TLDR: Nannying is a very hard job. There would probably be a lot more nannies who work as hard as one needs to do this job well if the pay matched the value and difficulty of the work.
I’ve been pretty active in this sub lately because I’ve been feeling unhappy at my job and it helps to have a community. I wrote this a while ago and have been nervous to post it but I think it’s important. I saw a post in nannyemployers asking where all of the “good” nannies have gone and this was the response I was writing until I realised the replies were to be from NP only.. I would post in the nanny employers sub if I weren’t terrified of the response. I know I’m singing to the choir here and I know saying it out loud doesn’t change much. But I am so, so angry, so imma just send it.
As a nanny who has two college degrees, practices Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and RIE, and as someone who has always loved and wanted to work with kids, there simply is not enough money in this career path to stick to it. I personally simply cannot rationalise doing the amount of physical and emotional work that is required for me to do this job as well as I want to for the typical pay, even though I absolutely love it.
For my background, experience, and approach, I am in a severely underpaid position (even when disregarding my qualifications it would still be severely underpaid.) Because of my personal and financial situation at the time of my job search, I did not have the luxury to wait for a unicorn family to offer me the salary I was looking for. I found a family that was a good fit and accepted the position even though I felt it was very much underpaid. I am now in a position where I am continuously battling wanting to work as hard as I can for these kids and this family, and realising I can’t break my back for them while being this underpaid (I mean I literally threw my back out during this job). I’m not someone who breaks a commitment easily but I guess I could move from family to family, waiting to find one who is able to financially match the value of this work, or I could stick it out and get $2/hr raises every year, but I can’t wait 10 years to finally get close to being paid what I know a proper nanny is worth. Yes there certainly are some nanny employers who properly respect this work and are able to financially meet it’s value, but in my experience they are few and far between. I have found that the overwhelming majority of nannies are severely underpaid and overworked.
Nannies are asked to have flexible schedules, work long hours, take on a laundry list of responsibilities, develop personal emotional relationships with children that aren’t theirs while keeping a professional distance, pay for and organise their own continued training, be emotionally and socially engaged with children all day long, and more. But above all, the most important aspect of nannying is managing our stress is such a way that allows us to stay in an executive state of functioning all day every single day. People deeply underestimate and undervalue the amount of hard and constant work it takes to keep oneself in an executive state of functioning day in and day out, especially in a high stress position where you are helping other people regulate their bodies all day on top of yours, AND are constantly sick and tired and being pushed and tested. I think that this ability is what makes the difference in a “good” nanny and is often the most overlooked, misunderstood, and undervalued aspect of the job responsibilities.
I want to be a good nanny, it’s my dream job to be the best nanny there is, and I used to think that I could accept being in an undervalued role because “it takes a village” and I wanted to do my part and this was my passion. But it doesn’t feel good to be undervalued financially and socially, in fact it feels really really bad, and this is why I will no longer be pursuing a career as a nanny. Even if I found my unicorn position, it wouldn’t change the fact that the overwhelming majority of my nanny peers are still underpaid and undervalued, and that doesn’t feel good. It makes me want to leave, and I think all of the other underpaid nannies should leave too. (We need a union or something, is this a thing?)
The market is oversaturated and undervalued. Not everyone needs a nanny now that quarantine is over (a full-time nanny, not babysitter or after school care). I have both worked at a preschool and as a nanny and I have found that a setting with multiple children of similar age is far better developmentally for a child than spending most of their time with a single adult and a sibling or two, even for young babies. I think a healthy mix of a daycare setting and family time at home is probably best but can be the most difficult to achieve with the current work culture. This is no one’s fault, the overworking culture is a burden of late stage capitalism that we all face. However, it is the burden of the parents to solve their work/life balance. This is a very big part of what one signs up for when becoming a parent. It is not the burden of the nanny to work more for less or the children to miss being with their parents (I’d say two doctor NP are pretty much the only ones who’d get a pass here).
It’s no one person’s fault that nannies are financially undervalued, the value of personal childcare and domestic work has a long saturated history fraught with misogyny and racism. Have you compared the average wage of a plumber (male dominated domestic work) to that of a nanny (female dominated domestic work)? And don’t tell me plumbing requires more training or is harder than nannying, I assure you they are of comparable difficulty especially considering there’s no step by step instructions on YouTube for nannying. (And if you do consider plumbing to be that much hard than nannying, what do you think gives you that perception? I mean as a parent, one should know that nannying absolutely is not just playing with kids all day, even if that’s all you ask your nanny to do. What subconscious bias could be giving you the perception that bringing up children is less difficult and of less value than screwing pipes together? Have you seen The Help? Don’t answer, just think.)
Plumbers make average $28/hr in the states, mechanics $26, for nannies it’s $20 (and that’s being generous). That’s a ¢70 on the dollar comparison. It is time we all realise that nannying is an underpaid and undervalued role and work to change that. If the wage being offered across the board better matched the value of the work, I think one would find a lot more serious nannies and a lot more current nannies taking the job more seriously.
I didn’t get it at first, why so many nannies at the park seemed so burnt out and disinterested in the kids. Oh boy do I get it now. I want nothing more than to do my best in this role, but in the past few months after nearly being stiffed by NP, not receiving a bonus from them when I really thought I would, and overall realising I am being taken advantage of and am a human mine to them, I have realised that I can no longer put my all into this job for my own health and sanity. Being properly compensated is the primary motivating aspect of all work especially in the society we are a part of. After loosing my sense of respect from NP, I’ve lost most of the non-financial motivation I started out with and am left with what little motivation my petite pay check gives me, and the kids can tell.
Since my fallout with NP, I have pulled back emotionally from the kids. I’m not mean and I am still doing every responsibility in my contract to the letter (and then some still), but I am no longer as emotionally available to them as I was. I am shorter and more curt with them, I don’t take as much time with them to sit and talk about every feeling they have, and I’m not working as hard to help them break the bad habits NP give them that NP specifically ask me to break (one example - NP want NK to walk everywhere with me but then always use the stroller with NP and every time we go out it’s a fight to use the stroller or not. Guess who’s been using the stroller far more often lately). Anyway, the past week my NK 3f has been quietly crying before her nap and I’m sure it’s because she’s felt me pull away from her. It’s breaking my heart and I’ve been trying to give her extra cuddles, but I have to protect myself first now. This is a job and these aren’t my kids and I can no longer rationalise putting them first emotionally especially considering I am burnt TF out, torn down, and left feeling used up and tossed aside without any recognition or proper thanks for NP.
I don’t know what the perfect number is, the number I would say many NP would probably think is too high, and maybe they’re not looking for a nanny who works as hard as I and others do. But I can tell you that $17/hr before taxes in a VHCOL area does not even come CLOSE. I think we can all easily recognise that the financial value of this job needs to better match the value of the work, in general and across the board. We’re talking about the people caring for and raising the future generations here, I mean how is this not the most coveted role in our society?
This is my Roman Empire and I will die on this hill every. single. time.

Hi I just came across a novel, chosen by the moon novel by izabella W. Its on pay by chapter websites, I've opened and read a few chapters but I can't seem to find any free version or chapter version anywhere. Please help. If anyone has read it I'm willing to take spoilers. Here's the advert I found below of it on Facebook.
Lycanthrope species is a disgusting race. And I, Delan Riley, am nothing more than a human scum in their eyes never expected those species would turn my world upside down. Since when the lycans managed to penetrate our town, like in the early 1900's we have a hierarchy, upper class = the lycans, middle class = mated humans, and lower class = the normal humans, who were basically considered scum. I endured their torment day after day, vowing to run away from them one day, until that day came and everything changed.
Dylan POV "Humans," I scowled at the principal's words from tannoy. "The Alpha twins will be celebrating their birthday tomorrow, as such, festivities are in order." Oh great, the Alphas twin children. Adrian and Arya are the worst lycans alive. I swear just because they are the alphas kids they literally get away with everything. If their birthday is tomorrow, then the wolves are going to be worse than ever. "All students will be present to greet them, two lines will be made, with humans on the left and the lycanthrope on the right. Any mated human will be at the front of the line for their year, you will all also be in order of your school year. That is all." Chat broke out the minute the tannoy was finished. "We haven't had a school gathering since the alpha king visited three years ago, before his sons coronation." Nick was right, the last time we all gathered like that was for the king and queens visit, when he decided to let the world know that he was to renounce his title to his only child, son Josh. "That sick bestard, he wants to make sure everyone is there so those idiot twins can find their mates." Yes I was mad, my fists connected with the table in front of me once more as I thought about how disgusting the situation was. You see the twins will be turning 17, so it's very possible someone in our school could be their mate, finding a mate is sacred to a wolf, the minute they say that one word your fate is sealed. They will turn your mind, morph you into being a lover of their kind, and then you'll give in.

That won't happen to me, I'm growing old to see the world as it once was, and I'm going to choose who I'll be with. No one will take that dream away from me.

