Summer Bucket List For Kids

Rustybin said: We did a long weekend in Rome last summer. The kids loved it. And they have ice cream in Italy! From what I have seen, package holidays aren't really popular in Italy. I'm thinking Sicily or Sardinia, you get the food, culture and also great beaches? Rome is on the bucket list, but when the youngest is a bit older, at 5 he won't really appreciate the history & culture.

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... it felt so much like summer! So there we were, on... again it fell far short. Kids were late and then cranky... being serenaded by Darvin Mussington. Bucket List item # I’ve Lost Count...

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.... 2024 with my kids Yellowstone and Grand Tetons. This summer will be round trip... switchbacks alone are bucket list stuff. And Yellowstone/Tetons with your kids… that’s hard to...

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... / degree-related internship / job for the summer prior to senior year since ... getting saddled with marriage and kids. The deferred walkabout might be ... built a well informed dream/bucket list, and context with which to ...

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betam4x said: Visiting is on my bucket list: I want to visit and also take my kids one day, I just need life to stop beating me up. If you can, go in September. Fewer tourists, so you've practically got the park to yourself. (Summer it is wall-to-wall RVs.) And, if you are lucky, you'll be there for the first snowfall of the year!

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Many people say some variation of "don't garden to save money" or "i do it as therapy". That's perfectly fine but can sometimes ignore the large group of people who want to garden to save money and help feed their family. If you don't need to save money via your garden, good for you. If you do, here's my two cents. My qualifications are : i spent hours as a child shelling peas, picking berries , creaming corn, and ate squash nearly every day one summer. To save money. I also have a CURRENT garden that aims to help feed me and save money. Forget the raised beds. I have a total of ONE raised bed in my entire garden for a raspberry plant. They're expensive to buy, expensive to fill, and there are cheaper ways to go about it. EDIT: Guys, if you can build raised beds from scrap material and free dirt / have bedrock / have no other option this obviously does not apply to you. Instead, look into either grow bags, pots, or planting in ground. You can also use a mixture of these to maximize your space. If you're growing in a small space you should be maximizing the amount of vertical space you're using. Analyze the ROI of everything you plan to do. Some items have a larger upfront starter cost but the ROI in 1-2 years is huge. Other items have lower start costs but the ROI is ALSO high. Meanwhile some stuff just kinda gives low ROI but is still loved. This is going to depend on your family. Check out farmer market hauls, meals, whole foods online etc. Write down a large list of things you *really* want. Think hard about your family's favorite things to eat. Maybe you eat tons of pasta sauce and would LOVE the $12 jar but can't afford it. Write that down. Do your kids eat through pounds of blackberries in about half a day? Write it down. This helps you prioritize, rather than shoving radishes in the ground when your family doesn't eat them. Here's my highest ROI list: 𖹭 BERRIES! You can find berry plants for reasonable prices ($13-30) and use large grow bags to grow them. They can take some time to establish but take off well. My top picks are are blackberry and raspberry as they're vigorous growers. They will give you buckets and buckets worth. My next pick would be strawberries because they're beginner friendly and great in a cheap hanging pot. 𖹭 FRUIT AND NUT TREES! This one is tricky but here's the truth. If you want a large ROI quickly, get something older. Skip the lemon tree, instead grab a fruit your family eats more of. Some good picks are : oranges, plums, nectarines, cherries, apricots. While bananas are also a good option they're usually pretty cheap in store too so I left them off the top list. One of the easiest ways to figure this out is asking yourself "what's the most expensive fruit I love?" 𖹭 SQUASH AND CUCUMBER! Squash is often incredibly productive. You will easily feed your family and have plenty to store in a freezer if you plant a couple. They can get quite big so keep that in mind. Cucumbers are also prolific and with only 2-3 plants, you'll be drowning in them. 𖹭 HERBS! One herb garden will save you buckets worth of money in the long run. Particularly things like dill, basil, rosemary, lavender, thyme, spearmint etc. Often you pay $2 for a few small sprigs. Buy them as plants rather than seeds for quicker starts. 𖹭 MUSHROOMS ! G3t some of the cheap spawn dust stuff for the shady damp areas of your garden space. Grow mushrooms. You'll just need straw or mulch and to keep it watered for a while. Once you've figured out what's going to be your best ROI items, you can select seeds/plants and rpepare for preserving. Here's a quick guide on what I prefer from seed or SMALL plant starts. (I usually get the 4" starts) Rosemary - plant Thyme - plant Basil - either or, it's easy to start from seed but cheap as a plant start Lavender - plant Tomatoes - plant IF you're late to the season or haven't started from seed before Chive - plant Perilla - seed Lettuce - seed Cucumber - seed Melons - seed Squash - seed Gourd - seed Berry - plant (these are one of the few crops I get larger plants of) Bunching onions - seed Bulb onion - bulbs Amaranth - seed Sunflower - seed Beans - seed Peas - seed Strawberry - plant (they multiply!) Garlic - bulb Peppers - plant Carrot - seed Radish - seed Cabbage - seed Corn - seed Stick to a few solid varieties rather than buying everything under the sun. For flowers, I just sprinkle seeds for zinnia/etc around and let em grow. Make sure you're growing things in their proper time (e.g. cabbage and carrot are cool season while tomatoes are warm season). Fertilizers and amendments i personally keep pretty simple. Fish fertilizer is ~ $12 and will last all season. I use a $8 bag of bone meal and it's worked throughout the entirety of spring. ~$10 for potash if needed. Other than that, it's dirt and water. You can plant a cover crop or mulch, or both. Look into what works best for you. You don't need to be on some extreme side that plants nothing but corn peas and squash "cause 'merica" (lol) and you ALSO don't need every variety on the planet. Especially if you're just trying to save some damn money. Next, space saving: You do not need a cattle panel archway. Look at me. You DO NOT NEED IT. I tuck my cucumber plant into my chainlink fence. Is it pretty? No. Is it effective? Absolutely. You can use 2 posts and string to trellis items. Or a random stick buried deep. If you're on a balcony, look into smaller varieties of tomatoes such as tiny tim and orange hat. They get only about 12 inches tall and wide which means you can cram them into a tower. For leafy vegetables, look less at head cabbages/lettuce and mote into the leafy kind you can get multiple harvests from. Chard is also am option for those that need something more heat tolerant. If you're small on space consider only having 1-2 larger plants at a time. Or using plants together. Let's say you buy one $100 Costco orange tree and put it jn a big pot. Then you plant an cucumber in another part next to it. Let the cucumber climb the damn tree. "But they cant-" i assure you they can if you train them to. Preserving: If you want pasta sauce / pickles / jarred peaches or applesauce / etc you will need a canning system and jars. And lots of lids. You can find safe canning advice in books and such. Freezing is excellent for those that often rely on frozen items anyways. It works mostly how you expect it but sometimes you have to blanch before freezing. Dehydrating makes food much more shelf stable without needing to can everyrhing. Apple chips. Banana chips. Seasonings. Dried peppers. Sun dried tomatoes. All that jazz. I personally hang herbs up in a dark area to dry for a week or two and use my car to help dehydrate flowers and the like. The point here is that as much as people tell you that gardening won't save money — it absolutely CAN. It just takes some planning and time. If anyone has questions about saving money while gardening, feel free to ask. submitted by /u/Separate-Language662 to r/vegetablegardening [link] [comments]

Putting together a CT summer bucket list and since I always get great feedback from this sub, thought I’d post a draft and see what’s missing/what needs to be changed. Working on a post that links to thousands of activities statewide, and trying super hard to get a balance of free and paid activities so everyone can participate. submitted by /u/KidtivitiesinCT to r/Connecticut [link] [comments]

I am not OOP. The OOP is u/throwawayforelliot on r/relationships Medium post. Original Post: July, 27. 2014 Update: Ago, 8. 2014 Trigger Warnings: false accusations of pedophilia. My (F21) boyfriend (M25) is too attached to somebody else's daughter. Is this too big a red flag? A little background on how I met the love of my life. Last christmas a list at the restaurant where I work got passed around. It was a list of christmas presents for kids at an orphanage. I was heartbroken that none of the kids asked for toys. It was all shoes, blankets, and clothes. Kids were wanting just bare needs things. Then I found out that it was a regular customer who comes in to our restaurant who brought the list for us to donate gifts. All the girls I work with gush over him. He's really hot and has a huge heart and volunteers for kids' charities locally. All the girls crush on him so I thought there was no chance. Then he asked me out to lunch a few months ago and we've been going out since March. I knew that he has an ex that is a single mother. Her daughter is four. I spend the night at my boyfriend's all the time and I noticed that the little girl calls him a lot. I used to think that it was such a good sign that he cares so much about helping kids that aren't even related to him. I thought he was so unique that way. I could see signs of him being a great dad. But he spends a lot of money on his ex's daughter. When anybody brings up her name he turns into mush. I'm not sure if he's still emotionally too into his ex. He's too involved in the her daughter's life. He sings to her at night on the phone to put her to sleep like every other night, and he goes to all her doctor's appointments and other regular dad stuff. I can't imagine why any man would be so invested in somebody who is not their real daughter. I used to think it was his charitable side but this is way too much. He spent all day at the hospital when she broke her arm and has a picture of her with her cast on his wallpaper on his phone. I'm in love with him but I can't compete with her. She is everything to him. This is my first time being so in love with anybody and I think I'm not enough. At fist it was cute and endearing but now I feel like total second fiddle to this little girl and I feel horrible for trying to compete with her. It's once in your life that we find someone who is just a perfect fit for us. But mine is just too invested in other people other than me and I feel in the way. I also feel like a selfish jerk wanting all his attention and energy all to myself. On a side note, we've been together for months now and I still don't know why he spends so much time and money on children's charities. I ask him and he gives vague answers. I think that there is something deeper going on with him because it's just not normal for somebody to do all that he does. My mom agrees that something is up with him but that he just doesn't trust me enough to tell me. I wish I knew how to get him to open up. I don't know how to ask the right questions. Does he just not trust me? It makes me really sad because I love his dedication to the cause but I don't know what drives him. I know he was raised by a single mom but so are a lot of people. I'm getting sidetracked so I'll get back to the real question. What is up with him and his ex's daughter? Is this something I'll have to accept forever? It's like a total father daughter relationship without the actual blood bond. Just in case anybody wonders, NO, she is not his bio daughter. Edit to add that he's not the average guy for his age. He's educated and totally focused on his career. At fist I thought it was so great that he could care less about video games which most guys my age are still into, but he's so much more than that. I fall in love with him all over again when I see him interact with his ex's daughter but it does make me feel less important. Just my luck that my dream man has more important things in mind than me. I also feel like a spoiled brat for ranting about this. I am a little conflicted that way. My mom always points that out. tl:dr: My boyfriend is too attached to his ex's daughter. Am I being to unreasonable in worrying about this? [RELEVANT COMMENTS] SlimShanny I'm not sure I'd be concerned unless you are shut out of that relationship. How are his interactions with his ex? Is there anything going on with them? Who ended that relationship and why? OOP: I don't have the whole story on how it ended for them. I know they had been apart for almost a year when we got together. But the way she looks at him I can tell there is something there on her part. Honestly, her daughter is the sweetest little thing you could ever see. I feel really bad for even questioning his commitment to her. But maybe he doesn't trust me. I've never gotten the whole story about why they broke up or who did the breaking up. there is nothing going on with them but it makes me uncomfortable that I don't know the back story on them. did I just fall in love with the wrong person? I can't compete with them :( I feel I don't measure up. SlimShanny I think you're pushing it a bit with him not being the right person. But I think you need to get your answers about his ex and why the relationship ended. That woman is still an active part in his life and it's fair for you to get the details. Also I think you need to talk to him about it. Tell him you feel weird feeling jealous of his relationship with this little girl. Ask him why he wants to be her surrogate dad. He may have very good answers. It could be like adopting for him. The other thing is some women can't handle their men loving someone else's child. Is it the fact that it's some else's child or that it's his ex's child? Do you think you could ever be a step mom? Do you see where I'm going with this? EDIT: I'd feel really uncomfortable with this scenario if I were you without knowing the details of their past relationship and why it ended. OOP: I feel ashamed telling him that i"m jealous at all about this situation. But i never thought about being a step mom. I think it is more that her mom is his ex. I don't think I'd be so jealous if this was his niece of somebody's daughter other than his ex. I kind of see where you are going. So my jealousy is more about the ex. I think you are right if that's where you're going. thank you. You gave me a lot to think about. zizzymoo It sounds as if he was, for all intents and purposes, that little girl's daddy. BLOOD doesn't bind people... love does. And just because he and his ex may have had irreconcilable differences, that doesn't eliminate or lessen whatever love - or sense of responsibility - he feels for that little girl. You've been around since March. There's very little chance of you "competing" with a child he obviously thinks of as his own. There's zero chance of you coming before that child, at least in the near future. Incidentally, four months is a little soon to expect him to be willing to open up to you about his motives if there is some deep drive there. Maybe 4 months seems like a huge amount of time when you're 21, but it's not. It's a drop in the bucket and an extremely short span of time during which you've developed such high expectations for how much he should confide in you... or where your 'place' is in relation to a child he apparently considers 'his' in some way. It's entirely likely that if you want to stay with him, his relationship with her IS something you'd have to accept as being 'forever.' I have a feeling, however, that at some point you're going to expect him to choose between you... you should know right now, you will almost certainly lose when that time comes. OOP: I will admit that I'm jealous and curious about things that he hasn't opened up about. But not enough to make him choose between us. I do love him with everything I have but I also know that I'm second place in his heart. It's not so easy to accept but that's just how it is. Part of me loves the way he interacts with that little girl and part of me feels jealous. But I guess it has only been four months so yeah he needs more time. What would you do in my place? I mean you were to dead on with so much of your comment so I'm curious what you would advice me if I were your daughter or sister (not sure how much more experienced you are than me). uncommonhussy You don't say how long he and his ex were together, but it sounds like he has been a father figure for this girl most of her life and quite involved in raising her. Of course he's attached to her, biology or not, she is his daughter. It may help you to deal with the situation to stop emphasizing to yourself that she's not his "real" child, since it seems that as far as he is concerned, she is. I imagine your emphasis on the lack of biological relationship is actually quite hurtful to the both of them. So start thinking about it and respecting it as a father-daughter relationship. As for your discomfort with him volunteering for children's charities, I really don't think there is any reason to believe he has some sort of sinister motive or psychological damage that makes him do it. From everything you say here, he sounds like a nice man who likes and cares about children, end of story. Just for the sake of argument, imagine a woman who volunteered often for children's charities and also maintained a close relationship with her stepchildren after a breakup. Would you find that so suspicious or distressing? Would it be reasonable for her next boyfriend to be angry that she maintained a relationship with children she cared about and had helped raise? OOP: They were together for almost two years, and the little girl was one when he met her. So she's now four and they've been broken up for just over one year. I asked him why he's involved with children's charities (he's involved in three of them). The first one is the one that the list came from. When he was in college he dated a girl who was studying to go into daycare teaching. As part of her studies she was heavily involved with the orphanage. She brought him along a couple of times. He was moved by the items the children were asking for on the list, like we all are. So he goes back every Christmas to pick up a new list and he makes a bunch of copies, and delivers the gifts or give people the option of delivering the gifts themselves (which he prefers because he thinks they will do more if they meet the kids). He's no longer with that girl either but they are still friends. He doesn't have ex's that hate him, that's another weird thing. The other two charities are one where he donated money to a nearby elementary school because he read in the local paper that the kids in band were playing "air instruments" because they didn't have any actual ones. My boyfriend makes kind of a lot of money for his age so he donated a large enough amount that they hit him up every year for additional donations and they invite him to the band competitions that the school participates in. So now he's friends with the band teachers. The third charity is one where it's pretty much all money. The Sheriffs department raises money to buy poor kids school supplies and clothes every summer. So he donates money and volunteers in running an auction, and organizing a walkathon that raises money for the kids. He was raised by a single mother and they really struggle financially but it doesn't sound particularly traumatic. He sometimes credits his ex girlfriend from college for having taught him to be more "productive." So far that's what I have. Do you think there is more? bbluth I feel bad for men...they can't help children without the perceived ulterior motive of pedophiliac intentions. If a woman exhibited his same level of dedication to children's charities would you question her motives? And there isn't anything weird about him being a great dad to his daughter. It is weird that you think all dads just abandon children they helped raise because they don't share blood. And that you're jealous of a dad's love for his four year old daughter...and you've only been with him for four months. OOP: You are totally right. It's just that I work and grew up with all these guys that are very close in age to my boyfriend and they are light years apart in maturity and everything else. They play video games, stay up late, sleep in, drink every weekend, and just live for the day barely making enough money to get by. Some of them go to school but some don't and still don't work a whole lot. My boyfriend doesn't stand out from them when you first meet him. He jokes around and all that. But then you get to know him a little bit and quickly find that his time and energy is spent on bigger more important things, his money too. He's way too different, he graduated high school a year early and graduated from college early, and got a masters degree and now he's on his career path. He did everything too early like he's in a hurry for some reason. I do think he needs to take time to be a regular twenty-something year old. croatanchik Are we sure that it's not his kid? Maybe he's lost a child or sibling? OOP: it's not his kid. I'm sure he would never lie about that. I'm sure he would love it and would brag about it if he was the bio dad. [UPDATE - 12 DAYS LATER] My mother (F52) accused my boyfriend of being a pedophile to the