How to make the cat on skype

Hullo all interested folks, I'm Rob, an African American artist and Gardening enthusiasts =). I'm really looking for some new, healthy connections in poly, I honestly never had a real chance to explore the lifestyle with my ex who was very controlling of what I wanted to do but wanted free range to do what she wanted.
About me: I bought and own my home, all cash, all mine (a historic feat in this day and age) and I can definitely vouch for being the "homeeist" of home bodies as my crib is the bees knees. I have several pets, including cats, fish, and a Turtle (red earned slider for those interested lol)
While I have a day job as a laborer to pay the bills, my passion is art, illustrations to be precise. I LOVE to draw and being able to capture the real world on paper is the greatest flex I know. I would love to share my art with you or even do a drawing of you if you are interested. I can talk your head off on color theory and why I like this brand of ink vs. another.
I have an 18 year old son who lives with me, he is my favorite person and I enjoy just building a life with him, teaching him how to be the best man he can be, through kindness, patience, and consideration. We both are geeky and gamers, so we are down for some game time or ever some TTRPG.
I also have a new passion for gardening (new home came with a BIG ass back yard and I have a LOT of idea I wanna do) and cooking (a BIG ass kitchen to boot). So I will definitely just make a plate for yall or have left overs. I wanna do urban homesteading, get some chickens, collect rain water, solar panels, the whole 9.
As far as you guys are concerned: ladies I ADORE BBWs/plus size women. Yall are Goddesses to me and I live to worship lol. For the men I am straight but want to try more shared experiences, I am shy about being in front of other men, but time and trust can mellow that out. I WOULD like to be genuine homies though, not just come over to service the wife and never interact with you. Being a 3rd sounds interesting but I'm cautious of becoming a hinge for couples issues.
I go into this with light and love, as I need friends more than sex buddies or moving in together. I do want to actually meet people and do lunch, go to the movies, eat at the Park with a picnic. For too long I've tried online only/long distance and at my age it just doesn't cut it. I want hugs and cuddles God dammit 🥺.
So hey, drop a line, or don't, I love you all the same 🥰

I will do my best to explain the situation as easily as I can. Background: I am a 22 year old nanny for 2 children (9moB & 4yrG). I have been with this same family for 3 years (since G was 1) and I’ve been paid the same wage. (Before NB was born, I got paid $40/day) I get paid $80/day. My schedule is roughly 7am-5pm (50hweek). I am paid by the week (NOT hourly). There are pros and cons to our set up. Pros: steady paycheck ($450/week) and they are generally nice to me Cons: no overtime pay, occasional overnights (without extra pay: WEP), weekend events (WEP), and their dog&cat(s) sitter (WEP). Before, I was fine with how things were going. I used to nanny NK in my home before MB had NB. MB (and I) agreed that it would be easier for me to come to NF home so NF wouldn’t have to bring all of babies stuff every day. They gave me a raise of +$10/day so I now get paid $90/day for two NKs.
Few examples of situations: I am a people pleaser and the biggest pushover in this industry. DB has made me cry numerous times with how he speaks to me. MB is aware of it and apologizes on his behalf. (DB is friends with my HB so it makes it hard for me to talk to my HB about what goes on) DB and I butt heads but are generally cordial with each other. MB and I are very close and text often. Lately, MB has been upset with me. Reason(s): 9mB is BF and he won’t take bottles for me. MB came home and asked about how much he had (offered 3 bottles and only drank 4oz total for the day). LO spits BM out or screams if he sees the bottle. (MB suggested I take him to her work once a day to feed him… her work is 40 mins away) NF left for a 1.5 week trip to the beach and asked me to pet sit & I said yes. While NF was gone, I deep cleaned their home, organized, did the laundry, and watched over their pets. I was not paid for my work. (To be fair, they didn’t ask me to do anything that I did- only to check up on their pets so it’s not fair of me to be upset that I wasn’t thanked or paid for the cleaning) MB was upset about me organizing and MB has every right to be. Looking back, it wasn’t right of me to organize in-sight items without approval from MB or DB. When MB told me this, I started to cry. I started to cry because of the guilt I felt about what I had done. MB moved everything back prior to me coming over. (MB asked me to come over (weekend) to help her organize) I ended up telling MB that I think I should go and I left.
Issue(s): 1. Daily/weekly tasks don’t bother me (unappreciation from NF does bother me) -Tasks: care for (2) NK, empty 2 cat litter boxes, let their dog out, dishes, laundry, and overall home cleanliness/maintenance) 2. DB being verbally mean to me 3. MB taking me for granted & isn’t as kind to me anymore
My question: Given the background provided, what would you do if you were me? (Am I overreacting?) I don’t want to quit, I want change. (Remember, I am a people pleaser so I can’t bring myself to outright say anything strong… please be nice. I’m in a very fragile state of mind right now)
TL/DR: Long hours/days, low pay, NF aren’t kind to me anymore, I don’t want to quit because I love my NK, what should I do?

she's a little over four years old. I'm starting to suspect that she may be autistic? probably high-functioning, though, because she isn't developmentally delayed or anything. she began walking at 13mo which isn't late and said her first word early, at 9mo.
some things that I think are unusual: • limited facial expression • not particularly poor eye contact, but much less than other kids, especially when she is paying attention to something else. she will not look at me when I say her name, but she answers by talking.
• she lines things up like bears, she will also only paint dots in straight lines. • only plays games in one way - she plays this game where she is 'walking to school' and finds a cat, she will do this several times over around the room. - she lines up bricks and lays on them every single time, not really playing with them. She is also preoccupied with the sound of these bricks hitting each other. At home, she will always tell me about that sound.
• she obsesses over little things that characters on TV do. - on a show, she once saw a boy pack his bag to go hang out with his friends. afterwards she completely forgot what the boy actually did, she just cared about the toy robot he brought with him. for days after, she would build the same robot out of Duplos and pretend to pack her bag as well. she also kept replaying that part of the episode without watching the rest.
• she repeatedly watches a select few Lego videos on YouTube because she likes the sound. she also loves the sound of shoes on wood, and will happily run around the house making that sound.
• she has a meltdown whenever we go to parties or turn on the vacuum. She starts screaming and crying and won't stop till I take her somewhere quiet. This has been happening since she was a few months old. It's strange because other than that, she is a very timid and quiet child.
• every night, I see her moving her fingers strangely over her eyes like puppets. her teachers see the same behavior during naps.
• whenever she sees her younger brother sitting down, she pushes him over on his face. she laughs whenever she does this. but she's generally not mean or anything?
• she seems overwhelmed in bright areas. constantly squinting, talking less. she also falls asleep very quickly after i take her somewhere less bright, like she's tired from all the stimulation or something?
• she has trouble following instructions or picking up a new skill without repeatedly seeing someone else do it. once someone shows her what to do, she learns very quickly, however.
• she is obsessed with this one book about rain. she has read it hundreds of times, but refuses to throw it away or anything. It's in pretty bad shape, but she refuses to leave it alone.
• she is strangely attached to her stuffed dog, creatively named "puppy". she takes it to school every day and sleeps with it every night. if she loses it, she refuses to sleep without it. once, her older sister cut a hole into it. the stuffing was coming out, but she still continued to bring it around everywhere.
• she is obsessed with metal locks. she draws them, she carries them around. she also really likes over-ear headphones. these are in almost all of the cards she makes for me.
• she doesn't react much to pain. she runs, she falls, she scrapes her knee or something, then she gets back up like nothing happened. she skinned her hand once pretty badly and barely cried. she
• her teachers have told me that she is very quiet at school. she doesn't play with other kids unless prompted to.
• she is very controlling of her younger brother, like she's trying to be a second mother.
• she is strangely fascinated with checklists and schedules. I can't even tell you how many times I stumble upon a paper that says "daily routine" or "scedhul" (she can't spell that word yet.) with a checklist underneath. this is really strange for a 4 year old, but it would make a little sense if she was autistic? I know many kids with autism care a lot about routines.
that's pretty much everything. does my little one seem autistic? my other kiddos don't act like this at all.

It was a cold, windy night in November. The kind of night where the wind howls through the trees, making them creak and groan like they’re alive. I was alone in the house. My parents had gone out for the evening, and my older brother was at a friend’s house. They wouldn’t be back until late, so it was just me, the silence, and the unsettling noises the old house made in the dark.
I was in the living room, curled up on the couch with a blanket and a bowl of popcorn, watching a movie to pass the time. I’d turned off all the lights except for the flickering glow of the TV, which cast eerie shadows on the walls. I tried not to think about how quiet it was, how empty the house felt, but the creaking and groaning of the house made it hard to ignore.
Then I heard it. A faint sound, just outside the window. I froze, the remote slipping from my hand and clattering to the floor. The noise was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced by the steady thrumming of my heartbeat in my ears. I told myself it was nothing, just the wind or maybe a stray cat, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease.
I forced myself to keep watching the movie, trying to lose myself in the familiar story. But then I heard it again—a soft, scraping sound, like metal against wood. This time, it was coming from the back door. I muted the TV and strained to listen, every muscle in my body tense.
The scraping turned into a quiet, persistent rattle, as if someone was trying to pick the lock. I felt a chill run down my spine. My mind raced. Should I call my parents? The police? My phone was in the kitchen, and I’d have to cross the dark hallway to get to it.
I crept off the couch, moving as silently as I could, my heart pounding in my chest. As I reached the hallway, the rattling stopped. The sudden silence was almost worse than the noise. I held my breath, listening for any sign of movement. Then, a soft thud echoed through the house. Someone was inside.
Panicking, I darted into the kitchen and grabbed my phone. I dialed 999, my hands shaking so badly I almost dropped it. As I pressed the phone to my ear, I heard heavy footsteps coming down the hallway.
“999, what’s your emergency?” the operator’s voice was calm and steady, a lifeline in the darkness.
“There’s someone in my house,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Please, send help.”
I could hear the intruder moving closer, the floorboards creaking under their weight. The operator assured me that help was on the way, but I didn’t know how long it would take. I needed to hide.
I slipped into the pantry, pulling the door closed just as the footsteps entered the kitchen. Through the slats, I could see a dark figure moving around, searching for something. I clamped a hand over my mouth, trying to stifle my breathing.
The intruder moved methodically, opening cupboards and drawers, the clinking of silverware and the thud of doors slamming shut filling the silence. I prayed they wouldn’t check the pantry, that they’d take whatever they wanted and leave.
But then the door creaked open, and I found myself staring into the eyes of a masked figure. I screamed, dropping my phone. The operator’s voice echoed from the floor, but I couldn’t make out the words. The intruder lunged at me, and I scrambled backwards, my hand closing around a can of soup. Without thinking, I hurled it at their head.
The can connected with a sickening thud, and the intruder staggered, giving me a moment to escape. I bolted from the pantry, tearing through the house and out the front door. I didn’t stop running until I reached the neighbor’s house, where I banged on the door, sobbing and gasping for breath.
The police arrived minutes later, lights flashing and sirens wailing. They found the intruder unconscious in the kitchen, the mask still on their face. I later learned they’d been a wanted criminal, breaking into homes in the area.
That night changed me. The house never felt the same—its comforting creaks and groans now sounded like threats. And I never forgot the terror of seeing those eyes in the dark, the feeling of being hunted in my own home.