Once dinner was finished, I just wanted to sleep. I'd had a very long tiring day, I quickly sat down on a small stool my mother kept in the storage closet and removed my shirt while my brother Freddy sat at the table to do his simple homework. It wasn't long before my mother came in with a large bowl of warm salt water and some cotton, this was going to sting I just knew it. She was here to help me with the wounds caused by wolves yesterday. She slowly began to unwrap the bandage from around my torso and slowed down drastically when it came to the final layer, I felt it peel off every wound and my fists clenched in pain. "Jesus!" I heard my mom exclaim once the dressing was completely removed. The air on my back was nice though and I sighed as my arm covered my once again exposed brests. "This is more than 15!" I began to hear sniffles coming from her and sighed turning round to look at her face, only to notice tears streaming down it. "Mom I'm fine, it's alright." She shook her head. "It's not alright, I'm your mother I shouldn't let these things happen. I'm so sorry. Your father would have..." here she goes again. Every single time something happened she'd always bring up dad, it really annoyed me because no matter how much we all wish he was here, he just isn't. My father was kiled by THEIR kind, almost 5 years ago when they actually managed to take over. When the lycans managed to penetrate our town my father rose up with some people from the neighborhood, to defend our livelihood, it was futile to say the least. We lost many people and I watched as my dad was ripped apart by two fully shifted wolves, I ended up shoting him to stop his suffering before they dragged me to the courtyard, i was the person to receive the first lashing of the town when I was 12! The wolves have been pretty strict with me since that day. "Stop being stvpid!" Was I harsh? Definitely! Did she need to hear it again, absolutely. "Dad is dead, we don't know what he'd do because he never knew this life. He never knew this world." I know what he'd have done, most likely attacked the guy who held the whip and got himself kiled in the process. "The best thing you can do for me, is stop crying and help me, next time don't insist on helping if you can't handle it." She began to wash my open wounds with the warm salt water causing loud winces to leave me, I knew it was necessary to prevent infection, but my god it hurt like a betch. "Some of these are really deep Dylan!" She sniffed again and my eyes rolled in my head. "I told you, I'm fine, just wrap me back up so I can get to bed." My mom was obviously more impacted by my injuries than I was, I suppose that always the case though. When it's happening to you, you've just got to get through it but when it's happening to someone you love, you just want to take their pain away. She quickly placed a fresh bandage around my waist and chest and wrapped it tightly for compression. The bowl of water that was used was now red in color, I guess from the blood my back was dripping with. "Can you keep your head down please? At least just this week. You can't take any more lashings." I simply nodded before standing up away from the stool, I walked over to Freddie and ruffled his hair in affection. "Good night squirt." He giggled and fixed his hair slightly. "Night Dilly." I smiled walking upstairs to my little bedroom, as soon as I was inside i shut the door and flopped down on to my bed on my stomach and I took a minute to cry to myself at the pain in my back, what my mom did was important but it hurt, not that I'd ever tell her. My hand covered my mouth quickly to muffle any noise I might be making. I couldn't tell anyone, I had to be strong because more and more people were crumpling these days, and my mom would break if she knew how much I was suffering. Sleep followed me shortly after, she was right though about me needing to keep my head down for the time being, I could not take another lashing! After a long night and an even longer morning, we were all finally stood in the hallway at school waiting for the twins to arrive. "Mine!" Everyone that was stood in the hallway tensed up, as we were seniors, me and Nick were stood towards the very back of the human line. All the mated people were situated directly opposite their wolf mates in their years. We stayed silent and still as Arya walked down the hall and stopped directly in front of Nick. His eyes widened in fear, unsure of wether to look up or keep his head lowered. "Look me in the eye, mate." He glanced at me slightly as if asking what he should do. "I said, look me in the eye." He slowly moved his eye line up to look at her face. I took a glance myself to see her eyes pitch black with lust. "I... can't... I mean... erm." Before he was able to mutter anything else, two wolves from opposite, grabbed him out of the line and dragged him behind Arya. "Hey!" My head shot up before I could stop myself. My mouth also forgot its place as I jumped out of line. Everyone's head shot to me as my eyes widened in realization at what I'd done. Adrian, the other twin, walked up to me before punching me right in the stomach, I doubled over instantly. Feeling the sting in my slightly healed back. "I know you... You were publicly flogged only two days ago." God I hate this guy. "I also have it on good authority, that you openly spoke out against our rules and regulations in yesterday's class." My head shot down the line slightly to see Erin, looking a little frightened, her mate, the beta to be was looking at her, nodding his head in reassurance. "You traitor, you grassed on your own kind?" I yelled at her before feeling a fist connect with my cheek. My head whipped to the side from the force, while my class members gasped. I'm so done with this treatment, right then, I wasn't in charge of my actions. My fists curled up and my stance became a lot more defensive. My head snapped up to the alpha to be, and I looked him in the eye. "You don't know the meaning of the word disrespect." I suddenly hurled my fist towards his head, which he easily dodged, but my foot came up and kicked him instead. He stumbled backwards from the force with wide eyes. "You... you Actually hit me!" He didn't even sound annoyed, more shocked. Everyone in the hallway was watching, waiting for the alpha to do something but instead he simply stood up straight, regaining his composure. "I think everyone should get back to class." He began to walk away, following his sister when I called him back. "What about Nick?!" "Simple, He's my sisters mate. He now belongs to her." Argh, he's not an object. "He's not her property." A chuckle left his mouth, before turning his back to me again. "All humans are property." A short while later everyone made it to science class, our teacher Mrs Mathews is mated to the lycans pack doctor, she also now has a four and two year old with him. She was one of the first humans to be cohered into a false relationship. "What were you thinking young lady?" I rolled my head at her before looking at the empty seat next to mine. Nick was with that stvpid wolf girl right now. Being changed, I'm so angry it's ridiculous. "I was thinking, this guy is being a prick. Did you hear him? 'All humans are property.' It's bull shet." I looked up and the whole class looked at me like I had three heads. Talking shet about wolves is one thing, but talking about an alpha is punishable by death, attacking an alpha is an even worse offense. There was then a knock at the door and in walked Erin and her band of mated bestards. "Sorry we're late Mrs." "Erin, how are things between you and bata Monroe?" She blushed, the traitor actually blushed at the mention of his name. "He spoke to me last night about trying for a baby. We need a good strong boy to take over as beta." I scoffed looking at her as she took her seat. "You guys are actually pathetic, why can't it be a girl? Those mutts are basically Neanderthals" I voiced my opinion and saw all the shocked faces around me. Calling the lycans mutts, is the same as them calling us scum. After lesson had ended the entire school was called into the hall for assembly. This is where any human who has been found to have broken the rules were punished, usually 10 lashings were goven out or something similar. "Welcome to the school assembly, congratulations to the alpha twins for finding both your mates. Now on to the business at hand, as the 5 year anniversary of the new world is coming up, we have been informed that the alpha king will be visiting our district next week, this is very exciting news. We want you all to look your absolute best, she wolves and mated females will wear exemplary dresses made by seamstress. Male wolves and mated men will wear tailored suits. Anyone who doesn't comply will be reprimanded." The Alpha King?! No one has met him yet, he took over the throne three years ago when he turned 18. He really didn't make any appearances though, great, this month is going to be a nightmare. "As for the humans, you will be given a new uniform to wear for the visit, these are to be neatly ironed and worn to the highest standard. As for the following humans, based on your attitude this past week, you will be coming to the front and facing punishment. Tony summerset?!" Tony's head shot up as he looked around, he was in the year below but he shared my views when it came to the lycans. He slowly walked up to the front of assembly, almost instantly his top was t0rn in two and he received 10 lashings. A girl named Kara was next and she too received 10 lashings. A few more people went up slowly accepting their fate then suddenly my name was called. "Dylan Riley." Inside I was terrified but I simply shrugged my shoulders, I guess I did kind of expect this. Although I'm not sure if my back can take any more damage. "You attacked an alpha, correct!" His eyes bored into mine as I bowed my head submitting to his authority. "Technically, no." Everyone in the school gym looked on in fear, as my head moved to the front row of the wolf side. Adrian sat, with a werewolf girl in the year below, her name was Jana, I guess he found his mate. Nick and Arya were no where to be seen though. Adrian gave me a shrug as if to say he didn't tell, before smirking at my comment. "He hasn't officially taken the alpha title yet, so he's just..." i looked at the principle and noticed his eyes black and his claws out, he was in what lycans call a half shift, triggered when the subject has become angered. He turned to two security wolves and gave them a nod, Almost immediately i was forced onto my knees, my arm was slammed on a table and held in place by one wolf, while my body was held in place by the other. "Ok, I don't think this is needed, I have alpha blood, a stvpid human girl can't hurt me." My head snapped to Adrian who had stood up in front of the school to stop what was happening. "Nevertheless, humans need to know their place." With that the pressure on my arm increased as our principals hand pulled my sleeve up before a long claw punctured my skin. The searing pain shoting from the fresh wound had my eyes scrunched and my fist clenched, I bit the inside of my cheek hard instantly tasting blood, however no sound left my mouth. He continued to write, using my skin as a canvas and his claws as a marker, it went on forever, my vision blurred slightly at one point as I turned my head away. After minutes of torture, he was done and the pressure on my arm eased, instantly I snatched my arm away, hissing through my teeth at the pain. I was about to scurry off stage, when I was roughly grabbed yet again, my arm being held in the air by the principal while my feet were inches off the floor, blood dripped from the wound and the pattern he had made was on show for everyone to see. Loads of people gasped, even the wolves looked slightly horrified at what had happened. "This is what happens when a human decides to speak out. I can promise, anyone who so much as says one word about our way of life, will have the same punishment." My arm was starting to seriously ache from being held in the air for so long, and the lack of blood flow to my suspended arm was causing me pins and needles, still I refused to make a sound. I held the tears back and I bit my cheek harder causing more blood to fill my mouth. "That's enough Bradley!" Adrian growled, he was still stood up and looking at the scene in front of him. His eyes hard as he stared at the principal a low warning growl erupted from his chest which had the head teacher gulping, he quickly let go of my arm causing me to crash to the floor. A small cry left my mouth as I hit the hard floor. Immediately I scrambled away, my foot just missed the high step leading to the stage and I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, but it never came. Two strong arms wrapped around me catching my weak body causing me to look up, my eyes widened as I noticed Adrian had caught my falling form. "This isn't part of the human punishment program!" Adrian growled causing me to tense in his grip, I pushed him away from me before fixing my uniform top. The room was deadly silent, taking in the scene in front of them, while I stole a glance at my forearm. Carved into my skin by his devastating claws were two words, words that would most definitely scar my body for life. 'Human scum' "Lessons must be learned, she received lashing merely two days ago, and clearly it had no effect on her." Another growl left Adrian's chest as he stepped on to the stage, I wasn't bothered though, you would think I'd be ashamed but I simply smiled slightly. I fixed my sleeve a little so it wouldn't rub on the fresh wound before speaking. "It doesn't matter," the whole room looked at me shocked by my attitude. "I would rather be labeled human scum, than have any resemblance to your kind. I'm proud of what I am, how many of you can say that?" After my amazing little speech, I walked right down the middle between the humans and lycans and out the door. No more compliance, I'm going to get away with as much as I can without getting into too much bother. There will come a day when the lycans power will fizzle out. When it does I'll be ready, I'll be waiting for the day we take our world back. As for the best part about my plan...

No one can stop me.

"Ouch, not so hard." I seethed as the school nurse cleaned my new wound with antiseptic. "If you had of just kept your mouth shut, this wouldn't have happened." I turned to my right looking out the window at the few clouds that were floating in the blue sky. "Like I said, I'm proud to be human, and now everyone knows what I am." I clenched my fist together as the nurse began wrapping a bandage around my forearm. It had been a good few hours since the incident in the hall, and I had been forced to come to the nurces office after I had tried to clean my wound by splashing it with water from the tap, it also refused to stop bleeding. "You are impossible. Can you please just try and stay out of trouble? For one day, that's all I ask." Our school nurse is a wolf, she's one of them. However she hates the way they treat us mere humans, she thinks we should all just live in peace with equal rights. Like that would ever happen. "All I've done is stay out of trouble, but you are just going to humiliate me anyway, so what's the actual point?" "The pack were discussing a public execution, Dylan. You need to walk on egg shells from now on, not just for you but for your family as well." No ones been publicly executed in over 4 months, I'm flattered they're considering it. They only execute people who they believe are the biggest problems to society. "Well then... I'm flattered." I chuckled, before looking at the patch job. 'Huh, not too shabby.' I quickly stood up from the human nursing station and pulled the sleeve of my shirt down covering the evidence of ever being hurt. "This is serious!" I just gave her a blank look before leaving the room. On the way out I heard her call back to me. "Please just think about it." I gave a clipped nod as I walked away wondering how I'm going to tell my mom about this. Later in the evening... "Dilly why you say that?" Freddie looked up at me with a mouth full of bread. "Don't speak with your mouthful!" My mom scolded him as a bashful blush made its way to his cheeks. "Sowwy mommy." His reply was muffled as he swallowed the last chunk of food. "I said it Freddie, because it's the truth. The wolf race are a pathetic excuse for..." my mom cut me off with an extremely stern look. "Dylan! They have ears everywhere, one more word out of you and it's your room." I scowled, my hatred for the Lycan kind growing stronger as each day passes. "What more can they do to me, lash me? Beat me? Brand me? They've ran out of options." I stated slamming my hands down, then severely regretting it as sharp pain shot though my wound. "What was that?" My head shot to regard my mothers worried expression. Her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were dull and judging as she looked at me. "Nothing, it was nothing." I quickly took my plate in my hand and began to walk to the kitchen. "I'm not really hungry, and I have homework to do!" My mom caught hold of my forearm causing me to drop my plate suddenly, I watched it slowly fall before shattering on the floor. I retracted my arm quickly and turned to Freddie. "Stay there and don't move until it's cleaned up ok sport?" He just nodded with wide eyes, I turned back to my mom and noticed her curious stare on my arm. Her grip shifted to the other side as she turned it around before pulling my sleeve up. The bandage was showing and a bit of blood was seeping though after the wound had been disturbed. "What the hel happened?" My moms eyes widened as she began to fumble with the bandage. Before she could unravel any of it I snatched my arm away. "I had an accident at school. No big." I began to gather the large pieces of the broken plate up ready to put them in the bin. "What did you do Dylan?" She looked at me with pure worry and only then did I realize what the wound must look like to someone who didn't know. "For gods sake! I didn't do it to myself! I got publicly punished at the assembly alright? It's no big deal." Her face dropped instantly and she stepped towards me, causing me to step backwards. "Mom, I'm ok. So back off will you." "What did you do? I've never known them to cut someone's arm as a punishment." Her shock and accusation was evident in her voice and I sighed heavily. "I spoke against the alphas son." I may have hit him too, but I wasn't going to divulge that part to her. "It's not one big cut, mom, it's a brand, 'human scum' carved onto my arm." "They've branded you now too?!" My eyes rolled at her hurt tone as I went to get the dustpan and brush. "You're so much like your father." A sigh left her mouth as she spoke, running a hand through her hair, while I quickly swept up the little pieces of the broken plate. "You've had a new uniform delivered. It's laid out on your bed. Dylan, Please just try and stay respectful in the future, I don't want my daughter to be completely mutilated. Although you're not far off." "Gee, Thanks." I then walked over to my little brother Freddy before blowing a kiss into his neck and hearing him giggle. "So sport, how's school going?" "It's ok." He shrugged before going back to coloring a dinosaur picture in. "Well that's good, stay out of trouble, ok little man?" Heading upstairs and into my room, my thoughts wandered to the permanent graffiti scar very slowly healing on my arm. Disgusting beasts. Think they own the world because they're faster, stronger and can shift. Pah. If you ask me they are not all that.

The second I walked into my room my mouth dropped open. On my bed was some grey pants laid out neatly, which wasn't the surprising part, no, what shocked me was the grey high neck no sleeved button down shirt, every single set of uniform had sleeves except this one. They've done this on purpose those, mutts. They want the world to see my arm and know what a disgusting creature I am. They want the world to know that I, Dylan Riley, am nothing more than 'human scum'.

