How do taurus men act when they like a woman

There is a severe lack of understanding about this community, including among mental health providers and social workers. Stigma, bias, and misconceptions prevent those who are attracted to minors (but do not offend) from seeking help they may need.
CSA = child sexual abuse
NoMAPs = non-offending, minor attracted people: those who are attracted to children but are committed to not causing harm against them
Many non-offending MAPs do not seek professional support, or may withdraw from support, due to the following reasons:

• They are worried that they will be unjustly reported, despite having done nothing wrong (this is based on many cases where professionals misunderstand mandatory reporting laws and report someone to the police just for disclosing their attraction)
• They do not want to be judged by the provider (many therapists, social workers, etc. have intensely negative reactions to clients disclosing their attractions and draw inaccurate conclusions about them based on that disclosure)
• They do not believe their own goals will be met (providers often make CSA prevention the main focus, even when this is not the client’s stated goal. This treats clients as if they are “ticking time bombs” and is not person-centered)
• They do not want to be subjected to attempts to “cure” them of their attractions, or to convert them into teleiophiles, which is shown to be ineffective and harmful

Those of us in the social work and mental health fields can address common misconceptions about this group, as a way to encourage MAPs to get help when they need it. Greater education and understanding about MAPs increases their well-being while also contributing to the prevention of CSA.
Common questions
Are you saying child sexual abuse is acceptable?
Absolutely not. Causing harm to children in the form of in-person/online sexual contact; CSAM (sometimes referred to as child pornography); grooming; or any other inappropriate behavior is not and will never be acceptable.
Many people who are attracted to minors are vehemently against these forms of harm as well, and do not support ideas such as lowering the age of consent. There are entire communities of minor attracted people who are committed to not harming children.
Isn’t using the term ‘MAPs’ normalizing pedophilia?
Only a minority of the population experiences a primary attraction to children. In this sense, pedophilia and other forms of minor attraction are not “normal”, in the same way that LBGTQ identities are not “normal” by proportion to the general population.
When people refer to normalizing something, they are usually talking about removing the stigma behind it, or acknowledging that it is acceptable.
Having an unchosen, unchangeable attraction to children is not inherently wrong, immoral, predatory, or pathological. It becomes so only when harm is involved. Attraction itself is not a behavior.
Shouldn’t we be protecting children from MAPs?
We should absolutely protect children from abusers, groomers, and predators. These terms are not synonymous with being minor attracted. In fact, research shows that the majority of child sexual abuse cases are carried out by people who do not meet the criteria for pedophilia (see “Sources” section below for reference).
When somebody feels they are at risk for harming a child, they should be able to seek immediate and effective help. Some NoMAPs need temporary or ongoing support in remaining resilient against offending, but this does not represent all or even the majority of NoMAPs. Many in this community have no intention of ever harming a child, and they are not at risk for doing so.
It is also important to note that many MAPs are still children themselves. MAPs tend to become aware of their attractions around the time of puberty or early adolescence. Children who are MAPs deserve the same degree of safety and well-being that other children do.
Why is the term ‘MAP’ even used?
This term has become more widely used for two main reasons:

1. It emphasizes attraction over action. The word ‘pedophile’ has become so conflated with ‘offender’ in every sector of our society, that most people assume a behavioral component when they hear the word. ‘Minor attracted person’, on the other hand, emphasizes that we are talking about those with an attraction, which includes both those who do and those who do not act on it.

Because there are MAPs who are also offenders, the term ‘Non-offending Minor Attracted Person’ (NoMAP) is useful when we are talking specifically about those who have an attraction but do not act on it.

1. ‘MAP’ is also a more accurate, all-encompassing way to refer to the community as a whole. This includes people with infantophilia, pedophilia, and (ep)hebephilia. It would not make sense, for example, to call someone who is primarily attracted to 15-18 year olds a pedophile.

However, many people do not self-identify with the term ‘MAP’. Some identify as pedophiles, hebephiles, boy lovers, girl lovers, or other terms. Some may use multiple terms to describe themselves. What’s important is that we should honor how each individual person self-identifies their attraction, and not impose a label on them.
Alternatives have also been suggested by those who conduct research with this community, such as ‘child attracted person’ as opposed to ‘minor attracted person’. I use ‘MAP’ here because it is the most widely accepted way to refer to the community as a whole.
What would someone who harms a child be called?
Depending on the context, people who harm children could be called many things—offender, abuser, predator, or groomer, to name a few examples.
Research shows that the majority of child sexual abuse cases are carried out by people who do not meet the criteria for pedophilia. (See “Sources” section below to learn why someone who’s not primarily attracted to children would sexually abuse a child.)
Is pedophilia a mental illness/diagnosis?
It depends. Some MAPs are committed to not offending, are not at risk for offending, and have come to terms with their attraction. These individuals have no reason to be pathologized.
Many others are not at risk for offending, yet they desire professional help for mental health conditions (like depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation) that result from the hatred they receive in our society. These individuals also have no reason to be pathologized, as their mental health conditions result from stigma rather than from the attraction itself.
Some MAPs desire professional help in dealing with the difficult emotions resulting from not being able to have a fulfilling sexual or romantic connection, particularly those who are exclusively attracted to children. (Many MAPs are attracted to both children and adults, and may be in relationships with adults.)
There are also MAPs who desire professional help in remaining resilient against offending. In these cases, and in cases where MAPs do harm children, pedophilia would be considered pathological since there is significant distress and/or harm involved.
Is pedophilia a sexual orientation?
The available research points to pedophilia and other forms of minor attraction being an age-based sexual orientation, in that the attraction is unchosen, typically arises during the time of puberty or early adolescence, and remains fairly constant throughout one’s life.
Are you suggesting that MAPs are part of the LGBTQ+ community?
Age-based orientations are by nature different from gender-based orientations, in that there is no safe or ethical way for an adult to engage sexually or romantically with a child. The experience of MAPs is also vastly different from that of LGBTQ individuals in several ways.
While there are some parallels that can be drawn between studies on stigma among LGBTQ individuals and the experience of stigma among MAPs, these are two separate communities.
Can someone’s attraction to children be changed?
Empirical data, based on qualitative and quantitative studies, points to the fact that pedophilia and other forms of minor attraction cannot be changed or "cured". (See “Sources” section below for reference.)
How many MAPs are there in the world?
Across various studies, the average incidence of minor attraction, meaning those who are primarily attracted to minors, comes out to about 5% of the adult population worldwide. This number is likely an undercount for the following reasons:

• Many studies do not account for hebephilia (primary attraction to pubescent children)
• There is usually a focus on men, despite the fact that many MAPs are women
• Some people choose not to disclose their attractions in the first place

Why should I care about any of this?
Reducing stigma against NoMAPs contributes to a safer society for all, based around empathy and evidence. Many people do not feel safe disclosing their attraction for fear of being unjustly reported, misunderstood, or physically harmed.
Unfortunately, stories of MAPs being rejected by family members, forced out of educational programs, reported to the police, and made to feel like a monster– even in the absence of any harm to a child— are all too common. This prevents many MAPs from seeking or continuing to receive support, which in turn can lead to:

• Increased incidence of mental health issues (such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation)
• More difficulty in refraining from offending (for some MAPs; others are not at risk to begin with)

The misconceptions and harmful attitudes that we have toward non-offending MAPs directly interfere with them receiving the support they may need, decreasing MAPs’ well-being and putting children at greater risk. This includes children who are MAPs themselves.
Where can I learn more?
There are many resources available to learn about MAPs. These include:

• https://www.b4uact.org/
• https://asapinternational.org/index.php/introduction/about_asapinternational
• https://www.stopitnow.org/
• https://safersociety.org/store/live-online-training-providing-treatment-to-minor-attracted-people/
• https://theglobalpreventionproject.org/maps

If you are minor attracted yourself, you can check out any of the above, plus:

• https://virped.org/
• https://www.mapresources.info/
• https://mapsupport.club/

Sources
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19327034/ "There is no evidence to suggest that pedophilia can be changed. Instead, interventions are designed to increase voluntary control over sexual arousal, reduce sex drive, or teach self-management skills to individuals who are motivated to avoid acting upon their sexual interests"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32086644/ "The results of this study were consistent with the suggestion of Seto (2012) that pedohebephilia could be considered a form of sexual orientation for age, which includes both sexual and romantic attraction"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8793822/ ..."in line with the current empirical assumption that enduring sexual attractions to children are largely unchangeable (Grundmann et al., 2016; Seto, 2012; for recent debates see Bailey, 2015; Cantor, 2015; Grundmann et al., 2017; Müller et al., 2014; Tozdan & Briken, 2017)"
https://www.csaprimaryprevention.org/supporting-maps.html "The overwhelming opinion in the professional sexual violence prevention community is that helping minor attracted people by offering peeprofessional support is the best way to ensure that minor attracted people do not harm children, and suggest that reducing the stigma against minor attraction will help this endeavor and protect children"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7145785/ "It may be constructive for professionals working with this population to encourage the 'ownership' of the minor-attracted sexual identity, such as to reduce levels of self-stigmatization and increase self-acceptance. In doing so, we argue that we (as professionals, and as a society) can… ultimately, protect children from sexual harm by improving MAP well-being and agency"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8888496/ “…less than half of all individuals with child sexual offense convictions meet the clinical criteria for pedophilia (Schmidt et al., 2013; Seto, 2018a)”
https://www.stopitnow.org/faq/is-there-a-typical-profile-of-someone-who-sexually-abuses-children “Some people who abuse children have adult sexual relationships and are not solely, or even mainly, sexually interested in children”
https://www.stopitnow.org/faq/why-would-an-adult-sexually-abuse-a-child “Some adults sexually abuse a child to feel the power and control they don’t feel in their relationships with other adults… Some adults act impulsively when presented with an unexpected opportunity to sexually abuse a child”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8888496/ “...the more consistent prevalence estimates for minor attraction in a more clinical sense… congregate around 5% (Dombert et al., 2016; Santilla et al., 2010; Wurtele et al., 2014)”

I’m gonna lay out the whole context here, and it’s 2 years long so bear with me. A TL;DR isn’t really possible as there’s so much important context to whether or not IATA.
We’ve been married almost 10 years and she’s from overseas. She came here through our marriage. We were happy and doing extremely well for ourselves.
The problem started to 2 years ago. My friends wedding. Afterward we went out and then went to another friends house to continue partying. At the party one of the wedding guests started having a pity party about how he’s depressed because all these happy couples are around and he’s single.
For context. This guy is weird. He’s disrespectful to women, capitalizes on captive audiences (waitresses most often), and is overall a loser. He’s got a good job but that’s about it.
My wife, listens to his sob story and says “I have a sister!” and immediately starts FaceTiming her sister. This is something I’ve said isn’t okay. We’re not tinder, and we’re not matchmakers.
Beyond that her sister has a history of treating her poorly. She constantly told my wife she’s stupid growing up, well into adulthood. She blocked my wife for a whole year because my wife called her and told her not to go on boats with men she doesn’t know. Told my wife to live like she doesn’t have a sister. For a whole year I consoled my wife a couple times a week.
Anyways we were both drunk and with people so I’m not gonna start a fight right there. I figure I’ll talk to her about it maturely later. So I do. In the meantime, I switch to speaking Arabic with her sister and tell her this isn’t okay and isn’t what she wants.
Her and my wife to this day claim I was happy and supportive. They claim I was too drunk to remember. But there’s a few things wrong with this. I drove home, I take drinking and driving VERY seriously and would never, ever do it. In fact, if I know I’ve drank too much, I’ll hand my keys to a friend before the liquor starts hitting, just to avoid any possibility of making that bad decision.
Secondly, I switched to Arabic. I’m white. Arabic is a language I learned. When I speak it, I speak it very, very deliberately and remember the conversations perfectly. I know exactly what I said.
Anyways, when I talk to my wife later, I’m told how it’s wrong to prevent her from helping her sister and how her sister really likes this guy. A guy she talked to for 5 minutes. I told her it’s wrong to think of it as “helping” her sister in the first place and that her sister is a grown woman who can find her own partner.
So my wife says “okay I’ll tell my sister to stop talking to him”. That was the end of it. Or so I thought.
A few weeks later I’m at a different event and this guy let it slip they’re still talking. Immediately I’m upset and text my wife about how she lied to me.
She said her sister was really falling in love with this guy and separating them would be wrong. She said she did tell her sis to block him but when her sis went into a depression she told her she can unblock him and talk to him, behind my back.
Upset I told her we need to talk about going behind my back and how disrespectful of my boundaries this whole ordeal was. She said “it’s okay I’ll tell her to block him again”.
Over. Or so I thought for the next few months. A few months later I again am at an event with this guy and this time he’s smart enough to lie about them talking. But I’m a salesman and a bullshitter. You can’t bullshit me unless I trust you. I knew immediately he was lying but I let it go. I did ask my wife and she said no they’re not talking. So I believed her.
Well, a year and a half goes by. In that time her sister and her fought about how her sister could come to the US. We said we’d help her but it’s a lengthy process. At the time I had little animosity toward her sister and would’ve loved to see her come here and be near my wife again. She wasn’t happy with that and said it takes too long. This is her sister’s mindset.
Anyway. Her sister gets a B1 visa in the meantime, temporary business visitor and wants to come visit my wife. Lies through her teeth about her intentions to the immigration officer, telling them she wants to stay 90 days. They approve her for 60.
So we file for an extension ASAP so she can visit for 3 months. Staying with us the whole time. I wanted her to have fun on her visit so I arrange for my friends and I to go out. This guy shows up. She talked to him and told him our plans.
Immediately they disappear into the casino and come back holding hands and all kinds of PDA. I’m fuming because I know she’s a conniving word I won’t say here. I don’t say anything though and we go through the night and I let it go so I can have fun.
The next day he’s picking her up from my house and they’re out for the whole day. The next time my wife is off work, same story. Well, I thought you were here to visit her? And that’s where I put my foot down.
I got told it was wrong to try and control her, wrong to try and separate them, etc. etc. etc. Finally she blocks his number and he calls from a separate number. I turn off her SIM card because I’m not gonna support her going behind my back in my own home. He calls me and tells me he really loves her and just wishes I’d accept it.
I tell him very plainly I will never, ever accept it because it all stemmed from him, her, and my wife going behind my back. Primarily my wife, as she’s the only one of the three I should be able to trust is telling me the truth.
At this point, I feel as if my wife had an emotional affair, although it’s with her own family. She repeatedly chose to go behind my back, against a boundary I had told her repeatedly before this situation at my friend’s wedding after party ever transpired. If that’s not an emotional affair, I don’t know what is.
So I tell him bluntly to not call me anymore and I’m not going to change my stance, and his feelings don’t mean shit to me. He started to give me a sob story about how we’re friends and he I should be happy for him and I cut him off and told him to save his breath.
My wife is upset at me for how I talked to him. Another emotional affair. Trying to protect the feelings of this dude.
The next day, while my wife is at work I’m eating lunch at our dinner table and studying schoolwork her sister comes to the table and starts talking to me about this guy asking if I talked to him and I tell her plainly I did and what I told him.
She goes into a story about how she really loves him, she’s an adult woman and I shouldn’t be intervening etc. I told her I agree I shouldn’t ever have been involved and neither should my wife. I told her to save her breath with any talk of her feelings because I don’t care. She started crying telling me I’m cruel etc.
I told her at this point I’m done being nice. I’ve been lied to for 2 years and it’s over. I’m done being my laid back self and I’ve been pushed repeatedly and I’m standing up for my marriage and my boundaries.
I did turn her SIM card back on so she could call my wife and I, her hosts.
The next morning I wake up to my wife in tears calling me to her sisters room. Her sister is bawling her eyes out and packing her bags to go home. I talk her sister into coming for a car ride with my wife and I to talk things out.
Immediately in the car my wife starts berating her sister about how she’s selling her for a man and a whole host of other things. I calm my wife down and tell her that’s not okay to say to her sister. Because against what they thought I don’t want and would’ve never wanted this to cause a separation between them. I know how much my wife values family.
In the car her sister tells me she really loves this guy and that she can see them being a family one day etc. etc. etc. I tell her plainly don’t ever bring him around my house, if they do marry and have kids, don’t ever bring them around my house, and don’t consider me her brother in law because I will never do anything for her again after she goes home.
My wife is shocked, she’s shocked and they both wonder how I could be so cruel. I said I’m over it. I’m over hearing about this guy, I’m over being used, and I will never again trust her. She said she understands and resumes talking to this guy.
A few days later we’re in the car going to a family event with my family and I get asked if he can come. I said no, very politely. I said no, he’s not part of my family. I was told how terrible I am, and my wife and her sister both jump out of my car in a bad part of Chicago, an area neither of them know.
My wife calls my family and tells them I kicked them out of the car. So my family starts blowing up my phone screaming at me. Once I explained the situation my family said they’ll come pick them up but I hung around and kept driving by to make sure they were okay. Eventually my wife calls me and says they’ll get in.
So I pull over and they open the doors and my wife goes “I’m scared I don’t feel comfortable getting in the car with you”. So I drive away pissed off. This is a 85,000 car in a bad part of the city where carjackings happen every other day.
I go park somewhere but keep an eye on them to make sure they stay safe. A homeless guy passed them and my wife calls me to come get her. So I do and we go home.
Again her sister packs her shit and cries that she’s going home. I tell her to relax, sleep on it and we’ll talk in the morning. She does eventually and in the morning she decides she’ll stay.
A week goes by and I hear nothing about this guy from her. My friends and I all joked about him and made light fun of him. He caught wind of it and cried to my wife’s sister who told my wife, who came to me and aggressively told me to stop and leave them both alone. I got pissed off because this was a private convo between me and my friends and if he heard it and got his feelings hurt it’s on him.
This spiraled into a huge argument with me, my wife, and her sister. In the argument I asked her sister plainly if she planned to leave at the 90 day mark. She said no.
So I kicked her out of our house. Her and my wife went for a walk and I yelled out the front door to get her shit to the curb before the walk before I do, because if she doesn’t do it herself it’ll be thrown on the wet ground. They both thought I was joking before then I assume. Her sister comes in and packs her stuff and gets out. I said if you plan on staying here illegally it won’t be in my house. If the choose is between here or the streets, it’ll be the streets.
She went to stay with the boyfriend and his parents. His parents must not have liked her too much because within a couple weeks they made them both move out.
This was in January of this year.
Since then, I’ve been repeatedly goaded into accepting this. My wife has tried to get me to visit her sister, etc.
It came to a head recently at a wedding we went to for another friend. Her sister and this guy were there. I didn’t say a word to either one the entire night and all was fine.
Except my wife spent the whole night at their table because he wouldn’t dance or do anything to have fun. She can’t handle the idea that her sister might find something she doesn’t like about this guy. She has to be there just in case the relationship goes on life support.
This pisses me off, obviously. She’s more invested in their relationship than she’s been in ours for the past 2 years. Grown adults.
Well, today she was going to her sisters house. She had 2 bags. An ulta bag and a discovery bag. I asked what that is, and she said it’s for her sister. She pulled out taco shells and said it’s just small stuff she wants her to try. But I could see through the bag and saw beauty products. I’m not an idiot.
I looked in when she went to the bathroom and saw a fucking armoire full of shit. I looked at the receipt. $300. I was fucking livid.
I continued getting ready for work and said “her husband can’t buy her that?”. It’s confrontational, yes. But I said it politely, and was open to talking about it.
I get met with immediately hostility. I never raised my voice but I made it very clear I wasn’t being nice about this or anything anymore.
I told her “maybe she could pay you back and find you a new husband”. I’m going to give her a choice. Me or her sister now. Because this has gotten fucking ridiculous.
We pay for her to come here. She hired an immigration lawyer apparently, but doesn’t have money to pay me back for the flight or even pay for the Ubers they take or anything. My wife is trying to make up for this losers shortcomings. He’s too much of an idiot to see that her sister is using him.
By the way, this isn’t her first fiance. It’s not even her first western fiance. She’s been engaged to at least 3 different guys. One from France, another from Belgium, and a third from Canada before this guy. She was looking to immigrate. He’s a fucking idiot though so, oh well.
My wife’s sister is very materialistic. My wife is fortunately down to earth but is so far up her sisters ass because she thinks if she doesn’t do everything her sister wants that her sister will cut her from her life again. Which is exactly what would happen.
I told her that’s on her sister. I’m not asking her to never talk to her sister. I’m asking her to stop treating her sister like she’s a child and putting their relationship before ours. Stop bending over backwards for a grown woman who will throw you away the moment you’re inconvenient.
But it’ll never happen it seems and it’s the reason I’m strongly considering divorcing her. I’m over this fucking shit. Oh, and by the way, my wife claims that she’s scared of me etc. now when she tells the story to other people.
I have never and would never hit my wife. I’ve never given her any reason to be afraid of me. So to put that out there on me is absolutely fucking bullshit and I’ve lost all trust in her.
AITAH?

