. They don't know of how cruel my thoughts are even towards them, but my death will mentally destroy at least my mother and grandmother. I can't do that. What should I do?

As school graduations are underway, it is hard not to think of one of the most puzzling cases in the last 50 years, which took place the night of graduation: the mysterious disappearance of Suzie Streeter, Stacy McCall, and Sherill Levitt, dubbed "Springfield Three". I thought I'd bump it back to the surface given we are nearly 32 years from the event, and hopefully provoke some more discussion on the topic!
Introduction
On 6th June 1992, Suzanne “Suzie” Streeter (age 19) and Stacy McCall (age 18) both graduated from Kickapoo High School in Springfield, Missouri. Graduation always brings an air of celebration... This was no exception for Streeter and McCall, who attended several graduation parties around Springfield and in nearby Battlefield throughout the night. The girls were last seen around 2 am, when they departed from a party at friend Janelle Kirby’s house. While they had initially planned to spend the night at Kirby’s house, they ultimately decided that it was too crowded and decided to return to Streeter’s mother Sherill Levitt’s house for the night. Had the girls decided to stay at Kirby’s house as they’d originally planned, true crime history as we know it might be entirely different, and the tale of the Springfield Three might not exist. Perhaps Streeter and McCall would have wandered home the next morning to find Levitt missing, a tragedy for sure, but one of more than 600,000 persons who go missing in the United States every year. Perhaps the tragedy may have been avoided entirely had they stayed at Kirby’s; without any clear motivation, we can merely speculate. Unfortunately, however, this is not what happened. The two girls made their way home, and they, along with Levitt, were never seen again, alive nor dead. This is the mysterious and disturbing story of the vanishing of the Springfield Three, still unsolved over thirty years later.
The Disappearance
Streeter and McCall were last seen around 2 am leaving friend Janelle Kirby’s graduation party. While some factors could point to this time being unreliable (drinking @ party, overall vibe of celebration, and there was no reason to think that the time they left was significant in the moment), there would have been multiple witnesses at the party who sawthe girls leave, lending more credence to the idea that they did indeed leave around 2 am. By all accounts, the last time anyone heard from Levitt was approx. 11:15 pm, when she spoke with a friend about painting an armoire. Given the seemingly mundane nature of the conversation, it seems likely that the events that led to the vanishing of the Springfield Three had not yet occurred at this time; while it is possible that someone had already broken into the home and was forcing Levitt to “act natural,” this seems highly unlikely given the nature of the conversation and the fact that the friend did not mention anything seeming off or wrong during her conversation with Levitt. Additionally, Streeter and McCall almost certainly made it back to the house. While there are no eyewitnesses, their cars were parked in the driveway, and their purses were found inside. Additionally, McCall’s mother confirmed that the clothes that McCall had been wearing the previous day were found neatly folded inside the house. Streeter and McCall’s friend Kirby states that she attempted to call the house at approximately 8 am and received no response. Therefore, we can say with near certainty that the event that caused the vanishing of the Springfield Three occurred sometime between 11:15 pm on June 6th and 8 am on June 7th -- though much more likely to be between the hours of 2 am and 8 am.
Crime Scene Discovery
On the day of June 7th, Streeter and McCall were scheduled to go to the water park with their friend Janelle Kirby, whose party they had visited the night prior. This is why Kirby had called the house at 8 am that morning. After not receiving an answer or hearing back, Kirby made her way over to the house on 1717 E Delmar Street, along with her boyfriend, around 12:30 pm. They found the door unlocked but nobody home, with the exception of Levitt’s dog Cinnamon, a Yorkshire Terrier, who they claimed seemed agitated. There were no signs of a struggle besides the front porch light, the glass shade of which had been shattered while the lightbulb itself had been left intact. Not realizing that they were snooping around a crime scene, Kirby’s boyfriend swept up the broken glass from the porch lamp, attempting to be kind but in the process possibly contaminating evidence. While in the house, the phone rang, and Kirby answered. She said that the caller made sexual innuendos, and she hung up on them. The phone rang again, but after realizing it was more of the same, Kirby hung up yet again. Likely confused but not panicked, Kirby and her boyfriend left the house. They did not contact law enforcement, as they did not yet realize that a crime had occurred.
Janis McCall’s Discovery
Several hours later, around 7 pm, Janis McCall, Stacy’s mother, grew concerned when she hadn’t been able to contact Stacy, and decided to visit the house. Inside, she found the women’s purses upright and in a line. All the women’s car keys were in their purses, as were their cigarettes. Janis was apparently sufficiently alarmed enough that she called the police from the home phone at 1717 E Delmar Street. After alerting law enforcement, Janis checked the voice mailbox and heard what has only been described as a “strange message” that she accidentally erased before anyone else, including law enforcement, could listen to it.
The Investigation
This investigation has repeatedly lead to dead ends. Local police began investigating the house on June 8th, and the FBI was called in the very next day. Numerous searches were conducted in nearby wooded areas with no luck. Police investigated a number of tips, including one regarding a “transient” or homeless person supposedly seen near the house, one regarding a man pretending to be a utility worker investigating a gas leak, and one involving a Dodge van that was supposedly seen around the house. None of these tips, and many, many more that were submitted both in the immediate aftermath of the vanishing of the Springfield Three and in the years that followed, led to any substantial developments in the case. Before long, the case of the Springfield Three went cold, but it has never been forgotten.
The Main problems with this case...

• Red herrings: Just about every piece of evidence mentioned above (the broken porch light shade, the purses, the agitated dog, the crude phone calls, the strange voicemail, etc.) could be vital evidence or a red herring, but we have no way of knowing which is which. Any of these items could have come to be prior to the incident that led to the vanishing of the Springfield Three, but could be directly related to the case, making it hard to know what to focus on.
  
• Contamination of evidence: The contamination of evidence is also highly problematic. It’s hard to tell what, if anything, could have been gleaned from the broken glass on the porch or the deleted voicemail because those things were already gone or severely contaminated before they could even be examined. Police estimated that 10-20 people had passed through the house before police began their investigation, mostly from friends and family members passing through looking for the women.
  
• Police incompetence: The police have been criticized for their handling of the case, though it’s not entirely clear how far this mishandling goes. However, the estimate of 10-20 people filing through the house feels like a case of exaggeration to explain why they were able to glean almost nothing from the crime scene (regardless of whether there was actually anything to be gleaned or not). The police have also stated that the voicemail that Janis heard and accidentally deleted may well have contained vital information for the case. Without knowing the context of that voicemail, we cannot say whether this is true or not; however, it seems odd that a perpetrator (or perpetrators) would pull off an almost perfect crime but leave something damning behind on voicemail. However, the fact of the matter is that we simply don’t know, and due to the criticisms levied at local law enforcement for their handling of this case, it’s tough not to view any announcements they make without at least a hint of skepticism.
  

Discussion
While a number of possible suspect names have been tossed around over the years, none stand out as truly likely, with almost all lacking the means or motive to pull off what seems like the perfect crime. Some speculate it was one of the girls' high school friends (possibly Janelle) or romantic interests, but a crime of this nature feels far outside the scope of a recent high school grad. Some suspect Bart Streeter, Sherill's son & Susie's brother, who struggled with drug and alcohol issues. Others suspect prominent serial killers at the time (Robert Craig Cox is often mentioned), though the crime doesn't match his MO. It's tough to say, and I personally don't have any leading theories.
Thought I'd ask the following discussion questions as well:

• What is your personal theory as to what happened, and why?
  
• What popular theories do you rule out, and why?
  
• Who was the intended target?
  
• What pieces of evidence do you consider red herrings? What evidence do you think is significant?
  

Recently, I gave some advice about playing the Lannisters, and someone asked for further advice because they struggle to play Lannisters. It’s hard to do something like that in a concise package, but luckily, I like to write. I do it recreationally, and will write about subjects I'm interested in, delete the works afterward because the writing helps me put my thoughts on paper. I happen to have some such essays analyzing the Lannister army!
Mileage varies, and how you feel about some units or strategies in this game is going to depend a lot on how you feel towards reckless gambling. This is most true of the Lannisters, who revolve so much around unreliable mechanics that I earnestly think at this point that it’s part of their doctrine. It seems to me, that the idea behind the Lannisters, is that they’re broken. They’re full of abilities that don’t work, or that only work when you get lucky, or that only work if your opponent does something stupid. It’s up to you, as the person building the list, to figure out how to take those mechanics and make them function in spite of themselves. The way I see it, you can play the Lannisters as Cersei, by throwing dice at ridiculous odds that only rarely turn up in your favor, or you can play as Tywin, by making safe, calculated choices that will achieve the specific results you want.