During the last week, I've been horrible, in class I've been loud in voicing my views, I've insulted at least everyone to some degree, I didn't care about the consequences, and I certainly didn't think about them. I haven't seen Nick at all since he was claimed, and to make matters worse today was the royal visit. Oh yes, werewolves and mated humans alike were spending every waking minute preparing themselves to meet his royal majesty, king of the wolves. Unclaimed Humans however would rather stick pins in their eyes. "Dylan, get down now... you're going to be late." She was right, I was dawdling this morning, I really couldn't be bothered today, I gave myself one last look in the small mirror and sighed when my eyes met my newly uncovered brand. It had bad bruising around the letters, and was still extremely tender to touch, it was definitely healing now though. I made my way down the stairs and came face to face with my mother who was seeing to Freddie, she was helping my brother get his coat on when she turned to me. "You ready sport?" Freddie nodded his little head at me and smiled while I quickly slid my shoes on. "Just Remember, the alpha is bad enough, Dylan, please, please don't do anything to anger the king." My mother stopped us from walking out the door to tell me something she had been telling me continuously for the last couple of days, it was almost as if the entire human population of our district was expecting me to do something stvpid. "Try and have a good day." I rolled my eyes but nodded, even I know not to push the king, he could kil me in the hallway like it was nothing. In fact I plan on staying out of his way for the entirety of the day. "We will see you tonight mom." I stated before me and my brother began our walk to school, his little hand clutched my own tightly as we went. Usually Nick would be with us, as he lives next door, well he used to, now he's residing in the main pack house. I quickly dropped Freddie off at his school and watched him get the wolfsbane neutralizer before walking into him building giving me a small wave before he went in. With my new scar on complete show, and my figure being complimented by the skin tight shirt I was wearing, I sauntered down the street to school, I gave my name and year in and took the wolf's bane neutralizer injection with no problems at all. It was finally getting into school that the problem occurred. Walking through the halls I was met by many looks, some of pity some of disgust. You see every single non mated human in the school was wearing a long sleeved version of the uniform I was given. All the Wolves and mated couples were scattered around in fancy floor length dresses or tailored suits. As I turned the corner I noticed a couple, now this couple happened to catch my eye the most out of all of them because it consisted of Arya and Nick, eating each other's faces off. "What the hel!" Nicks head shot to me as his eyes widened. He too was dressed in a tailored suit, a navy blue tie hung on his neck to match Aryas dress. Why was this happening all the time? It's always my friends that get completely brain washed. I shook my head in disbelief before turning my back on him. I heard his fast footsteps behind me as I rounded the corner. "Dylan?!" He ran right in front of me, stopping me in my tracks, making me drop my bag off my shoulder and almost causing me to bump into him. "Let me just explain..." "Has she marked you?" I mean you could almost see it in his eyes, she had marked him, and knowing the way life goes he's probably even mated with her. "Actually... Don't even answer that." I aggressively picked my bag up off of the floor and stormed off down the hall. "Dylan, just listen to me, Erin was right, it's so hard to resist your soulmate, and Arya is actually ok once you get to know her." I just kept walking, he caught up to me walking beside me but it didn't matter, I completely ignored everything and everyone. 'I'm so not in the mood today' getting into class was good though, I said hello to Mr Foley and took my usual seat. Nick sighed then took his bag off ready to sit next to me, but I snapped before he had the chance. "Traitors and mated idiots sit on that side of the room." I didn't look him in the eye as I pointed to a seat right at the front of the classroom on the opposite side. His eyes widened as he turned his attention back to me. "You can't be serious Dylan." I gave him a blank look before grabbing my book out of my backpack, I placed it on the desk then began to write the date on the top line. "I've sat in this seat for as long as I can remember." I ignored him, his voice sounded sad and shocked. "Dylan? Wait! What is that?!" Before I could react Nick had grabbed hold of my branded arm and turned it to see the letters. "Oh my God! What happened?" I snatched my arm away from him and shrugged as I continued to write in my book before grabbing my water bottle out of my bag. "The principal happened, it was my punishment for speaking out against Adrian and Arya. I wear it with pride." He just held a complete look of disbelief. "You spoke out against them?" I shrugged, what did he think I'd do. "It's no secret that I despise this stvpid new world and the mutts that control it. You were my friend, I wasn't going to let them just take you without saying something, although that is exactly what you seem to have done. Enjoy the view from your new seat!" "Don't be like that, Dylan, I'm your best friend, I'm sorry about your arm, but..." my eyes rolled inside my head at my friends words. "Anything with the word 'but' in, isn't an apology, it's a rationalization." I took a drink of water from my bottle and kept my eyes facing forward, ignoring his every attempt to try and talk to me. "Dylan?.. Dylan?... Do you know what? Erin is right, if you push us all away you won't have any friends left." He huffed before walking over to the empty seat and sitting down, I could feel him glancing up at me every now and again but I didn't respond. "Good morning class, please settle down." He looked at me then at Nick and frowned, we've never sat apart, we were friends before the new world even began. I just shook my head telling him to forget it. "So... as you know the king will be arriving in a short while, but until then lessons will go on as normal." Its funny seeing teachers in the same uniform your wearing, mr Foley and his wife are the coolest. Human teachers and doctors only have slightly more respect than we do. Because of Mr Foley's status him and his wife have better access to food and drink, Mrs Foley is cool, sometimes she even makes sure mr Foley brings some in for me. Ya know, coz I'm their favorite student. It's not in a weird way, it's just they were friends of the family before the new wold took effect. Mr Foley and my dad were buddies from high school, so it goes without sayin really. "All the mated humans will be at the front of each years line again, after that you will all be placed in status, Nick, as your mated to Alpha Arya, you'll be at the front of your line. Dylan as you have been branded..." his voice trailed off as he looked at me. "Yeah yeah, I'll be at the back of the line behind everyone. I get it." I huffed, moving my sight towards the window once more. "I am sorry." I turned to face Mr Foley again, he looked genuinely upset and that look of pity wasn't something I wanted to see. I gave him a clipped nod then turned away again. "Anyway, on to the subject matter, 'Of Mice and Men, page 64, Nick why don't you start us off with the reading."

"Of course sir." Nick began reading the book but I switched off, today is going to be a long day. After almost an hour and a half of reading comprehension, the bell chimed signaling lunch. I shot up and out of the classroom before anyone could say anything. Today, I was avoiding drama like the plague.

I wandered the corridors straight to the lunch hall. All the people I would normally hang out with we're all mated so I grabbed my lunch quickly, and sat down at the end of the human table. Let me lay the lunch hall out for you. On one side of the room you have two long rows of tables, with simple benches that make it look like prison, on the other side of the room you have multiple round tables with fancy chairs. Yup you get it. The humans sit at the prison tables and the wolves and traitors sit on the fancy tables, they get fancy food, fancy drink and most importantly they get pudding. what I would give to have some pudding. "Dylan can we just talk?" Nick quickly took the spot next to me as he set his lunch tray down. I looked at his food which had been placed on a ceramic, circular white plate. God that looked good. I sighed knowing he was going to talk anyway. "Fine, you have two minutes." I used my fork to take a bit of pasta off his plate and shoved it into my mouth. God that was good. "After I left school, I was taken to the pack house with Arya, and I really got to know her. It took a few days for me to finally accept being with her, but ever since life has been ok, and the sax... well that's a whole other story." Eww, I didn't need that mental image in my head. "I'm glad your happy." I stated before deciding I had no appetite. His face held shock before he sighed in relief. "That means a lot Dylan, I mean you know that your opinion matters to me." I cut him off before he could say anything else. "I said I was glad your happy. I didn't say I approved of what you've done. You've basically turned into one of THEM, I can't ever forgive you for that." He looked hurt, but I couldn't care less about his feelings. He placed his hand gently on my arm and went to open his mouth when a growl sounded out. All heads whipped to where it came from, Arya was stood holding a glass of soda and a plate, she was looking right at me and Nick and I would totally be dead if looks could kil. Nick quickly retracted his hand, his whole face fell and you could see sorrow flood his irises. "You sit with me now, get away from that, that... scum!" Wow, Nick was such a lucky guy. NOT. "You heard her. Get away from me, go sit with your new friends. I'm happy for you, and I understand where your coming from, but don't come up to me again and pretend you didn't betray your own kind. Don't pretend you didn't betray me." I shoved a little bit of food into my mouth before standing up and walking out of the cafeteria, leaving my tray on the table. I was walking through the hallway to the classroom, you see I decided to spend lunch with Mr Foley in his room, when I happened to hear voices in the corridor. "Is it wise for her to actually be present when the king arrives? Surely she could be placed in the dungeons, it might actually teach her some respect?" My principal was speaking to the alpha of our district, huh, if I stayed and listened do you think they'd notice, maybe they could smell me?! "Everyone is to be present, if the Riley girl does one thing out of line she will be dealt with severely, child or not. That girl has been a blight to the district since day one, she's dangerous, if she puts one hair out of place I will personally break her into submission." Oh shet, they were talking about me specifically, and they mentioned the dungeon, that's not been used in months. Normally I would have listened in more but something about the entire situation didn't sit right with me, all of a sudden, I was on edge, and simply wasn't interested in the slightest in hearing how my misery was to be enhanced. I backed up slightly before turning around and bumping head first into one of the hottest man I had ever seen. I lost my balance immediately and fell straight on to the floor letting out a small grumble in the process. His eyebrows knitted together quickly and his breath hitched in his throat as he looked upon my fallen state and gasped. "Mate!" He whispered, his eyes fixated on mine. Now, I had seen and heard that many times to know what that means, I gasped before taking a step back. 'No, no, no, no, no. This can not be happening.' He growled slightly before stepping towards me. Oh Shet!

Hi there Reddit!
I'm looking for a long-term partner but I've been stood up, ghosted, rejected and blocked so many times that I'm just going to be very upfront here to save us both the time.
Picture (You can really zoom in on that!)
I am 23 years old, white, and I have short brown hair with bluish gray eyes. I'm 1.73m tall and I weigh about 60 kg. My hobbies include watching movies, shows, listening to music, and some occasional gaming. I have a big interest in iPods and physical media as well, such as CDs and blu-rays.
I'm currently finishing the third year of my bachelor in finance & control at Inholland Alkmaar. Besides that I have a part time job at Albert Heijn.
What I'm looking for in a relationship is just being there for each other, getting to know one another, spending lots of time together and hopefully experience some new things. I'd preferably want kids but I'm fine with not having them.
Drugs are not what I'm into, and I don't drink or smoke either. I also never go to parties (I hate them because of the noise and all of the people). I would prefer being with someone who doesn't do any of these things either.
There are many more things you could know about me, but you'd have to ask me those ;)
Here's the more upfront part of the post: the deal breakers. If you're the kind of person who:

• thinks there are more than two genders or that men can become women
• will randomly ghost me for days at a time and then come up with some bullshit "I have no energy" excuse while you were partying until 4 AM that night (I am talking from experience here)
• has a history of severe mental health issues or drug abuse
• is a vegan
• lies to me (even about little things)
• doesn't reciprocate any effort
• has a BMI over 25

then I am not the person for you.
If you're still interested, don't hesitate to send me a chat message! Just a 'hey' is fine by me! I always respond within minutes :)