cops. He broke up with me. How is this my fault? For some time now my mom has thought it was weird that my boyfriend spent too much time and money with children's charities and not enough time with me. He also spends a lot of time with a little girl that is not his daughter. She sometimes calls him dad even though she knows he's not and most of the time she just calls him Elliot. Next thing I know my boyfriend calls me and tells me that he despises my mother and he would rather never ever see her again. Then he tells me that he's moving on without me. One of his friends at the police department tipped him off that my mom had called to tell them he might be a pedophile and that she was worried about the little girl he spends time with. I thought these things were supposed to be kept private but somebody told him and they told him who accused him. She even said she asked to be kept anonymous. I asked my mom twenty times and she denied it every time. Then I called one of her friends and told her that my mom told me what she had done. This lady immediately goes on to tell me how my mom did the right thing and apparently she has been talking to everybody about it, like all her friends. When i finally called her to tell her that her friend ratted her out she fessed up to it. The cops told her there is nothing to back up her claims. He's involved with two children's charities that are run by the police department as an administrator. He organizes an auction and does budgeting stuff which is similar to what he does for a living. The other two charities involved gathering gifts every Christmas for children in foster care and delivers them to a warehouse, he teams up with an ex girlfriend for this one which is the only weird part. Then he donates money to a middle school for music instruments every year but again he just writes a check and they invite him to to show up to some of the performances and to get a award plaque. But he has zero actual contact with children in any of the charities. The only girl he has contact with is his ex girlfriend's daughter (a different ex girlfriend). Okay so the cops are kind of friends of his now and my mom said that they were very threatening to her when she accused him the second time and every time there after because she was insisting they are not doing enough to investigate him. I told Elliot that I had nothing to do with my mom and he didn't even listen. He just told me that he's just not going to do this. I feel like the rug has been pulled from under me. I don't see how this is my fault. This is the one guy that I have really loved and that I want to spend my whole life with. but my mom is also not backing off at this point. It has become like she's on a mission and it's only making things worse. EDIT: I think everybody is misunderstanding me. I never found his charity work to be a bad thing. I just was wondering what motivated him. It's not normal for guys his age to be that committed to that cause. What I did find weird was his relationship to his ex girlfriend's daughter but that was because I was a little jealous that the ex was using her little girl to get back with him. What if your boyfriend can't go out with you on Friday night because that's pizza night with his ex's daughter, AND his ex. Then Sunday is movie night, and Saturday morning is breakfast day and that's night even counting putting her to sleep on the phone nightly and pretty much spending time with her every day of the week. Yes, that's a little much when you're trying to spend time with your boyfriend and he's that unavailable, and it's a little weird. It doesn't mean I don't love him or much less that I think he's a pedophile. tl;dr: my boyfriend broke up with me because my mom is going after him, and I can't control my mom. [RELEVANT COMMENTS] nullroutable You're honestly surprised this guy wants nothing to do with you? You have poison in your family. He can't be involved with you and not have any sort of link to your mom, so he's choosing the right thing and cutting off ties with a huge source of stress in his life. Sorry your mom is nuts, but it's not his fault either and he's doing the right thing in getting the hell away from you and your family. OOP: Don't a lot of people have bad family members and they still work it out with their mate? This is confusing. Don't you think there is any chance this can work? Argh I have to go to work. [deleted] Your mom needs therapy. It has nothing to do with you but she tried to ruin his reputation and face it his whole life. If his mom went around, called the cops and called you a baby killer and animal abuser would you want to stay with him? Get ready, if he was me I'd slap a lawsuit on her so fast....... OOP: My mom just talks too much and always has and she meddles too. But wow, maybe you are right. I called my dad to get him to talk to her (they're divorced) and he just laughed at her. He was more like "oh well, welcome to the party that is life along side your mother." nofap490 Terrible situation for you to be in. Your mother doesn't want you to be involved with this man. And what an accusation! While it certainly isn't your fault, I can see why your boyfriend would feel like he has to cut ties. He may love you, but he would have to deal with your mother, and that would be impossible. If your mother is wrong, she has done a horrible horrible thing. Edit: After reading the original post (which I should have read before, my fault), I have to modify my opinion -- the OP may well have a role in this, but how much I don't know. She had her "suspicions" about the boyfriend -- did she communicate that to her mother, and if so, how did she do that? It sounds like she did raise the issue with her mother, although we will never know exactly what was said -- and may well have planted some seeds about pedophilia. OOP: She is wrong but she just thinks you have to have some kind of ulterior motivation to be that involved and give away that much time and money. He doesn't even own a house and so she went too far with her speculation. way too too far. justanotherkiwi You found a gentle man who is kind and generous to others. He bought musical instruments for kids who had none, he gave his money and time to make a little girl feel loved, all with her mother's permission yet you found it 'weird' and strange that he would do so. Then you gave your Mom a running account of how weird it is, and you are surprised that she ran with it, and that he broke up with you because of it. I hope you learn something from this experience. OOP: I think all those things he did are great. But the little girl happens to be his ex girlfriend's daughter so I did get a little jealous that the ex would use her daughter to get to him. He also was a little too into the local paper article where they talked about him donating the instruments. They only mention him as an anonymous donor but I did think he was a little too into reading it and kept it in his desk. I admired all the things he did but little things seemed out of place to me. [deleted] He broke up with you because he's a super-compassionate person who uses his life to help causes that he believes in, and you're jealous of his daughter, and you've been giving information to your mother that made her believe she should slander his good name. He realised that you've got nothing in common. He is not behaving like an abuser at all. OOP: Okay well it's his ex girlfriend's daughter not his. So yes I found that a little weird but I had no idea my mom would go so far as to assume he was a pedophile. railroadbaron Your ex is an unsung hero, who is trying to make a difference in the world and your mother is trying to ruin his life. She has reported him to the cops not once, not twice but lots of times. In your first post you said you found his work for children's charities questionable, obviously you and your mom feel the same way. You absolutely deserve this. OOP: I think what I said is that I didn't know what motivated him. What I found more questionable was his relationship with his ex's daughter. But that wasn't because I thought he was an abuser. It was because I thought the ex was using her little girl to get back with him. submitted by /u/YellowKingSte to r/BORUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/New-Way-888 Originally posted to r/AITAH Previous BoRUs: #1, #2 [New Update]: AITA for "uninviting" my brother and nephew from my celebration dinner? NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----- Editor’s note: removed older relevant comments for space in this latest BoRU Trigger Warnings: ableism, neglect, verbal abuse, controlling behavior ---- RECAP Original Post: October 27, 2024 Backstory - My sister and I (early 30's) have an older brother. He's on his second marriage. His first marriage gave me my nephew, Connor (15). Connor is autistic. When he was born, my (at the time) sister-in-law's family was the "village". My parents were also the "village". My sister and I were not. This resulted in many arguments until I told my parents they could either have my brother and his family and I would go NC or they could respect my boundaries and I'd still be around. They agreed. Eventually, my brother got a divorce because of marital problems, one of which was his ex-wife insisting that I and my sister step-up and help. I felt bad for him, still do, but I wasn't going to change my stance. My sister didn't either. I have lived out of state for a bit and recently accepted a new job offer close to home. It came with a nice bonus, so I decided to invite my parents, sister, and brother out for dinner at my favorite KBBQ spot. My parents confirmed that it wasn't my brother's week with my nephew, so all was well and good. About a week before I got back home, my brother called and said his ex had something come up and that he had Connor the upcoming week and his current wife was going to be out of town with her sisters. I said no worries, and asked if he wanted to call his regular babysitter for Connor and I'd cover it for our dinner night. He said no, he wanted to bring Connor to the dinner and asked if we could change the venue because Connor gets overstimulated. I said no. This was my dinner, I'm paying for it, I'm going to my favorite place. He said "You know, your nephew really can't handle a place like that." I said yes I know. That's why I'm offering to cover paying for a babysitter for that night. He argue that he'll just bring Connor with him. I said he's welcome to do that, but then I'm not going so it'll just be him and our parents. He told me that was messed up, that if Connor gets overstimulated, he'll just take him and go outside until he calms down. I reminded him the last time we went to a KBBQ place, Connor had a meltdown and they had to leave. My parents always feel bad for Connor, so they'll usually leave and go to my brother's house to help. I said I didn't want that happening. I wanted to have a nice dinner without having to worry about that. He told me to go fuck myself and hung up. We went to dinner - my sister, my parents and I. My brother did not show up. It was a nice dinner. My parents enjoyed it too, but they said they wished my brother had come. I agreed. They then said they wished my nephew had come too. I did not agree. I said it would have likely resulted in my brother leaving after maybe 30-40 minutes of being there, and they would have followed him too. They agreed, but said I should have let him come anyway and just deal with it. I said that sounds like a good reason for me not to do that and we didn't talk much that night after that. AITA? EDIT: Somebody suggested I post it here. I've babysat Connor before, even now I will watch him for a few hours if my brother has to do something. I don't watch him all day or overnight though. It's not his fault and he is no way a bad kid. However, I had to set boundaries because my parents and brother (mostly his ex wife) would take a mile if you gave them an inch. They wanted my sister and I to stay local after high school so we could help with babysitting, and I was not about to do that. I did see both of them before I left, since I wanted to, but I did not apologize for wanting to eat my favorite spot and have it done my way for just one night. Whenever he(my brother) wants to have to dinner, we basically go to the same local spot because it's quiet and doesn't upset my nephew and it's his fixation when it comes to food. That's perfectly fine, and I go to those dinners, but for my dinner, I wanted it somewhere I enjoyed. AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA   Update #1: October 28, 2024 (next day) First, I wanted to thank everybody, positive for negative for giving feedback. Whether it was good or bad, I did read every one of them, even the ones who called me an asshole. Totally valid. While I did see my brother and Connor before I left, it was more of just playing with Connor and making small talk with my brother. I decided today to call my brother to try and get more info and smooth things out. We talked for about 5 minutes before I broached the subject. I told him I was sorry if it felt like I was being unnecessarily mean or exclusionary to Connor, but that I felt I had a right to decide how to celebrate the way I wanted to. He said he was sorry that he snapped the way he did, and looking back, he realized Connor would have had an awful time and it would have been a big waste of money for me (the place we went to was about $80 a person, $40 for Connor whether he ate or not). He just really wanted him to be there too. I told him going forward, for things like my birthday, I would be more than happy to have lunch as a family with Connor at somewhere he likes so he can have a good time, then go to dinner at somewhere I want to eat at and I'd pay for a babysitter or his mom (my brother's ex) can watch him. He asked if Connor would be welcome at the dinner too, and I said I don't think so because I still planned to have KBBQ/hot pot/sushi/fine dining and Connor doesn't do well in those environments(lights/sounds/smells/atmosphere), which is why I brought up having lunch the day of/beforehand so we can all celebrate and it be ok for him. But I was still standing firm that for my birthday (or something like another promotion), I wanted to go somewhere that I enjoyed without having to worry. I brought up also that when he took us out to lunch (was once a month before I moved), he picked or my parents picked and they always catered to Connor. I had no problems with that and attended almost all of them. This time, I wanted something for myself. He wasn't over the moon about it, but said it sounded good and thinks Connor would enjoy it too. He also looked into getting him sunglasses, as one of you suggested, for bright/overly stimulating environments. He then had a question for me, which I knew was going to be asked at some point. Now that I'm closer to home, he asked if I was going to be more involved as an uncle. I said yes, but not in the way he probably wants. I said I'd be more than happy to go over to his house and hang out with him, his wife and Connor and bring food he likes, as well as babysitting him once or twice a month so he and his wife could go see a movie or have dinner together, but I wasn't going to be an on-call babysitter like my parents are. Several times he's dropped Connor off at their house for a week/weekend with little notice because he and his wife wanted to go on a spontaneous vacation. I told him that was not gonna happen with me, especially since I'm the process of adopting a cat and he and Connor are allergic (I wasn't allowed to have a cat while I lived in my parents house, which was fine because it's their house and it wasn't fair to my brother and Connor who were over super often) so him getting dropped at my new place was out of the question. He thankfully didn't press the topic and said it's ok, mom and dad don't mind and that he missed hanging out with me and was happy that I could be around Connor more. So, everything worked out as well as I could have hoped. I'm excited move back home in a few weeks, and thank you all again for the advice/criticism!   Update #2: May 25, 2025 (almost seven months later) Hi. Me again. Was hoping I wouldn't have to post here again, but well, life had other plans. I (31M) moved back to LA from Texas for a new job. My parents live here, as does my brother (40M), his wife, and my nephew Connor (16). Connor is autistic, and while he's made a lot of progress since he was 10, still struggles with a lot of things. He is nonverbal, stims often, and frequently has meltdowns. My brother, his wife, his ex-wife,, and my parents are the only ones really able to calm him down. I regularly watch him once or twice a month so my brother and his wife can go see a movie or hang out. I do *not* watch him overnight or for several days consecutively, and it's always at their house. After our argument last time, my brother and I have been on pretty good terms. He hasn't really pushed boundaries about babysitting, and we've mended our relationship quite a bit. However, something came up recently that has us on rocky terms. My brother recently got news that he was selected to attend a conference out of the country. The company is putting him up in a hotel for 10-days and while they won't pay for his wife to go, they have no problems if he pays her airfare and everything and occupies the room with him. I'm very happy my brother got this opportunity. The issue is child care. The conference happens to align when my parent's and sister are going to NYC for a week to celebrate my sister's birthday. Nothing is refundable and my parent's promised my sister this over a year ago they'd do this. His ex-wife (Connor's biological mother) will also be out of town for work. So that leaves me. When he called me up to explain everything and ask, I told him "No". However, I listed reasons for why I wouldn't do it. I live about 90-minutes away. Distance wise, not that far, but LA traffic makes a lot of things more difficult than they should be. I don't mind making the drive once or twice a month when I'm watching him, but I do not want to make it 10-days in a row. Connor cannot come to my place because I have a cat and he is allergic, as well as me having things around the house that are fragile. I do not WFH, and Connor would still be in school, so I would have to likely put in PTO to do it logistically. The longest I've watched Connor was about 6 hours. He had a meltdown near the end that I was unable to calm him down from, and it was only my brother and his wife getting back 20-minutes later that saved me. I can not picture myself doing it for 10 days straight. This one might sound really selfish, but I don't want to set a precedent. If I watch him overnight even once, I know my brother and his wife would push it on me again. I don't want that to be a thing. I'm happy with our arrangement of me watching him a once or twice a month and hanging out with him with my brother and our parents. That being said, I would *not* hesitate to watch him during an emergency. But that is a totally different story. I explained this all to him. He wasn't happy. He went off on me about how he thought me being back would mean he could rely on me for this (I have said before, I am not an on-call babysitter), and his wife would really like to go on this trip. I said I'm sorry, but I'm not doing this. I said I would be happy to go and help her on the weekend he's not here and hang out with Connor, to give her a break, but I'm not going to risk my own mental health for 10-days and use 8 days of PTO to watch him for a non-emergency. He had a few choice words for me and hung up. He got my parents involved in the family group chat, and they surprisingly were on my side. They said it would be a really nice gesture if I did it, but reminded him that I've never watched Connor overnight and his wife doesn't *have* to go on this trip. He hasn't really talked to me since. I feel bad for his wife not being able to go, but I also don't trust myself to be able to handle Connor for 10-days. AITAH?   Update #3: May 31, 2025 (six days later) First, thank you to everyone who provided advice. I really appreciate it, and it helped know that I wasn't out of line. I messaged my brother. I said he has 2 options. Either he and/or his wife stay home and watch Connor or he works with the local agencies/care facilities (I apologize if I'm not using the right terms) to get respite care for him for as long as they are gone and I check on him during the weekend. I would not be watching him, and I will not hear him out in regards to that. He called me and his wife got on the line and said that I know how she feels about other people watching him overnight, and how his mom feels too, and she's never been to this location before and it's on her bucket list. I said I'm aware, and that I'm assuming in that case she'd be staying home with Connor and maybe she and my brother can take Connor there in the future. My brother tried to interject and I cut him off. Said I really don't care what he has to argue, I'm not here for it. As some of you suggested, I again pointed them towards local organizations and government entities dedicated to helping parents with children with special needs but didn't really get anywhere. I was really burnt out over everything, so I said good luck with the situation and hung up. I made a group chat with him and his wife and told him that, going forward, I will be visiting them once or twice a month. Meaning, one of them has to be there when I'm there. I'm not watching Connor alone anymore. I feel like this is a good compromise, letting me still hang out with Connor and also not being a caretaker. I told them that, maybe in the future, we can work back towards what we had before. But not anytime soon. They both wrote back paragraphs on how they were sorry but they had no other choice and thought maybe I'd do it for them, that this could be like a second honeymoon for them, and to please keep watching him for a day or two a month. That they'd even pay me for it. I told them no amount of payment is worth it. It's not fair to me, it's not fair to Connor. He is not my son, he is theirs. That they need to start working with agencies now, and get him accustomed to care and other people watching him, because our parents are getting old and soon they won't be an option. My brother responded that he and his wife will start the process, and get his ex involved too, but if that doesn't work, what are they going to do? I told them that it's on them. I'll happily join them in researching organizations and benefits, but if they have an inkling in their head that I'm going to do for them what my parents do, they are out of their minds. His wife asked if I would consider getting training and learning how to care for Connor like they do, and I shot that down. I am more than happy to be the fun uncle that drops by and hangs out, but I value my independence and I won't let that be compromised. Both of them eventually just gave me thumbs-up emojis, his wife said she was going to stay home with Connor and not go on the trip, and said they'd see me in 2 weeks to have a hang-out. We'll see what happens then, but at the very least, I'm not on the hook for watching him and someone that can calm him is. I will do my best to keep pushing them to expand their circle and seek out other options and programs that help them with Connor, as I think that would greatly benefit the quality of life of all of them and prevent a situation like this from ever coming up again.   