Hey and hi! I previously posted these Character Chats in order to fill the void when the comic was on involuntary hiatus, and I'm pleased to hear that it was received positively and people were asking for more. I couldn't really commit to it once the hiatus was over, since I've got a job and all. But good news, my whole team got laid off! I've got a lot more time on my hands now, so I think I'll keep this series going for a few weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays or so. If anyone complains about me surfing reddit at work during my notice period... well, what are they gonna do, fire me?
Today my giant novely ouija board has selected Prince Aaronev Tarvek Sturmvoraus. Our first Spark, and first main character, but somehow our third Valois out of five picks.
Tarvek is a member of the large and complicated Valois family tree, descended from our pal Andronicus Valois, the Storm King. He is the son of Prince Aaronev Sturmvoraus VI of Sturmhalten and an unknown mother, and the older brother of Anevka Sturmvoraus. He and Anevka share the same grandmother with the von Bliztengaard siblings and Violetta, making them all cousins. The Selnikovs may also be close family members, as their main residence is in Sturmhalten. Tarvek also calls Zulenna a cousin at one point.
The Storm King conspiracy among the Fifty Families was said to be fizzling out in the time before the comic, but the Mongfish family (i.e. Lucrezia) got involved and whipped them all into shape. Besides making most of the Knights of Jove Lucrezia loyalists, part of this involvment was ensuring there was a suitable male heir to the Storm King using Spark sceince, which ended up producing, at minimum, Tarvek and Martellus von Blitzengaard. The degree to which Tarvek's mother was involved and consenting is unknown. While we don't know how much was done, Tarvek is a powerful Spark, physically fit, and quite intelligent, so mission accomplished I suppose (though Tarvek does wear these tiny pince-nez around, so he may have poor vision - nice going, Lucrezia).
We don't have a family tree or anything, so we need to take the story's word that Tarvek's claim for being a direct heir of Andronicus is one of the most direct, if not the strongest overall. Two of the strongest claimants, Tarvek and Martellus, share a grandmother, so presumably their legitimacy is either through her or her late husband. Grandmama is once referred to with the title "Dowager Princess of Sturmhalten", it's possible Aaronev inherited his title as Prince of Sturmhalten by being her son. On the other hand, Tarvek also says that his descent comes down through his mother, so maybe she's Grandmama's child instead? Or it's wrong to trace back things to this set of grandparents after all? The family tree is thrown for another loop when Orotine declares Martellus a third-place heir rather than the commonly assumed second-place, so now who's in second place and how's that guy related to Tarvek's family tree, and... it's at this point I throw up my hands in exasperation.
Tarvek spent some of his early childhood as a political hostage on Castle Wulfenbach, being raised with other hostages by von Pinn. Tarvek recalls this time fondly, and in particular became good friends with Gil, whose identity was still hidden. When the two of them were hunting for secrets, hoping to discover Gil's lineage, they discover a red-herring left by the Baron. While Tarvek didn't buy it and tried to dig further, he got caught. Along with some snitching from Gil, this got him expelled from the Castle. Of course, everyone was spying abord the Castle, and Tarvek was just the only one kicked out. My assumption is that the Baron wasn't worried about Gil's identity being exposed, but didn't approve of Gil getting close with Tarvek for one reason or another and arranged to destroy the friendship.
He spent his remaining childhood in Sturmhalten, where he was wrapped up in family scheming, including Aaronev's schemes with the Other. Besides Aaronev, he also spent time with Anevka and Violetta during this period, and received some Smoke Knight training. He later goes to Paris for his higher education, where he was a good student and made friendships with influential young people like Colette and Neena. He was also involuntarily dragged into Gil's college adventures, where he became, uh, "acquainted" with disreputable characters like Bangladesh Dupree and Zola. He's called back to Sturmhalten after completing his education.
As a young adult, Tarvek's goals are initially to learn all he can from the Other conspiracy in Sturmhalten, destroy them afterwards, use this knowledge to overthrow the Baron, become Storm King, get the Fifty Families under control, and bring peace and prosperity to his new empire. However, Aaronev is in charge in Sturmhalten, and has different ideas. Tarvek detests his father and the Other conspiracy he's involved with, but cooperates with them to stay in their good graces and learn all he can. Tarvek attempts to act as a moderating influence on Aaronev, but Aaronev is too far gone to pull back. Aaronev ends up capturing nearly all the young female Sparks in Europa beneath the Baron's nose, and destroys them utterly trying to implant copies of Lucrezia into their minds, while Tarvek doesn't do much more than watch.
Aaronev eventually subjects his daughter Anevka to the treatment, nearly killing her. The Circus of Adventure happens to be in town, and as an expert on the Muses, Tarvek recognizes Tinka as a van Rijn original when she performs. Tarvek has his men abduct Tinka, and uses her as the basis for building a masterpiece clank which would connect to Anevka's mind and allow her to move and speak while her body was comatose. For what it's worth, he does try to pay the Circus after the fact, but they naturally ran like hell out of town. Tinka is eventually damaged beyond his ability to repair by Aaronev.
After this, he also conspires (or pretends to conspire) with Anevka to use her clank body's voice box to imitate Lucrezia's ability to command revenants, and use that ability to overthrow Aaronev and the Baron. When the Circus comes back to town with Agatha in tow, she's found out as Lucrezia's daughter at a show, with more beans being spilled later when Agatha's drugged with a truth serum. Aaronev tries to throw her in the Lucrezia-machine, but Anevka launches her coup right then, and finalizes her voice box by studying Agatha's own voice. Tarvek, having fallen for Agatha basically immediately, attempts to smuggle Agatha out of town under Anevka's nose, but the Geisters eventually get Lucrezia in her head anyway.
Tarvek, at this point, wants to integrate Agatha into his plan to use Other technology to usurp the Baron, which means keeping her safely at his side. This means both cooperating with Lucrezia to learn from her to begin with and protect Agatha's body, and also sabotaging Agatha's efforts at surrendering herself to the Baron for the greater good. One his deals with Lucrezia is making a clank head imprinted with a Lucrezia copy, designed to fit onto Avenka's clank body. Tarvek lures in Anevka for Lucrezia, and after some back-and-forth betrayals, eventually deactivates Anevka's head and puts her in storage, essentially killing her for the time being. Juggling Agatha, Lucrezia, and now a second Lucrezia proves too much for Tarvek once the Baron's troops arrive in Sturmhalten, and he ends up slashed in the gut, shot, and abandoned in the ensuing chaos.
Tarvek ends up in the Great Hospital in Mechanicsburg, as one of many of the injured from Sturmhalten. Violetta, who had been assigned to Mechanicsburg by Tarvek to keep her out of the proverbial firing line, manages to get him out of custody in the hospital... but inside of Castle Heterodyne instead, which is something of a lateral move. After connecting up with Agatha, Taevek comes down with Hogfarb's Respelendent Immolation, either due to traipsing about Castle Heterodyne of all places while wounded, or, Tarvek speculates, as a poisoning attempt from his own extended family. Gil is recruited to help with curing him, and after extensive bickering, infections, distractions, complications, and one apotheosis, he's back in good health. Tarvek attempts to help fix the Castle, and aid Agatha however he can, including fighting with Lucrezia and Vole, and attempting to strangle Zola. His bickering with Gil during this time mostly puts him on the defensive and has Tarvek trying to justify his actions, but he eventually does has a quiet epiphany.
He eventually gets grabbed by Other in a case of mistaken identity, and his quick analytical skills wind up placing him in charge of the Wulfenbach fleet's grand strategy temporarily - it's at gunpoint, but Boris assesses that he's really doing what's in the best interest of the Empire. He has to scurry off when Klaus comes onto the scene, placing him in a perfect position to recruit the Empire's Vespiary Squad and their weasels when Klaus turns on them. Notably, he risks life and limb rescuing a squad member, who he needs of course, but also Jorgi, who mostly annoys him. He sends the Vespiary Squad to hiding places abroad. As the battle for Mechanicsburg wraps up, Tarvek ends up stabbed with a poisoned dagger by Martellus just before the time-stop.
Post time-skip, Gil dedicates extensive resources towards getting Tarvek out of the time stop. Tarvek isn't able to do much before being kidnapped by the Immortal Library, and then kidnapped by Mister Obsidian on behalf of Grandmama. He does manage to breathe a bit in Paris, before being kidnapped by Mister Obsidian again on behalf of Seffie, to be sent to England. But en route aboard a pirate vessel, he's (shockingly) interrupted by a kidnapping attempt, this time for Grandmama again. Martellus sent assassins after Tarvek to interrupt the interruption, leading to bloody battle between Seffie's pirates, Grandmama's Smoke Knights, Martellus' Knights of the Hunt, and poor Tarvek. After being rescued by Gil, Tarvek flips the script, and he and Bang kidnap Gil instead, changing course to England.
In England, he can finally, you know, not get kidnapped for a bit. He decides to join Agatha in the Royal Society, and despite nearly getting strangled by Higgs, manages to reach Agatha and help work on curing her of Lucrezia, and curing Gil of Klaus. After interminable delays like a undersea cult, briefly seeing beyond time, punching Tweedle, and a revenant attack, they eventually pull it all off.
Later, in the war against the Polar Lords, Tarvek is essentially given the role of Gil's official treacherous vizier. On paper, helping the Empire helps keep him safe to further his own ambitions, but in practice, Tarvek seems more focused on doing good by his friends than anything to do with becoming Storm King.
Whew! And that's the short synopsis!
As a Spark, Tarvek's specialty is masterwork clanks in the van Rijn mold. His Anevka clank maintains full sentience even after any organic parts it was attached to died off, and continues to be used by Lucrezia to devastating effect. He also has a knack for rapid analysis, such as being able to understand the Wulfenbach fleet's strategy with just a glance. It's possible his political aptitude, scheming skills and ability to anticipate people's actions are a byproduct of his spark, but it may also just be the natural result of his upbringing. He is unusually composed for a Spark, and is very rarely seen in the Madness Place, and never for very long.
Beyond the Spark and his cunning, Tarvek also received some Smoke Knight training, making him skilled in martial arts and sleight of hand. That said, he'd prefer not to get in fights, and his first resort use his Spark or guile to get out safely (his second resort is just shooting them, with a gun). He also has a passion for fashion design, particularly lady's fashion.
Besides his conquer-Europa ambitions, Tarvek seems primarily driven to help and protect the people he loves, but his preferred tactics for doing so are often underhanded, or screw over people that he doesn't particularly love. Tarvek is the kind of guy who has to come to the conclusion that mind-control slavery is bad in general, rather than bad for people I know. He does come to that conclusion on his own, so kudos for that, but for a lot of people it's not even something you have to think about. Tarvek is also quick to use "they'd kill me if I tried, I had no choice" as a defense, but never quite understands that there was always a choice available he didn't consider - die trying. That all said, Tarvek is in generally improving his character over time, and wants to do the right thing, both in the "greater good" sense and doing right by other people individually, and finds himself frustrated at himself that he's often failed. I don't want to discuss Tarvek's ethics too much further here, since there's a great deal to talk about and this is supposed to be a discussion thread! Why do I have to do all the work?
Major Relationships:

• Agatha: Tarvek fell for Agatha pretty damn hard, internally logging her as "future bride", and even at his scummiest times in Sturmhalten was trying to act in her best interest, and just ignoring what she actually wanted and also fucking it up anyway. By the time of the Castle arc, Tarvek has mostly thrown away all of his own ambitions in favor of working for Agatha's, even in moments when he feels pretty hopeless about his actual prospects as a suitor. One major advantage in his court is that he's able to actually articulate his feelings like an adult.
  
