During our anniversary celebration trip, I found out my husband has been sexting and discussing our sex life with a stranger for the past year. We've been married for 5 years,truly caring about each other's lives and goals. I would say that the sex part of our relationship is the only aspect that has some room for improvement. Specifically, I have some performance issues in the penetration part only, which has been like a big elephant in the room as he never talks about it. When I've tried to bring it up, he's dismissive but in a respectful way, saying things like, "Who cares, I love you, we'll try later." He never hinted that something was wrong or that he was unhappy. So, I didn't feel the need to follow up until today when I found out he's been discussing these issues and engaging in sexting with a married guy. Additionally, he mentioned in his texts that I'm old school and would never consider an open relationship or a threesome, even though he never hinted or have a conversation with me about it. I confronted him, and he apologized, saying he never wanted anything physical with this guy and he will stop and block this person. He claimed it was easy to talk to a third person outside of our circle and that the sexting was just to fill a pleasure impulse, even though I never refused having sex, even if it was just oral. I don't even know how to move on. I feel upset that he can easily talk about this with this guy and not with me and betrayed that he was entertaining and looking for sexting.

This is a trope that I REALLY love and find so sad and heartbreaking and angsty, and I just love getting to see the MC experience all his 'firsts'
(I don't mean sex, I mean like. People being nice to him with no ulterior motive! But sex works too!)
Some FAV books of mine with this trope are:
Force by Kiki Burelli - MC has been betrothed to a werewolf since he was born (LI was 12), but because of plot reasons he was picked out of his pack and raised by an older single werewolf and 'trained' to be the perfect 'mate'
Oh, Sacred Dark Marina Vivancos -MC is a submissive witch from a coven where he was 'trained' to behave as if he was worthless and is EXTREMELY traumatized. Has 'biokink' elements where submissives/doms are a biological type of gender, TW severe physical abuse, starvation
Cherryvine Marina Vivancos - MC was just widowed from an abusive husband and is married off immediately (to a much nicer guy!) but ofc he has to break out of his training etc TW SA, abuse, coercion
Prison mated S rodman - MC is an omega werewolf tossed into a human prison I think and LI werewolf saves him? (Never finished it actually)
Alpha's choice Claire Cullen - werewolves, MC is omega werewolf rescued from a cage in his serial killer alpha mate's basement by the LI, at first LI thinks MC was involved in the serial killers crimes TW SA, abuse, violence, all of it rip
Snowflakes and Embers S. A Payne - MC is a younger son who is made by his father into a 'Bentan bride' in an extremely misogynistic society, he has no rights and is forced to veil/dress/behave/act in certain ways and hates it TW forced feminization (by family), violence, starvation, abuse, religious/cultural extremism
Earthly Pleasures Sera Trevor - kind of maybe? IDK if it fits, but MC is a temple priest and is ordered by the temple leader to sleep with the prince to stop famine from spreading, has to break out of his temple training and stuff
Edit: Adding Winters Orbits by Everina Maxwell, sci Fi princes arranged marriage, MC is just widowed from abusive spouse and is married off to another prince!
If anyone has any similar recs, let me know! It doesn't have to exactly fit recs like these, but I like the aspect of the MC breaking his training and discovering who HE is and what HE wants and likes!

I told my therapist I cannot believe how long this (leaving my husband of 18 years) is taking me. I have been truly miserable since 2015 and thinking I was even before that and for so long gave pieces of myself to him to try to make him happy even if it meant I was falling apart.
I look back at the past with shame and hurt but I know there is so much I have repressed and swept under the rug instead of dealing with and feeling as was my coping mechanism.
It's been 610 days since I've let him touch me. 610 days since the line in the sand was crossed and he threw things at me with one making contact. Before that, it was emotional and mental hits and holes punched in the wall. That day, I saw the rage in his eyes and something broke with me. We could never go back to the cycle as it was only going to escalate from here. I would no longer allow him access to my body when he did nothing to protect my heart and soul. That's something I never thought would happen, when I would give him sexual pleasure to try to make him feel better for so many years but was lacking a partner and a consistent, loving relationship. I am proud that it has been 610 days and even more proud that I will live the rest of my life never being intimate with him again.
My therapist tells me I need to be proud of this but then I look at the situation and feel shame.
Here we are 610 days later and here's what's going on:
-We sleep in our bed in shifts. I don't want to be in the bed with him period.
-He does not have a job and I support our two kids and him. I pay all of the household bills, food, clothes, gas, etc...he now feels like one of my children too (gross!)
-I told him our romantic and intimate relationship was over forever almost a year ago and was ready to move out. I froze in my tracks when he told me my moving out would make everything harder for everyone and we should just be roommates (it just dawned on me, roommates usually put in equal work) and then turned very nasty telling me I was abandoning him when he was sick and I knew who he was when I married him. That conversation, I'm still recovering from. It was terrible. The trauma bond is real and I need a machete to cut it.
-He claims he has ADHD and uses that as an excuse for non-functioning but does nothing to try to seek help for it beyond watching some YouTube videos
-I've realized my teenage son feels a lot of the same feelings about his dad that I do...he told me he doesn't even know if his dad loves him and also said his dad is a selfish, manipulative jerk who only cares about himself while crying.
I don't want to live this life anymore. It is killing me...
And then my fear paralyzes me.

Hello! I’m in an open relationship with my husband and boyfriend. My husband does wonderfully in this area but the boyfriend could use a lot of pointers. I don’t want to make him offended but I honestly get very little pleasure when he tries. From what he’s told me of his past female partners it seems that they may have let him believe he was much better then he was(they always got off within minutes). What is a good way to approach this conversation with someone that tends to get defensive?

My husband of 19 years had an emotional affair with a co-worker some time ago, and I am just finding out about it. He totally forgot about it, and doesn't remember a lot, not even when it happened (narrowed it down to between about 5 and 7 yrs ago). I am having a really tough time with this. He can't remember why it happened or the depths of his feelings for HER. He pleasured himself to her, which isn't something he does with actual people he knows (whole different thread). Any advice please! I feel so betrayed...and not knowing why or when is really impeding my recovery, I think.

https://beforewegoblog.com/interview-with-sebastien-de-castell/
Hello dear reader or listener! Our fearless leader Beth has once again been incredible and given me the opportunity to interview one of my all-time favorite authors and modern bard, Sebastien De Castell! Most known for his Greatcoats (one of the very first series I ever reviewed!) and Spellslinger series, he’s also the author of The Malevolent Seven and The Argosi series, and, as of December 2023, he began his new series Court of Shadows, with its prelude Crucible of Chaos.
With his latest novel, Play of Shadows, having just come out in late March, and this year being his tenth as a published author, what better time to ask to pick his brain? De Castell cordially obliged us and I got to gather all of my rambling fangirling thoughts into a semblance of a respectable interview!
So, without further ado, please enjoy some of his bardly wisdom!
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Let’s start with two-fold congratulations, first on your latest novel, Play of Shadows, recently coming out, and second, on ten years as a published author this past February! I can only imagine how satisfying that must be for you, especially as you’ve just published your 17th novel, so what is going through your head?
I just counted them all and technically Play of Shadows is my sixteenth novel (Tales of the Greatcoats, Vol. 1 is a collection of short stories). Nonetheless, sixteen is a lot more books than I ever imagined I’d get to see published when I started out ten years ago. Honestly, this has been a wonderful time for me – the culmination of a lifelong dream achieved through the support of my fabulous agents, editors and, most of all, amazing readers. If it weren’t for all those Greatcoats, Argosi (and now a growing number of Wonderists) spreading the word about my books, I would never have made it this far.
You’ve said you don’t have a set writing method or plan, so each book is a different beast for you, but now that you’ve come up on ten years of being an author, how do you feel your work has developed/grown in all that time?
That’s a great question, though I always bridle at the notion that writers necessarily improve or produce ‘more mature’ work over time. Most of us don’t; we simply change as human beings and so do our stories. Would I write my debut novel, Traitor’s Blade, the exact same way today as I did all those years ago? Of course not. I’d doubtless tweak the prose here and there, perhaps re-structure events and avoid choices that some reviewers might complain about. But then it would be a different book. Traitor’s Blade as it appeared ten years ago was the best version I could write of the story I most wanted to tell. Its flaws are my flaws, its best moments are those inspired by who I was at the time. A more refined version of the book might appeal to me today, but might not have impacted readers as strongly as the original.
Looking at it another way, imagine if we applied the notion of developing and growing to poets: that an older, more experienced poet would necessarily compose a better love sonnet than a younger one. Even saying it out loud sounds preposterous because we know that there are all different kinds of love, and some of them are expressed most eloquently without the use of technique or guile. We often mock teenagers for being too emotional or ‘driven by hormones’, but some of the finest poetry and pop music of all time came out of those hormones – not because it was technically sublime, but because it was raw and honest.
I say all this because newer writers sometimes put off the story they most want to write until they’ve become more sophisticated at the craft. But if you wait too long, you risk no longer being the person meant to tell that story. One reason why I never try to ‘write to market’ or jump into some hot publishing niche is that I’m confident I’d be terrible at doing so; whichever book I’m currently writing is the one that represents who I am at this moment – as a novelist and as a human being.
Publishing the start of this latest book series was a small Odyssey over the last few years, with dates and book order being moved around a lot, so how are you feeling now that the Court of Shadows is finally making its way into the hands of readers?
Mostly, I’m just relieved that readers are taking to Play of Shadows so enthusiastically. I wasn’t sure whether a swashbuckling fantasy featuring a bunch of misfit actors trying to uncover a hundred year old conspiracy by conjuring up those events on stage would be received. Thank goodness fantasy readers are such an eclectic bunch!
That we are and such a premise would very hard to resist for anyone! From what you’ve said so far about the Court of Shadows as a whole, it will be a series of interconnected standalones, each bringing a piece of a wider puzzle to light, in order to somewhat reflect the fact that not one person or small group of people can see the whole picture of big events, which I find really intriguing. How did that come about? Did you just want to write something slightly different after two completed series, or was it something else?
I have a tremendous sympathy for historical fiction writers because they often have to contort the details surrounding historical events into knots in order to have their main characters always be in the right time and the right place for the story to make sense. Writing fantasy gives us more leeway because there’s no historical record to contradict our version of events, but most of the time, one person isn’t at the centre of so many massive incidents. No one gets to witness the beginning, middle and end of a war or revolution. Moreover, it’s probably never happened that one nation decided to attack another on a single front. Instead, they destabilize their enemies militarily, economically and psychologically through multiple offensives, and no one sees it all coming at once.
With the Court of Shadows series, I wanted the reader to experience both the fast-paced, swashbuckling adventure that defined the Greatcoats novels, but also the unease of a conspiracy – and an enemy – too big for any one person to perceive. Events unfold through the first books of the series simultaneously, so each book reveals one facet of the threat even as it introduces us to new heroes. Doing it this way means the reader is always getting a complete story rather than having to wait a year to find out what happens next, while still allowing for a climactic finale that I can’t wait to write!
You mentioned how your first draft of Play of Shadows was written as a theatre play because, even though the story is full of action, the themes get fought out in and are driven by the dialogue and aforementioned banter. To me, two of the main themes I found here but also in your other books, have been questions on legacy (leaving, preserving, or even revising one) as well as expectations (avoiding or rising to meet them) and, for both those themes, how they can be a burden or tension point for the protagonists. Is this a key way for you to ground your characters and make sure they connect with the reader? Because to an extent we can all relate to those kinds of tension and emotion?
Grounding characters in ways that readers can connect to them is one of the great challenges of writing fiction. Many of the attributes that critics say readers want from characters such as having realistic flaws and not being too heroic end up turning readers off. Often, my first pass at a main character will have them being too extreme in that direction. For example, Estevar Borros (the hero of Crucible) was actually more arrogant in the first draft of Crucible (if you can believe that!) and Damelas even less heroic. What I search for as I write and revise aren’t flaws anymore but contradictions. Yes, Estevar is arrogant, but he’s also self-aware of his arrogance and what it costs him. True, Damelas likes to run from a fight, but that doesn’t stop him from putting himself between danger and the people he cares about. For me, those kinds of contradictions are what make both fictional characters and real human beings so endlessly fascinating!
Which leads me to another thing I wanted to talk about specifically, and that is Damelas’ dynamic with Beretto and with his grandparents respectively. There are parallels and differences that exist in how these characters each place expectations on Damelas and push him to be the man they know he is, but can we say that while in relation to his grandparents whose expectations weigh him down for a long time, Beretto’s in some way encourage him more? There is a nuance there about the importance of how you try to push someone to reach their potential even if you mean well, and also accepting that they are their own person.
Ah, Beretto! I adore writing him because he’s someone who’s been told all his life that he’s too big, too stupid, too talentless to be the things he dreams of being. And yet, he transmutes this hurt into a determination to hold others up on his shoulders. For anyone else, he’d be the perfect motivator: supportive, trusting and full of faith in what you could accomplish. For Damelas, however, who’s lived his entire life in the shadow of his grandparents’ accomplishments and expectations, that only makes him more conscious of his own failings. The relationship between the two of them is always fraught by the fact that Damelas has never known a truer friend than Beretto, and yet the big man’s faith in him is almost more than he can bear. Meanwhile, Damelas looks up to Beretto so much that he often fails to notice when his friend needs a kind word of support. Those moments can be hard to write, because, like the reader, I always want them to be united as brothers-in-arms against the world, but it’s that tension that makes the growth of the friendship so satisfying to me.
Those moments were definitely hard to read for my feelings so I’d say mission accomplished! We must protect Beretto at all costs.
Moreover, something that deeply resonated with me and doubtlessly with many other readers, was a moment later in the book when Damelas and his grandfather finally talk about his complicated feelings towards his grandmother. More importantly about the fact that even understanding her own feelings/beliefs, as explained by her husband, things are still not easily resolved for Damelas. I was hoping you’d tell us a little more about what went into that whole dynamic and tension to and fro, because even with a short time you rendered a lot of nuance there.
You’re absolutely right, which is why I toiled for several drafts over the question of when to bring Paedar into the story. On the one hand, it’s rare for me to wait so long to have someone so important to my main character to make an appearance, but on the other, I really needed Damelas to be the one telling us about his childhood and the burden of his grandparents’ expectations for as long as possible. Had I introduced Paedar earlier, he would’ve shown us where Damelas is mistaken, and that would’ve broken the progression I wanted the reader to experience. More than any other character in the story, Paedar is the one who sees events and people as they truly are. He knows who Damelas really is under all that inner conflict and insecurity. He senses instantly how Shariza really feels about his grandson. Heck, he even gets a pretty good read on Duke Monsegino within minutes of meeting him.
In a very real sense, Play of Shadows is a book not just full of swashbuckling but about swashbuckling: whether that sense of reckless, romantic idealism has any place in an otherwise cynical world. Paedar Chademantaigne, the King’s Courtesy, represents both the awareness of how antiquated such swashbuckling idealism can be along with the determination to hang onto it anyway because, after all, we can all use a little more romance in our lives!
I’m definitely with you there!
Also, part of the fun for me when reading series set in the same world is seeing how much an author will pepper in from the other works so that it’s still in a way all connected but each series has its own identity. With Court of Shadows, I was very interested in seeing how that wider world, and the other characters in it, perceive those previous protagonists some time after their saga. What legends and tales will start to spread and so on. How did you go about deciding how much of the original teratology to mention and were there times when you felt it might either encumber or facilitate the new story you were trying to tell?
I try as much as possible to write the world as an extension of the character. In other words, even if both Estevar and Damelas live in the same Tristia as Falcio (of the Greatcoats Quartet) does, I want them to feel different. You and I might both visit Istanbul, see the same sights and talk to the same people, and yet describe the city in completely different ways. That’s because we experience them differently. This is made especially pronounced in Play of Shadows which is set in the Duchy of Pertine – a place Falcio refers to as little more than a cesspool of cowardice and mediocrity yet Damelas tells us is full of culture and dignity.
The same is true of other characters. Estevar, despite being a Greatcoat, refers to Falcio val Mond as ‘the execrable former First Cantor of the Greatcoats’ (a designation I hope readers of the first series will disagree with!)
Ultimately, I bring in other characters or details from the first quartet only when they feel like things that would be meaningful to the characters in the current book, and in this way I hope to avoid extraneous detail that would otherwise be unnecessary to the story. The only exception, of course, is in the last two chapters in which I felt the need to bring back a certain red-bearded varlet because he felt like the perfect person to both irritate Damelas and yet make him (and the reader) see how the Knights of the Curtain have transformed from a misfit, squabbling bunch of actors to . . . well, readers will have to pick up Play of Shadows to find out.
Oh yes, I spent those last two chapters grinning throuhgout. So, speaking of irritating others, humour and banter in your books is never without a purpose and in a recent interview you highlighted that – “Humour as defiance and banter as a shared language”. I love that for all the deeper reasons but also wanted to ask, how much fun do you have coming up with progressively more and more creative and devasting insults? And have you ever had any coming out in the moment you’re writing that you went back to edit later and thought ‘hmm, maybe too far’?
Crucible of Chaos and Play of Shadows both allowed for me to play with insults in different ways. Estevar can be such a pompous arse at times and thus the insults and challenges he delivers to those who get in his way can become rather . . . extravagant. With Play of Shadows, we’re dealing with theatre actors, so naturally, the various jibes and taunts take on a loquacious, almost Shakespearean style. Both are fun to write, though Estevar’s in Crucible of Chaos tend to come in more serious moments and therefore can’t be quite as over-the-top as some of Abastrini’s in Play of Shadows.
As to going too far, I’ve never found myself thinking an insult within a story went too far; only that I have to remind myself that sometimes less is more. I can get a bit expansive in the banter department at times.
We do love the banter though! You’ve also said that Estevar is your favourite new Greatcoat to write, can you tell us how come? Aside for being the supernatural detective extraordinaire that he is, and for having Imperious the mule as his companion, that is.
What I love about writing Estevar is that he’s significantly smarter than I am, which means I never know how he’s going to solve the next puzzle. There’s something about his personality that makes him first tell us he’s figured it out and then reveal it to us, which means I end up writing him already confident he knows what’s going on and then having to guess at what the hell he’s talking about. I imagine that in real life Estevar would consider me something of a slow-witted dolt.
What also made Crucible compelling to me was how, in this book, you employed from the get-go, a trope that is usually present in stories some time after the protagonist is introduced and shown at the peak of their abilities; that is showing them stripped of all their advantages. In this case, Estevar’s greatcoat with all its knick-knacks, and his physical health given he goes into this investigation mortally wounded. What made you want to introduce Estevar to the readers this way, with this subverted character arc of sorts?
I gave Estevar the wound from his recent duel as a constant reminder throughout the story that his arrogance is often his undoing. Don’t get me wrong – Estevar’s arrogance is part of what makes him a delight to write. But in a novel about monks questioning which gods they should or shouldn’t worship, I wanted my main character to be questioning his own faith. In Estevar’s case, that faith is in the law and himself.
The loss of his greatcoat early on was important to me not as a way to make life harder for Estevar but simply as a price for saving Imperious. As much fun as that peculiar relationship can be, I wanted it to be genuine. Estevar doesn’t view Imperious as a useful beast of burden, but as a friend or – as Estevar himself might put it – a comrade.
You also play on juxtapositions very well, it’s safe to say, and one thing I’ve seen quite a few times in your writing overall is the presence of a seemingly stalwart and strong or a larger than life figure, that is paired with a much smaller and delicate one in a scene. Be it literally or metaphorically. I can think of several examples, for instance Beretto and Damelas in more than a few moments of Play, or Rhyleis and old Mags. Even Cade and Corrigan from The Malevolent Seven. But I want to focus on that very specific moment between Estevar and Caeda in Crucible, where, in the face of her momentary fraught fragility, it becomes imperative for him to keep the act going. Because it brings out the true vulnerability of all parties, doesn’t it? It’s like trying to hold onto a cracked porcelain cup that you already know or fear will fall apart the moment you ease on the pressure.
For me, it’s about compassion. There’s something wonderful, almost miraculous, about genuine compassion. Often we can be empathetic with those whom we share a common set of traits, yet be comfortable treating those who don’t share our backgrounds or views with disgust and even cruelty. Compassion, though – the kind of compassion that Ferius Parfax displays and turns almost into a kind preternatural talent in the Spellslinger and Argosi books – that’s real magic.
William Goldman, the legendary screenwriter of The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid used to say that what got to him most in a book or movie was something he called “stupid courage” – a kind of reckless bravery in the face of certain doom. For me, it’s improbable compassion: a moment when someone is kind when we’d otherwise expect them to be dismissive.
In the moment to which I think you’re referring between Estevar and Caeda, he’s already figured out who she is and what’s really happened, and yet, he knows that even if she knows deep down, too, she’s not ready to accept it. The porcelain cup – to use your analogy – is cracked, but not yet broken, and he wants to give it a chance to hold together – to be a cup and not a shattered, forgotten object – a little longer.
An example of this that is even more potent for me is the moment you mention between Rhyleis and Old Mags in Play of Shadows: not because of how Rhyleis gives Mags a chance to be a musician, but because of how moments later, when Vadris the drug peddler, who’s been an arse the entire book, has the chance to shatter Mags’ newfound confidence and instead reassures her, and in so doing, creates space for his own redemption.
Those improbable moments of compassion are my version of Goldman’s “stupid courage”. They get me every time.
Those are the moments that get me most as well, they are such a treat to read and make for lots of food for thought.
How about some lighter questions to wrap up? Is there anything you’re always hoping someone will ask you about in interviews but so far, you’ve never gotten the chance to mention?
“Excuse me, sir? I just found this huge bag of money. Is it yours, by chance?”
Now that’d be handy! Do you have a story idea that you love, or you’ve had kicking around in your mind, maybe even gotten started on a few times, but haven’t been able to make it work yet?
Ages ago, when I first sat down to write the manuscript that would become Traitor’s Blade, I had an entirely different idea about a story featuring four septuagenarian women in an old age home in the aftermath of a flood that’s cut off the town from outside help and vampires have come to feast on those left behind. The old women kick the vampires’ arses.
Ok, but I definitely need the kickass septuagenarians so please don’t let that idea go. I think I speak for everyone in saying we’d love to see it one day.
Would you give us two recommendations, one for a book you’ve read and loved recently and another for a book you think fans of your work would enjoy?
I recently had the rare privilege of reading a manuscript from the legendary Ellen Kushner (author of Swordspoint). I can’t tell you anything about it, but it was terrific fun to read and fans of her unique blend of Jane Austen-esque fantasy have a treat in store.
Those who enjoy my books and have yet to read Jhereg by Steven Brust . . . what are you waiting for? It’s fantastic!
Oooh eyes peeled then. Finally, is there anything you can tell us about any future books? Personally, I can’t wait for Our Lady of Blades!
Well, let’s see . . .
• I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be announcing this yet, but fans of mercenary mages who go around blowing things up and swearing constantly will have much to celebrate come Spring 2025.
• Our Lady of Blades, the most challenging book I’ve ever attempted (and hopefully the best), will be coming out in the Fall of 2025.
• One way or another, my quirky mystery novel is coming out within the next year. Soon thereafter, a very, very secret science fiction project written with a fellow author that I think will make a big splash.
• Fans of Ferius Parfax might be interested to know I’ve already written the fourth book, though I’m not yet sure when it’ll be coming out or from which publisher.
• Both Spellslinger and the Greatcoats have been optioned for film and television and, I believe, currently being shopped to studios. Who knows if anything will come of it, but you never know!
Well now I am positively vibrating with excitement for all that is to come! Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions here today, it was such a pleasure getting the chance to pick your brain!
My pleasure. Thanks for the insightful questions!