Update #4: June 18, 2025 (almost three weeks later) Once again, thank you for all the comments and advice. They are all greatly appreciated. I went to hang out with my brother, SIL (I realize it was strange to call her my brother's wife the whole time), and Connor over at their house. My brother ordered pizza and he played with Connor while my SIL and I hung out in the living room. My SIL, surprisingly, apologized. She said she was very sorry with the way she was acting. She told me how, coming from the Midwest and her family(she's an only child), she was very used to seeing aunts and uncles take her and her cousins for a few days or weeks when parents had to do something. That they'd do sleepovers and the like, and always had parties at a different relatives house pretty regularly. She thought that based on her friends and how their families did roughly the same thing, that it was very commonplace. She did not expect me or my sister to rebuff that kind of relationship and be so against it. She said she understands now she was trying to force what she thought was normal, and she'll do her best to respect my wishes going forward. I thanked her for that. My brother came in with Connor, and while Connor was playing close by, my brother said he and my SIL plan to go therapy to come to terms with Connor getting older and start planning for the future. He said it was stupid to think our parents would be around forever, much as we both wish that. He's hoping in a few months they (my SIL and Connor's bio mom) will be comfortable enough to start leaving him overnight at respite care and with individuals trained to handle kids like Connor. My SIL joked that she hoped that in a few years, maybe they could all go to the destination my brother was going to. I was happy to hear that. I told them I am really happy they are moving forward, but I also wanted to layout some things I want them to know. - I'd be happy to go with them to check out care facilities and assisted living (I believe that is the term) facilities that Connor may go to when the inevitable happens. - I'd be happy to, if something horrendous happens, make sure that their assets and savings are used to take care of Connor and his needs. - I'd visit Connor at said facilities when he's there. - I would not take on any kind of caretaker role now or ever. That is not something I want to do. If they ever try what they tried recently or attempted to broach the subject again, I would go LC/NC. I said this more politely than I wrote it, but that was the gist of it. I will accept being called an asshole for this, but I took some of your advice and spelled it out for them incase they weren't getting the message. - I would never let Connor end up on the street, but I also would not let him live with me and I would never be his guardian/adopt him. I would make sure he is with people who can handle and care for him the right way. Both of them took it pretty well, and were happy to know that I would make sure that I'd execute their wills correctly if it came down to it. My brother apologized again about the last argument. I told him I accept his apology, but (politely) to never ask me to do that again. I reminded him that his dream was to be a dad and have a family. My dream was to travel the world. I am going to start doing that soon, probably week long trips at most, but that I wasn't going to ever sacrifice my happiness and youth to be a caretaker. I love Connor, but he's my nephew, not my child. And that I love him (my brother) too, but there are certain things I draw the line at. We hugged it out and had a good rest of the night. So that's that. I am really really hoping that they keep to their word. I am so emotionally drained from all this, that I honestly don't think I could stand another situation like what happened prior. But here's to baby steps and small victories.   ----NEW UPDATE---- Trigger Warnings: verbal abuse Update: AITAH for not babysitting my nephew for 10 days? [FINAL]: February 17, 2026 (eight months later from the previous update) Good: Both my brother and SIL, and my former SIL, caved in and were able to make peace with Connor going to respite care. He's doing very good at it. Bad: Back to NC with any of them. So, lot happened. After a few months, my brother got SIL and my former SIL on board with respite care. It wasn't particularly easy for any of them, and Connor did not take well to the first few attempts. But thanks to some really awesome staff/caretakers (I apologize for not knowing the right term), he was able to be left in their care for a few days, then up to 2 weeks. My brother and SIL were pretty nervous at first, lots of phone calls to check up and whatnot, but they've been able to go on a few trips they had been wanting to go on. I was pretty happy for them. Connor also has gotten a lot better overall. They said he's still likely never going to be able to live by himself, but he throws far fewer temper tantrums and overall is just pretty much non-verbal with a few stims and habits. Additionally, my parents sold their house and moved into a retirement community where they also seem to be really enjoying themselves. Now the bad. My uncle had a Christmas party that a good deal of the family was invited to. My brother and SIL, and Connor, couldn't make it, nor could my parents. I went and had a good time. During the party, another uncle we'll call Jeff came up and asked if I could watch his daughter Stacey (16F) for a weekend while he and his wife go to an Adults-Only wedding in another state. He and his wife are somewhat overprotective when it comes to Stacey, but just in the "we don't feel comfortable leaving her alone for the weekend" vs being complete helicopter parents. Stacey is a good kid, outside of calling My Chemical Romance "Dad Rock". I said sure. Stacey was there and I told her we could go to Disneyland for one of the days and she's welcome to bring a friend, my treat. She was very excited about that, and honestly, me too. I hadn't been to Disney in a few years now. Good stuff, so I thought. The next weekend, I was over at my brother's place to drop a few things off and hang out. I told him and SIL that I wouldn't be coming by on that particular weekend because I would be watching Stacey for the weekend, but I'd come by the next weekend. He said sounds good, but SIL got quiet. She said "Oh, well, you can take Connor next weekend to Disneyland too. I think he'd like that". I said no. My parents took him to Disneyland once when he was a few years younger and left after about an hour. They said it was a miserable experience for Connor and he was super overstimulated. I told her if they ever want to go to Disneyland, I'll happily tag along but I'm not taking Connor with Stacey and I when even they haven't taken him to Disneyland and seen how he acts. I said it's not fair to any of us to be on the hook for that. She blew up. She went off on how he's gotten so much better, how he's so better behaved and has a ton more coping skills. I said I know. I said I was proud of her and my brother for getting him where he is now...and that I laid down, last time, what I was and willing to do. Taking him out for the day without either parent was on the "not willing to do" section. That's that. She went on ranting about how I'm a horrible uncle and it's a good thing I don't have kids. I said I agree on the not having kids part. I don't think that's something that'll ever be in my future. I like kids, I couldn't imagine raising them myself. She called me a few expletives and went into their bedroom and slammed the door. I asked my brother what the hell that was about. He told me that she's in a few groups for parent's of kids with autism and they've been "shaming" her for having "uninvolved" aunts and uncles(my sister and I). I asked him what the fuck they meant by that, and rattled off everything I had done for Connor, be it financially or anything else. He said he knows, and he's brought that up and told them and her that, but they seem to zero in on "They don't babysit, do they actually love him?!" Even her own family has apparently given her grief for the fact that my sister and I don't babysit or take him on outings or have him over. He didn't defend them, but he didn't condone them either. I asked, brother-to-brother, if they were in therapy for all this. He said yes. He said she really loves him, and Connor, but she's also a big people pleaser and has a lot of family values that aren't being met. He said she got really sad that my parents sold the house, because now they can't host Connor anymore(They still visit and see him a few times a month, but it's not like before). I asked if there was anything else he was comfortable sharing. He said their sessions just usually devolve into her hounding him to ask me and my sister to be more active. I was shocked. I brought how many times I've said I'm not doing that, how my sister has gone essentially LC/NC and she still is bringing that up. He said yes. She's never going to be happy unless she has that. He begged me to come around. He'd pay me, he'd pay for my time off, he'd move closer to me if that's what it would take. I said no. None of that. I'm not doing any of that. I told him I thought we(him, my SIL, me) had an understanding about what my role was going to be. That they promised it was going to be ok. He was in tears, saying "I know, I know but" and went on about how it would make her world if I could just do some of the things she's asking. I knew it was a lost cause. I gave him a big hug and told him I'd always love him. I went to go hug Connor too. I told him that I'm sorry, but I can't do this anymore. I can't keep getting flooded and hounded by these requests. It's not fair to me. I asked that they both no longer contact me, to let my parents know anything important and they would relay that to me. He was on the couch stunned when I left. I felt horrible, but thinking about being asked to do that again and again was something I couldn't imagine going through again. I called my parents and told them what happened. They were upset but understood. They were very unhappy that she kept pushing when she said she'd stop. I told them I was getting a new number, and to please not share that with them. I also said I do not mind if they bring them up in our conversations or mention them, as I don't hate them, but asked that they not broach the topic of reuniting or talking again. I don't think that's something I can mentally handle. To be safe, I called my housing office the next day and asked if I could break my lease and move to a different complex they own in a different part of the city. They were, thankfully, very understanding and had no problem with it. So that's it. I'm happy Connor is doing better now, and my brother and SIL can take trips on their own with him being taken care of. I'll probably take a trip to Europe this summer to clear my head. I really wish things had worked out differently, but in the end, all of you were right. It was never going to be enough for them, and it took me going NC for them to stop. I really hope they do ok in the future. I'll always love my brother and Connor. Just going to have to be from afar now. (Also Disneyland was a blast, holy shit. Galaxy's Edge was amazing. Still can't stomach how expensive it's gotten though) Relevant Comments Commenter 1: …where are SIL’s family in all of this? Surely her family’s “village” should be the ones meeting those expectations she’s arbitrarily set? Commenter 2: SIL is the stepmother. Her family is not related to Connor. OOP: They are in the Midwest. They refer to where we live as "Commiefornia" and won't come out here. She's ok with that, but me being unwilling to babysit is apparently a huge deal. Commenter 3: He told me that she's in a few groups for parent's of kids with autism and they've been "shaming" her for having "uninvolved" aunts and uncles (my sister and I). Wow, those are support groups?! Dayum SIL will never learn until she can get everyone to drop their boundaries to her requests and your brother, sadly, won't get a spine to stand up to her properly because unfortunately he feels the same as her. This is definitely the best outcome OOP: From what my brother said, most people in the group are really nice and supportive... but there's a few that really play on the "FAMILY HELPS FAMILY NO MATTER WHAT" that were in her ear about things. Commenter 4: I would go NC for now but I have to say, I do feel bad for Connor. He’s taking his parents’ punishment as well and that’s not good for anyone. I would say instead of going NC with Connor, still visit him at the respite with a member of staff there if it makes you feel comfortable, even if it’s just for ten minutes and once or twice a month. He shouldn’t have to suffer from his parents’ actions. It’s not his fault. He’s been put in the middle of all this. Take some time away by all means but don’t go NC with your nephew just because your SIL can’t take no for an answer. You don’t have to see his parents if you don’t want to. But it’s not nice knowing that your family members are not talking to you and you don’t know the reason why. As for your brother and SIL, whatever happens in their relationship is between them but I wouldn’t give up hope on your brother just yet. It sounds to me like he’s being controlled by his wife. Maybe someday he’ll realise what it’s cost him. The marriage might not even last. I’m not saying it will but who knows? No one has an idea of what the future holds. Why not have a think about it but first focus on yourself. Take that trip to Europe and in the meantime, try doing some things that make you happy. OOP: I've been NC for about a month now and it's been the best feeling ever. It hurts not to have my brother and Connor in my life, but I don't think I could do what you're asking as I asked to be removed from everything regarding his care. Commenter 5: The whole situation is so sad. I’ve been following your story from the beginning and I’m sorry it came to this for you. You said your brother and Connor’s bio mom split because she wanted more involvement from you and your sister? I think that’s what’s happening in this marriage too. That would explain why your brother seemed so desperate (even offering to pay you) to just “do some of what she wants”. Clearly he accepts your boundaries but I think he’s afraid to lose another wife due to the same issues. It’s very sad all the way around. I really hope this can be mended someday because it sounds like you’re going to miss your brother. Best wishes OOP: You said your brother and Connor’s bio mom split because she wanted more involvement from you and your sister? Yes. She comes from a different culture where it's very much "everyone is the village" mindset, while my family is "don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm". My parents obviously would really enjoy if I was more involved, but they learned that wasn't going to be the case and were happy with whatever I was willing to do. Downvoted Commenter: You are not wrong. Your brother is in a near impossible situation. Your SIL is in a BAD supposedly "support group." That is not what they are supposed to do. They are to vent, to listen, to give personal testimony, and to give suggestions and problem solving coping mechanisms. NOT to become a gang mentality of what's wrong and right for others , it's destructive and breaks people's tenuous perspective. SIL is grieving the child she didn't have and the circumstances surrounding that. She's lashing out at what she wishes possible even though it is an unattainable goal. It's no ones fault. It's actually quite common in high stress care giver situations. You need to keep contact with your brother. You don't need to do anything but every once in a while, listen or tell him a joke. He's in the weeds. She needs help, not you or your sister, a therapist designed for this. She needs to move towards acceptance. OOP: Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to do that. He really really loves her, which I am not saying is a bad thing, but it's going to devolve back into trying to please her. I left the line open to hear things from my parents but I'm not going to be getting involved in the future. This is the happiest I've been and it feels like an enormous weight has been lifted off my back. Might be an asshole move, but this is the peace I haven't had for 10+ years. OOP on his future and having visits with Connor at the respite care OOP: I'm likely going to be taking a job overseas within the next year or so. My parents are aware. I think starting fresh is the best thing for me to do. I'll be sending stuff to my parents to give to him, and my brother and SIL, but as much as it hurts to say...I don't think my brother and SIL will take what I do seriously if I still have any interaction with Connor.   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

Every year, I go to the movie theater as much as possible. It's my favorite place in the world. I first started keeping track/scores/reviews/ticket stubs in 2015. Since then, I've seen 1,827 different movies in theaters: 5 in 2015, 9 in 2016, 146 in 2017, 162 in 2018, 192 in 2019, 44 in 2020, 86 in 2021, 270 in 2022, 325 in 2023, 298 in 2024, and 290 this year. For this ranking, I'm only counting movies I saw in theaters, nothing that I watched at home. I'm not counting re-watches. I don't have a specific scoring system, it's just a rating I give to the movie right after watching. I've included a few re-releases, short films, and TV series, as long as they were seen in a theater (and for the first time). This is all just for fun and not meant to be taken super seriously, I'm not a professional movie critic. I just like going to the movies. I attended 9 film festivals in 2025 for a total of 124 movies. 