I believed in fairies as a kid. More than believed in them. I think something terrible happened to me, and I've just buried it until now.
Call me a typical emotion-bottling man, but I have never considered therapy. No matter what I went through, no matter how many times I thought to myself, verbatim, that I should talk to someone about this, I just never thought of it as an option. It simply wasn't on my roster. It was just one of those things that existed on a separate plane of existence than I was living in, never to cross paths or interact lest the universe collapse in on itself.
I have no problem with therapy, don't get me wrong. It isn't like I don't understand the overall appeal. I have plenty of friends who swear by it, swear it has helped them tremendously, including my wife. It just wasn't ever something I thought was in my cards.
"I just never really thought about it," I told Alice one evening, when she had brought the topic up once again after dinner.
There was a serene sense of peace wafting through the entire house that day, and I was feeling content. It was a Sunday, and swimming season, so we had dropped Emmie off that morning at the public pool for practice and gone straight to our favorite breakfast place. The rest of the day was filled with all the conversation that had built up over the week, all the topics we couldn't fully dig into with each other while babysitting our eight year old, and lounging, all crammed in between sporadic bursts of housework and paperwork we had to catch up on. It was the perfect day, in my humble opinion. It was a lovely moment of peace in the midst of a chaotic life, as is life with kids. And now the sounds of Mario Kart drifted in from the living room, Emmie's squeals cutting through the cheery music every now and then, causing Alice and I to share small smiles of acknowledgement.
Oh, to be a child again. Still a little drenched from a post-swimming shower, full of chili, eyes glowing with the reflection of a television screen.
"Well, maybe you should." My wife was scooping leftover chili into a Tupperware with a ladle. Her hair had been tied up like it was every day after dinner, as if she planned to run a marathon rather than do the cleaning up. She wasn't looking at me, dialed into the task at hand.
It's crazy how some parts of my memory could be so good, and others nonexistent.
I reached over from where I stood before the dishwasher, sliding my arm around her waist. She gave me a look, like, what?
"I just don't think it's for me, babe," I muttered, resting my mouth on her shoulder as if I was trying to skip her ears and speak right through her skin. "You know those things make me uncomfortable sometimes."
She let out a half groan, half sigh, setting down the container and the ladle and turning to face me, draping her arms over my shoulders.
"Everything makes you uncomfortable, John."
I smiled, letting my hands fall to her hips. I knew her frustrated act was just that, an act, at least for the most part.
"It's good for you," she continued pointedly, reaching up to tap her pointer finger against my forehead as I swayed her back and forth to a nonexistent tune. "Like medicine. And I know for a fact there are some things you need to work through."
I feigned offense. "You think I'm some kind of nut job?"
"Everyone needs therapy," she snarled, pulling out of my arms, but she didn't resist when I reached out and drew her back in. "Not just nut jobs."
And that was how most of those conversations went. Some got a little more heated, ending with a lightly slammed door (so as not to wake our daughter) and a whisper-shout of "this is why you need therapy!"
I feel I'm making it sound bad, but it wasn't. Even our more serious fights never quite felt like fights. They felt like playing. We were like two cats, biting and tackling and swishing our tails, but never baring our teeth to hiss. I never felt genuine, full-bodied anger towards her, and I knew she felt the same. It sounds sappy, but we were just very in love. I sometimes felt that we had never actually left the honeymoon phase.
I'm also making it sound like that conversation was incredibly common, and it wasn't. It came up maybe once every few months. I knew she was just looking out for me. She knew me better than anyone.
We had met through mutual friends, and we had initially bonded over our terrible childhoods. We both had moms who were out of the picture, and over emotional, over compensating dads, although this manifested in vastly different ways. Alice's mother left her father for a D-list rockstar type, following him on his state wide tour. She would sometimes send Alice letters or postcards from the road, although her dad wouldn't always let her keep them if they seemed to be stained with blood or seemed to have made contact with any strange white powders.
Her dad coped with anger. He never laid a hand on her, but his shouting and the sounds of glass bottles smashing against the walls kept her up almost every night. During the days he'd take her out, buy her things, go mini golfing and bowling and to the movies. Anything to seem more fun than her mother.
My mother passed away on my seventh birthday. She was driving home from work, which was at a law firm half an hour away from our house, when it began to rain. She was texting my dad her ETA when she ran a red light and a semi truck T-boned her, completely obliterating her car.
After that, everything changed. My seventh birthday could've been my twenty-first. At night it was the worst. I remember sitting with my dad as he cried, curled up in a sobbing ball on the filthy living room carpet, whimpering like a kicked puppy. He would scream and wail so loud the walls shook. He would say, over and over as if I wasn't hearing him, sometimes mumbling and sometimes shrieking, "She was cut in half. I'm sorry sir, she's gone. No, there's no chance she survived, she was completely cut in half."
The days were almost worse. During the day, when he could decrease the helpless wails into weeping at the very least, his attention turned to me. He tried to get something out of me, almost silently begging me to break down with him. Every other second it was, "How are you feeling, son? Do you understand what's happening? You poor thing, you must be devastated, your mommy is gone... Don't you want to cry?"
But I couldn't indulge, and I didn't want to. I had to wash the sheets, because he'd pissed them again, and I didn't want him to sleep in it and smell like pee when he took me to school the next day. I had to vacuum the carpet, so the next time he curled up on it and begged God to take him too, when he finally stood up, his cheek wouldn't be caked in crumbs and dust.
I don't know if I ever truly mourned. My mother's death was more like an absence, as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and carved a chunk out of my side, or snipped off a limb. I could still feel her, I could still talk to her, but all I got back was a deep ache and a crushing silence.
I hated how people reacted when I told them my mom was dead, and had been since I was a little boy. I hated the looks on their faces when they asked how she died, and when I told them. How their mouths fell open dumbly and their eyebrows twisted and contorted in sympathetic horror. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know," they said, as if there was vomit rising in their throats, and I wanted to say, "Well, you fucking asked, didn't you?"
Alice never reacted like that. In fact, she never really even asked me what happened. We were on our second date, nursing beers while leaning against the pool table a a dingy speakeasy, when she told me about her own mom. It was the first time in a long time I actually felt like the conversation was open, like I could respond and she would listen and care, but not too much. Not an uncomfortable amount. When I told her about my parents she didn't say anything, and her pretty face didn't contort. She leaned over the corner of the pool table and kissed me on the cheek, took my hand.
The day she found out she was pregnant, we promised each other to be better, to not let our child ever have to grieve alone or feel the very specific hopeless terror that only a parent can cause.
So maybe I should have listened to her. Maybe I should have gone to therapy the first time she brought it up, the first time she told me how it had helped her get through her own terrible memories. But if I'm being honest, I didn't think I had anything to get through. I had left it in the past, I had coped so far in my own somewhat crooked way, I didn't want to dig any of that back up. I didn't want to be put back in that place where I was expected to talk, to cry, to open up. It made my skin crawl just thinking about it.
"I was always the therapist," I would say to her with a crooked grin. "And I like it that way."
Then, the dreams started.
I could tell you I don't know what triggered them, I don't know why it was now. But that wouldn't be the truth. I know exactly why I started to remember.
At first, they were brief. Nightmares that I couldn't quite recall or explain, waking up disoriented and a little sick. The rest of my day would feel strange, like I was surrounded by a thick fog. Eventually, they started to wake me up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and screaming, scaring the shit out of my wife. Once I ran to the bathroom and threw up, barely making it to the toilet. That was when the word "therapy" came up again.
It feels like I've been in a coma for twenty years, and I'm just waking up now.
It's so strange how different the world looks to a child.
I believed in fairies as a kid. Laugh it up if you want. When I turned four, my aunt brought me this book - we've all had one, I think. It was one of those huge hardcover books filled with information about something mythical, with little patches of fabric to simulate a mermaid's scales or a dragon's claw.
Mine was about fairies, and it was so real to me. My mom would sit up with me later than she probably should have, reading to me, placing my hand on the textures to feel. I wanted to know everything about them, I became obsessed, and naturally, my parents played along. They bought me toys, books... every year I had a fae themed birthday cake, and any kid who dared to giggle behind their hands weren't invited to next year's celebration.
When I was old enough to use the internet, supervised of course, I began further research. My mom helped me navigate Wikipedia first, and they had plenty of information to sustain me for a while. My interest turned from wings and magical powers to different types of fae from every corner of the earth, mushroom rings and their alleged distaste for iron. While I still wasn't very good at reading, I would just look at the pictures until she got home from work.
When my mom died, the fairy memorabilia began to amp up. My aunt bought me new books, gave them to me wrapped and tied with ribbons with tear filled eyes, and my dad brought them up whenever he thought I needed comforting and felt strong enough to leave the house. "Wanna go look in the forest for fairies, son?"
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I began to worship the fairies. I was convinced they lived in the forest behind my house, just behind each tree I looked at, hiding from me. I would spend my weekends escaping into the woods with a bucket and a cheap pair of binoculars, positive that this time, this day, I would see one.
At night, when my dad finally passed out in his own puddle of tears and other bodily fluids, I would pray to them. I never believed in God, we weren't a particularly religious family, and besides, I had seen what good He had done for my dad thus far. But I believed in the fairies.