• Gil: It's been a true roller coaster for these two, from friends to enemies to rivals to allies to secret lovers. It takes a great deal of bonding for their distrust of one another to fall away, and after the time skip Tarvek lists Agatha and Gil (and, by implication, Violetta) as the only people left he really cares about, and the two of them spend a lot more time hugging than you would have expected.
  
• Violetta: Tarvek spent a good deal of his childhood with Violetta, and earnestly tried to protect her. In natural early-Tarvek style, it was by ignoring her wishes and leaving her in the dark, but points for trying. They have a bickering siblings type of relationship, and Violetta is fine trash talking him despite the power imbalance between them. Tarvek is pretty disappointed that he's rebuffed when trying to sincerely express that he's glad she's alive, since she expects childish taunts out of him.
  
• Aaronev: Tarvek really hates Aaronev for all the horrible things he's done, especially for putting Anevka through the machine, and spends about two seconds mourning after he's killed. Tarvek had been play-acting as a loyal son for years, and it's a bit tragic that Aaronev bought his act wholesale - what little interaction we see suggests that Aaronev, scumbag that he is, did really like Tarvek.
  
• Anevka: Tarvek did not take it well when it seemed Anevka was going to die, and went to extreme measures to save her. But Tarvek doesn't assign the same level of personhood to the Anevka clank after the original Anevka dies (he's generally not the best at the whole "clanks are people too" concept), and eventually "kills" her by turning her off and throwing her head in a box, where she probably still remains if Sturmhalten hasn't been razed to the ground.
  
• Lucrezia: While most people hate the Other on a conceptual level, Tarvek has spent enough time with her to really begin to hate her on a personal level. He's aware of her foibles, such as her susceptibility to flattery, and tries to take advantage when he can. His more personal knowledge also makes him better able to detect when Lucrezia is taking over for Agatha than most.
  
• Higgs: Like many, Tarvek cottons on that Higgs has a secret in Castle Heterodyne. Tarvek does try to keep it under his hat and make excuses on his behalf, but can't resist teasing Higgs despite him being incredibly dangerous. Tarvek openly confronting Higgs about his identity later on nearly gets him strangled to death. Despite that, Tarvek and Higgs have formed a good rapport, and have solid mutual respect. He's even one of the people Tarvek pours his heart out to when he thinks Violetta is dead.
  
• Neena: Neena has a bit of a crush on Tarvek, and Tarvek for his part does some light flirting at the ball but otherwise doesn't think about her much at this point. It's an odd match for someone like Tarvek, since Neena is earnest, enthusiastic, and completely lacking in guile. Maybe that's exactly what someone like him needs - stranger things have happened!
  
• Martellus: As two men aiming for the same throne, Martellus and Tarvek are natural enemies. Tarvek obviously dislikes Martellus - and even gets a good punch in - but doesn't take any moves to stop Martellus' forward momentum, and makes no moves towards legitimizing his claim as Storm King beyond not being dead. His strategy may be to just give Martellus enough rope to hang himself with, but it may also show genuine disinterest in this whole Storm King business.
  

One thing that stands out to me is that the advice for getting laid while you are either cohabing and/or are going through a divorce is abstinence. It's good advice, to be sure, but in reality works about as well as teaching only abstinence in school - leaves you without the knowledge you need to succeed!
Basically, the steps below are designed to destroy her map of you. She knows what you do, she knows your routine, and women are pretty good at knowing the importance of suddenly different things. You will have to destroy her ability to know what to expect and normalize unpredictability.

1. Set a pin for your phone!

1A. Start by imagining you have something to hide on your phone. Put it on vibrate, keep it on your person at all times around her, if you set it down, set it down facedown. Don't answer a single text message in front of her, but you can and should use it to check the weather or emails, or surf the web. She probably won't say a single thing, but she is GOING to notice this change and now she's suspicious. Silence her messages - she's used to you responding quickly and she WILL find reasons to contact you just to see if you respond quickly. You will need to slow down communication with her - normalize your replies taking a long time. If she calls don't always pick up. Let it go to VM, or text her that you are busy, or will call back, or whatever. The goal of 1A is to break her expectation of you replying quickly so that it doesn't really stand out when you go on dates later.
1B. Pick a few days each and every week to be out of the house. Don't share what you are doing immediately, make her work for it. She may or may not ask for a while, but she's paying attention. What should you do? Well, I suggest buying some new clothes, try out a few gyms, go for a hike, try out new places to eat by yourself, check out bars and find a few cool ones at different parts of the area you are in, try out a musical instrument lesson, go to car meets, go to biker meets (Harley dealerships have huge bike meets and they cook), play poker, go fishing.... It doesn't matter WHAT you do specifically, just that you ARE actually doing things, and you SHOULD be doing things you would never normally do. Take pictures. You should do this for a minimum of 1 month.
***Why? Well, you don't really know who you are as a single man, and this step is partly to help you figure that out, while shattering her map of 'what you do.' At the same time, you are learning to be less dependent on her for emotional support, simply by slowing down communication with her and creating that distance.

1. This step depends on her, not you. She is going to question you about all these new things and probably outright accuse you of having another girl. Tell her you don't have one (don't get defensive), and if you can show a picture of what you were doing that triggered her accusations, then do it. Tell her you are doing new things because you are a single man again, and you need to discover who you are without her now. Tell her you have no interest in another relationship - that you have decided to work on yourself and focus on being happy. All of those things are true, and you should save the bulk of what you'll say for when she confronts you. The goal here is to get her to accept the IDEA you might actually be working on yourself and shutting her out - she's not going to buy it, but this casts doubt in her mind you found another woman, and that's good enough to continue to step 3.
   
2. CHANGE YOUR PHONES PIN CODE! She probably has it by now. We are about to actually have something to hide.
   
3. Sign up for whatever online dating apps, but you need to turn OFF banner alerts! This should be obvious, but don't bring her back to your house, no matter how sure you are your STBXW isn't going to be home or show up. Condoms... this will get you caught. Either buy and dispose of the whole pack (never bring them home) or find a really good spot to hide them in your car that she'll never find.
   
4. Great, now you found some girl and she's making you happy, right? Getting laid, she probably makes you feel like a Million $s. Good. You'll want to see her constantly because you just realized how terrible you have actually been treated, don't. Your STBXW will say some hurtful and mean things and you'll want to drop that you are and have been banging someone else... don't. If your STBXW feels like she's getting more suspicious end things with 'new girl,' let the situation cool and find a new, new girl... or don't, and continue to work on yourself.
   

Why go through all of this? Because even if you stop at step 3 you've helped yourself! Interestingly, like many can attest to, the moment you find another woman she'll be interested in you again. The mere idea that you could do new things and be happy without her will bring her right back - like the happiness sucking harpie she is.
Lastly, I want to say one more time, that I think NOT sleeping around until after your divorce has been signed by a judge is by far the smarter thing to do. What I am describing here is essentially OPSEC for having an affair, but this level of effort is required because while she may be able to get laid without consequence, the system is not 'for you' and she will make sure you get every inch of the justice d*ck without any lube if she finds out you are plowing the younger, hotter, fun version of her.

I'm into politics, philosophy, etc, and I've watched a decent amount of PT in the past year or so to see what resources she pulls up so that I can learn more about other topics. I'm currently watching her new video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVilpxowsUQ) on Judith Butler, and a lot of what Butler is saying is complete nonsense to me

• Gender is a performance, gender is only playing into stereotypes and trends and nothing more
• "Gender is a thing we do through repeated stylistic acts. Not a property but an embodied event"
• Compares all genders to dressing up as a femboy
• Saying that everyone (including trans people) have no true gender, gender is chosen throughout time and is always as fluid as the clothes you wear
• Claims that gender is performative (in its philosophical meaning) meaning the only thing needed to be that gender is to say you are/"do it" by putting on clothing/makeup etc
• Blamed the idea of sex-gender relation on the patriarchy and takes nonsense believed hundreds of years ago to support the idea that sex is in no way related to gender
• Then goes on to say actually sex is made up bc humans are 99.9% identical via DNA (no comment on just how impactful sex chromosomes/hormones/systems are on the entire body) so sex is actually fake and means nothing more than eye color, cites the fact that we used to think that race was more biologically significant than we now know it to be
• Further, sex and gender only exist in the "heterosexual matrix" and we should live in a completely gender-less and sex-less society, women only exist in relation to men and therefore lesbians aren't women because they exist outside the male gaze

I'm only 15 minutes in and I can no longer stand it
If Judith is right, why do I have to inject .25mL of testosterone every week? Why when I don't pack I can't think about that area without tears forming because there's something missing? Why does being called she/her feel out of touch and wrong? Why can't I preform as a woman without feeling literal pain? "Oh well you just don't like performing as a woman" okay but why there is a reason.
I think Butler's main issue is a big one amongst "progressive" trans spaces, she misrepresents gender roles and performance as actual neurological gender. And I feel disappointed that PT, as a trans woman, decided to put that very dangerous content out there (and then tried to save her ass by saying "oh well you can't actually choose your gender here's this incomprehensible quote from one of Butlers paper's saying that's not how it works" when literally everything in her video directly challenges that).
Wondering if anyone else has seen this video and read some of Butler's work and what your thoughts are on it