97 movies had cast and/or crew in attendance for Q&As. There were 26 World Premieres, 11 North American Premieres, 11 Canadian Premieres, 11 East Coast Premieres, 17 Southeast Premieres, 20 Florida/Georgia/Orlando/US/Tampa/South Florida/International Premieres: Toronto International Film Festival - 29 Movies in 7 Days SCAD Savannah Film Festival - 29 Movies in 8 Days Fantasia Film Festival - 18 Movies in 6 Days Florida Film Festival - 13 Movies in 5 Days Miami Film Festival - 11 Movies in 5 Days Popcorn Frights Film Festival - 11 Movies in 8 Days Gasparilla International Film Festival - 6 Movies in 3 Days Miami Jewish Film Festival - 5 Movies in 3 Days Rendez-Vous Cinema Quebec - 2 Movies in 2 Days There were 11 movies that I re-watched in theaters: One Battle After Another - x7 Hamnet - x3 Nouvelle Vague - x2 Sinners - x2 If I Had Legs I'd Kick You - x2 The Testament of Ann Lee - x2 Highest 2 Lowest - x2 The Life of Chuck - x2 Him - x2 Twinless - x2 Sentimental Value - x2 I have AMC's A-List, Regal's Unlimited, Cinemark's MovieClub, as well as memberships to the Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Toronto film societies. I saw 290 movies in theaters in 2025. Here is my full ranking: The Testament of Ann Lee - 10/10 - It's a sprawling, intoxicating, and beautiful historical-epic with some of the best dance-sequence choreography I've ever seen on film. All of the performances are perfect, the songs/prayers are all memorable, the narration grabs you from the first second and never lets go, and it's got the most confident directing of the year. I wanted 5 more hours of Mother Ann's story. In a fair world, Amanda Seyfried is the runaway Best Actress Oscar winner. This'll go down as one of the best period-dramas of the 21st century. There's one or two masterpieces per year, Ann Lee a no-doubter for one of those spots. One Battle After Another - 10/10 - Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction. Marty Supreme - 10/10 The Perfect Neighbor - 9/10 - I've not cried in a movie theater this much since Moonlight. It's the kind of movie that will make your blood boil and will make you melt to your seat by the end. The bodycam footage where the dad has to tell his two sons that their mother isn't coming home is something that will leave a scar on your heart forever. It's also very impressive on a technical level, the best documentary editing since Apollo 11 in 2019. I can't imagine all of the work that went into piecing this thing together. Sinners - 9/10 Brokeback Mountain (Re-Release) - 9/10 - I'm a bit late to the party here, this 20th anniversary theatrical-release was the first time I've seen this movie, and goddamn was it worth the wait. One of the most powerful love stories ever shot. It's the ultimate "what could've been" love story. Heath's performance is generational. I'm now a card-carrying member of the Brokeback Mountain Was Robbed for Best Picture by Crash Society™. Warfare - 9/10 - You can't talk about Warfare without first shouting out the insanely-great sound design. You could watch this movie with your eyes closed and still be impressed. An impossibly-tense war movie that makes 95 minutes feel like 10 minutes. It's really this generation's Black Hawk Down (huge compliment). It's a lot more grounded and believable though, with an outstanding ensemble cast. I love that nobody is a supersoldier in this, just guys in a bad spot in a bad point in time. It doesn't glorify but it also doesn't minimize. This movie will stand the test of time as one of the best war films of the decade. This thing was custom-built in a movie-lab just for me. Sorry, Baby - 9/10 - Eva Victor is 2025's major revelation. This movie is heartbreaking, hilarious, bittersweet, and soul-warming. It's probably the best Original Screenplay of the year too. This made me realize how much I really missed Lucas Hedges. So cool to see him pop up again. Bugonia - 9/10 - Yorgos doesn't miss. Hamnet- 9/10 - An all-time child-actor performance from Jacobi Jupe. This movie is equally soul-crushing and hopeful. Jessie Buckley's close-up when Hamnet dies is pound-for-pound the best single scene of the year. F1 - 9/10 - As far as fun-summer-blockbuster movies go, F1 is as good as it gets. It's this year's Top Gun: Maverick. Was it cliche? Yes. Was it predictable? Yes. Did I have a fucking blast for 2 hours? Also, yes. Keep pumping these out, Apple. The Phoenician Scheme - 9/10 - Asteroid City & The French Dispatch were slight missteps, but Wes Anderson is officially back. This movie overflows with heart & laughs. (with 10/10 production/set design as usual) Sacrifice - 9/10 - Anya Taylor-Joy was born to play an Icelandic eco-terrorist and Chris Evans was born to play the narcissitic, A-List actor in a rut suddenty thrust back into the limelight. Gorgeously shot, laugh-a-minute first act. I had a really great time with this one, it reminded me a lot of Don't Look Up. Very surprised everyone hates it. The Smashing Machine - 9/10 Magazine Dreams - 8/10 - Jonathan Majors comes in with maybe one of the most physically-demanding performances of all time. Without the real-life drama, this might've been an Oscar-winning role for him. Great movie. Highest 2 Lowest - 8/10 - If it wasn't for an extremely uneven first act and some classic weird Spike quirks in there, like insane transitions and some "how do you do, fellow kids?" moments , this would be one of the best movies of the year. It's still really really great, and the insane score kind of grows on you as it goes. Denzel is at the top of his game. My favorite Original Song of the year at the end. Train Dreams - 8/10 - It takes a while to grow on you. It might take an hour, it might take 5 days, but it'll eventually hit you like a....train (sorry). It's a beautiful slow burn about appreciating life's fleeting and rare moments of joy. The world keeps going on without you, and that's okay. It's extremely reflective and existential. Beautiful stuff. It did what A Ghost Story did for me a few years ago. Presence - 8/10 - Lucy Liu. No notes. It Was Just An Accident - 8/10 - A lot more humor than I expected. The most impressive longshot of the year with that interrogation scene near the end. Mariam Afshari deserves more attention. And holy fuck does that pin-drop ending hit. There's a few ways you can interpret the ending too which is really cool. The Threesome - 8/10 Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie - 8/10 - If you like satirical comedies (like Borat), just do yourself a favor and check it out. You’ll laugh more in the first 30 minutes than in any movie of the past 5 years. I'm Still Here - 8/10 Black Bag - 8/10 Nouvelle Vague - 8/10 - A fun, sweet, breezy, delicate ode to the French New Wave. A movie for movie nerds. Zoey Deutch is a delight and Guillaume Marbeck is one of the year's breakout actors. Left-Handed Girl - 8/10 - A beautiful slice-of-life family drama that’s right up my alley. Wonderful performances from the 2 young leads (their first major roles) and possibly the catchiest theme track of the year. All fans of Sean Baker should check this one out. Nina Ye killed it at the Q&A. Splitsville - 8/10 - Hilarious, sharp, sexy. One of the better recent romantic-comedies (big emphasis on comedy). I laughed more during the first fight sequence than probably any other single scene this year. Advice for any shlubby screenwriters out there: co-writing a sharp, funny screenplay where your romantic interestes are 10/10s like Dakota and Adria is a good move. It Ends - 8/10 - Sometimes you're lucky enough to catch a great movie from a first-time director and you know they'll blow up soon. This is that movie for 2025. The Count of Monte Cristo - 8/10 - You don't get these types of epics much anymore. Really well made and crafted. It's the best Monte Cristo has ever looked on screen. Oh, Hi! - 8/10 Sacramento - 8/10 - Michael Cera, how I've missed you. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning - 8/10 Is This Thing On? - 8/10 - Career-best stuff from Will Arnett. If only Laura Dern's character wasn't so poorly-written and shitty. Great, improv-like scenes in the comedy club. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery 8/10 - Doesn't quite reach the peak of the first one, but it's a step up from the 2nd. It's a lot more personal and dark than the other 2, which I really liked, and it keeps the (sometimes-outdated) humor. Fucktoys - 8/10 - It's Anora on mushrooms. It's weird, it's gross, it's got a ton of sex and some violence. It's kind of a modern nasty fairy tale. It's everything you want. Would recommend. Annapurna Sriram is a major talent to watch out for. Urchin - 8/10 - Part Safdie, part Glazer, part Leigh. A really confident and impressive debut film from Harris Dickinson. Harry Dillane is magnetic. Eternity - 8/10 Predator: Badlands - 8/10 A Quiet Place w/ Live Commentary (Re-Release) - 8/10 - This was the first "live commentary" screening I've ever attended. It was with co-writers Scott Beck & Bryan Woods (who also co-directed Heretic), moderated by Josh Malerman (who wrote Bird Box). A very fun screening, very insightful and amusing. Think Mystery Science Theater 3000, but for an actually-good movie. Final Destination: Bloodlines - 8/10 Companion - 8/10 No Other Land - 8/10 - Incredible achievement in documentary filmmaking. almost unfurls like a narrative drama. The only documentary other than 20 Days In Mariupol that's made me want to look away. It's really impressive how angry it makes you but also weaves in beautiful little funny moments of humanity that bring you back down to earth. You would think that "pouring cement down village water wells" was a cartoonish movie-villain move that would never actually happen in real life, but nope, it happens. The Girl with the Needle - 8/10 - Sometimes you just need a Cristian Mungiu-like hit of depression. This filled that hole. 28 Years Later - 8/10 The Long Walk - 8/10 - Not shying away from the brutality/violence is this movie's biggest strength. David Jonsson and Cooper Hoffman are perfect together. It's a very unique post-apocalyptic film, a different feel from the usual YA slop. Mark Hamill is very goofy and bad though. Rough casting there. Sentimental Value - 8/10 - This was a lot better on 2nd watch. In her limited screentime, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas puts in the best supporting performance of the year. She is the heart & soul of this movie. Truly heartbreaking stuff when Renate reads her the monologue at the table. The History of Sound - 8/10 - Shoutout to this movie for introducing me to Silver Dagger, probably the greatest folk song ever. I've had different covers of it playing on repeat since the minute I left the theater. Paul Mescal was amazing in his rendition. Beautiful, Brokeback Mountain-like love story about what could've been and regrets. A House of Dynamite - 8/10 - It's only fair to score this by act: First Act: 10/10 - Movie-of-the-year potential. Thrilling and engaging. I wanted to cry everytime Rebecca Ferguson was on screen. Second Act: 8/10: The greatest TV pilot episode you've ever seen. Greta Lee keeps getting done dirty though. Third Act: 3/10 - What a fumble nooooooooo Kathryn noooooooo. My Mom Jayne - 8/10 Sirat - 8/10 - Sound design that will have your clothes shaking during the rave sequences and have you jump during the (extremely) unexpected death scene(s). A great (but extremely bleak) odyssey through the desert set against the backdrop of the world falling apart. Good shit. She Dances - 8/10 - Whenever Steve and Audrey Zahn are on-screen together, the scenes burst with authenticity and genuineness. The script is sweet, funny when it needs to be, and sometimes brings out a few tears. Really great little family-drama. Hamilton - 8/10 Bring Her Back - 8/10 - Danny and Michael Philippou should be thrown in fucking jail for that scene of the kid chewing on the knife. Sovereign - 8/10 Weapons - 8/10 Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair - 8/10 - Confession: I had only seen bits and pieces of both Kill Bill movies prior to this. I had an abolute blast. The 2nd half doesn't quite live up to the first though. Avatar: Fire and Ash - 8/10 - Oona Chaplin awoke something in me. i'm now a Varangsexual. Mile End Kicks - 8/10 - Chandler Levack is Canada’s brightest up and coming filmmaker since Xavier Dolan. Pls keep her on your radar. Now she needs to make a movie without an annoyingly-unlikeable lead. Nuremberg - 8/10 - Your dad's pick for Best Picture. I had really low expectations, a 2.5-hour WW2 courtroom drama sounds like Oscar-bait 20 years too late, but a really tight script and perfect pacing kept me thoroughly engaged. It's also the best Russell Crowe performance since...Gladiator? Good stuff. I'm back on the WW2 movie train. Leo Woodall knocks it out of the pack with his monologue too. Out of nowhere. The Naked Gun - 8/10 Twinless - 8/10 Rebuilding - 8/10 - Lowkey family-drama set in the aftermath of a fire that destroys a man's family ranch. Josh O'Connor is outstanding as usual. Eric LaRue - 8/10 The Life of Chuck - 8/10 Frankenstein - 8/10 - It's undoubtedly technically impressive, probably deserves Oscar nominations in most tech categories. The cast and crew is stacked, and it's solid, but there's a major thing keeping it from being truly great/top 25 of the year: an interesting story. It's really good but classic GDT style-over-substance like Crimson Peak. Megadoc - 8/10 - Almost makes up for the actual movie. Almost. The Francis/Shia and Aubrey/Dustin dynamics were really fascinating to watch. Really great doc about the chaos of filmmaking. It's a shame Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel didn't want to be filmed for it, but I can't say I blame them. Jay Kelly - 8/10 Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere - 8/10 - Everyone else is wrong, this thing was good. Atlantic City forever. Rosemary's Baby (Re-Release) - 8/10 Hurry Up Tomorrow- 8/10 - Maybe throw me in jail for this but I thought this thing rocked? Part Vox Lux, part Misery, part Good Time. Jenna Ortega absolutely smashes it (wish the whole movie was from her POV tbh) and Keoghan/Abel are pretty solid as well. If you can look over the self indulgence (which is kinda the point) and a bad 5-minute sequence near the end, this is a banger. The score and camework alone make it watchable. Trey Edward Shults fan until the day I die. Together - 8/10 Americana - 8/10 - It does jump the shark a bit near the end when like 45 people die and it becomes a bit unbelievable, but it's a fun Tarantino-like crime story and Sidney Sweeney/Paul Walter Hauser are great together. It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley - 8/10 The Fantastic Four: First Steps - 7/10 The Damned - 7/10 - Claustrophobic period-pieces are my shit. An overlooked January-dump movie that deserves more praise. The Ballad of Wallis Island - 7/10 She Rides Shotgun - 7/10 Christy - 7/10 Roofman 7/10 - A perfectly-solid action-crime-comedy with a stellar Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst. This would've made $200M domestic 20 years ago. It doesn't have the usual emotional devastation that you'd expect from a Derek Cianfrance film, but that's fine. Thunderbolts - 7/10 - Like most people, I'm kinda "over" the Marvel formula, and in general this was a bit more of the same, but Pugh and Harbour commit really hard and keep it very engaging and just-different-enough. It's one of the better recent MCU efforts. I liked Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a Veep-adjacent role. Materialists - 7/10 Dead Man's Wire - 7/10 Rental Family - 7/10 Sisu: Road to Revenge - 7/10 - A nice improvement over the first one, rare for a sequel. Some really impressive kills. Mickey 17 - 7/10 Shin Godzilla (Re-Release) - 7/10 The School Duel - 7/10 Eephus - 7/10 - A local beer league baseball team plays their final game at the local park. Makes you feel nice and fuzzy and warm. Dangerous Animals - 7/10 - Some actors are born for a certain role. Jai Courtney is that actor in this movie. Ballerina - 7/10 Vermiglio - 7/10 Violent Ends - 7/10 Good Fortune - 7/10 - There are some glaring flaws (like Aziz's acting & delivery), but it does a lot of things very well and has a sweet enough ending to keep this pretty good. Keanu's character is a highlight and has a ton of great lines ("I used to be a celestial being and now I'm a chainsmoker", etc) Secret Mall Apartment - 7/10 Blue Moon - 7/10 - Ethan Hawke is outstanding and basically shows off and runs circles around everybody for 100 minutes, but chamber pieces just aren’t reaching “great” level for me recently. Wicked: For Good - 7/10 The Surfer - 7/10 Eleanor the Great - 7/10 - Pure boomer catnip. Your grandma's favorite movie of 2025. June Squibb is a national treasure. Protect her at all costs. Blue Heron - 7/10 - An Officer and a Spy - 7/10 - Polanski still has a bit of juice. Nobody is doing courtroom-dramas like the French recently. California Schemin' - 7/10 - It gets a bit repetitive but it's a solid directorial debut effort from James McAvoy. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey - 7/10 Villes Jacques-Carton - 7/10 - Quebec represent. (weak year for Quebec cinema I'll admit) Normal - 7/10 - If you like John Wick and John Wick-like clone films, you’ll like this. Lots of fun kills. Lots of blood. Good popcorn flick. Not breaking any new ground though. The Ballad of a Small Player - 7/10 - Macau is a sick setting for a film, and I really dug the first hour, a degenerate gambler just digging his own grave, and the score from Volker Bertelmann is a standout of the year, but it loses its way a bit when he dies (or maybe he doesn't? who knows). Also, more Fala Chen please. Jurassic World: Rebirth - 7/10 Superman - 7/10 - There's some funny lines, solid needledrops, and Rachel Brosnahan is great as usual, but it's not enough to make it really pop. Solid movie, another decent entry in the comic book movie category, but it doesn't reinvigorate my enthusiasm for the genre as a whole like I'd hoped it would. Tatami - 7/10 One of Them Days - 7/10 - Katt Williams being the highlight of a movie in the year of our lord 2025 was not on my bingo card. We need more crowd-pleasing comedies like this in theaters. The Seed of the Sacred Fig - 7/10 Fackham Hall - 7/10 - The Trainspotting poster bit was so good. Non-stop bits and easter eggs, a fun time. The Wizard of the Kremlin - 7/10 Caught Stealing - 7/10 - Zoë Kravitz is gone far too soon. I Love LA (TV Series) - 7/10 Fight or Flight - 7/10 - It sequel-baits a bit too hard and the tech-villains are way too cartoony, but some solid kills, great lines/editing, and Josh Hartnett fully committing to the alcoholic, down-on-his-luck assassin bit really keeps it entertaining enough. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life - 7/10 Sisters - 7/10 Parthenope - 7/10 - It's a gorgeous-looking movie, I could stare at Celeste Dalla Porta for 10 more hours, and I'm a big Paolo Sorrentino fan but this feels a bit more style-over-substance than his usual output. The Monkey - 7/10 The Luckiest Man in America - 7/10 - When an indie budget is stretched to the limit and puts out a good movie. Terrestrial - 7/10 Two Women - 7/10 Sharp Corner - 7/10 - I watched this dubbed in French so the performances definitely took a hit, but it was a pretty biting look at the pressures of the workplace and family leading to a man's downward spiral. Ben Foster is always solid (even when he's dubbed in French-Canadian). Sweetness - 7/10 Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues - 7/10 - I have still not seen the original, but this was good enough as a standalone. The final performance scene leaves a bit to be desired, but there's enough humorous dialogue to keep it chugging along ("in the daytime, ghosts are just rumors" is my personal favorite". Almost Popular - 7/10 My Dead Friend Zoe - 7/10 I Am Frankelda - 7/10 The Amateur - 7/10 - It's basically Bourne-lite, but they don't make these globe-trotting spy movies enough anymore. I enjoyed it. Torture-by-pollen was a wild move though. On Swift Horses - 7/10 Merrily We Roll Along - 7/10 - As far as theatrical pro-shots go, it's below Waitress & Hamilton. At first the constant cuts are a bit annoying/nauseating, but it works itself out. Radcliffe has one really amazing/impressive song number (during the TV interview), Groff is outstanding throughout. Was not a fan of Lindsay Mendez at all. I wanted a bit more emotionally from the whole thing. The theme song is amazing. Heart Eyes - 7/10 No Other Choice - 7/10 - good but kinda very long, innit? Freaky Tales - 7/10 The Wedding Banquet - 7/10 - Fun little rom-com brought down a bit by rough acting and awkward line/joke delivery from Bowen Yang and the Korean guy. Lily and Kelly carried them big time. Loved the “we have to de-gay the house!!!” bit. Great ending too. (never saw the original) Freakier Friday - 7/10 Rust - 7/10 The Ugly Stepsister - 7/10 Come Closer - 7/10 La Grazia 7/10 - Location scouts for Sorrentino movies need special recognition. The Accountant 2 - 7/10 - The story is a bit overcooked (the X-Men-like school for autistic super-hackers is a crazy turn for this movie to take) and it gets a bit too Sound of Freedom-y, but the Affleck/Bernthal scenes together keep it from falling apart completely. Rise (Short Film) - 7/10 Tornado - 6/10 Inheritance - 6/10 The Housemaid - 6/10 Anemone - 6/10 - [Sean Bean stares in amazement at DDL's performance] x10. There's a few good lines ("god doesn't need undies, cause he's not full of shit like you are", "the explosion was so loud you couldn't hear it"), two amazing DDL monologues, and it looks amazing, but feels kind of empty as a whole. Definitely something missing. Spider & Jessie - 6/10 Orwell: 2+2=5 - 6/10 - Some sequences are truly must-see pieces of documentary filmmaking (like the grilling of the ghoulish tech billionaire fucks and the January 6th bits) but then others are so truly scattered and shoehorned that it disconnects you from the message of the movie. 9/10 potential here if it could get out of its own way. Don't Let's Go to The Dogs Tonight - 6/10 Charlie Harper - 6/10 - A cute story about a highschool sweetheart couple (an aspiring chef and an underachieving alcoholic, classic) that’s shot really great and acted well (othet than the non-existent drunk acting from a supposed alcoholic) but ultimately burdened by a mountain of cliches. Song Sung Blue - 6/10 The Toxic Avenger 6/10 - A Troma film should have more nudity. Let's bring nudity back. Put me down for more nudity. Tron: Ares - 6/10 If I Had Legs I'd Kick You - 6/10 Anaconda - 6/10 - One day soon I'll be tired and over and the ironic, meta, big-studio-movie, but today is not one of those days. I had a decent time with this. A The Legend of Bagger Vance reference in 2025 deserves some respect. Death Does Not Exist - 6/10 40 Acres - 6/10 Locked - 6/10 Paddington in Peru - 6/10 Clown In A Cornfield - 6/10 Captain America: Brave New World - 6/10 - Adding this to the never-ending list of good-but-forgettable comic book movies. The genre is stale as hell. Wolf Man - 6/10 - Really liked the POV switches, sound design, and creature design, but the rest is by-the-numbers horror flick. Drop - 6/10 Blood for Dracula (Re-Release) - 6/10 Taylor Swift - The Official Release Party of a Showgirl - 6/10 - The lyric video stuff was whatever/boring/filler but I really liked the behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Ophelia music video. I could’ve watched an entire doc of Taylor directing that video. Great song too. And the closing song rocked too. Fanny - 6/10 Find Your Friends - 6/10 All Her Fault (TV Series) - 6/10 Fairyland - 6/10 A Nice Indian Boy - 6/10 Eddington - 6/10 - There's some interesting stuff in here, but overall kind of a mess. That's been Ari Aster's vibe recently. A Minecraft Movie - 6/10 To Kill A Wolf - 6/10 Keeper - 6/10 Waltzing with Brando - 6/10 - Billy Zane is super convincing as Marlon Brando. The rest is forgettable. Re-Animator (Re-Release) - 6/10 Opus - 6/10 - John Malkovich could not have been more horribly miscast. There's a good cult movie hidden in here somewhere, but Ayo by herself couldn't bring it out. Needed some more passes at rewrites. Grand Theft Hamlet - 6/10 Den of Thieves 2: Pantera - 6/10 Novocaine - 6/10 Barcelona (Re-Release) - 6/10 The Roses - 6/10 - This was a Dollar Tree Marriage Story. Very tonally-uneven. Kate McKinnon is distractingly-bad. Cumberbatch and Colman work well enough together to keep it watchable but it's kinda messy. IT: Welcome to Derry (TV Series) - 6/10 Modern Whore - 6/10 100 Nights of Hero - 6/10 Ick - 6/10 Algiers - 6/10 Everything's Going to Be Great - 6/10 - I really wish Bryan Cranston didn't die early on in the movie. His character and charisma really kept this afloat at first. It mostly fall flats after he's gone, except a few sweet moments. Weirdly over-religious vibes to the movie. Angel Studios was probably close to landing this one. Abraham's Boys - 6/10 I Know What You Did Last Summer - 6/10 - Worth seeing for the Nicole Kidman AMC intro reference alone. Death of a Unicorn - 6/10 Clorofilla - 6/10 I Don't Understand You - 6/10 On Becoming A Guinea Fowl - 6/10 - It's hard to think of a more recent ending that's so unsatisfying. It's good until that. Fuck those last 5 minutes. Allen Sunshine - 6/10 Night of the Demons (Re-Release) - 6/10 La Gloria - 6/10 The Legend of Ochi - 6/10 - It's a gorgeous movie and very Wes Anderson-coded, but