I asked them for help with my father. I asked them for peace. I asked them to bring her back to me.
They never answered.
Until they did.
It was a Friday. I remember now, I'm not sure how I could have forgotten. After school I had sprinted into the shade of the trees before my dad could stop me, gripping the hem of my shirt in my fist, the thin fabric bearing the weight of two handfuls of the shiniest silverware and most colorful buttons I could find in our dusty cabinets.
I had a plan that day. I was going to lure them to me.
My path began in a clearing where I thought a ring of mushrooms may have begun to grow... but even without that, it was just the perfect spot for fairies. I could picture them flitting between the trees, chirping to each other happily, picking wildflowers to weave into flower crowns.
I walked backwards all the way back to my bedroom window, dropping another item every few steps. When I got inside and looked out my window, I could see my trail of shiny things curve through the overgrown grass in our backyard and disappear into the trees.
I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself. Tonight, surely, they would come to me. They would show themselves, and they would help me. But after another few late hours of coddling my father, finally convincing him to drink some water and get in bed, I was exhausted. I completely forgot about my plan. When I got to my room I collapsed on my mattress, not even bothering to undress before I closed my eyes.
Then I heard it. The scratching.
I opened my eyes. The moonlight shining through my bedroom window casted strange shadows across my ceiling, shadows of the swaying grass and the creaking trees.
It was strangely silent, other than the sound. Usually there was lots of noise, or at the very least a few crickets, but not tonight. Tonight, I realized, I couldn't even hear the wind.
I sat up slowly, as if in a dream, and looked toward my window. I couldn't see anything out there, nothing glaringly obvious at least, that could be making that noise.
The scratching turned to a tap. Tap tap tap, like a fingernail against a glass. It had a playful air to it, like someone was saying, look over here!
I stood, rubbing my eyes, and stumbled over. The tapping stopped abruptly when I got to the window and peered outside, out to the dark yard, pitch black if not for the moon's glow. The grass didn't sway, the trees didn't creak. I frowned and unlatched the window, sliding it up above my head.
I was right, there was no wind. Not even a gust. Everything was still outside, like it was frozen. I actually started to believe it was frozen, that time had stopped completely somehow, before I saw it.
My trail of silverware and buttons. Sparkling softly in the moonlight.
Disappearing.
It began where the path met the trees, curving off where I couldn't follow it anymore. A fork disappeared right before my eyes, right on the edge. Just vanished, as if someone who was invisible had picked it up and stuffed it in a pocket very quickly.
Then another went, a spoon. Then a particularly large gold button. Whatever was taking them was doing what I had wanted, it was taking my bait, it was coming to me. And it was as if whatever had tapped at my window had wanted me to see this, wanted to show me.
But something felt very, very wrong.
This wasn't how I had pictured it. There was no twinkling, tiny winged thing at my window, winking at me before dashing back into the safety of the trees. There were no secrets being whispered in my ear, no fairy dust or promises of better things.
Something about this wasn't right. It felt like a mimicry, almost a mockery, of what I had imagined. Like something was trying to give me what I wanted, but was rusty at it.
I didn't want this anymore.
My stomach twisted and my hands shook as I pulled the window back down slowly, watching more glittery things disappear from the grass, growing closer and closer. As soon as it was closed I quickly locked it and pulled the blinds shut, turning my back to the window as if something would happen that I didn't want to see.
Nothing happened. The deafening silence continued for a few seconds as my ears strained to hear anything else happening outside. Then the wind picked up, and the sounds of crickets, muffled by my closed window, filled the night air.
I don't remember when I fell asleep that night, I just know I felt unnerved and jumpy for a while. I woke up the next morning feeling guilty. Had the fairies really come last night? Maybe they had come to talk to me, to bring me gifts, favors, and what had I done? I had closed my window on them. I felt ungrateful. Why had I even been scared? Because it was dark outside? What was I, a baby?
When I opened my window and peered outside, I gasped. The trail of silverware and buttons was completely gone, all the way up to the last one, which I had placed on my windowsill. In its place was a shoe. I didn't know what kind of shoe it was, but it looked sort of nice, fancy. I remember smiling out the window as I opened it, as if they were looking, and taking my gift.
How could I forget that night? How could I have forgotten what happened after? I feel crazy, either like I made it all up or like I've made up everything since then, like my life isn't truly my own.
I remember telling my dad. I remember saying, "Dad, the fairies came last night!" and the absent smile he gave me.
Until I showed him their gift. The shoe. Instantly his face went pale and he snatched it from my hands, staring at me as if I was something unholy.
"Where did you get this, Johnny?"
"The fairies, dad, I told you!"
He didn't respond. Just gave me another long, solemn look, before turning away from me, still holding the present I received close to his chest. I was upset, but I knew better than throwing a tantrum. That would be too much emotion anyways, too uncomfortable. Even back then, I didn't know how to handle those things.
I didn't show him their gifts after that. I didn't want to risk having them taken away. I tried not to be scared of the fairies, even though they always came at night, but I didn't go to my window when they came anymore. I read everywhere that fairies didn't particularly like to be seen, even though this one seemed to want to be. It always began with tapping, but otherwise complete silence that almost felt like it was swallowing me... and eventually the tapping would stop, the silence would pass, and I would fall asleep. In the morning there was always another gift for me, sitting on my window sill. A sparkly gold ring, the other matching shoe, a hat... I smiled when I took every one, wanting them to know I was grateful. And I would leave things for them too, little sweets or shiny things like coins or paperclips that I found on the ground at school.
Things seemed to get better with my dad for a while. He kept to himself more, he was quieter. At night he would cry softly in his room, rather than his uproarious wails that I used to have to quell so the neighbors wouldn't come knocking. During the day, he would talk to me, but more casually. He didn't ask me how I was feeling anymore, or tell me to let it out.
I hoped this was the fairies. I felt invincible, like I had a secret superpower that no one knew about. I was friends with fairies.
Then one night, everything changed.
It started with the tapping, as always. That night I was fast asleep, catching up on well earned rest since the nightly therapy sessions had ceased.
The tapping woke me. It was that loud. It was louder than usual... but it seemed like it stopped abruptly as soon as I raised my head to look.
That was different...
That night, I had left my blinds up and my window open by accident. Since that first night, even though I wasn't scared anymore, I had always closed them... but this time, I must have forgotten.
It was silent outside. It seemed darker than usual. I could almost make out something, a shape, way on the other side of the yard, but it was too dark and I was too far away to tell.
That feeling from that first night retuned. A twisting like a hand reaching into my stomach and mixing things around, a heavy feeling in my chest like someone had stolen all of the air from my room, even though the window was open. The silence seemed to crush me, bearing down on me from every angle, making my ribs hurt.
The feeling that something was very wrong.
I don't remember deciding to stand: looking back, I have no idea why I would do that in my state of fight or flight. I don't know if I consciously chose to. I don't remember walking over, but I remember getting there, my hands on the windowsill and my head poking out into the completely still night air.
There was something there. On the edge of the trees. Right where I had seen that first fork disappear into thin air. I squinted, leaning further into the darkness to try and make out what it was.
When I finally did, the outline taking shape as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I began to shake uncontrollably. I remember that I tried to scream, but no sound would come. I couldn't move, couldn't do anything but stare.
Two legs stood in front of the trees, facing me. Two legs, a blood-soaked pair of slacks, no shoes on the purple, swollen feet. And a jagged, violent rip in the torso where the rest of my mother's body had been severed from its lower half.
It took me a while to realize that the legs weren't standing on their own. They began to move, jerking clumsily toward the window, like something I couldn't see was struggling to hold them up. I finally forced myself out of my trance and fell to my carpet, vomiting.
I don't remember much else about that night yet. My dad came running when I started crying, I'm sure, but he didn't see what I saw. My mom's legs were gone, or hidden. Because they weren't for him.
They were for me.
We moved after that. Before now if you had asked me why we moved so far away so suddenly, I probably would have mumbled something about the grief, and it being too hard to stay where my mother had died. But I remember why now.
It was because the next morning, when I checked my windowsill, there was a hand. My mother's hand. Purple and stiff, and missing her gold wedding ring. Reaching, fingers rested against the glass, like it was trying to get in.
Like it had been tapping.
I don't want to think about what else it might have brought, had we stayed.
That thing, whatever it was, wasn't my mother, and it wasn't a fairy. I had invited something else with all my praying, with all my naive and innocent beliefs, and with all my bottled up emotions. I had invited it, and I had let it in.
And then I had forgotten everything. Maybe I bottled that up, too.
Now I remember. Now I'm having nightmares, and waking up with that sick feeling in my gut, my eyes jumping to our closed bedroom window.
Because a week ago, my daughter woke me up very early in the morning my jumping on our bed. A week ago, she shook me awake, her eager smile stretching all the way across her face. A week ago, she told me, "Dad, the fairies came last night!"
She showed me a doll, a ballerina, with a pink tutu and beautiful long blonde hair.
And now, with all these terrible memories hitting me like cold water to the face, only one keeps me awake at night.
I asked them for help with my father. I asked them for peace. I asked them to bring her back to me.
It has granted two of my wishes, in its own twisted way. My father grew distant from me and my mother was brought back in pieces.
I'm happy now. But I don't have peace. I don't think I'll ever fully have peace, at least not with a child and a wife to try and provide for, and not with all of these memories.
So what has it come back for?