• The Cards

Potential Fixes: Always run Tyrion, Giant of Lannister
The first problem we run into with all Lannisters is that their main card deck is bad. People will jump in and tell you that some other deck is worse. I’m not saying the Lannisters are necessarily the worst deck, but I am telling you that you could play five unique Lannister cards in a single round, and not see any results. They can all fail via random dice rolls. In my opinion, in a tactics game where a single turn makes a huge difference, in a card game where a single card changes the flow of the game, that is pretty bad. That’s not a situation you want to find yourself in if you like winning games, or even if you just like having fun.
So five cards. That’s half of your deck. That means that at the start of the game, the odds are pretty good you’re going to draw one or two cards that might not provide any benefit at all. The only thing you can do about this is get rid of them. Don’t wait for the perfect timing to play Hear Me Roar. If you keep it in your hand until you opponent is down by two ranks and you can sink in a unit with Vicious so as to maximize your odds, that card might be blocking up your hand for three to six rounds, and then your opponent might still roll boxcars. Play it, discard it, just get rid of it. You do not want those cards wasting space in your hand.
Four cards always need to go right away: A Lannister Pays His Debts, Hear Me Roar, Bribery, and Subjugation of Power. These cards all have the chance of either doing nothing, or are so weak they may as well be nothing. If they stay in your hand, they’re inflicting an opportunity cost – that is, there’s another card waiting behind Hear Me Roar to be drawn. If you keep these cards in your hand, you are preventing yourself from getting the better card, so always get rid of these cards, either by playing them, or by discarding at the end of the round. You may find some nice spots to play them – and that’s great! Bribery, in particular, can be noted as a lifesaver if Wealth has already been covered and you need to slow down a hard-hitter. However, that’s part of the trap: these cards can be good in the right circumstances, but it’s difficult to create the circumstances in which they are useful, so if those circumstances don’t exist now, you should get rid of the cards and look for better ones.
You may notice I said there were five cards that can do nothing. The fifth one is Counterplot, and its design is… elective, to seek a kindly neutral word. It’s a counter-card, which means it is useful, but they designed it so that it has a chance to fail on a dice roll of 1 or 2. You can mitigate that by holding Wealth and Crown, but that’s a tactical askance, and your opponent could play a powerful card on the first turn, so in reality you don’t have very much control over the success of this card. To be blunt, that makes Counterplot a very weak card.
People get up in arms if you say it, but it is. It’s a weak card. First, it’s reactionary, which means it only works if your opponent does something to trigger it – playing a card – which means your opponent has more control of it than you do. Second, the card can only be as valuable as the card it blocks, which means if you use it to block something lame, then Counterplot was also lame. That means you might feel compelled to hold the card until you see a very powerful card, such as Assault Orders, but if you do that, Counterplot creates an opportunity cost that isn’t caused by Assault Orders. Assault Orders is a very powerful card which so good, most players will use it in the round that they draw it, whereas you’d be holding Counterplot, blocking your own hand, for as many rounds as it takes for your opponent to draw Assault Orders. Finally, because it has a failure chance, you might wait for Assault Orders, fail your Counterplot roll, and then be hit by the enemy card anyway, which meant Counterplot weakened you by wasting space in your hand, and then didn’t do anything. That is a bad card.
So you need to play Counterplot earlier than later. You may want to use it on Assault Orders, but you have no control over that, and you can’t know when your opponent is going to draw it. You don’t want your hand to be blocked by Counterplot for multiple rounds, waiting for the ideal opportunity, and you definitely don’t want to do that and then roll a 1. Just play Counterplot on any card that would reasonably benefit your opponent. If they play Assault Orders right afterward, then c’est la vi; you cannot know what cards they’ll have, nor when they’ll play them, nor if Counterplot will even work. Just don’t hold on to Counterplot long enough that the card begins to hurt you.
The fix for this? Always play Tyrion, Giant of Lannister. It’s an attachment that lets you discard two cards and then search your deck for any specific card you’d like. In a deck like the Lannisters, where half your cards have a chance to do nothing at all (and those odds of achieving nothing are close to 50% on the Panic-related cards), you will frequently find yourself with two cards in your hand that might not do anything. Tyrion lets you discard those, and then draw a useful card that does do something. For the Lannisters, that is huge. Without Tyrion, you find yourself suffering through multiple rounds with dead hands, where none of the cards do anything, and your opponent will be pounding you with their own deck. With him, it’s not up to luck, you know your hand will contain at least one good card each round, for as long as Tyrion is still on the field.