Over a year ago, I was going through a particularly stressful time and went to my neurologist concerned that I was possibly having Medication Adaption Headaches (MAH aka Medication Overuse Headaches aka Rebound Headaches) or would develop them.
I was having a migraine or headache almost daily. I had been cycling through pain meds to avoid using too much of the same thing and too many triptans mistakenly thinking that this would keep me safe.
My neurologist didn't take any time to discuss why I thought I might be having MAH or what should be done if I was already having them. He did give me the prescription for Aimovig that I asked for, but also a recommendation and prescription for Panadol migraine (same as Excedrin migraine) which I had never taken before. The prescription wasn’t needed to get the Panadol migraine, but it was needed to have it reimbursed by my insurance. I thought because it is OTC in the US (which is where I'm from) that it would be better (again mistakenly) than taking so many triptans.
The aimovig was like putting a bandaid on a gash that needed stitches. I made it another year before I had an absolutely horrible flare-up about 60 days ago that led me to do my own research because my neurologist had failed me horribly and I decided it was most definitely MAH and I needed to detox.
The Detox
I quit taking all pain OTC pain meds and triptans for 60 days (as is recommended in most treatment guides). It took me roughly 9 days to have a noticeable drop in my migraines back to episodic. My migraines have lessened in severity and length over the last 60 days. Though the first week or so was the most challenging to get through, I also had hormonal migraines that were tough. The few other non-hormonal migraines I had later in the 60 days, I was able to clearly identify triggers for. This hadn’t been the case for me in the past. I've also now been able to abort a hormonal migraine with other methods listed here.
Other Options for Pain Relief
(for any meds or supplements always consult your doctor)
Ginger is a great natural painkiller. There is some BS study that says it is as effective as sumatriptan, it most definitely isn't and I'm not going to try to sell it as that, but I would say it is probably as effective as an NSAID. Unfortunately, I’m unable to get GCRP inhibitors where I am so I didn’t have other migraine abortive options, just this.
Benadryl (note: this is the brand name in US & CA, it’s different in Europe) helps me with migraine pain during an attack (sometimes even helps avoid an attack).
A TENS unit was very helpful with migraine pain, but also with cramps during my 60 day detox and I’ll definitely continue using it going forward.
Migraine Cap was especially helpful after the migraine to help with the residual soreness.
Migraine Relief Nasal Inhaler, hot showers, decongestant meds, and decongestant nasal spray* help me because nasal congestion is a major symptom for me. When the congestion is worse, the pain is worse. If I can relieve some congestion, I can also relieve some pain. So I use these as needed depending on the severity of the congestion.
*It is important to note that decongestant nasal sprays can cause rebound congestion if used frequently, follow dosage and warnings on the label.
Myofascial Release & dry needling - this isn’t so much for migraine pain, but it helps me manage back and neck pain that contributes to my migraines and helps me with pain management overall.
The Pain Relief Options That I Wish I Could Have Used or Tried
Balms and patches that you put on your forehead- personally my skin is too sensitive for it, I have tried in the past and it just makes my skin burn (but so does most sunscreen when applied to my face). I’m mentioning these because I think they are a great option for some people and as I was looking through this sub for more ideas of what I could use, they are something that I saw repeatedly that I wish my skin would allow me to use.
Celafy, Nerivio, and Relivion all looked like interesting devices, but sadly aren’t available where I am.
Heated eye massager also looked very appealing and should have been available, but the wrong item was delivered when I tried ordering it and I didn’t feel like trying my luck again. I will definitely get one when I go to the US.
GCRP-inhibitors - these aren’t available where I am so I didn’t have the option to use these as abortives while detoxing from pain meds. I definitely would like the option to be able to use these as abortives for migraines. One study did note they could cause MAH (this is listed below and linked) but there's no good research regarding this as they are so new. I just feel obligated to mention this.
About MAH
Please educate yourself. I have included links to sources. Consult your doctor if you think you might have MAH and advocate for treatment.
1 You have to add up your pain med use!!!
2 OTC Pain Meds+ Triptans + Rx Pain Meds* = 10 Days Maximum Per Month
*Opioids and butalbital may lead to MAH in about 5 days
3 Approximately 50% of patients with chronic migraine have MAH that may revert to episodic headache after drug withdrawal.
Chronic migraine is classified as 15 or more headache days w/ 8 migraine days a month.
Episodic Migraine is classified as 14 or fewer headache and migraine days a month.
4 The name for MAH changed a few times and the one I chose to use is focused on the mechanism that causes the condition rather than the name that sounds like it is blaming the patient (Medication Overuse Headaches). Here’s an article regarding the name dispute.
5 One article even listed GCRP inhibitors as possibly contributing to MAH. But as these medications are new, the research isn't there yet to say if they really do contribute. I just had found it surprising to see and felt obligated to note it.
6 Risk Factors

• Having a primary headache disorder such as migraines.
• Having other chronic pain or gastrointestinal issues.
• Being less physical activity (defined as less than 3 hours of hard physical activity per week)
• Smoking
• Mood disorders
• OCD
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Substance-related disorders
• Cutaneous allodynia 7 (Cutaneous allodynia (CA) is defined as pain resulting from application of a non-noxious stimulus to normal skin)

8 Withdrawal treatment does not only reduce the headache attacks, but also improves responsiveness to acute or prophylactic drugs. Withdrawal symptoms normally last between 2 to 10 days, and do not persist longer than 4 weeks.
Going Forward
I have a number of MAH risk factors including migraines, other chronic pain, anxiety, family history of substance-related disorders, being less physical activity (especially during the time that the stressful situation was happening), and cutaneous allodynia. Had I known about all of these risk factors and that alternating meds would not protect me from MAH, I would have done things very differently. I’ll have to be very careful to not develop MAH again, and actually am thinking of extending my detox because of my risk factors and some concerning statistics regarding allodynia in particular. For now I'm going to try to continue managing my pain with other methods while I can comfortably. Actually just last night I had a hormonal migraine that I managed to abort with a combination of things I listed here that just 2 months ago it would have been at least a level 4 with triptans.
When I do start using pain meds again, I’ll definitely be tracking meds more carefully and adhering to a strict 10 day max per month for OTCs plus triptans. I’ve made an annual tracker that you can print with the maximum days noted for reference.
To the Mods - I’ve noticed many posts with discussion related to MAH being removed. I’ve instructed others to consult their doctor thereby trying to adhere to the sub rules, please let me know if there is something else that might need to be adjusted in order to adhere to the rules.

Hi there Reddit!
I'm looking for a long-term partner but I've been stood up, ghosted, rejected and blocked so many times that I'm just going to be very upfront here to save us both the time.
Picture (You can really zoom in on that!)
I am 23 years old, white, and I have short brown hair with bluish gray eyes. I'm 1.73m tall and I weigh about 60 kg. My hobbies include watching movies, shows, listening to music, and some occasional gaming. I have a big interest in iPods and physical media as well, such as CDs and blu-rays.
I'm currently finishing the third year of my bachelor in finance & control at Inholland Alkmaar. Besides that I have a part time job at Albert Heijn.
What I'm looking for in a relationship is just being there for each other, getting to know one another, spending lots of time together and hopefully experience some new things. I'd preferably want kids but I'm fine with not having them.
Drugs are not what I'm into, and I don't drink or smoke either. I also never go to parties (I hate them because of the noise and all of the people). I would prefer being with someone who doesn't do any of these things either.
There are many more things you could know about me, but you'd have to ask me those ;)
Here's the more upfront part of the post: the deal breakers. If you're the kind of person who:

• thinks there are more than two genders or that men can become women
• will randomly ghost me for days at a time and then come up with some bullshit "I have no energy" excuse while you were partying until 4 AM that night (I am talking from experience here)
• has a history of severe mental health issues or drug abuse
• is a vegan
• lies to me (even about little things)
• doesn't reciprocate any effort
• has a BMI over 25

then I am not the person for you.
If you're still interested, don't hesitate to send me a chat message! Just a 'hey' is fine by me! I always respond within minutes :)

If you’ve been following me on here, you know I am a drop shipping veteran. I have been doing it for the past 11 years and I think I am qualified to say I know the ins and outs of the business model.
It still surprises me that Most people on YouTube (the so-called Dropshipping gurus) still promise you that you will become rich in two weeks without hardly putting in any effort. Let me give it to you straight: nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve made well over seven figures with drop shipping and I also failed a lot. So let me share with you the information that is missing from 99% of what you see on YouTube.

1. Do NOT copy what’s already working

that’s one of the phrases they tell you most often. Just copy what’s already working and you’re done. Usually the method shown is researching your competitors, look at their best selling products and sell the same stuff. But think about it. If we are all doing that, in the long run, we’re all competing, only based on price, driving our profit margin down. Customers aren’t stupid and know they have seen that product somewhere else for a cheaper price. So do not go out and sell products everyone else is selling. Instead, make sure to do proper niche research. Select a niche first (you can download a guide containing 300+ niches for free in the links section of PassionsToProfits). Then spend some solid time, researching it deeply. Join private Facebook groups around your niche, go through all the posts to get into peoples minds and how they think, how they talk about products, what they value in terms of features and benefits, etc. Do the same thing on Reddit. Then look at best selling products in your niche on Amazon and look at the NEGATIVE reviews. That will tell you what can be improved. Those are good ideas for when you go out and research products. Only when you have done your homework, go onto websites like AliExpress and try to find unique products that hardly anyone is selling already. Yes, that takes time and work. And lots of patience. I have found a few of my bestsellers hidden on page 53 in the search results. Sometimes it took me two weeks before finding a really good product I could attempt to sell.

1. Advertise your products properly

By that I mean do not rip off someone else’s product video or image and run with it. Order a sample or two, analyze the product, use it yourself and shoot your own product video. Again, that takes work, but it will pay off. Make sure to show the main product benefits in the first few seconds of your video, followed by the characteristics/features and additionalinformation (instructions, assembly instructions, etc.).

1. You should NOT use drop shipping from China forever

It’s great for testing the validity of a product, but you should not use this business model for a long time. The main reason has to do with supply chain issues. It takes forever for products to arrive, and you can get away with it if your product is truly unique and people cannot get it elsewhere. But even then, two weeks is a long time for any product to arrive. So once you find a winning product, make sure to look for bulk order options and import it into your country to a local fulfillment warehouse. That way you can get products quickly to your customers doors, and also avoid the typical downtime during Chinese new year.

1. Not any product is suitable for drop shipping

I won’t go into too much detail about this here, because I wrote a detailed post which you can check out here: https://www.reddit.com/PassionsToProfits/s/SAg2p9JCGe
I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here for now. Feel free to share your experiences in the comments or ask questions. I’ll do my best to answer them.
Note: Nowadays, I am more focused on print on demand, because it eliminates all the supply chain headaches. The majority of suppliers and fulfillment companies are based in the US and I hardly receive any customer emails asking where their stuff is. Plus, product quality is great and I have happy customers :)

English: for section 1 question a on paper 1 use pqe, point quote explain, nake one point use a quote to back it up and explain, leave extra space after each point incase you have extra time to spend on it
Question b of that same question make sure if you write the text of a speech the whole text is said speech and if you have to for example write the text of a speech from a famous person you never step out of character. Your opening line should be basically a rephrasing of the question eg:write an article for the local newspaper, you should say "I am writing for the x newspaper to tell you about...", even if its unrealistic they still look for this in regard to your purpose mark.
For the composing:make sure there are famous people you can talk about a lot, also just a few topics that youve got some bit of knowledge on e.g ai might be handy
personal essay: use anecdotes even if they're made up
Short story:I'm avoiding this personally but make sure you show don't tell and alsondont leave plot holes, from what I've heard people who do this already have things like settings, characters and storylines planned out before the exam
Opinion essay: chose for or against and be strongly for or against, if im not mistaken you can be neutral but it's a lot harder
For the single text your first quote shouldn't be from act 1 scene 1 or your texts equivalent,your answer shouldn't be a summary
For hamlet: have lots of quotes, back in as many points as possible with quotes, remember the word regicide and antic-disposition, if the question asks about Claudius' role as villain if must only be his direct wrong doings (laertes, elder hamlet) and not the ones he indirectly caused by making hamlet mad (ophelia, polonius etc).
Comparative:constantly compare your 3 texts,(this next tip only applies if parf of your comparative course is never let me go) MOST of the time if you are doing the question 1 which is split up into a and b where a is in relation to 1 text and b is 2, never let me go will be in part a as it is hard to compare to other texts, this obviously depends on the question but if in doubt do that
Unseen poetry:I'm absolutely useless at this but on my mock I completely misunderstood the poem and got 17/20, waffle with confidence, don't spend too long on it as 20 marks is sweet fa in your English paper and the difference between spending 20 mins and 25 mins is no more than 3 marks.
Poetry: have one poem you can talk for days about no matter what, they will more than likely come up. Have 3 more you understand to be able to answer a question, then your perfectly covered. If you want to be more confident you can learn 2 poems to perfect 50/50 but from here to Thursday time management is important
History: if your a slow writer like me learn a metric fuck tonne of good quotes they're the quickest way to pick up marks, here's a few if you want them
Oh little sputnik flying high/with made-in-moscow-beep/you show the world its a commie sky/and uncle Sam's asleep-mennen Williams,democratic governor of michigan
The United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external and internal forces-the turman doctrine
We are kings men and well be with you to the end -james Craig (not precisely a long one but so many essays it could be used in)
I want dr king to know that I didn't come to selma to make his job difficult, I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realise what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to here dr king-malcolm x
Geography: from here to friday dedicate 10 minutes to aerial photography, it's 8 marks waiting to be claimed. Nows probably too late for flashcards but if it isn't fucking use them for srps
Maths: nows not too late to print off a mock or past paper, see what needs the most work and make sure you fully understand them
Irish: if your like me and haven't done a scratch there's still more than a week, predictions are your best friend, learn one essay, one poetry notes, one story notes and one play notes and let God decide how well he wants you to do
French:be able to write about the Olympics as if your fluent, its probably going to come up. Know your tenses and your subjunctive. Learn off a few proverbs they add marks to any essay. "Je suis tout à fait d'accord avec le declaration Ci dessus","il est neccesaire de pesser le pour et le contre", "n'oublions pas le proverbe" and "a Mon avis" fit into most opinion pieces, know them(get correct spelling aswel mine was affected by autocorrect). Also if your down to the wire learn diary phrased, even if you write a bad diary you will get marks for the phrases
Accounting: final accounts will come up,know 2/3, learn all your ratios and all the theory they will come up, know either budgeting or costing as one of each will come up, that leaves the second 100 marker, it will most likely be suspense as that comes up every second year but it could be a 60 marker, I wouldn't even bother worrying about anything else until ratios,final accounts, budget/costing and suspense are up to the grade your hoping for but if all that is sorted learn off maybe 3 other possible 100 markers, that any you have 4 which includes the 80% likely suspense and 2 will come up, the accounting exam is probably the easiest to predict, and for the love of God know your theory. Keep doing exam questions of your struggling, every time you correct one write down your mistakes and have the list of mistakes next to you when doing the next one, then tear it and make a new list of mistakes
This is all my experience, I will add any good advice for these subject or other subjects that are provided in the comments, all of these are for higher level except for maths, good luck,don't panic and think about the pint that's instore once this is all over