Hi all,
I currently have two cats who have been living together peacefully for 3 years. They’re not the best of friends but they can sleep and eat close to each other, play together, sometimes groom each other.
I live in an apartment complex on the ground floor and both of my cats were looking outside the porch door. Suddenly, a random cat showed up outside the door and one of my cats went batshit crazy and the other one poofed and ran away.
Now when my cats look at each other, they both go into battle stance and attack each other.
This happened only one other time recently. Both cats were looking out the same door and I don’t know what happened but they started fighting. That night, we kept them separated, tried to play with them as distractions. We were terrified that their relationship was ruined. They would go into battle stance every time they saw each other. It only lasted a day and the next morning they were fine.
Now that this has happened a second time, I’m hoping to get better advice on how to deal with this.
I have a chaise couch close to the porch door which makes the spot the cats look outside a little enclosed. I’m wondering if moving the couch would help them with escape routes if they feel the need to run.

Open to advice as always but since I’ve been through this before, I’m mainly just curious to see if anyone can relate to this scenario or if I need to start thinking of other options (that I really do not want).
I’ve posted in here before about introducing my older cat, MaryLouise, to the younger one, Lenore (both adults with 2ish year gap). After a 4 month introduction, and a week-ish reintroduction after that, the past 8-ish months have been in relative harmony. They play with each other a lot less brutually than they used to, MaryLouise will often go up and start grooming Lenore, they’ll sleep right next to each other, they’ll both cuddle with me, they’ll eat side by side without fighting, etc. I do believe they genuinely like each other.
Unfortunately, today I fucked up when I accidentally stepped on ML’s paw. She screamed, I yelped cause it startled me, and she immediately ran straight for Lenore and proceeded to chase her while yowling and clearly wanting to harm her. I managed to wrangle ML and put her in the office for a couple hours. When I got back home I tried to release her with some treats to peace-make, but she immediately went for Lenore again. I’ve seen this happen before and know it means they need a reintroduction, especially with how fearful Lenore was to ML’s smell after Fight Round 2.
Just because I’ve done this before, I do think they CAN be reintroduced okay (the second intro went way quicker than the first). I also left a voicemail for the vet to get em both a little gabapentin (ML has been on it before but had been weened off it for like the past 6+ months?). Maybe it was my mistake to think ML could ever go unmedicated, even without another cat involved in the mix, due to her own anxiety/instability from whatever life she had before me. It’s just so defeating to have to go through this a third time, especially knowing it’s my own fault. I definitely wonder if I made the right decision of the second cat. But even the vet seemed impressed when just two weeks ago, I brought them both into the office, and they were totally fine!! Even after being poked and prodded for bloodwork, ML didn’t attack Lenore either at the vet or at home.
Maybe I’m just looking for a “your cat needs meds” or a “I had to introduce my cats 8 times, it’s normal”, I don’t know. I’m just trying my best for them and need a better safety net for when stuff like this happens, and the knowledge this too shall pass without the word “rehoming” brought into the mix.

Hi everyone!
My boyfriend of five years and I are strongly considering adopting two senior rats (2 years and 4 months old, bonded pair) from a shelter who desperately need a home.
The situation is a bit rough so I'd love y'alls educated advice about the best course of action (I'm also anxious and am unsure of the right choice!):
The rats have already been in the shelter for several weeks and the employees said there is nobody interested in them. They told us they want someone to adopt the rats ASAP because the amount of people coming in and out of the shelter is distressing for them and the shelter doesn't have a lot of resources for them. Their adoption fee is only $15. Poor little guys were so scared and the employees have been really hopeful that we can give them a better situation.
Their age is actually a benefit for us because we'll be moving out of our apartment next August (8/31/2025) and wouldn't want them to go through a stressful move. Plus, the landlord will start showing the apartment in the new year, so we'd have at least 7 months of undisturbed time with them.
However, this brings us to the big issue: In our lease, dogs are strictly forbidden and cats are allowed, but it doesn't specify exactly their policy about other pets, except that they require written consent. So, months ago, we reached out to our property manager just to ask if rodents were allowed (because we've been wanting a little guy for awhile now!) and he said no.
We have never had anyone walk into our apartment (to our knowledge) the entire time we've been living here. So it’s unlikely that anyone would know, but it's still a risk. They also do not outline the consequences of being caught with a pet. It could be as little as a verbal warning but as big as an eviction. Of course an eviction would be bad for us, but it would also be bad for the little fellas. So although we feel like the chances are slim to none that anything would happen, we are still trying to proceed with caution.
I work from home and it gets pretty lonely in here day-to-day. So, having them would be mutually beneficial. They can get a lot of supervised play time around the house, and I can have two small companions. Plus I'll be home with them almost all the time except when I run errands, go on walks, or go out to dinner occasionally, so I'd hopefully know if anyone enters the house.
We also don't have any planned vacations this summer except for one: June 1st-6th we'll be flying out of town. This trip has also been factoring into our decision because we'd need to find a rat-loving friend or pay a sitter to come in and take care of them. This gets a little sus considering the landlord situation, but thankfully there are no cameras around.
We've visited the little guys twice now and they absolutely melted our hearts. They're so sweet and snuggly. They love to cuddle up together and were so delicate with us. I'd really love to take them home and give them an enjoyable last few months of their lives. The shelter is trying their best but they seem so uncomfortable there.
Of note: I've owned over 10 rodents in my life. My boyfriend has a job caring for mice and rats in a lab and has many rat/rodent certifications. We're fully confident in our abilities to care for them well, it's just the circumstances that make me a bit wary.
Let me know how you guys would proceed in this situation! I'm trying not to let my emotions guide me but it's so tough <3
Thank you!

Hi everyone!
My boyfriend of five years and I are strongly considering adopting two senior rats (2 years and 4 months old, bonded pair) from a shelter who desperately need a home.
The situation is a bit rough so I'd love y'alls educated advice about the best course of action (I'm also anxious and am unsure of the right choice!):
The rats have already been in the shelter for several weeks and the employees said there is nobody interested in them. They told us they want someone to adopt the rats ASAP because the amount of people coming in and out of the shelter is distressing for them and the shelter doesn't have a lot of resources for them. Their adoption fee is only $15. Poor little guys were so scared and the employees have been really hopeful that we can give them a better situation.
Their age is actually a benefit for us because we'll be moving out of our apartment next August (8/31/2025) and wouldn't want them to go through a stressful move. Plus, the landlord will start showing the apartment in the new year, so we'd have at least 7 months of undisturbed time with them.
However, this brings us to the big issue: In our lease, dogs are strictly forbidden and cats are allowed, but it doesn't specify exactly their policy about other pets, except that they require written consent. So, months ago, we reached out to our property manager just to ask if rodents were allowed (because we've been wanting a little guy for awhile now!) and he said no.
We have never had anyone walk into our apartment (to our knowledge) the entire time we've been living here. So it’s unlikely that anyone would know, but it's still a risk. They also do not outline the consequences of being caught with a pet. It could be as little as a verbal warning but as big as an eviction. Of course an eviction would be bad for us, but it would also be bad for the little fellas. So although we feel like the chances are slim to none that anything would happen, we are still trying to proceed with caution.
I work from home and it gets pretty lonely in here day-to-day. So, having them would be mutually beneficial. They can get a lot of supervised play time around the house, and I can have two small companions. Plus I'll be home with them almost all the time except when I run errands, go on walks, or go out to dinner occasionally, so I'd hopefully know if anyone enters the house.
We also don't have any planned vacations this summer except for one: June 1st-6th we'll be flying out of town. This trip has also been factoring into our decision because we'd need to find a rat-loving friend or pay a sitter to come in and take care of them. This gets a little sus considering the landlord situation, but thankfully there are no cameras around.
We've visited the little guys twice now and they absolutely melted our hearts. They're so sweet and snuggly. They love to cuddle up together and were so delicate with us. I'd really love to take them home and give them an enjoyable last few months of their lives. The shelter is trying their best but they seem so uncomfortable there.
Of note: I've owned over 10 rodents in my life. My boyfriend has a job caring for mice and rats in a lab and has many rat/rodent certifications. We're fully confident in our abilities to care for them well, it's just the circumstances that make me a bit wary.
Let me know how you guys would proceed in this situation! I'm trying not to let my emotions guide me but it's so tough <3
Thank you!

I get told I’m mature for my age ranging from classmates, teachers, and older people. I always stop and think “Am I really mature or is it because of the things I experienced?”. When I was kid I knew that Santa wasn’t real and other folk tales or things parents would tell children,(i know some kids also knew that) I acted like I still believed because it made my parents happy. It made them think I was still their little girl. I started to doubt my belief in god at an age that I should’ve been excited because the tooth fairy was coming. I would feel feel embarrassed waiting in line at stores because I felt like everyone was judging me, I felt like I was burning up. At that age I should’ve been focusing on making loom bracelets begging to go to Chuck E. Cheese. The moment where I could use my hands to do something I was put to do house chores, something my older brothers didn’t even do at my age and at their current age. But as my mom always says “why make them do it when they obviously won’t, he’s a boy”, I was a little girl. I get told to focus on myself when I complain but for some reason they can’t seem to focus on what they’re doing because they always stop to scold me. I had to be a grown up when my older brothers were still boys. Every day when I left to go to elementary school I would feel sick to my stomach because I would always think “what if someone robbed my mom?, what if she’s dead?, what if someone comes to my school and kills me?, what if my family died?” It was always a what if. I shouldn’t have been thinking of death at my age. I remember when I sometimes would cry on my mom’s lap because I was scared she would die, I don’t know why. Death was always in my head, it followed me around. It was a reoccurring guest in my home. I would act clueless in front of adults to make them gush over me but, I was disgusted at myself for doing it. My brother would show me gore like it was a silly cartoon, I watched and never said a thing. I don’t know why he would show me things like that, I was just a girl. I knew my dad and brothers were lazy, so I did the housework, tried to learn how to cook(I don’t know how I was let close to a stove at 7),and got straight A’s(and b’s) from elementary to middle school. But I’m a girl so it’s in my blood to do things like that, i wasn’t acknowledged. “How can I possibly be tired at fourteen” is what I would think. I would think the same at 13,12,11,10. I’m not enough and I know that, I’m a disgusting person and I know that, I’m a stupid failure and i know that. I hate being a therapist to my friends I get disgusted when they cry. I get disgusted when they do anything. I sometimes cry, I don’t know if it’s fake or real. I cried when my cat got ran over but a few minutes later I was on my phone and I later went to round table. I love my cat though. I cry but for some reason I don’t feel anything when I do, I just wipe my tears and get over it. I act like an adult and I get told to stop, I act like a girl and I get told to stop. I don’t want to be mature, why did I grow up fast. I want to run around and get my knees scraped, I want to play tag with people at school.