• The Units

Having mentioned Tyrion, Giant of Lannister, it’s worth noting he only costs one point. During a casual conversation between players, one of them asked, “Why is Tyrion only one point? Counterstrategy is really good, and Battle Plan changes how they play their deck.” The response from the Lannister players was, in a nutshell, “My infantry sucks, bro.”
A lot of Lannister infantry sucks. They’re very frequently broken to start with because they’re given unreliable abilities, and to get them working, you have to attach something specific to them. Tyrion, Giant of Lannister would be amazing in a unit of Silenced Men, but he does nothing to fix the boondoggle that is the Honor Guard, so it’s hard to get Tyrion to the front lines and have the unit be functional at the same time. As a result, as good as Counterstrategy may be, you often find it stuck in something holding objectives at the back of the field.
That is the core essence of building Lannister army lists. Once you understand that your objective is to fix a broken and screwed up army, everything comes together better. You have to expect you won’t get what’s printed on the unit’s card, unless you take an attachment or specific commander who makes the unit work, and that’s what we’ll focus on in this section.
Gregor, the Mountain that Rides
Potential Fixes: NA
Starting with the cheapest units, Gregor is often taken because he’s only four points, and he can pack a surprising wallop if you’re lucky with the dice. With only three attacks, sometimes he flubs them all, sometimes he punches above average. He dies easily, he will die, but he will give your opponent plenty of reasons to want to kill him. Unfortunately, he’s not viable against Free Folk nor Night’s Watch, because siege units can instantly kill him on round one from across the board, so if you play competitively, make sure he’s not in both of your lists.
Poor Fellows
Potential Fixes: No
Poor fellows are just cheap bodies. They stand on an objective and try to stay out of the fight, and that’s it. They can’t really fight, their armor is paper thin, but because they can heal themselves, they will bounce back from minor harassment and won’t be chipped to death. The best way to run them is naked, or not at all.
Stone Crows
Potential Fixes: No
These guys are an alternative to Poor Fellows that might weather direct attacks a little better, but that will die more quickly to Panic. You can put Tyrion, Giant of Lannister in them for “free”, but it’s like a JC Penny discount where the sale never ends, because it’s not really a sale and the cost of Tyrion is obviously built into this unit. Putting anything besides Tyrion in them would be a pointless disaster.
Lannister Guardsmen
Potential Fixes: Mandon Moore
When new players look at Guardsmen, usually the first thing they note is “Lannister Supremacy” and think about how much damage that might do. Don’t focus on that – it’s an unreliably ability. Instead, look at their 4” movement and their six attacks with a 4+ to hit. This unit is excruciatingly passive. They can’t proactively threaten anything, they can’t easily get to a good position (which means it’d be hard to get them on a center objective), and finally, their ability only kicks off if the opponent was foolish enough to attack them with something that couldn’t wipe the Guardsmen out.
There’s not really anything practical you can do to fix this unit, because they’re really not reaching a five-point value in the first place, and they’re too slow. I’ve seen less experienced players recommend putting Assault Veterans in them to make the Panic Test from Lannister Supremacy more effective, but that doesn’t solve the issue of the Guardsmen being passive - of them being more under your opponent’s control than your own.
However, for kind of a fun fix, you can put Mandon Moore in them, and at that point they have Sundering, they’re hitting on a 3+, have 3+ armor, and archers won’t want to pick on them. It’s not competitive because Mandon compels you to run Joffrey, and Joffrey is a point too expensive, and the unit will still be slow, and they don’t have a great attack profile, but it is kind of fun to have some bargain bin Honor Guard on the field.
Lannister Halberdiers
Potential Fixes: None needed
This is one of the few Lannister units that comes pre-assembled with working abilities and everything. You don’t have to fix them! For that reason, if you’re not shy on points, this is one of the units many players will put Tyrion in.
I think one of the most notable facets of the Halberdiers is that they illustrate how much a good offense creates a good defense. Other players don’t ever seem to respect Guardsmen because the Guardsmen aren’t going to initiate anything on their own, but most players try to avoid running their light cavalry directly into a unit of Halberdiers. They’d take wounds on the way in, and if the Halberdiers haven’t activated, they’ll be wounded again when the Halberdiers attack. If you put Kevan or Bronn in these guys, then that’s even more opportunities to punish any would-be charge.
Basically, if you want a defensive unit, Halberdiers are your best friends. Lannisters have many “defensive” options to choose from, but this is one of the only choices that is actually good at defense rather than being simply passive.
Gold Cloaks
Potential Fixes: No
Kind of like Guardsmen but easier to kill, this is another passive unit with reactive abilities that mostly only benefit itself, if it benefits anything. The main draw for them is their “Laws of the Realm” Order, which reduces the number of ranks the enemy can use to attack. If this ability were long range, they’d be reasonable – of course, it’s not.
Gold Cloaks are pretty fragile, and their abilities are short range; “Oppressive Peacekeeping” incidentally requires controlling Crown, which makes it a tactical dud. Regardless, having a bunch of short range abilities necessitates that this unit be as close to the front lines as possible, where it absolutely cannot survive. A 4+ save, with only 7+ morale, makes these guys a pretty good target for a free victory point. Unfortunately, there’s not really anything too practical that can be done about this, because adding to the cost of this unit is generally only going to make it worse.
On the note of free victory points, I sometimes see players saying things like, “If the enemy attacks my useless units, then I win, because they have wasted their turn.”
This is pretty poor tactical thinking. You should assume that if your opponent kills your Gold Cloaks, it’ll be for a good reason. You can also assume they’ll be very easy to kill, because they are.
Mountain’s Men
Potential Fixes: Roose commander, Assault Veterans, Addam commander, Redcloak assistance, Daario commander, Bronn
Mountain’s Men might be one of the more famously non-working units the Lannisters can field, but unlike Guardsmen or Gold Cloaks, they’re at least not passive dead weight. The main problem with them is that their good abilities – Critical Blow and hitting on 3+ - are conditional.
They also have Vicious and Prey on Fear, and I can see how somebody thought this was a strong combination in theory. In practice, Vicious is the weakest keyword in the game, affecting the outcome of an attack only about 20% of the time. Even with Vicious, the odds of an opponent failing their Panic Test is roughly 50% or less, and I’ve had plenty of games with these guys where their attacks never gained them any wounds back. To make matters worse, once they lose one rank, they only have five attack dice. On turns when they have less ranks than the enemy and the enemy passes their Panic Test, Mountain’s Men are closer to being worth four points than they are to six. All those words on the card don’t count for much when they don’t do anything!
Luckily, there are some things you can do that make Mountain’s Men fun to play with, though not competitive. First, you can lean into the Panic stuff, which is only pragmatic here because Vicious and Prey on Fear are the abilities you know the unit will always have. An Assault Vet can help with this, but isn’t ideal because it increases the price of the Mountain’s Men when they’re already struggling to be worth their value. Instead, you can run Roose as a commander and place him in them. Unfortunately, the Panic approach still relies a lot on luck, and even with the extra -1 on all Panic Tests, you can’t guarantee you’ll get healing when you need it, as the -3 penalty will only impact about a third of any Panic Test.
If you run Red Cloaks alongside the Mountain’s Men, you can increase the odds of getting a benefit from Prey on Fear. Doing this with Roose attached means inflicting an extra wound of damage and increasing the odds of success, but you’ll need to lead very aggressively with the Mountain’s Men to make sure they’re the ones primarily engaged, rather than the Red Cloaks. Red Cloaks are also suboptimal in a lot of ways – but we’ll get to them in a second.
Your alternative here is to try to increase the general fighting effectiveness and survivability of the unit. Since Bronn increases the defense and morale of a unit while you hold Wealth, he can increase the Mountain’s Men to a 3+ save with 5+ morale. Though that is nice, it is also the case that most 7-point units already have 5+ morale by default, along with a better overall profile than the Mountain’s Men have, so once again, adding cost to the unit is only making it worse at the same rate it makes them better. For that reason, you can try adding Daario to the unit, and can use Daario’s “Sellsword Negotiations” card to keep them up to ranks. Additionally, Daario lets them attack with all seven attacks when you hold Wealth. Finally, you can try putting Addam Marbrand in the unit, which will make the Mountain’s Men a little tougher to kill off while also letting them use cards like Valiant Example to get them immediately back up to higher ranks.
None of these fixes are good. The problem with most of them is that they add cost to the unit, require a suboptimal commander, or suffer from adding more conditional complexity to the unit. However, some of these fixes are at least fun and patch some of the problems the unit has… a little.
Crossbowmen
Potential Fixes: Sparrow commander, Bronn
Lannister Crossbows are a perfectly fine ranged unit. They do exactly what you’d expect: shoot enemies. Their only real flaw is that they have 7+ morale, which seems quite fair given they have 4+ armor – which is a lot for a ranged unit. Many players like to run Bronn in these guys, which raises them to a 3+ save with 6+ morale when you claim Wealth. In fact, this combo and the ease of finding targets for your Crossbows make them the most optimal place to put Bronn.
Sparrow also provides a +1 to morale, which means that Crossbows are a fine place for him to sit if you prefer not to place him somewhere else. Sparrow’s “Incite” ability is basically nothing, so it’s not missing out on much to ignore it, and his cards can be applied to any unit on the field.
Red Cloaks
Potential Fixes: Mandon Moore, Gregor commander
Red Cloaks are like a multi-role unit that forgot it was supposed to have more than one role. They can inflict a Panic Test on anything in long range by taking an action, and this occurs every time they take an action, which is a neat mechanic, but it’s also the only thing they do by default. It sounds powerful, but it’s important to remember that attacking a unit will inflict a Panic Test, so if you shoot a unit with a crossbow, they’ll first take damage from the crossbow, and then take a Panic Test. When you factor in the revelation that Red Cloak Panic Tests only succeed a little over half the time, and that only when the Red Cloak unit is at full ranks, you realize they’re just not that good.
People occasionally think to put Preston Greenfield in these guys, but the answer to the problem isn’t to use more activations to spam more Panic Tests. What you need, is to give the unit a second role – that is, melee combat ability, and you can do that by putting Gregor or Mandon Moore in them. Once the unit can actually fight, you can throw it into combat, force a Panic Test before their attack, do a decent amount of damage, then force a Panic Test after the attack.
Although this does patch one major issue with Red Cloaks, they still have a few things going on preventing them from holding up. For one, their attack profile isn’t great: when they lose a rank, they fall to five attacks and their Panic ability weakens. They also only have a 4+ to hit by default, which makes Mandon the more appealing fix since he’ll get them to a 3+, though that does make them cost more. Additionally, the entire unit winds up being wrapped up in needing Crown to function at all, which forces you to play Joffrey ahead of anything they do, and that’s a massive liability.
The Crown liability is one problem you just can’t get around. Needing to play an NCU ahead of the unit to make it worth more than four points in value makes them clunky in a way that a lot of other units don’t have to deal with.
City Watch
Potential Fixes: No
What we’re looking at with the City Watch is a unit that has pretty much the same profile as the Lannister Halberdiers, but they can only get Sundering for one turn and they don’t have Set for Charge. If you want what the City Watch is doing at this price, then you’re better off taking Halberdiers and adding an attachment to them. These guys are easily no more than a five-point value, and even then they’d be outclassed by a lot of other five-point units. For example, a cheaper replacement for these guys is to take some Stormcrow Mercenaries and choose an attachment that grants Sundering.
House Clegane Brigands
Potential Fixes: None needed
Light cavalry. It works! They are a bit fragile, but given their solid maneuverability, this is best dealt with by player skill rather than by slapping any attachments on them. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with throwing attachments on them, as all the options work perfectly well on these guys. There are only three, after all, but they’re all solid attachments. Their Panic-related ability is going to be as flaky as those things always are, so when you decide to charge a unit, do it based on the performance you expect from their basic attack, not on what you hope might happen if the enemy fails the Panic Test.
Pyromancers
Potential Fixes: Bronn, Sandor, Addam commander, Kevan commander
Here’s a unit I would have no idea how to balance! Every attack ignores armor, and they have both melee and short ranged options to do this, with seven attacks at a 3+ to hit and a profile of 7, 7, 4. Positively every unit in the game has something to fear here, and yet, with only a 6+ save, the Pyromancers have something to fear from every other unit on the field. Dangerous to any one unit, and in danger from four or more units at a time. That means the odds are usually against them, since the opponent has quite a lot of incentive to kill these guys off, and anything on the board generally has the wherewithal to do that.
Using Bronn increases the unit’s armor while giving them a valuable extra attack, with the extra attack being the most notable thing you can do since a “DPS race” is pretty much one of the only options this unit has. Kevan is also valuable for the same reason, and his Wealth of the Rock card can be thrown out for a little extra defense. If you can combine Bronn and Kevan’s card, then for at least two attacks, the Pyromancers can have 4+ defense! That is, of course, a highly situational play that you can’t depend on. Placing Kevan in them and using Crown for a free charge is liable to produce better mileage, as it leaves open a bit more room to safely maneuver.
Addam also does alright in the Pyromancers thanks to a smidge of added tankiness, some healing from his cards, and the potential to play Lash Out when the unit takes a really bad hit (which is all the more wounds the enemy can’t stop). Normally, Addam’s biggest problem is that the enemy will try to ignore whatever he’s in to avoid triggering his nonsense, but they can’t ignore Pyromancers.
Sandor has some potential in these guys, but doesn’t do enough. He might heal two or three wounds after the Pyromancers attack, but as soon as the opponent shoots everything they’ve got at the unit, it’ll be dead before Sandor can heal them again. Plus, Sandor doesn’t work when they make a ranged attack, and his “vulnerable” effect is a bit wasted when the unit he assaults doesn’t get armor saves anyway. Ramsay Snow breaks on the exact same failure point of too much damage, not enough healing, only he costs more, so I don’t rate Ramsay even as a casual fix. The Panic stuff is not reliable and isn’t worth considering.
Still, no matter what you do, this unit is going to draw a ton of attention, and short of straight up killing whatever’s turned on it, it’s not going to survive what comes to destroy it. “Horrific Visage” is a wet paper bag that’s going to miss about half the time or more, and a 50% shot at a Panic Test is a minor risk to getting the Pyromancers off the field.
While not common, it is worth noting that the Pyromancer attacks “do not permit armor saves”, but they are not instant wounds. That means abilities such as Hardened or Resilient can still block or reduce damage dealt by Pyromancers.
Warrior’s Sons
Potential Fixes: Sparrow commander, Daario commander, Addam commander, Champion of the Faith, Sandor, Gate Warden, Mandon Moore, Bronn, Gregor commander
This is one of the units that I like for certain competitive lists, and that I think make the Lannisters stand out in terms of their faction picks. The trick with them is, they are unreliable, like a lot of Lannister infantry, but it’s on the basis of whether or not they have enough of their “Faith” resource. There are commanders and attachments that help them get more Faith, and as long as you’re using the correct stuff, Warrior’s Sons are pretty good.
The obvious commander here is Sparrow, because every single one of his cards is a morale test, and when you pass them, you can add one more Faith Token to the Warrior’s Sons that took the test. This is great! Because it allows you to use the Warrior’s Sons defense while relying on attachments to give them more kick and survivability. Wrath of the Warrior lets them attack with Sundering and +1 to hit while racking up a Faith Token for later use. Mercy of the Mother brings them back and keeps them going. Protection of the Father buffs their defense by re-rolling armor. If you use Tyrion, you can mill-draw these cards each round and make sure your Warrior’s Sons do what you need them to do.
As long as you have those tokens, you can run Sandor or a Gate Warden to maintain their survivability, or you can run Bronn to occasionally increase their armor and take a free attack. So far so good, but what if you don’t want to run Sparrow? Well, things get a little trickier now.
Addam is a common pick because he makes the unit even harder to kill, but he doesn’t have any good morale-at-will cards. He does have Charismatic Leadership, but it’s reactionary and your opponent would have to make the mistake of targeting the Warrior’s Sons with something to trip it off. Frankly, Addam in the Warrior’s Sons means they’re liable to be ignored. If they don’t generate Faith Tokens, their attacks are a bit mediocre for their cost, so you have a problem there.
Daario has a surprising amount of potential. You can mill-draw Sellsword Bravado to produce Faith Tokens while making the enemy weaker at the same time. Afterward, you can use Faith to get some good attacks, or, if you can claim Wealth, Daario gives the unit’s attacks Sundering. Therefore, any time you hold Wealth, this a pretty strong fighting unit. But wait, there’s more! Sellsword Negotiations can restore the health of the Warrior’s Sons while also having you count as holding Wealth, which is a lovely combo for a front-line unit like this, and I think it makes Daario, Stormcrow Captain the leading candidate to be in a unit of Warrior’s Sons. It is also worth considering that when you play Reckless Strikes, Faith will let you re-roll your attacks, so there’s some potential there, but I don’t recommend it, because the card can also auto-wound the Warrior’s Sons, which undermines their function as a scary, offensive wall.
If you still want to use these guys but don’t want to use Sparrow or Daario as your commander, you can put Mandon Moore in them, and at the drawback of needing to field Joffrey as well, they become a powerful fighter and defender both. They’ll run into trouble on the occasions that they fail their Panic Tests and lose their Faith Tokens, so to mitigate that, it’s usually good to avoid spending Faith while they’re at full ranks. You can wait until they’re on the second or last rank, at which point the Faith tokens have higher value, and spend them then.
Champions of the Faith do generate more Faith Tokens while handing out Vulnerable Tokens, or, if you like gambling, Panicked Tokens. Naturally, there’s also always Gregor, who doesn’t highlight the best parts of the Warrior’s Sons that well, but it does do all the bonkers, this-and-the-kitchen-sink cheese that commanders like Gregor do.
This unit is still okay without any attachments, but mainly just for standing on an objective, which is not the best use of seven points. If you’re going to invest that much, it should be to violently and noisily take something from somebody. The other reason I personally prefer Daario for this is because it won’t cost anything extra to place him in the unit.
Casterly Rock Honor Guard
Potential Fixes: Gregor commander, Daario commander, Meryn Trant, Mandon Moore
It’s so depressing to see so much text on a card, knowing you won’t use any of it. Honor Guard trade Condition Tokens for one-off effects that aren’t better than the Condition Tokens. They expend weakness to get Sundering, which is something most units of their cost might already have. They expend Vulnerable to recover wounds, conditionally based on whether or not the enemy lost a rank. They expend Panicked to remove a unit’s abilities for the turn, and though this one is useful if you’d for some reason put a Panicked Token on the board (probably explicitly for this unit’s ability), it’s not an ability that’s universally valuable because not everything has a defensive ability, and it’s hard to guess if your opponent has a card you want to block.
When you use the ability, the token goes away, so you not only have an issue with needing to set up the effect, but it’s ephemeral. Using NCUs to get the tokens is a problem because that necessitates playing the NCU first, likely broadcasting your intent, and giving your opponent an opportunity to respond. There are attachments that generate tokens, but they only do it once per round, and it’s an opportunity cost to generate a token just to quickly take it away.
In my opinion, the only good attachment that makes this unit work is Gregor as a commander. The unit has decent armor, a decent attack profile, and good morale, so once you give them two automatic wounds, immunity to Weakness, Sundering, and all of Gregor’s cards, they are an imminent threat to everyone. That’s not to say they’re actually good. It’s just that Gregor’s so jacked up that he rescues it.
Meryn Trant can be used as a fix for the Honor Guard because he consistently generates Weakness and Panicked tokens before each attack. You could skip the token thing entirely and go for Mandon Moore, though I think Meryn is better since it gets the ability nullification along with attack re-rolls. However, neither of these choices are great because they increase the cost of the unit, force-include Joffrey, and introduce the Crown confound, where you have to play an NCU before you can play the Honor Guard.
Daario can also pick this unit up with Sellsword Bravado, which will generate Weakness and Panicked before an attack, and while you control Wealth, the unit will have Sundering. However, I think Daario works a bit better in the Warrior’s Sons, because the Warrior’s Sons tend to be tougher on defense and sustain for longer when you’re using Sellsword Negotiations to keep them alive. Warrior’s Sons also have more flexibility with how you expend their Faith tokens, and when they use Sellsword Bravado, they can benefit from their Faith abilities without consuming the Weakness and Panicked tokens. Honor Guard destroy your tokens from the card, Warrior’s Sons construct on the morale test and leave the tokens intact.
Knights of Casterly Rock
Potential Fixes: None Needed
Essentially the premiere unit of the Lannisters, the Knights of Casterly Rock are fast, well-armored, and brutal. There’s not much more to say about them! “Lannister Supremacy” makes them a bit risky to shoot at with archers, and when they attack a unit that isn’t as good at fighting, it can give some nasty shocks, but really it’s the basics that make the Knights as good as they are. Generally it’s not a great idea to run attachments on them because they’re already an eight point unit, and the best thing a player can do for them is provide support.
Notable Neutrals
Though I won’t go into detail on all the Neutral options, there are a few things that deserve to be pointed out.
Bolton Cutthroats are doing basically what the Mountain’s Men are but without the stupid caveats, so if you put Sandor in them to give them Fueled By Slaughter, they cost the same, get 3+ to hit default, have a better attack profile, and heal when they attack instead of when an enemy fails a Panic Test. Not a great unit, but it’s more stable and achieves a similar goal without needing you to also run Red Cloaks, Joffrey, and whatever else.
Stormcrow Mercenaries do well with a few different attachments from the Lannisters. Tyrion most notably, who should really be in these guys if you need a nice, affordable place to put him. The Stone Crows have no advantages over the Stormcrows. It’s not even close, the Stormcrows are better.
Lysense Sellswords can bounce back from a lot of damage if you put Sandor in them. Once they’ve got two pillage tokens on them, every attack is going to restore between three to six wounds. Not bad for six points!
Stormcrow Dervishes with Sandor can also be very resilient. Because they can attack on Wealth, they can make up to three attacks per round (or more if you have Assault Orders), and each attack will heal the unit. Since they can retreat, if you still have your activation, you can take an attack from the Tactics Board, retreat, then charge as your activation, which inflicts Vulnerable from Sandor. That’s just one option – this unit is also no slouch when led by Kevan, who can charge when claiming Crown, retreat, then charge again as his activation. In my opinion, this is the best seven point unit the Lannisters can get if your commander isn’t supporting Warrior’s Sons because the Dervishes have the same armor as most of your options, but unlike your units, these guys are reliable and have consistent abilities.
In Summary of Units
To make this really simple, if you want a competitive list, you should probably be using Halberds, Knights, and Crossbows. You can use Warrior’s Sons if you’re set up for it. Brigands are also alright as light cavalry, but you should be very careful with them since they’re so fragile. Beyond those options, Neutrals are probably a better bet, because Neutrals have abilities that are more stable and will require less set-up.
You might have also noticed a few comments like, “When you play this card, this unit really benefits from it.”
Stuff like that is why Tyrion, Giant of Lannister should be in almost every list you make. Some units are going to be bad no matter what commanders or attachments you put in them, but they do get better and are more fun to play if you combo them with specific cards. That doesn’t work if those cards are at the bottom of your deck and you’re stuck drawing dysfunctional duds like Hear Me Roar.