Cause I sure as hell am
Hey, I'm David! The first thing to say about me is that I am fucking perfect. True FACT
Now, there may be some people out there saying shit like "How can you know you're perfect? What sort of testing method did you use? Are you exaggerating?" Don't listen to them, cause they're just proper jealous.
Having been famously referred to as "not the worst person to talk to" and "on medication" should be more than enough evidence to place me above like 99% of people.
Aight so interests and shit coming up, admittedly I've been slacking on them recently. Is it depression or am I just bored of everything 🤔🤔
Anyway, when I am in the mood to enjoy things, I'm a pretty standard fucking nerd I love shit like comics and games. The main comics I'm reading right now is just a wide variety of things, but I'm following One Piece, Chainsaw Man, Moon Knight and whatever else sounds interesting, if you have reccomendations, I'd love to hear them.
As for games there's too many to go through, and constantly expanding, ones like Disco Elysium, Darkest Dungeon, Yakuza, Persona and a load more, I also got multiplayer ones like Dead by Daylight, BG3, Darktide and a few more.
Plus edgy jokes and memes are always fun. I'm also hoping to get back into play DnD recently, after having to put it off for so long.
Right now I've just finished doing Nursing at Uni and I'm now stuck tryna find a job, it's proper killing me. So I'm looking for someone cool to hang out with when I ain't working. Or when I am working as well, it's not like the sick dudes are running off anywhere.
As for what I'm looking for, I'm just hoping people who are up for shittalking and just chilling out, especially since COVID has destroyed my social life. Tho to be honest, it was already on life support.
So thanks for reading. Just message me if you wanna. Oh yeah, I mainly use Discord. So big plus if you got that too.

Hi there! First post on reddit so please forgive me if i'm not using any fancy text.
I've been DM'ing now on and off for around near 5 years, originally I ran for 2 separate friend groups with Vastly different likes and dislikes. I had to stop one groups campaign due to work schedules and as the such (gotta love adult life ;-;)
So recently my current group consists of close friends so it is quite easy to get things across but it can also be very easy to lose control of the table if we start having jokes and a good laugh.
the above is not the issues I'm having as the DM however the stuff above i'm fine with as long as we are hanging out and having a good time. My issues span from multiple small issues which I will list below Beginning with myself as I know I make plenty of mistakes as I DM but I'm looking for advice to make sure i'm not going crazy and being a C**T with some of my table rules i've implemented
My Issues I need to work on: Note Taking - I lose track of my notes (this has been getting better moved to an app called obsidian which I have stuck with and this seems to be working wonders for me) but still needs work.
World lore - Kinda a addition to the note taking issue I have, I like to chop change some things but I still want it to make canonical sense to the worlds timeline which can be a little messy at times.
Pacing - Oh god I'm awful for pacing sometimes I'm too fast or i'm far too slow my players spend an entire 7 hour session on 1 street corner being my worst example.
Sometimes Retconning Small things - I Don't know if I think its okay to do this, I've only had to do it twice in total I Hate retconning stuff as I feel like if maybe a player that doesn't shine to often finally gets out their shell i'm worried if I retcon something It can really take away from that players motivation.
So above are my issues for sakes of time I'm going to copy paste a recent paragraph I sent to my players parts like player names will be edited of course. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So shappening dudes and dudets, DnD is going to be on the back burner for me for a Little bit cause personally feeling burnt out for a couple reasons that I'll get to in a little bit. So first things first the main thing I'm going to an induction day so I'm hoping I get this job (I got the Job whoop whoop) and DnD will be moved to every 2nd Saturday if thats gonna be a issue we can discuss that down the line. Now couple of mini Issues I want to get off my chest. So the Number 3 joke died ages ago for me and its just annoying so stopping that would be nice thank you, anyone that says it going forward you'll just take 3 damage. Unfortunately the interrupting and pacing is horrendous I'm gonna do my best to keep my focus on the game and I ask so do you. For the time being kinda a add on to the previous my max player count I can do is 6 no more, "Player Name" please let "His Partner" know I do not mind if she watches but I can't have her play not until I feel like the pacing is better and no ones shouting over each other. The Cards, They are fun but i'm gonna rejig them to be less annoying and alot less OP, (I'm removing that bag of holding card) personal thing - If I ask something to do with in the game could you please just acknowledge you have seen it, cause I've typed in plane text plenty of times before and it just doesn't get listened to it starts with one person then everyone else follows if you get me and it can make some little instructions that make things easier for me alot harder. As the DM I want a bit more control So one of the major ones that I ask is NO ONE calls "Roll a persuasion to persuade me" or anything along that lines, it is unnecessary and tbh I find it a bit rude. NO Rape or Rolling Cock size. (its just weird and its disgusting you'd think of it tbh)
There are a few more other things that personally bother me but those are the main ones, the minor ones just consist of 1. Don't Make up your own lore of my own creation and then treat it as cannon, I didn't ask and I don't care.

1. Don't ask for any more custom items, if I give you something be happy and let it be a surprise. 3."did we level up?" i know its a joke but tone it down before it gets worse.
2. If you create a backstory please give me the footnotes of the main points that I can work with, don't give me a lore book about how garfunkle the black white man slain a beast. I won't read it. (Edit - I don't mind if they give me a book to read I do like lore I just mean here that I'd prefer notes of the main points in their characters story)
3. I would prefer Game things are sent on discord concerning characters thats a personal thing, I created the discord for me to be organised and have it all in one place so if you please could just send me stuff on that even if its a dnd beyond link I would like it all in one place. I get this is gonna be alot to read but I hope I get my point across. I am the dungeon master and I want to create a game for you guys to enjoy but I have neglected my own joy for the game and have been more lazy with it because of this. I have alot of stuff to fix from last session especially and I'm gonna try to be more focused on the game and create a better experience and all I ask is please listen, pay attention and any question on the world so you can clarify things you may ask me, if there is any issues during the session call for a break if its that major so we may discuss at the table and if its a small issue we discuss it after the session. I may rule things wrong but i'll attempt to rule it in a way that makes sense and then I shall research and let you know afterwards, I'd rather not search rules in the middle of the game and taking half a hour per turn. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So context for some things the number 3 joke is from shrek "NUMBER 3 MY LORD" and I use magic the gathering cards for little 1 session boons they are a hell of a lot of fun and I'll post under this if anyone else play's DnD and MTG (I'd recommend using the Dungeons and dragons sets for Magic if you wish to try this out)
Revitalize x2 - Add a Medium Potion to Inventory
​
Treasure x3 - Add 100 Gold
​
Choose Your Weapon - Choose one for the Remainder of the Session
Archery - +2 to Range attacks
or
Two Weapon Fighting - +2 to Melee Attacks
​
Curse of Surveillance - You Grow an eyeball onto the palm of your hand, something or someone is watching you (The DM determines who) This curse is passed on
when someone else draws the card or removed with the "Remove curse Spell"
​
Improvised weaponry - You feel compelled to use the first random object as your weapon for the session.
​
Triumphant Adventurer - Roll a D20,
Even Numbers add 3 Platinum to your Inventory.
Odd Numbers Summons a Gold Plated Cocky knight to gloat how rich he is for 1 minute.
​
Hunters Mark - You Gain the Ability Hunters Mark for the Session it does not Require Concentration.
​
Contact Other Plane - You ask anything from the DM roll a d100 to discover the outcome.
​
Hoard Robber - The best robber in all the land has found you and took every bit of coin you have leaving a single fake gold piece.
​
Dawnbringer Cleric - You can Choose One to use throughout the session
Cure Wounds
Dispel Magic
Gentle Repose
​
Priest of Ancient lore - A old Dwarf appears in front of you radiating a holy light asking "Would you like to know the lore of this land?"
​
Boots of Speed - You Gain Extra 15ft Speed for the Session.
​
Silver Raven - A Unknown Vampires Raven Follows you.
​
Check for Traps - You becoming Increasingly paranoid of traps for the session the DM at Random will ask you to check for traps at your feet.
​
Blessed Defiance - You Summon A white Spirit, it says nothing, it is friendly to only you, it will follow and defend you for this session.
​
Chaos Channeler - A wild magic sorcerer Explodes from the multiverse, he looks excited as he transports himself again creating a Minor wild magic effect.

So this is a pretty large post But I am looking for advice on maybe rules I should consider going forward, how to keep proper control of a party of 6 and just anything I should improve as a DM and anything I can further communicate to my players at the table.

tldr; while my partner was visiting her sister last weekend, my sister in-law and her husband told her to break up with me. Now I don't trust them. We have a meeting today to discuss how to move forward. Help!
Background:
My (32M) partner (30F) and I met in 2011 at university. We kissed for the first time, and started a relationship in 2012. It was beautiful, so so beautiful. We were two inseparable love birds. The amazing memories from those years will last me a lifetime. In 2015 we started facing challenges in our communication. We failed to resolve them and ultimately broke up/reconciled twice between 2015 and 2018.
During the breakup we tried to live our lives, forget each other, meet other people. She even moved to another country and had a great time there. We had minimal communication while broken up: sharing only major milestones like graduation, or the random message when she got a tattoo etc. Eventually she moved back to the same country. We started talking again and agreed that we would fight to make our relationship work. We worked out our issues. Since 2018, we've been learning and growing together. We've had arguments, especially when adjusting to living together. Things are still not PERFECT but I was convinced they are good, until last weekend.....
The issue:
My GF visited her sister (35F), the husband and their 2 daughters. When she came back, she wasn't in a good mood. She started picking a fight with me about dishes, laundry and other small things. I was shocked. We didn't see each other for a weekend, and this is the hello I got. I had actually done 3 loads of laundry that weekend. I cleaned her lunch boxes and pots from the previous week that had started developing mould. The fight was very unreasonable. Ultimately she told me that she was doubting/confused about our relationship. I'm thinking: WTF!!
It's not the first time we fight after she talks to her sister. So I dug and she eventually told me that in laws wanted her to reflect on breaking up with me. It went far. They offered her a place to stay if she would need a few months to process the breakup. I became more confused the more details I learned. At family events they are always friendly. When I got the impression that they don't like me, my partner assured me that they all thought I'm a great guy. Well, it's now clear that although I'm a great guy, just not the right guy for their "little sister." I've known this woman much longer than the sister has known her husband. The arguments they made are along the lines of: I'm holding her back from her dreams, I have no direction in life, cultural differences. A suggestion was made (not sure if by my GF or them) that I may be manipulating her. As a result, I find it hard to discuss with her now because, will she just say I'm manipulating her when I share my views? According to my gf, they reiterated that I'm a nice person, just not the person for her. Part of it could be financial. I'm not close to f.e. having enough savings to purchase a house (which I know is her dream, it's mine too, I'm just not there yet).
Anyway, we're meeting later today, all four of us. I don't trust them anymore. I don't feel comfortable with my partner visiting them. I don't want to visit them either. I don't think I even want to talk to them at family events anymore. I feel angry, disgusted, humiliated, and stabbed in the back. I have so many questions. Who else did they talk to? Other siblings, the parents? How long have they been thinking this? Is my girlfriend telling me the full truth or is she protecting her family by withholding certain information? (she's done this in the past) It's a mess.
Some other context:

• My partner has been feeling low energy for a while and recently shared with her sister that she sometimes has suicidal thoughts.
• My partner and all her family are white, EU. I am black, non-EU.
• Their native language is my FIFTH language. I speak relatively well, although I am uncomfortable in a family context with fast-paced group conversations. I am usually quiet during family gatherings unless I have a 1-1 conversation.
• I am currently not working, I'm receiving unemployment benefits which isn't much money but enough to cover my basic expenses. GF is doing quite well financially.
• I'm not actively looking for a job but rather completing a 7 month, full-time data science bootcamp, accredited by government, working on real use cases with real companies, career coaching etc so I'm confident in securing a job in the coming months when the training is complete.
• GFs sister recently had kids and has shared her desire for GF to start having kids too so their kids can grow up together (I want to wait with kids until I secure a job after my training and have a better financial circumstances)
• When we got back together after 2018, we decided to move in together and I applied for a family reunion through my gf (better possibilities for me in terms of access to the job market). I live in EU for 18 years but have no nationality.

The situation now:

• My partner says that she's 99% sure about us (i can live with the 1% doubt lol)
• Partner is willing to go low contact with sister but I feel bad because she loves her nieces and actually 3 weeks ago, her and her sister had a heart to heart where they both cried and reaffirmed their sibling love for each other
• we are having a call to discuss how to move forward with our relationship, all four of us.