A couple months ago my fiance and I broke up of 11 years. My whole life revolved around taking care of her and our cats. I really loved my life and I still really love her. I tried to unalienable myself when this happened. Fortunately I'm still here. I've managed to get my own apartment. Adopt four baby kittens. And it feels like I'm putting my life back together. But I'm actually really really sad. I cry all the time when I'm alone and I feel like there's a weight on my heart. I have no one to talk to ever about how I really feel because I just get unsolicited advice or ignored so I just put on this stupid happy fake persona. And honestly I'm tired of it. I just want my feelings and emotions to matter. It just seems like because I'm a man the people I do know think I shouldn't be depressed and I get judged terribly for trying to unalienable myself. Plus when the few people I talk to found out they were mad at me and told me I could talk to them anytime. Well now that some time has passed no one talks to me my texts get ignored. I live in rural Iowa and I dont drink and don't and can't have kids plus I'm an anime and video game nerd and out here unless you have kids are a drinker its almost impossible to make friends. Idk what im trying to say. Im just lonely, sad, depressed, and miserable. My kittens are really helping out but I just don't know why I have to mask and why I can't just express myself without being looked down on. It sucks

I have a female cat probably around 15 years old and is neutered and today I just noticed she looked incredibly skinny (I can see her ribs when she's standing) and is breathing from her stomach. We live in Northern New York and she does get ticks so Lyme is possible and she is known to vomit a lot (probably 1-2 times a week for the last 4 ish years but not much the last few weeks) but I just wanted the opinions of people on how urgently we should be getting her to the vet. We have a local vet who normally is a 4-5 week wait but they're really good or a farther away vet who is probably only a few days to a week wait but we've had bad experiences with them. Also anything we can do in the meantime to keep her comfortable? She doesn't really act different but obviously something is wrong and I want to make sure she's getting the best care from us until she can get to the vet. I will llink a photo of her standing and a video of her breathing in the comments.

I’m probably a little late to this since I only found out the title, cover and blurb had been released a few minutes ago, though I personally have mixed feelings about it.
I love that Leafstar and Tawnypelt are getting POVs, I was just thinking the other day about how we haven’t had a main series deputy or leader POV since TNP, and it’s gotten repetitive only seeing POVs from apprentices and young warriors- and boom, we finally get a leader and elder POV! I don’t really have any strong opinions on Leafstar and Tawnypelt, I feel neutral about them, but just overall having protagonists from a different age group and clan role than normal is a nice change to see. Leafstar going blind could be an interesting plot point too, I wonder if she’s losing her eyesight because of age or because of an injury she received in Star or Ivypool’s Heart (maybe she’ll get blinded in a battle?).
I really hope Moonpaw is Whistlepaw’s apprentice, it would be cool to finally get a main series Windclan POV, plus I’d like to see Whistlepaw more. I do think it’s more likely she’ll be a Sun x Night kit though, and I’d be fine with that too tbh since while it’s refreshing to see other clans’ POVs besides Thunderclan, to me Thunderclan feels like home. We’ve followed their journey throughout 7 arcs, we might as well continue- plus imo it’ll feel like something is missing if we go the entire arc without a single Thunderclan POV, especially if the next arc does have a Thunderclan POV, because then they’ll likely be a bunch of new cats and character development that happened offscreen. Thunderclan has always been a part (and often the center) of clan drama, if they just zipped out of there when trouble is coming it’ll feel a little out of character in a way, to me at least, like how Windclan used to be nice but then turned aggressive out of nowhere because of Onestar, and then suddenly dropped out of relevance with the new arcs. This may be an unpopular since I’ve seen a lot of people wanting Thunderclan to not have much pagetime/impact in Changing Skies- but I don’t want Thunderclan to drop out of relevance, especially if it’s sudden and without proper buildup.
Either way though, there’s lots of potential for character dynamics between the 3 protagonists, in every other arc the main protagnists are friends or siblings of around the same age, whereas in Changing Skies it‘ll be two older cats and one young cat. It’ll be interesting to see how that will that affect their group dynamic and how they work together.
Though only complaint I have so far about the main protagonists is how usually in arcs with an apprentice/young warrior protagonist, whenever they find out a conspiracy or get a sign from Starclan nobody believes them because they’re young and therefore don’t have as much experience or respect from the other warriors, and that slows the plot down because the protagonist is ostracized or has to go on a quest in secret- but now that we finally do get oldeclan leader protagonists, from the blurb it seems like they’ll still have to go on a quest in secret and deal with the clans mistrusting their judgement. I just want to see a leader or deputy protagonist actually respected by their clan and giving orders that will be followed, damnit!
For example, it was really cool seeing Firestar as respected leader in The Darkest Hour and leading the full might of Thunderclan against Tigerstar and the other villains instead of having to sneak around and keep secrets like he did in the earlier books, the cat was completely out of the bag now, everyone has the same amount of information, and Firestar could actually use his authority as leader to do something against the villains. This is something I’d like to see again, in the past few arcs none of the big decisions that affected all the clans were made by the protagonists, they had to tiptoe around the leaders and wait for them to make their decisions (which sometimes takes a long time), seeing a leader protagonist move the plot forward themselves instead of waiting for their superiors to make the decisions would be so refreshing to see. But turns out Leafstar’s clan is gonna doubt her instead of respecting her, which is a bummer. She’ll probably still have the authority of a leader and stuff so what I want to see could still happen, but I mean when Thunderclan doubted Squirrelflight’s leadership some of them didn’t follow her orders and the clan itself was not united at all, and what I want to see is a leader protagonist leading a united clan against a greater threat rather than the “civil war because of a controversial leader” plotline rehashed again.
Speaking of rehashing, basically everything about the blurb feels like it’s taken from either TNP or TBC. The Moonpool and the cats’ connection to Starclan being threatened? We saw that with Ashfur cutting off the clans’ connection to Starclan and the Moonpool being frozen. Twoleg construction encroaching on clan territory, with some of the leaders not taking it seriously or believing the protagonist? Been there, done that in TNP with the twolegs destroying the forest and Leopardstar and Blackstar not wanting to leave. An apprentice hearing a mysterious voice in her head, thinks she’s having visions, but then the voice becomes sinister? That’s basically Shadowsight and Frostpaw’s plotlines mashed together. It could be that the blurb is worse than the actual book (never judge a book by its cover blurb, right?) but I don’t know, if it’s one plot point being similar to another arc’s then that could be fine, but basically every plot point listed has already happened before. It gives off the vibes that the authors are getting lazy or running out of ideas.
Overall, while the contents of the blurb have been mostly disappointing to me, there are still new and unique things that could happen even with multiple rehashed plot points (such as how it seems like the protagonists will be trying to stop something that hasn’t happened yet rather than something that has already happened like in TBC) so I’m still holding out hope for a good arc. Tbh it feels like Changing Skies could either be the best arc so far, or the worst. It has lots of potential, especially with how the protagonists are different from the norm, but the writing of the plot is just as important as the distinctness of the characters, and if the plot flops I don’t know if even the best character writing could save it. I just hope the writers pull through and manage to make all the controversial elements work. 👍

I’m probably a little late to this since I only found out the title, cover and blurb had been released a few minutes ago, though I personally have mixed feelings about it.
I love that Leafstar and Tawnypelt are getting POVs, I was just thinking the other day about how we haven’t had a main series deputy or leader POV since TNP, and it’s gotten repetitive only seeing POVs from apprentices and young warriors- and boom, we finally get a leader and elder POV! I don’t really have any strong opinions on Leafstar and Tawnypelt, I feel neutral about them, but just overall having protagonists from a different age group and clan role than normal is a nice change to see. Leafstar going blind could be an interesting plot point too, I wonder if she’s losing her eyesight because of age or because of an injury she received in Star or Ivypool’s Heart (maybe she’ll get blinded in a battle?).
I really hope Moonpaw is Whistlepaw’s apprentice, it would be cool to finally get a main series Windclan POV, plus I’d like to see Whistlepaw more. I do think it’s more likely she’ll be a Sun x Night kit though, and I’d be fine with that too tbh since while it’s refreshing to see other clans’ POVs besides Thunderclan, to me Thunderclan feels like home. We’ve followed their journey throughout 7 arcs, we might as well continue- plus imo it’ll feel like something is missing if we go the entire arc without a single Thunderclan POV, especially if the next arc does have a Thunderclan POV, because then they’ll likely be a bunch of new cats and character development that happened offscreen. Thunderclan has always been a part (and often the center) of clan drama, if they just zipped out of there when trouble is coming it’ll feel a little out of character in a way, to me at least, like how Windclan used to be nice but then turned aggressive out of nowhere because of Onestar, and then suddenly dropped out of relevance with the new arcs. This may be an unpopular since I’ve seen a lot of people wanting Thunderclan to not have much pagetime/impact in Changing Skies- but I don’t want Thunderclan to drop out of relevance, especially if it’s sudden and without proper buildup.
Either way though, there’s lots of potential for character dynamics between the 3 protagonists, in every other arc the main protagnists are friends or siblings of around the same age, whereas in Changing Skies it‘ll be two older cats and one young cat. It’ll be interesting to see how that will that affect their group dynamic and how they work together.
Though only complaint I have so far about the main protagonists is how usually in arcs with an apprentice/young warrior protagonist, whenever they find out a conspiracy or get a sign from Starclan nobody believes them because they’re young and therefore don’t have as much experience or respect from the other warriors, and that slows the plot down because the protagonist is ostracized or has to go on a quest in secret- but now that we finally do get oldeclan leader protagonists, from the blurb it seems like they’ll still have to go on a quest in secret and deal with the clans mistrusting their judgement. I just want to see a leader or deputy protagonist actually respected by their clan and giving orders that will be followed, damnit!
For example, it was really cool seeing Firestar as respected leader in The Darkest Hour and leading the full might of Thunderclan against Tigerstar and the other villains instead of having to sneak around and keep secrets like he did in the earlier books, the cat was completely out of the bag now, everyone has the same amount of information, and Firestar could actually use his authority as leader to do something against the villains. This is something I’d like to see again, in the past few arcs none of the big decisions that affected all the clans were made by the protagonists, they had to tiptoe around the leaders and wait for them to make their decisions (which sometimes takes a long time), seeing a leader protagonist move the plot forward themselves instead of waiting for their superiors to make the decisions would be so refreshing to see. But turns out Leafstar’s clan is gonna doubt her instead of respecting her, which is a bummer. She’ll probably still have the authority of a leader and stuff so what I want to see could still happen, but I mean when Thunderclan doubted Squirrelflight’s leadership some of them didn’t follow her orders and the clan itself was not united at all, and what I want to see is a leader protagonist leading a united clan against a greater threat rather than the “civil war because of a controversial leader” plotline rehashed again.
Speaking of rehashing, basically everything about the blurb feels like it’s taken from either TNP or TBC. The Moonpool and the cats’ connection to Starclan being threatened? We saw that with Ashfur cutting off the clans’ connection to Starclan and the Moonpool being frozen. Twoleg construction encroaching on clan territory, with some of the leaders not taking it seriously or believing the protagonist? Been there, done that in TNP with the twolegs destroying the forest and Leopardstar and Blackstar not wanting to leave. An apprentice hearing a mysterious voice in her head, thinks she’s having visions, but then the voice becomes sinister? That’s basically Shadowsight and Frostpaw’s plotlines mashed together. It could be that the blurb is worse than the actual book (never judge a book by its cover blurb, right?) but I don’t know, if it’s one plot point being similar to another arc’s then that could be fine, but basically every plot point listed has already happened before. It gives off the vibes that the authors are getting lazy or running out of ideas.
Overall, while the contents of the blurb have been mostly disappointing to me, there are still new and unique things that could happen even with multiple rehashed plot points (such as how it seems like the protagonists will be trying to stop something that hasn’t happened yet rather than something that has already happened like in TBC) so I’m still holding out hope for a good arc. Tbh it feels like Changing Skies could either be the best arc so far, or the worst. It has lots of potential, especially with how the protagonists are different from the norm, but the writing of the plot is just as important as the distinctness of the characters, and if the plot flops I don’t know if even the best character writing could save it. I just hope the writers pull through and manage to make all the controversial elements work. 👍