too childish to make a real impact. If I'm honest, Helena Zengel should've just spoken German (with subtitles) instead of intelligible English. Cleaner - 6/10 Bonjour, Tristesse - Lily McInerny is outstanding, one of my picks for "breakout" performances of the year, and I'm a sucker for a sun-drenched Mediterranean setting, but Chloë Sevigny is just so bad and sinks the rest of the performances. Love Machine (Short Film) - 6/10 The Shrouds - 6/10 Mermaid - 6/10 - With 20-25 minutes shaved off, this could've been great. It captures some of the gross underbelly of Florida that not a lot of movies can (The Florida Project being the best example), but it's dragged down by bad performances and a plot that's too dragged out. I wanted it to end at least 5 times. Dog of God - 6/10 Trust - 6/10 Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale - 5/10 - It loses a lot of the charm of the first 2 films. Dead of Winter - 5/10 The Friend - 5/10 Him - 5/10 Somnium - 5/10 Hard Truths - 5/10 Borderline - 5.7 - Full disclosure: I saw this in a theater but left about halfway because I saw a big ass rat crawling through the aisle (2nd time I've ever seen one in a theater. Other time was in 2019 for The Best of Enemies). That's gonna be a no from me, dawg. Finished the rest at home. All that being said, Samara Weaving is good but she can only do so much to carry a weak story. Hunting Daze - 5/10 The Chronology of Water- 5/10 - A completely incomprehensible first-45-minutes (by design I guess?), but Imogen poots puts in one of the most daring & brave performances in a while. A huge huge swing by Kristen Stewart for a directorial debut. Sometimes it hits, sometimes it misses hard. www.rachelormont.com - 5/10 - This movie is fucking disgusting. I'm pretty sure real-life misdemeanors/felonies were actually committed during the filming (seriously). But it's just weird and funny enough (especially during the meta, audience-speaking portion) to keep you locked in. A wild ride that I wouldn't take again but that I'm happy to have taken off of the bucket list. Honey, Don't! - 5/10 - "My left or your left?", "We're facing the same way" is one of the year's best exchanges, and there's a few of those gems, but ultimately this is one of the most disjointed movies involving A-list talent I've ever seen (looking at you, Amsterdam). Too much going on, some really awful performances (Charlie Day, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans). Only Margaret Qualley showed up. She rocks. Swiped - 5/10 - We have The Social Network at home. Bone Lake - 5/10 Black Phone 2 - 5/10 - There should be a law capping Blumhouse horrors at 95 minutes. Big drop-off from the first one. Madelaine McGraw was fantastic though. The Woman in the Yard - 5/10 Seven Veils - 5/10 M3gan 2.0 - 5/10 - I've gotta admit that there's a lot of really solid & memorable one-liners in here, but this movie really needed an R-rating and 25 minutes less of runtime. Fuze - 5/10 Now You See Me Now You Don't - 5/10 The Running Man - 5/10 - Edgar no :( Ella McCay - 5/10 - There's some truly baffling stuff going on in this movie (30-year old Ema MacKey unconvincingly playing a 15-year old for a part of the movie being one of them), but I love James L. Brooks too much to give it a lower score. #EllaMcCayChallenge Sketch - 5/10 The Well - 5/10 Queens of the Dead - 5/10 Unmoored - 5/10 Last Breath - 5/10 Mr. Blake at Your Service! - 5/10 Hedda - 5/10 - Aside from the solid costume and set design (and a few moments when I was reminded of Babylon), this was a pretty nothing-movie with a confusing plot and extremely unlikeable characters. The Virgin of Quarry Lake - 5/10 - Visually striking but much too slow. Mr. Melvin - 5/10 Armand - 5/10 The Bearded Girl - 5//10 Karate Kid: Legends - 5/10 Test Screening - 5/10 Sounds of Glass (Short Film) - 5/10 Invention - 5/10 The Penguin Lessons - 5/10 Another Simple Favor - 4/10 - This might be the most overcooked script of the year. There's just so much going on, you can't keep track of any character motivations, and it just throws in twists for the sake of twists. The original was fine, this was not good. Good Boy - 4/10 Hacked: A Double Entendre of Rage Fueled Karma - 4/10 Hot Milk - 4/10 - There's something good hidden in here, but it's irritating as hell. The Room Next Door - 4/10 - All of the bad of Almadovar (clunky dialogue, overly-melodramatic, etc), with none of the good. Boring as well Sister Midnight - 4/10 The Devil’s Bride - 4/10 After the Hunt- 4/10 - ??????????????? Snow White - 4/10 - I think Rachel Zegler is great. Whenever she wasn't on screen, I didn't care. Disney live-action remakes have to start caring a lot more about what they're putting out there. The returns are diminishing big time. Of Dogs and Men - 4/10 Shelby Oaks - 4/10 Nobody 2 - 4/10 - I never want to see Sharon Stone in anything ever again. Take the Oscar nomination away. Wish You Were Here - 4//10 The Baltimorons - 4/10 Die My Love - 4/10 - Shoutout to John Prine. The Carpenter's Son - 4/10 Dust Bunny - 4/10 The Rule of Jenny Penn - 4/10 - Painfully repetitive. Enough lens-flare-induced-blindness to probably qualify for a class action lawsuit. Flight Risk - 4/10 Anniversary - 4/10 - About as subtle as brick to the temple. Jesus christ. Ash - 4/10 Reflection in a Dead Diamond - 4/10 - Zzz... Apostasy Blues - 4/10 The Christophers - 4/10 - A very rare Soderbergh L. Such a bore. Did not help that I couldn't understand a single word Ian McKellen was saying and that Michaela Coel was horribly miscast. The G - 4/10 Rosemead - 4/10 Teacher's Pet - 4/10 - Coming to a Tubi near you soon. Ex-Husbands - 4/10 The Unholy Trinity - 4/10 - Bland RedBox (RIP) fodder. Samuel L. Jackson surprisingly cares so that kept it from a rock-bottom score. Away with the Fairies (Short Film) - 4/10 Atom & Void (Short Film) - 4/10 Eastern Western - 3/10 Cujo (Re-Release) - 3/10 - Had not seen it before, and I can still tell you it hasn't aged well. Awful. High Rollers - 3/10 Auction - 3/10 - There aren't many things in life more pretentious than art-related French films. The Thing With Feathers - 3/10 - Man this was a rough watch. The Home - 3/10 Thank You, Places! - 3/10 - A valiant effort by a local theater group to shoot & produce a movie during the height of COVID but I could've seen anything else and been more entertained. One Big Happy Family - 3/10 Homebound - 3/10 Good American Family (TV Series) - 3/10 The Story of Three Sisters (Short Film) - 3/10 First Rites (Short Film) - 3/10 Love Hurts - 2/10 - If I had a gun with two bullets and I was in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden, and Love Hurts, I would shoot Love Hurts twice. Kiss of the Spider Woman - 2/10 - I really enjoyed the 12-minute sequence of Diego Luna graphically and aggressively shitting himself (3 feet away from a toilet for some reason by the way?) while the lead character wipes it all up, that was super cool and cinematic and necessary. This movie was hot ass, in more ways than one. Extremely overhyped out of Sundance, there's one every year. Deserved flop. One of the few times a year I walk out of a movie theater angry. Nobody Wants to Shoot a Woman - 2/10 - Amateur hour. The worst Goodfellas rip-off you've ever seen. If you told me this was originally a Youtube short from 2008, I would believe you. The Verdict - 1/10 - The filmmakers should honestly be ashamed for submitting and screening this unfinished soap-opera-masquerading-as-a-film. The festival progammers should be ashamed for programming it and charging people for it. I should be ashamed for staying the entire 100 minutes. Shame all around, really. Nobody wins here. It’s like if a group of blind preschoolers decided to remake Anatomy of a Fall. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 - 0/10 - I thought Netflix’s truly-apocalyptical purchase of Warner Bros was the worst thing to happen to theatrical moviegoing in a hundred years, but then I saw Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. Theater Distribution by Venue/Chain: AMC - 103 Regal - 58 Cinemark - 7 Cineplex - 3 VIP - 3 Landmark - 2 Silverspot - 2 Independent/Festival/Other - 112 (Bill Cosford Cinema, Cinema Centre-Ville, Cinema du Musee, Cinema Paradiso, Classic Gateway, Coral Gables Art Cinema, Enzian Theater, Hall Theater, IFC Center, Lightbox Theater, Lucas Theater, Miami Theater Center, Movies of Delray, Olympia Theater, Princess of Wales, Roy Thomson Hall, Royal Alexandra, Salle J.A. DeSeve, Savor Cinema, SCAD Museum of Art, Scotiabank Theater, Tampa Theater, Trustees Theater) Theater Visits by Month: https://i.imgur.com/JxMd5Qt.jpeg January: 19 February: 11 March: 27 + 1 Re-Release (Barcelona) April: 37 + 1 TV Series (Good American Family) + 1 Re-Release (Rosemary's Baby) May: 17 June: 15 + 1 Re-Release (Brokeback Mountain) July: 24 + 6 Short Films (Atom & Void, Sounds of Glass, First Rites, The Story of Three Sisters, Love Machine, Away with the Fairies) August: 23 + 5 Re-Releases (Re-Animator, A Quiet Place, Cujo, Night of the Demons, Shin Godzilla) September: 43 + 2 Rewatches (One Battle After Another x2) October: 24 + 2 TV Series (IT: Welcome to Derry, I Love LA) + 1 Short (Rise) + 1 Release (Blood for Dracula) + 12 Re-Watches (One Battle After Another x3, Nouvelle Vague, Sinners, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, The Testament of Ann Lee, Highest 2 Lowest, Hamnet, The Life of Chuck, Him, Twinless) November: 16 + 1 TV Series (All Her Fault) + 1 Re-Watch (Sentimental Value) December: 15 + 2 Re-Watches (Hamnet, One Battle After Another) Theater Visits by Day of the Week: https://i.imgur.com/wD0Tsx6.jpeg Monday - 16 Tuesday - 28 Wednesday - 32 Thursday - 53 Friday - 57 Saturday - 65 Sunday - 39 Notable Missed Movies: https://i.imgur.com/42reKIv.jpeg Cast/Crew/Filmmaker Q&As/Appearances: https://i.imgur.com/5kl6qWn.jpeg Favorite Performances: https://i.imgur.com/mf6Bren.jpeg Past Rankings: 2018 (162 Movies) 2019 (192 Movies) 2020 (44 Movies) 2021 (86 Movies) 2022 (270 Movies) 2023 (325 Movies) 2024 (298 movies) Please support your local movie theater. Go alone. Go with others. Buy popcorn. Sneak in snacks. Go on a Discount Tuesday. Disconnect for 2 hours and watch a movie on the biggest screen possible. Don't let corporate greed and stockholder profits destroy a hundred years of laughs, tears, and communal joy. See you at the movies in 2026 :) submitted by /u/BunyipPouch to r/movies [link] [comments]

So 15 years ago today I fucked up bad and today I found out why. I was in highschool and our school had a pretty normal dresscode policy until this new younger woman teacher started. 3 months into her being there, she brings out this extremely strict dresscode policy but only for girls. It was the start of summer, the building had no a/c and the new dresscode limited girls to basically a frumpy tshirt and baggy jeans while boys could wear whatever we want. I being a rebelious little fuck did not like this. My girlfriend at the time was sad. Everyone had to go buy new clothes and every day they didnt do it they got handed this ugly big brown t-shirt of shame that says "i was out of dress code" and these big brown sweats. It was extremely uncomfortable. So what did I do? I started wearing every banned girls article of clothing. I wore short shorts that barely hid my ass because it was allowed. I wore lowcut shirts. I cut the sides off every tank top so it just showed my torso. I even wore a short skirt and a croptop one day to prove a point. I got away with it maybe twice before I started getting dresscode violated every day. I was in every detention for several months. I got suspended. I had to go to two weeks of summer school that year as punishment. I fought the system very hard. And others joined in. It got be almost every dude was getting dress code violated to stand up for the girls. Anytime we got the brown clothes we wore it with pride. It was damn hot in that building you'd pour buckets of sweat. They should have been allowed to wear shorys. I made my list of demands. Girls can wear tank tops, they can wear shorts. They can wear 4 fingers low cut tshirts. We all fought for it and eventually they caved in and gave it to us. I was so happy. It was a formative experience for me because I was willing to take any punishment no matter how severe to fight some perceived injustice. So I'm back in my home town its a small suburb of the outskirts of a city. And at the one bar everyone goes to I run into the teacher who forced the policy all those years ago. I go say hi and she instantly remembered me. So I sat down with her and her friends and we talked about it since it was so long ago and now i'm at the age she was when she was enforcing it. Boy did I get that situation wrong. So there were 4 particularly creepy male teachers at that time. 1 everyone knew about and 3 that were only known by faculty. They were preying on the girls. Taking random pictures of them, being extremely creepy, all sorts of innapropriate things they shouldnt have done. So she went to the board, brought evidence and reported them but they decided not to investigate. She told the police but when aftet a month nothing happened she changed the dress code to protect the girls but she couldnt explicitly state why she was doing it. Modern times caught up with those teachers and they are now fired but as an adult I see now that I ran a campaign to put the girls back in danger. Tl;dr In high school i fought an oppressive dress code system because i thought it was unfair to the girls. But 15 years later I found out it was to protect the girls from pedo teachers. Edit: added context Theres a couple questions about the logistics of how she enforced a dress code being so new. I'll try and give more details but again its 15 years ago i may not get it exactly accurate she was not the only teacher who wanted this but she was the strongest voice to stand up for this. Basically with the backing of several teachers she convinced the principle to implement the dress code. A lot more than just dress code happened. Prom had the bright lights on that year and girls got their dresses measured at the door. It was a fullscale push from a big section of teachers. But this particular teacher definitely was the one who championed it. these pervy men didn't exactly hide. The one we all knew about was actually a beloved and favorite teacher of the school because he was very funny. His policy, and I am not kidding. If you wore a low cut shirt and bent over when turning in your exam he would give you extra points on it. For fairness he did this for guys too so everyone in his class on test day effectively had their chest exposed. And we thought it was hillarious and saw nothing wrong with it because our older siblings all went through the same thing. I had to ask my mom to take me to buy my first low cut shirt freshman year because of this class and I explained why. Its genuinely crazy what you get away with if you're funny, well liked and dont act like anything is wrong. so when she came with a policy like this she was just a few years ahead of her time. There was a serious issue the dress code had slipped pretty bad. She and everyone who pushed the policy definitely over corrected. Looking back this was the logical finale to having several new eyes in an inappropriate school environment. I dont have enough characters to get into it its probably a whole other post on just my high school in that era's tea. But there was scandle after scandle that went unanswered and just became rumor. This really wasnt Edit 2: this post is still getting a lot of attention and I'm seeing a lot of similar comments so I'll add this In the moment of writing this I definitely was incorrectly swayed by her. I believe now what I did was right and and punishing the victims was not an appropriate way to handle creepy men. Looking back more on it the way they enforced the dress code was not ok. It was frequent use of humiliation to the girls. So not only were they being predated on by pedos, they were also being bullied and humiliated by those who claimed to protect them. Gross. submitted by /u/RemyAvo to r/tifu [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/Glad-Dig2778 Originally posted to r/povertyfinance 18, no job after 30+ applications, guardian wants me out in a year - need advice Thanks to u/SmartQuokka for the suggestion Mood Spoilers: scary, but optimistic Original Post: August 13, 2025 18, no job after 30+ applications, guardian wants me out in a year - need advice Hey everyone, So I'm 18 and graduated from high school in May. I haven't even signed up for college yet because my guardian basically told me they were just helping me through high school, and once I graduate, I'm an "adult" and have to figure everything out myself. They also said I'll probably only be living with them for one more year, which is honestly terrifying. It's so confusing because literally all my friends have their parents helping them with college applications and everything. Don't get me wrong. I love my guardian, and I'm super grateful they got me out of a really bad living situation, but I also feel like I don't agree with some of the stuff they're doing. But I'm way too scared to actually say anything about it. I do have a chance to try enrolling for the spring semester, so it's not completely hopeless, but it's still really scary. Right now, I just really need to start making some money to help with expenses. My current situation: * Applied to like 30+ jobs around my neighborhood and barely heard anything back * Had a few interviews, but they went terribly (one manager straight up told me I look younger than 18, which like yeah I have a major baby face lol) * Right now, I literally just clean the house and do dishes, but I want to actually contribute real money * I can draw pretty well, but I've never posted my art online or sold anything, just made stuff for friends or drew random things for fun What I'm thinking about: * My friend said I should try art commissions since I've been drawing forever, but honestly, I have zero clue what I'm doing * Already sold some of my stuff to help out (clothing and items, considering selling my gaming consoles too), but I need something more consistent * Don't know anything about pricing art or finding people who would actually buy it * I have literally no social media following or anything like that What I need help with: 1) Job hunting tips for someone with no experience (especially when you look like you're 15 lol) 2) How to even start with art commissions? Like what apps/platforms to use, how to not get scammed, and what kind of art people actually want? 3) How do you handle payments safely? What apps are safe? Is PayPal or Ko-fi safe? 4) Any other ways to make money online or around here that aren't sketchy 5) What types of commissions are easiest for beginners to start with? Why I'm asking here: My guardian barely talks to me anymore, and I'm pretty sure they're mad that I can't find a job. I'm too scared to ask them for help since they're not really helpful anyway. We've been through so much crazy stuff that normal people probably never deal with. I feel completely lost and have no idea what to do anymore, so my friend told me to try asking on Reddit. This is basically me desperately asking for help. I've been trying to find work for months, and I'm also kinda freaked out about the whole AI art thing and people stealing art if I try commissions. This is my first time doing anything like this, and I just want to not mess it up completely. I know I'm probably not gonna make bank right away, but even making a little bit would help so much. I'm not looking for some get-rich-quick thing, just realistic ways to actually start making money to help my family. Any advice would be amazing! Thanks for reading this whole thing and for any help you can give me. submitted by

My kids are working on a summer bucket list of things they’d like to do before school starts. The list so far includes things like “Jays game” (check!) or “ice cream for breakfast”. What Toronto-based things, or things we can do at home, should we add? Bonus points for cheap-and-cheerful options. submitted by /u/analog_alison to r/askTO [link] [comments]