Honestly, I don't know how to approach the conversation. How would you do it? What would you ask? What would you want to have as outcome? Is this talk even healthy/necessary?
The truth is, if I could, I would never talk to them again, I miss nothing in my life by avoiding them. But how do I ensure that i don't push my GF from her family and create more resentment either towards me or the sister?
If you read this far, I appreciate it, and happy to hear your thoughts!

Long story short and as much as it sucks to say, I haven't really experienced much of anything. I'm going to intentionally beat around the bush as to what category that "experience" falls under but I think most people should be able to figure it out lol. In other words (and if you play games), I'm a complete noob when it comes to all things girls. As for why those things haven't happened and why I want that to change.. There's a few reasons, but the main reason why I'm putting such an emphasis on this is because I'm a huge homebody and I don't go out much at all which makes it difficult to meet people. That's where Reddit comes in! The message I'm essentially trying to send is becoming physically and emotionally close with a girl is what I want the most. I want to experience it all; the laughs, excitement, curiosity, intimacy, hanging out, fun. Blame all the Disney movies I watched as a kid for that lol.
Finding someone would be a dream come true, but I'd love to find friends too if that's all you're looking for! Local or international, just let me know if that's what you want instead :) We could end up being really close friends and you'll introduce me to a friend who I end up being with? That may or may not be the plot from a romcom 🤔 So that means I definitely wouldn't be opposed to a relationship! I've obviously never been in one so I'm not exactly sure how to transition to that, haha. I totally wouldn't mind finding out, though :) Also someone to say good morning and night to, too. That would be the best even if it's incredibly cheesy.
Anyway, it could be someone with a lot of experience or someone with no experience like me, or introverted or not introverted, etc. I don't have a preference either way :) But if I were to be reaaally picky: they'd be sweet and down to earth because just cuddling on its own would be all kinds of cool. A bit about me: I'm shy, caring, kind, sweet and am normal in the weight and height categories. I want to say I'm cute in the looks department? 🙈 I'll let you decide that though lol. I think it's super fun learning about people through conversation so I'll leave the following hobbies section blank. Then again, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to give a small hint to something I love.. My username should provide clues to that! I Siriusly need to re-watch the movies again. Maybe with someone I meet through r4r?
Alright, I can't hold it in anymore. I pretty much like a little bit of everything. For example, when it comes to music, I go through Backstreet Boys phases to Disney song phases (Moana is awesome and I haven't even seen the movie 🙊) to something like Linkin Park, Paramore or 50 Cent. What I'm trying to say is I like a little bit of everything! So there's a good chance I'll like whatever you like when it comes to hobbies and interests and that means connecting with each other should be relatively natural/seamless. Or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part, haha.
I'm not the best with openers and if you're also in the same boat, then how about this: If you could have any superpower what would it be and how would you use it? Being out of this world smart like Tony Stark is an acceptable super poweanswer, by the way.
Hopefully my first impression is a good one! If anyone is even remotely interested, then just let me know and I'll get back to you asap!

I’m currently studying animation since I realized a while back ago that I honestly feel incapable of seeing myself doing anything else except some form of working in the industry. I’ve been animating since I was 10 and always idealized it but never thought it was going to be easy but I was willing to put in the work, even buying my own graphic tablet at 13 (I sold a lot of comic books). A lot of my close friends are in the arts, and I hear how hard those industries are, acting, writing, and forget being a studio arts major. I’ve followed a lot of animators in the industry and have had a couple follow me back and I asked some of them basic questions about how the industry is etc etc. Some were positive but a lot of them were more jaded responses and this is predating Covid (though it didn’t ward me off any and was nice to hear the “bad parts” of the job/industry).
But nowadays it seems like every single person I follow, even people who have 15+ years experience under their belt seem to be struggling to find reliable work. Networks cancel shows after one season and with the rise of A.I. which is all anyone talks about anymore-usually in a joking manner but it doesn’t seem to be so funny anymore. I don’t think A.I. would replace animation entirely obviously but it does make me nervous for what jobs are going to be on the cutting block. In a lot of art circles and even on this subreddit it seems like everyone’s in a panic. Harsh realities I know, but even if I wasn’t to work in animation or film or visual arts at all I’d be terrified for what’s to come, art is so little respected as it is. I’m not anticipating switching majors or anything but it’s making me think of at least think up a good minor maybe? Hah I don’t know! I’m honestly just trying to gauge how really nervous students especially should be at this moment and maybe if it’s even a great idea right now to try and I guess make a living in animation. I know there’s been periods of hardships and corporate America is very unforgiving (not sure about other countries) but I gotta say I’m starting to feel like all ‘tech’ fields are suffering a bit out here especially-someone who considered computer science for a time

I’ve been an ex Muslim for 10+ years now, I’m very lucky because I denounced Islam when I was super young so I didn’t suffer too much. My family isn’t religious and my mom and sister also left Islam, so I totally wanna acknowledge the privilege I have, sometimes I read some of Yalls story and my heart breaks. However, I am living in the Islamic republic of Iran and it’s disgusting. I find 0 appeal in this religion because everything about it is so disgusting, I can find the appeal in Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, etc (I know some anti theists will come in and say “UhhhMM aLl rEliGioNs sUcK!” , literally don’t care it’s actually quite disgusting how you guys think any religion can come as close to Islam, even Mormonism is basically a Lowkey Islam but still not to islams level) Iranian women are suffering every single day with the stupid ass laws, we can’t live normal, everything is blocked. Etc. this religion wants to get rid of anything that brings you joy or a sense of humanity/ connection. There’s no music there’s no music ,no toys ,no laughter, no dancing, no singing, no love , no art, no games , no drawing, NO LIVING yet pedophilia, rape, murder and war are complete A- okay. I don’t understand the girls in the west who convert to Islam, do you not hear the cries and screams of girls in the Middle East? It’s not a “racist stereotype” , in Islam god really does hate women, Mohammad himself said women have half the intelligence and deen of men. I always believe that heaven will just be somewhere where it’s just complete peace, but Islam shows heaven as this whorehouse, how do you as a women read that passage in the Quran and think “wow I love that that’s so beautiful!” ??? Have yall hit your head somewhere? A Religion that promotes killing of non-Muslims does it never hit you that that’s very fucking weird that no other religion calls for that? Isn’t it weird how in most religions the biggest sin is to commit murder but in islam it’s “shirk” which literally means to just imitate another religion. for example you could be forgiven for waging war against non Muslims, rape , murder, take their kids and wives as slaves (quite frankly you’re following the religion) but if you’re a Muslim and have a Christmas tree oooff how dare you. I wish for the people who are living in the west could see this and understand this when this religion becomes a majority and takes over everyone is fucked. We’re also miserable. Don’t listen to the stupid ass victim card playing Muslims in the West, who talk about being oppressed, they are NOT oppressed in the Middle East. “I’m sad bc in my religion I’m allowed to beat my woman but it’s illegal here, this is discrimination 🥺” “ I can’t openly say I wanna kill gay people but my dean Islam is beautiful and peaceful” I see non-Muslim westerners, even now repeat the things Muslim say “ Islam is perfect. Muslims are not.” Bitch lmao WHAT? Just a bunch of useful idiots. So many women Conver to Islam it actually scares me. Do you guys hate yourselves that much? And I love how all the people were always advocating about the beauty and freedom that Islam give are all in the… west. For those of you that are in the west and saying “ oh Islam is not that bad it’s just racism” guess what! I look very much look Middle easterner, but still I get treated like shit as well in foreign countries because it’s a racism thing not a religion thing. No one hates you because you’re Muslim. They hate you because of the country that you came from and your country has committed atrocities. There’s no such thing as “Islamophobia” , the suffix “phobia” means irrational fear, fearing this religion is just human instinct. It’s not irrational. Sometimes on my for you page on Instagram or TikTok I’ll see these random white ladies open a page from the Quran and start sobbing talking about how beautiful it is. I’ve read the whole entire Quran front and back and to be honest it’s a mid book. I’ve read poetry books (like hafez) a billion times more beautiful than this bs book. How do you read this book that says the most basic philosophical things and then the next sentence is “ and you must kill all non-believers” and you’re like “wow omg 🥹” . So basically my rent is I don’t understand why people convert to this religion. I’m convinced that they’re all lied to. T I’m convinced that they’re all lied to or They’re sick in the head. I need someone to explain to me what is so beautiful about this religion?

Context: This was one of my first online games as a DM. I ran a campaign with the typical "necromancy magic is seen as bad" trope due to massive events in the campaign world (that led to the first Lich being created and using the war between 3 nations to fuel his undead army, until all 3 nations realized the threat and banded together to defeat the army of the dead and supposedly destroyed the Lich). With that knowledge in mind, one player asked to create a school of necromancy wizard (tiefling). I said sure, but let them know that if they were to use necromancy within a village, town or captial city that it would draw attention to them and most likely result in their character being arrested, or even attacked. The player said they were fine with that, but asked if they could be Lawful Evil. Now, this should have been the first red flag for this player, but I said that I would allow it but only if their actions didn't directly target or effect the other player characters. They agreed.
Now to give some more context, the other players character's consisted of:

• Protector Aasimar, Oath of Ancients Paladin, Lawful Good.
• High Elf, Wild Magic SorcereOath of Devotion Paladin, Neutral Good.
• Human, Gloomstalker Ranger, Neutral Good.
• Halfling, Circle of the Moon Druid, Chaotic Good.
• Wood Elf, Assassin Rogue, Chaotic Neutral.

I mentioned to the Wizard player that the paladins might not be pleased with their character if they witness them using necromancy, again, to which the wizard player said that would be fine. The second red flag was the wizard's backstory. One of the major NPC's in this campaign was a High Elf Prince, who was a powerful Archmage and a hero to the elves (inspired by Teclis from Warhammer), and the player wanted to include this NPC in their backstory, but frame the elf prince as a villian, having him mysteriously kill off the tiefling's adopted father. Now, I should have suggested perhaps another NPC of less significance to the world to take his place, but I thought, "what the hell??", I could throw an interesting twist on it and have the wizard's foster father actually be a bad guy. So, I let it be.
Onto the story: The party were in the Elven captial city when the wizard asks me as one of their "errands" that they want to visit the slums of the city. So they travel there and the wizard sees a bunch of dirty kids playing together. The wizard then walks over to a halfling girl, and begins to mesmerize her with prestidigitation effects. He asked about her quality of life (I thought he was going to give her some money or something like that), so she shares with him that she is an orphan and lives on the street. The wizard offers her food and says that if she comes with him, he will give her a better life and teach her how to use magic. Now at the time, I wasn't sure what his intentions were, so I was being very cautious in this moment, so I asked him to roll an insight check as she was looking at him with doubt in her mind. He succeeds and I share that she has doubts about his sincerity. I ask him to roll a persuasion check with a 20 DC and he makes it with a high roll. So, she agrees to go with him on the promise that he teaches her magic. When the wizard returned to the party, they were surprised and not very keen on having a young girl accompany them for their next adventure, but they allowed it after they made the wizard promise to keep her well out of harms way when danger arises.
The party arrive at the entrance to a long, and fairly dangerous dungeon crawl. In the first battle encounter, the wizard tells his "apprentice" to attack the nearest enemy instead of running away, like the party had agreed on. Now the "apprentice" isn't able to do much (as a lvl 1 wizard), and is subsequently attacked and falls unconcious and the party began to panic. The party were able to swiftly defeat the remaining enemies and heal the halfling girl. Now, when she came to, she was terrified and had a full on panic attack and wanted to leave after almost dying. The party agreed that she should not be with the party and should return to her home. This angered the wizard (and the player), who was not pleased when the party all voted to send her home. They were able to do so as another NPC was accompanying the party, and they escorted the girl back.
Now comes the kicker. The wizard player dm's me and says that he is not happy with what happened. I tell him that I had already spoken to him about the other player characters possibly not agreeing with his decision, and that the wizard was "okay with that". The wizard player doesn't reply. So I thought that the matter has been resolved. NOPE!!! Out of nowhere, the wizard states that during the night whilst on his "watch", he casts mold earth multiple times during the night and burries the oath of ancients paladin alive (as he was the voice of reason that was consistantly raising the fact that the halfling girl would not be safe). Now by this point in the session, the majority of the players as well as myself were quite frustrated with this player, as he had tried to meta before and say things like, "it would work in real life" when he attempted to turn events in his favor over and over again.
I told the group that we're going to take a 10 minute break before anything else happened. I spoke with the oath of ancients paladin player and asked him what his opinion is on the matter was and if what he thought I should do/should I even allow the wizard to attempt it? The oath of ancients player says that he was happy for me to let the wizard try as if they failed and the paladin would quickly "solve" the issue.
So I messaged the wizard player and confirmed that they're certain that they want to still try it. They agreed confidently and stated that mold earth was "a somatic only cantrip" and that the paladin "won't even know that I'm casting it until their suffocating under the ground".
I messaged the group and asked them to come back to the discord chat and we jumped back in. I asked the paladin to roll a perception check, setting the DC at 10, as I reasoned that the paladin would still feel the earth being molded over and around them. The paladin rolls a natural 20. So the paladin awakens, and sees that the wizard is trying to smother them. The paladin player attempts to intimidate with the wizard and convince them not to "test his patience", but the wizard player was furious and was trying to make up more excuses on how the perception roll should have been at disadvantage.
I stated that my ruling stood, and asked them what they want to do, to which the wizard left and never returned.
I had a long conversation with the wizard player after the session and explained that I did warn them in advance that the other player characters might not agree with their actions. The player seemed strangely calm and collected and asked if they could create another character to replace the tiefling wizard (this should have been the 3rd red flag). I agreed but specified this time that necromancer and evil alignment was off the table this time. The player agreed and then createed a high elf blade-singer wizard (and min maxed it as much as they could). They gave this new character a compelling backstory and I was pleased with it. So the next session, I introduced their character to the party (the party had left the dungeon to find safety and heal the halfling girl before sending her home), and the first thing the player does was declared that they moved to attack the oath of ancients paladin, as soon as they saw him.
Dumbfounded, I ask him why? He respond with, "the paladin threatened (name of the tiefling character) and I take threats deadly seriously".
IMPORTANT NOTE: This was not in the backstory that they provided me with! And I mean, not even the slightest hint, nor was it eluded to!
I pause the game and ask the wizard player to join me in a seperate chat, and asked them how could their new character possibly know who the paladin was and how they would know the tiefling, as the two characters had never met. He said that they would have passed each other and he would have shared it with this stranger. To which I said, yeah no that's not what you sent me and you're not just gonna change your backstory on the fly just so you can attempt to kill the paladin. He got incredibly angry and started yelling about me not letting him play his character how he wants to play them.
The conclusion: So to wrap up this long post. The player apologised to the group, asked for one more chance as he like the group. I asked the others individually what their thoughts on it were, they agreed to give him one more chance, so I did. And then 3 sessions later, that same player attempted to attack the ranger because he made a funny comment about the tielfing wizard (all in character). After that final straw, the player was subsquently removed from the campaign.
On a happier note: This campaign has been running for almost 5 years now and is beginning to come to a close as the players are level 19 (soon to be 20) and have accomplished incredible feats in the world.