In my last story, a space mermaid warned against the dangers of smoking. The Darlings did not heed that warning, so now Space Whale Aesops shall ensue.
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“The Darling Twins? Honestly, haven’t we all had enough of them by now?” Seneca ruminated as he tried to placate what was now the de facto triumvirate of the Ophion Occult Order.
Once again, he had been summoned to Adderwood Manor to account for his lapses in judgement, but rather than being on full public display in the Grand Hall, he instead found himself in a relatively small parlour. Across from the coffee table in front of him sat Ivy Noir, with her sister Envy to her right and her husband Erich to her left. Standing just to the side of them was the trenchcoat and fedora-wearing automaton who called himself The Mandrake. The one-eyed dream-catcher carved into his iridescent face rendered his emotions unreadable, but the spellwork pistols holstered in his belt made it clear that he was prepared to defend his employers against anything.
“I mean, this feud between them and Emrys is laughable,” Seneca went on. “They’re no threat to him now that he’s free of his chains, surely? Before there may have been a tactical element to his obsession with them, but now it’s just plain petty. Petra’s just out for revenge, and don’t get me started on the absurdity of that eldritch realtor wanting to flip their playroom. Does he think he can just relabel their torture chambers as BDSM dungeons and pass the Black Bile infestation off as some mould?”
“Seneca, I promised Emrys the Darlings, and the Covenant that we all signed binds us to fulfill that promise,” Ivy reminded him patiently, dropping a cube of sugar into her ouroboros-themed antique teacup. “You knew the Darlings better than any of us. You inducted them into the Order, you used them as assassins and bodyguards, and you let them withdraw every penny they had in your bank when they were fugitives!”
“Well, first of all, Crow, Crowley & Chamberlain is a financial institution, not a bank,” Seneca said flippantly. “Secondly, they had a numbered account and they didn’t show up in person, so the teller didn’t have the slightest idea of who they were dealing with.”
“You still could have frozen the account before they had that opportunity,” Erich stated.
Seneca made a display of languidly stirring some cream into his tea and taking a slow sip before responding.
“I’m very busy,” he claimed without an ounce of sincerity.
“You just didn’t want to get on the Darlings’ bad side,” Ivy said.
“I wasn’t aware they had a good side,” Seneca shrugged.
“There must be a paper trail we can follow,” Envy insisted. “Did the Darlings keep their assets anywhere else besides your bank?”
“Financial institution, and yes, I’m sure they have a proverbial Swiss bank account, but I haven’t the slightest notion of where to find it,” Seneca claimed. “It has come up in conversation that James invested about twenty percent of his income with me, twenty percent elsewhere, and shoved another twenty percent under their mattress. Mary enjoys being shagged on top of money, apparently. Their services commanded quite a high price on the underworld market, and sixty-plus years of compound interest have made them incredibly wealthy. They can afford to lie low for a long while.”
“Even if they can go without a paycheck indefinitely, they can’t go without killing,” Erich countered. “They need to hunt, and their egos mean they aren’t just going to cower from Emrys inside their playroom. They’re going to be out looking for victims and plotting against us, and you know what spots they’re likely to hit.”
“You’re wasting your time. James has had decades to scout out hunting grounds, and I’m sure he prepared for the possibility – no, inevitability – that he and his sister would become our enemies. He’s not going to risk showing up within a hundred miles of any of our Chapterhouses if he doesn’t need to,” Seneca said dismissively.
Ivy opened her mouth to speak, but stopped when The Mandrake took a step forward for the first time since the meeting began. He reached into his pocket and tossed a red and white pack of cigarettes with a shiny silhouette of a stag onto the coffee table.
“What is this?” Erich asked.
“Satin Stag cigarettes,” The Mandrake said flatly before shifting his gaze to Seneca. “That’s the Darlings’ brand, isn’t it, Mr. Chamberlain?”
“Um, yes. I believe I’ve seen them smoke those once or twice. What of it?” Seneca asked, failing to hide the nervousness creeping into his voice.
“These are artisanal cigarettes, and Harrowick County’s the only place you can buy them,” The Mandrake said. “That means that the Darlings, either directly or indirectly, are going to have to make the occasional sojourn back home, and the limited supply of these hand-rolled coffin nails means they can’t stock up too far in advance either. You know Harrowick County better than any of us. You know who makes these, you know who sells them. That’s how we track down the Darlings.”
“That’s preposterous. Do you really think they’d risk coming to Harrowick County rather than just switch brands?” Seneca scoffed.
“The Very Important Person at Pascal’s told me that Mary said they’ve been smoking these since they were kids, so they’re clearly pretty attached to them,” The Mandrake replied. “And somehow, I don’t think they’re the type to ever give up a bad habit.”
***
“Smoke & Mirrors ~ Fine Tobacco Products. Silvano Santoro, Proprietor. Est. 1949,” Envy read aloud as she, Seneca and The Mandrake stood outside the small, heavily fortified brick building.
Cast iron bars crisscrossed the windows and front door, which looked like it stood a decent chance of withstanding a police swat team. Security was obviously the shop’s proprietor’s key concern, as the ugly brown and yellow awning was tattered and faded, and the paint on the sign was so chipped it was barely even legible.
“How exactly does an unnoticeable and unattractive hole in the wall like this stay in business?” Envy asked.
“Repeat customers,” Seneca replied as he took a confident step towards the door. “Silvano knows me, and he doesn’t normally have a problem with me bringing guests along, but I expect both of you to be on your best behaviour!”
Envy gave him a reassuring nod, but The Mandrake continued to stoically stare at nothing with his hands in his pockets. Rolling his eyes, Seneca pressed a bulky plastic button on the antiquated door buzzer.
“Yeah, who is it?” a harsh and smoke-damaged voice demanded.
“It’s Seneca, Silvano. A pleasure to make your acquaintance again as well!” Seneca answered. “Just looking to pick up a few cases of cigars for a party, if you’ve got anything decent in stock, of course.”
“Who’s that you got with you?” Silvano asked suspiciously.
“Envy Noir, sir. I’m here on behalf of my sister Ivy, investigating a matter of considerable importance to the Ophion Occult Order,” Envy promptly introduced herself, much to Seneca’s chagrin. “The gentleman beside me is my bodyguard. Would you be so kind as to let us in?”
“Ah… of course. Just a moment, please,” Silvano replied.
“What’s he need a moment to buzz open a door for?” The Mandrake demanded, his stance immediately switching to full readiness.
“Making the place presentable for customers, I assume,” Seneca explained in exasperation.
“You mean he’s hiding evidence, or he’s running!” The Mandrake shouted.
“He’s a nonagenarian heavy smoker. He couldn’t run if his life depended on it,” Seneca insisted.
“I’ll see about that,” The Mandrake muttered.
Shoving Seneca out of the way, he kicked the door in with barely any effort. Storming into the shop, he saw a slender older man with thick white hair and rimmed glasses seated behind the front counter. His saggy, spotted skin was a living PSA against the products he peddled, and in his tobacco-stained hand, he held the receiver of an ornate rotary phone.
Staring at The Mandrake in cold fury, he calmly set the receiver back down in its cradle.
“Who were you talking to?” The Mandrake demanded.
“A client,” Silvano barked back with a shake of his head, picking up a burning cigarette from a nearby ashtray.
“Silvano, I am profusely sorry for this abject and uncouth behaviour! This being is no friend of mine, I can assure you,” Seneca asserted as he and Envy made their way inside.
“The feeling’s mutual, Chamberlain,” The Mandrake remarked. “Mr. Santoro, I apologize for the damage to the premises, but as Miss Noir has said, we’re here on urgent business.”
“Yes, that’s correct. We’ve been given to understand the Darling Twins are regular customers of yours,” Envy explained, before the smoke-saturated room sent her into a coughing spell. She fumbled around in her purse and pulled out a black N95 mask she had left over from the Pandemic.
“I’ve got plenty of regular customers,” Silvan replied defensively. “Customers who pay good money for that smoke you’re so offended by, young lady.”
“These ones have been coming here for over half a century and never aged a day,” The Mandrake said.
“That honestly doesn’t narrow it down that much,” Silvano chuckled, tapping his cigarette on his ashtray. “But yeah, I know the Darlings. What of it?”
“When was the last time they were here?” The Mandrake demanded.
“What’s it to you?” Silvano asked.
“They’re fugitives of the Order now and we want them brought in,” Envy replied, having donned her mask and mostly recovered from the smoke. “Mary Darling held a knife to my throat once in front of my sister, and later threatened to eat me alive in front of her and feed me to her pigs.”
“They were going to put me in their daughter’s doll collection,” The Mandrake muttered.
“And I have nothing but nice things to say about the Darlings, so I’m honestly not quite sure how I got dragged into this,” Seneca said. “That aside, it really would be of great help to us if you could share any information about them that you might have.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. They come in, they buy their smokes, they leave, just like most of my customers,” Silvano told them.
“But now they’re trying to lay low, so I’m guessing they’ve made some sort of arrangement with you to get their Satin Stag cigarettes without having to risk coming here in person,” The Mandrake said. “Maybe they set you up with one of their spare Retrovisions? Emrys said they had a few of those lying around, and they can use them as direct portals to their playroom.”
“Like they’d waste a fancy piece of technomancy like that on an old geezer like me. I haven’t seen them in months. Last year sometime, I think,” Silvano claimed.
The Mandrake casually strolled up to the front counter, rapping his fingers on the cheap glass display case.
“Real nice place you got here, Mr. Santoro. I mean, not really, but I’m sure you get the implication,” he said softly. “Ironic as it may be, a smoke shop isn’t exempt from municipal bylaws about smoking in public buildings and workspaces. You may not have had much trouble with local law enforcement before, but one phone call from my employers will change that real quick.”
“You think I’ve never been threatened before, punk?” Silvano asked, rising from his chair and staring him down.
“Boys, please, there’s no need for this,” Envy interjected. “Mr. Santoro, our Order has considerably more resources at its disposal than the Darlings, and we can certainly offer you a far greater reward for their capture than whatever they’re paying you for some cigarettes. You could retire; close this place down and get as far away as you like. How does that sound?”
“I’m not looking to retire, Miss. This business is all I’ve got, and it wouldn’t be good business to go around ratting out my best customers, now would it?” Silvano asked.
“It would be worse business to sacrifice everything you have to protect two customers,” The Mandrake threatened, his hands clamping down on the display cases so hard they began to creak. “Talk.”
Acknowledging him only with a furtive glance, Silvano took another drag from his cigarette and exhaled.
But this time, the smoke poured out from his mouth and nostrils without limit.
“What the hell?” The Mandrake cursed as he backed away.
Silvano pushed a button beneath the counter, putting his shop into lockdown with security shutters clamping down over every entrance point. As the smoke exuded from his body, it went limp and collapsed into a dried-out husk as the smoke coalesced into an animate form of its own, circling above them around the shop’s yellowed and textured ceiling.
“Damnit. Another egregore,” Envy muttered. “That explains his loyalties. The Darlings couldn’t eat him, but Emrys could.”
“So you’re saying we can’t negotiate it with it?” The Mandrake asked.
“Or fight it,” Envy clarified.
“In that case, it appears we’ve exhausted all our options. Time for a tactical retreat,” Seneca declared as he dashed for the now barricaded exit.
Whatever he was planning to do to get through it, the cloud of smoke cut him off before he got the chance. Rushing in through his nose and mouth, it immediately began suffocating him, sending him spasming to the ground as he choked for air.
The cloud assaulted Envy as well, but was unable to penetrate her mask.
“Godamnit, get away!” she shouted as she swatted it away from her burning eyes.
“Envy, get behind me now!” The Mandrake ordered as he drew out his pistols. “Sorry, Santoro, but you’re going to have to do a lot worse than that if you want to intimidate us!”
Seneca responded by gasping angrily and bashing his hand against the carpet.
“… A lot worse,” The Mandrake reiterated. “I may not be able to shoot you, but I will blow this health hazard you love so much to hell if you don’t tell me where I can find the Darlings!”
“There’ll be no need for that, Mr. Mandrake,” the voice of James Darling crackled in from some unseen speaker. A door off to the side slowly creaked open, revealing a Retrovision flickering with black and white static. The Mandrake wasted no time in shooting at it, but the bullets passed through the glass without causing any damage at all.
A hologram of James Darling manifested in the center of the room, a burning Satin Stag cigarette clutched neatly in his fingers. He saw Seneca suffocating on the floor, then turned his predatory and calculating gaze towards The Mandrake.
“Put the guns on the floor, and I’ll call Silvano off,” he offered.
The Mandrake didn’t seem to be the least bit tempted by this offer, but Envy tugged at his trenchcoat and gave him a commanding nudge. Reluctantly, The Mandrake tossed the guns to the carpet and placed his hands behind his head.
With only a single commanding wag of his index finger, the smoke cloud withdrew from Seneca’s lungs and collected itself above James like a thundercloud.
“No sense in killing you, Seneca. That would practically be doing Emrys a favour,” James said. “But Envy, what’s a pretty girl like you doing wearing a mask?”
“You’d better not let your sister hear you calling me that,” Envy taunted.
“Kind of you to worry, but it’s always the object of my flirtations who bear the brunt of my sister’s wrath,” James reminded her smugly. “Top-notch detective work tracking me down, Mr. Mandrake. Why don’t you walk in through the Retrovision and arrest me?”
“You knew we’d show up here looking for you. You were waiting for us,” The Mandrake growled.
“Again, brilliant detective work. You’ve truly earned that fedora,” James mocked him. “Yes, I knew you’d come here looking for us, so I’ve arranged for Mr. Santoro to set up shop inside our playroom. He was only hanging around here to set a trap for you. Let me tell you what’s going to happen. None of you, not even you, Mr. Mandrake, are going to be able to break out of this building. You can sit there and starve for all I care, or Miss Noir and The Mandrake could take their chances with us on the other side of the Retrovision. Sara Darling really would like to put you in her doll collection, Mr. Mandrake, and I can’t wait to tell Mary Darling exactly how pretty I think you are, Envy. If the two of you come across, I’ll let Seneca go and he can inform Erich and Ivy of your predicament. If they’d like to negotiate for your release, I… may be willing to consider it.”
“You’re a coward! If you’re going to threaten me, step across that screen and do it to my face!” the Mandrake ordered.
He took his hands off his head and took a step towards him, only for the acrid form of Silvano to interject itself between them. James took a casual drag from his cigarette, refusing even to flinch.
Envy took advantage of the distraction and grabbed the pair of spellwork pistols off of the floor, firing two rounds of consecrated lead into the limp body of Silvano. While the body didn’t react at all, the smoke cloud shook and screeched like a wounded animal, losing some of its integrity and dissipating across the room.
“That body’s not just a husk! Silvano’s bound to it!” Envy declared. “James, if you don’t let us go in the next thirty seconds I’ll have The Mandrake tear that body limb from limb and you’ll have to find some other cursed thoughtform to roll your cigarettes for you.”
The Mandrake looked back towards James who now, much to his satisfaction, had flinched.
“Thirty. Twenty-Nine. Twenty-Eight,” he began to count down as he theatrically cracked his knuckles.
Before James could come to a decision, a few wisps of smoke snaked their way back into Silvano’s body. They were enough to animate it like a marionette, its limbs moving jerkily as it input the code to retract the security shutters over the doors and windows.
“There, happy?” James asked facetiously. “You’re free to leave. Put those guns down.”
With a smug smile, Envy shook her head.
“Mandrake, grab that body. We’re taking him with us,” she announced.
When Silvano tried to slam the lockdown button again, Envy shot him, knocking him back into his seat. Before he was able to try a second time, The Mandrake had closed the distance between them. He grabbed him by the waist and slung him over his shoulder, impotently kicking and flailing like a toddler having a tantrum all the while.
“No!” James growled, his hologram disappearing and being replaced by countless others scattered throughout the room.
“What the hell?” Envy demanded as she fell back beside The Mandrake for protection.
“It’s a distraction! Shoot at the Retrovision! He’s coming through to get Silvano!” The Mandrake shouted.
Envy complied, firing multiple rounds at every image of James between them and the Retrovision, but all of them sailed clear through their targets. The smoke cloud suddenly condensed tightly around them, and The Mandrake made a break for the front door while he had the chance.
He was tackled from the side by someone moving at over fifty kilometers an hour, knocking him down and halfway across the room. When he looked up, he was completely surrounded by silhouettes of James bending down in the smoke to pick up Silvano. Jumping to his feet, he made his way back towards the Retrovision in the hopes of cutting James off.
Or at least, he thought that’s where he was going. The tumble to the floor and the encircling smoke had disoriented him, and he ended up tripping over Seneca, who was once again unable to stand from the sickening smoke.
James brushed by them in a blur, and Envy fired every last bullet trying to put him down. Each one either missed or succeeded only in striking Silvano, who was slung over James’ back.
The smoke retreated with them, and The Mandrake dashed after them in one final bid to keep them from escaping. They were just feet away from him before they leapt through the Retrovision, vanishing into the basement universe of the Darlings’ playroom. The Mandrake dared to reach in after them and pull them back, but his hand hit nothing but solid glass.
“Damnit!” he cursed, striking the top of the box set with his fist.
“Don’t break it!” Envy shouted. “If that Retrovision came from the Darlings’ playroom and was modified by James, it could be useful in tracking them down again!”
“It also gives them a two-way ticket to wherever we keep it!” The Mandrake shouted back.
“Oh yes, it would be a gamble taking this old girl with you. No doubt about that,” the black and white visage of James mocked them from the other side of the screen, taking a victory drag from his cigarette. “But on the other hand, it is one of my finer works. It would be a crime, an atrocity even, to destroy it.”
The Mandrake struck the box set again, but deliberately held back on damaging it.
“Mandrake, enough!” Envy commanded. “I know it’s risky, but we need it. Turn it off and pick it up. We’re getting out of this hellhole.”
“Don’t feel bad, Mr. Mandrake. I’m sure you’ll have another chance to end up in Sara Darling’s doll collection very soon,” James taunted just before The Mandrake managed to turn the Retrovision off.
“What an absolute waste of time,” he muttered as he lifted the vintage box set off the floor.
“Not entirely!” Seneca claimed, who had not only recovered from his spectral smoke inhalation but was now holding an unlit cigar. “Crow, Crowley & Chamberlain has a lien on this shop, and since Silvano just ran out on us and has thrown his lot in with the Darlings, this place and everything left in it is ours!”
He was just about to light it before Envy snatched it out of his hands.
“The Mandrake wasn’t bluffing about the municipal health bylaws,” she informed him. “From now on, this is a smoke-free building.”