My wife, Mia, and I were driving cross-country. It was our first attempt at the “Great American Roadtrip.”
Mia and I rented a small RV; more of a camper than a full blown RV. We packed up a couple suitcases with plenty of room for any souvenirs and we hit the dusty trail.
We started our journey on the “Mother Road”-- Route 66-- driving south from Chicago until we connected to i-70 and shot straight west through Missouri.
The goal was to see those parts of the country we had never seen before, stopping anywhere that seemed interesting. From the plains of Kansas up through the badlands of Wyoming and South Dakota.
In Missouri we saw the world’s largest cap gun. In Kansas we visited the Evel Knievel Museum and the World’s Largest Belt Buckle.
We love all those kitschy, tourist trap places.
Eventually, we made it to Colorado and after a few hours more of driving through amber waves of grain, we saw them... the Rocky Mountains.
We made an exit and headed north through the winding mountain highways.
The Rockies were gorgeous. Snow capped in the middle of summer, some of the peaks pierced through the white fluffy clouds.
We saw a sign that read “Traffic Tunnel - 3 Miles.”
A little further and sure enough, there it was, a large tunnel bored directly through the mountain in front of us.
A large sign read, “Pike Tunnel - Longest Traffic Tunnel in the Nation! - Please turn your headlights on now.”
“How long is it?” asked Mia.
“That’s what she said,” I quipped.
But she was right, there was no information beyond the detail that this was the longest tunnel in the nation.
“Can’t be more than a mile or two,” I said as I watched the little white car ahead of us slip into the darkness. A moment later we joined it.
The tunnel was lit by fluorescents that gave everything a greenish yellow tinge. On the left hand side was a raised walkway behind a railing for maintenance access.
Initially I was struck by the incredible amount of work that went into the construction of this man- made marvel.
“We’re under a million tons of rocky mountain right now,” I said.
“How many years before this caves in?” Mia responded.
I shot her a look--
“Let’s save the cave-in talk until we’re out on the other side.”
“I’m just saying, nature will take this back eventually,” she continued.
I scanned the empty road ahead of us.
“Where did the other car go?” I asked.
We were now alone in the tunnel, no cars ahead of us nor behind us.
“Huh... they must have sped off ahead. Maybe they’re scared of a cave-in?”
My Spotify playlist had stopped playing. Mia looked at the phone.
“No cell service.”
She turned on the radio and spun the dial only to find static.
“You’re not going to be able to pick up a station in here,” I said.
She turned the volume down.
“Just wanted to check... If only we had some CDs. This tunnel really keeps going.”
“I would have thought we’d be through it by now,” I replied.
I looked at the RV’s odometer, 45,600 miles. I picked up speed. I wanted to try and catch up to the little white car.
Up until this point, the tunnel was a straight shot, but now the tunnel started to curve to the right. It may have been my imagination but it also felt as though we were descending…
Mia felt it too and she started to get antsy.
“Where did that other car go? How long is this tunnel?”
There was an urgency in her voice.
I was getting nervous, claustrophobia was not usually a problem for me but when I looked down at the odometer and I saw that it had gone up by 3 miles, my mind began to wander to unsettling places.
We were descending in altitude. I could feel it. I could see a slope in the lights on the ceiling and the railing of the maintenance walkway. I could feel a pressure in my head, and I was getting cold.
“Could you grab me a coke from the back, Mia?”
I couldn’t have Mia getting anxious, that would only start a chain reaction and make me freak out which would then make her freak out.
She unbuckled and ducked into the back of the RV to where we had a cooler stocked with drinks and food.
Just as she stepped into the back, I saw something.
There standing on the side of the road was a MAN wearing a reflective safety vest and a hard hat. He was WAVING to me as I passed him by.
Something about him looked... strange…
I watched him in the side-view mirror as we passed and he was still watching the RV, still waving at the back of our vehicle as he faded into the distance.
Mia reappeared from the back of the RV, Coke in hand. She popped it and handed it to me.
“You look worried.”
“I’m fine,” I smiled and took a sip of the Coke.
“Eric, slow down!”
I slammed on the breaks as I saw what made Mia scream. In the road in front of us was a roadblock.
Two reflective traffic sawhorses blocked both lanes of the tunnel. Beyond the roadblock, the lights of the tunnel were dark. There was nothing but a void of blackness.
Standing in front of the roadblock was another man wearing a reflective vest and a hard hat, only this time his hard hat had a light on top which obscured his face.
We came to a jolting stop.
I turned to Mia
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied. “It’s a cave-in isn’t it?”
“God, I hope not.”
I rolled down the window, leaned out and yelled to the man in the hard hat.
“Hey! What’s going on?!”
The man was about 5 yards away. He took two steps towards us and then raised a hand to his mouth and yelled.
“Just doing some maintenance!”
“How long is it going to take?!” I yelled back.
The man made a hand gesture as if he didn’t hear me.
“How long is it going to take?!” I called again.
He made the same gesture. I unbuckled my seat belt and grabbed the door release.
“What are you doing?” Mia asked.
“I gotta know what’s going on.”
“Eric, just stay here, it might not be safe.”
“I’ll be just a second,” I said.
I pushed the door open and stepped down from the RV.
“Stay in your vehicle!” the man yelled.
He took a couple steps towards me with his hand out telling me to stop.
“What’s the hold up?!” I shouted.
The man was a bit closer now but I still couldn’t see his face through the shining light on his helmet.
“Please stay in your vehicle!” he shouted.
There was something off about him.
Then I heard it–
“EEEAAAUUUUUUGHHHHHHHH!!!”
A scream, or something, rolled from deep in the tunnel. The worker turned and looked into the darkness. Then he ran past the barricades and soon all we could see of him was the light on his helmet.
The light disappeared a moment later.
“What the hell was that?! Is someone hurt?” Mia asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Should we do something?” Mia asked.
I just sat there and watched the pitch black tunnel in front of me. I had no idea what to tell her. I checked the sideview mirrors. There was still nobody behind us.
“Where are the other cars?” I asked.
“They must have gotten through before the roadblock... Or maybe they caused the roadblock?” Mia replied.
“I saw another worker a little ways back. We could try to go back and talk to him.”
“We’d be going straight into any oncoming cars.”
“There’s a maintenance walkway. We didn’t pass him that long ago. We can probably catch him on foot.”
“Maybe we should just wait for the guy to come back.”
She reached over and grabbed my arm. I squeezed her hand.
She was right.
I looked out at the tunnel ahead of us. I turned on the RV’s high beams but all I could see beyond the roadblock was more tunnel and more road.
I checked my phone. Unsurprisingly, there was no service still.
We waited, but the man never came back.
“It’s been twenty minutes,” Mia said, “How come there hasn’t been another car behind us?
I was having the same thought. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out. I looked back at the road behind us. It went back about 200 yards before curving out of sight.
There was no sign of that first worker I saw on the maintenance walk way. I looked at the roadblock ahead of us and clicked on the RV’s high beams. There was nothing beyond the roadblock but more tunnel. It didn’t look like it was under construction, just very dark.
“I think we should keep going,” I said.
“What about the roadblock?”
“We’ll move those sawhorses out of the way and just drive past,” I said as I opened my door.
Mia looked at me, then she cast her eyes to the dark tunnel ahead of us. I knew she was processing the same limited options that I was.
Driving backwards would be a huge risk in the instance of another car finally coming along.
Getting out and walking would take God knows how long, we could have driven 10 miles at this point.
Forward was our best option.
“Let’s do it,” Mia said.
We jumped out and quickly pulled the two sawhorses out of the right lane. I pulled the RV up past the barriers, then we jumped out again and put the sawhorses back where they were. We didn't need another car to come barreling through.
We were finally moving again, slowly. It was pitch black save for the high beams of the RV.
We crept forward at around 15 miles per hour. As the tunnel turned and twisted, my eyes started to play tricks on me. I kept seeing shapes at the furthest point of the tunnel.
I kept seeing something standing just at the end of the next bend but as we roll forward, there was nothing there.
“Where are the workers?” Mia asked.
“I don’t know.”
I was done rationalizing. This was all wrong. Traffic tunnels are never this long.
My mind started to wander to all the road trip urban legends I’d read about; The Killer in the Backseat, The Disappearing Gas Station, The Pale Man In The Corn Field.
Did we stumble into some strange outlier location? An in-between point on the endless roads that cross this country?
Then I saw it–
“Look! A person! Thank god!” Mia shouted.
As we rounded a curve in the tunnel, a group of maintenance workers entered our view.
The three of them stood on the left side of the road behind two more sawhorses topped with flashing lights.
Two of them faced towards us, the third was facing the other two.
The one with his back to us wore a light on his hard hat. Was this the same guy we saw earlier? How did he get this far away?
I approached slowly and rolled down the window.
“Hey! You left us waiting back there!” I yelled.
There was no response.
In fact, all three men were completely silent, and it was hard to tell in the flashing light of the sawhorses, but they looked to be standing COMPLETELY STILL.
“Hello?!” I yelled again.
I pushed open my door and stepped out onto the pavement.
“Eric wait--”
I held up a finger to Mia.
“Just a second.”
I slowly stepped towards the 3 men.
“Hello?”
No response… What the fuck?
The bright lights of the sawhorses obscured their faces.
I kept moving closer.
“Hey, what’s going on--”
Then I saw it.
Their faces... They were plastic.
In front of me stood three mannequins.
I backed away toward the RV, then I turned and walked hurriedly to the vehicle.
I was seriously freaked out but I didn’t want to alarm Mia. I climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.
“They’re mannequins.” I said.
“What?”
“They’re mannequins.”
”Why?... What?...”
“I don’t know…”
I looked back over at the three figures and my blood ran cold…
The Hard Hat Mannequin had somehow TURNED AROUND to face us. All three figures appeared to be watching us now.
Then we heard it--
A loud resonant banging on the side, and then the roof of the RV.
“What the hell was that?” Mia whispered.
We listened, holding our breath. Then--
A shuffling sound--
Something was moving ON or IN the RV.
“Stay here.” I said.
I got up.
“Eric, wait!”
I moved to the back of the RV.
It was dark. I went for a drawer in the kitchenette space and pulled out a flashlight.
I moved to the rear of the RV, the bedroom. My flashlight illuminated an empty room.
“Whoever is back here, I have a gun…”
A shitty bluff. But I didn’t see anything.
I shone the light out of the windows of each side of the RV. Nothing.
Then I heard it–
A shuffling sound, from right above me.
I looked up and screamed–
“Fuck!”
On the roof of the RV, staring through the skylight was a woman with vacuous black eyes and a dead smile.
Her stringy black hair dangled down towards me casting thing black shadows across her horrible pale face.
“Mia, drive! Fast!” I screamed.
Mia JUMPED over to the driver’s seat, shifted into gear and STOMPED on the gas. The RV was clunky but it could move when it needed to.
We lurched forward and I fell back.
I trained my flashlight up onto the skylight again and the woman was gone.
I scrambled to my feet and looked out of the side windows.
Did Mia shake her off? There was no sign of the woman. I moved to the passenger seat, breathing heavily and sweating.
“What happened?” She asked, keeping the RV at a steady 50 mph.
“There was a woman on the roof,” I said flatly.
I realize now that I was in a kind of shock.
“A woman?”
“Her eyes were black.”
Mia just looked at me, then back at the tunnel ahead of us.
“There’s something wrong with this tunnel.” I whispered.
Mia pointed at the road ahead, “Look.”
I looked out at the tunnel. There were more mannequins. A LOT more mannequins. They were positioned on both sides of the road.
They were all facing us and even though I never saw them move, when I looked in the side-view mirror, they were somehow STILL facing us, turning to watch us as we drove past. Watching without eyes.
“Just keep driving.” I said.
As we drove on, the mannequins crowded the sides of the road more and more. There were thousands of them. Eventually they were so close that some of their outstretched arms hit the side of the RV.
They were closing in on us. Squeezing our path forward. One stood in the middle of the road.
“I don’t think i can get around it.”
“Run it over. Don’t stop.”
The RV smashed into the mannequin. Its head shot forward and bounced against the windshield and the vehicle shuddered as it rolled over the body.
Soon there were two in the road. Then three.
I could see where this was going. Pretty soon there would be too many for the RV to ram through, but goddammit we were going to get through as many as we could.
“Speed up, Mia.”
CRASH!
The sound was surreal, smashing into mannequin after mannequin at nearly 60 miles per hour.
Hands, legs, heads and torsos flew.
The windshield cracked, the RV shuddered and screamed and eventually slowed down, despite the screaming engine.
I’m certain the axle was jammed up with lifeless, plastic body parts. Eventually we came to a stop.
“She won’t move,” Mia said.
She pressed on the gas but it was no use, the RV just rocked a little bit.
“Try reverse.”
She shifted and pressed on the gas, we got some decent movement before running into another jam.
“Fuck.”
“Should we get out and look?” Mia asked.
“I’ll go,” I said as I grabbed the flashlight and popped the passenger door. Mia unbuckled her seatbelt.
“We’ll go together.”
We stumbled out of the RV on the passenger side. It was like stepping into Hell.
Countless, lifeless faces stared out at us from the darkness. The only light came from the headlights of the RV and my flashlight.
We clumsily made our way along the side of the RV. The ground was littered with mannequin pieces.
I thought to myself, if we could get a couple yards cleared out behind the rear tires, we might be able to back out and get enough momentum to reverse all the way back out of here.
Instead, when we got to the back of the RV, my stomach flipped and my heart sank.
I was expecting to see a trail of flattened mannequins, instead the RV was now surrounded by thousands of perfectly intact mannequins standing at attention. As if their ranks had some how been replenished after our vehicular assault.
“This is impossible.”
She started to cry. I held her close.
“We’ll keep moving.” I said.
“It will never end. The tunnel makes no sense. It only curves one direction.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“This whole time the tunnel has only been curving to the right. it would sometimes straighten out or go left for a few yards but before too long we were curving to the right again. We’ve either been driving in circles or spiraling downwards.”
“So we’ll go back the way we came and hope we’re not going in circles.” I said.
We had been driving for hours at this point. Walking back out the way we came would take days. But now that I thought about it, Mia was right, we’d only been curving to the right.
This tunnel seemed to be very gradually taking us downwards into the earth.
Going forward would not get us any closer to escape.
“We’ll need food from the RV,” Mia said.
I nodded and we stumbled our way back to the front of the RV, the mannequins’ lifeless faces watching us the whole time.
I stepped up to the passenger door and nearly fell back when I looked through the window.
“What the fuck?” I breathed.
What I saw were two mannequins sitting in the driver’s and passenger’s seat.
How they got in there? I have no idea, but what really made my blood run cold was that they were dressed EXACTLY like MIA and I.
They wore identical sets of clothes. The one in the passenger seat had my same New Order T-shirt and black jeans. The one in the driver’s seat had Mia’s green striped sweater and denim shorts.
Their plastic faces stared out through the shattered windshield at the endless crowd of mannequins staring back at them.
Mia stepped up and saw the uncanny display.
“What the fuck?” Mia echoed.
I pulled myself up into the RV and slowly stepped around my mannequin doppelgänger. I avoided looking into its face but I swear i could feel it watching me as I stumbled around it.
Mia followed and we made our way into the back of our dark RV. Luckily we had just stocked our cooler full of deli meat and water not long after crossing the Colorado state line.
I handed Mia the flashlight and pulled open the cooler. I filled a backpack full of food and water.
I turned and saw them–
My mannequin double had somehow moved. It was standing in the aisle watching us.
Mia’s doppelgänger was still seated in the driver’s seat but had turned to peer back at us with its eyeless gaze.
Mia saw the look in my eyes and turned. She screamed when she saw them and backed into me. I put my arm around her and we stood there a moment, letting our skyrocketing heart rates return to Earth.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
I slid the backpack onto my shoulders.
Mia joined me at the door. I looked into her eyes. “Are you ready?” She nodded. I kissed her.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you,” she said.
The look on her face killed me. She was terrified. I’m sure the look on my face was similar.
I opened the door and we stepped out…
We again stumbled to the back of the RV. Once we were clear of the RV and all the crushed mannequin body parts, it became easier to find footing, though weaving through an endless crowd of lifeless people was a slow process.
It was pitch black. Without the flashlight we wouldn’t be able to see a foot in front of us.
As I walked, the beam of light created the illusion of movement in the crowd. At least I hoped it was an illusion.
The limbs of the mannequins seemed to stretch and turn, but the only sound was that of Mia and I shuffling our way through the crowded tunnel.
Things went on like this for what felt like hours. Mia and I were sweating and aching. I was about to suggest we stop and rest, but then I saw it and I froze…
Out in the crowd, beyond rows of blank faces I saw a pale face, black hair and a dead smile.
I saw two vacuous eyes staring right at me.
“Mia, do you see her?” I whispered.
“See who?”
I slowly raised my arm and pointed.
It was the woman, or whatever it was, that stared back at me through the skylight on the roof of the RV.
“Oh my god!” Mia squeaked.
I could see now that the Pale Faced Woman was tall. A few inches taller than the mannequins.
As I pointed, she stared back at me with that terrible grin.
“What do we do?” Mia whispered.
I raised the flashlight and pointed it right at the Pale Faced Woman. I thought maybe this would scare her off.
I was wrong.
The light only made her appear more unsettling as she stared back, unflinchingly.
“What do you want?!” I yelled.
She only stared back at me. She was as still as the mannequins.
“We have to keep going.” I whispered.
Mia didn’t respond. Her body was tense as she held onto me.
“We’ve come this far, we can’t turn back again,” I continued.
I pulled Mia’s hand and we continued on our way through the mannequins, keeping the distance between us and her as wide as possible.
As we moved past, she kept watching us. Though her movements were imperceptible to us, her eyes never left us. Like one of those portraits whose eyes appear to watch you no matter where you stand.
Finally, we got far enough that she was out of sight. But the thought of her being somewhere behind us only unsettled me further and I quickened our pace.
As the hours wore on, there was no sign of the Pale Faced Woman and the crowd of mannequins began to thin out. They still populated the tunnel from one end to the other, but there was more space between them, allowing Mia and I to walk more freely.
The mannequins on the maintenance walkway on the side of the tunnel seemed to thin out as well and I decided it would give us a better vantage if we were walking up there.
I helped Mia climb up the railing that bordered the walkway, then I climbed up behind her. The walkway was elevated 3 or 4 feet above the roadway. We could easily see over the heads of the mannequins in both directions.
There was, of course, no end to the tunnel in sight.
We kept walking.
The mannequins continued to thin out, but they were different now.
There were mannequins dressed as maintenance workers again, but also mannequins dressed as families and businessmen. There was even a group of mannequin nuns standing in a single file line, heads bowed in prayer.
Needless to say, we passed none of this on the way in to the tunnel. I was feeling very hopeless that we were going to be able to find our way out.
I was far beyond speculating how this was at all possible. It’s NOT possible. And even if it were, there is no good reason for someone to do this to us.
The only explanation was the supernatural. Then I saw Her. Rather, I saw THEM.
Arranged in the middle of the tunnel was a circle of mannequins with long black hair and tattered cloth.
They looked exactly like the Pale Faced Woman, minus any facial features. I kept a close watch on them as we passed to make sure they didn’t start following us.
“A door!” Mia shouted.
Mia pointed a few paces ahead of her. There was a door leading into the wall of the tunnel.
We ran towards it. Mia grabbed the handle, turned it and pulled. It was heavy and Mia had to brace her foot on the wall to get it moving.
The metal door groaned as if it hadn’t been opened in years.
Finally, it was open enough to see past.
It was a hallway. It went out about 5 yards then turned right at a 90 degree angle.
The strangest part was the design of the hallway.
It wasn’t cement or pavement like the tunnel.
The walls were wood paneled and the floor was covered in a thick carpet, like a house from the 1970s.
“I say we see where this takes us.” Mia said.
There was no reason to disagree, but I wasn’t going to get us trapped in there.
I opened up my backpack and took out a water bottle. I opened it and handed it to Mia. She drank half, then I drank the other half.
I slowly closed the door, shoving the empty water bottle in the crack to keep it from closing all the way.
I turned to Mia-- “Okay, let’s go.”
We slowly made our way down the quiet hallway. We got down to where the hallway cornered to the right and that’s when we heard it–
KA-CHUNK!!!--
I whipped around. The door had closed behind us. I ran back to it and tried to push it open, but it was no use. There was no way it closed on its own.
Someone had to have removed the water bottle. Our path had been chosen for us.
There was no turning back.
We continued down the hallway. We turned right. The hallway continued, then turned right again. That should have led us right back to the tunnel. But it didn’t. This part of the hallway went on far longer than was possible without running into the tunnel. Then it turned right again.
It went on like this. Sometimes a section of the hallway was 20 feet long, sometimes it was 20 yards long, sometimes it was 3 feet long. But it always turned to the right.
At first it was a relief to be somewhere other than the cold, dark tunnel. But the hallway very quickly became claustrophobic and before too long, I heard someone walking behind us.
We had stopped to take a break and I heard a third pair of footsteps on the carpet coming from behind us. I backtracked to the last corner.
I was terrified as I slowly peeked around the corner, tense and waiting to see the vacuous eyes and inky black hair of the Pale Faced Woman... but there was nothing there. I wasn’t about to backtrack any further.
“There was no one there.” I whispered.
Mia slumped against the wall and slid down to the carpet.
“I think I need to rest.” She said.
I put my backpack down on the ground for Mia to use as a pillow. She laid her head down and was passed out in seconds.
I had no idea how long we had been walking at this point. I stood leaning against the wall. My body was telling me to rest but I couldn’t risk falling asleep. I had to keep watch. I knew SHE was following us.
I took in the details of the hallway for the first time. The carpet was a dull brown and the walls a cheap wood paneling. The hanging lighting fixtures were shaded by stained glass, something you might see in an old diner.
Who built this place? Did someone pick out the carpet and the lighting fixtures? Did a team of workers blast these tunnels into the Earth? Or has this place always existed? Was this Purgatory?
I began to feel dizzy. I was panicking. My heart felt like it was trying to escape my chest. I slumped to the floor and tried to slow my breathing.
I closed my eyes... –
I SHOT up in a panic. I had fallen asleep while I was meant to be keeping watch.
I snapped to my feet and looked around.
Mia was still asleep on my backpack.
Then I noticed that the hallway had changed. A few paces away there was now a plain wooden door in the wall.
I slowly approached it. I put my ear to the door and I could hear what sounded like TV static and the low murmur of voices.
I discreetly grabbed the door handle and turned it slowly. I felt the latch bolt clear and I carefully cracked the door just enough to peek inside.
It was dark, so it took a second for me to register what I was seeing. I saw a small board room. A long table in the center was surrounded by seated men in suits.
At the end of the table stood another man next to an old CRT TV that was playing static. This was the only source of light in the room and all the men around the table were turned towards the tv.
Suddenly the screen flickered from static to a solid dark background. And some warped new age style muzak began playing.
Then the words appeared on the screen that terrified me like nothing else before. In plain text the words read–
“YOU WILL LOSE HER.”
I froze as I knew these words were meant for me I watched with terror as the men seated around the table slowly turned toward me in unison.
They were mannequins.
The TV screen then clicked off and they continued staring at me as I could barely make out their forms through the near pitch darkness.
I quickly pulled the door shut. And whipped around to look at Mia, I had a horrible feeling of dread that when I turned around she would be gone, like the message on the TV promised–
“Eric? What are you doing?” Mia was leaning up and staring at me.
Thank God. There was Mia, right where I left her.
I pointed at the door and said, “This door appeared and I--”
“What door?” she interrupted.
I turned and sure enough, the door was now gone.
I explained what happened to her, but I left out the message that appeared on the screen.
-- YOU WILL LOSE HER –
Those words still burned in my brain. I tried to force them out.
We drank water, ate granola and then got moving again.
Hallways. Endless hallways.
After a couple hours of walking we started to hear music. There were small speakers in the corners of the ceiling.
I recognized it as the same new-age muzak that played on the TV in the board room. The melody drilled into our minds. Combined with the dull aesthetics of the quiet hallways and the endless right turns, the music had a hypnotizing effect.
The lengths of the halls became more uniform. That is to say, the straight section of hallway was about 7 paces, then a right turn, then 7 paces and a right turn.
“I think we’re walking in circles... or a square,” Mia said.
I looked at her and took out a bottle of water. I peeled off the plastic label and dropped it on the floor.
Then we kept walking.
7 paces, right turn. 7 paces, right turn. 7 paces, right turn. And there it was... Mia was right.
The label from my water bottle lay in the middle of the hallway. Somehow we had been led into a loop. I lost it.
“FUUUCK!”
I kicked the wall repeatedly and screamed. Mia just leaned her back against the wall.
This was our dynamic. If one of us lost it, the other became zen and thought of a solution. More often than not, I was the one to lose it.
I finally stopped freaking out
“There has to be a way out. A door,” Mia said.
“We would have seen it,” I replied.
“A hidden door,” she said.
She turned around and ran her hands along the cracks of the wood paneling.
“Most likely on the outer wall,” she said.
She beat her fist on the wall, listening for a change in the sound. I exhaled heavily, sweating and tired, and I started searching the wall as well.
We checked the whole first wall, nothing. We checked the second wall, nothing. The third, nothing.
The final wall... Nothing. I gave up and slumped on the floor. Mia immediately went over to the other side of the hall and started checking the inner wall.
“What are you doing? I thought you said it would be on the outer wall?” I asked.
Then we heard it.
Mia beat the wall and instead of the dead thud, we heard a resonate BOOM –
A door…
I shot up and started tapping the wall with Mia until we found where the door ended. It was the width of about 4 wooden panels. I lined myself up in the center, lowered my shoulder and pushed–
IT MOVED! It barely moved but it was enough to confirm this actually was a door! I re-centered and tried again, lowering my center of gravity, I pushed as hard as I could. The door pushed inward about 3 inches, then Mia joined in. We slowly moved the door, 5 inches, then 10, then 15, then 20.
Then Mia slipped inside.
I had a moment of panic as she disappeared into the darkness and those haunting words came back into my mind, “YOU WILL LOSE HER.”
I darted past the doorway, falling through the threshold and hitting the concrete floor.
I looked up and there was Mia, thank God. I promised myself I’d never let her out of my sight again.
“The exit...” Mia said.
She looked and sounded as if she were a thousand miles away. I got to my feet and followed her gaze. What I saw nearly brought me to tears.
We were back in the tunnel, but there was light. About a mile down was the mouth of the tunnel, and daylight pouring in. Beautiful daylight. I grabbed Mia tight and kissed her.
“Thank God...” she cried.
We started moving. Nothing was going to slow us down this time. We sped up into a RUN down the maintenance walkway towards that beautiful sunlight.
As we approached, something else came into view. Parked in the middle of the roadway was a large vehicle…
It couldn’t be…
It was!
Our RV sat in the road waiting for us. We ran all the way to it, pulled open the passenger side door and climbed in. There were no mannequins to be seen.
I fell into the driver’s seat and Mia handed me the keys. I turned over the engine, the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. I shifted into gear and floored it towards the sunlight.
As we got closer, I could see the green of trees and the blue of the sky. We were maybe one hundred yards away.
I turned to Mia, tears in my eyes…
And what I saw turned my blood to ice.
Just beyond Mia’s window, that horrifying pale face grinned at me.
The Pale Faced Woman was somehow floating outside of the RV.
Before I could say anything, her hand smashed through the window and gripped Mia by the throat, then in one horrible motion the thing PULLED MIA SCREAMING THROUGH THE WINDOW AND…
Disappeared…
I SLAMMED on the breaks just as the RV passed through the exit of the tunnel and sunlight flooded the cab of the RV. I threw it in park and shot out of the door screaming.
“Mia!? Mia??!!”
I screamed over and over. I rounded the front of the RV and looked back at the tunnel –
-- and what I saw shattered my mind…
The tunnel was gone.
There was only open road.
I had lost her.