Hi! My name is Estevan and I live in France. For my end-of-studies project, I wrote a small article about the situation of women in Colombia. My mother is Colombian and I felt it was important to discuss this in various places like Reddit.
This text has been translated using the internet, so there is a good chance of language mistakes. Sorry about that!
Colombia, a dynamic nation in South America, has been at the forefront of significant changes in women's political participation in recent years. However, behind these advancements, deeply rooted challenges persist that threaten to compromise gender equality in the political sphere and society at large. In this exploration, we will examine the progress made and the obstacles Colombian women face in their quest for equal political participation, while also analyzing the complexities of the struggle for gender equality in everyday life. From combating forced marriages to the persistent threat of femicides, this journey will lead us to understand the complex intersection between politics, culture, and gender justice in Colombia in a condensed manner.
The Fight Against Femicides
Femicides remain an alarming issue in Colombia, with a significant number of women and girls falling victim to gender-based violence. Although measures have been taken to strengthen legislation and increase penalties for perpetrators of these crimes, the culture of machismo and impunity remain major obstacles in the fight against this extreme form of gender-based violence. It is essential to address sexist attitudes and behaviors that perpetuate this violence, as well as to ensure women's access to resources and support services to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. In 2023, there were 401 femicides in Colombia, compared to 103 femicides in France. This abnormally high number proves the sad and significant presence of persecution against women in Colombia.
Advances and Challenges in Women's Political Participation in Colombia
In recent years, Colombia has seen a significant increase in women's political participation. Various measures have been implemented, such as gender quotas and incentive programs, aimed at increasing their representation in political positions, which has allowed the number of women in politics to rise to 30% compared to 11.5% in 1991. However, significant challenges persist, hindering their full participation in the political sphere. Among these challenges are gender stereotypes entrenched in Colombian society and cultural barriers that hinder women's access to decision-making spaces. Additionally, the lack of institutional support and resistance from certain political sectors remain significant obstacles to gender equality in Colombian politics.
The Fight for Gender Equality in Colombia: Beyond Wage Inequalities
Gender equality remains a priority on the Colombian agenda, and significant progress has been made in areas such as education and employment, where women earn 5% less than men for the same position. However, entrenched challenges persist in sexist practices that affect women's daily lives. In many cases, these practices are perpetrated by men and manifest through discriminatory behaviors and patriarchal attitudes. From condescending comments to the unequal distribution of domestic tasks, these actions reflect the persistence of gender inequalities in Colombian society.
To complement this article, I was able to discuss with a Colombian woman about some social aspects of the situation of women in Colombia;
How would you describe the participation of women in current Colombian society?
The participation of women in Colombian society has experienced remarkable growth in recent years. They hold increasingly prominent positions in various sectors, especially in politics, like Marta Ruiz, Vice President of Colombia, but also in the economy, education, and culture. However, challenges persist in our quest for gender equality and full participation at all levels of society.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges facing women in Colombia today?
The main challenges facing women in Colombia include gender-based violence, workplace discrimination, lack of access to education and health, which are complex issues for both women and men. We also face cultural and social barriers that perpetuate gender inequality, but lack of respect for women is the most common. For example, when I tried to build a house and reported defects in the workers' work, I was told that I couldn't understand because it was a man's job. Although this has improved over time and young people understand feminist causes better, there is still much to be done if we want to live without discrimination.
How has gender equality evolved in your personal experience and in your environment?
In my personal experience and in my environment, I have seen significant advances in gender equality, especially in the fields of education and employment. However, there is still much to be done to combat gender-based violence and disparities in terms of power and political representation. The situation has improved over time, but it is still difficult for every woman. It is necessary to understand that the street is like a jungle and that these behaviors must be faced to improve the situation and educate young people.
What is your opinion on the representation of women in Colombian politics?
Although there has been progress in the representation of women in Colombian politics, we are still far from achieving gender parity. Women face additional obstacles, such as lack of funding and entrenched sexism in political culture. It is crucial to take concrete measures to promote women's participation in politics and ensure that our voices are heard and respected. In addition to the role of Marta Ruiz as Vice President of Colombia, Colombian women are increasingly standing out on the national and local political scene. Figures such as Claudia López, the first woman elected mayor of Bogotá in 2019, illustrate this empowerment. López, formerly a senator and recognized activist for transparency and the fight against corruption, embodies a significant change in Colombian politics.
How does gender-based violence affect women in Colombia and what measures do you believe are necessary to address this issue?
Gender-based violence is a serious problem affecting many women in Colombia. It is necessary to implement effective measures to prevent and combat gender-based violence, including effectively enforcing existing laws, strengthening support services for victims, and promoting gender equality at all levels of society. Authorities should be firmer against these behaviors, but the Colombian police is sorely lacking in awareness in this area and here the state has a role to play in this fight also in terms of education on future generations.
How do cultural expectations and traditions influence the lives of Colombian women in terms of marriage, motherhood, and family roles?
Things like traditions and social expectations can really impact our lives, especially when it comes to marriage, motherhood, and family roles. Often, women are expected to take on the bulk of the work at home and with children, which can really hinder our opportunities in terms of education and career. We really need to question these preconceived ideas about gender and push for equal rights and opportunities for everyone, men and women. We need to make people understand that there are other ways to do things, other possibilities to explore.
What is your perception of the accessibility of education for women in Colombia and its impact on personal and professional development?
Access to education for women in Colombia has improved in recent years, but there are still hurdles, especially in remote areas. Education is super important for women to fully develop, professionally and personally, and contribute to the country. But the cost of school is a real concern for many kids, girls, and boys, and it deprives them of a complete and satisfactory education.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article!