Hello all,
I have my own story of being stellar at school, then abuse and rampant discrimination. I am 32, and have started my "big girl" job in devops/sre domain in 2017 with a BSc in MechE and couple of extra CS courses under my belt. I specifically left software engineering job for this domain, as my background in MechE fit this role and I really liked it.
Since then I relocated twice internationally and only have worked at Fortune 200 companies and well known startups. My resume glows with brand names, but like many of you I feel like I made a mistake and I do not fit into this industry. And after 7 years I think this is a good thing actually. I am proud of myself that I didn't become a nuclear waste, no thank you. If I wanted to work in military, police, ER, psychiatric ward or in any other field that being traumatised is part of the job, I would have gone in that direction.
Even though I have been recognised as a force wherever I went, and had received good/great feedback, I have never been promoted and I didn't leave my jobs because I wanted "more" or was offered something better, but because there was an incident and my sanity could not take it any longer.
## Story time, you can skip this.
I left my first job because a male coworker attacked me in daylight, in the middle of the full office and I ran for my life the last minute to avoid getting injured. He didn't even get a verbal warning. I was told off by my manager for reporting this incessantly. Right at this point pandemic started. Long story short, I worked there another year from home, which kind of helped until it didn't so I had to involve lawyers, and I quit that job on the spot one random monday morning. Never looked back. I reached out to my previous managers from internships and a small startup I worked for a short stint for references, and openly shared the situation I am in during interviews. So I decided to burn the bridges and never asked for a reference from that job, that is the first solid 2,5 years of my career. I left with panic disorder and severe social anxiety.
In my second job, I decided to relocate internationally in middle of the pandemic. I refused a job at another large corporation and chose a smallish company because I was genuinely convinced that I had to take a step back to chill. This job was a catastrophe at the beginning. Within 8 months I reached back to the other company and asked if the opening was still available. Luck be it, there was an additional opening so I got processed. This didn't went smoothly as HR messed up my offer and "corrected" it after signing it, via offering a much lower package than what I was already earning, so I had refused the same job the second time. At this point I had a new manager and a new product manager both ex FAANG, and thank the lords both of these men were incredible to work with. They restored my trust in people. I have learnt so much from them including that I am a good candidate for staff level positions at that point. It was an eye opening experience. Still, I didn't get promoted here either. My manager used the fact that I wanted the promotion as a leverage to return me back to the office. I would have, however, my husband couldn't find a new job where we lived and wanted out. Around this time, the other company and the hiring manager reached out again and apologised for what has happened during the second round, offered me a much larger package so I decided to accept that job in third attempt. I left with good wishes, stellar reference letters and couple of friends for the rest of my life.
## Current situation, you can skip this.
In my current, and third job, I was determined to do the bare minimum and prioritise my health. I gave up hope on growth, promotions or raises and simply wanted to rest and collect paycheques. I have kept my mouth shut during my first year and simply observed. This team was much older than me by age, so I was hopeful that people might be more mature.
To my horror I learnt that one of them had disciplinary records for verbally assaulting his previous coworkers, because he thought they were not working hard enough. He mentions them proudly for the jokes during team events.
The architect of the team, is an ex-employee turned contractor, and is notoriously known for his "personality". He is loud and rude, a text book misogynist; "limit the information flow, pick favourites, rotate them to make sure everybody feels insecure" type of a leader with limited technical acumen and ability. He also derives too much personal pleasure from being in leadership. In fact I noticed he reports "good work" for my performance reviews to sideline my manager, and wants to "manage me internally". Scrum master is also an ex-employee now employed via architect's company, and is a family friend of his. Add couple of more juniors hired via this contractor, he essentially built himself a parallel organisation.
Lastly, the product owner is very insecure and also has a seriously thick accent to the point that nobody really understands what on earth he is saying. He also doesn't write things down properly, leaving a lot of room for architect to operate however he likes.
In my first year, I have reported some of my observations to my manager. I discovered he agrees with me on all points. I also made sure I kept my relationships good but distant with everybody working for this contractor. So far so good.
During my first year, architect tried to paint me as incompetent, so I played along, or "followed his lead" to be precise. I stepped back when needed, just clocked my 8hours. Perfect, just as I wanted. I took whatever he says "literal" and resisted the urge to "please" him and "read minds", so I ended up stepping back a lot. He ended up with the dumb women he thought I was and became overloaded with work to do, things to figure out.
Then he unleashed the scrum master onto me. She kept advocating for him, that he is doing too much already; being a business owner, an architect and dealing with the incompetent PO was too much etc. So during my 1-1s with her I asked her what was the expectations from me, am I supposed to feel sorry for him or what is this plea for exactly; he doesn't produce any tickets to delegate his work nor asks me directly on what he needs from me. She remained silent and didn't push further.
At this point I thought I was handling this very well. Then a very sudden re-org happened. Everybody was blindsided. I think my manager intended for this as you will understand later.
This left my team without budget and a project. I didn't mind getting re-assigned since I am a fixed employee, but this meant architect will close the shop as a contractor, so he got really aggressive and somehow scratched the last coins to form a budget and made up a new product. Starting early this year, I found myself in a "scale up" that is looking for market fit. Architect formed an inner circle to operate fast. This left me hanging and confused because no one, including my manager, could inform me what was I supposed to do, what the product is, or whether my position is still a fit or not. Here is the reality after few months, there was no product as architect was swinging it until he landed on something. The insecure product owner completely vanished from the team, taking a long vacation during this key time. I noticed this could be a nice opportunity for me to transition to a product owner role. I talked with my manager and arranged some trainings. I reached out to the scrum master and asked her assistance to clean up backlog. She got very alarmed and told me that I needed to finish that by yesterday, everything is urgent and needs to be done asap, that I am losing time etc. I was surprised and told her I am looking forward to her cooperation because I still need some trainings and I cannot get things done that quickly but compared to the non-existing PO, I am still better than nothing.
SM didn't help me. After I started to clean up backlog, the "disciplinary record colleague" decided to reach out to me and told me to stop changing things in the backlog because they were agreed on now and cannot be changed. I said okay and stepped back. A week later, architect declared he is also going to become a PO now.
I was now clearly aware what is happening, how much effect I have on him. I still made sure I contributed as much as possible from my own domain (devops/sre) via setting development and test environments as soon as possible. Architect didn't push back on this early on, but later shut it down by force and when I reached out to him to discuss what is happening, whether the current project is still a good fit for me, are my skills needed for this project etc., and he declared that I have a problem with my expectations and need to read a book. I became so angry I started crying but didn't say anything to him and right after the meeting I took some time off.
When I returned back my manager called, and informed me that architect reported me saying "she doesn't want to work with us, she lost control". To note, during our 1.5 years together, architect and I have never had 1-1 meetings or messages. He only interacts with me during team meetings, or via proxies delivering his messages. This was our one and only 1-1.
I was shocked, my manager was shocked but he recommended de-escalation so I followed suit. However, I was alarmed. I started searching more actively for an internal position and improve my network but not only nothing came up but suddenly, towards end of Q1 architect declared that we are to build the platform in addition to the product so I was needed now. Every single idea I brought to team got ignored, only to be accepted when my senior colleague (my bestie) repeated it. I also noticed some questions I asked and ideas I brought were getting "stolen" to be used in higher up meetings instead of me getting involved. Things got to a point, where architect was bullying everybody that defended me in team meetings, pestering everybody to "help me" to get the ticket done faster (not possible due to blockers, not due to me being slow) and in one of the meetings he exploded with anger and yelled at me for something he did.
I was aware he was problematic, what I wasn't aware how volatile he was and how far he could loose it. Keeping my cool and playing it political no longer made sense. His last explosive anger episode did trigger me and made me revisit the incident at my first job. I wasn't sure how to proceed, whether to take time off or do what but I decided stay on track and keep searching for an opportunity without further incidents.
At this point my manager informed me that he awarded me a stock bonus to show how much company wanted me to stay and that he wants me to join in one of the newly found teams (remember the re-org?) as an architect. Since I already perform at the expected level, if I can keep it another year in the actually position it is going to be a automatic promotion. I still had some questions yet I was really humbled and happy. I made it not just working hard but also playing politically.
## The last event
Last week I worked on a ticket that didn't get finished. I was exhausted by the time friday arrived, and I couldn't power through so I left it unfinished for monday. Keep in mind that except that last minute time off that I needed for cooling my head down and bounce back, I couldn't plan a proper vacation due to this mess of a project and didn't really have a proper rest. I have been working longer and longer hours ever since, even my manager expressed his disapproval to how much pressure we were put under by the architect and encouraged me to stick to my hours only. Still yet, once stress visits my home, it tends to stay overnight.
Anyway, last week I spent a lot of time explaining to my bestie what I am doing and why, and he couldn't wrap his mind around one issue. Since I always have an "assigned partner" that policies my work or "helps me" I spend a lot of time managing people 1-1.
On monday I showed up to realize my bestie worked during the weekend to develop a hacky alternative solution to my design that only supports a single use case, and now he insists he solved the issue, can I implement it in my ticket too. I explained to him he solved something else, the issue is still open, so and so, and he kept insisting no, he tested it (with his alternative setup not my work) and it all should work now. I couldn't keep my cool anymore so I told him off, I told him "Please drag the jira ticket to done if you are sure". I was drenched in sweat and was shaking. The sequence of events and the pressure put on me triggered something in me. I took the week off immediately and called my husband crying. I informed him that I reached my limit, I cannot work at jobs that effect my health this way, I might resign today if necessary.
I knew at this moment a threshold has been crossed. I needed to leave immediately. So, I drafted a very long email detailing all these and asking for a re-assignment effective immediately. I also drafted and send an apology email to my bestie explaining why I need time off.
## Path forward
My manager recognised everything I reported and told me he knows because he worked with the architect for 3 years, and clearly situation has worsened rather than improved. He noted that the architect role he wanted me in was in partnership with my current architect, since he was also doing that work in addition to all the other things. I informed my manager I want to stay away from this man, and the architect role he wanted me in is no longer an option.
He planned a meeting for tomorrow to introduce me to two positions that I am interested in.
One for an IC position and one for a PO position. I want to shoot for the PO position since that one brings in a lot of visibility within the organisation as it is for an internal consultancy group not a singular product team. So I will have to manage numerous stakeholders (my SRE background prepared me well for this) and feed ideas into several teams. I am looking forward to develop better social skills. I am no longer interested in pair programming or any other paired work being utilised to micromanage me. I want a solo role. I want to hide in plain sight.
However I am pointed out that the IC role is in a really nice team with great environment and nice pace so I should also talk to them given my background fits their domain (K8s) perfectly. This is true and couple of months ago I would have run into their arms, but I want to keep my path to promotion diversified and not get pigeonholed into an IC role ever again.
So, am I making a big mistake?
TL;DR: I pulled an ultimatum and asked to be re-assigned within the organisation due to on-going and escalating conflict with team's architect. I have a meeting tomorrow for a IC role in another team and a PO role in some other team. I am leaning on the PO role, as I believe it will give me more room to operate. Am I making a mistake?