I know a lot of people are against it. But what are your thoughts/opinions of euthanasia/assisted suicide for people diagnosed with mental illness?
Here’s my take: I have schizophrenia. I do take medication, but my life is meaningless. I’m not the same person I was before. Everything is a struggle for me and I don’t enjoy anything. I feel so alienated from my family, they speak about me as if I’m already dead.
And in my experience (I know others have and do have better experiences) with mental health professionals. But Schizophrenia is looked down upon. If someone, even a doctor finds out you have it they abandon you. And with mental health professionals, if you have a disorder that can't eventually be treated with their expensive ketamine treatments, they don't want to treat you. My psychiatrist was a very positive person when he first diagnosed me with anxiety and depression. Then once it changed to schizophrenia he acts like I'm a waste of time and a bother to him.
My therapist a while ago even went to a convention and all the new drugs and treatments are for anxiety, depression and bipolar… nothing on schizophrenia.
I know some people do get better and that is great! But for those of us whom are doomed to suffer for however long we have left on this Earth, we should have an option. And I don’t understand why we don’t get that option. If we are considered loss causes (which is how I feel) mental health professionals don’t even want to work with us, and we are the ones costing the most money and are the majority of the homeless, why not let us end our pain and suffering?!
I wish Schizophrenia was treated like how anxiety and depression and bipolar are treated. Doctors actually care if you have one of those, with Schizophrenia its another story.
Anyway, this is just my experience and opinion.
Please don’t attack me

MAIN CLAIM: The entire concept of racism is irrelevant, and discussing it from whichever standpoint will lead to nothing.
REASONS:

1. Beliefs ≠ Actions — An individual has the right to make any sort of conclusions towards anything, since we're all equal, no one can claim moral superiority or enlightenment. With that said, actions that can result from racist beliefs are NOT unethical BECAUSE of racism but INDEPENDENTLY from it. EX: Murder (It's not racism that makes murder unethical), insults (it's not racism that makes offensive speech unethical), discrimination (It's not racism that makes treating another as inferior that makes that act itself unethical).
   
2. The notion of racism necessarily implies the existence of race — When anti-racist people speak out against racism, they do so refuting the core notion that "there are no superior races", this will lead to no results since it leads to it being a matter of difference of information and experience (Racists have, in their heads, good and tangible reasons to be racists that can be pointed out). HOWEVER, the rebuttal of this core notion has a VALIDATING effect for racists because it makes their main assumption that race exists LEGITIMATE. Since it's not that assumption that is being tackled the racist will comfortably believe that if the anti-racist had been through similar experiences they'd understand why a certain race is inferior. Meanwhile, if the concept of race was refuted as a whole, there'd be no space for those conclusions. One thing to be considered is that the existence of the race DOES necessarily imply superior and inferior (EX: if there are races, then there are groups that are genetically different, which means that they will necessarily have different IQs, one higher, one lower), at most it can be argued that this superiority and inferiority is context-dependant, but this does not matter for the racist who WILL use the info in those exact contexts.
   
3. Anti-racism oftentimes further propagates racism — A quick example is enough. When new movies, or other forms of media, come out featuring black individuals in prominent roles, many ardent anti-racists start dissecting the traits and plot points attributed to these black characters, to make sure there is no racism. This has a dehumanizing effect since it necessarily implies that are certain actions/behaviors/plot points that can ONLY happen to blacks if a racist screenwriter decides so. With anti-racism, the focus is constantly on race, taking the individual out of the equation and judging him solely through a racial viewpoint. I was watching a video by Metatron where he reacts to a video by an historian analysing a scene from the movie 300, the historian states that it is ableist for a deformed character to be represented as deceitful and a traitor. This is not about race but is a similar enough theme. What happens here is that the experience of the deformed character is completely dismissed (they have reasons to be deceitful) and its free-will completely ignored because the focus is on its appearance and body by the very people who criticise it. It's also implying that deformed people cannot be traitors. Why wouldn't they? If we're all the same?
   
4. It has an ostracising effect — Very often people forget that racists have REASONS to be racist. If they have had a disproportionate amount of bad experiences with people of a certain race, it's NATURAL to adapt to this experience with misguided conclusions. The same way that, on a larger scale, women can develop a generalised fear of men due to sexual harassment. When morality is brought to the topic, it further separates and alienates racists by DISMISSING THEIR EXPERIENCE. This is wrong because it's demanding that people be more rational than they are capable of on their own and invalidating their fears and natural adaptations, and all of this because people either seek the moral highground, want to virtue signal, or are lazy in actually tackling racist issues. No conflict will EVER be solved by further alienating someone by attributing to them immoral qualities. No one is born immoral, everyone is malleable. But treating them as monsters most certainly ensures they'll remain monsters. It is extremely counter-productive to alienate racists, as if one could solve problems of discrimination by preaching to those that are already converted. Needless to say, any actions need to be punished or rewarded accordingly, regardless of the person behind them.
   
5. It doesn't tackle the core issues — It happens INSANELY often that people reject actual facts about reality in order to avoid racism and bigotry. Using as an example the 13/50 statistic. This statistic IS real. People immediately want to hide or quickly "disprove" it away because of its danger, but again, this is counter-productive and lazy. If a racist sees this statistical fact, and sees that anti-racists delusionally reject it, his view WILL BE LEGITIMISED. Applying a moral layer to a matter of INFORMATION is a terrible, terrible idea. No one is immoral for trying to understand a statistic, but if they are treated as such, they will be such.
   

MY PROPOSED ALTERNATIVES:

1. The experience of racists should be openly validated, tackled and EXPLAINED. Carefully demonstrating what the 13/50 means for racists has, potentially, very positive effects. Not only could such an explanation, if done effectively, be enough to stop it from being used for racists conclusions, it could have the complete opposite effect and make racists more aware of the experience of blacks from the perspective of economical and societal issues (of which human GREED is the main source). This should be done WITHOUT any morality involved. It takes work, strength, courage, knowledge and reasoning, so of course it is harder than merely preaching, but it is the only thing that can work. It requires open-minded, detached and precise counter-arguments for the exact things racists say, instead of generalised moralistic statements or attempts and censoring.
2. There should be a wider spread of GENUINE black role models and positive actions, as well as history. This has, in my opinion, never be started and has had a counter-productive effect since what media has done is take away stories from caucasians, for example, and trade those with blacks, as well as constantly trying to force formulaic and generic examples of black strength that have no effect because they aren't true (EX: Wakanda). Whites have little access to true and inspiring stories from other cultures. A movie like "the boy who harnessed the wind", for example, which tells a real and authentic story about an african family, has 10000x more power than the modern "ACCEPT THAT OTHER RACES ARE GOOD AND YOU'RE A DEMONIC WHITE" media.
3. Make an actual effort to finally NOT SEE COLOR, which used to be the main goal. Even if others do see color, if you try to tackle it from their perspective, you won't win. Offer a different perspective, an alternative worldview, and don't challenge theirs. No one is special.

My best friend B (52f)and I(43f) have been thru it all together. My husband left me with four kids under 8yrs old and no money, she got an apartment next to me and watched the kids so I could work nights. She had to go overseas to take care of her mother, her three boys lived with me for a year. Anytime either of us had a work/kid/life issue we got it done together. There have been a few men but mostly it's been two single moms against the world for almost 20 years. Our kids are all grown now and have turned out pretty great except for J.
J is sweet and funny, but does not have a lick of sense or responsibility and is a fentanyl addict. His first time being busted he got 6 months upstate juvie rehab, a week before his release he ran away to meet a girl. Stupid, but he's a teen he'll do better... but rinse and repeat until now, J is 25, been in 7 rehab programs only to leave and on is felony probation. 4 months ago his mum calls me, J is in trouble. He's been on the streets a little too long (dumbass was ripping off his fellow junkies) and needs essentially a place to lay low. I found a 6 month program for him that would take him as soon as we found him.
When we finally found him he was was gross. The lovely staff at the rehab had to delouse him and treat some gnarly infected cuts.
He lasted 3 months and then got caught sleeping with an aide. They were both kicked out. I found him another place, that while a bit pricey I could swing it. He wanted to stay home for a few days. His mum said he could. A few days turned into 2 weeks of how "this time it's different" I'm not angry at anyone, just feel like I can't do this anymore . Our collective kids think I should push harder, AITAH for feeling like why bother?