Salam everyone I hope you’re all doing well. This will be a bit of a read so thank you in advance if you choose to stay. I’ve decided to post on this account instead of my main as I don’t want people I know to read this, if you’d like to read my post history for further clarity of my situation please DM me.
I’m currently going through a lot. I recently found out I’ve been in an emotionally abusive and religiously manipulative marriage since March last year and have since asked my husband for divorce. My husband was forcing me to not keep contact with my Ahmadi family and we had a few other problems. He initially agreed, then said he doesn’t want one so I started filling out the Khula application, but now recently has agreed to give me a divorce.
For context, I’m a final year university student, living in uni accommodation and my husband has been living with me due to it being closer to commute to work than from his mum’s house. It has been a bit awkward but we kept conversation civil and surface level. Things got worse after I had a car accident on the motorway 2 weeks ago. Alhamdulillah i’m fine but my car needs repairing and got even more damaged by the recovery company so have been having back and forths with insurance and this company for a while and my car is yet to be repaired. It will cost quite a bit and it will only be a year since I got my license in August. After this accident, the next day my husband trespassed onto my family’s property (he is not welcome due to him calling the police on my family multiple times in the past) and the police had to once again be involved. Since then i’ve been staying at my parent’s (who I’m still re-building my relationship with after things went sour for almost a year) and my husband has been staying in my accommodation. I did tell him to leave but due to his circumstances I’ve agreed to him staying in exchange of him paying for the whole year’s rent which is around 6k (i know it’s his responsibility anyway). It’s been really tiring commuting everyday with my mum driving me to and from, I wish i could’ve stayed on campus or driven myself. He keeps asking me to stay and that he will sleep on the floor but i don’t feel comfortable around him after he trespassed.
I’ve only got until the end of this month before I finish my degree so preparing for my exams has been stressful with everything else going on.
i also haven’t worked out/been to the gym properly since February so that also makes me upset with myself but i’m hoping to start again next month after my exams.
There’s also a part of me that feels like I have no actual social support, to me it seems like my friends at uni are closer to each other than they are to me, some have planned holidays with each other after they finish and it feels like they have things so much easier.
Due to my husband constantly calling the police on my family and forcing me to as well, my sister and mum got interrogated by them and I feel like my relationship with my sister has changed forever. Her husband is extremely cold to me, and it makes me uncomfortable being around him and I understand my sister needs to consider his feelings too so I feel like my sister isn’t truly my sister anymore as I can’t visit as freely especially when he’s home.
I’ve also been having issues with my childhood friends. two of them are Ahmadi, initially they were extremely understanding and supportive of me reverting and my marriage but once I told them about the emotional abuse in my marriage they’ve both turned extremely cold towards me too. One of them randomly bombarded me with a long, extremely rude message of her being upset at me for not defending Ahmadiyya on reddit in my comments of a post I made months before despite her knowing i’m no longer part of that community and do not support it even if my family believe in it. i found this ironic as we have sunni friends that they have no issues with as they were born into it but are offended with me leaving their community unapologetically. the other one decided she can decide what’s best for me and kept giving her unwanted advice on my situation shortly after reconnecting following her mum telling her to cut contact with me for reverting. i felt extremely betrayed of my trust with the way they acted and the way they spoke to me. i initially didn’t respond to their messages as they had sent them in the last 10 days of ramadan and i was prioritising my spirituality and fasting. i apologised for the delayed response (2 weeks) and explained my reasoning hoping they’d be understanding but they used that as fuel for the fire and kept insulting me. they pulled up random information that was wrong (my sister had been in contact with one of them and told her i was coming home to visit) and they took that as me coming to the city to see friends. they refused to be understanding and denied being rude nor understood how they stepped out of line (even my mum and sister agreed with me and they’re the victims in the eyes of those two girls). my sister suggested we talk it out in person after my exams but i’m not sure if i even want to fix things with those girls. but another part of me thinks it would be easier to be civil to make things less awkward and separated with our friend group.
I feel extremely hopeless, I’ve noticed my iman has dropped a lot since Ramadan and I feel really isolated. i’ve been trying to have a positive outlook, i’ve been wanting cats for several years so want to hopefully buy two kittens as emotional support animals and my parents gave me their bedroom so have been planning to renovate it to my taste but i’m still struggling to cope with all my problems and don’t know how to cope with it. i do try to pray my sunnah prayers where i can and remember Allah but i don’t feel like my heart is in it like it used to be and i’m upset that all these tribulations are affecting my iman negatively instead of making it stronger.
Understandably no one around me can relate to me and i don’t have any specific friends i can rely on who i feel like would give me their 100% support who aren’t already busy with their own exams and personal issues. I really wish i could make some more muslimah friends around me especially as i won’t be at uni anymore and who i can rely on for islamic advice and knowledge, who i can have regular conversations with as i don’t necessarily have the religious neutrality with my family. even the thought of re-marrying in the future makes me anxious and hopeful/excited at the same time, there’s no emotional stability within me at all. i feel like a complete failure and idiot for the way things have gone this past year.
apologies for the longwinded rant but please remember me in your duas as i don’t expect much advice to be given for my situation due its complexity and multiple layers. jazakallah khair if you got this far

I'm having a couple of issues with my headless Debian VM server. I don't know if I should make two different threads, but if it comes to that I will make another one.
For starters, I'm running Debian 11 in a Proxmox VM with a 64GB OS driver. Passed through to this VM are two PCIe slots. One of these PCIe slots has a GTX 1070 that is used for my Jellyfin server. The other PCIe slot has a SATA controller with 2 16TB HDDs connected for NAS and media storage purposes.
The first issue I'm having is that Jellyfin will not play AVI files. This seems to be a new problem, as I don't recall having this much trouble watching anything previously. The Jellyfin logs suggest that there is no cuda capable device detected:

[AVHWDeviceContext @ 0x5621c7f60e40] cu->cuInit(0) failed -> CUDA_ERROR_NO_DEVICE: no CUDA-capable device is detected Device creation failed: -542398533. Failed to set value 'cuda=cu:0' for option 'init_hw_device': Generic error in an external library Error parsing global options: Generic error in an external library[AVHWDeviceContext @ 0x5621c7f60e40] cu->cuInit(0) failed -> CUDA_ERROR_NO_DEVICE: no CUDA-capable device is detected Device creation failed: -542398533. Failed to set value 'cuda=cu:0' for option 'init_hw_device': Generic error in an external library Error parsing global options: Generic error in an external library 

However, lspci and inxi as well as nvidia-detect do list the GTX1070 as present:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070] (rev a1) Device-2: NVIDIA GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070] driver: N/A Display: server: X.org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: N/A note: n/a (using device driver) tty: 134x36 Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display $ nvidia-detect Detected NVIDIA GPUs: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070] [10de:1b81] (rev a1) Checking card: NVIDIA Corporation GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070] (rev a1) Your card is supported by all driver versions. Your card is also supported by the Tesla 470 drivers series. Your card is also supported by the Tesla 418 drivers series. It is recommended to install the nvidia-driver package. 

However, as you can possibly see, there does not appear to be a driver loaded. I'm not even 100% sure that that is the cause of this problem or how long this server has been running without the driver. I put the video card in it a couple of years ago and don't remember if I ever had to manually install a driver. This lack of driver is corroborated by nvidia-smi:

$ nvidia-smi NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running. 

Unfortunately, the driver is actually already installed to the latest version, as indicated when attempting apt install nvidia-driver:

$ sudo apt install nvidia-driver Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done nvidia-driver is already the newest version (525.147.05-7~deb12u1~bpo11+2). 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 

As mentioned, I don't know if getting the driver to work will actually fix the AVI file playback issue, but it's a place to start, at least. I don't know how to get this driver to work since it's already installed. Any help would be appreciated.
My second issue is that I would like to upgrade this server to Debian 12 without having to reinstall the OS. My /etc/apt/sources.list file is thus:

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list # deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 11.3.0 _Bullseye_ - Official amd64 NETINST 20220326-11:22]/ bullseye main #deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 11.3.0 _Bullseye_ - Official amd64 NETINST 20220326-11:22]/ bullseye main deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main # bullseye-updates, to get updates before a point release is made; # see https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_updates_and_backports deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main # This system was installed using small removable media # (e.g. netinst, live or single CD). The matching "deb cdrom" # entries were disabled at the end of the installation process. # For information about how to configure apt package sources, # see the sources.list(5) manual. deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free # deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free 

I have first made sure that my install is updated to the point that apt full-upgrade indicates that all packages are up to date. Then, following the directions here I opened /etc/apt/sources.list and changed all instances of "bullseye" to "bookworm". After running sudo apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs -y and then sudo apt full-upgrade it says I don't have enough space. Upon trying the df command, it does appear that my drive is pretty full:

$ df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on udev 4049248 0 4049248 0% /dev tmpfs 813560 2264 811296 1% /run /dev/sda1 12485512 3773376 8056112 32% / tmpfs 4067788 0 4067788 0% /dev/shm tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock /dev/sda5 4431932 3786120 400056 91% /var /dev/sda8 46804188 102436 44291820 1% /home /dev/sda7 819524 52 760544 1% /tmp archive/Colossus 17431406208 5253157120 12178249088 31% /home//Colossus archive 12178249216 128 12178249088 1% /archive tmpfs 813556 0 813556 0% /run/use1000 

As you can see, the drive in question is apparently 91% full. I have no idea what's using so much space. I have only Jellyfin, qbittorrent-nox and mpd/mympd servers running on this VM and 64GB should be more than enough space for this. Again, any help is appreciated.