In my last story, a space mermaid warned against the dangers of smoking. The Darlings did not heed that warning, so now Space Whale Aesops shall ensue.
____________________________________________________
“The Darling Twins? Honestly, haven’t we all had enough of them by now?” Seneca ruminated as he tried to placate what was now the de facto triumvirate of the Ophion Occult Order.
Once again, he had been summoned to Adderwood Manor to account for his lapses in judgement, but rather than being on full public display in the Grand Hall, he instead found himself in a relatively small parlour. Across from the coffee table in front of him sat Ivy Noir, with her sister Envy to her right and her husband Erich to her left. Standing just to the side of them was the trenchcoat and fedora-wearing automaton who called himself The Mandrake. The one-eyed dream-catcher carved into his iridescent face rendered his emotions unreadable, but the spellwork pistols holstered in his belt made it clear that he was prepared to defend his employers against anything.
“I mean, this feud between them and Emrys is laughable,” Seneca went on. “They’re no threat to him now that he’s free of his chains, surely? Before there may have been a tactical element to his obsession with them, but now it’s just plain petty. Petra’s just out for revenge, and don’t get me started on the absurdity of that eldritch realtor wanting to flip their playroom. Does he think he can just relabel their torture chambers as BDSM dungeons and pass the Black Bile infestation off as some mould?”
“Seneca, I promised Emrys the Darlings, and the Covenant that we all signed binds us to fulfill that promise,” Ivy reminded him patiently, dropping a cube of sugar into her ouroboros-themed antique teacup. “You knew the Darlings better than any of us. You inducted them into the Order, you used them as assassins and bodyguards, and you let them withdraw every penny they had in your bank when they were fugitives!”
“Well, first of all, Crow, Crowley & Chamberlain is a financial institution, not a bank,” Seneca said flippantly. “Secondly, they had a numbered account and they didn’t show up in person, so the teller didn’t have the slightest idea of who they were dealing with.”
“You still could have frozen the account before they had that opportunity,” Erich stated.
Seneca made a display of languidly stirring some cream into his tea and taking a slow sip before responding.
“I’m very busy,” he claimed without an ounce of sincerity.
“You just didn’t want to get on the Darlings’ bad side,” Ivy said.
“I wasn’t aware they had a good side,” Seneca shrugged.
“There must be a paper trail we can follow,” Envy insisted. “Did the Darlings keep their assets anywhere else besides your bank?”
“Financial institution, and yes, I’m sure they have a proverbial Swiss bank account, but I haven’t the slightest notion of where to find it,” Seneca claimed. “It has come up in conversation that James invested about twenty percent of his income with me, twenty percent elsewhere, and shoved another twenty percent under their mattress. Mary enjoys being shagged on top of money, apparently. Their services commanded quite a high price on the underworld market, and sixty-plus years of compound interest have made them incredibly wealthy. They can afford to lie low for a long while.”
“Even if they can go without a paycheck indefinitely, they can’t go without killing,” Erich countered. “They need to hunt, and their egos mean they aren’t just going to cower from Emrys inside their playroom. They’re going to be out looking for victims and plotting against us, and you know what spots they’re likely to hit.”
“You’re wasting your time. James has had decades to scout out hunting grounds, and I’m sure he prepared for the possibility – no, inevitability – that he and his sister would become our enemies. He’s not going to risk showing up within a hundred miles of any of our Chapterhouses if he doesn’t need to,” Seneca said dismissively.
Ivy opened her mouth to speak, but stopped when The Mandrake took a step forward for the first time since the meeting began. He reached into his pocket and tossed a red and white pack of cigarettes with a shiny silhouette of a stag onto the coffee table.
“What is this?” Erich asked.
“Satin Stag cigarettes,” The Mandrake said flatly before shifting his gaze to Seneca. “That’s the Darlings’ brand, isn’t it, Mr. Chamberlain?”
“Um, yes. I believe I’ve seen them smoke those once or twice. What of it?” Seneca asked, failing to hide the nervousness creeping into his voice.
“These are artisanal cigarettes, and Harrowick County’s the only place you can buy them,” The Mandrake said. “That means that the Darlings, either directly or indirectly, are going to have to make the occasional sojourn back home, and the limited supply of these hand-rolled coffin nails means they can’t stock up too far in advance either. You know Harrowick County better than any of us. You know who makes these, you know who sells them. That’s how we track down the Darlings.”
“That’s preposterous. Do you really think they’d risk coming to Harrowick County rather than just switch brands?” Seneca scoffed.
“The Very Important Person at Pascal’s told me that Mary said they’ve been smoking these since they were kids, so they’re clearly pretty attached to them,” The Mandrake replied. “And somehow, I don’t think they’re the type to ever give up a bad habit.”
***
“Smoke & Mirrors ~ Fine Tobacco Products. Silvano Santoro, Proprietor. Est. 1949,” Envy read aloud as she, Seneca and The Mandrake stood outside the small, heavily fortified brick building.
Cast iron bars crisscrossed the windows and front door, which looked like it stood a decent chance of withstanding a police swat team. Security was obviously the shop’s proprietor’s key concern, as the ugly brown and yellow awning was tattered and faded, and the paint on the sign was so chipped it was barely even legible.
“How exactly does an unnoticeable and unattractive hole in the wall like this stay in business?” Envy asked.
“Repeat customers,” Seneca replied as he took a confident step towards the door. “Silvano knows me, and he doesn’t normally have a problem with me bringing guests along, but I expect both of you to be on your best behaviour!”
Envy gave him a reassuring nod, but The Mandrake continued to stoically stare at nothing with his hands in his pockets. Rolling his eyes, Seneca pressed a bulky plastic button on the antiquated door buzzer.
“Yeah, who is it?” a harsh and smoke-damaged voice demanded.
“It’s Seneca, Silvano. A pleasure to make your acquaintance again as well!” Seneca answered. “Just looking to pick up a few cases of cigars for a party, if you’ve got anything decent in stock, of course.”
“Who’s that you got with you?” Silvano asked suspiciously.
“Envy Noir, sir. I’m here on behalf of my sister Ivy, investigating a matter of considerable importance to the Ophion Occult Order,” Envy promptly introduced herself, much to Seneca’s chagrin. “The gentleman beside me is my bodyguard. Would you be so kind as to let us in?”
“Ah… of course. Just a moment, please,” Silvano replied.
“What’s he need a moment to buzz open a door for?” The Mandrake demanded, his stance immediately switching to full readiness.
“Making the place presentable for customers, I assume,” Seneca explained in exasperation.
“You mean he’s hiding evidence, or he’s running!” The Mandrake shouted.
“He’s a nonagenarian heavy smoker. He couldn’t run if his life depended on it,” Seneca insisted.
“I’ll see about that,” The Mandrake muttered.
Shoving Seneca out of the way, he kicked the door in with barely any effort. Storming into the shop, he saw a slender older man with thick white hair and rimmed glasses seated behind the front counter. His saggy, spotted skin was a living PSA against the products he peddled, and in his tobacco-stained hand, he held the receiver of an ornate rotary phone.
Staring at The Mandrake in cold fury, he calmly set the receiver back down in its cradle.
“Who were you talking to?” The Mandrake demanded.
“A client,” Silvano barked back with a shake of his head, picking up a burning cigarette from a nearby ashtray.
“Silvano, I am profusely sorry for this abject and uncouth behaviour! This being is no friend of mine, I can assure you,” Seneca asserted as he and Envy made their way inside.
“The feeling’s mutual, Chamberlain,” The Mandrake remarked. “Mr. Santoro, I apologize for the damage to the premises, but as Miss Noir has said, we’re here on urgent business.”
“Yes, that’s correct. We’ve been given to understand the Darling Twins are regular customers of yours,” Envy explained, before the smoke-saturated room sent her into a coughing spell. She fumbled around in her purse and pulled out a black N95 mask she had left over from the Pandemic.
“I’ve got plenty of regular customers,” Silvan replied defensively. “Customers who pay good money for that smoke you’re so offended by, young lady.”
“These ones have been coming here for over half a century and never aged a day,” The Mandrake said.
“That honestly doesn’t narrow it down that much,” Silvano chuckled, tapping his cigarette on his ashtray. “But yeah, I know the Darlings. What of it?”
“When was the last time they were here?” The Mandrake demanded.
“What’s it to you?” Silvano asked.
“They’re fugitives of the Order now and we want them brought in,” Envy replied, having donned her mask and mostly recovered from the smoke. “Mary Darling held a knife to my throat once in front of my sister, and later threatened to eat me alive in front of her and feed me to her pigs.”
“They were going to put me in their daughter’s doll collection,” The Mandrake muttered.
“And I have nothing but nice things to say about the Darlings, so I’m honestly not quite sure how I got dragged into this,” Seneca said. “That aside, it really would be of great help to us if you could share any information about them that you might have.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. They come in, they buy their smokes, they leave, just like most of my customers,” Silvano told them.
“But now they’re trying to lay low, so I’m guessing they’ve made some sort of arrangement with you to get their Satin Stag cigarettes without having to risk coming here in person,” The Mandrake said. “Maybe they set you up with one of their spare Retrovisions? Emrys said they had a few of those lying around, and they can use them as direct portals to their playroom.”
“Like they’d waste a fancy piece of technomancy like that on an old geezer like me. I haven’t seen them in months. Last year sometime, I think,” Silvano claimed.
The Mandrake casually strolled up to the front counter, rapping his fingers on the cheap glass display case.
“Real nice place you got here, Mr. Santoro. I mean, not really, but I’m sure you get the implication,” he said softly. “Ironic as it may be, a smoke shop isn’t exempt from municipal bylaws about smoking in public buildings and workspaces. You may not have had much trouble with local law enforcement before, but one phone call from my employers will change that real quick.”
“You think I’ve never been threatened before, punk?” Silvano asked, rising from his chair and staring him down.
“Boys, please, there’s no need for this,” Envy interjected. “Mr. Santoro, our Order has considerably more resources at its disposal than the Darlings, and we can certainly offer you a far greater reward for their capture than whatever they’re paying you for some cigarettes. You could retire; close this place down and get as far away as you like. How does that sound?”
“I’m not looking to retire, Miss. This business is all I’ve got, and it wouldn’t be good business to go around ratting out my best customers, now would it?” Silvano asked.
“It would be worse business to sacrifice everything you have to protect two customers,” The Mandrake threatened, his hands clamping down on the display cases so hard they began to creak. “Talk.”
Acknowledging him only with a furtive glance, Silvano took another drag from his cigarette and exhaled.
But this time, the smoke poured out from his mouth and nostrils without limit.
“What the hell?” The Mandrake cursed as he backed away.
Silvano pushed a button beneath the counter, putting his shop into lockdown with security shutters clamping down over every entrance point. As the smoke exuded from his body, it went limp and collapsed into a dried-out husk as the smoke coalesced into an animate form of its own, circling above them around the shop’s yellowed and textured ceiling.
“Damnit. Another egregore,” Envy muttered. “That explains his loyalties. The Darlings couldn’t eat him, but Emrys could.”
“So you’re saying we can’t negotiate it with it?” The Mandrake asked.
“Or fight it,” Envy clarified.
“In that case, it appears we’ve exhausted all our options. Time for a tactical retreat,” Seneca declared as he dashed for the now barricaded exit.
Whatever he was planning to do to get through it, the cloud of smoke cut him off before he got the chance. Rushing in through his nose and mouth, it immediately began suffocating him, sending him spasming to the ground as he choked for air.
The cloud assaulted Envy as well, but was unable to penetrate her mask.
“Godamnit, get away!” she shouted as she swatted it away from her burning eyes.
“Envy, get behind me now!” The Mandrake ordered as he drew out his pistols. “Sorry, Santoro, but you’re going to have to do a lot worse than that if you want to intimidate us!”
Seneca responded by gasping angrily and bashing his hand against the carpet.
“… A lot worse,” The Mandrake reiterated. “I may not be able to shoot you, but I will blow this health hazard you love so much to hell if you don’t tell me where I can find the Darlings!”
“There’ll be no need for that, Mr. Mandrake,” the voice of James Darling crackled in from some unseen speaker. A door off to the side slowly creaked open, revealing a Retrovision flickering with black and white static. The Mandrake wasted no time in shooting at it, but the bullets passed through the glass without causing any damage at all.
A hologram of James Darling manifested in the center of the room, a burning Satin Stag cigarette clutched neatly in his fingers. He saw Seneca suffocating on the floor, then turned his predatory and calculating gaze towards The Mandrake.
“Put the guns on the floor, and I’ll call Silvano off,” he offered.
The Mandrake didn’t seem to be the least bit tempted by this offer, but Envy tugged at his trenchcoat and gave him a commanding nudge. Reluctantly, The Mandrake tossed the guns to the carpet and placed his hands behind his head.
With only a single commanding wag of his index finger, the smoke cloud withdrew from Seneca’s lungs and collected itself above James like a thundercloud.
“No sense in killing you, Seneca. That would practically be doing Emrys a favour,” James said. “But Envy, what’s a pretty girl like you doing wearing a mask?”
“You’d better not let your sister hear you calling me that,” Envy taunted.
“Kind of you to worry, but it’s always the object of my flirtations who bear the brunt of my sister’s wrath,” James reminded her smugly. “Top-notch detective work tracking me down, Mr. Mandrake. Why don’t you walk in through the Retrovision and arrest me?”
“You knew we’d show up here looking for you. You were waiting for us,” The Mandrake growled.
“Again, brilliant detective work. You’ve truly earned that fedora,” James mocked him. “Yes, I knew you’d come here looking for us, so I’ve arranged for Mr. Santoro to set up shop inside our playroom. He was only hanging around here to set a trap for you. Let me tell you what’s going to happen. None of you, not even you, Mr. Mandrake, are going to be able to break out of this building. You can sit there and starve for all I care, or Miss Noir and The Mandrake could take their chances with us on the other side of the Retrovision. Sara Darling really would like to put you in her doll collection, Mr. Mandrake, and I can’t wait to tell Mary Darling exactly how pretty I think you are, Envy. If the two of you come across, I’ll let Seneca go and he can inform Erich and Ivy of your predicament. If they’d like to negotiate for your release, I… may be willing to consider it.”
“You’re a coward! If you’re going to threaten me, step across that screen and do it to my face!” the Mandrake ordered.
He took his hands off his head and took a step towards him, only for the acrid form of Silvano to interject itself between them. James took a casual drag from his cigarette, refusing even to flinch.
Envy took advantage of the distraction and grabbed the pair of spellwork pistols off of the floor, firing two rounds of consecrated lead into the limp body of Silvano. While the body didn’t react at all, the smoke cloud shook and screeched like a wounded animal, losing some of its integrity and dissipating across the room.
“That body’s not just a husk! Silvano’s bound to it!” Envy declared. “James, if you don’t let us go in the next thirty seconds I’ll have The Mandrake tear that body limb from limb and you’ll have to find some other cursed thoughtform to roll your cigarettes for you.”
The Mandrake looked back towards James who now, much to his satisfaction, had flinched.
“Thirty. Twenty-Nine. Twenty-Eight,” he began to count down as he theatrically cracked his knuckles.
Before James could come to a decision, a few wisps of smoke snaked their way back into Silvano’s body. They were enough to animate it like a marionette, its limbs moving jerkily as it input the code to retract the security shutters over the doors and windows.
“There, happy?” James asked facetiously. “You’re free to leave. Put those guns down.”
With a smug smile, Envy shook her head.
“Mandrake, grab that body. We’re taking him with us,” she announced.
When Silvano tried to slam the lockdown button again, Envy shot him, knocking him back into his seat. Before he was able to try a second time, The Mandrake had closed the distance between them. He grabbed him by the waist and slung him over his shoulder, impotently kicking and flailing like a toddler having a tantrum all the while.
“No!” James growled, his hologram disappearing and being replaced by countless others scattered throughout the room.
“What the hell?” Envy demanded as she fell back beside The Mandrake for protection.
“It’s a distraction! Shoot at the Retrovision! He’s coming through to get Silvano!” The Mandrake shouted.
Envy complied, firing multiple rounds at every image of James between them and the Retrovision, but all of them sailed clear through their targets. The smoke cloud suddenly condensed tightly around them, and The Mandrake made a break for the front door while he had the chance.
He was tackled from the side by someone moving at over fifty kilometers an hour, knocking him down and halfway across the room. When he looked up, he was completely surrounded by silhouettes of James bending down in the smoke to pick up Silvano. Jumping to his feet, he made his way back towards the Retrovision in the hopes of cutting James off.
Or at least, he thought that’s where he was going. The tumble to the floor and the encircling smoke had disoriented him, and he ended up tripping over Seneca, who was once again unable to stand from the sickening smoke.
James brushed by them in a blur, and Envy fired every last bullet trying to put him down. Each one either missed or succeeded only in striking Silvano, who was slung over James’ back.
The smoke retreated with them, and The Mandrake dashed after them in one final bid to keep them from escaping. They were just feet away from him before they leapt through the Retrovision, vanishing into the basement universe of the Darlings’ playroom. The Mandrake dared to reach in after them and pull them back, but his hand hit nothing but solid glass.
“Damnit!” he cursed, striking the top of the box set with his fist.
“Don’t break it!” Envy shouted. “If that Retrovision came from the Darlings’ playroom and was modified by James, it could be useful in tracking them down again!”
“It also gives them a two-way ticket to wherever we keep it!” The Mandrake shouted back.
“Oh yes, it would be a gamble taking this old girl with you. No doubt about that,” the black and white visage of James mocked them from the other side of the screen, taking a victory drag from his cigarette. “But on the other hand, it is one of my finer works. It would be a crime, an atrocity even, to destroy it.”
The Mandrake struck the box set again, but deliberately held back on damaging it.
“Mandrake, enough!” Envy commanded. “I know it’s risky, but we need it. Turn it off and pick it up. We’re getting out of this hellhole.”
“Don’t feel bad, Mr. Mandrake. I’m sure you’ll have another chance to end up in Sara Darling’s doll collection very soon,” James taunted just before The Mandrake managed to turn the Retrovision off.
“What an absolute waste of time,” he muttered as he lifted the vintage box set off the floor.
“Not entirely!” Seneca claimed, who had not only recovered from his spectral smoke inhalation but was now holding an unlit cigar. “Crow, Crowley & Chamberlain has a lien on this shop, and since Silvano just ran out on us and has thrown his lot in with the Darlings, this place and everything left in it is ours!”
He was just about to light it before Envy snatched it out of his hands.
“The Mandrake wasn’t bluffing about the municipal health bylaws,” she informed him. “From now on, this is a smoke-free building.”

Greetings! I am here to bring all your passionate stories to life. I am down to play with any popular character or your own OC. I am open to writing about anything, including steamy fan fiction and kinky prose. You can expect inspired storytelling and industry-standard quality.
I do paid RP's - both SFW and NSFW. I used to do this on fiver and Etsy and thought to post it here now. I can roleplay in any fandom and as a character you desire. I can write up to 10 paragraphs per reply, focusing on being highly descriptive. I am passionate about my work and take pleasure in crafting engaging stories. I am committed to ensuring your enjoyment throughout the roleplay experience. I strive to understand your preferences and incorporate them into the roleplay.
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And I'm going to share two SFW samples and if you want any NSFW writing samples, you can reach me out.

Writing Samples:

Over the past few weeks, Caroline's day, nights, and dreams blurred until they were indistinguishable.
The typewriter punished her fingers as she hammered its oversized keys. Her eyelids grew heavy, but she held them open, grateful for the work yet longing to return to her modest but comfortable London flat.
Her charming wit was only matched by her beauty. She found solace in the strength of the city, comforted by supportive women in similar circumstances after the devastating loss nine months earlier.
For a moment, cries of the dead filtered into the office, but she knew better. It had happened before.
Each time it turned out to be phantom whisper playing an emotional heartstring, an echo of her husband, Victor, who died in the Battle of Mons. She hated the Germans for it, bastards.
Her face had tightened and her stomach wrenched when she discovered he was missing, She wasted away for days afterward.
It wasn't fair. He was kind, yet strong willed, gentle, but passionate. And then, he was gone.
The emptiness left by his absence crowded out all other emotions and oppressed her spirit. She would never get over Victor, never. He was her soulmate, the way he spoke to her. touched her. He was everything.
The following week, she hated the God, her family, and everything else.
She hated the world for it, and then she put back on her face. She had to. God save the Queen. It was Britain's first major battle in the "War to End All Wars"
Caroline heard the whisper again. She'd been hearing it for several days, but she knew it was just her imagination, her longing for Victor. The long nights didn't help. The sleep deprivation was unbearable.
2.
Ever since the night Anna looked down in dazed disbelief at the two bodies, she had just created, a handgun wobbling in her hands as a shiver shot down her spine like a bolt of lightning. She couldn't say she had known many moments when she had been in anything even resembling a good mood. As for the few times she had felt something other than misery and an inescapable sense of doom, those had proven to be all too fleeting. Happiness in Frozen heart was like clutching a living butterfly in your hands, so fragile that even the slightest involuntary fluttering of the fingers could crush it in an instant.
Still, she found herself in the best spirits she had been in for quite some time as she sat in her cell, flipping through an illustrated edition of Treasure Island she had taken from the prison library, almost allowing herself to feel confident about how things were going for her. Giselle has agreed to be her "bitch" the very instant she had asked, waving her fists around with sort of enthusiasm normally reserved for small children riding mechanical horses outside of grocery store parking lots. She wasn't sure how much her "ownership" of her was going to benefit her in the long run, but if it kept Merica from being able to use her for whatever demented exploits she had in mind, it was worth it as far as Anna was concerned.
"You do realize you're food if you're expecting for Bloody Mary to be okay with this, right?" Rapunzel's voice was monotone and almost barely audible, but she was at least eating, even if it was just a bag of pretzels she had tucked away in her stash somewhere. "She's going to take this as a declaration of war."

Below you will find a weekly reminder of our Rules and partial FAQ. It's definitely a long read, but it's worth your time, especially if you are new to the community, or dropping by as a result of a link you found elsewhere. We periodically revise our rules, this weekly notice will help keep you informed of any changes made.
NOTE: These rules are guidelines. Some moderation discretion is to be expected.

Community Rules

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• If a poster continues to argue or to willfully violate these rules, temporary and permanent ban procedures will be followed. Any attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban. User bans will not be discussed in the sub. Questions posted about user bans are subject to removal and the poster subject to warning/ban procedures. The mod team will not discuss a specific user ban with anyone other than the user involved.
• New accounts are subject to manual approval until they are no longer deemed "new" by the mod team. This helps to weed out trolls and ban evaders.
• We rely on Automoderator to scan for specific words and phrases that are not welcome here and notify the mod team to review the comment or post. This includes slurs of any type and platitudes such as "Love them as your own!"
• The mod team uses a combination of blacklisting and banning when dealing with trolls.
• We employ the use of a bot that automatically bans anyone who comments in subs that have historically harassed our users. If you are picked up by the bot for telling trolls to get fucked, reach out via mod mail and we'll get you sorted out.
• The rules above as well as ban procedures are considered guidelines only; some deviation may be necessary on a case by case basis and/or at the mod team's discretion.

13. Ban Procedure

These actions are at moderator discretion.

• Pornography will result in an automatic permanent ban.
• Extremely egregious content will result in an immediate permanent ban.
• You may receive a 7 or 30 day temporary ban for first and second rule violations, depending upon severity.
• Continued rule violations will result in a permanent ban.
• Willful attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban.
• We recognize the reddit site-wide rules of using alt names to get around bans and will ban those as well as report them to reddit admins.

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FAQ - About the Rules

What does Kindness Matters mean?