**Not intended as a rage bait*\*
If the reference point is this: A feminine woman from your mother's generation (80's, 90's). Sexy, nurturing, kind, and confident in her skin
Then there are three different mutations of that femininity that are notable to mention:
1) Aggressive, career-focused, boss-lady type of woman who is argumentative and is adamant on not compromising because that is seen as weak. Essentially she is in constant denunciation of traditional femininity. She tries hard to convince folks she's not masculine but acts like it all the time. She thinks men are insecure and are afraid of her when in reality many are just turned off. Even men more successful than her.
2) Trans groups that are trying to strip femininity down to a collection of different behaviors and functions that can be torn apart and sown together (birther, bleeder, uterus owner, etc.). The most extreme mutation.
3) Lastly you have the uber-feminine women who are constantly in the process of out-feminizing the competition by excessive displays of femininity. Make-up, plastic surgery, tight-fitting clothes and endless selfies promoting their looks (insta-models, E-girls, OF fans)
All of these women have something in common. They give off a palpable deep-seeded insecurity that is just manifesting itself in different ways. You don't notice it until you start putting each type of woman right next to a traditional 70's, 80's woman. They all deeply detest the way their mothers lived. Am I the only one who thinks this?
It's Okay to be traditionally feminine and be comfortable with it. In fact we NEED it. Those women are the only type of women who are typically selected to become mothers and raise the next generation of men AND women.
There is a real crisis of traditional femininity and that needs to be talked about more.

I've never believed myself to be someone that is hateful or vindictive. Years ago I was a teenager who loved different cultures and wanted to enthrall myself in different experiences. I wanted to learn new languages and travel the world. I wanted to interact with people from a variety of cultures. Unfortunately I am no longer that girl. After experiencing racism, microaggresions and the like, I feel like I've finally hit my breaking point. I fear that I am becoming like the very people that I despise. I go to a college that is predominantly Asian. The east asians on campus, many of which are teachers assistants, do not hide their dislike for black people. This dislike for black people manifests itself in a multitude of ways. They treat their white peers like gods, seek salace in other Asian spaces and then shut everyone else out. I'm not opposed to sticking to your group. What I am opposed to is treating a particular group like shit because you believe yourself to be superior. They will happily answer a white girls question when asked but begrudgingly answer yours. They will share their resources solely amongst themselves and refuse to share it with others. But will expect you to share your reaource with them so that they can get ahead. I take long breaks from social media but every once in a while I log on and I will see whites and asians saying some of the most disgusting things about black people. There are even people who get famous from solely degrading us. It can be the most innocent and cute video but the comments will be flooded with racist commentary for absolutely no reason. I used to ignore it. I get off the apps. But the more I see these things in real life, I feel as though my hatred has amplified. I hate everyone. I was never like this but I can't seem to help it. I no longer desire to learn other languages because I fear that in understanding what they are saying, I may act out of character. I love traveling but my love for it is dwindling because of the sheer amount of racism that black travelers face. I don't want to fuel the economy of racists. I hate that our own men degrade us in front of them and tap dance. I hate that black women can't simply exist without reproach. I hate that when traveling I have to check if ill be treated as a human while white people don't have to do it. I hate that I am made to feel like I have to code switch just to be treated like a fucking human being. I hate it all. I am tired. I dont want to say this. But it's my truth. I fucking hate them all.

I've liked my best friend for ages now but I could never tell her cuz I didn't wanna do anything to risk our friendship. She means so much to me and I couldn't lose her over a stupid crush. It's not like I hide it as well, everyone in our school knows and tells me I should ask her out. But we've had conversations about relationships and stuff and it's pretty clear that she will never like me.
My friend was one of the people who shipped us and kept asking both of us why we weren't dating. But out of nowhere he told my best friend he liked her even tho they've never talked irl and are basically strangers. Turns out she has a thing for him as well and they're planning on dating sometime soon.
What sucks is that he didn't tell me at all. That piece of shit had the audacity to tell me to ask her out and ship us and ask her out the next day. He was also acting like nothing happened at all and talking to me like normal. They didn't plan on telling me either, but my best friend went behind his back and told me and expected me to be happy for her.
We've been having exams and I'm under a lot of stress and there's a lot going on in my life all at once and she's been pushing me away. When I was noticeably upset after she told me she liked him she complained how I was too needy and felt like I was draining her emotionally. I had been willingly helping her through anxiety for almost a year at that point. I didn't ask for anything back and all I wanted was a best friend who genuinely cared about me. It was taking a toll on me emotionally as well but I cared about her too much to tell her.
We used to text all the time every day but now she's only online like every 3 hours and sometimes ignores my messages. We're a month away from leaving school and chances are I'll probably not see her cuz she lives far away, but I was hoping we'd still remain close and text just as much. But she straight up said that times change and shit happens and friendships change and that we shouldn't force it.
So I lost my best friend who's also my crush and blew any chances I had by not telling her. I really needed to vent and wanted someone to talk to cuz I have no one. I used to be able to tell my best friend everything but not anymore. Any advice?

Let me just start by asking everyone to be gentle, I don't like to post about my life because I already know it's a mixed bag. This is a bit long and there's no way to sum it up with a TLDR so don't read if you're not prepared for a couple paragraphs.
I've 27F been with my partner 24M for 2 years now, and I admit our relationship has always been a bit chaotic. I love him, so very much. But he's left me and come back a handful of times, said some really hateful things, gone days without speaking to me without saying why. Refuses to communicate, ever, unless its rude comments or hurtful words. I don't want to necessarily get into it all because that's not 100% what this post is about. Long story short, I put up with a lot, but believe me when I say that he has a million great qualities as well and when his mental health isn't acting up, he's a joy and a blessing. So I try and be patient and understanding.
Our phones have never been an issue, he uses mine to look stuff up and his has always been at my disposal if I ever wanted to use it, which generally I don't. But I grabbed it yesterday to look someone up on Facebook, and when I hit the search bar, naturally his recent searches pop up. Several, not one or two, but several girls are in his recent searches. I click on one, thinking maybe it's someone we know. No mutual friends, nothing. Just a pretty woman. Same to the next. I stop and turn to him and ask very calmly what he was doing looking at these girls' profiles.
IMMEDIATELY he blows up. Very agitated and short with me. First he doesn't know what I'm talking about, then he says he just clicked on them from the "People You May Know," then he said they were girls he knew in high-school. Trying my best to ignore his borderline hostile attitude, I ask why he would be looking up girls he vaguely knew over 5 years ago that he wasn't friends with and instead of an answer, he asks why I'm even on his Facebook and he wasn't doing anything wrong and that I'm being an idiot.
Now, like I said, I put up with a lot with this man and his seemingly very bipolar and/or manic depressive moods, but lately it has been every single day. We have a 6 month old and I have a 7 year old from a previous relationship and he gets regularly agitated with both of them and more often than not I solo parent, even if he's there. I let him sleep all day sometimes. When I gave birth to our son, I had surgery in the hospital and simultaneously had a kidney infection and the flu and he still didn't help at all, would sleep for 12 hours a day, and get frustrated the moment I handed him the baby and the baby would cry. He's frequently short with my oldest son, very snappy overall.
I try my best not to say anything about him not helping with the kids very much or about sleeping all day or even his regular and frequent personality changes, though I admit when he's rude to either one of my kids I am snappy with him and tell him he can't behave that way to them or he needs to go away. Which generally he will choose to go away. And he will never communicate about any of this, I could talk until I was blue in the face and he still wouldn't respond, which is where the silent treatments come in.
Despite all of this I stay, because like I said, he can be a very wonderful, fun, loving and caring person and dad. But lately that side of him has been less and less frequent. He's distant unless he's excited about something that happened at his new job, or the book he's writing, or something that makes him happy. Otherwise, he's angry, snappy, or silent. And now the stupid facebook stalking women has come into play. And yes I do know it's not necessarily cheating, but it's very borderline, as if he's thinking about it. I don't know.
This post has turned into a ramble but I'm struggling to come to terms with ending the relationship and the life we've tried so hard to build. We're married now, we bought a house last summer, obviously we have a baby. The good parts are so amazingly good, which is why the bad parts always blindside me and leave me grasping at straws.

Hey y'all...so this has to be one of the craziest things that's ever happened to me and I really wanted to share it. Buckle up cause it's a long one...sorry in advance lol.
It started in 2019 I (26f but back then 21) met this dude (23m at the time) on kik from the Netherlands, let's call him...butthole. So, me and butthole hit it off, we're vibing, we're flirting, all that shebang.
We decide to date online long distance (cause I still lived in America at the time) so we text every day and we call a lot and it's just sooo nice. He was really sweet and nice to me. Well, August of that year I went on a trip to Ireland and got SA'd while there we'd been dating for 3 months at this point.
Once I got back home I finally worked up the nerve to tell him cause I legit had PTSD from that shit and when I did, he got mad at me. He accused me of cheating...I was like wtf?? So we broke up and went no contact and that was that.
Until
2020 it's lockdown....my diddly dumbass was lonely and bored and decided to text him! Like girl wtf was I thinkin? So I text him and he ends up apologizing for accusing me of cheating. He realized he was wrong and just like that, we went back to vibing and flirting. We're also making low key plans for me to visit him once lockdown is lifted too. After a few days of this I'm thinkin we're gonna get back together. But he says to me "I have something to tell you and you're gonna get mad at me".
And I'm like....ok? I didn't even know what to think like no clue what it could be (cause I'm dumb lol) And he goes "so I'm actually living with a girl who is (and I quote) officially my girlfriend". Oh man I was pissed and really hurt...like that fucking hypocrite!! So he goes on to explain they'd been dating for 2 Y E A R S!!
Anyway, so I'm dumb and was so in love and had no self esteem and thought he was the best I could get so I ask if he wants to leave her. He was like yea but we have a house together and I recently lost my job because of the pandemic so it'd screw us both over if I left now. I should've run right then and there but nooooo.
So I was like "you want to leave her and be with me right? Like, you will right?" And he said yes, I want to be with you, I'll leave if I can, blah blah blah." After a couple weeks of us acting coupley, sexting, sending pics, flirting and shit I woke up one day and realized, he's never gonna leave her for me. Ever. So....I decided I have to find this girl and tell her cause this is bullshit.
Problem is...I know nothing about her and apparently barely anything about him. He wouldn't tell me her name or anything. And he told me back in 2019 that he doesn't have social media (I should've known that was a lie cause who doesn't at least have facebook?) So I have nothing except his first and last name (later I find out he lied about how his last name is spelled and he gave me his nickname instead of his actual first name!...bro is a pathological liar I s2g!)
I tried looking for him on social media (obviously I didn't find him) I would try to ask about her name, but like in a really chill way, obviously he wouldn't tell me. I got desperate and googled Netherlands chat sites, and got on one and legit asked each person if they knew butthole mcbuttface from Rotterdam...I knew it was a long shot but I had to try.
That ended in a flop (well not entirely but I'll get back to that later) So then I get real crafty. I decide that I'm gonna play an adult fun game with him. I ask a question, he answers it truthfully and he gets a "reward". So I made sure to write out all the questions, starting with super innocent ones and I put the really revealing ones later cause I figured he'd be thinking with his other head at that point so he'd answer anything I asked.
We didn't do this over video call, we texted and I sent videos doing the thing (that way I could write down his answers) I did a lot of shit I'm not proud of. But I got the answers I needed. So I went all FBI and I got the specific area he lived from him and I ended up finding roughly where his house is, I was hoping I could find her name somewhere with that but it was a bust.
I tried to use the other answers to find stuff but I got nothing. I then decide to confront him over one of the answers (his brother's name) cause I legit thought he lied, it didn't sound like a name a Dutch person would have. He told me it was the truth. It's a really weird name for someone in the Netherlands so I looked him up on Facebook and I FOUND THAT BITCH!
That's how I realized he gave me the wrong spelling of his last name. So through his brother I found butthole's page and through butthole's page I found her!!! It took me weeks to find her! I was so shooketh! I couldn't believe I actually did it! So I go and look through her profile for a bit and I see that a few days before we played that game he FUCKIN PROPOSED TO HER!!!
I literally screamed when I saw that...I was so pissed and upset that he did that to her..... So I take a shit ton of screenshots and send her a message basically telling her everything. And she responded like "omg thank you for telling me". Like she wasn't upset at me or anything and that made me so sad. We chit chatted a bit and she was telling me all this shit about how she heard he was only with her for her money and blah blah blah...and she asked me for a few more specific screenshots which I gladly sent.
Then she said that she was at work and would confront him when she was home. I was in full support mode and was like I'm here for you and I'm so sorry this happened. And she was in support mode and she said she was sorry it happened to me too. So we exchange numbers and start texting. Later she texted me saying that she was off work and she was almost home and I wished her luck. At that point I texted him saying something like bye bitch good luck and blocked him lol.
So then I waited to hear from her...I check an hour later and saw that she blocked my number....I was so confused. I genuinely wish I could know what he said to her cause y'all...she ended up staying with him and getting married.I saw the pics on Facebook lol but yea....she could do so much better like...idk how this gremlin lookin ass bitch pulled 2 girls cause he's ugly inside and out. Idk if they're still together. I haven't looked in on them since I saw the wedding pics.
So yea, that's my story...but I said I would come back to the chat site not being a complete flop. I met a dude on there and we became friends and he introduced me to a guy who is now my boyfriend of almost 4 years and I ended up moving to the Netherlands to be with him lolol....I'm nowhere near where butthole lives so I'll never run into him but yea thanks for reading!

Just curious. I was talking with this one girl and her mom owns a painting company. My jaw dropped when I saw her house because it’s a literal mansion with a courtyard and everything. And the husband just worked with her but they were separated so he also has a $4 million dollar house that’s nice.
I’ve looked around at other businesses like Casco Contractors out here in California and it’s a woman ran business. Cheryl Osborne (the founder and CEO) had a multimillion dollar mansion overlooking the ocean. Her husband also works with her so it’s not like he’s the bread winner.
So that got me thinking, do these women work in the trade before starting the business? Or is there some shortcut I don’t know about. Never in my life have I seen a woman painter or laborer last long enough to start a business that’s as successful as those two so if they’re required to get field experience, I’d be very impressed. Otherwise, what’s the shortcut they’re able to take to get there?
And this isn’t to discredit women at all but it seems like more women owned construction companies are popping up yet I never see them in the field so I’m just confused at how they’re able to start these multimillion dollar businesses unless they did work in the field at some point and got extensive training on the backend with estimating, project management, engineering, etc.

my(f22) boyfriend(m22) and i have been together for over 3 years now. we love each other very much and are deeply committed to one another, we even live together. our relationship is practically perfect, with the exception of our sex life. my boyfriend has always had a relatively low sex drive compared to me, even at the start of our relationship when it was still new and exciting. on top of that, the sex isn’t exactly what i would consider satisfying. in the 3+ years we’ve been together, i’ve orgasmed twice during sex and that was only because we used my vibrator. he hardly ever goes down on me or fingers me, in fact, i’d say 9 times out of 10 there’s no foreplay at all. at first i overlooked these things for several reasons: 1) i was incredibly infatuated with him, there was a lot of history between us and i was excited to finally be with him, 2) i was very young and i didn’t (still don’t) have many sexual partners to compare him to. actually, no one i’ve ever been with sexually has been able to make me orgasm, so comparatively, this exciting experience i was having with someone i was VERY attracted to both physically and emotionally, felt much better than anything else i had experienced in the past. however, with time i’ve come to feel extremely dissatisfied with our sex life as i’m quite literally the only person responsible for my orgasms. i’ve tried talking to him about the issue several times, i’ve asked him if there was something wrong with me, i’ve asked him to read an instructional book called “she comes first” (its been 4-5 months since i bought and gave it to him, he hasn’t read it yet despite my bringing it up several times), i’ve even tried different styles of pubic hair to see what he likes best (landing strip so far lol). i feel like i’ve already done everything i can but he doesn’t wanna talk about these things and when we do he says he understands but then doesn’t do anything about it. actually, before it sounds all bad, i will say the frequency of our sex has drastically improved (from 1-2 times a month to 1-2 times a week). to complicate matters further, i’m bisexual, however i’ve never truly been with a woman and this sad sex life only makes me more curious and attracted to women. i’ve reached a point where i can’t even watch porn that has men in it. my boyfriend is aware of my sexuality but of course i’d never say this to him because i don’t want to hurt him. i truly feel exasperated and i don’t know what to do anymore. like i said before, he’s a wonderful partner and i truly love him. i want to be with him but i don’t know how much longer i can tolerate this mediocre sex. how can i make him realize how serious this is without hurting his feelings?
TLDR: my(f22) boyfriend(m22) is great in every way except that he won’t satisfy me in bed, and doesn’t seem to care to. how can i navigate this?