Artist: Kendrick Lamar Album: GNX Release Date: November 22nd, 2024 Listen Youtube Spotify Apple Music Artist Background: Where do I even begin? Hailing from Compton, California—a city synonymous with both the storied history of Hip-Hop as well as the raw realities of systemic inequality—Kendrick Lamar has risen to the pantheon of Rap royalty despite the well-documented obstacles of his upbringing. After a fateful encounter (helped by a bucket of KFC) with Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, his career began to take off. He signed to Top’s label, TDE, and they essentially became like a second family. He dropped a handful of mixtapes throughout the 2000s, sharpening his pen while discovering his purpose as an artist. He really wore his influences on his sleeve with his earlier sounds, often paying homage to GOATs like Lil Wayne and Eminem (even dropping a full-on reimagining of Tha Carter III with his C4 tape). He eventually dropped the K.Dot moniker and began going by Kendrick Lamar, signaling a shift in focus along his artistic path. In yet another moment of fate, he attracted the attention of fellow Compton legend Dr. Dre with breakout projects Overly Dedicated and Section.80. In 2011, Dre, alongside other West Coast legends like Snoop Dogg and The Game, passed Kendrick the torch on stage, solidifying him as the heir to the West Coast throne. After signing to Aftermath Entertainment, he released his major-label debut studio album good kid, m.A.A.d city, and he’s been the standard of the genre ever since. Those who closely followed Kendrick’s career always knew this moment of undisputed coronation was inevitable—the apex of a career filled with countless seismic, landscape-shifting moments. The question was: had it already happened? GKMC was a cinematic masterpiece, a fully realized narrative of one’s come-up. The "Control" verse sent shockwaves through the game unlike any other moment in the 2010s. To Pimp a Butterfly is regarded by many as the greatest hip-hop album of all time(!). He then reached a new commercial peak and won a damn Pulitzer Prize (cringe pun intended). He performed at the Super Bowl. He dropped another controversial yet critically acclaimed album, emerging on the other side as someone who rejected the lofty expectations and chose himself. He followed that up with the then-highest-grossing hip-hop tour of all time. Each moment felt grander than the last, but he had yet to put a complete end to the debate over who the king of the era was. Seriously, then, how could he follow that act in 2024? Well, with one of the most dominant years an artist could ever have. Kendrick’s greatest gift has always been how he seamlessly blends conscious themes with sonic appeal. He has such an intricate approach to songwriting, weaving vivid storytelling with unflinching examinations of identity, faith, and community. He had long broken through the mainstream barrier while still maintaining authenticity. Somehow, though, as we push into 2025, he’s dominated the zeitgeist like never before. That "Control" verse that shook up the 2010s? His "Like That" feature said “hold my beer” and instantly became the most impactful verse of the 2020s thus far. The rap game stood still once again. For over a decade, he’s been placed in the Big 3 conversation with Drake and J. Cole. Fans have argued one’s superiority over the others like it’s the NBA GOAT debate. Hip-Hop at its core is a competitive space, but rarely do mainstream rappers step into the metaphorical boxing ring to determine who the undisputed champion is. Those types of lyrical clashes are usually reserved for the underground/battle culture. So when two titans of the industry finally put the subliminals aside to duke it out, we were all seated. We had seen Biggie vs. Pac and Nas vs. Hov, but Kendrick vs. Drake felt different. As notable as those beefs were, rap was still considered somewhat niche. If you weren’t outside, then you weren’t really tapped in. And while Hip-Hop has since become the most popular genre in music, this beef was the first time it had the world’s undivided attention. Everything was on the line. For Kendrick, it was his chance to take the commercial iron throne while simultaneously eradicating what he saw as cultural impurity. He meticulously broke Drake down, always being one step ahead. Whether through the predictive flows of “Euphoria,” the God-fearing pleading of “6:16 in LA,” the brutal psychoanalysis of “Meet the Grahams” (over haunting production by The Alchemist), or the triumphant West Coast victory lap that was “Not Like Us,” Kendrick delivered one of the most memorable stretches in the history of rap. Rumors of an album were rampant the entire time, forcing us to replay the Squabble Up snippet from the NLU music video all summer while we waited impatiently. He further teased us in September (as the VMAs were airing) with another warning shot at the industry, "Watch the Party Die". Then, at noon on a Friday in November, he surprise-dropped the latest addition to his illustrious discography with GNX. When he said he was choosing himself, it felt like he was finally definitively rebuking the savior complex. Now, he’s unapologetically embraced it—a role he no longer sees as a burdensome obligation, but as a privilege. GNX is Dot at his most comfortable. He’s done playing by the rules. Album Review by u/OhioKing_Z wacced out murals Man, the hype I had when spinning this for the first time… Every Kendrick album feels like a roller coaster of emotion. I was buckled in, ready to experience the ride. The album starts off with “wacced out murals”, a reference to an incident months prior where a Compton mural of his was defaced. The song begins with vocals from Mexican singer Deyra Barrera, who makes recurring appearances across the album. It immediately immerses the listener into the soundscape. The production is starkly minimalistic, allowing Kendrick to take over and speak his mind. He starts off not so much rapping but talking, almost like spoken word. It feels like a confession. He makes it clear that he’s fine being the odd man out because God has his back either way. He’s become accustomed to a life of fame, where love and hate persist no matter what he does. That duality is just the reality for someone who chooses to be vulnerable and thought-provoking despite always being scrutinized under society’s ever-watchful microscope. “Ridin’ in my GNX with Anita Baker in the tape deck, it’s gon’ be a sweet love” sets the scene perfectly. Then shit gets real: “Used to bump Tha Carter III, I held my Rollie chain proud/Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down.” He finally addressed the elephant in the room. Likely a reference to J. Cole’s Let Nas Down, there’s an undertone that he’s disappointed in Wayne for not being proud of him for such an achievement—becoming the first solo rapper act to perform at the Super Bowl. It’s not hard to see why Wayne felt slighted. He and Hov have had tension in the past, and New Orleans is Wayne’s domain. Still, Kendrick idolizes Wayne. As I mentioned before, he even went as far as dropping a Carter-series-inspired mixtape. The same goes with Snoop and the “Taylor Made” posts. If both his peers and his idols were seemingly discrediting him (sans Nas, which is ironic given the Let Nas Down connection), then is there any loyalty within the industry? That realization is only fueling Kendrick’s desire to be on top. He’s in his unapologetic era. It makes it easier to crush the competition when you’re disgusted with their antics—antics like bribing someone’s hood for dirt. That disgust has allowed him to free himself from the burden of always needing to be politically correct. He’s tired of the fake smiles and lying through one’s teeth. He references his album teaser “watch the party die” once again, showing his commitment to ushering in a new era for the culture. He ends the song by mentioning that haters can whack out his murals, but the concept of a legend in hip-hop would die if his own legend did. It’s an emphatic closing statement after spending most of the track ripping his contemporaries. Squabble Up The song that follows is what we had waited months for: the West Coast party anthem “Squabble Up.” Sticking with the triumphant G-Funk-inspired production, Kendrick brings a nasty energy to this one. It just radiates a hyphy spirit. Hyphy is a subgenre of Hip-Hop that originates in the Compton/Bay area. Similar to Crunk, Hyphy is known for its vivacious, wild sounds. Lil B, YG, Tyga, and B.o.B were some other rappers that helped modernize the sound. Kendrick teases the album's overarching narrative about reincarnation by starting the track off with "God knows. I am.. Reincarnated, I was stargazin'". The theme of the track is obviously about his willingness to fight if need be. He references the beef with the “wolf tickets” and “he got kids with him” lines. The track exudes a tone of well-earned arrogance. He is a Gemini, after all. He’s not being humble by any means. He questions why other rappers even rap, accusing them of being dishonest with the personas they put forth. He also pokes some fun at all the people who constantly beg him for new music. One unfair narrative about Kendrick was that he struggled to make club bangers that could appeal to wider audiences—a challenge he seems to have happily accepted with this album. This track is just one of many victory laps and it definitely lived up to the hype! Luther “Luther” is yet another fantastic addition to a growing list of collaborations between Kendrick and SZA. The former labelmates have flawless chemistry on every track they make together. Sampling “If This World Were Mine” by Luther Vandross and Marvin Gaye, it was Jack Antonoff, Sounwave, and Kamasi Washington who made for an Avengers-level production team. The soundscape is just so luscious. The string sections weave in and out liberally, meshing well with the hi-hats. Kendrick takes a more subtle approach lyrically but still maintains his usual sharpness. He talks about enabling the dreams of his lover and protecting her against her enemies. In one line, he croons "Roman numeral seven, babe, drop it like its hot", which might be referring to a plan to drop an upcoming seventh studio album as well (GNX being his sixth). It could also be a reference to Romans 7, a poignant bible verse about Paul's disconnect between his best intentions to do good and the sinful nature of his flesh. That constant internal struggle led to Paul realizing that it is not him that has sinned, but the man that he used to be before he found faith. This metaphor for personal and spiritual reincarnation, whether intentional by Kendrick or not, perfectly plays into the theme here. The only word that comes to mind for SZA’s voice is “angelic.” She effortlessly elevates every song she hops on. Taking the perspective of the woman Kendrick is in love with, she instantly references Tupac’s poem “The Rose That Grew From Concrete.” She says that she’s only doing what she’s been raised to do, living a regretful, unfulfilling lifestyle on the weekends. Kendrick and SZA’s harmonizing on both the chorus and third verse were such great touches. Small details like that take love ballads to the next level. They begin to plead with each other, saying that they’ll do whatever it takes to make things work. “If this world were mine”… a thought we all ponder from time to time. Beautiful sonically, well-written, and well-performed. One of the best duets of 2024. Just make the collab tape already! Man at the Garden “Man at the Garden” is a clear ode to “One Mic” by Nas. Kendrick even delivers lines with a similar cadence. “I deserve it all,” he repeats. This line encompasses the motivation behind the track. Kendrick is taking the time to be self-reflective but not self-critical, as he often can be. His tone at the start of the song is stoic. Part of his growth and transformation as a person during the Mr. Morale era centered around self-love and forgiveness. He continues these themes in this album, accepting himself for who he is—strengths and flaws in all. He’s finally realized that he’s allowed to reap the fruits of his labor without feeling guilty about it. Rather than question his intentions or imperfections, he gives himself grace. The title of the track also reminds me of an excerpt from a famously stoic speech by Theodore Roosevelt called “The Man in the Arena.” It’s often referenced in sports. LeBron James always writes part of the quote on his game shoes. Roosevelt talks about always doing your best despite obstacles, accepting failure, not being defined by external validation or criticism, and being mindful of how you spend your time pursuing virtuous goals. All of these are things Kendrick addresses and attempts to live by in this song. I’m not sure if it was an intentional parallel, but it’s an interesting connection nonetheless. He spends the first two verses focusing on the self, on “I.” He talks about wanting external validation and not judging others for their shortcomings. Both the instrumental and his voice start to crescendo during the third verse, as if he’s dropping the stoic act due to his bottled-up passion boiling to the surface. He shifts focus to his real priorities: a longing for a sense of community. He wants his family to be happy and healthy, a closer relationship with God, and peace of mind away from selfish individuals. He admits that staying in a negative space absent of those things brings out the fire in him, threatening to crash out and take everything down with him if he isn’t rewarded—because he feels like he’s the greatest of all time. Hey Now The album then transitions from the climactic outro of “Man At The Garden” to the simplistic “Hey Now.” This track was a grower for me. I initially didn’t love the long buildup over the first half, but that quickly went away after a few listens. The first half does a great job of building suspense and anticipation over HARD-hitting drums. The instrumentation then evolves as Kendrick interpolates Fabo’s famous line about seeing spaceships on Bankhead, replacing the location with Rosencrans instead. He says that he sees the aliens holding hands and that they want him to dance. That sequence absolutely feels cosmic, lyrics aside. I feel like I’m Coop from Interstellar, slowly drifting in space when I hear it. This bar could be a metaphor for how Black culture has dominated a place like LA. Yet, as wealthy as he is, he’s still seen as a performer. He continues to reference his resounding victory in the beef, saying that he strangled himself a GOAT. You can also notice the thematic pattern when he again brings up the pressures of fame and the importance of inner peace—things that are central to every Kendrick project, to be fair. Dody6 then comes in with a crazy verse. I had never heard of him until this song, to be honest. “Who the fuck I feel like? I feel like Joker/Harley Quinn, I'm in the cut with a blower.” What?? That’s one of my most quoted lyrics of the entire album, dawg. So fire. An underrated aspect of Kendrick’s pen has always been his witty humor. “If they talkin' 'bout playin' ball, they can take it up with Jordan” cracks me up every time. Kendrick has more than proven that he can mess around and make a silly/catchy banger while also keeping it lyrically dense enough to still allow us to interpret his feelings regarding his life circumstances. He maintains that level of transparency regardless of what sub-genre he’s dabbling in—a tough balance for any artist. Reincarnated “Reincarnated” is the climax of the album, and rightfully so. It’s arguably one of his most well-written songs. Backed by Pac’s “Made N***az” sample, Kendrick paid homage to his biggest muse while also having it serve as a symbolic middle finger to Drake for using an AI Pac on “Taylor Made Freestyle.” He imitates Pac’s brash delivery, figuratively and vocally transforming into the fallen West Coast legend. Kendrick uses the first two verses to highlight both his internal battle with spirituality as well as the cycle of generational trauma that has been passed down in Black culture. He starts the first verse off by saying he has a fire burning in him, that he’s shedding skin, as if he has a newly found hunger inside of him, shedding his old personality and stepping into his new self. This could also be a double entendre. He mentions a third of himself being demented, likely referring to the Holy Spirit. Also, between the “fire burnin’ internally” and the “cynicism towards judgment day” lines, he’s likely talking from the perspective of a fallen angel like Lucifer (also evidenced by later verses). He brings up how he tried Past Life Regression (PLR) last year, which is a hypnotherapy technique that helps one attempt to access former memories of previous lives. This experience was profound for Kendrick and leads to how he developed the idea for the song. There’s been some debate on who he “reincarnated” as specifically, like John Lee Hooker or Billie Holiday, but I’ll just assume that he was telling a story for the sake of the narrative. He highlights the man’s shortcomings by blaming gluttony for his selfish decision-making, something that ultimately led to him succumbing to the lifestyle. The second verse focuses on Black women in the industry during the segregation era. Many fell into the escapism of addiction to deal with the pressures of fame in the face of blatant racism and discrimination. He brings up their relationships with their fathers, which plays into the spiritual element of the song. He’s saying that these people strayed away from God to chase hedonistic temptations and became fallen angels as a result. The third verse is where he gives us the point of view of “himself” in present day. He repeats many of the positive affirmations that we’ve heard throughout the album thus far, like how he’s maintained integrity and respect for the art form. He again brings up his father kicking him out of the house. There are multiple interpretations here. Kendrick’s daddy issues were a notable part of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. He’s also speaking as a son of God that has struggled with his faith. As mentioned before, Lucifer was kicked out of heaven by God as well; but Kendrick wants to redeem himself in the eyes of the Lord. He begins to not just pray but to plead. He mentions how he’s walked a righteous path by speaking freely for his people, not giving in to fleshly desires despite becoming wealthy, and preventing vultures from preying on his community. God informs him that he hasn’t completely healed from his past trauma, which has tainted how he lends his heart. He’s still prideful, something he’s always viewed as being his likely cause of death (“Pride’s gonna be the death of me”). He goes on to list specific things he’s done to try and promote peace and prosperity, but God calls him out on his hypocrisy, saying that Kendrick still loves to engage in war and conflict. He reminds Kendrick that everybody faces the same internal strife and that Kendrick can’t expect his opposition to forgive him if he can’t find it in his heart to forgive them as well. God mentions Isaiah 14, a passage that refers to a former king of Babylon that fell due to his pride and ego. The fallen star symbolism derives from this, often in reference to Lucifer. The verse transitions into a full-on conversation between God and Satan. God calls Satan his greatest musical director, in reference to Ezekiel 28 (more scripture dedicated to the fall of a prideful king). The scripture also mentions many different gemstone colors, as Kendrick does, which could represent the many different gang colors that Kendrick grew up around. Ezekiel 28:16-17 says that God cast the king down from his mountain because the abundance of the king’s rule filled the king with violence. Unlike with Satan, God wants Kendrick to be rehabilitated. The only thing that can restore his grace is to be humiliated in front of the other earthly kings because Kendrick feels like the fruitfulness of his career has enabled his violent nature. Every past life was a litmus test for moral progress, yet he/they always fell to their vices. I believe this track also serves as a meta-commentary for how the industry has profited off of Black plight for centuries now. We know that hip-hop industry elites have been incentivized to both perpetuate stereotypical norms and promote harmful and rebellious behavior to further oppress Black Americans into the depths of the second class. We also know that Black Americans have used music to speak their truth since the early field hollerer days of rhythm and blues. Whether or not the damaging substance of some mainstream rap derives from the motives of a satanic entity that influences a group of suits is irrelevant to the point he’s ultimately making. He wants Black artists to give up “garnishing evilish views” in order to truly thrive, both in this life and the next. He believes a closer bond with God, alongside the extermination of culture vultures, is the ideal path to get there. He promises to God that he’ll use his gift to help spark positive change. He’s done using fear as a tool to empower his community, instead using his words to capture light and inspiration with the goal of bringing about understanding. He is rewriting the devil’s story by stripping away the past sinful characteristics of Black music, spreading peace and harmony instead. TV Off Here we go. TV Off. Another certified west coast banger from Dot and Mustard. If the beef was a championship game, this is the song that plays over and over at the victory parade. It’s so anthemic. “All I ever wanted was a black grand national / Fuck being rational, give ‘em what they ask for.” He’s not fucking around from the jump. Kendrick hasn’t been this hungry in years. “This ain’t a song, this a revelation” plays well into the sequencing of the tracklist after “Reincarnated.” Not only is it a tonal switch to a more lighthearted soundscape, but it shows us that his pride always re-emerges despite his best efforts. He concluded a biblical arc by rewriting the devil’s story, yet there’s still an apocalypse coming. Now that he’s been down on Earth, he can send his enemies up to heaven. “Turn his TV off” on its surface is obviously a silly way of saying he’ll off his enemies, but I think it’s also likely a direct reference to Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (something he mentions later in the song), which was a satirical poem about black liberation. The message behind that poem was that meaningful societal change won’t be covered by mainstream media. You’ll have to observe it for yourself, on the ground. He doesn’t think there’s enough awareness of this fact, causing him to question if his initiative to empower other artists is ultimately futile (“it’s not enough”). He again seemingly embraces the savior complex, this time with a more obligatory tone when he says that “someone’s gotta do it.” Compare this to his attitude on “Mirror” when he apologizes for not saving the world because he was too busy with his own personal growth. His perceived need to “kill off” people like Drake has reinvigorated his willingness to do so. Now for the beat switch... The trumpets... The boogeyman ad libs... Oh my God. How many of us have randomly yelled or thought “MUSTARDDDDDDD” since this dropped? He can’t come up with funny one-liners, they said. The third verse is just straight-up flexing. “Tryna show n***as the ropes before they hung from a rope” is a crazy bar that encapsulates his role as a mentor to the younger generation. As he’s mentioned, he wants to break the cycle of sin for his community and warns that if they don’t take his advice, their fate will be the same as many African-Americans of the past. He ends the verse by proclaiming that LA culture is about to come in and dominate the stage at the Super Bowl. The way he delivers the last line, with the emphasis on his “E’s,” really demonstrates the vocal subtleties that make his music so infectious. And speaking of fire delivery, Lefty Gunplay comes in for a brief but menacing outro. “Shit get crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious”... Everything about this song is so good. Seeing it performed live with a marching band will be just glorious. Dodger Blue Kendrick switches up the vibe with “Dodger Blue,” a melodic tune