Ok retards listen up. Been seeing lots of degens writing small DD pieces of bullish or bearish shit. Y'all need to read this cos this is the whole fucking thing.
this is also basically my magnum fucking opus so upvote retards.
im also not some financial advisor or whatever just read this and make your own conclusions degenerates. Im not fucking liable lmao but i am balls deep @ .35 average now, its literally all I have on this earth.
TLDR: FFIE DD summarized, Margin wont affect longs the same way as shorts right now. Dont buy shares on margin though and get ready to supply collateral regardless. Short interest is up and some smart retards are on our side. Read the post to raise your IQ from 8 to 9 though. 🐻 🌈s mega fuk and even posting high level bear shit to scare us.
Compulsory 7 rockets so you autists dont start having a seizure or something:
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Basically been seeing posts about "blah blah margin this, short interest this, WS to clever blah". Going to split this post into distinct sections but im no english degree so dont expect any bear bloomberg level shit or something
FFIE is a fucking steal regardless of squeeze. Buy now or be left on a dying planet while we head to alpha fucking centauri.
So basically everyone here knows about FFIE the horsemen of the apocalypse coming to steal shorts lunch money. Some of our whales from the shut down roaring kitty board bought GME in 2021. Collectively we are fucking rich. As a unit, we are an eccommerce wizard, taking GME from a measly 1.3b market cap to over a $5 Billion company. Its now valued at $6.8 Billion, granted anything "meme" now gets money thrown at it like a stripper in a high flying strip club or some shit , so dont listen to me, so it may well be a bubble. Regardless the thing grew like bacteria doing binary fission on agar jelly 🚀🚀🚀🚀.
THEY SELL FUCKING PHYSICAL COPIES OF USED VIDEO GAMES. The market for that is like what? $1?. Electric Vehicles are going to the moon and is basically recession proof because of how clean and cheap is compared to other things for how much you get out of it. Any bears saying that FFIE cant compete with other EV are wrong. The 1,940.1 pound Formula E vehicle will be that hit 0 to 62 mph in 2.95 seconds and have a top speed of 150 mph already slapped heads in. They'll fucking do it again.
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
We regain compliance if we stay above 1$ we finished four consecutive days at 1 BILLION+ volume. This is the literal smell of money. Hold above 1$ it cant go tits up?
Now for some pussy boomer talk (aka fundametals or something).
Last november FFIE announced a cooperation agreement with Master Investment group and Siraj Holdings LLC. Establishing a sales entity in Dubai.
We are still trading at $1.13. The wedbush 1 year price target is $10.20. Over 10x.🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
I hear some chatter about the late 10q/10k filings that are late the reason for the delay primarily relates to staffing-related challenges in the Company’s Accounting group and deferred payments to third party audit consultants who have been assisting. The company is working to compile the information to be included in these reports, and I have no reason to think our boy Jonathan Maroko who is now the Interim Chief Financial Officer won't come through in a big way.
Dude has 17 years of investment and finance experience.
He's a rockstar.
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
WE got in this for the MOASS and the intrinsic value.
Now I know you autists are starting to develop short term dyslexia or something but keep reading. This could be the most important piece of shit you read in your life. How do you think I feel? My brains overheating just trying to write coherent sentences.
AVG earning estimate for 2023 is -47.97, for 2024 it is -15.39 which is a 67.91% YoY increase in earnings.
Maniacal. Thats all I need to say. The company is going to get to mars before papa musk and wont even break a sweat. When Earnings keep pushing every analyst who donwgraded them is gonna get ditched and upgrades will start to happen.
This is a steal. That implies some future higher price target right? Well here is my guess for a conservative price target based on the information above and also some more I probably forgot cos im a retard.
FFIE can reach a ATH market cap surpassing 5b. Here's where that gets interesting. THe minimum size to post on WSB is a 1.5b mkt cap. If this can reach that at 35$ a share, we can ride the meme wave easily surpassing 100$
I really dont understand the bear thesis. The only bear thesis ( short term this one) was that the stock would lose compliance and couldnt get over 1$ a share. We hit $3.80 from .04 in a week, the bear thesis is looking pretty WEAK.
Bears are betting against:
EV, one of the fastest growing sectors.
Remaining above a dollar when we have 1b+ volume for 4 consecutive days
Jonathan Maroko who has a stellar previous work history and 17 years of experience.
Reddit, twitter, stocktwits, and 4chan apes, now basically a collective whale.
I was in a discord with chinese and korean investors who are with us here and just as bullish They are showing up in force internationally.
We literally have mofos getting FFIE tattoos. You think they wont hold?
🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
All of Social media has now formed a shield wall against the bears
🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Some valid bear thesis left now (the only ones left) -- The planet gets hit by a comet destroying all life on earth.

1. Now some analysis on the short squeeze and some technical data.

Ok everyone on here and their cat, dog, bedbugs and wifes boyfriend knows about the squeeze. FFIE is the most shorted stock of all time and space. The squeeze makes every autist salivate because its basically free money while cucking big money out of like what 1% of their fund.
Although I know all you cucks hate shares, and hate holding, if the squeeze doesnt happen selling is probably the most retarded thing anyone could do. Its literally buy high sell low and you fucking disgust me. STONK ONLY GOES UP.
This squeeze is so monumental that its been sucking sharks in like fresh blood. Ive been in since $.25 with my few shares. If I had more money Id be buying but im just an unemployed full time caretaker of my mother. Im merely a medium for this money made information.
The stats for this stock now short wise are, from fintel:
Short Interest % Float as of 5/18/2024 95.37 %.
Short shares on loan now (This breaks the bearish margin calls affect longs more thesis): 36.3 Million
Shares left to borrow: 9,100,000
Shares left to borrow if we all switch to cash accounts and turn off stock lending: 0
Need rockets 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀:
Ok so now if Reddit now owns an estimated 6-8% of the stock and we all know to move over to cash accounts now to avoid margin calls, we should be minimizing longs getting margin called. If we go to CASH accounts, or turn off share lending the shorts will not be able to borrow our shares to use against us
These shorts are in a circle of hell we cant comprehend and makes satan scared.
🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Cost to borrow is also up, estimated short interest a cataclysmic amount.
🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Seen a lot of talk about Gamma hedging and delta.
Market makers can get squeezed for that gamma, too. The more options open that expire in the money the more shares they will be on the hook to hedge for to be able to provide that liquidity.
Now weve established the likelihood of longs getting margin called is far smaller than shorts, on to the options distributions
We had 89,000 options contracts ITM mid day friday. If we finished above $1.5 that would be 8.9 million shares of gamma pressure shorts went all out gave it everything, and WE STILL FINISHED ABOVE THE DOLLAR.
Next week we have even more people.
🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Now lets compare this possible squeeze with others.
Bear in mind this is the most shorted stock of all time, but differences in free float change the share price differently.
Kodak went from $2.16 to $33.2
Volkswagen went from ~200 euro to nearly 1000.
Overstock went from ~$21 to $123
Blue apron went from $2.31 to $18
Gamestop went from $3.00 to $485
Gme market cap was 1.3b before it squeezed and finished above 5b
4b puts us at 100$
This shit can happen. Hold on.
Conclusion: Buy shares with cash not margin. Hold shares forever unless the world explodes. hedges bad, Shorts fuk, 🐻 🌈 posting bearish shit are doing weeklies for the second time after they expired red on friday, FFIE to $3.80 without squeeze, FFIE is still a value play, Good luck have
fun.
UPDATE: Short selling is restricted until the 21st credit to u/valaentius for the information
We now own 90% of the float, not 6-8%

Hi everyone ! Hoping someone will be able to point me in the right direction here.
So we have a neutered male (3yrs). A few weeks ago my partner brought home a stray cat and our resident cat was very curious and even playful. He didn’t hiss or growl. Once we found the stray cats owner and had to hand her back, we thought it would be nice to get him a friend on the basis that he seemed okay with the stray. The stray was an adult.
We brought home a female kitten yesterday (7 wks). We have separate rooms for them and brought her in without him seeing. We did make a small mistake after and came out of the room and held her in our arms and let them meet face to face which resulted in resident cat growling/ hissing so took a step back and separated them. He started hissing/growling at her from the other side of the door.
Eventually the hissing/growling stopped. So we tried again with scent swapping. After scent swapping which went well so we put his food bowl outside her door and they ate close by.
On day 2, again scent swapping was fine, meals were fine. So we put her in our shower with the glass door closed ( we have a small house and it’s all we can do visually without contact) and he hissed and growled. But eventually stopped but then he did jump at the glass door. Kitty was unphased, making biscuits, meowing and wanting to play even while the growling and jumping happened
Again we went back a few steps and once he was okay with the initial steps we went into the main room and held her in our arms and he was fine he didn’t care. They both slept. But we put her on the floor at one stage and he went into a crouched posture, pupils dilated and stalked her so we picked her up and put her away. He does growl still and I’m not sure what to do. Is the hunting/ stalking a bad sign? Is the jumping at the shower door a bad sign?
When I play with him he does all those things so it might just be how he plays but my fear is that she is so tiny he might hurt her. Also the growling .. I know it’s only day 2 but we had such high hopes after the stray.