This is hard for me to write, so thanks in advance for bearing with me here. This is also a throwaway account.
My parents are in their 70s, I am in my 30s. I am the youngest of several kids. I love my dad. He is a gentle soul and typically a good, kind-hearted person (although I'd be lying if I said he doesn't have the occasional, weirdly offensive boomer viewpoint but I think that's somewhat common among older generations). My mother, though, is another story entirely.
My mother (and grandmother and great grandmother) have a long history of toxic relationships with their children. They are harsh, judgmental, and essentially incapable of living with other viewpoints or opinions. I genuinely believe there is a pathological element to this and it gets worse as they age. I've seen it with my grandma, my mom, and both of my aunts. They all pick a lane, ideologically, politically, professionally, etc. and get progressively less accepting of other viewpoints on just about everything.
My mother broke away from a similarly controlling and rigid mother when she was young, who literally disowned her for a time. She encouraged my older siblings to read, to learn, to accept others, etc. As she's gotten older, she has slowly gotten more and more extreme in her viewpoints. I'm not targeting any particular ideology here because I don't think it matters, really. The point is that every time I (or any of my siblings) make a decision she doesn't agree with, she can't stop herself from making negative comments about it. Whether it's something stupid (I don't like pithy sayings written in picture frames) or something much bigger (she disapproves of my professional choices, or some of what we've taught our children). Almost always, these come out in little moments, as nitpicky passive-aggressive little comments. "Oh, it would be so nice if you'd have gotten your Master's degree." "Oh, I never let my kids eat/do/say/watch that." "Oh, I've never understood why people think that's ok." etc. One at a time, they're hardly worth mentioning. But taken as a whole, man can they wear you down.
She can be particularly harsh with other women, like my wife. When we visit, it's non-stop nitpicks of every parenting choice my wife makes. Neither of my sister's-in-law, very different women, even talk to her at this point. They just can't handle her anymore. And of course, I don't like how she treats my wife. She's often demeaning to my sisters. The worst is how she treats my dad. She can be VERY snippy and awful to him, usually about absolutely nothing, really. She'll snap at him for something as stupid as making the wrong thing for dinner or what have you. My older brother and I actually sat him down about a year ago and talked to him about this. That he needs to confront her about how verbally abusive she can be and how can we help him change things etc. He knows it's a problem. He acknowledged that it's gotten worse and worse. His final comment on the matter was something along the lines of: "well, I told her I'd love and cherish her so I feel like I need to. And if I leave her she'll have nobody." He agreed to try and talk to her, but told us he needed to do it alone. I'm not sure he ever did. It was kind of heartbreaking to see him just... accept her behavior as a fact of life I guess.
Yesterday might be the last straw for me. It was Mother's Day. She tried calling me early in the day and I was busy with kids and chores and whatnot so I didn't answer. I called a little later to wish her Happy Mother's Day and she answered in a negative tone with: "Hello. Are you calling because you love me, or just because it's Mother's Day?" "Of course I love you, mom" She was frustrated that I didn't take her call earlier. Ok, fair. It is Mother's Day. I then asked her about some yellow flowers we'd sent (yellow and purple flowers are her favorite) and she complained that they were "sort of cream-colored, not yellow" and then that she didn't know we'd sent them (the flower company screwed up the note and it ended up being a string of gibberish, apparently). Ok. I apologized for that. She then asked if we could change some vacation plans we'd made so we could have a little family reunion. OK, maybe, change how? We had planned on visiting them this summer, and she has been calling all of my siblings and asking if they can come too. Ok, sounds good. My sister can't be there until the last day we're there. Ok, we can stay for an extra day or two and then into the weekend, but I think I only have enough time off for that. "Oh, well that's just not very long is it? It would be better if you could stay for another week." *SIGH* Everything, everything I said was a disappointment somehow and I eventually left the call cordially enough but feeling like I had poison in my veins. Just unhappy and annoyed and frustrated and feeling like I was ready to explode. I don't know if I can keep doing this. The last few interactions I've had with her have been very similar. I spent all night thinking about them. I both resent her and feel guilty or inadequate every time I speak to her now. When my wife or I have tried to confront her on the issue over the last 2 years or so, she just shuts down and will not speak to us until I apologize (sometimes my dad has asked me to apologize, since she's extra-awful to him during these silent-treatment periods). My wife is pretty sick of her, but also feels like our kids seeing them (especially my dad) is a good thing, and I sort of agree, but can't help feeling like she may do some damage to their self-esteem some day, too. Anyway, this post has gotten really long.
Am I overreacting here? AITAH? And if I'm not, how do I deal with this? My dad has made the choice to stay with this toxic woman, but I don't feel like she can stay a regular fixture in my life anymore without it doing some real damage to me and my family. I'm at a loss. Even feel a little guilty writing this. She's my mom, she raised me, I'm supposed to love her unconditionally right?