• Shortest version? Don't be an asshole. People come here for support and advice, they do not come here to be yelled at or told they are the reason everything is going sideways. There are ways to point out that someone may want to do some reflection on their own actions and reactions without being an asshole about it.
• The purpose of this subreddit is to provide support and a sense of belonging for struggling stepparents. We aren't here to pass judgement, but rather to offer support, empathy, and constructive commentary. That does not include "hard truths" or "tough love." Stepparents get enough of that in every other subreddit, we're not passing it out here. Be respectful.
• Remember, most people aren't going to come to a sub like this when everything is going great and everyone is getting along. People are coming here when they are down, when they are feeling defeated and stretched to the limit. Kicking someone when they are down is shitty behavior and we don't tolerate it.

What about being kind to the kids?

• "Won't somebody think of the children?" Pearl clutching isn't needed here. If you read the Kindness Matters rule closely, you will see that there is a clause in there about name calling children. We don't allow it. We also don't allow people rolling in telling OP that they feel sorry for their stepkids because OP is feeling overwhelmed and overloaded.
• If anyone is advocating slapping, spanking, or any other form of violence, report the comment immediately. We do not advocate violence towards children of any sort. The mod team does not advocate any sort of physical punishment at any time.
• Venting about behaviors is not the same as insulting the kids. However, if you see a post or comment where kids are being name called or dragged to the point of no return, use the report button. We try to catch the posts and remove them before they hit the sub, but we cannot see every comment without your help. Use the report button to bring problematic comments to our attention. Don't engage in a war of words on our subreddit.

Why is this sub such an echo chamber?

• Not allowing contributors to pile on and tell OP that they are a terrible human being who should never be around children does not equate to being an echo chamber. Many contributors here will offer OP suggestions to help them work through their resentments and frustrations, and the most egregious situations are called out. We simply ask that it be called out with respect.
• If you feel that a post is simply too much for you to handle without following the rules, move on to another post.
• If you believe that a post itself is crossing the rules report it. If the mod team has approved the post, it is because the mod team believes that the OP needs help from the community or needs a moment to vent and move on from their vent. That does not give you license to pile on disrespectfully. Unless it is proven that OP is a bot, assume that OP is a human being with real thoughts and feelings and has posted from a place of vulnerability.

Why can't I tell OP that they are an asshole?

• Because this isn't a judgement sub. We aren't AITA, we don't want to be AITA.
• Comments with terms like YTA, NTA, ESH, NAH will be removed.
• Don't start your posts with INFO either. We generally recognize that as a fishing attempt for more information to pass judgement on OP, and again, we are not a judgment sub.

But OP asked if they were an asshole?!

• Their post somehow got past our automoderator. Just use the report button. We will address it with OP.
• If you've asked if you are an asshole, a-hole, a*hole, a**hole, whatever, don't be surprised if your post is removed without warning. This isn't a judgment sub. If you want judgment, you know where to go.

What is a gendered slur?

• While it seems that everyone understands what racist slurs are, people struggle understanding the concept of gendered slurs. Generally speaking, we are talking about derogatory nouns or verbs that are used to negatively describe people or situations based on gendered terms.
• We've gone back and forth on this a few times, and the truth is, we get it, it's your safe space and you want to be able to vent about BM/BD how you want to vent about them, without us telling you how to vent about them. Fair enough. Vent away. What we are going to stick to here how people are referring to other users and to stepchildren.
• Examples that are not allowed:
  • "My SD is such a little bitch."
  • "She dresses/acts like a slut."
  • "My SS acts like a pussy."
  • "My SS is such a beta male."
  • "You are all fucking whores."
  • "Any dude who is raising some sluts kids is a cuck!"
  • "Little Lord Fauntleroy over here thinking he runs the house!"
  • "You're just the bangnanny, get used to it."
• Don't call users here names, don't call stepchildren names.
• Masking the term with asterisks or other neat little tricks might get you around the bot, but if we see it, we're removing it and quite possibly giving you a time out. The intended word is still there and you deliberately tried to skate the rule.
• As there is not enough space to list every term that is offensive and does not belong, nor every situation in which term or phrase may be allowable in context, this rule is enforced based on moderator discretion.

Seriously? You are the language police now?

• We're here to talk about stepparenting. And we would like for that to happen in a respectful way. Attacking each other doesn't help. Belittling stepchildren draws in trolls who don't understand your frustration, all they see is an evil stepmonster talking shit on the internet about a poor, innocent baby. Yes, even if that "poor, innocent baby" just robbed you blind and set fire to the house on their way out the door. That's just how it goes.
• We are aware that this is a relatively new rule and a lot of older posts and comments contain a lot of problematic language, including some from mods themselves. We are growing and evolving, and rules change as the sub grows and evolves.

What does No Drama really mean?

• Pretty much what it says, do not bring drama from other subs into this sub. Do not engage in vote brigades. Do not try to incite other subscribers to riot in a different sub. Don't follow posters into this sub from other subs to continue to harass them. Do not badger someone or derail threads. Do not harass community members because you don't agree with them. There's enough drama in the daily lives of subscribers, more isn't needed.

What is thread derailment?

• When a comment chain has devolved to the point where all you are doing is arguing back and forth with someone about the same thing over and over again, you have derailed the thread. Also known as bickering. It's what children do. We assume if people are in a stepparent role they are adults. We expect you to act like it.
• If you aren't a stepparent, or in a stepparenting role, consider that perhaps this subreddit isn't for you. If you want to participate, do so with respect. Thread derailment, arguing, bickering, and nitpicking are not allowed.

But what if they didn't answer my question?

• No one has to answer your questions. This is a support sub, not an inquisition. Jumping on a bandwagon with "OP is evading the question" in a 20 comment long chain is the epitome of thread derailment. You'll find more information about trolling below and how this might be considered such.

Why am I being silenced? I'm just asking for a back and forth!

• Thread derailment, badgering, and nitpicking are considered harassment. Continued harassment of either community members or mods will get you banned.

Why can't I look at someone's post history and comment about it?

• No mod in the history of this sub has ever once said post histories are forbidden. What we do frown upon is using someone's post history to attack, belittle, or otherwise harass someone.
• Example Post: "My stepkid's mom really hates me. How can I make this better?"
  • Okay: "Based on the timeline and your post history, it looks like this may have started as an affair. Unfortunately there's going to be outstanding issues for a long time due to that. Try focusing on yourself and how you can move forward without worrying about how someone else feels about you."
  • Not Okay: "Holy shit! You were the OW! What the hell do you expect, homewrecker?!"
• Example Post: "I am completely overloaded and feeling very down about myself."
  • Okay: "In your post history you mentioned that your spouse wasn't really helping around the house. Has that changed at all?"
  • Not Okay: "LOL, you already got the answers you need in your post on relationships. You are stupid for sticking with your lazy spouse."

Why can't we crosspost stuff to other subs?

• We can't stop you from doing so. The problem isn't that something has been crossposted, it's when the community that it's been crossposted to feels the need to come over here and harass OP. When we see that happening, we lock the post and start passing out bans. If you did the crossposting, you'll be banned. If you participated in the brigading, you'll be banned.

What if it's my own post?

• Again, we can't stop you from doing so. We prefer that you don't technically crosspost, but rather just copy and paste your post. Why? Because inevitably the above will happen. Redditors from other subs will follow you back to /stepparents and start attacking users here. It just happens.

What is "brigading"?

• Reddit defines vote manipulation and brigading as follows:
• Using multiple accounts, voting services, or any other software to increase or decrease vote scores.
• Asking people to vote up or down certain posts, either on Reddit itself or through social networks, messaging, etc. for personal gain.
• Forming or joining a group that votes together, either on a specific post, a user's posts, posts from a domain, etc.
• We, along with pretty much every other subreddit that has ever had to deal with this nonsense, further define brigading as this: You saw a post on another sub that linked to our sub either via a link in a comment or a crosspost. It was basically saying something along the lines of "OMG, check out these assholes over on /stepparents! They literally hate all their stepkids!" And then you and your friends come over and start hammering on OP and telling OP how much they suck. Congrats, you have just participated in a brigade.

What is this whole Report, Don't Rant thing about?

• If you see a post or comment that breaks the rules, instead of engaging, report it. When you report it, it sends notification to the mod team. We will act on it where appropriate. Engaging with bad faith users may result in your comments being removed. If you repeatedly do so, you may end up being banned.

What if I see an obvious troll?

• Report it.

What if they are being really mean in comments?

• Report it.

What if they are harassing me in private messages?

• Step 1: Report them to admins. You can report harassment to reddit by using this link or send a DM to reddit admins. Include the link to the DM, admins can see your inbox and providing a direct link is helpful for them to weed out bad actors.
• Step 2: Block the person so they cannot directly contact you again.
• Step 3: Send us a mod mail and let the mod team know. Tell us who they are and what they said, send us a screenshot if you can - admins can see your DMs, mods can't. We'll take action where necessary by banning from the sub if they aren't already banned.

What do you mean by No Naming & Shaming?

• Just as we prefer to not be linked to or crossposted from, we do not allow linking to or calling out other subs by name. If you see something you want to share, say it's a hot post that has hit the front page and a stepparent is being absolutely flayed, just refer to it as "that hot post that hit the front page." If you want to complain about other places in general, "other parenting/advice/judgement subs" will suffice. Absolutely under no circumstances should you link to anywhere else.

I can't link to other subs?

• Do not directly link to another sub. (e.g.: "/insertsubnamehere is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")
• Do not name other subs. (e.g.: "I won't link to it directly, but insertsubnamehere is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")
• Do not abbreviate other subs. (e.g.: "I know that ISNH is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")

I can't ping other users?

• Do not summon another user with a username ping/tag. (e.g.: "insertusernamehere was being an asshole.")
• If you are agreeing with someone, it is okay to link to them. (e.g.: "I agree with insertusernamehere, you need to take a couple of steps back and reflect on this.")

What does No Platitudes mean?

• Sanctimonious, overused clichés that grossly oversimplify the stepparenting experience are neither wanted nor allowed here. We have all heard it a thousand times before, we don't need to hear it again. It's not nearly as insightful and wise as some would like to think.

Why don't you people understand it's a package deal?

• Any comment that suggests that OP should have known what they were getting involved with, or that they needed to understand that the kids were part of some package they needed to accept before signing up for marriage is subject to immediate removal.
• This is one of the most insensitive things you can say to a stepparent. Most stepparents were aware of the children, but they were probably not aware of all of the family dynamics.

Why can't you just love them like they are your own?

• Demanding that a stranger you do not know love children that are not biologically theirs as if they were theirs can be incredibly damaging to someone who is already in a vulnerable situation. Any comment that falls along these lines will be removed.

What do you mean by No Trolling? I was just...

• No means no. No trolling. No pretending to be a stepparent and then whipping out the Greatest Hits Bingo Card of The Worst Stepparent in the History of Stepparents. We see you. We've seen you a thousand times.

What does "concern trolling", "gish-galloping", and "sealioning" have to do with stepparenting? This isn't a debate sub, why are you using debate terms?

• That's absolutely right, this isn't a debate sub. And yet, here we are, day after day, having to defend ourselves against this sort of thing. So, enough. No more. Usage of any of these things will get you banned.

What is "Concern Trolling?"

• A concern troll is someone who disingenuously visits sites of an opposing ideology to disrupt conversation by offering unwanted advice on how to solve problems which do not really exist.
  • Example Post: OP expresses concern that she will feel, and possibly act, differently towards her stepchildren after her husband decides that no, he doesn't want anymore children after all.
  • Example Concern Troll pulled from actual mod mail after their comment was removed: "Possible child abuse claims need to be sorted out well before whatever empathy you believe the OP was looking for."

What is a "Devil's Advocate"?

• "I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but have you considered that maybe BM is just really tired and needs a break, too?" BM has dozens of different mom based subs alone on reddit she can complain on, this sub is for stepparents. The stepparent doesn't need to consider that maybe BM is just really tired and needs a break.

"Gish-galloping?" What does that even mean?

• The Gish Gallop is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort. The Gish Gallop is a conveyor belt-fed version of the on the spot fallacy, as it's unreasonable for anyone to have a well-composed answer immediately available to every argument present in the Gallop.

And "sealioning?" What's that?

• Sealioning involves jumping into a conversation with endless polite, reasonable questions and demands for answers, usually of entry-level topics far below the actual conversation (e.g. "please prove sexism exists"). This tactic differs little from harassment; instead of discussion, the point is to derail discussion, receive criticism (for their ignorance) so as to look like a victim, or to make someone feel overwhelmed and quit talking.

Who gets to define what is considered asshattery?

• The mod team, of course! If we feel that comments are out of line, are trolling, are leading up to a fight or "just asking questions", we are going to remove them and most likely ban the offender.

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FAQ - Sub Questions

Posting Guidelines for Stepparents

• Body text is required, we suggest you use line breaks between paragraphs as a wall of text is difficult to read. Posts that have only a title are likely to be removed. Instead of using names (even fictitious ones), try to use the sub acronyms. It helps our users to follow along if you use the acronyms and not names.
• Assign a post flair that accurately describes what your post is about and what you are seeking. If you are posting an update from a previous post, include a link to that post.
• Flairs are applied to posts to determine what a person is looking for. When submitting a new post, you should choose a flair that specifies if you are looking for advice, support, etc. The following link flair is available and is color coded with side bar links so that you can search by flair:
  • Advice - For when you are specifically asking for advice or help.
  • Announcement - Mod Use Only, for subreddit announcements.
  • Daily (Formerly TTP) - Mod Use Only, for our daily discussion threads.
  • Discussion - A little advice, a little "How does your family handle this?"
  • JustBMThings - Pretty sure this is self explanatory!
  • Legal - Asking for legal advice? Tag it with this!
  • Miscellany - Just a sort of off topic thing? Use this tag.
  • Resource - Sharing a good resource or asking for one? This is the tag you need!
  • Support - For those days when you want nothing but a good old fashioned cry and some community love.
  • Update - Updating us on something that you posted about previously? Use this one!
  • Vent - We all need to vent sometimes. Respect the tag as a vent. This isn't how OP talks all day every day.
  • Win! - Celebrate those wins with us with this tag!
  • Megathread - Mod Use Only, for large mega threads (typically around major calendar events.)

Posting Guidelines for Bioparents

• Stepparents is a support community for stepparents, by stepparents. As bioparents, you may want to have more insight into how the stepparent in your life feels or thinks. You may have questions on how to ease the transition for your partner. However, please keep in mind that this community was not created for you. It was created for your partner or your ex's partner. If you are seeking support on how to deal with a stepparent, there are other subs more suited for your situation and your post is subject to removal.
• There are some posts from bioparents we will accept:
  • Seeking advice on how to support your partner as they navigate stepparenting
  • Seeking resources to help you better support your partner
  • Seeking resources for your partner
• There are some posts from bioparents we will not accept:
  • Complaints about how the stepparent is too involved in your kids lives
  • Vents about how the stepparent is not involved enough in your kids lives
  • "Cautionary tales" advising stepparents to back off
  • Seeking advice on how to tell the stepparent to back off
  • The Do's and Dont's of Stepparenting
  • How your kid's stepmom is literally The Worst
• Comments from bioparents that are helpful and supportive are welcome and appreciated. Comments from bioparents that are not helpful or supportive are not welcome and subject to removal. There are several other subs that may meet the needs of bioparents better than we can. We recommend /coparenting, /parenting, /parents, /blendedfamilies, and /singleparents as starting points.

Guidelines for Stepkids

• At this time, we do not generally accept posts from stepkids. Comments from stepkids that are helpful and supportive are welcome and appreciated. Comments from stepkids that are not helpful or supportive are not welcome and subject to removal. If you are a stepkid seeking support, we highly recommend /stepkids. It is a very supportive community specifically for stepkids. We also recommend /blendedfamilies as another potential group for support.

What the heck are all these acronyms? I'm confused!

• Check out the Common Acronyms wiki page. We try to keep this updated as new terms are introduced to the sub.

Why aren't my posts or comments showing up?

• New posters and accounts go through a waiting period before their posts will show in the sub and the comments on posts automatically. During the new account approval period the mod team will check posts to be sure you aren't attempting to circumvent a ban with a shiny new account. Please be patient while the timer runs down on your "new" status and the mod team approves your posts and responses.

Why was my comment removed?

• Comments are removed when they do not follow the rules of the sub. These rules are published in several places for your reading pleasure.
• Comments are removed at moderator discretion. In some cases your comment may be removed while another remains up. If you find this to be the case, and you believe the comment to be violating the rules, instead of arguing with mods or demanding they remove the additional comments, just report it.

This comment/post is really offensive! Why is it still up?

• All moderators are volunteers and have busy real lives. Sometimes things get past us. The best thing you can do is report anything you find offensive or inflammatory. It's the quickest and most reliable way of alerting us to an issue.

I've received a hurtful/unwanted PM from someone about my recent post. What should I do?

• If you receive an unwanted/hurtful PM from a name you don't recognize, please report it to Reddit Admins using our handy pre-populated form. Be sure to include the permalink to the message. We've been dealing with a few unhappy folks who like to attack stepparents, and reporting it to the admins is the only way to make it stop.

What are the general moderator guidelines?

• Users are expected to know the rules before posting. If you are warned or banned for violating the rules, ignorance is not an excuse.
• Moderators will remove posts and comments and/or lock threads in accordance with the rules above. Typically this happens when threads have gone off-topic in a way that is not productive for the OP, or comments overall have become contentious or disrespectful.
• If a poster continues to argue or to willfully violate these rules, temporary and permanent ban procedures will be followed. Any attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban. User bans will not be discussed in the sub. Questions posted about user bans are subject to removal and the poster subject to warning/ban procedures. The mod team will not discuss a specific user ban with anyone other than the user involved.
• New accounts are subject to manual approval until they are no longer deemed "new" by the mod team. This helps to weed out trolls and ban evaders.
• We rely on Automoderator to scan for specific words and phrases that are not welcome here and notify the mod team to review the comment or post. This includes slurs of any type and platitudes such as "Love them as your own!"
• The mod team uses a combination of blacklisting and banning when dealing with trolls.
• We employ the use of a bot that automatically bans anyone who comments in subs that have historically harassed our users. If you are picked up by the bot for telling trolls to get fucked, reach out via mod mail and we'll get you sorted out.
• The rules above as well as ban procedures are considered guidelines only; some deviation may be necessary on a case by case basis and/or at the mod team's discretion.

I've been wrongly banned/Why can't I comment here?

• Due to an influx of harassment from users with specific user histories, we have employed a user history ban bot as described above. If you think this has affected you and wish to appeal, please message the mods.

Why was I banned without warning?

• There are numerous reasons that the mod team might opt to move perm banning without warning. Message the moderators if you have specific questions.