So, I've watched the AITA videos on YouTube all the time, so I thought I would bring a couple of my stories here. (This is a long one, so bear with me.) I tried to post this on another aita page but there were too many rules. I'm sure everyone else has a more interesting story than me. also new here don't know how the app works. so chill on me.
I (19, female) recently moved out of my apartment so I could save for a better one. So, I recently went back to my moms for a bit (40, female) with her husband (35, male). Before I even thought about coming back home, my mom always told me, "Come back home. You can have the room back. Nobody helps me with the dog or clean. We missed you so much; I've been depressed since you've been gone."
Now, before I get to the story, let me give you some background on my (16, female) sister. I'll give her a fake name. Let's call her Nya. My mom would complain about how my sister (27 female), who has custody of my sister, uses my sister's taxes for herself and my niece, and Nya never gets anything. Now, I understand her frustration, but she's a hypocrite. She asked my dad's wife if she could claim me last year. Mind you, I was 18, and if Shes complaining that my sister should've gotten her taxes, then mine should've gone to me, all $5,000 of it, but I didn't trip about it at first. Well, she got me furniture with the taxes after I told her I did not want or need any furniture in my room, so I had stuff I didn't even want when I already had stuff. She told me, "When you move, you can take it." Well, I moved to my boyfriend's mom's house for a couple of months and then got my own apartment. I went to ask if I could get my furniture, and she's going to say, "Oh. Nya sleeps in here when she visits on weekends, and it's set up to be her room." she could've kept my old furniture in storage if she was going to play in my face like that. Nya only visits 8 times out of the whole month unless it's a holiday, no school, or half a day. She could've given me my furniture. I was laying on an old mattress that came from my boyfriend's moms place and it hurt our backs. I was paying so much for rent and just to live that I couldn't afford to get a new one. I really hated Nya because she knew what she was doing. On my birthday, she got gifted more things than I did because she had an attitude. But when it was hers, I didn't get NOTHING. Imagine someone else getting more gifts than you on your own birthday. They had me pierce my own nose at 15, but Nya professionally got hers done. My nose closed up, and we've done this about 6 times, but they got her pierced twice on both sides her nose. When she'd come over, if they'd go out, she'd always ask for something, and if she didn't get her way, she wouldn't speak with my mother or her husband. Almost every time I see her, she has something new that my mom got her. She comes over and uses my mom; she doesn't even hang out with my mom when she's here unless they go out. She hides in the room. And ironically, every time I leave stuff around her, it goes missing. She would steal stuff from my mom too, and the whole time, it would be something of mine that my mom was holding onto for me. Over $300 worth of stuff she's stolen or got CAUGHT stealing. She's able to call my mom a (b word), but I was told, "You can cuss; just don't ever call me a (b word)." Like my sister basically owns her at this point. You might've already seen where this was going.
My mom called me the day I was packing, which was literally Tuesday. It's been no more than 4-5 days, and it's already been so much drama. She had an attitude like she was surprised I was coming back, but me and her spoke several times the month before about it. She swore up, down, left, and right that it was okay. Silly me for thinking my mother, of all people, could be relied on. Well, she picks me up and complains how I had too many bags (it was 5 black bags and like 5 tiny grocery bags. My boyfriend had most of the other stuff, including big furniture that he was taking with his mom because she has a house. my mom has an apartment). I'm not surprised she was complaining; it's all she does. She said she didn't know what to do with the room yet because she "didn't want to pick favorites." The craziest part was Nya herself said I can stay in here and remember that its important.
She waited till about 9 o'clock PM to tell me that I could sleep in there. Now I had several bags, and they would've cried if they were all in the living room, so I took them in the room, but by now, you can probably tell nothing pleases them. A1 complainers. Well, everything was fine at first until my older sister texted me Friday night and said, 'Mom and Nya don't know how to tell you ONCE AGAIN that they don't want you in that room. I'm not trying to start drama; I just want you to know they said you moved Nya's stuff and threw it on the floor.' This did, however, create drama. Also, what does she mean by 'AGAIN'? And I didn't throw a THING on that floor. My sister literally didn't sleep the whole time because she was so ever so sick that I was in here relaxing with my man who came to visit. So, I did text my mom how I felt, and I told her about how she gets everything, but she wants to say 'bull they say you were the princess' when I was like freaking 5, yeah. What have you really done but make me feel less than the other? So comes morning, and her husband came banging on the door telling me to unlock it (the door was already unlocked. Get a load of this guy.), and I'm GROWN; this man really came at me sideways talking about 'get the f in the living room.' Mind you, I have a past with anxiety; I will faint, and they know this. I don't like arguing. I said, 'No, I'm leaving.' Now I didn't know where I was going to go yet because my boyfriend's mom has all 6 of her kids in the house right now with no space. So I had to call my Poppop the WHOLE time my stepfather would not shut up. (Ohh, brother, this guy stinks.) My mom wouldn't stop screaming, and I got stressed and screamed to just stop, and I started crying because of course, I have anxiety and I'm overwhelmed because its 3 people yelling over something they said i could do. My chest was tight, and I was shaking. Then my mom really had the audacity to tell Nya, 'She don't want u in here because she said u stole.' I told my mom to keep that private. My sister was stealing my underwear, and I told her (funny because I literally JUST bought her some clothes and underwear). I asked her to keep it between us. Oh boy, I won't tell her NOTHING again. I forgot she got a fat mouth. Anyways, I called my grandpa, and I'm his baby, so how could he ever say no? He's the only one that ever cares for me anymore. I felt bad because my mom started crying, so I said, 'I'll be back tomorrow it's ok.' Stupid, I know. Because she didn't care when I was crying and using the inhaler trying to get air.
And might I add, my sister said 'no what did I steal. She can come say it to my face.' I wanted to knock her socks off. She literally left to go to a friend's because I was in the room after she said I could be in there. That should tell you she didn't come to hang out with mom. Everything about her makes me mad. She does stuff that I do, and she thinks I don't notice. She took my style, even my personality, and my interests. Like I'm a hello kitty girl. I wear hello kitty pants, Kuromi bookbags, and just hello kitty anything including my decor. And I paint so I have hello kitty paintings (I'm good at it too), and she happened to all of a sudden like it too. My hairstyles are unique; I do my own thing. She tries to do her hair like mine. All the TV shows and YouTubers I watch, she started all of a sudden liking. At first, it was cute; I thought she looked up to me. Until I realized she's just trying to BE ME, and she doesn't even like me. Anyways, I went to my Poppop and my Nanas, and my mom tried to guilt trip me on Facebook, and I told them everything that happened, and they agree with me that my mom is being unfair, considering I will be there for about 30 days and my sister only 8 times out of the month. I told my mother that now my sister won't be comfortable coming here because she doesn't know how to just shut up and just be a mother. My nana said it was so immature to really tell Facebook that we 'hate' her. Also, can I add that I've only been here 4 days because I went to my Poppop's last night. Then my mom had the audacity to tell me to keep the room clean when it was a mess. Then when I went to clean it, she told me to leave the stuff there. My sister didn't have it clean; it was a mess. I moved out this little fireplace and 2 blankets, and that's literally what they were mad about. Excuse me for cleaning your brown smoked out and molded walls and provided more space. Excuse me for cleaning the bedding that had cat fur all over it because I couldn't breathe. Cry a river.
so aita?

I am a complete animal lover and have had animals all my life.The problem is that I have developed allergies to both dogs/cats, which started suddenly near the end of my past dogs life. When he would lick me I would itch a get small bumps but that’s about it. No other issues. Still slept with him and was able to be all over him no problem. My brother has a cat which used to live with us. I also never had problems unless he would rub against me. I would get itchy and a slightly itchy throat sometimes. He would be able to lay w me in bed as long as he didn’t rub on me. With both dog and cat which lived together at the same time, I never had issues with watery eyes, constant itchy skin, etc. After about two years of not living with animals we decided to adopt a GS puppy in which we rehomed due to 1) me developing allergies (itchy-asthmatic) and 2) personal issues arising in the family. Recently, we decided to try another pitbull, this time a female. We read that females can produce less allergens which could make a world of a difference for a good amount of people. When picking her out from the litter I wore as little clothing as possible and let them all over me. No allergies, so we moved forward. Once we picked her up she layed on me for an hour before I started to get slight bumps and itchyness. I invested in a purifier and vacuumed the whole house which seemed to have helped a bit. Unfortunately she passed away from an unknown health problem two days after adopting her, but overall I was a bit itchy and had watery eyes sometimes, but other times I was completely fine (I spent all day with her).
Now, we are looking into poodles as they are the least allergenic dogs. We have an air purifier to help, but I cannot take any allergy medicine due to a chronic health condition. I’m looking for a dog that will be best for my situation. I know poodles are not hypoallergenic and everyone’s allergic reactions are different even with the specific animal. How is everyone with poodles and would this be the best bet to try? We might go do a meet and greet with a poodle at the shelter tomorrow to see how I react. My only hesitation is that it takes a while for my body to react it seems. Please any advice or success with poodles would be great.

TL;DR: my partner feels infantilised and belittled when I try to make him become more responsable at home.
Hi everyone, first of all I please beg you to not say that breaking things off is the appropriate solution for my situation, I really want things to work out with my partner and find solutions to this. So, to sum things up, me and my partner have been together for a year and live inside of a flat that I own (he doesn’t pay rent). He has a rather demanding job which requires him to be outdoors a lot whereas I am currently focusing on flat renovations which I am doing entirely alone. We have two cats. I have ADHD and yet find myself doing most of the chores, the only one I don’t do is the dishes, which my partner does about once a week. He does not know how to cook. Though I’m working on renovations currently I’m actually a writer, which means I can and need to sit at my desk and work for eight hours straight. However, given my actual circumstances, and because I have ADHD, basically my entire life has started to articulate itself around household chores. It may sound stupid but as a neurodivergent person, it really takes me much more time and energy it would take an average person. I struggle a lot but i can’t do without because otherwise my cats would probably go crazy and my flat would look like a landfill. Anyway, the point is that all of it frustrates me, and I find myself often asking my partner to do things, put more effort in doing certain things, or just take care of things better (he does very irresponsible things at time, like unplugging the fridge because he needs the plug and not plugging it back because he forgot, leading the freezer to unmelt, to leave the windows open when he leaves though I asked him not to because it’s very dangerous if the cats go on the roof). So, the truth is that for a 38 year old man, he does behave like a child at times, and thus I have again and again started to point out things to him, show him how to get things done (for example yesterday I realised that if a cat poops on the floor he will just pick it up with a broom and not desinfect either the floor or the broom). The effect of my « nagging » is that this morning he exploded and said I’m treating him like a child and infantilising him all the time, that I remind him of his mother etc. I’m completely at lost here because clearly he doesn’t do things properly if I don’t say anything, and won’t because he’s putting such little effort into doing things right. I on the hand am so frustrated because though I am able to do chores, unlike him I have ADHD, and unlike him I don’t get to devote any time to what I’m good at and makes me happy. I don’t know what to do. He tried to break up with me over this, saying that I am belittling him all the time etc but what am I even supposed to do? Someone please advise… I know we both love each other very much but I’m struggling to find out solutions for this situation. Please help