My husband (M/33) and I (F/31) have been married for 5 years now.
We've known each other for 8 years and had a long-distance relationship for almost 5 years. In short, we've been apart for 3 years during our marriage. Although we're not physically together, our relationship stays strong cause we talked every day. Literally. Every single day, as soon as we wake up, in the middle of the day between breaks and before going to bed.
We're both introverts. He's a gamer, and so he mostly stays at home during his days off, and I'm a booknerd, so I also don't have a social life. My entire life revolves around him, and I am so in love with him.
When I finally moved in with him, it was great. It's better than what I ever imagined. He's not super romantic in terms of buying flowers and other stuff that I always read in romance books. He's the practical type that will buy me clothes, or food, and books. And I love that.
Our sex life is awesome, too. It was better than sexting and naughty video calls we did when we were apart. He was my first with everything. He was my first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first experience in love-making, and I know he'll be the only one for me.
I'm also his first with everything. He was a big man, 6 foot tall, but he always had insecurity about the size of his penis. He was upfront with me about his size the first time we both showed interest with each other romantically. He always says his size is small for his race (black American), and so he never tried to hook up with anyone because of it. He said he has porn-addiction, cause that's the only place he can find release since he's scared about getting rejected. He has depression and anxiety because he always thinks he's gonna be alone and has suicidal thoughts until he meets me.
I'm 4'11" Asian and so I told him honestly that whatever he considered small is a giant inside me. And it was true because I love the way he makes me feel when we're being intimate. He was perfect, and our sex life was perfect!
Or so I thought!
Last month, we went out of the country to visit family, and since we're staying with his mom, he told me beforehand that we won't be able to make love during those 2 weeks. And I'm okay with that cause I respect my mother in law. She was very nice to me from the very start and treated me like a real daughter.
Some nights, during our stay there, he kept hinting he wanted to do it, but I was not in the mood. We're touring all day, every day, walking around, and I'm exhausted and drained and just wanna go to bed.
When we went back home after two weeks, our sex life was back to how it used to be. Nothing changed about how he treats me or how he acts. He was still the guy I know and married, but for some reason, my gut is telling me something is not right.
I know it's not appropriate to check your husband's phone. I respect his privacy, but I want my peace of mind as well. So, 2 nights ago, I checked his phone while he was sleeping. He enrolled my fingerprints in his phone, so I don't have to do any crazy thing to unlock his phone.
Everything was normal. There are no other accounts. No unusual app. Nothing. I was ready to accept that I was just being paranoid, but I remember he's always on reddit, so I opened that. Nothing was unusual until I saw that he had another account. So I opened that, and my whole world came crumbling down.
I was shaking and feeling cold. He was commenting on other girl's picture of their private parts and saying how he wanted to eat and shoved his dick inside them.
I was broken-hearted. I don't know what to do. So I woke him up and confronted him. I was a mess, I was crying the whole time. He was crying too and kept saying sorry. I told him he was only sorry cause I caught him.
After I gathered myself, I gave him a chance to explain, and he said he made the account during our vacation cause he felt like I was bored of him. He was still insecure of his size and was thinking I was not satisfied all this time. He was scared that someday I would get sick and tired and find someone else. He told me that he was spiraling on his porn-addiction but didn't want to watch one again, and so the next best thing is to do what he did.
He made me check his phone again and saw that all interactions he did were just for 3 days in the middle of our vacation and nothing more after we got home.
These past 2 days since I saw that, I felt betrayed even after he explained it to me. He assured me that it was only that time. He never physically cheated on me and never will.
I'm still heartbroken. I'm feeling so alone and insecure and feel that I'm not enough for him. I felt like he was the one bored of me. Cause why would he make an account to comment on other girl's nude photos, just because we didn't make love during those 2 weeks. I started doubting the years we spent apart.
I don't know if I can trust him again. I love this man so much, I'm still sobbing while typing this. I told him that it would take a while for me to forgive him, that I probably won't forget about it, and that I will keep bringing it up every time. He said he's okay with that as long as I don't leave him.
I told him that this was his last chance. I would walk away from him if this happened again.
But I'm still scared. I am still heartbroken. I don't know how to move past this even after talking with him.
He told me to talk to someone about what happened, but I don't want to tell my family or friends because I don't want them to look at him differently. Cause once I ruined his image to them, even if we ended up moving past this, my family and friends won't, and they'll always see him as a cheater. I don't want that to happen cause he is a good husband. He told me to reach out to his mom (she's a marriage counselor) and tell her about what he did. But I don't know if I want to do that as well.
I don't know what to do. How could I rebuild this trust? How can I move on? Will I ever forget about it?