Hey y’all!
This is really long but I’m really struggling with what to do, and all of this is necessary to provide context. I checked out the trans allyship resources on this subreddit and didn’t find anything useful to this specific context. I really really need advice.
TW: transphobia
I (24tm) have a very close friend (32f) who is cisgender. I’ll call her A.
I was at a bar with A and someone came up to me and immediately tried to debate me and was saying really transphobic stuff and using the T slur. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to explain to him that he was wrong but he kept talking over me. A didn’t say much during this conversation. I told him I was going to leave because he wasn’t listening, turned to walk out and A was a little behind me. He told her, “you know you guys can’t have babies, right?”
Yeah. Gross. So when talking about this after the fact, every time it was mentioned A belabored on how she wasn’t involved and she just can’t believe he said that to her. I just kind of thought this was annoying and let it go, until one night, when we were talking to her dad about this I said something about how that’s just what happens when you’re friends with trans people, you get caught in the crossfire. Later that night she explained to me that she wasn’t actually centering herself and it just made him more of an asshole that he said it to her, and I’m realizing now as I type this that the implication of that is that it would have been less bad if he had said it to me. I told her it’s annoying because she should have said something to him and defended me, and gotten involved to begin with. Her response was, verbatim, “I’m a cancer mars.” (For context, I believe in astrology and so does she. But. Really?) She then told me that he was being homophobic because I had said something to him about how I was gay and he thought I was a woman and that we were a couple, which is why he said that. I was like, nope, he was pretty explicitly being transphobic. And she then explained again how it wasn’t transphobia it was homophobia and doubled down that he thinks I’m a woman.
I got home to a text further explaining how she wasn’t centering herself by talking about that stuff, and I responded that I was actually bothered by her trying to tell me it was homophobic and not transphobic (she has never dated a woman and is married to a cis man). I also said something about how I didn’t have the emotional capacity for the argument because I was having some other issues with transphobia right before that (which she was aware of) that didn’t involve her. I think the words I said were about being surrounded by cis people. I also think I said something about how she always thinks she’s right. I know that’s not a great thing to say in conflict. But I did say that.
She started getting incredibly defensive around my language of saying cis people, and saying “oh what? I’m just like (insert other person I was in conflict with) now?” And telling me that her saying it was homophobia was just “her perception” and seemed to not understand why that was wrong. She also said I was “fucking on one recently” in regards to marginalization. I backed down and apologized for the cis thing. Honestly I don’t remember too much else of the conflict other than we were arguing for quite a while, and it ended with her and I both apologizing. The next day I re read everything and texted her that I wasn’t happy with the argument. She said “yeah I’m not happy either.” I sent a paragraph about how I don’t know how to proceed and this could change how safe I feel around her, and how I don’t know what to do because she proved by getting defensive and doubling down that I can’t express things like this to her or expect her to defend me in any real capacity. a couple hours later sent me a long text, basically saying that I was (verbatim) “just trying to get my pound of flesh” because she had already apologized. Also some stuff about how I apparently had pointed out her privilege too many times recently (that’s probably true, I thought I was being funny though and didn’t realize I was being annoying) and essentially said that she “crossed a boundary (she) didn’t know existed” by trying to tell me it was homophobia and that some random stranger thought I was a woman. Honestly? I kind of just lost faith that she was going to be rational so I backed down.
That really bothered me for a while. I was going to email the bar to tell them about the transphobic guy, because he had a music show scheduled for the following week and I wanted them to drop him. She asked me at one point if I had sent the email, I said no and explained it was because the whole thing was too much for me, and she offered to send it. She wrote something, I added a couple things, she sent it, the bar dropped him. She sent this in her family group message that I’m in and everyone was congratulating her and saying they were proud of her. That was super triggering because after she was so explicitly transphobic to me I felt really annoyed at watching everyone eat her ass over sending an email. During this conversation, her kid (10nb) sent a voice memo “explaining the situation” and basically just recapped that someone was transphobic to me, and said that I was going to send the email but didn’t because I was “lazy” so their mom sent it. I texted A to say, hey, I probably want to have a conversation with your kid at some point about why they shouldn’t call marginalized people lazy when they don’t stick up for themselves. She explained that she didn’t know where they got that verbiage from. I told her that it wasn’t a big deal, reiterated multiple times (in very explicit wording) that they did nothing wrong, but I was frustrated because I had conflict with A which made me unable to deal with the transphobia and then her kid calls me lazy because of, essentially, what A did.
A texted me an hour or so later telling me that I was “putting my emotions on her to handle” and I “should pick my battles with more discernment” because I was “triggered from our conflict” that happened the previous week. She said I need to “process my emotions longer” before I come to her. She also listed off some things she was dealing with and said she was pissed off that she even had to be frustrated with me. It was a long conversation where I asked if she was okay because her extreme emotional reactions are out of character and she said she was okay. I ended up disingenuously backing down and apologizing and said I knew I was triggered and I explained exactly that, she basically said that I’m “not the only one the conflict was hard for” the implication I gathered is that I shouldn’t bring it up to her, I guess.
Tonight I was with her and someone got aggressive with me in the men’s room and I had to leave the bar twice to drive down the street to pee somewhere else. It wasn’t really about the way she handled that specifically but I don’t feel safe talking to her about any transphobia at all anymore, and there’s no way for me to express this and explain why she’s messing up basic allyship because I tried twice now already.
She’s my main support system, we’ve been tight for the last three years and I’ve known her my whole life. Her biological family is also a huge support system for me and I don’t want to cut any one of them off.
So here’s the question: what the actual fuck do I do? Does anyone have any books, or resources, or like good nuanced explanations of allyship stuff that I can send her? I can’t keep having these conversations because she says really personal attacks about me and honestly the way I’m perceiving her reactions are making it hard for me to take her seriously at all, in any context. I’m thinking if I send her a third party source she might feel less attacked and it will take the emotional labor off me because she can’t argue. Has anyone dealt with anything similar? Can anyone give me any advice?
Thanks.
Tl;dr my very close friend who is my main/only support system said something transphobic, doubled down, and had continued to disrespect me and lodge personal attacks against me when I try to bring it up. Any resources for that?

My girlfriend (F19) and I (M18) have been together for almost a year and a half, and she has made continuous mistakes that have crossed boundaries and make me question if our relationship is even real.
I don't know if this has any relevance, but my girlfriend has BPD, and has been screwed over in her past relationships. And the first two or three months throughout our relationship, she was extremely cold towards me. Like it seemed like she hated my guts, but around 5-6 months in, she got obsessed with me, needed to know my every move, always talking about how handsome I am, and saying how she'd probably kill herself if we broke up. The issues in our relationship start here:
It started around the first month or two in our relationship, when she pulls up her phone to text her mum, I see in her recent messages her ex is there. She loved this ex so much, and when she found out he cheated on her (which led to their breakup), she was placed under heavy medication, and sent to a psych ward. I confronted her over the situation a few hours later over iMessages, telling her that I found how she didn't tell me that her ex and her were talking, and how it was disrespectful to our relationship. She tells me that she thought I wouldn't want to know, and that it would've ruined the mood. She began to tell me what the messages said, NOT SHOW ME, tell me. She said that the ex had her on a sort of blackmail leash, threatening to leak her private pictures (she never told me what the terms of the blackmail was), and also that the ex was going through a lot, as he and his current girlfriend are taking heavy drugs, and he needed someone to spit out his problems to. She never showed me the actual messages, only telling me what the messages supposedly said.
I don't know if she was lying to me or not, but she deleted the messages, blocked him, and from what I know never talked to him again. But this was the beginning of this distrust, the only way I could believe her, was by taking her word. There were no messages for me to read and verify with my own eyes, I just had to take her word that nothing was happening. I was immature and unable to stand up for myself, so I let the conversation just go her way, and it was shut down within 15 text messages.
Around two months into our relationship, she is moving schools as she has more friends at the other school in her local area, and to finish year 12 in a more professional environment. She goes to one more party that her old school is throwing, to say goodbye to everyone. I wasn't able to attend this party, but I told her to just go on her own. She meets a guy there, and they hit it off. She's texting me and calling me throughout this whole party, and gets me to say hi to this person. I don't mind it, because I just figured she made a new friend. This guy likes all the same things as her, and likes the same music she does. (She's huge into metal / numetal bands.) Suddenly, she stops responding to my messages, calls etc, for around two hours.
When she gets home from the party, she tells me that her phone died, and I ask her how the party went. She tells me that a different girl really liked the guy she was hitting it off with, and how the guy was trying to make the girl jealous, by talking to my girlfriend. My girlfriend tells the guy that she's gonna go on a walk, and the guy follows her. They apparently go to a secluded cliffside, and just talk. She tells me that she had to clear up the air to some people that they did not do the deed, and they were just talking. I tell her how wrong that was of her, and how he most likely had other intentions, especially if hes trying to make another girl jealous. I tell her that boundaries were crossed, and she just tells me to do whatever I want (breakup or stay together). I stay, and she tells me the boundary was set, and if I don't believe her, I can ask the guy himself, or I can ask her girl bestfriend.
I thought the girl bestfriend thing was bizarre, as she said it was just my girlfriend and the guy at the cliffside. There is no way that her girl bestfriend wouldve known, unless my girlfriend specifically told her what happened. Could be a stretch, I dunno.
Once again, another thing that I just have to take her word for. There's nothing I can do to get her to prove to me that nothing happened at that cliffside,
This is where things get a bit murky. Around 9 months into our relationship, my girlfriend meets a guy at her new school, lets call him Fred. Her and Fred become good close friends. This was about the stage in me and my girlfriends relationship where she becomes obsessive with me. She asks me if her and Fred can go over to Fred's house, to smoke some weed. I didn't really mind, so I said sure. This became a daily thing. Her and Fred would go to Freds house almost every day, or at least 4 times a week to smoke weed. Fred would start sending her reels, but she wouldn't send any back. The reels started becoming a bit more weird, or lovey dovey, stuff like "You're either frolicking in this field with or without me".
She'd start sending me voice messages of them having a good time, sending photos of them hanging out, and then when she'd come home from school, she'd tell me all about how Fred said the funniest thing today, how funny he is, how they have inside jokes etc. Fred begins to start asking her to play Minecraft with her. At this point, I talk to her about this. I tell her that I understand that I said it was okay for her to go over to Fred's house, but I'm asking that her and Fred stop hanging out together alone. She tells me that I should've told her sooner, and we both apologised to one another.
I apologised for my miscommunication or lack of communication, and she apologised for crossing another boundary. Things were good between us, she'd stopped hanging out with Fred completely, and our relationship was more intimate then ever. A few weeks after Fred's silence, he asks my girlfriend to go to his party, and my girlfriend is wanting to go. I tell her that I'm uncomfortable with it, and I'd rather she not went, and then she got furious with me, and everyone around her. She was at work during this conversation, but then she locked herself in the staff bathroom, and cried in there for the remainder of her shift. Her friend, who also works at the same place she does, told me about the whole situation with her locking herself in the bathroom, and just checking up on if shes okay, and if anything happened between us. It was clear to me my girlfriend was growing attached to Fred.
She gives in, and tells Fred that she can't go to his party, in which Fred says: "OK, I'll change the party to next week so you can come." This bothered me so much, it's clear to me that Fred's only intentions of this party was to have some more time my girlfriend, and if anyone else was to of cancelled, no way would he of changed the day of the party for them.
I told my girlfriend there was no way she's going to that party, and it turns into a yelling match. She begins to cry, saying how she's sorry that she made me anxious about Fred, and then she goes into her room to self harm, either as a form of manipulation, or because of her BPD. This self harm leads to me having to apologise to her, and comforting her, instantly ending the conversation we were having because I had to go check on her, and sympathise with her.
A few months pass, and Fred and her are talking again. They're not talking outside of texts, so it's whatever, I'm fine with it, and the texts are always one sided, meaning my girlfriend leaving Fred on seen.
Fred asks my girlfriend if she wants to come over to his, in which she explains the situation, and how shes respecting our boundaries.
I go through her and Fred's messages, and find countless somewhat intimate messages between them, as well as Fred disrespecting me and my girlfriends boundaries. My girlfriend and Fred talk to eachother about what they dreamt about, and my girlfriend knows every little detail about Fred. She offers to find him some clothes that Fred was looking for. Then I see the text of my girlfriend asking Fred for some weed, in which Fred tells her to just come over to his, and they can smoke weed. My girlfriend comes up with some shitty excuse explaining why she can't go, and the conversation ends there. I believe that Fred was disrespecting our relationship immensely there, especially after being told that I was uncomfortable with them two hanging out, he proceeds to ask her to go over to his.
I tell her about this, and how it isn't okay, and how he was so clearly disrespecting our boundaries. She tells me that she understands now, and she didn't see it that way throughout their text messages.
I genuinely don't know what to do. I want to marry this girl, but I just can't trust her enough. Are these reasons to break up with her? I'm trying so hard to get them out of my mind, but I just can't. Too many major things have happened, in which she is constantly telling me to just trust her, and that nothing bad happened. I don't know that for sure, and that's whats making me so anxious. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with a girl who I can't trust, but I also love her so much. I want to marry her, but I know for my own peace of mind it's probably not the best thing to do, considering I can't trust her.
Please give any advice.
TLDR; I'm worried my girlfriend has cheated on me a few times, but I have no proof, as she is constantly deleting it, or being in situations where I can't get any proof. I love her and want to marry her, but I'm worried our marriage will fail if I can't trust her enough.