WWYD, Hello all, this is my first post in here so bear with me as it might be long and very detailed. My ex-husband and I have three kids together. I am currently in a relationship and have been for a few years. We live together and it’s a completely different relationship that I’ve ever had. There’s been a lot of me giving in as i did during my marriage. I was a severe people pleaser all my life, caving in to more than i ever should have to too many people. This year has been the first year that I really have stood up for myself when it has come to anyone in my life. It took me 5 years to leave my ex-husband. Our whole relationship was rocky. We, of course did have good times. My parents were split up when i was 3 and they both also had rocky relationships after. Along with that , my dad chose when to be present in my life. Due to all that, I was very committed even though even before our marriage, many people told me to break up with him. We had our first child, two years before we got married. Fast forward to Marriage, 3 kids total, and were currently in marriage counseling. I had already had one foot out the door. One of my breaking points during marriage counseling is him lying to our counselor. That was basically the end of the road for me. My kids were suffering and saw everything going on and it was just time for me to strengthen up. Divorce starts and that was hard enough. I’ll save the headache on that one. He took nothing, but his clothes and he signs a dissolution of divorce because he wanted nothing more to do with me. We figure out custody of the kids, I did not file for child support as i agreed not to due to the amount of money he was making. Due to me having epilepsy and not having my license, He would pick up and drop off the kids at my house. I really tried to have a nice coparenting relationship, caved over so many things and so much more. Fast forward so much has happened between then and now. Everywhere from my kids have been in therapy due to issues that have been caused by him, them being scared at the first place he lived, and so much more. My number one thing I have done is severely work on myself, so much so that after he split, I was able to get my license for the first time in my life at the ripe age of 34. Now, I’ve had my issues too, i am definitely not perfect. I met my boyfriend randomly the same time during my separation and divorce, waited 6 months for my kids to meet him. When my ex found out about him, sometime even before then, my ex would cause issues at pick up and drop off including to using his car to kick up dust on my boyfriends car, stalk my house when he would go out of the way to drive by it at midnight when he didn’t have the kids. Made racist and rude, sexual comments in front of the kids. I caved so much, so much more than I should have. I went to file child support, he gets the papers in the mail, begs me to stop it, so i do. Child custody, same thing. Wow, I didn’t know i would be typing this long, lol, but I have been meaning to post in here ever since I found this group and this seriously feels like a weight lifted off my shoulders since I’m finally posting. I update him on everything about the kids even though each teacher have communication apps and he gets them on Tuesday until 5. He doesn’t have our kids do their homework so they have to do it when they get home, I still do everything for them, of course he used to have to take them to all their appointments, I do give him that when it came to our oldest, he took so much pride in being her dad, but also turned her against me when she was 3, he also does take our youngest to speech. He isn’t in the best financial situation, hell none of us are these days, so I’m really trying to not file child support or child custody, but im at the point where having everything through the courts is going to make everything just ease some anxiety, I can’t be around him without shaking. We’ve been doing better at drop offs and pick ups, we meet half way now, he pays me once a week, a total of 600 a month. I struggle financially. I get less than 1200 on SSDI. Now, My kids absolutely love my boyfriend, he lives with us now. My oldest want to call him dad, but knows her siblings will tell their dad. When I ask him about Child support, He will tell me to have my boyfriend help me pay for things, which when it comes to house bills, he does help, when it comes to the kids though, I really try to make sure I can cover everything. Unless, it’s something at his house, I pay for everything even school items. But the clincher here is, he wants my boyfriend to do nothing with our kids and frankly, i am tired of hearing it. My boyfriend really wanted to try to patch things up with him ( he expressed it would be nice that we all could come together for the kids) since years have gone by, but my ex stated, “I don’t trust you with the kids, and I trust him less.” My boyfriend is really involved in the kids life, including school, but when it comes to school visits for things, he doesn’t go to avoid unnecessary drama. We went to my oldest’s band concert, it was a Tuesday so he had them, I had picked up my daughter to take her to band after she was picked up by him. She called me, he was yelling at her on the phone, cursing at her, after he cursed at her in front of her teacher just minutes before . This was after the 3rd time being over 20 minutes - 1 hour late to pick up our kids. One day he forgot about them. So band concert, My 2nd child wanted to come sit with my boyfriend and I my 3rd stayed with dad. My second has ADHD and OCD and her anxiety is very stressful for her. He told her, “if you go sit with your mom, you have to stay with her.” Well, while that might have been the best idea, although, she has done it all the time with each concert, she started breaking down crying and shaking in anxiety because her dad told her that and she missed her dad and wanted to go sit with him. He just kept staring over at us until our daughter played. When done, never asked why she was crying or if she was okay. Kind of just ignored her which again broke down in the car on the way home. She is extremely sensitive that even though there’s issues with dad, she tries to see past it because she does love him, as do all my kids. My oldest states that she doesn’t want to shorten the days because she’s scared of what he will do or take it out on them. There’s days she doesn’t want to go because how he acts sometimes. Things she expresses to me, she no longer wants me to address to her dad because he has yelled at me in front of the kids at pick up or drop off when addressed, he will completely lie through text or phone calls. She tells me that no matter what she will go to protect her siblings. Unfortunately, I feel the same way. I fear he will cause issues all over again. Thank you for the long read. I really do appreciate it. I apologize for the grammatical errors lol 😂
​
Also, the day he yelled at our child the day of her band concert, I asked if he apologized and she said nope. He did although say,
Ex: I apologize
DD: for what?
Ex: for being a bad ass dad. *face palm*

On may 25th of 2023, I stopped drinking completely. Cold turkey. Im not a good drunk. Im an angry drunk. Not an angry tipsy, if I get like DRUNK DRUNK, I get angry at the littlest things. Last time, in may of 2023, I lied about drinking and how drunk I was. This is what triggered me deciding to stop.
so I stopped 100%.
from may 25th, 2023 - March 2, 2024.
My wife and I have been married for about two years. She has her son through a previous marriage. I have my son through a previous marriage and then together we have our daughter.
during this time, my wife never stopped drinking. She can be an angry drunk, but it is not inherently in her nature.
She would order drinks when we went out to dinner, she would drink white claws at the house. For a while, she was not asking me to go to the store to buy her alcohol, but rather having it DoorDashed to the house. I genuinely thought this was a huge waste of money, so I offered a handful of times to go and do that for her. It didn’t bother me.
I stayed sober for roughly 9 months, that is, until my wife and I went on a date night. I planned it, booked a reservation, all that stuff. Real nice.
Anyway, we are at dinner and my wife asked me, “so, do you see yourself just going without alcohol for like your entire life? Like forever?”
And I said, “I don’t know I thought about it a little bit, but honestly not too much. I do have this image, though in my head, of me as like a 50-year-old man wearing my hair is all gray and my beard is gray and me and you are at some family event, maybe Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving or something. And all the kids are running around and doing their thing and I am just kind of looking out at all of the activity and really feeling proud of what we have built and the family we have built in the relationships. And in my hand is a glass of really really nice whiskey with a big ol ice cube, right in the middle. Like… That’s the idea that I have in my head for like… Satisfaction? I guess? Comfort? Security?”
So we talked a little bit more about that, but it ended up with her, offering me a glass of wine. And I said sure. It’s date night. It’s been like nine months. I have no intention, nor desire to seriously begin drinking again. Like I have absolutely zero desire to drink to get drunk.
Anyway, I had a glass of wine. Had one glass of wine. Enjoyed it. It was very nice. We had a great night. Went home. That’s it.
But then, like… Fast forward like a week or two or some thing… And one of the things I drink a lot is lemonade… So she comes home and she’s got two really tall Mike’s hard lemonade. And she’s like I got these for you to try. and I was like OK. And I drink them and we hung out and had a great night I didn’t get like wasted or even remotely close, and no issues. Cool.
So, then, like one night, I’m by myself, like I do every Sunday and and then, the urge just hit me to like have a claw. And I was like I mean, sure, why not? Like my whole mentality around drinking has changed over the course of this past 9 to 10 months , so I’m not worried about it in the least. I know my brain.
So I have a claw. I have two of them.
And then, the next day, she asked me, “hey, did you drink my claws?” and I was like, “yeah I had some.” and then she’s like, “I didn’t know we were like getting back into it like that.” And I was like what do you mean? And she was like well you were just by yourself, and you felt like you needed a claw. And I was like I didn’t feel like I NEEDED a claw, I just like felt like having one, and she was like that really scares me.
and i GET THAT.
But I’m also really fucking confused. And I feel like I’m being yanked around a little bit.
And then she just went on this spiel about how this is starting to really make her nervous in really scare her and shit.
and I just feel really annoyed. And confused.
Like I’ve made so much fucking progress in the thing is dude… I think alcohol had a massive role to play in me making bad choices, but I do believe it was the bad choices that led to the climax of me and my wife’s bullshit.
I thought my brain had changed and developed and I just think my view on alcohol and like a drinking socially has completely and 100% changed.
And I think my wife like SOMETIMES wants her old drinking buddy back or something… I don’t know. But it’s like she’s only cool with it when she gives it to me? Or when she wants me to have it?
so then like the whole month of May. I mean, it’s like… back to the old days of drinking in the house. Im not getting obliterated by any means, but like im coming home, cracking open a claw, etc. she’s cracking open claws, etc. and we’re drinking and having a blast and its all fine, staying up WAY later than we should have. We’re not getting in fights tho. Its all fine.
then, rewind to this past sunday. It was my morning to get up with the kids. I do. At about 12:30 PM, I crack open my first claw. That was my first mistake.
everything, is mostly fine throughout the day, no big deal. But then I go to start my start my hobby @ 5:00 PM, where i will be by myself until about 11:00 PM.
while im doing my hobby, im drinking, my wife and I are texting about a friend of ours and how they’ve been acting like not so cool lately. And its been bothering me.
by 11:00 PM im pretty drunk. Likkkeee pretttyyy fuckin drunk.
i call my friend up, we have a great conversation about the shit thats been on my mind. All good.
but then, I get off the phone, I go into our bedroom, i lay down on the bed and I begin telling my wife that I spoke to our friend and before I can even get through the story, wife can tell that im like 3 sheets to the wind. And starts yelling at me. Getting upset at how drunk I am. Understandable. I was not in a place to like… have that conversation. Like I was GONE. And then this fuckin angry version of me comes out. and we start arguing. I slam doors. I say NASTY shit. She locks me out of the bedroom. That pisses me off. I try to get in by just whiteknucling the door handle. Doesn’t work. I leave. I kick a laundry basket. I grab a blanket. I go up stairs to the couch and pass out.
the next morning, wife gets up with the kids, takes em to school, I try to talk to her in the morning. We get into another fight.
i spend all day upstairs. I work all day from the up stairs loft.
our daughter gets home. I make her dinner. We go about our regular shit.
i was scheduled to do my hobby again last night. I was not in the mood. I hung out with my wife in our bedroom all night just scrolling through my phone as she worked on her computer.
she realizes that im tired and gets upset saying, “its like if youre not doing your hobby, everything else bores you and you’re tired.”
i tell her, “I honestly didn’t think you wanted anything to do with me today.”
i stay up, scrolling through my phone.
she had conversation with me about certain things. About the gift we bought my son (her stepson) and where we were going to set it up and how to take care of it.
she talks to me about these two songs she’s heard that seem to have the exact same beat.
we talk about how we need to re-do our budget bc we just got new bank accounts.
we laugh a few times.
eventually, she climbs into bed, we watch an episode of last week with Jon Oliver, and she rolls over to go to sleep.
before she falls asleep, I tell her how sorry I am,. How ashamed and stupid I feel. I tell her im so sorry for overdoing it. I dont know what got into me. I dont know why I decided to drink so heavily. I tell her that isn’t the type of husband I want to be. I tell her it’s not the type of father I want to be. I scared her with how drunk and angry I was. And its like all the hard work I did over the past year, it’s completely went away and was tarnished bc of the decision I made in one night to drink so heavily. I tell her I dont know how she could ever forgive me and I understand that. I tell her if I were to lose her, it would be considered my greatest failure. I tell her a lot more before I say, “and thats about it really.”
she says, “I dont know if I can respond to that right now, but thank you for sharing.”
she falls asleep. I fall asleep. I toss and turn all night. Dreading this morning to come.
i wake up, I get the kids ready, get daughter breakfast, get myself ready, I take daughter in to say bye bye. She is as sweet as ever with daughter. As if nothing happened.
i leave, take daughter to daycare, I go to work.
we havent spoken. ———
I don’t know what to do.
I thought that I was different. And I thought that after spending so much time not drinking any alcohol, I had formed a sort of new relationship with it and now had control. I don’t know why I made that stupid fucking decision to crack open that white claw at 12:30 PM.
I’m now thinking that I’m going to lose my wife and kids. And I have never been so scared in my life.
The obvious answer is, “you have to stop. Not even a few drinks and getting tipsy and being able to handle it is even remotely worth risking losing my wife and kids.”
I could give a fuck about drinking alcohol ever again.
I don’t know how I let it weasel its way back into my life. But it is the definition of a slippery slope. It just keeps going. And I got too comfortable and too confident in my ability to maintain. Until I got obliterated and lost all sense of dignity and respect.
I don’t know what the fuck I could even begin to possibly say for her to give me another shot at this. Of course, I think if we both stopped drinking, that would be the most ideal reality, but I don’t think that she should have to pay for my bullshit.
If there’s anyone out there, who read this whole thing, I really do appreciate it.
i’m just looking for some sort of advice as to what to do next

I am bugged by the confrontation Harry has with Nic about Butters.
I don’t really see how Harry would de facto be reneging on Mabs deal by protecting Butters from Nic. After all, Nics assertion that Butters poses a risk to his Mission, lacks the better part of what’s necessary to that claim. Which is that his living actually interferes. And that Harry’s aiding actually constitutes that outcome.
At that point, Nic claims what will be the outcome. Harry asserts the opposite. Yet until such a time as Butter actually does break the Operation, it is mere assertion. If he killed Harry, he would be doing so for speculation. That would not constitute the act of Mab breaking her word. Yet. If he killed Harry then, it might be him contriving to interfere in her payment. With mere speculation that she may not fulfill the bargain, and by he himself guaranteeing it by killing her Knight, who otherwise was perfectly capable of fulfilling it if Nic did not kill him.
Now you might argue that Harry opposing Nics judgement and protection of his Mission by eliminating a risk is close to breaking her word. And yet it is not. Harry is not obligated to perform any action Nic desires. Neither is he obligated to let Nic do whatever he wants, and never oppose his assertion of necessity. It is only upon actual failure of the Operation that such a claim becomes salient. Harry can oppose him in any manner he pleases so long as the Operation can still succeed. Those were the terms Mab and he agreed on. To render aide until the task is complete. Not to perform any perceived necessity Nic conjures to assert about risk this or that.
Or that is my issue with this portion of the Plot. Does anyone else think this is incorrect? I just don’t see how the mechanism is good enough to justify what he says. I suppose though, that is perhaps why the scene plays out like it does. His claims are bluffs to potentially get Harry to do something unwise, and actually risk a Sword or irreparably harming the Operation. Which Karrin does eventually, if she actually had killed Nic.
It seems to me that the Denarians lie like this a lot. For example when Nic attacks Harry during the conversation that was supposed to allow Karrin to observe the proceedings in the aquarium. Or when Tessa gets Harry to attack her openly in the Aquarium merely by ordering them to find Kincaid. In that situation their is no reason to think Kincaid would be found in time. This may be a theme within the series regarding Denarians. They seem to concoct lies and deceptions in order to get others to accept them as true.