Link to original nosleep post:
https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/1arh0e8/has_anyone_heard_of_the_maze_below_the/
I don't know exactly how it happened.
Everything was going great. It was Valentine's Day. My wife had just left for work. And I had just put the second batch of her favorite cookies in the oven for when she returned home.
The only catch is, after I put them in the oven...
...I completely forgot that it was Valentine's Day.
Maybe I was distracted by all my work calls.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
All that matters is, when I emerged from my home office a little while later...
...The entire kitchen had gone up in flames...
...And a few hours later...
...My entire house had burnt to the ground.
—
When my wife finally got home, after racing back from work, it immediately didn't matter to her that it was Valentine's Day anymore.
She was just glad that I was alive.
"Are you okay?" She asked, tears in her eyes, as she ran over to me, as I stood outside, shivering, wrapped in a blanket beside a fire truck.
"Yeah I'll be ok. Can't say the same for the house." I joked, gesturing to the destroyed building.
We both looked over at our home of nearly ten years, as firefighters put out the last of its smoking embers.
She couldn't help but laugh. "Were you able to salvage anything?"
"Oh!" I replied, before reaching into the pocket of my sweatshirt and pulling out a large, sealed plastic bag full of cookies. "Forgot to tell you. I was able to grab the first batch on the way out."
"Aww." She said.
"Want one?" I offered, reaching to open the bag, but she stopped me.
"No, I don't have an appetite right now, after all this. But maybe later."
"No worries." I said, putting the bag of cookies back into my sweatshirt pocket.
"What now?" She asked.
"Hotel I guess?" I proposed.
"Well we could stay with my mom, but that's a two hour drive. After this, that sounds like a lot."
That's when a firefighter overheard us, and interjected.
"Sorry to eavesdrop, but if you don't have anywhere to go. I've got a spare bedroom at my house, down by the harbor. If you're too tired to drive tonight." He offered, with a sympathetic look on his face.
"Thanks, I really appreciate that." I replied, "But we couldn't. It's a really kind gesture, though. Seriously."
"Thank you though, it means a lot." My wife added.
"Oh, of course." The firefighter replied, "No pressure at all. Just with you here like this, I wouldn't have been able to sleep tonight knowing I didn't offer."
He turned away, took a few steps, and then doubled back. "You sure? It really would be no bother to me at all."
My wife and I each looked at each other, exhausted.
"I suppose it beats paying for a hotel." I reasoned.
"Or a two hour drive." My wife said.
—
A couple hours later, we were sitting in the firefighter's kitchen, eating a dinner that he had made for us.
"Seriously though, we'll forever be in your debt for this." I said, slurping pasta.
"Are you kidding?" The firefighter replied, as he did the same. "After what you've gone through today, it's the least I could do."
"You really saved us a long drive to my mom's place." My wife said, after taking a bite.
"Can I ask you a question, though?" The firefighter asked, putting his fork down.
"Of course." I replied.
"What was it about me, that earned your trust?" He continued.
"Our trust?" My wife asked.
"Yeah, like was it the uniform? Or my charm?" He said.
"Uh, I don't know. Why?" She replied.
"Just curious what exactly lowered your guard enough to come back with me, to my house. A stranger's house." The firefighter continued.
I couldn't tell if he was joking, or was looking for a straight answer. So I went with the latter. "Uh, maybe a combination of both? But if I had to pick one. Maybe the uniform? Everyone trusts a firefighter."
"Really? Thank you! That's what I thought, but the others, they all said it was my charm, and I’m really starting to think that the uniform alone really seals the deal." He said.
"The others?" I asked.
"Yeah, the others. Downstairs." The firefighter replied.
"I'm sorry, I'm not following. There's other people downstairs?" My wife asked.
"Yeah, like you." He said nonchalantly.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Like people I found, in desperate situations, like yours, that needed help." The firefighter explained.
"And... what are they doing down there?" I added.
"Oh, there's a whole dungeon down there." He said, with a completely straight face.
"A... dungeon?" I asked.
"Yeah, like with torture devices, and a maze and everything. It's actually really cool, do you want to see it?" He offered.
My wife and I both looked at each other, then back at the firefighter...
...And suddenly burst out laughing…
...As he, too, began to roar with laughter.
Eventually, the laughing subsided, and the kitchen got awkwardly quiet, so I tried to change the subject. "Anyways, great pasta sauce. Is that cumin in there?”
But he ignored me, and picked up right where he left off. "No, but seriously, you've gotta check it out. Like literally, you have no choice."
I just played along, hoping he would change the subject. "Yeah, yeah, okay, fine, fine, we'll check it out. After dinner."
But he wouldn't let it go. "No. Now." He commanded, his facing turning from jovial to menacing.
The joke was growing old, and starting to get a bit creepy, so I stood up from my seat and gestured for my wife to get up. "Come on, let's go."
"Go? I'm afraid that's not possible." The firefighter replied, "The doors and windows are locked from the inside out, and only I can open them."
That's when I decided that he had crossed the line, so I puffed up my chest, and started to move closer to him in a threatening fashion.
"Dude, seriously? I'm a firefighter. I'm in the best shape of my life. And you, no offense, look like you don't even work out."
I couldn’t help but take offense, but I still thought he was joking, so I just smiled back nervously.
"Oh, and I've got an ax." He added, removing a firefighter's ax from under the table and holding it up before us.
He was not joking.
Seeing the weapon, my wife jumped up from her seat, and we both ran to the door, only to find it locked from the inside, just as he had told us.
"Told you."
—
A few minutes later, we were standing at the foot of his basement, having just descended a rickety flight of stairs.
The firefighter must have noticed me walking nervously down them, as he had followed behind us.
"Oh, please excuse the stairs." He apologized, "I really need to get them replaced. But with all of the construction I've been doing in the dungeon and all, they just haven't been a priority."
I didn't know what to think of any of it. I was just hoping it would end.
But it didn't.
"Ok, so here's how it works." The firefighter began, pointing his ax toward the entrance to what, literally, looked like a dungeon. "I'm gonna give you a five minute head start, during which time I'd suggest you run as fast as you can. Now, at the end of the maze, there is an exit. And if you make it there, I promise I'll let you out. But for full transparency, no one has ever made it that far. Cause, you know, they don't know the maze, and I designed it, so I kinda have the upper hand. But maybe you'll be the first?"
My wife and I just stared at each other with a look of horror, as it became clear that this was actually happening.
"Anyways, you're gonna see a lot of fucked up shit in there. People are gonna beg and plead for you to take them with you. But whatever you do, do not give in. I know in the moment you're gonna want to do the right thing but, trust me, based on how it's gone in the past, they're just gonna slow you down, and you're gonna need every second you can get." He then turned to us, as if to make sure we were listening, and asked, "Got it?"
To which I, unsure of what to say, just replied, "Uh... yeah.".
That's when he pulled out a stopwatch, put his thumb to the start button...
"Ok ready... get set.... go!"
...And clicked it.
I looked over at my wife, whose eyes had grown wide with fear...
...And, without hesitation, grabbed her by the hand, darting off with her into the dungeon.
—
Five minutes later, we were running through the maze below the firefighter's house, uncertain of our exact progress but confident that we had made it pretty far into its depths, when we stumbled onto a man, locked up in a cage, his body emaciated from what must have been starvation.
"Help me!" He called out, "Take me with you!"
My wife stopped for a moment, a look of sadness in her eyes, and began to reach out to him, but I intercepted her hand and led her past him, further into the maze.
"We have to keep going!" I called out.
"I feel terrible leaving another behind." She replied.
He wasn't the first we'd seen. In fact, in just that previous five minutes alone, we'd encountered many of the countless others that the firefighter was referring to, and what seemed like a hundred unspeakable horrors.
But we had stayed strong and forged ahead, and as a result, I felt like we were getting close to the end of the maze.
"We're no use to them unless we get out of this place, and call for help." I assured her.
"You're right." She replied.
"We must be getting close to the exit."
"If there even is one."
She had a point. There was a possibility that the firefighter had lied to us, and there was no exit at the end of the maze.
But there was something about the way that he talked, something so honest and direct, that made me think there actually was a way out at the end. And the more I thought about it, I was confident that without an actual exit, for us to potentially reach, there'd be no fun in the game that he'd created for himself.
"Trust me." I said.
"I trust you." My wife replied.
That's when we heard it. The unsettling sound of someone whistling, coming from behind us in the maze, and approaching quickly.
"Run!" My wife said, her sense of hopelessness now transforming into one of survival.
—
By the time we finally made it to the end of the maze, the firefighter had caught up to us, still whistling. But when he turned the corner and saw us, standing at the door, tugging at its locked doorknob, he dropped his shoulders. "Aw, man. Seriously?"
I tried to bring myself to speak, but my body was frozen in fear.
Finally, I let out the words, "Seriously, what?"
"You beat me to the exit. You're the first ones to do it." He said.
He started running over to us, ax still in hand, as I closed my eyes, bracing for impact and fearing the worst...
...But rather than feel pain, I felt...
...A hug. A gentle, warm, embrace...
...Before I opened my eyes and saw him hug my wife as well.
"Congratulations! That is no easy feat." The firefighter said, "I mean, that is one disturbing, and distracting place. Luck was on your side. Wait, no, sorry, I shouldn't assume luck. You did make it to the end so skill must have been a factor. I don't want to take that away from you."
My wife and I just stood there, waiting for him to get to the point.
"So, um..." My wife said, gesturing to the door. "Do we still get to leave?"
"Get to leave? Get to leave? How dare you!" He said, in a serious tone… before cracking a smile and patting us both on the back, "I'm just fucking with you, of course you get to leave! I am a man of my word, and you did play by the rules and win."
The firefighter walked over to the door, removed a key ring full of keys from his pocket, and began rummaging through it, "Let's see here..."
Until he finally picked one and held it up.
"...There it is!" The firefighter continued, "But can you imagine if I forgot the key ring upstairs and had to go all the way back through that maze?" He said with a chuckle, opening the door from the basement into his backyard.
My wife and I both looked outside, into the darkness, and immediately started walking towards the exit, before the firefighter put his hand out and said. "Not so fast. I said I'm a man of my word, and I am. I told you earlier that if you made it to the exit, I'd let you out. However..."
I suddenly realized there was a caveat.
"...There's one slight caveat." He continued, "When I do let you out, there just so happens to be two dogs out there, that I keep extremely hungry for this very occasion. So when you get out there, I just want to warn you, it's highly probable that'll tear you both apart. Actually, scratch that, it’s one hundred percent probable.”
Between the fire and the maze, my wife and I were both so exhausted, that we both looked at each other, nodded in agreement, and walked out into the backyard, ready to accept our fate.
Then, we looked back at the firefighter, who said, "What? Don't look at me like that? I can't just be letting people escape from here so they can go and tell the cops about this place. Anyways, it's been fun. And sorry I had to make an already bad day even worse. On Valentine's Day no less. Anyways, goodbye."
And like that...
...He slammed the door behind him, leaving us out there in the backyard, standing there in the dark.
—
A few minutes later…
…We suddenly heard the sound of dogs growling.
And as my eyes adjusted to the light, sure enough, I saw two sickly pitbulls, drooling and howling as they approached us, hunched over, and ready to attack…
...Until it hit me...
...The Valentine's Day cookies!
Without hesitation, I reached into my sweatshirt pocket and removed the plastic bag of cookies that I had offered my wife when we were standing outside our burning home, just a few hours earlier. To be precise, the first batch of the very cookies that had set said home ablaze, thus setting off a chain of events that led us to that very moment.
As the dogs got closer and closer, I carefully, and quietly unzipped the plastic bag, turned it upside down, and dropped the cookies on the ground...
...And like that, as soon as the dogs got a whiff of the cookies, they charged over to them and started devouring and fighting over them, in the process completely forgetting about my wife and I.
Together, we slowly walked past the pitbulls, turned around, and backed away slowly, until we eventually reached the fence at the far end of the backyard and, one by one, my wife going first, hopped the fence and ran to safety.
—
Later that night, while we sat in the police station, waiting to tell them everything, my wife, still in a daze from what had happened, asked, "What flavor were they?"
"Huh?" I replied, still in a daze of my own.
"The cookies. What flavor were they?"
"Your favorite of course. Peanut butter and chocolate chips."
"Fuck."
"You know, when I saved that first batch from the house. I was like, if these things are gonna burn my house down, we've at least gotta taste them. But you never got to."
"It's the thought that counts."
"I suppose so."
"Happy Valentine's Day." She said.
"Happy Valentine's Day." I replied.
And then, we both leaned in, and kissed, in a way we hadn’t done in years. Like when we first met, over a decade ago.
We may not have had a home anymore. Or any faith left in humanity. But we had each other. And sometimes, that's enough.
That was last night, and today, while the police hopefully raid that motherfucker's house, you better believe that I'm gonna be at my mother-in-law's place, baking another batch of those cookies.