Hey y’all!
I know this is really long and I’m honestly not sure if anyone will read through it. I feel the need to tell this whole thing, to get it off my chest but also to provide context. I (24tm) have a very close friend (32f) who is cisgender. I’ll call her A.
I was at a bar with A and someone came up to me and immediately tried to debate me and was saying really transphobic stuff and using the T slur. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to explain to him that he was wrong but he kept talking over me. A didn’t say much during this conversation. I told him I was going to leave because he wasn’t listening, turned to walk out and A was a little behind me. He told her, “you know you guys can’t have babies, right?”
Yeah. Gross. So when talking about this after the fact, every time it was mentioned A belabored on how she wasn’t involved and she just can’t believe he said that to her. I just kind of thought this was annoying and let it go, until one night, when we were talking to her dad about this I said something about how that’s just what happens when you’re friends with trans people, you get caught in the crossfire. Later that night she explained to me that she wasn’t actually centering herself and it just made him more of an asshole that he said it to her, and I’m realizing now as I type this that the implication of that is that it would have been less bad if he had said it to me. I told her it’s annoying because she should have said something to him and defended me, and gotten involved to begin with. Her response was, verbatim, “I’m a cancer mars.” (For context, I believe in astrology and so does she. But. Really?) She then told me that he was being homophobic because I had said something to him about how I was gay and he thought I was a woman and that we were a couple, which is why he said that. I was like, nope, he was pretty explicitly being transphobic. And she then explained again how it wasn’t transphobia it was homophobia and doubled down that he thinks I’m a woman.
I got home to a text further explaining how she wasn’t centering herself by talking about that stuff, and I responded that I was actually bothered by her trying to tell me it was homophobic and not transphobic (she has never dated a woman and is married to a cis man). I also said something about how I didn’t have the emotional capacity for the argument because I was having some other issues with transphobia right before that (which she was aware of) that didn’t involve her. I think the words I said were about being surrounded by cis people. I also think I said something about how she always thinks she’s right. I know that’s not a great thing to say in conflict. But I did say that.
She started getting incredibly defensive around my language of saying cis people, and saying “oh what? I’m just like (insert other person I was in conflict with) now?” And telling me that her saying it was homophobia was just “her perception” and seemed to not understand why that was wrong. She also said I was “fucking on one recently” in regards to marginalization. I backed down and apologized for the cis thing. Honestly I don’t remember too much else of the conflict other than we were arguing for quite a while, and it ended with her and I both apologizing. The next day I re read everything and texted her that I wasn’t happy with the argument. She said “yeah I’m not happy either.” I sent a paragraph about how I don’t know how to proceed and this could change how safe I feel around her, and how I don’t know what to do because she proved by getting defensive and doubling down that I can’t express things like this to her or expect her to defend me in any real capacity. a couple hours later sent me a long text, basically saying that I was (verbatim) “just trying to get my pound of flesh” because she had already apologized. Also some stuff about how I apparently had pointed out her privilege too many times recently (that’s probably true, I thought I was being funny though and didn’t realize I was being annoying) and essentially said that she “crossed a boundary (she) didn’t know existed” by trying to tell me it was homophobia and that some random stranger thought I was a woman. Honestly? I kind of just lost faith that she was going to be rational so I backed down.
That really bothered me for a while. I was going to email the bar to tell them about the transphobic guy, because he had a music show scheduled for the following week and I wanted them to drop him. She asked me at one point if I had sent the email, I said no and explained it was because the whole thing was too much for me, and she offered to send it. She wrote something, I added a couple things, she sent it, the bar dropped him. She sent this in her family group message that I’m in and everyone was congratulating her and saying they were proud of her. That was super triggering because after she was so explicitly transphobic to me I felt really annoyed at watching everyone eat her ass over sending an email. During this conversation, her kid (10nb) sent a voice memo “explaining the situation” and basically just recapped that someone was transphobic to me, and said that I was going to send the email but didn’t because I was “lazy” so their mom sent it. I texted A to say, hey, I probably want to have a conversation with your kid at some point about why they shouldn’t call marginalized people lazy when they don’t stick up for themselves. She explained that she didn’t know where they got that verbiage from. I told her that it wasn’t a big deal, reiterated multiple times (in very explicit wording) that they did nothing wrong, but I was frustrated because I had conflict with A which made me unable to deal with the transphobia and then her kid calls me lazy because of, essentially, what A did.
A texted me an hour or so later telling me that I was “putting my emotions on her to handle” and I “should pick my battles with more discernment” because I was “triggered from our conflict” that happened the previous week. She said I need to “process my emotions longer” before I come to her. She also listed off some things she was dealing with and said she was pissed off that she even had to be frustrated with me. It was a long conversation where I asked if she was okay because her extreme emotional reactions are out of character and she said she was okay. I ended up disingenuously backing down and apologizing and said I knew I was triggered and I explained exactly that, she basically said that I’m “not the only one the conflict was hard for” the implication I gathered is that I shouldn’t bring it up to her, I guess.
Tonight I was with her and someone got aggressive with me in the men’s room and I had to leave the bar twice to drive down the street to pee somewhere else. It wasn’t really about the way she handled that specifically but I don’t feel safe talking to her about any transphobia at all anymore, and there’s no way for me to express this and explain why she’s messing up basic allyship because I tried twice now already.
She’s my main support system, we’ve been tight for the last three years and I’ve known her my whole life. Her biological family is also a huge support system for me and I don’t want to cut any one of them off.
So here’s the question: what the actual fuck do I do? Does anyone have any books, or resources, or like good nuanced explanations of allyship stuff that I can send her? I can’t keep having these conversations because she says really personal attacks about me and honestly the way I’m perceiving her reactions are making it hard for me to take her seriously at all, in any context. I’m thinking if I send her a third party source she might feel less attacked and it will take the emotional labor off me because she can’t argue. Has anyone dealt with anything similar? Can anyone give me any advice?
Thanks.
Tl;dr my very close friend who is my main/only support system said something transphobic, doubled down, and had continued to disrespect me and lodge personal attacks against me when I try to bring it up. Any resources for that?

Before reading: I am aware it's not your job to validate me. I'm aware this isn't a subreddit for this kind of post. This is not a stunt for seeking attention, and I won't complain if this is erased or I get downvoted to oblivion for it. Anything you may comment, I have likely already considered - I don't want to invalidate your suffering.
Hello. I won't share my name, but I'd like to introduce myself. I'm a male, of course, with an XY chromosome. Something that dictates even the most minute of differences between us, the sexes of male and female. I've come to this subreddit today, expecting harsh backlash, or even straight up hatred to be directed towards me as a person and as a member of a gender for writing this out, although that could be my irrational fear speaking.
I've come here today, to break a rule out of my own desperation. I am aware this is not a place for issues that affect men in this world as well, but I feel helpless. Like I absolutely need to get this out of my system before something happens to me. Please read my next words carefully, because I implore you to not misinterpret them as victimizing myself or making women seem like villains of the world. Consider this a vent post more than anything, but before you read ahead, and before this post gets obliterated, hear me one time.
I'll start off by saying that existentially, I feel helpless, and I believe it's because of my sex and the way I'm seen in society. Even with understanding that I'm not inherently a bad person because of what I am, I'm also able to fathom that not everybody on this world will share the same thoughts towards a man they simply do not know - particularly women. You can call me ignorant, you can say I'm a misogynist, you can even tell me that I'm complaining about an issue that doesn't matter compared to those of women's in the grand scheme of things. I feel like my words aren't hitting hard.
Day by day, I eat myself and my own will to live away, thinking of the differences between male and female, particularly those that have brought upon an imbalance and a lack of solidarity between us... one perpetuated by a supposed patriarchy that's hurt everyone involved in it. I'm unable to get it out of my head and I end up putting myself into a feedback loop that continues to worsen and worsen the longer I think about it until I just start crying to myself, feeling like this isn't just something you're supposed to talk about to others because of how objectively stupid it is. Just as much as you're victims, I feel like I am one as well. The amount of times that I've cried myself to sleep thinking some woman out there was uncomfortable because of the simple fact that I looked at her for more than 5 seconds, or thinking that I could've potentially gotten confronted for walking behind a woman is inconceivable. I don't want to be seen as a dangerous psychopath for simply having my own penis between my legs, and yet I am not going to complain. Yet, it feels like I can't accept it either. I haven't been able to think of anything other than the fact that I'm considered the more dangerous sex of the two. The one that consists of all the pedophiles, murderers, rapists, and isn't often depicted as one whose members are kind and patient - seen as a less harmful gender. Even if it is a stereotype, it's one that I wish at least applied to us as well, despite the fact I know it'll never happen.
I won't ask to be coddled. I surely won't ask for your sympathy, but I will say that I've expected these responses. Despite this, I'm not prepared to handle them. I just feel so alone in a world where I can't walk or exist by myself without being something that women are taught to fear, and although this might elicit some comments or responses that say I'm just manipulating you - I've considered the option of suicide over continuing to think about what I could potentially be considered to you, upon first glance. I have gotten to the point in my life where I'd rather feel nothing than feel so inferior and undeserving compared to a woman because the actions of others have influenced your first impressions of me. You can call me an attention seeker... you can say whatever you want to say about me, but my note isn't for attention. It's to put my own feelings out there. I know women fear men for good reason - and I wish there was never good reason to fear it.
If you have read this, prior to its inevitable deletion, thank you if you are to keep this in your mind. Maybe I'm seeing in black and white, maybe I've inconveniced someone or made them uncomfortable by putting this out there where it likely doesn't belong. I know it won't change anything about our society - I just want to feel heard. Good night.