I'm not sure if I can leave a question here. The question is about my husband's (ftm) genital surgery. I thought I (cis f) and my husband (ftm) had a satisfying sex life.
(Sex without penetration because I hate sex toys)
Then one day my husband suggested I have sex with a cis man he called a friend, and I figured it was his sexual fetish and agreed to satisfy him.
I had sex with men under my husband's supervision each time.
One guy knew he could do that and treated me like a total whore and honestly I was going crazy after his cis dick went from pain to pleasure.
After penetration, I couldn't do anything except breathe and tremble, and for the first time, I lost the experience of anal and swallowing semen. I think urine came out too.
After that incident, my husband wants to undergo penis surgery to make his penis similar in size to a man's.
However, after searching, it seems that there is no penis surgery suitable for that size on average.
(Small Penis Surgery Size)
(This is an unpleasant post from now on)
The second problem is that even though I've seen a lot of pictures, it doesn't look like a penis to me.
The third problem is when finding the video.
It felt like only a stick was moving inside the distorted flesh, and it didn't even look like a penis.
I don't have sex with cis men unless my husband tells me to, and I don't think I need a cis man because all contact is supervised by my husband.
Should I undergo surgery for my husband's mental satisfaction?
I'm wondering if I should tell my husband that it doesn't look like a penis.
ps.phallo Can a cis woman with an ftm husband who had surgery feel similar to a cis penis?

30 [F4M] Dallas, TX Looking for something really real, throwing a wish into the Reddit well and putting it all out there
Hi there! First, I’d like to say thank you for opening this post. Second, I’d like to say that if you are someone who is looking for someone to chat with online but who has zero intention of meeting in person (should that be an appropriate next step down the road) then kindly please do not contact me. Also, please kindly refrain from contacting me if you are currently in a relationship or currently in a marriage. Kindly refrain from contacting me if you’re unsure that monogamy is for you. Last, please kindly refrain from contacting me if you are in the middle of a divorce that is not yet finalized. I appreciate your understanding on these matters, and your willingness to respectfully move along if you’re currently in any of the above situations.
I have recently been spending time reflecting on what I want my future love life to look like. I have also been spending time perusing Reddit and have been pleasantly surprised to see stories about couples meeting through Reddit. I decided that I had nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain by putting myself out there on this thread. So here we go!
I am a 30 year old lady based in Dallas, TX, and I’d ultimately love to find an amazing life partner to build and evolve with. Eventually, I’d like to have a husband and be someone’s wife. If you’re also looking to find an amazing life partner, then please read on. I’d love to hear from you if this resonates.
A bit about me:

• I love communication. I love expression. I love getting to know about people’s stories. Hopes. Dreams. Fears and struggles and how they’re overcoming them. The random thoughts that pop into your mind. That article you read that was totally fascinating to you. I love a great conversation. I love learning about new things.
• I love self-reflection and I love being an active part of my own evolution as a human being. I am someone who finds it to be very natural to nurture and nourish my own growth and betterment. I am not a perfectionist but at the same time, I do set standards for myself, and I delight when I meet those standards and can inch the bar a bit higher from there. I love to see what I am capable of achieving, and I love to grow. Self-discipline is not a chore for me; I enjoy challenges that are fruitful and I enjoy taking the steps to meet those challenges, even when it gets a little tough. I read a quote once that said, “To love someone is to attend a thousand births of the person they’re becoming.” This is totally how I feel about loving myself and others. I am not a person who is stagnant.
• I don’t watch a lot of t.v. When I do, I gravitate towards documentaries. When I read, I gravitate towards non-fiction, how-to books, and poetry.
• I cherish physical movement. I will park on the opposite side of the parking lot to enjoy walking a little bit extra. I will take the stairs instead of the elevator when I can. I am a longtime devotee of Lagree Pilates and have a Pilates machine at home that I workout on regularly. It is not a chore for me to care for myself in this way. It is something I regard as a privilege and a pleasure.
• I love to explore and I love creative activities. For example, I am a hobbyist photographer. I love to be outdoors. I love connecting with the feeling that we are a part of something bigger. I find connecting with nature to be one of the easiest ways for me to tune into that feeling, but I also tune into that feeling when I’m in soulful conversations with others and oftentimes when I’m traveling or exploring, as well.
• I have a strong connection to music. I love to sing and I love to strum on the guitar and I love to listen to music across a wide spectrum of genres.
• I have strong faith in what I call ‘God.’ I was born and raised in the Christian church. Today my spirituality basically boils down to a belief that there is something out there bigger than me that loves me and that wants a relationship with me and that wants to guide me, protect me, see me thrive, and use me in service of others. I do dabble in religious texts, most commonly the bible. However, my spirituality is primarily something that I practice daily through prayer and meditation and conscious observation of God at work in my life and in other’s lives versus something that is done inside the walls of a religious institution. When I have a challenge or a stressor, I bring it straight to God. I regularly count my blessings, even when I don’t feel like it. I strive to have an attitude of gratitude, grace, dignity, and integrity.
• I love to dress up and go out sometimes. I love expressing myself through fashion when I can. Some days I keep it casual, but I’m never frumpy, if that makes sense. I love skincare. I love to take care of my skin the best that I can. I am happy with no makeup. When I do wear makeup, the most I do is a little mascara, eyebrow pencil, blush and tinted chapstick.
• I am 5’8” and Caucasian. I have a relatively lean build. I have solid strength from Pilates.
• As much as I am an intellectual, deep thinker, and a conversationalist, I’m also someone with a sense of humor and sense of awe, curiosity, and wonder about the world.

A bit about what I ultimately want in a relationship and in a partner:

• a sense of teamwork and a foundation comprised of values we both agree to, adhere to, and do our best to hold ourselves to, including respect, integrity, open and consistent communication, self-reflection, self-regulation, and a desire to grow individually and as a couple. I imagine my ideal relationship to be one where we are mutually interested in and excited about reflecting together, setting goals, and working together to support our individual growth and growth as a couple. I love respectful conflict resolution. I love a relationship where there is protected space for both parties to have and share wants, needs, hopes, and fears.
• physical touch and physical intimacy are super important to me when I am in a relationship, as is quality time. I will be a good match for someone who desires regular physical closeness and intimacy in his relationships, and who enjoys prioritizing quality time with his partner.
• my primary love language is words of affirmation, and I also am a natural communicator, so I feel I’d be a great match with someone else who desires and is willing to work (when necessary) towards good communication. I desire a partner who naturally is inclined to express himself with words
• I want to build a life with someone who wants to build a life with me. I want my partner to be a man who values loyalty and commitment and who wants to address and overcome challenges with me— versus falling off the bandwagon at the first sign of trouble— because I am capable of loyalty and commitment and want a partnership that is based on mutual commitment, loyalty, trust, and strength. I am not afraid of respectful disagreement or conversation around harder topics. I am afraid of being with someone who isn’t willing to do the work that is required to build and sustain a beautiful, deep, life long marriage and love. I am not someone who chases the feeling of infatuation or being in love. While those can be great feelings, I understand that a long term relationship with someone is built on so much more than that. I agree with the statement, “a good marriage isn’t something you find, it’s something you make.” I understand it takes two people to make a good long term relationship, and I desire a partner who also wants and is capable of putting good energy into cultivating a good relationship. I desire a partner who is conscious of the fact that they share a part in creating and maintaining feelings of being “in love” in the relationship. I desire a partner who is interested in building a relationship with me, rather than being a passive part in it.
• I desire a partner who is respectful, thoughtful, intentional, conscientious, self-reflective, communicative, curious, and a learner. I police myself and I desire a partner who polices himself. I do not want to police my partner. I do not want my partner to police me. I do not want to have to mother my partner. I want to continue growing and bettering myself alongside a man who is doing the same. I want to support each other and encourage each other in that while sharing a mutual understanding that we are both ultimately responsible for doing our own work on our own selves.
• It’s also important to me from a longevity perspective that my partner has an established workout routine. I am not looking for a man with a six pack but I am looking for a man who puts in the effort to take care of himself, respect himself, and who prioritizes his health. I desire a partner who has been to therapy or who is open to going to therapy in the event of a difficult life season. I desire a partner who seeks wise counsel when faced with challenges or when in need of advice. Please note that I do not consider friends drinking together at a bar to be wise counsel. In my own life, I have a therapist, an older and wiser mentor, and one objectively wise friend who I consider to be my wise counsel and who I can trust to help me see situations with objective clarity and who can help me think through how to handle situations in a way that is reflective of how I want to be as a person. These are the people I go to when I hit a challenge that’s testing me. When I need extra support or specific counsel for a particular situation, I seek that out with discernment. I want a man who matches this.
• It would truly warm my heart like nothing else to be with a man who will pray with me sometimes. It is increasingly important to me that my life partner has his own relationship with a higher poweGod.
• I would also love to be with a man who has clear hobbies and areas of passion or interest.

Other points of relevancy: - I am sober. I have done a lot of healing work and growth in my life. I am someone who gets knocked down and gets back up stronger. This is a part of who I am. Sobriety for me is super important for my wellbeing. I do not at all mind being around people who are drinking casually or even who are 4/20 friendly; however, it isn’t feasible for me to be with someone who gets drunk regularly (if ever) or someone who smokes in excess. I desire a partner who is present in his life and of sober mind and heart. - I come from a background that may be described as “fancy,” “privileged,” “superficial,” “snooty,” “exclusive,” that sort of thing. I also was in Boston during the marathon bombings in 2013. A few years later, I was with my mom at her house when it was hit by a tornado. It’s important for me to iterate that I understand that at the end of the day, stuff is just stuff. That there is so much more to life than superficialities. I’d so much rather someone write me a heartfelt note than gift me a Cartier bracelet. I know very well that money cannot buy nor guarantee happiness and that life throws curve balls no matter where you come from. At the same time, I am working on creating the foundations to build a legacy. I have my own business and ambitions. I desire a partner who can join me in building a legacy together. I know that it can take time to establish a solid career. I am understanding of this. But I will be a good match for someone who also has the desire to build a legacy and who is already doing his own work to be one half of that whole. Someone who has ambition, drive, and self discipline. - I have full custody of my daughter who is almost 4 years old. Her biological father had no interest in rising to the occasion of fatherhood and is completely out of the picture. When it comes to dating, it is very important to me that my romantic relationship begins with a foundation that is only about myself and my partner. I do not involve my daughter in my dating life. If and when it were clear that I was in a strong relationship with a man and we were mutually interested in progressing the relationship, then I would begin conversations with him about bringing my daughter in the fold. It would be a collaborative and intentional choice with both parties involved in taking that next step. I am not sold on having more kids; however, if it were important to my partner to have kids together, then I would certainly have an open mind and heart and engage in conversation about it. - Sometimes when I am out and about in the world, people check me out and turn their heads. Sometimes people of all walks of life and of all genders will approach me and strike up conversation with me. In my communities, I am known and an engaged member of society. I desire a partner who is a gentleman and a gentle man. I desire a partner who will delight in seeing me in moments where I am shining rather than a man who gets insecure about that and wishes to try to dim my light. I would just absolutely melt if my husband were a gentleman and a gentleman who admired me in moments where my light shines, who wants to protect my ability to do that. It would be something I’ve never had before and it’s something I desperately need. I seek to be a devoted, loving partner for this kind of man. Also, when I say I want a gentleman, I mean to say, we both know I can open a door by myself but I want to let you open the door for me and I want to appreciate that spirit in you. We both know I can buy myself dinner but I want to let you provide for me in the ways that you want to provide for your woman and I want to honor and appreciate that in you. In this way, I have an old school energy.
I have no idea what will come of this post, but like I said, I saw no harm in putting it all out there. And, as my username suggests, let the fates take it where they may. I am open hearted and I am ready. And if you feel inclined to reach out to me, I hope that you do.
To wrap this up, I did want to include these last thoughts. I mentioned in here that I am 5’8.” I do usually go for men that are taller than me. I like to wear heels sometimes. I am trying to be open minded and not get caught up on superficialities, but for me as a woman, there is something super beautiful about being wrapped in the arms of a man I trust who is bigger than me. Also, I love a beard or mustache. Haha!
TLDR: If this is too long for you to read, then you’re not my guy and I am not your gal and that’s okay! Best wishes!

My husband and I have been together about 10 years now. We have 3 children together and I have one child from my previous marriage. I want to say about a year ago him and I went out on a date and as I’m driving he blurted out he wanted a threesome. To say I was about to crash 😅. I told him that it was not something I was going to do. I have never done that nor would I. Not to say there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just not for me. I don’t share. He went on to say how he wants to pleasure another woman because it would be good for his ego, went into detail on how he hasn’t felt like a man and I don’t even remember the entirety of the conversation. Recently the conversation came up again but this time it was by me. Not saying that I want a threesome but I was asking questions because I’m genuinely curious. How did he think something like that would play out. He said it could only be with a woman, he would only do it with someone I trust and that he mostly wants to see me with another woman. I asked him if I was with another woman he wouldn’t consider that cheating? He said no. Call me crazy but that makes absolutely no sense to me. He said I would dictate the whole process but I told him this is all hypothetical. I’m not doing anything I just want to understand why he would ask me this. He said he thought I had done this before. That it was something he wanted to experience with me. He also said that ALL men want it they just don’t admit it. A lot has gone on throughout our relationship. Things have been said and that just made me feel even worse. Also a few months ago he told me if I didn’t agree to the threesome he wanted an open marriage. He said it was only fair because he’s done so much for me. He said he can have sex with another woman and it wouldn’t mean anything, he still loves me. I pointed out if he wanted to have sex with other women he can just leave because I will not touch him once he’s touched/ been touched by another. He said he doesn’t want to lose me. I just fail to see how that’s love. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

I wanted to take some time to go ahead and talk about how men and women compliment one another and how that applies to what marriage is and what it can be.
This is mean to be from a Christian perspective. While I am not intending this for a secular reader, I hope a secular reader can get something from these thoughts.
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; 22 and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman,[c] because she was taken out of Man.”[d]
24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
I think this passage lies at the foundation of what makes a marriage. "It is not good that man should be alone." Now, personally, I think that it is more believable to read Genesis to take Adam and Eve as representing the male and female populations respectively. This is mostly because I find that it makes a bit more sense in terms of what we know about science and genetics.
Yet, what is fascinating about this reading, is God says "It is not good that man should be alone." If there were other men, why would he be alone?
I have said in my last post on the topic of marriage that God views marriage as indestructible and covenantal. A covenant is more than a simple promise. It quite often involves the giving of the person to each other... "And the two shall become one flesh."

"Woman was not created from Adams head to rule over him, nor his feet to be trampled on by him, but his side, so that she might walk beside him, and near his heart to be loved by him."
-Matthew Henry

There is a sense of otherness that exists in the male-female relationship that does not exist in male-male or female-female relationships. These relationships are awesome. All friendships are an excellent opportunity to grow closer to God or away from God, but marriage is much more than a close friendship.
In the marriage covenant, the man gives himself to his wife and his wife to him in a way that happens in no other relationship out there. Out of no other relationship can a new human person come into existence.
In the Catholic understanding of the Trinity (I know Orthodox will disagree, I am not sure about Protestants), the Father eternally begets the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. A child does not come from only the mother or only the father. The child is the product of the love from both father and mother. As such, I see the human nuclear family as a model for the Holy Trinity. The husband forever gives himself to his wife and his wife does the same in return. It is this giving of self that generates a new person. This is the highest form of love and friendship that can exist between 2 people.
This simply does not happen in same sex relationships. I cannot give myself to my best (guy) friend in the same way that I could give myself to my (future) wife. The Catholic Church will never perform same-sex marriages, because it cannot perform same-sex marriages. Not because it is "not allowed" but because it is simply impossible. There are some people that simply cannot come together in marital love, impotent straight couples are another example. In such cases, even if you perform a marriage ceremony, no marriage takes place.
You cannot join 2 of the same piece to a puzzle, and you cannot join 2 pieces together if one of them is broken. But when I do join 2 pieces together, they stay together unless I take them apart, the pieces themselves cannot separate each other.
God took woman out of man intending that they be joined back together again, because after forming woman out of man, He says "Therefore, let man leave his father and mother and cling to his wife so that the 2 may become one flesh."
Man and woman started as one flesh, they end as one flesh. Men and women are a kind of divine jig-saw puzzle. 2 men cannot join together because they were not taken from each other, it is the same for 2 women. If I try to force 2 of the same piece together it damages at least one of the pieces.
This is why no marriage takes place in a gay union. You might try to the pieces together (by performing a marriage ceremony), but the pieces simply will not go together.
This is not to say that any 2 people cannot love one another. We can love anyone, even if they do not love us back. But marriage is far more than just loving someone. I love my best friend, but I do not want to f*** him. The inherent problem with homosexuality is that lack of "otherness" and it actually degrades what it means to love, reducing love to merely carnal pleasures and sex to merely a feel good feeling and an expression of your love. Yet, there are many people that we would not (and should not) f***. The problem that I run in to is that in reducing sex in this way, there is a difficult time identifying why the latter "should not" category exists to begin with (or really the would not category as well).
This view of love and sex destroys not only the nature of love, but friendship. It destroys friendship by reducing the possibility of platonic friendship. If 2 guys go out to a restaurant for dinner, would you assume they are just buddies or would you assume that they are gay? What about a guy and a girl? Friendship is an amazing part of the human experience and it can allow us to elevate ourselves to God in a way that we might not be able to do otherwise, provided that the friendship is founded in Christ! Personally, I find that my closest friends are those that I talk about God and pray with, but sex is not a part of these friendships, rather virtue.
It also destroys the family. Any new parent will tell you the happiest day of their life is the day that their child was born (maybe a close second would be their wedding day). What makes holding your own newborn child so special? I would posit because you are looking at the very love that you have for your husband and the husband for his wife. Same-sex relationships cannot have such a product of their love, it is a biological impossibility. They might be able to adopt a child, but this simply does not compare to giving birth to a child that is a perfect combination of both you and your husband. There can never be the same type of bond between an adopted parent and child vs a biological parent and child, because the biological connection goes deeper than any amount of care you might have for an adopted child. This is not to discourage adoption, by no means! But what I am saying is giving birth to a biological child born out love is a far greater love than adoption.
Lastly, I would posit that it also diminishes the Trinity. As I mentioned, I view the Holy Trinity as being reflected in the traditional family. This reflection of the divine nature does not exist with homosexuality. Again, in the Trinity, the Son is eternally begotten by the Father and the Spirit is the product of the love between them. In homosexuality, that love is never personified as it is in the Blessed Trinity!
I would love to get other's take on this. Also, if you are Protestant, how would you describe the Trinity? Are there Protestants that hold a view in line with the filioque?

TW//Sexual Abuse//Physical Violence

Hi All, I'm a male between ages 20 and 30 and this is my childhood experience. I could use as much support as possible since I’m catching some backlash from my family for bringing this up.

BACKGROUND: CHILD ABUSE CULT

When I say cult, I don't mean a cult in the sense of David Koresh compound style cult, I mean more so in mindset and fringe religious practices. My parents believed in the doctrine called "mortification of the flesh", which basically states that people are born evil, and to make them not evil, you have to hit them. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline\\\_(instrument\\\_of\\\_penance)\](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline\_(instrument\_of\_penance))
My parents are extremist fundamentalist Christians. My dad was basically a pastor, and my mom "home schooled" us. When I say home school, I'm being very generous on the school part. They were part of the Quiverful evangelical home school movement and held to the teachings of people like Jonathan Lindvall, Dough Philips, Tedd Tripp, Mike and Debbie Pearl, Stan and Brenna Jones, and Dennis and Barbra Rainey, among others.
Basically, I have solid proof my parents were using these books on me.