In 2024, which is the Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac, it is believed to be encountering your Ben Ming Nian, which may bring various challenges and obstacles. However, whether it will lead to unfavorable outcomes or not requires a closer examination.
As a Chinese astrologer, I often receive inquiries from foreign friends regarding this matter. I can tell you that from the perspective of Chinese astrology, there may indeed be some influence, resulting in more troubles and hindrances. But as for whether the outcomes are all negative, it depends on how the individual manages their path. Transforming troubles into motivation is just a hill to climb on the road to success. You will eventually reach the finish line. Therefore, our Zi Wei Dou Shu (traditional Chinese astrology) can help you find the right path. If you are a jeep, you won't fear muddy roads, but if you're driving a sports car, even the most luxurious car won't be able to take you to your destination. Chinese astrology teaches you to drive the right vehicle on the right path, avoiding dangers along the way and reaching your destination.
Now, let's focus on you, born in year of dragon(People born in 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012 and 2024, facing the challenges of your Ben Ming Nian in the Year of the Dragon, 2024. How might your fortune fare?
Entering 2024, you may feel things stagnating, experiencing confusion, frustration, and obstacles. The confusion you encounter won't happen suddenly; from a positive perspective, you have enough time to resolve them. However, from a negative perspective, it may slowly erode your patience. Therefore, be prepared to confront the challenges in 2024. You need to be resilient enough to solve them, as doing so will eventually lead to positive outcomes.
Due to these challenges, pay attention to your emotional well-being, treat yourself kindly, focus on your inner world, and spend time outdoors to relieve stress. Avoid making extreme decisions that could tarnish your reputation and affect your work negatively.
For those unmarried and in love, this year may bring dissatisfaction in relationships, with persistent conflicts or gaps, making it difficult to make decisions. For now, separation may not be an option, but the future outcomes will depend on each individual's specific natal chart.
For married individuals with children, you may face challenges in your parent-child relationship, feeling a communication breakdown and stagnation. Don't worry, try communicating with your children as equals and avoid exerting authority as it may backfire.
If you have siblings of the same sex, your relationship may be tense this year, leading to disputes that affect family harmony. Your relationship with your mother may also be average. Avoid direct confrontations with family members and communicate tactfully. If there are existing financial interests within the family, be cautious not to jeopardize relationships due to money matters.
Financially, there may be indications of financial loss, but it's not significant. You can mitigate this by making charitable donations, avoiding impulsive spending due to emotional issues, which could lead to regret later.
Overall, it's not as pessimistic as it seems, but being in your Ben Ming Nian, you need to be cautious. Communicate as much as possible when faced with challenges and find healthy ways to release stress. If you encounter confusing issues, you can contact us for a specific analysis of your natal chart, hoping to help everyone choose the path that suits them best.
Some daily solutions include: 1. Maintain a healthy lifestyle. This year may be challenging for you, and although it may not be tumultuous, it could feel like a constant ache. You need a strong body and mind to get through this period, and good health can assist you. 2. Stick to your principles. Hardships can wear down your will. Without a firm heart and principles, you may veer onto the wrong path, make mistakes, or even break the law, which could significantly impact your life. 3. Try to avoid wearing clothes in bright red. Generally, choose clothes in yellow hues to improve your mood. 4. Yellow is the lucky color for this year. You can choose to wear a yellow pixiu, which can help ward off evil and attract wealth, stabilizing your financial fortune.
Recorded by Master Christina Chan on May 9th, 2024
I hope this information can help everyone find the most suitable path according to their own conditions.

My daughter is age 10 and has had multiple food allergies since age 1, she has 5 total and they are all high range. My daughter spends time at my mother in laws house over the years and my mother in law has always disagreed with how I handle her food allergies, she gives me a hard time about me wanting to check if an item is safe before she uses it, she tells me how her friend also disagrees with me and how she may only get a rash as a reaction, she thinks she shouldn't miss out in an event just because of the allergies even if they have foods she's severely allergic to there. I know some food allergy moms kids who can't be around peanut at all and in our case all I'm requesting is not doing events with peanuts around yet she judges me. She wants to make food when my kid is over because she's used to making homemade meals and loves the grandkids over and makes allergy safe recipes. Other than disagreeing with me she has a history of giving my kid a hard time about eating specific foods and she has sensory issues so foods is difficult especially with her restrictions, so grandma has always been stressful.
Lately I've been hearing grandma isn't paying attention and is forgetful. She doesn't act like that around me she acts like she knows about the allergies and anytime I chat to her about anything my daughter says happened my mother in law denies it. So i limit what I talk to her about because she's extremely difficult to work with. Last thing my daughter told me about her last visit there has me concerned related to the food allergies so I'm in need of advice.
My daughter says grandma invited her to bake with her and started to pour the wrong flour so it wasn't my daughters usual flour so grandma was pouring same brand but not the correct type so this one was one that had ingredient in it that my kid is allergic to so she spoke up and told grandma it's the wrong one and grandma said oops I forgot or something and I'm here like woah why is she not responding differently, because these allergies she has are severe and here she is making a mistake acting like it's no big deal, I would have expected a response of "oh my goodness I'm so sorry let me look at the bag before I pour it next time because I don't want to accidentally bake you the wrong one." My daughter says she's acting weird with her memory lately, I mean my mother in law is 82 but doesnt act 82.
My husband has severe adhd and geyting him to do anything is very very difficult, and he will only discuss things with his dad and never his mom but his dad tends to always think his wife is am angel and never does any wrong. If I say something she will get defensive and deny. But this is serious when comes to allergies that are life threatening. My mother in law prepares food for my kids, freezes stuff, stores stuff, prep stuff for a playdate of a friend she knows from church so she's always working with food and has always done allergy safe recipes and my kids have always always ate over there. I've tried sending food in past but mother in law always wants to use hers because she thinks what she makes it so much more healthier and better and already heated up and etc opinions.
How would you travel these waters when you have all this yet you have to get this fixed because you can't have any allergic reactions happening and need your mither in law to either pay attention before making stuff or she doesn't make anything type rule cause it just doesn't sound safe to me for her to just shove it under rug with this I forgot excuse. Whether really her memory or not I'm concerned. I don't know how to bring this up and wish my husband would but I sadly can't rely on him.

Original
First update
Second update
Hey everyone, it's been a while. I hope you guys had a great Mother's Day!
I remember that last year, I promised myself I'd write a final update as soon as I felt calmer or felt the situation was closer to being solved. That actually happened months ago, but I've been busy lately.
Following my previous update, my fiancé's side of the family remained upset about the tradition being over for a few more months. They were way less intense about it, specially with the pregnant cousin I mentioned, but it was still evident.
That cousin's Not-Peter (almost a year later, I still can't think of a better term) was born in January. Our son turned one the next month. I think the fact that these two things happened so close together helped many of my in-laws let go of the tradition.
We got a few apologies we weren't expecting. Some of them were sincere enough that we slowly started reestablishing contact.
My fiancé's parents were not among those who apologized. We haven't spoken to either of them since last July. From what I've heard from some of his other relatives, however, MIL seems regretful. She has told some of them that she wishes she could be part of her grandson's life, and wonders if making his name a hill to die on was a bad decision. FIL, from what I gather, barely acknowledges my baby exists.
My fiancé knows about how his mother feels, but he says he doesn't care. And even if we did get an apology, I don't think either of us can forgive his parents. As much as we're mostly okay now, it sometimes feels like their treatment of our family ruined the first few months of our baby's life. I know that's not actually true, but I don't want them around my child.
Besides all that, things have been great. My son is 15 months old now, which I don't think I'll ever really get used to. He recently started drawing and has been expanding his vocabulary. He said "mamãe" first, by the way.
My fiancé and I are still getting married in September. We're thinking about moving abroad in a couple years (for work reasons), but we're not sure yet. We also recently got a dog (sadly, we didn't name him Peter).
This will be my final update. Whatever guilt I had about this situation a year ago is completely gone, and my life has been peaceful enough that it feels safe to say the shitshow is over.
Hugo, if you ever find this, you are the most fantastic thing that has ever happened to us. Thank you for letting me be your mom.
Thank you, Reddit, for all the love, advice and support you've given me this past year.

I'm going to be using fake names just in case this post gets found by someone I know. Sorry for how long this is.
So I Andrea f(30) and my husband Nathan m(35) have been together for 9 years. Dating :6 married :3, we get along for the most part but we do have fights, and having similar personality traits it can take a while for us to come together to talk it out/compromise. I come from a family with 3 younger siblings (m(26), f(25), and f(23))and we are all are adopted. My mom Jamie f(62) could not have children, I am the first she and my father Jacob m(62) adopted.
The first time this whole pregnancy/birth thing even came into play is when we had a pregnancy scare in the first year that we were dating, I was still living with my mother and Nathan had his own house. I had missed my period and taken a pregnancy test, it came up positive so I took another one and it came up negative. My doctor recommended I come in for a blood draw to get a solid answer, when I shared this with my mother she said quote "I can't believe my 22 year old unmarried daughter is going to have a baby, I thought I raised you better" I was shocked at her response, called Nathan and cried about it to him. Well it ended up being a false alarm.
Fast forward to me turning 26 and that seemed to flip a switch in my mother's mind and she began constantly asking when I would give her a grandchild. Before we even got married (2021) I told Nathan that I was not interested in having biological children. The thought of pregnancy and birth has always scared the shit out of me and I wanted no part of it. (I don't think I could handle it mentally/emotionally/physically , I know myself and the toll all of the changes would take on me. But a huge kudos to anyone who became pregnant on purpose or accident and kept the baby, you're alot stronger than I am) Nathan said that it was fine, he was good with adoption and raising a child that needed a loving family.
Fast forward again to this year my brother -in-law and his wife just had a baby. When it happened Nathan was kind of acting off so I asked him if something was wrong, he said he was still wanting to adopt but a part of him is always going to want a biological child like his brother had. My heart dropped when I heard this and so the next morning I turned to my mother for advice.
She asked me why I didn't want to be pregnant or give birth and I shared my fears with her, imagine my surprise when she shamed me for five minutes about how pregnancy is a blessing and beautiful then said "All I ever wanted was to be pregnant so you should just get over yourself and get pregnant to give Nathan the child he wants." When I tried to explain how it didn't have to do with Nathan, I didn't want to be pregnant no matter who I was with and just wanted to adopt she hung up on me.
I felt so horrible and like a monster after that phone call I called my youngest sister Kira f(23) to ask her if I was crazy for wanting to not even try to get pregnant and going straight for adoption. Funny enough Kira ended up pregnant at 18 and had her baby much to my mother's dismay at first (she changed her tune at the end because she had a new grand baby but her and I clashed alot over those 9 months for how she treated Kira). Kira reassured me that I wasn't crazy for knowing I never wanted to become pregnant and just wanting adoption. She told me to not let anyone pressure me to get pregnant and she would always have my back.
I just can't seem to shake my mom's voice out of my head about how it's unfair to Nathan. So AITA for saying I never want to be pregnant /give birth?