Several years ago, my BP cheated on me, physically with one person (a drunken one night stand) and an emotional affair with person (a "friend" I always had bad feelings about - texting inappropriate pics, sharing loving feelings with each other and talking badly about me). This was only a few months into us dating, but I didnt find out until 2 and a half years and moving in together. They were extremely remorseful, claimed they were planning on telling me, and ultimately did everything right as far as helping me heal and reconcile. I felt like it took about 2-3 months for me to decide I was ready to forgive and move on. But I did. I mean, I never really forgot it, and still would look at the both of the AP's social media accts and would compare myself to them constantly. But overall, I felt like we were in a good place after a few months and really did come out stronger. My trust in them was restored and we were good. We got engaged, got married, bought a new house. We were truly happy.
About 2 and a half months ago I had an emotional affair, texting and talking on the phone, with an old friend who lives in another state, that lasted a little under two weeks. This friend and I did share a history of hooking up, but this was years ago when we were teens/early 20's. They had reached out kind of out of nowhere, to tell me their marriage was on the rocks. I expressed sympathy and offered support. Then they went on to tell me they have always been in love with me, for 22 years. I was taken aback. In hindsight, I wish so badly I had just shown my spouse this text right away. But I stupidly thought I could just handle it on my own and avoid making them uncomfortable (again...huge regret). Anyway, I told them that I cared deeply for them, but that I was happily married and boundaries needed to be respected. They agreed. We continued to text, at first just innocent things about what we had been up to over the past few years since we last saw each other. Then they told me they had made a suicide attempt recently. This scared and upset me, so I went on to tell them how much I loved them. They then told me I "saved their life" by telling them this, because they had been in such a bad place. The texts just got out of control after that. I am not saying that to act like I had no control. I know I did. But I started to feel feelings for them (or I thought I did) and honestly, was eating up the ego boost they were giving me. Messed up, I know. I have serious insecurities and vulnerability when it comes to people from my past. Again, no excuse. Anyway, eventually it lead to us being really inappropriate, talking about our past sexual moments with each other, how much we wanted to see eachother, how great it would be, etc. I sent them a picture of me, no nudity, but definitely suggestive.
Shortly after that, the guilt consumed me, I blocked their number, and I confessed to my spouse. I admittedly trickle truthed at first, saying it was all the AP, but as the conversation went on, I admitted I also reciprocated, told them I loved them, talked about sex, and sent them a photo of me. Spouse was of course pissed and devastated.
The NEXT day, AP's spouse texted me. They said they knew all along. AP had been deleting our texts, but they still saw everything on their phone records. Shockingly, they werent flipping out on me. They actually said that their marriage was terrible for years, that this was mild compared to other things AP had done, and this was finally their "out". They actually even thanked me. But of course, also said this was real disgusting of both of us. They said that they could have reached out to my spouse several times but didn't. They said they had possession of Ap's phone (including the picture), and that everything they had would be destroyed after their divorce was final. They also told me that AP manipulated me (that they use threats of suicide all the time), and that even though I was wrong too, it was AP "who sunk their claws into me". They told me to show my spouse what they were saying so that maybe it would help. I did, and it did help a little bit. They also said they believe I am a good person. All of this was a relief to hear, even though I didnt feel deserving of such grace. They said that I could give my spouse their number if they ever needed to vent, but that they wouldnt pull up the facts they had because that is not helpful or healthy. Spouse didnt want to do that. All of my texts with them had already been deleted on my phone, which I had done in state of panic before confessing. So my spouse hasnt actually seen anything that was said and has only my words to go off of.
After about three days of talking and crying, and me telling BP how remorseful I was and that I would do anything to save us, BP said they wanted to work through this and stay with me. I was relieved of course, but still felt so awful, and honestly, still scared that they will leave. At one point, they even said they felt like they deserved this because of their cheating. And that what they did was worse because they actually physically slept with someone else. I told them that I didnt feel that way at all.
Flash forward, Dday was almost three months ago. We are in MC and our own IC weekly. I am still a wreck and consumed with guilt, shame, and fear for our future. BP, at least on the outisde, is seemingly doing fine. They said they already forgiven me (they are still "mad" but they are ready to move on). They believe me when I say I would never do this again. I know for a fact I would never. They dont talk about the infidelity, only if I bring it up (saying how sorry I am and asking if they are okay). Recently they said that they are tired of worrying about how i am doing (fair!). They are tired of the heavy conversations. They just want us to be "normal" again. I want that too, but... is this rugsweeping? Is their past cheating possibly the reason they seem so quick to forgive?
In everythig I am reading about affairs, it says reconcillation can take 3-5 years. Is it realistic that some people really do move on after just 3 months? I just dont want them to surpess their feelings. I want to be their for them and work through this together. But they are tired of talking about it. Again, this is totally fair. I just worry it isnt healthy. Then again, l felt ready to move on after just a few months.
I would really love to hear from successful reconcillors who maybe were the exception to the 3-5 year rule. Everyone is different, and of course as strangers, you dont know my spouse personally so you cant say for sure, but given what I have told you about our story, what are your thoughts?
I am looking for those who have direct experiences with this. Please refrain from negativity such as "No one gets over it that soon, things will be never be the same, etc" I promise I am aware of the harsh reality that not all marriages survive infidelity and that the road to recovery is long and really hard. I am willing to do the work, I am working on changing, and I will do anything to reconcille this and rebuild BP's trust in me (I know that also means forgiving myself, which is proving very difficult, but I am trying!) Thanks in advance!!

Vex was placed in a holding cell aboard the human vessel, with energy shielding that was impossible to penetrate. He spent the journey in contemplation, marveling at everything he had witnessed of humanity's capabilities. How had they achieved so much in so little time? There had to be more to their story that met the eye.
As the ship entered Earth orbit, Vex caught glimpses of the planet on the screen. Great sprawling cities sparkled underneath, far larger than any in the Krell empire. Powerful orbital installations dotted the skies, dwarfing even the Empire's largest shipyards. It was then that Vex began to understand, that his people were completely unprepared for the scale of humanity's advancement.
The ship docked at a massive orbital station, teeming with activity. Vex was escorted from his cell by armed guards, their weaponry far superior to even Krell special forces. They said nothing as they led him through gleaming corridors, giving Vex time to study the architecture and design. Everything was optimized for efficiency in a way that spoke of deeply ingrained engineering principles.
Vex was brought before Commander Holden, who wasted no time getting straight to business. "Admiral, I understand you came here on a diplomatic mission. But covertly entering our space shows your people don't view us as friends. Why have you really come?"
Vex knew honesty was his only option. "Commander, I will not deny that my council sees humanity as a threat. When I reported on what I witnessed, they ordered me to return covertly and assess your technology, to understand how you achieved so much in so short a time. But I have realized, that approach will only breed more suspicion between our people."
Holden considered this response carefully. "Your people fear what they don't understand. But attacking or stealing technology will not earn your Empire's safety. We seek peaceful relations with all space-faring civilizations. If your leaders are open to dialog, there may be a way forward that benefits all."
Vex nodded slowly. "I believe the same, Commander. My mission has given me a new perspective. With your permission, I would like to open direct channel with the Empire and relay to them what I have witnessed, and that dialogue is the wisest path."
Holden thought for a moment. "An open dialogue could be a positive step. But there must be transparency on both sides going forward. I am willing to bring your request to our leaders, Admiral. In the meantime, you will remain our guest. You and your crew will be treated well and want for nothing."
Over the next few days, Vex was given accommodations befitting his status. He spent hours each day observing and talking with humans, and came to respect their ingenuity, compassion, and drive. Humanity's rapid advancement was due not to any secret, but to maximizing individual potential through advanced education and societal support structures. It became clear how open exchange could uplift his own people in turn.
Vex was updated that his request had been approved, and arrangements were being made for a secured FTL QEC channel to address the Empire Council directly. The day finally came, and Vex stood before the transmission portal, steeling himself for what was to come.
Would the Council even believe the truth, or had fear gripped them too strongly? There was only one way to find out.
Vex appeared before the Council Chambers, met by a sea of wary faces. Grand Admiral Kaar spoke first. "Admiral Vex, we awaited your report. Have you discovered the source of humanity's strength so we can counter this emerging threat?"
Vex took a deep breath. "Honorable Council, my ship was discovered, and captured by human fleet as fast as we entered their space. Both me and crew have been treated well by out hosts, and I’m here to ask you for you permission, to open diplomatic talks with human leaders, to solve this political crisis we have caused
An uproar followed as Councilors debated this shocking revelation. Kaar held up his hand for silence. "Vex, you ask us to abandon everything we know for the word of this...alien species. Why should we not see them still as a threat?"
Commander Holden stared harshly at the gathered Krell Council members, through the quantum communicator. "Admiral Vex and members of Krell council, when your vessel illegally entered sovereign human space, we could have responded with full force. The only reason your ship, and crew are still intact is because I chose to show restraint."
Vex shifted uncomfortably under Holden's stern gaze. "Commander, I understand the violation of your borders caused concern. Our intentions were to gather information, not instigate conflict. Please understand our species is still coming to terms with humanity's overwhelming advantages."
"Empty words," Holden interrupted. "For all your talk of diplomacy, your Admiralty ordered covert reconnaissance with unknown objectives. How am I to take your word when your very first contact was done in shadows and deception?"
Grand Admiral Kaar leaned forward. "Do not lecture us human. Our mission was to ensure the security of the Krell Empire in the face of an emerging superior force. If your technology had fallen into the wrong hands the consequences could have been disastrous."
"And who decides what constitutes the 'wrong hands' if not us?" Holden shot back. "This is not some lawless frontier Admiral, it is organized United Earth space. We will not tolerate foreign powers skulking around our borders and facilities unannounced."
Vex raised a pacifying hand. "Commander, while the Council's decision was rash, no harm was done. Let us move forward in a spirit of open-"
"Be silent Admiral," Holden cut him off. "I have not granted you permission to speak. You Krell act as if you are entitled to do as you please in our space, facing no repercussions. Well you have severely miscalculated."
Kaar leaned forward menacingly. "Are you threatening us human? Your fleets would burn before ever reaching the Empire home world. Do not believe you hold power over us."
A steely glint entered Holden's eyes. "Is that so Admiral? Then perhaps a demonstration is in order." He turned to an aide. "Launch the prototype."
The aide nodded and spoke quietly into her comm unit. Outside the viewing ports, the black void suddenly erupted in blinding light. A ripple seemed to pass through normal space itself, distorting the stars beyond in its wake. When the glare faded, a massive object was visible, a 10 miles long cylinder,
composed entirely of some unknown silvery material. Kaar blinked in shocked disbelief. "What...what is that?" Holden allowed himself a thin smile. "The product of unconventional technological pathways, even your reconnaissance failed to uncover Admiral. Allow me to introduce, Starlight Drive prototype 1, humanity's solution to traveling between the stars without limit."
Vex fought to find words. "Commander...that technology violates all known laws of physics. FTL travel was theorized as impossible!"
"And yet here it rests before your eyes," Holden replied calmly. "Its drives can accelerate this vessel from a dead stop to five percent of lightspeed within an hour, before safely making the jump to FTL velocities. But its true power lies elsewhere."
He gestured to the aide, who input a series of commands. There was another brilliant rippling in realspace, and when it faded the prototype was gone, having vanished without a trace. Simultaneously, an alert chimed on the crew's sensor boards - the prototype had reappeared halfway across the known galaxy, less than a lightyear from the Krell home world.
"One must always be prepared to face the unforeseen," Holden said ominously. His gaze swept across the stunned Council. "Bear that lesson well as you reconsider any plans regarding humanity or our borders. Your infiltration will have repercussions, but that discussion can wait. For now, our message is delivered, do not test us further, Council members.'"
With that, he cut the channel, leaving the Krell delegates in shocked silence. Vex stared at the empty transmission field, a cold feeling growing in his core. It seemed humanity's true military potential was even more staggering than they could have possibly imagined. What other paradigm-shifting technologies did they possess in reserve? More worrying still was the steely gleam, he had seen in Holden's eyes during the demonstration, these Terrans would show no mercy, if directly provoked. Cooperation was the only path to survival, if the Council could be persuaded to set aside their pride and see reason before it was too late.
The Council debated late into the cycles, but the discussion was far from civil. Factions remained stubbornly divided in their views of humanity.
Grand Admiral Kaar voiced the loudest opposition. "These Terrans speak of cooperation, yet covertly infiltrated our borders, in the middle of talks. How can we trust such a technologically advanced species, not to see them as a threat?"
Another council member struggled to be heard over the shouts of agreement. "Honorable Council, while the infiltration was a misstep, their intentions appeared peaceful. Would it not be prudent to learn more, before making enemies of a potential ally?"
"Empty words," Kaar countered. "You have been blinded by these aliens. We must approach them with caution, not naivety."
Weary hours passed without resolution. Then Kaar proposed a sinister compromise: "Send delegates not for learning, but to spy on humanity's strengths and vulnerabilities. Only then can we properly defend our people from their looming threat."
The Council unanimously approved the covert mission, to neutral space near human core systems, under the banner of diplomatic talks. Despite some council members objections, plans were made to infiltrate humanity under false pretenses of diplomacy. Weeks later, the delegation departed, concealing their true hostile purpose under a thin guise of open mindedness.
Opposition council members could only watch helplessly, praying the delegates did not provoke humanity's ire, through deception and betrayal. Much now depended on the Terrans showing restraint, if the deception was uncovered, for second time.
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i need to preface this by saying i don’t play video games in the first place - my experience is limited to sandbox or life sims, never anything with serious combat. so being thrown into a souls game, feels like being a fish out of water.
i have a vague understanding of general soulsborne mechanics after watching a playthrough of elden ring, and seeing similarities in dark souls; souls, bonfires, levelling stats, etc. but now that i’m actually playing, i feel so aggravatingly challenged. for reference, i’m completely trapped in the undead parish after bombing one attempt at the taurus demon, and that admittedly feels pathetic. when i go online to look for help (because as much as i do want to experience it organically, getting stuck in one spot isn’t much use) every post or forum just acts like you should know what’s going on already.
can anyone give me tips they wish they knew starting dark souls? or things that are helpful for a brand new player?