TEACHINGS OF TEDD TRIPP

The teachings of Tedd Tripp are certifiably insane. I'll provide several quotes here from his book, "Shepherding a Child's Heart":
* "Spanking is most effective in dealing with young children. They fear being spanked. The spanking gives weight to your words. The spanking sobers and humbles the child. As children get older they get more stoic about spanking. They learn how to deal with it. The intensity of spanking required to make the same impression on a 12-year-old that you make on a 2-year-old would be excessive.”
* “Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.... It is best to lay the child across your lap rather than over a bed or a chair. This puts the spanking in the context of your physical relationship. He is not being removed from you to a neutral object for the purpose of being disciplined.”
* “I have witnessed spankings administered through a double layer of diapers to a child who never stopped moving long enough to know he had been spanked. The spanking was ineffective because the parents never made the rod felt.”
* “When your child is old enough to resist your directives, he is old enough to be disciplined. When he is resisting you, he is disobeying. If you fail to respond, those rebellious responses become entrenched. The longer you put off disciplining, the more intractable the disobedience will become.”
* “Rebellion can be something as simple as a small child struggling against a diaper change or stiffening his body when you want him to sit on your lap. The discipline procedure is the same as that which is laid out above. You have no way of knowing how much a child less than a year old can understand, but we do know that understanding comes long before the ability to articulate. Your temptation will be to wait until your children are speaking and able to articulate their rebellion before you deal with it.”
* “When our oldest child was approximately 8 months old, we were confronted with parenting our first mobile child. He crawled everywhere. We had a bookshelf constructed of boards and bricks. Fearing the shelf would fall on him, Margy told him not to pull himself up by the shelf. After moving him away from the shelf, she left the room. As she peeked in on him, she observed him surveying the room. Not seeing her, he headed back toward the forbidden bookshelf. Here was a young child, not yet able to walk or to talk, looking to see if the coast was clear so he could disobey. Obviously, he was old enough to be disciplined.”
* “After you have spanked, take the child up on your lap and hug him, telling him how much you love him...On some occasions I have had to say to our children: ‘Dear, Daddy has spanked you, but you are not sweet enough yet. We are going to have to go back upstairs for another spanking.’”
Tedd tripp said in an interview on desiringgod: “But what is the purpose of it? I think spanking is most effective with younger children. Spanking gets their attention. It gives weight to your words. It humbles them. They want to avoid it. And it becomes very effective, particularly with little children where you can’t really reason with them, and they are not capable of complex reasoning.... So I think that it is indispensable in those early years particularly.”

MIKE AND DEBBIE PEARL:

The book, "To Train Up a Child" is also particularly nasty, and 1994 edition especially so. In the 2015 version, they tried to smooth over some of the more abusive passages because parents were hitting their kids to death and they were using this book.
The book emphasizes the doctrine of the mortification of the flesh, stating:
* “A spanking (whipping, paddling, switching, or belting) is in-dispensable to the removal of guilt in your child. His very conscience (nature) demands punishment.”
* “If God’s love is expressed by the ‘whippings’ He gives, then can we not also love our children enough to chasten them unto holiness?”
* “The very nature of the child makes the rod an indispensable element in child training and discipline....“They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3).”
More messed up stuff includes:
* The opening line of this book states, “SWITCH YOUR KIDS”
* “Training does not necessarily require that the trainee be capable of reason; even mice and rats can be trained to respond to stimuli. Careful training can make a dog perfectly obedient. If a seeing-eye dog can be trained to reliably lead a blind man through the obstacles of a city street, shouldn’t a parent expect more out of an intelligent child? A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can’t a child be trained not to touch?”
* “A dog can be trained to come, stay, sit, be quiet or fetch upon command. You may not have trained your dog that well, yet every day someone accomplishes it on the dumbest mutts. Even a clumsy teenager can be trained to be an effective trainer in a dog obedience school. If you wait until your dog is displaying unacceptable behavior before you rebuke (or kick) him, you will have a foot-shy mutt who is always sulking around seeing what he can get away with before being screamed at.”
* “Where there is an absence of training, you can no more rebuke and whip a child into acceptable behavior than you can the family dog. No amount of discipline can make up for lack of training.”
* “Proper training always works on every child. To neglect training is to create miserable circumstances for yourself and your child. Out of innocent ignorance many of you have bypassed the training and expected the discipline alone to effect proper behavior.”
* “There is much satisfaction in training up a child. It is easy and challenging. When my children were able to crawl (in the case of one, roll) around the room, I set up training sessions. Try it yourself. Place an appealing object where they can reach it, maybe in a ‘No- no’ corner or on an apple juice table (That’s where the coffee table once sat). When they spy it and make a dive for it, in a calm voice say, "No, don’t touch it." They will already be familiar with the ‘No,’ so they will pause, look at you in wonder and then turn around and grab it. Switch their hand once and simultaneously say, ‘No.’”
* “Remember, you are not disciplining, you are training. One spat with a little switch is enough. They will again pull back their hand and consider the relationship between the object, their desire, the command and the little reinforcing pain. It may take several times, but if you are consistent, they will learn to consistently obey, even in your absence.”
* “As the mother, holding her child, leans over the crib and begins the swing downward, the infant stiffens, takes a deep breath and bellows. The battle for control has begun in earnest. Someone is going to be conditioned. Either the tender-hearted mother will cave-in to this self-centered demand (thus training the child to get his way by crying) or the infant is allowed to cry (learning that crying is counterproductive).”
Further evidence of the abusive nature of Mike & Debbie Pearl’s teachings is found in a video clip of Mike Pearl speaking at a seminar, demonstrating with a child doll, where he stated, “I'm gonna get this rod if he screams too hard with the first five \[and\] gets hysterical... wait... you know a little psychological terror sometimes more effective than the pain.”
See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt0QOKbEj7A\](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt0QOKbEj7A) for a solid video by the channel Fundie Fridays on the Pearls.
Furthermore, Mike Pearl has explicitly justified domestic violence. In the book, “Created to be His Help Meet” by Debbie Pearl, described on the cover page as a guide to “Discover how God can make your marriage glorious”, Mike Pearl writes a section explicitly advocates for women to endure domestic violence:
* “Has your husband reviled you and threatened you? You are exhorted to respond as Jesus did. When he was reviled and threatened, he suffered by committing himself to a higher judge who is righteous. You must commit yourself to the one who placed you under your husband’s command."
* “Your husband will answer to God, and you must answer to God for how you respond to your husband, even when he causes you to suffer. Just as we are to obey government in every ordinance, and servants are to obey their masters, even the ones who are abusive and surly, ‘likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands’...”
* “You can freely call your husband ‘lord’ when you know that you are addressing the one who put him in charge and asked you to suffer at your husband’s hands just as our Lord suffered at the hands of unjust authorities...”
* “When you endure evil and railing without returning it, you receive a blessing, not just as a martyr, but as one who worships God.”
The Seattle times actually wrote about the Pearls and their book: [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/did-hanas-parents-train-her-to-death/\](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/did-hanas-parents-train-her-to-death/)
* “‘It’s truly an evil book,’ said Michael Ramsey, the district attorney for Butte County, Calif.Ramsey successfully prosecuted Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz for hitting their daughter Lydia to death in Paradise, Calif., in 2006 with a plastic plumbing-supply tube — the kind the Pearls mention in an article on their website called ‘In Defense of Biblical Chastisement.’”
* “In Washington state, the death of Hana Williams marked the third time the Pearls’ names and their book have surfaced after the death of a child....”
* “Pearl encourages parents to think of the switch as a ‘magic wand’ and says teaching a child to obey is like training an animal: ‘A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can’t a child be trained not to touch?’”

JAMES DOBSON & FOCUS ON THE FAMILY

James Dobson is the founder of the religious organization and lobbying group Focus on the Family.
Here's a video of Dobson with Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hGZvawO1V8
The first chapter of his book, the New Strong Willed Child, describes Dobson beating his dog:
“He was a stubborn, twelve-pound dachshund named Sigmund Freud (Siggie), who honestly believed that he owned the place.... On the night of our great battle, I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed. Instead, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me.... That was Siggie’s way of saying, “Get lost!”
I had seen this defiant mood before and knew that I had to deal with it. The only way to make Siggie obey was to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else worked. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me “reason” with ’ol Sig. My wife, who was watching this drama unfold, told me that as soon as I left the room, Siggie jumped from his perch and looked down the hall to see where I had gone. Then he got behind her and growled....
When I returned, I held up the belt and again told the angry dog to get into his bed. He stood his ground so I gave him a firm swat across the rear end, and he tried to bite the belt. I popped him again and he tried to bite me. What developed next is impossible to describe.
That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling. I am still embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed...
This is not a book about the discipline of dogs. But there is an important aspect of my story that is highly relevant to the world of children. Just as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, a child is inclined to do the same thing, only more so.”

JONATHAN LINDVALL & BOLD CHRISTIAN PARENTING

My parents would play tapes of Jonathan Lindvall when we went on road trips. He advocated for a radical evangelical homeschool lifestyle, social isolation of children from other “worldly” children, having as many children as possible regardless of financial means, explicitly denounced the socialization of children, and stated that children’s education should focus primarily on the Bible.
I couldn't find the actual tapes they played but I found his old website: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030118/http://boldchristianliving.com/\](https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030118/http://boldchristianliving.com/)
Some outstanding bits include:
* “We all want our children to have the skills and disciplines to provide for their familiessome day. But job preparation is similarly not worthy as a primary goal of homeschooling. Jesus explicitly warned us not to be concerned with how our food and clothing are supplied (Matt. 6:19-34). This, in fact, is the context in which he called us to ‘seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.’”
* “There are many desirable, God-pleasing results likely to come from our obedience to God in choosing to personally disciple our children. But no matter how good they are, if they are the focus, rather than our aim being to bring Jesus pleasure, they can become idols for us. Many homeschoolers have become enamored with the vision of the long-term societal (political/economic) impact our practices can have. May the Lord bring all this about, but may our hearts be set on Him more than on the impact we can have.”
* “Another objection virtually every homeschooler in western society has been confronted by is the ‘socialization’ question. In our society is assumed to be essential for children to spend time with peers to be properly adjusted. Yet the preponderance of scripture cautions from the opposite perspective. Proverbs 12:26 warns, ‘The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.’ Proverbs 13:20 is even more pointed, saying, ‘He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed.’ Paul was apparently quoting an accepted proverb at the time when he wrote, ‘Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits’’ (1 Cor. 15:33).”
* “No doubt the Lord wants our children to learn to benefit from edifying fellowship, just as He wants this for us. However, positive social skills are generally not learned from children. God intends for fathers (not peers) to shape their children’s values and tendencies ‘in the training and admonition of the Lord’ (Eph. 6:4). This requires protecting our children from peer domination, and instead structuring our family lifestyles to facilitate intense, intimate relationship between our children and ourselves.”
* “Sadly, perhaps as a result of the world’s challenges regarding ‘socialization,’ many homeschoolers feel pressure to provide settings where their children can spend large amounts of time with peers. Thus, over the years we have seen homeschool support groups move from supporting the parents to supporting the children with extra-familial activities like sports teams, group music experiences, and cooperative classes. There are probably times when it is appropriate to expose our families to teaching situations where the parents are not necessarily doing all the teaching, but it is a significant danger to fall into the habit of exposing our children to the addictive peer group influences.”
• “Virtually every homeschool parent will easily identify the most frequently asked question about their homeschooling as, ‘What about socialization?’ When people ask this question, what are they wondering about? Are they worried that our children will not be capable of displaying lifelong servanthood for the glory of God? Generally not. They are shocked that we are not intimidated at the thought of our children being different from everyone else.”
• “Socialism is the attempt to equalize everyone--make everyone alike. But God didn't make us alike. He made each of us, including our children, to be unique. And we are not to minimize, but maximize our distinctives for the glory of God. We are not to try to mask our uniqueness beneath a facade of timid conformity. We are to SHINE! Jesus said (Mat 5:16), ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.’”

STAN AND BRENNA JONES

First of all, here’s a photo of the author: [https://www.christiansexed.com/about-the-authors/\](https://www.christiansexed.com/about-the-authors/)
Their book, “What’s the Big Deal: Why God cares about sex” identifies as a christian sex education book for children as young as age 8. The cover of the book states, “Ages 8-12”.
The book states in the introduction, “We believe that God means for Christian parents to be their children’s primary sex educators. First messages are the most powerful-why wait until your child hears distorted views and then try to correct the misunderstanding? Sexuality is a beautiful gift-why not present it to your child the way God intended?”.
This book contains passages explicitly describing:
* How pleasurable sex is;
* The location and pleasurability of the clitoris;
* The sensitivity of the penis to pleasure
* What porn is and where it's found
* What rape porn is
* What sex slavery is
* Explicit descriptions of orgasms, including describing them as a sudden burst of pleasure
My dad read me this book when I was 8, 3rd grade.
TEDD TRIPP & BDSM P0RN SITES
What really got me thinking about this was the fact that in my state, the statute of limitations to sue in civil court for assault and battery was up, however the statute of limitations on sexual abuse was not.
So obviously all of this stuff is pretty messed up. But what takes it to the next level of messed up and makes what they did a sex crime (I'm hoping the DA sees it the same way), is when you really look at what Tedd Tripp advocates parents do to their children:
“Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.... It is best to lay the child across your lap rather than over a bed or a chair. This puts the spanking in the context of your physical relationship. He is not being removed from you to a neutral object for the purpose of being disciplined.”
Which basically means:
* Take off the child's clothes
* Place them on your lap, fully or partially naked
* Strike them with what could legally be classified as a deadly weapon
So I started thinking about how spanking is a BDSM kink and fetish. Which was weird to think about in the context of what your parents did to you.
Then I thought, well damn there are tons of BDSM p0rn sites, there have to be some with what happened to me on there. It turns out that there are TONS of videos of exactly this on sites such as p0rnhub and heavy fetish .com.
For example:
* “Hard belt spanking for cheating” (porn hub)
* “Spanked to Tears with the Bathbrush - Real Tears for Letting Him Down” (porn hub)
* “Hard paddle spanking in the principal's office” (porn hub)
* “SPANK CHINA - Hua’s first spanking session”, (heavy fetish)
* "Spanking Jane" (heavy fetish)
I tried putting the links in but reddit flagged my post so if you’re really curious just search by title and website
These videos appear on the same site as stuff like real hardcore BDSM stuff like electrocution torture and people in cages, tied in the air and having their genitals electrocuted. Basically real torture like in this video: "WIRED PUSSY - Sandra Romain andSara Scott" (heavy fetish)
And then you realize, "oh, if they filmed what they did, it would be child p0rn_".
18 U.S. Code § 2256:

1. ‘child porn0graphy’ means any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where- the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
   
2. sexually explicit conduct” means actual or simulated—
   
3. sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;
   
4. bestiality;
   
5. masturbation;
   
6. sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
   
7. lascivious exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person;
   

TORTURE

The next shoe to drop was when I read the legal definitions of torture.
Torture is defined as “the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure”. -Merriam Webster
The U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment says:
“For the purposes of this Convention, the term ‘torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”
The U.S. Federal torture 18 U.S. Code § 2340 says,
"'torture' means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control"
The study “Child Torture as a Form of Child Abuse” from University of Wisconsin School ofMedicine and appearing in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma states:

1. "Child torture is defined medically as...At least two physical assaults, occurring over at least two incidents or a single extended incident, which would cause prolonged physical pain, emotional distress, bodily injury, or death... And...
   
2. At least two elements of psychological abuse such as isolation, intimidation, emotional/psychological maltreatment, terrorizing, spurning, or deprivation...
   
3. Inflicted by the child’s caretaker(s)”
   

It also says:
* “Stover and Nightingale (1985) state: The purpose of torture is to break the will of thevictim and ultimately to break his or her humanity...through infliction of severe or acute physical pain and mental suffering...and requires that the torturer exert physical control over his or her victim. (p. 4–5)”
* “Campbell (2007) adds: ‘The act of torture is carried out for the purpose of physically and psychologically ‘breaking’ an individual’ (p. 633).’”
* “PTSD is the most commonly diagnosed psychological disorder among adult torture victims (Allodi and Cowgill 1982; Herman 1992). In addition to torture, polyvictimization has been recognized to be associated with worse mental health outcomes in child abuse victims (Finkelhor et al. 2011). By definition, all of \[the study participants\] have suffered polyvictimization as defined by Finkelhor.”
See [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-016-0108-x\](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-016-0108-x)

GRANDFATHER MANDATORY REPORTER

Also, in this fucked up land of fucking crazy shit, I realized that my grandfather, who we saw all the time, was a mandatory reporter THIS WHOLE TIME. He also had a masters in Psychology, so that's extra WTF.

DAD MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR

Another wild thing is that my dad just got his masters in counseling (christian counseling ofc) and is now working as a mental health care provider.

CONCLUSION

I was just diagnosed with Chronic PTSD a few weeks ago and have been out of work on treatment ever since.
But basically none of this feels real to me. I find it interesting in a sort of detached way that every time I detail what my childhood was like, they're shocked and appalled. I could see the female detective's eyes tearing up a bit. But I suppose it shouldn't be so surprising. After all, they put my sibling in the psych hospital 3x before the age of 18.
Please let me know what you all think. One of the silver linings on all this is because of my time in the military, I can get a free PTSD service dog which I'm excited for.
The crazy thing is that one of the counselors in the PTSD program is a former cop and sex crimes investigator and even he was shocked by how bad this whole thing is. So that's my life right now. :)
TLDR: Parents in child abuse cult; did S&M acts on us as kids; police investigating.

TW//Sexual Abuse//Physical Violence

Hi All, I'm a male between ages 20 and 30.
I'm writing this after I drove down to the police station this morning and reported my parents for sex crimes against children, so this is all very fresh in my mind so it will be a long post.

BACKGROUND: CHILD ABUSE CULT

When I say cult, I don't mean a cult in the sense of David Koresh compound style cult, I mean more so in mindset and fringe religious practices. My parents believed in the doctrine called "mortification of the flesh", which basically states that people are born evil, and to make them not evil, you have to hit them. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline\\\_(instrument\\\_of\\\_penance)\](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline\_(instrument\_of\_penance))
My parents are extremist fundamentalist Christians. My dad was basically a pastor, and my mom "home schooled" us. When I say home school, I'm being very generous on the school part. They were part of the Quiverful evangelical home school movement and held to the teachings of people like Jonathan Lindvall, Dough Philips, Tedd Tripp, Mike and Debbie Pearl, Stan and Brenna Jones, and Dennis and Barbra Rainey, among others.
Basically, I have 100% proof my parents were using these books on me.

TEACHINGS OF TEDD TRIPP

The teachings of Tedd Tripp are certifiably insane. I'll provide several quotes here from his book, "Shepherding a Child's Heart":
* "Spanking is most effective in dealing with young children. They fear being spanked. The spanking gives weight to your words. The spanking sobers and humbles the child. As children get older they get more stoic about spanking. They learn how to deal with it. The intensity of spanking required to make the same impression on a 12-year-old that you make on a 2-year-old would be excessive.”
* “Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.... It is best to lay the child across your lap rather than over a bed or a chair. This puts the spanking in the context of your physical relationship. He is not being removed from you to a neutral object for the purpose of being disciplined.”
* “I have witnessed spankings administered through a double layer of diapers to a child who never stopped moving long enough to know he had been spanked. The spanking was ineffective because the parents never made the rod felt.”
* “When your child is old enough to resist your directives, he is old enough to be disciplined. When he is resisting you, he is disobeying. If you fail to respond, those rebellious responses become entrenched. The longer you put off disciplining, the more intractable the disobedience will become.”
* “Rebellion can be something as simple as a small child struggling against a diaper change or stiffening his body when you want him to sit on your lap. The discipline procedure is the same as that which is laid out above. You have no way of knowing how much a child less than a year old can understand, but we do know that understanding comes long before the ability to articulate. Your temptation will be to wait until your children are speaking and able to articulate their rebellion before you deal with it.”
* “When our oldest child was approximately 8 months old, we were confronted with parenting our first mobile child. He crawled everywhere. We had a bookshelf constructed of boards and bricks. Fearing the shelf would fall on him, Margy told him not to pull himself up by the shelf. After moving him away from the shelf, she left the room. As she peeked in on him, she observed him surveying the room. Not seeing her, he headed back toward the forbidden bookshelf. Here was a young child, not yet able to walk or to talk, looking to see if the coast was clear so he could disobey. Obviously, he was old enough to be disciplined.”
* “After you have spanked, take the child up on your lap and hug him, telling him how much you love him...On some occasions I have had to say to our children: ‘Dear, Daddy has spanked you, but you are not sweet enough yet. We are going to have to go back upstairs for another spanking.’”
Tedd tripp said in an interview on desiringgod: “But what is the purpose of it? I think spanking is most effective with younger children. Spanking gets their attention. It gives weight to your words. It humbles them. They want to avoid it. And it becomes very effective, particularly with little children where you can’t really reason with them, and they are not capable of complex reasoning.... So I think that it is indispensable in those early years particularly.”

MIKE AND DEBBIE PEARL:

The book, "To Train Up a Child" is also particularly nasty, and 1994 edition especially so. In the 2015 version, they tried to smooth over some of the more abusive passages because parents were hitting their kids to death and they were using this book.
The book emphasizes the doctrine of the mortification of the flesh, stating:
* “A spanking (whipping, paddling, switching, or belting) is in-dispensable to the removal of guilt in your child. His very conscience (nature) demands punishment.”
* “If God’s love is expressed by the ‘whippings’ He gives, then can we not also love our children enough to chasten them unto holiness?”
* “The very nature of the child makes the rod an indispensable element in child training and discipline....“They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3).”
More messed up stuff includes:
* The opening line of this book states, “SWITCH YOUR KIDS”
* “Training does not necessarily require that the trainee be capable of reason; even mice and rats can be trained to respond to stimuli. Careful training can make a dog perfectly obedient. If a seeing-eye dog can be trained to reliably lead a blind man through the obstacles of a city street, shouldn’t a parent expect more out of an intelligent child? A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can’t a child be trained not to touch?”
* “A dog can be trained to come, stay, sit, be quiet or fetch upon command. You may not have trained your dog that well, yet every day someone accomplishes it on the dumbest mutts. Even a clumsy teenager can be trained to be an effective trainer in a dog obedience school. If you wait until your dog is displaying unacceptable behavior before you rebuke (or kick) him, you will have a foot-shy mutt who is always sulking around seeing what he can get away with before being screamed at.”
* “Where there is an absence of training, you can no more rebuke and whip a child into acceptable behavior than you can the family dog. No amount of discipline can make up for lack of training.”
* “Proper training always works on every child. To neglect training is to create miserable circumstances for yourself and your child. Out of innocent ignorance many of you have bypassed the training and expected the discipline alone to effect proper behavior.”
* “There is much satisfaction in training up a child. It is easy and challenging. When my children were able to crawl (in the case of one, roll) around the room, I set up training sessions. Try it yourself. Place an appealing object where they can reach it, maybe in a ‘No- no’ corner or on an apple juice table (That’s where the coffee table once sat). When they spy it and make a dive for it, in a calm voice say, "No, don’t touch it." They will already be familiar with the ‘No,’ so they will pause, look at you in wonder and then turn around and grab it. Switch their hand once and simultaneously say, ‘No.’”
* “Remember, you are not disciplining, you are training. One spat with a little switch is enough. They will again pull back their hand and consider the relationship between the object, their desire, the command and the little reinforcing pain. It may take several times, but if you are consistent, they will learn to consistently obey, even in your absence.”
* “As the mother, holding her child, leans over the crib and begins the swing downward, the infant stiffens, takes a deep breath and bellows. The battle for control has begun in earnest. Someone is going to be conditioned. Either the tender-hearted mother will cave-in to this self-centered demand (thus training the child to get his way by crying) or the infant is allowed to cry (learning that crying is counterproductive).”
Further evidence of the abusive nature of Mike & Debbie Pearl’s teachings is found in a video clip of Mike Pearl speaking at a seminar, demonstrating with a child doll, where he stated, “I'm gonna get this rod if he screams too hard with the first five \[and\] gets hysterical... wait... you know a little psychological terror sometimes more effective than the pain.”
See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt0QOKbEj7A\](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt0QOKbEj7A) for a solid video by the channel Fundie Fridays on the Pearls.
Furthermore, Mike Pearl has explicitly justified domestic violence. In the book, “Created to be His Help Meet” by Debbie Pearl, described on the cover page as a guide to “Discover how God can make your marriage glorious”, Mike Pearl writes a section explicitly advocates for women to endure domestic violence:
* “Has your husband reviled you and threatened you? You are exhorted to respond as Jesus did. When he was reviled and threatened, he suffered by committing himself to a higher judge who is righteous. You must commit yourself to the one who placed you under your husband’s command."
* “Your husband will answer to God, and you must answer to God for how you respond to your husband, even when he causes you to suffer. Just as we are to obey government in every ordinance, and servants are to obey their masters, even the ones who are abusive and surly, ‘likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands’...”
* “You can freely call your husband ‘lord’ when you know that you are addressing the one who put him in charge and asked you to suffer at your husband’s hands just as our Lord suffered at the hands of unjust authorities...”
* “When you endure evil and railing without returning it, you receive a blessing, not just as a martyr, but as one who worships God.”
The Seattle times actually wrote about the Pearls and their book: [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/did-hanas-parents-train-her-to-death/\](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/did-hanas-parents-train-her-to-death/)
* “‘It’s truly an evil book,’ said Michael Ramsey, the district attorney for Butte County, Calif.Ramsey successfully prosecuted Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz for hitting their daughter Lydia to death in Paradise, Calif., in 2006 with a plastic plumbing-supply tube — the kind the Pearls mention in an article on their website called ‘In Defense of Biblical Chastisement.’”
* “In Washington state, the death of Hana Williams marked the third time the Pearls’ names and their book have surfaced after the death of a child....”
* “Pearl encourages parents to think of the switch as a ‘magic wand’ and says teaching a child to obey is like training an animal: ‘A dog can be trained not to touch a tasty morsel laid in front of him. Can’t a child be trained not to touch?’”

JAMES DOBSON & FOCUS ON THE FAMILY

James Dobson is the founder of the religious organization and lobbying group Focus on the Family.
Here's a video of Dobson with Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hGZvawO1V8
The first chapter of his book, the New Strong Willed Child, describes Dobson beating his dog:
“He was a stubborn, twelve-pound dachshund named Sigmund Freud (Siggie), who honestly believed that he owned the place.... On the night of our great battle, I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed. Instead, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me.... That was Siggie’s way of saying, “Get lost!”
I had seen this defiant mood before and knew that I had to deal with it. The only way to make Siggie obey was to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else worked. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me “reason” with ’ol Sig. My wife, who was watching this drama unfold, told me that as soon as I left the room, Siggie jumped from his perch and looked down the hall to see where I had gone. Then he got behind her and growled....
When I returned, I held up the belt and again told the angry dog to get into his bed. He stood his ground so I gave him a firm swat across the rear end, and he tried to bite the belt. I popped him again and he tried to bite me. What developed next is impossible to describe.
That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling. I am still embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed...
This is not a book about the discipline of dogs. But there is an important aspect of my story that is highly relevant to the world of children. Just as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, a child is inclined to do the same thing, only more so.”

JONATHAN LINDVALL & BOLD CHRISTIAN PARENTING

My parents would play tapes of Jonathan Lindvall when we went on road trips. He advocated for a radical evangelical homeschool lifestyle, social isolation of children from other “worldly” children, having as many children as possible regardless of financial means, explicitly denounced the socialization of children, and stated that children’s education should focus primarily on the Bible.
I couldn't find the actual tapes they played but I found his old website: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030118/http://boldchristianliving.com/\](https://web.archive.org/web/20120829030118/http://boldchristianliving.com/)
Some outstanding bits include:
* “We all want our children to have the skills and disciplines to provide for their familiessome day. But job preparation is similarly not worthy as a primary goal of homeschooling. Jesus explicitly warned us not to be concerned with how our food and clothing are supplied (Matt. 6:19-34). This, in fact, is the context in which he called us to ‘seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.’”
* “There are many desirable, God-pleasing results likely to come from our obedience to God in choosing to personally disciple our children. But no matter how good they are, if they are the focus, rather than our aim being to bring Jesus pleasure, they can become idols for us. Many homeschoolers have become enamored with the vision of the long-term societal (political/economic) impact our practices can have. May the Lord bring all this about, but may our hearts be set on Him more than on the impact we can have.”
* “Another objection virtually every homeschooler in western society has been confronted by is the ‘socialization’ question. In our society is assumed to be essential for children to spend time with peers to be properly adjusted. Yet the preponderance of scripture cautions from the opposite perspective. Proverbs 12:26 warns, ‘The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.’ Proverbs 13:20 is even more pointed, saying, ‘He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed.’ Paul was apparently quoting an accepted proverb at the time when he wrote, ‘Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits’’ (1 Cor. 15:33).”
* “No doubt the Lord wants our children to learn to benefit from edifying fellowship, just as He wants this for us. However, positive social skills are generally not learned from children. God intends for fathers (not peers) to shape their children’s values and tendencies ‘in the training and admonition of the Lord’ (Eph. 6:4). This requires protecting our children from peer domination, and instead structuring our family lifestyles to facilitate intense, intimate relationship between our children and ourselves.”
* “Sadly, perhaps as a result of the world’s challenges regarding ‘socialization,’ many homeschoolers feel pressure to provide settings where their children can spend large amounts of time with peers. Thus, over the years we have seen homeschool support groups move from supporting the parents to supporting the children with extra-familial activities like sports teams, group music experiences, and cooperative classes. There are probably times when it is appropriate to expose our families to teaching situations where the parents are not necessarily doing all the teaching, but it is a significant danger to fall into the habit of exposing our children to the addictive peer group influences.”
• “Virtually every homeschool parent will easily identify the most frequently asked question about their homeschooling as, ‘What about socialization?’ When people ask this question, what are they wondering about? Are they worried that our children will not be capable of displaying lifelong servanthood for the glory of God? Generally not. They are shocked that we are not intimidated at the thought of our children being different from everyone else.”
• “Socialism is the attempt to equalize everyone--make everyone alike. But God didn't make us alike. He made each of us, including our children, to be unique. And we are not to minimize, but maximize our distinctives for the glory of God. We are not to try to mask our uniqueness beneath a facade of timid conformity. We are to SHINE! Jesus said (Mat 5:16), ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.’”

STAN AND BRENNA JONES

First of all, this dude 100% looks like a pedo: [https://www.christiansexed.com/about-the-authors/\](https://www.christiansexed.com/about-the-authors/)
Their book, “What’s the Big Deal: Why God cares about sex” identifies as a christian sex education book for children as young as age 8. The cover of the book states, “Ages 8-12”.
The book states in the introduction, “We believe that God means for Christian parents to be their children’s primary sex educators. First messages are the most powerful-why wait until your child hears distorted views and then try to correct the misunderstanding? Sexuality is a beautiful gift-why not present it to your child the way God intended?”.
This book contains passages explicitly describing:
* How pleasurable sex is;
* The location and pleasurability of the clitoris;
* The sensitivity of the penis to pleasure
* What porn is and where it's found
* What rape porn is
* What sex slavery is
* Explicit descriptions of orgasms, including describing them as a sudden burst of pleasure
My dad read me this book when I was 8, 3rd grade.
TEDD TRIPP & BDSM P0RN SITES
What really got me thinking about this was the fact that in my state, the statute of limitations to sue in civil court for assault and battery was up, however the statute of limitations on sexual abuse was not.
So obviously all of this stuff is pretty messed up. But what takes it to the next level of messed up and makes what they did a sex crime (I'm hoping the DA sees it the same way), is when you really look at what Tedd Tripp advocates parents do to their children:
“Remove his drawers so that the spanking is not lost in the padding of his pants.... It is best to lay the child across your lap rather than over a bed or a chair. This puts the spanking in the context of your physical relationship. He is not being removed from you to a neutral object for the purpose of being disciplined.”
Which basically means:
* Take off the child's clothes
* Place them on your lap, fully or partially naked
* Strike them with what could legally be classified as a deadly weapon
So I started thinking about how spanking is a BDSM kink and fetish. Which was weird to think about in the context of what your parents did to you.
Then I thought, well damn there are tons of BDSM p0rn sites, there have to be some with what happened to me on there. It turns out that there are TONS of videos of exactly this on sites such as p0rnhub and heavy fetish .com.
For example:
* “Hard belt spanking for cheating” (porn hub)
* “Spanked to Tears with the Bathbrush - Real Tears for Letting Him Down” (porn hub)
* “Hard paddle spanking in the principal's office” (porn hub)
* “SPANK CHINA - Hua’s first spanking session”, (heavy fetish)
* "Spanking Jane" (heavy fetish)
I tried putting the links in but reddit flagged my post so if you’re really curious just search by title and website
These videos appear on the same site as stuff like real hardcore BDSM stuff like electrocution torture and people in cages, tied in the air and having their genitals electrocuted. Basically real torture like in this video: "WIRED PUSSY - Sandra Romain andSara Scott" (heavy fetish)
And then you realize, "oh, if they filmed what they did, it would be child p0rn_".
18 U.S. Code § 2256:

1. ‘child porn0graphy’ means any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where- the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
2. sexually explicit conduct” means actual or simulated—
3. sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;
4. bestiality;
5. masturbation;
6. sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
7. lascivious exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person;

TORTURE

The next shoe to drop was when I read the legal definitions of torture.
Torture is defined as “the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure”. -Merriam Webster
The U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment says:
“For the purposes of this Convention, the term ‘torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”
The U.S. Federal torture 18 U.S. Code § 2340 says,
"'torture' means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control"
The study “Child Torture as a Form of Child Abuse” from University of Wisconsin School ofMedicine and appearing in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma states:

1. "Child torture is defined medically as...At least two physical assaults, occurring over at least two incidents or a single extended incident, which would cause prolonged physical pain, emotional distress, bodily injury, or death... And...
2. At least two elements of psychological abuse such as isolation, intimidation, emotional/psychological maltreatment, terrorizing, spurning, or deprivation...
3. Inflicted by the child’s caretaker(s)”

It also says:
* “Stover and Nightingale (1985) state: The purpose of torture is to break the will of thevictim and ultimately to break his or her humanity...through infliction of severe or acute physical pain and mental suffering...and requires that the torturer exert physical control over his or her victim. (p. 4–5)”
* “Campbell (2007) adds: ‘The act of torture is carried out for the purpose of physically and psychologically ‘breaking’ an individual’ (p. 633).’”
* “PTSD is the most commonly diagnosed psychological disorder among adult torture victims (Allodi and Cowgill 1982; Herman 1992). In addition to torture, polyvictimization has been recognized to be associated with worse mental health outcomes in child abuse victims (Finkelhor et al. 2011). By definition, all of \[the study participants\] have suffered polyvictimization as defined by Finkelhor.”
See [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-016-0108-x\](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-016-0108-x)

GRANDFATHER MANDATORY REPORTER

Also, in this fucked up land of fucking crazy shit, I realized that my grandfather, who we saw all the time, was a mandatory reporter THIS WHOLE TIME. He also had a masters in Psychology, so that's extra WTF.

DAD MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR

Another wild thing is that my dad just got his masters in counseling (christian counseling ofc) and is now working as a mental health care provider.

CONCLUSION

I was just diagnosed with Chronic PTSD a few weeks ago and have been out of work on treatment ever since.
But basically none of this feels real to me. I find it interesting in a sort of detached way that every time I detail what my childhood was like, they're shocked and appalled. I could see the female detective's eyes tearing up a bit. But I suppose it shouldn't be so surprising. After all, they put my sibling in the psych hospital 3x before the age of 18.
Please let me know what you all think. One of the silver linings on all this is because of my time in the military, I can get a free PTSD service dog which I'm excited for.
But the thing that finally made me realize this should be referred to the police was that one of the counselors in the PTSD program is a former cop and sex crimes investigator and was shocked by this whole thing. So that's my life right now. :)
TLDR: Parents in child abuse cult; did S&M acts on us as kids; police investigating.

Seen anything you'd like to say a few words about? This is the spot.
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This is GWAR (2021) Wonderful documentary about the horror-metal legends. I would think someone who doesn’t care for the music would enjoy this, but what do I know. I’ll recommend anyway. (SHUDDER)
The Premonition (1975) With the help of her carny boyfriend, a disturbed woman with moderate psychic powers stalks the adoptive parents of her 5 year old. Richard Lynch brings a bottle of Cold Duck to a celebration, my man! Also with Sharron Farrell. (ARROW)
The Tenderness of the Wolves aka Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (1973) Based on the true crimes of German serial killecannibal Fritz Haarman, this is an early one from Uli Lommel (The Boogey Man, Blank Generation). Star Kurt Raab also wrote it. (ARROW)
Pit Stop aka The Winner (1969) Early Jack Hill hot rod movie that reunites Sid Haig and Beverly Washburn from Spider Baby. Also with Brian "Quatermass" Donlevy and a very young Ellen Burstyn. (ARROW)
Things to Come (1976) In the future, the government turns the population into couch potatoes with 24 hour televised pornography. A young woman, fed up with society, wins a lottery to vacation at "The Pleasure Dome" where sex-bots serve to please. She intends to cause a ruckus but she’s in for a big surprise. Like Westworld, but a smut film. And actually really good for a smut film. (ARROW)
Caged Fury (1993) Innocent aspiring actresses are sent to rape-prison with no hope of escape. The plot is absurd but the action never stops. A few familiar faces, lots of skin. Not great, but better than its rating. (AmPrime)
The Return of Ringo (1965) A Civil War soldier returns home to find his town has been taken over by banditos. Same cast & director as A Pistol for Ringo, but all different characters including Ringo, who is still called Ringo but he's not. Giallo queen Nieves Navarro looks fantastic. Morricone score. (ARROW)
Schlock (1973) John Landis' first is a no budget slapstick parody of King Kong and Frankenstein, among others, in which a missing link goes on a murderous rampage. Some laughs. Under 80 minutes. (ARROW)
Sleeping Dogs (1977) In his first starring role, Sam Neil is a jilted husband who chooses isolation on a small island but is unwillingly thrust into a situation of political unrest in this Kiwi action-thriller. Also with Warren Oates. (ARROW)
Lady Whirlwind aka Deep Thrust (1972) A young woman seeks to avenge her sister's death against a man, who himself is trying to rid the town of drug dealers. Bloody goodness starring Angela Mao. (ARROW)