featuring prominent west coast vocalists like Roddy Ricch and Wallie the Sensei. The production is vibrant and spacey. It’s a true ode to LA culture. Kendrick is testing one’s LA street cred by asking what school they went to. He says that you can’t really judge LA for what it is if you don’t go further south, where the true heart of the culture resides (unlike the Hollywood/Beverly Hills north of the Santa Monica Freeway, aka “the 10”). Honestly, the song makes me feel like I’m cruising through LA traffic. Jack Antonoff and Sounwave understood the assignment. The chorus could be a bit longer. I wish Roddy had more of a presence on the track, as his voice effortlessly blends with the instrumentation in particular, but every feature artist does well given the constraints. “Walk, walk, walk, walk” is a crip walk reference. The outro is a message to other rappers and culture vultures, claiming that none of this is personal. Try telling Drake that! This song is laid-back and vibey, yet the writing makes it clear that Kendrick is far from relaxed. It serves as a warning: stay on that side of the street and respect LA, or else... Peekaboo I haven’t stopped listening to Peekaboo since the album dropped. I’ve seen some say that it’s a grower, but I was obsessed with it off first listen. A clear play on Kendrick’s boogeyman persona, it starts off with a distorted sample of Little Beaver’s “Give Me a Helping Hand.” Then the bass comes thumping in out of nowhere. The start of the song is unconventional, chaotic, yet immersive. Even with all the lively bangers he’s given us this year, Kendrick certainly hasn’t entirely neglected his preference for darker, heavier beats. “What they talkin’ ‘bout? They talkin’ ‘bout nothing” is reminiscent of Lacrae’s chorus on “Nuthin.” Likely not a coincidence, given his relationship with Lacrae (he notably referenced Lacrae on “Watch the Party Die”). His vocals are tight and dynamic, the heavily pronounced “P’s” bouncing off the bassline like they’re jumping on a trampoline. AzChike takes the baton and doesn’t miss a beat. The eerie production really brings out his South Central dialect. “Heard what happened to ya mans, not sorry for ya loss” is hard as fuck. Kendrick keeps with the silly flows during his second verse. Bing-Bop-Boom-Boom-Bop-Bam is hilarious. It’s still hard, though, I can’t lie. This guy is letting us know that he’s going to rap however he pleases at this point. Those are also punching sound effects, indicating that he’s always ready to throw hands if need be. He says that people wouldn’t understand the type of skits he’s on. “Skit” is Cali slang for robberies and shootings. Kendrick is saying that he’s above all the social media influencers in LA that chase clout through viral videos. He’s had to go through the hardships of the streets. Now he’s playing with the big dogs and refusing to hold anyone’s hand (a callback to the sample). Heart pt. 6 We all wondered if he’d completely ignore Drake’s weak troll attempt and drop his own part 6 of The Heart series. Not only did he do that, but he chose to dedicate it to his love and gratitude for his TDE family. He didn’t reference Drake’s version or the beef in general once. Instead, he reclaimed the series for himself in a way that only he could. Kendrick has always used The Heart series to give us a snapshot into his life and state of mind at the time, offering a raw look into his conflicted psyche. Much had been made about his departure from TDE in order to pursue building his own label in PgLang. There were also rumors that Kendrick and Top weren’t seeing eye to eye. So it’s fitting that he’d sample SWV’s “Use Your Heart” to speak from his heart. Kendrick acts as a director, painting a distinct visual to start the first verse. “Load up the Protools and press three.” I visualize it like it’s an opening shot for a film. Like we’ve been transported to an old studio session, just chilling on the couch watching greatness unfold in front of us. Kendrick is reminiscing on the hunger he felt before making it. It’s easy to forget that he was just another up-and-coming rapper back then. As much potential as he showed, he was still finding his sound and hadn’t yet emerged as the clear MVP of the label. He was still coming off the bench and honing his talent, like Kobe did to start his NBA career. Similarly to how Kendrick talked about wanting to be like Aaron Afflalo, he talks about learning from Ab-Soul’s approach to lyricism. He was still studying the greats and forming his own sense of originality. He was going to label meetings with the sole intention of helping Jay Rock blow up. He knew that their success was tethered, and that any opportunity given to one would be an opportunity for all. He looks back on the days freestyling in the passenger seat of his best friend Dave Free’s Acura. He gives Dave his flowers for working as a jack of all trades, whether it be a producer, manager, or DJ. This genuine display of affection is notable, given that Drake tried to drive a wedge in their friendship with the allegations of infidelity with Whitney. He tells the stories of meeting Schoolboy Q and how Q learned how to rap just from spending time around the TDE family. He mentions how Q believed in him from day one. He shouts out Top for providing them with resources due to that faith in their talent and work ethic. He starts the third verse off with one of the most well-written bars on the entire album when he says that Punch has always acted as a coach and mentor to him, akin to how Phil Jackson was with MJ and Kobe. Kendrick then reveals that he feels like it’s his fault for why the Black Hippy group fell apart. He admits that his growing artistic vision for his career prevented him from fully aligning with the group dynamic. He moved on creatively and didn’t want to force anything due to a sense of obligation to fans or even the other group members. Surely, his solo career arc wasn’t the only factor in why we never got a full-length project from them, but Kendrick still accepts the responsibility as the face of the TDE movement. It’s also another display of humility and growth for a man that has struggled with the concept of pride. Still, he acknowledges that he’s given his fair share to the label and that he’s earned the right to selfishly pursue his goals of being a mogul in black entertainment. He again acts as a mentor to end the song, advising the often hardheaded younger generations to conduct differences with healthy conversation, despite society often encouraging them to let even inconsequential problems go unaddressed. He says that they can’t allow personal conflicts to linger until they can no longer fix them, and simply having a heart-to-heart with the other person can avoid that pain and regret altogether. GNX Next we have the titular track, “GNX.” I’m so glad that this song was included. There was a narrative that Kendrick using his platform to shine a spotlight on other west coast artists was all performative. Sure, he’d give them a song on stage at the Pop Out, but would he actually put them on an album and give them the biggest “Kendrick stimmy” that he could? He did exactly that. I saw that Hitta J3 bought himself a Rolls Royce just off the first week of streaming royalties. If that’s not real exposure, then I’m not sure what is. Kendrick provides the hook and a few ad-libs, but he gives his feature artists the space they need to shine. Do I love any of these rapping performances? Not exactly. The contemporary west coast production is fire, but doesn’t really stand out. It wasn’t made for me, though. Everyone from LA loves it for a reason. I’d imagine it’s perfect for riding around south LA in a Buick with the homies. There are a ton of witty punchlines from YoungThreat, too. “I’m with a rockstar bitch, they want Lizzie McGuire” and “get on my Bob the Builder shit, get down with the pliers.” They’re not taking themselves too seriously. 2024 was the year of the West Coast, a year of celebration. This track falls in line with that and was a necessary inclusion to the tracklist for that reason. Gloria I always get especially excited for the outro of a new Kendrick album. Duckworth, Mortal Man, and Mirror are three of my favorite tracks by him, so my expectations were high. Boy, he didn’t disappoint. Kendrick’s ability to craft a multi-layered track that can have multiple interpretations never fails to blow my mind. The track’s title, “Gloria” (Spanish for “glory”), symbolizes the divine purpose Kendrick sees in his art. The track begins with Deyra Barrera making another appearance. “Sentado, Anita y tú” translates to “Seated, Anita and you,” a callback to the Anita Baker reference on the intro track, “wacced out murals.” A sweet, melancholic guitar riff sets the vibe. There’s definitely a “lovey-dovey” aspect to the instrumentation. Kendrick starts his verse by saying that he and his bitch have a complicated relationship. He talks about meeting her as a teenager, saying that his other friends claimed they wanted her but didn’t have the discipline needed to earn her hand. At this point, the listener is supposed to assume that he’s talking about Whitney. He brings up a pivotal moment of growth within the relationship, citing how she was there for him during his granny’s death and that they’ve been committed to each other ever since. That experience taught him how to use rap as his primary outlet, transforming his pain into creative energy. Now, he’s got the formula down. He again enlists the help of R&B Queen, SZA, as she sings from the perspective of his pen. She, as his pen, offers a soulful reflection of a bond’s permanence, reiterating her undying loyalty to him. Not only is this a song about his relationship with his pen, but it’s also a conceit about how he expresses himself through his art and his career arc overall. Kendrick has always taken a meticulous approach to his creative writing process, so it’s no surprise that he delivers a song with this much lyrical depth that’s quite literally a love letter toward his ability to do so. He starts the second verse by saying that she threatened to leave him for more committed individuals. He couldn’t be strapped up outside of the gas station if he wanted to be serious with her. There had been times when she felt he would fabricate his stories so she would block him (he’s mentioned facing writer’s block during the pandemic). He mentions how she even accompanied him on his famous spiritual awakening trip to Africa in 2014 (a key source of inspiration for TPAB). They’ve clearly gone through their ups and downs, but he acknowledges that having her as both his most loyal companion and harshest critic has truly been to his benefit because it’s forced him to reflect and mature. His pen (still SZA) pushes back, bemoaning him for not recognizing how much she’s given him: power, charisma, blessings, his hustle. She provided it all. He then gives in, falling back in love with her the moment that they touch again. He admits he’s sensitive and possessive over her. He knows that she hates when he hits the club to get some bitches (dumbing it down for commercial success) and would rather he speak more introspectively about his spirituality and religious beliefs. “‘Member when you caught that body and still wiggled through that sentence?” Such a clever pun about avoiding any negative consequences after emerging victorious from the beef. He points out that she has the power to both heal and kill (something he also states on his underrated feature on Isaiah Rashad’s “Wat’s Wrong”). He then ends the track by finally revealing that he’s talking about his pen, using some writing-related wordplay about her being his right hand and how no one can erase their history. Conclusion: Coming off the heels of winning the biggest clash in Hip-Hop that we’d ever seen, we all wondered what Kendrick would do next. He had finally reached that next level of commercial success, cultivating an even larger fanbase than ever before. He had babies, politicians, and grannies dancing along and chanting the lyrics to “Not Like Us.” Critics had long argued that Kendrick struggled with making digestible music, but GNX is his most accessible work yet. The tracklist has everything you could want from him: braggadocious, triumphant anthems, moments of introspection, and moments of intimacy. It sees Kendrick soberly confronting his demons while simultaneously claiming victory over them in way that he previously hadn't. By the end of Mr. Morale, he had accepted his flaws as a man, believing that his inner conflict and existential dread could be contained. He reaches a heightened sense of clarity with this project. Kendrick has consistently woven spirituality, identity, and societal critique into his music, and GNX is no different. His natural ability to juxtapose vulnerability with assertive confidence resonates throughout this album. The references to scripture, Lucifer’s fall, and unresolved generational trauma all make for a grand tale of redemption and self-reckoning allegory. I really enjoyed finding thematic ties between tracks, like “Man at the Garden” channeling Roosevelt’s stoic ideals or “Luther” repurposing a classic soul record. I’ve always appreciated how much Kendrick studied the game, a student of Hip-Hop. He knows who paved the way for artists like himself and always prioritizes deepening the connection between the past and present. Soul, Jazz, Blues, Funk, etc. You name it. There are even Mariachi influences, proverbially saluting the impact of hispanic culture on LA. I’m not sure there’s a rapper with a more eclectic, avant-garde approach to song-making other than perhaps Kanye. He continuously challenges not only himself but also the audience to think critically about their roles within both culture and society. For him to pull that off on such a massive scale during the beef is the type of unprecedented achievement that only further solidifies that he’s the greatest rapper of all time, in my opinion. Kendrick had largely rejected the savior complex due to his frustrations with the culture’s resistance to any substantial change, but that was when he felt like he still had to play within the confines of the rules. He was hesitant to try and assert his dominance if it was rigged against him. He’s determined to blaze his own trail now, embracing a leadership role within the culture once again. Onto the Super Bowl! Favorite Lyrics: ‘”’Member when you caught that body and still wiggled through that sentence?” “Punch played Phil Jackson in my early practices, strategies on how to be great amongst the averages/ I picked his brain on what was ordained, highly collaborative” “Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time, motherfucker” Discussion Questions: Do you think Kendrick’s message here—especially about rejecting negative industry norms and pursuing collective upliftment—will resonate widely, or will it be lost on a mainstream audience more focused on the beef or bangers? Where does GNX rank in Kendrick’s discography? What do you hope for with Kendrick's next project? Deluxe or another project entirely? What sonic direction would you like to see him take next? submitted by /u/OhioKing_Z to r/hiphopheads [link] [comments]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Pretty_Bit_7988 Am I just insignificant? Originally posted to r/nonmonogamy TRIGGER WARNING: infidelity, gaslighting, terminal cancer Original Post Feb 23, 2024 This is not meant to be offensive, it’s just something I’m wrestling with. My girlfriend (27F) and I (29M) opened our relationship a little over 2 years ago. Obviously, she had more success than I did but I’ve had a couple of dates here and there. Non-monogamy isn’t really a world for men with social anxiety. One of the rules that she wanted to establish was “no emotions, just sex.” While I accepted the rule, I said from the beginning that having absolutely no emotions isn’t realistic. Inevitably you will start to feel something for someone. Long story short, I was right. She met this guy (27M), they developed feelings, we talked, and now we are a poly I guess. Don’t really know what to call it. Trouple doesn’t seem right since he and I aren’t dating. But neither of us guys have other partners outside of her. Anyway, we’ve had this structure for about 7mo now and it’s going fine. She seems to be happy. I just don’t see what place I have in this relationship. Not sure if that place really even exists. In monogamy is much easier to see. It’s only the two of you. But here, not so much. I’m happy that she’s happy but I don’t really think needed. I’ve talked to many and researched things but none of those arguments make sense to me. “They may have sex with others but y’all have an emotional bond” In our case, she has one with both of us. As I think emotional connections are a dime a dozen. You have one at some point in everyone you date. Sexual chemistry is way more rare and usual is just there or it isn’t. And from the unfortunate time that I walked into our apartment and didn’t know he was there, it is very clear they have incredible sexual chemistry. Emotional connections can be developed anytime. So what security is there in that. “Monogamy doesn’t exist” Sounds good but not sure if that plays out well. Especially seeing that the only person not monogamous here is her. We are both basically in a monogamous relationship. And while you supposedly can’t expect to get all you need from one person, that’s exactly what we’re supposed to do. But only from half of that person. “Every connection is unique and special” Maybe so but ours clearly wasn’t enough. She needed more. I didn’t. I was happy and fulfilled. She wanted other experiences. But that stopped when she met him. And while I try not make it a competition, she clear has a level of passion for him that she doesn’t for me. She won’t have sex with me when he’s around. I have to wait until he leaves. She ask me to leave when she wants to have sex with him. She’s isn’t nearly as cuddly with me either. At this point, it feels like the only reason I’m around is because we are entangled (money, lease, cars, etc). I also know that I’m here emotional support for hard stuff. Working in EMS, I’ve learned to stay calm and clear in high stress situations. I’m also supporting her financially with schooling. But I’d like to be more than just an atm and a security blanket. Don’t really know what to do about all this. So much of what I’ve read talks about not comparing, just getting over jealousy, giving people autonomy, don’t be attached/dependent, etc.. Don’t know where that leaves me. While not really relevant, I’m going through some significant health issues. It’s uncertain if I’m going to make it through. She doesn’t know about it. Haven’t found a good time to say. Maybe that’s why I’m just being emotional and insecure. I know both are terrible traits in a man. Anyway, I guess this just turned into a vent but any thoughts or input is welcome. Edit: I’m a Firefighter and Hazmat Tech. It’s most likely that my health issues are related to a work incident. Therefore, the people I work with know. I have told any family or friends yet. At this point, I could come out most okay or could have until the end of the year. I’m trying to wait until we know more. Edit 2: She and I live together. He has his own place but has 3 male roommate. Gf doesn’t feel as comfortable there. Update 1 Dec 19, 2024 Hi all, I highly doubt anyone would remember my last post or that anyone wanted an update but here we are. I linked my previous post but essentially I was processing unexpectedly becoming poly with my gf. Feel free to read it but only if you don’t have anything better to do. On to the update.. Long story short, I pretty much ignored everyone’s advice 😅. Not really. I do appreciate all the input that I got on my last post. But every time I wanted to broach the subject, either something got in the way or I just chickened out. She is still seeing the other guy. Let’s call him “Caleb.” Life kinda sucked at first since they were mostly using our house to avoid his roommates but this summer he got his own place. So they no longer meet at ours. Which is great because accidentally coming home when they are together is not great. Hearing your gf scream another guy’s name takes a long ass time to fade from memory. I’ve met the guy. He seems nice enough. Total opposite of me so I see why she’s so into him. Dude’s like 6’2 with that lean surfer boy type look. I’m like 5’7 and shaped like a tree stomp haha. Anyway, so that problem pretty much solved itself. She stays with him about 3-4 nights a week. Occasionally, she’ll stay over for a long weekend or even a week. They’ve even gone on a few trips together. Tbh, part of me is jealous but at the same time, I see how she looks at him. I just don’t have the heart to get in the way of that. Unfortunately, our sex life has taken a bit of a dive. Not long after they started seeing each other, we stopped being intimate as often. We still are but it’s only like 1-2 times a week. Everyone got tested and they’ve gone barrier free. Supposedly she was just tracking her cycle but did have a pregnancy scare. So now she’s on birth control. I’m not particularly happy. I mean I’m happy she’s happy but this isn’t really what I pictured for my life. I always imagined having this passionate, loving relationship where we were everything to each other. Sometimes I just feel like more of a connivence than a partner. It’s pretty obvious she was never into me as much as she is him. That sucks but can’t change it. On the health front, unfortunately I don’t have great news to report. Turns out I do have cancer. It wasn’t as aggressive as they thought but it is terminal. At this point, I’m looking at somewhere around March. Gf doesn’t know. I know I’m an AH for that. I’ll tell her eventually. She’s just not around much and when she is I just wanna be fun. I know I can’t compete with Caleb but I don’t wanna just be the sick one. I thought about just breaking up but that seems mean. I recently saw Twilight for the first time. When I finished the part of Bella mourning Edward leaving, it made me wonder if she’d feel the same. Tbh I don’t think she would. Caleb is pretty much primary at this point. So I’d rather be peaceful on the way out. When I do go, she’ll have him. Work sucks because I can’t ride the engine anymore. Once I got worn out walking up steps in bunker gear, I knew I can’t fight fire anymore so I’m just on the medic now. Anyway, that’s it for now. Hope y’all have a happy holiday. Hug your loved ones tight. RELEVANT COMMENTS Fruman444 For gods sakes man, tell this woman that you have terminal cancer! Not only is it the right and smart thing to do, but you need all the support you can get and she deserves to know! Do that first. Like now. OOP I know I should. I should have a long time ago. When I started having issues, she had just decided on the poly thing and that was a lot to process for me. Then read about disentangling and not getting in your partner’s way. Unfortunately, my character flaw took over and went all or nothing. Then as time went on it just felt more and more awkward to do. Update 2 Dec 23, 2024 Thank you for the support and allowing me to use this as a space to vent. I do really appreciate it. As the title says, I finally told my gf about my health issues. It was a long, rough night. Saturday night we went on a date. Usually she’d be with Caleb but he’s out of town visiting family for the holiday. Idk if he felt it was too early for her to meet his family or what but I definitely thought I’d be alone for Christmas. But apparently she’s staying here so that’s nice I guess. We went to dinner and, after, got to go see Wicked. Not gonna lie, the dynamics between Glinda, the munchkin dude, and the prince made me wince a bit. Felt kinda close to home. Minus me stringing some poor girl along. Regardless, I did enjoy the movie a lot. We got home and curled up on the couch and that’s when we had our talk. Decided to withhold any info about how I’ve been feeling as that felt pretty ancillary to the main topic. I basically just described how I had been sick more and tired. Then told her about my annual physical from last year and all the doctors visit since. Then I finally told her about the diagnosis and having until March. To say that this was hard, is an understatement. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her cry that hard. Or anybody for that matter. Idk what kind of reaction I was expecting but not that. We kinda attempted to continue talking but it was no use. So I just carried her to our room and held her until she cried herself to sleep. When I woke up Sunday morning, she wasn’t in bed. My initial brain fog kinda forgot about what happened but when I remembered, I went to find her. She was siting at the table in the kitchen. She was still crying but we were able to talk about everything. I told her about the bucket list, preparations I’ve made, etc. It was all smooth until she kinda jerked up, looked at me, and asked “how long have you known?” It was at this point I knew I fucked up. As tempting as it was, I didn’t lie. I told her I’ve known I would die for a year and I found out when about 2 months back. Ofc she asked why I didn’t tell her and I didn’t know what to say. She asked if I was trying to get back at her as some weird revenge, which kinda annoyed me a bit but I let that go. I told her I was preoccupied with getting used to an open relationship. That it felt like it came out of nowhere, developed fast, became poly, and I was just being dragged along. That not having her around, hear them have sex, and watching her fall in love with someone else was hard enough. Predictably she got pissed. Felt like I was blaming her for who she is. And a few more unpleasant things. At this point I just listened as she yelled and screamed. She finished. I apologized for not telling her. But then asked, if this was all my issue then how come your partner has been sick and dying for a year and you never noticed? I immediately regretted saying that because she kinda just broke. She didn’t cry. She just went silent and sat down on the floor. I tried to comfort her but she pulled away. So at this point I figured we needed space and I left. Went to a friend’s house for the day. Sunday evening, I got a text from her asking me to come home. I did. When I got there she had ordered food. When she saw me, she ran up and hugged me. At this point we both cried. We ate and watched Is it Cake. Eventually she paused the show and we talked. She apologized for lashing out. Said she was just angry and confused. I apologized for what I said. She told me not to and that what I said is what she felt. So when it was out in the open she just shut down. I told her that I love her and not to hold it against herself. At this point, she wanted to help me plan out the last few months. She also said that she’d be breaking up with Caleb but I told her not to. If he actually loves her, she’s gonna need his support. We will wait til after Christmas to fill him in. We talked more about plans and went to bed. Don’t know what will come of this but that’s where we are now. RELEVANT COMMENTS TelltaleHead While I admire your capacity for kindness, I would say I think you would be well within your rights in telling her to take a break from him while you are in these last few months. She may need his support but you deserve a period of joy while you go through this, and I don't think he brings you joy. If he really loves her he will understand and be there when the time comes. So sorry man, this is awful and I wish you a peaceful few months and all the happiness in this life and in whatever comes after it OOP She’s planning to cut down on their time. Before she was with him for half of the week. Now she’s talk like once a week or once every other. She hasn’t talked to him yet tho and that’s a pretty big change so idk how he’ll react. Royal---Flush I mean, her other partner (you) is dying, that's the best reason to focus ones attention temporarily to that partner. if he doesn't understand this then he's just not a very good human being... OOP I agree but I can’t control how that plays out. Idk how she’ll be when the shock wears off. NEW UPDATE * Update 3 Jan 4, 2025 Hi all, hope your holidays were great. Firstly, thank you to everyone who has reached out in support. It means a lot even coming from internet strangers. Secondly, there’s not a ton to update you on but I do wanna address some recurring questions. I saw that this got posted to bestofredditorupdates. I’ve left out a lot of information due to trying to stay on topic. A lot of this update won’t be related to poly or relationships so mods feel free to delete. I don’t know a better way to do these but I may just put it up on my page. On to it.. As far as the situation with the gf, we are good. We let Caleb know about everything. They’re still in contact but haven’t been meeting up. We recently took a trip for NYE. Very last minute and incredibly expensive. It was worth it though. Had a great time and got to reconnect. Surprisingly, a lot of people have asked about my kids. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising based on the circumstances but given that this was a nonmonogamy subreddit, I haven’t included any information on that. Anyway, the kids do know. They have for some time now. I guess know is relative seeing that they are 6 and 4. Both are in therapy to get a head start on the grieving process. As a parent, you never really know if what you’re doing is right or enough until they get older but hopefully it helps. I started a college/career fund for both of them a few years ago. Their inheritance will go into those. I’ve also been writing letter for them for future birthdays. Was an idea given to me by my therapist. To say it’s been painful is an understatement. Outside of that, I’ve taken more pictures with them in the last year than ever before. Just trying anything at this point. A few asked about the ex wife. That’s complicated and I’d rather not get into it. I will say though that she does know and we’ve been planning things for the kids together. As you can see in my post history, that I originally wasn’t going to tell her anything. I’ve since realized out much of an AH I was being. I was bitter and frustrated when I wrote that post. TBH, I quite ashamed of it now. I won’t be deleting, however, for the sake of transparency. I’ve made my rounds to other family. At least the main ones. The only person I’ve left out is my father. We don’t have a relationship and I have no desire to see or talk to him. I was delayed in telling my mom because I knew she’d be a wreck. She’s super religious and is still holding out hope for a miracle. Personally, I’m ok. Some days are better than others. Sometimes I feel normal and some days like I got ran over by a tractor trailer. You always think you have so much time. Then life happens. I’ve seen people on their worst days and yet never imagined I’d be here. I guess that’s just how it goes. I’ve still left out several details but this is the internet so sue me. I’d rather not have people in my personal life find this. My mom finding out about the poly stuff might be worse than the cancer and kidney failure. Our unspoken agreement is that my kids got here by prayer and osmosis. If there’s something in particular you’d like to ask feel free to message as many have. I may not get back immediately but I’ll try. Typically I wait until I’m not an emotional wreck to write here. Take care and hug the ones you love. THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7 submitted by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/WallCurious4038 Originally posted to r/TrueOffMyChest Previous BoRUs: 1, 2, 3 [New Update]: My stepdaughter died 4 weeks ago and I caught my husband and his ex wife in our bed. NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- Trigger Warnings: suicide, death of loved one and a minor, car accident, infidelity, emotional abuse, mentions alcoholism RECAP Original Post: May 10, 2024 My stepdaughter Becca (14F) died 4 weeks ago. I’ve been in her life since she was 7 years old, we were extremely close. My husband Derek (40M), his ex-wife Sam (38F), and I (35F) get along very well, there has never been an issue in the 7 years that I’ve been with Derek. Sam has always been kind to me, she didn’t even care that Becca called me “mom” too. Right after Becca’s passing, Sam had so much anxiety and depression that she was unable to be by herself (she has no family besides us), so we invited her to stay with us. Sam hardly leaves the house, she mostly just sleeps in Becca’s room, which is completely understandable. I always tell her that I’m here if she needs me and that I want her to take her time with grieving and that there is no pressure to go back to her home. Today I needed to run some errands, so I asked Sam if she’d like to join me to get out of the house a little bit, but she declined and said she’d rather just stay at the house and sleep. I told Derek that I was leaving and that I would be back in 2ish hours (he works from home), I also told him to check on Sam every once in awhile, and maybe try getting her to eat something. After stopping at the post office, I realized I forgot my library book that I needed to return, so I went back home to get it. As soon as I walked in the door, I heard moaning coming from mine and Derek’s bedroom. I immediately knew what was happening… and my heart completely broke in that moment. I wasn’t completely sure what to do, but I ended up deciding to confront them, so I walked to the bedroom and opened the door and began yelling at them both. Sam started having an anxiety attack and ran to the bathroom while Derek kept apologizing profusely. I asked him what the hell was happening, he told me that he made himself and Sam some lunch and they began talking about Becca, and shared some memories. And then Sam ended up kissing him and he didn’t pull back, and then it ended with them in our bed. They’re begging me to understand that it was just grief that caused them to become intimate and that they both made a mistake. I don’t know what to do. I love this man. And I love Sam. I’m heartbroken that they did this to me and put me in this position. I feel so stuck. Relevant Comments GreatChampionship252: That would be hard no for me. I understand grieving, but how is this excusing cheating? What happens next time he is sad? Edit: I misspoke when I said sad. Obviously this is something beyond devastating. I still don’t think it can be used as an excuse. OOP: I don’t want to excuse his cheating. I think I want to divorce him, but I’m anxious about doing it right after we lost Becca. Spellboundmama: Probably together. Do you both own the home? If it's in your name, change the locks. Stay strong and don't listen to his excuses. I am so sorry this happened to you during such a difficult time. OOP: Exactly what I was thinking if I’m being honest. And yes, we both own it. When I told him to leave, he kept saying sorry and then said that he would leave and respect me wanting him gone for awhile. ImpulsiveXThoughts: Are you seeing a therapist perhaps? You're dealing with a lot right now, it might be useful. OOP: Yes, I am in therapy. I’ve been with my therapist for other things for the last 3 years. She’s been very helpful. I saw her yesterday and was able to figure some things out.   Update #1: May 11, 2024 I decided that I’m filing for a divorce. I can’t ever trust Derek again. It sucks because we had an amazing relationship (I thought), he’s always been great, so this was a complete shock to me. Last night, Derek came over to talk. He confessed to a lot. Turns out it wasn’t their first time having sex like most people thought. They’ve been having sex since 3 months before Becca died. I am completely shocked and heartbroken. Sam also reached out last night and thanked me for everything I’ve done for her, and told me she was sorry. I didn’t respond, I blocked her. I did so much for Sam and considered her a friend so this hurts a lot, more than I can handle. This is all too much. As hard as this is gonna be, I need to leave Derek and cut them both out of my life. I am ready to do so. I am done. Also, some people are saying I deserved this because I should have known better than to let Sam into our home, around Derek. But, you need to understand that I’m a giving person, I trust people more than I should, I truly thought Sam was an amazing person. I know it’s unusual to become friends with your husband’s ex wife, but it’s just how it went for us and I shouldn’t be blamed for what happened. Thank you to everyone who commented nice things and for the kind messages. You’ve all been helpful during this insanely difficult time, I appreciate it. Relevant Comments ImpulsiveXThoughts: Out of curiosity, what are his excuses for cheating? Those two are going to be in a world of hurt, once the guilt settles in. They're going to be asking themselves why it had to be Becca and will eventually come to conclusion that it's their punishment for what they've done to you. I can pretty much guarantee you that. OOP: He told me that they just “accidentally” reconnected one night when I was away at my mom’s. He was stressed we weren’t conceiving and were having miscarriages, so he vented to Sam, and then somehow that led to sex. It seems so icky to me… How can he vent about our struggles like that and then go and have sex with Sam, it’s just awful of him. I don’t understand it.   Editor’s Note: removed the first half of the updates as it was a rehash of Update #1 Update #2: May 13, 2024 I’m getting lots of questions about some things so I figured I’d answer a few of them. • Have I told anyone about what happened besides my mom? — Yes, I told a few friends and some family members. Most of them are supportive of my decision and aren’t speaking to Derek. • Where is Derek staying? — Currently, he’s staying at a hotel. Our friends refuse to let him stay with them. He’s lost a lot of people due to his awful decisions. • Has he tried fighting me on getting a divorce? — Yes, he begged me not to file for divorce, but when I told him I needed him to just let me go, and that I was too exhausted to fight him on this, he let it be and agreed to getting a divorce. • Why isn’t Derek staying with Sam? — He told me he didn’t wanna continue to hurt me, so he told Sam he was done with her for good. And that they have no reason to speak to each other anymore. I have no idea if that’ll last and if they’ll just end up together, but I truly don’t care what they do anymore. I just want peace. • What was Derek’s excuse for cheating? — He told me that they just “accidentally” reconnected one night when I was away at my mom’s. He was stressed we weren’t conceiving and were having miscarriages, so he vented to Sam, and then somehow that led to sex. Disgusting of them both, I know.. Feel free to ask anything else, and I’ll try to answer. Thank you everyone for your support and advice. Relevant Comments OOP on what happened to Becca OOP: It was very sudden. She died in a car accident when she was with one of her friends and her friend’s parents. OOP on her husband’s parents being supportive or not, and if they know about his cheating OOP: I get along with Derek’s mom very well, but he’s also a mama’s boy so it’s kinda complicated. She will always be there for him (he’d stay with her if she didn’t live across the country). She knows what he did and told me she “had a talk” with him but said that he’s still her son and she’d help him with anything if he needed it. I’m thinking I need to cut her out of my life too which makes me really sad because we were close and talked on the phone almost daily. OOP on if she has children with her husband OOP: We’ve had 6 miscarriages total. All of them were in the first trimester 😢 &nsbp; More updates: May 14, 2024 I just found out that he is staying with Sam and not at the hotel. He told me it’s too expensive to stay at a hotel and Sam is the only one that’ll help him right now. I had a feeling this would happen. Just knowing that they are still probably sleeping together hurts my heart. I talked to a lawyer this morning and we are proceeding with the divorce and Derek agreed to it. It’s actually happening, and I feel some relief that he’s not fighting me on this. My mom leaves on Sunday, I’m scared to be alone… But I go back to work on Monday so I’m hoping it’ll be a good distraction. I’ll keep updating if anything else happens. Thank you everyone, I am so grateful for you all. Relevant Comments Immaculate329: OP, how did you find out he was staying at his ex-wife's place? Anything he says should be taken with a grain of salt. He is not true to his words in going on contact with Sam. OOP: He texted me this morning after we talked to lawyers, and said he “just wants to be honest with me”… I told him to stop giving me updates on what he’s doing in his life and that it’s not something I need to know. It seems like he wanted to tell me to hurt me. OOP on how she is doing OOP: Thank you ❤️ I’m doing a little better today. My mom and I went on some nature walks and went out into the garden this afternoon, that helped. Becca loved gardening with me so it made me feel closer to her 🥹   Becca’s diary…: May 15, 2024 I decided to go through some of Becca’s stuff today. I just found her diary in a box in the back of her closet… Would it be wrong to read some of it? I feel like it would help me feel closer to her but part of me feels like it’s wrong too. I haven’t told Derek that I found it either, and I’m unsure if I should tell him.. What would you do? Relevant Comments OOP on if she was closer with Becca prior to her sudden passing OOP: Becca and I were very close, it felt like she told me anything and everything, but I honestly think all parents feel that way about their kids so I’m kinda nervous to read it.   Just a little update: May 19, 2024 I figured it’s been a few days, so I should give a little update. My mom is leaving in a couple hours so I’ll be alone, I’m kinda nervous about it. She helped me stay distracted and kept me going, idk how I’m gonna handle her being gone. I go back to work tomorrow, first day back since Becca passed away. I’m looking forward to it though because it’ll keep me distracted. Also, I did read some of Becca’s diary. It made me love her even more, she was such a sweetheart. I went back a few months and saw that she noticed some weird behavior between Derek and Sam, didn’t mention that she knew of the affair, but she just wrote that she thought it was kinda strange that they all three would hangout more than usual, without me. I might read more, but so far I haven’t found anything that’s disturbing, just her being a teenager and talking about crushes, fights with friends, happy family memories, etc ❤️ Tomorrow I’m also talking to my lawyer so I might have more updates on that. Thanks for the continuous love and support everyone!   Last update for awhile!: May 26, 2024 Started randomly getting a lot more messages/comments so I figured I’d do another little last update. My first week back at work went great! I wasn’t expecting it to go so well, but thankfully it did. My coworkers were so helpful and patient with me. On Friday night I decided I didn’t want to stay home all weekend alone, so I decided to drive up to my mom’s, it helps I have a 3 day weekend so I can spend more time with her. I’m heading back home tomorrow. Also, for those of you that have messaged me hateful things for reading Becca’s diary, I just have to say - you aren’t in my shoes right now, telling me I’m a bad mom because I’m reading her diary is just ridiculous. I learned so much more about her, about how caring and sweet she is, and it made me love her even more. It’s how I’m able to feel so close to her right now, so please don’t tell me I’m a bad parent for just trying to get by one of the hardest times of my life. You have no idea what it’s like. I don’t have much of an update, so this will be it. I’ll come back and update once the divorce happens though! Thank you to those of you that have been nothing but kind and helpful, you helped me feel less alone, I’ll forever be grateful!   Sam saw my Reddit post and is threatening to sue me.: June 1, 2024 Sam made a fake FB profile to message me and tell me she wants to sue me for telling strangers about what happened. Derek supports her apparently. I don’t need this. Am I not allowed to vent about my life to people online?! I just want life to get better. I’m so tired. Fuck you Sam. Fuck you Derek. Edit: Sam is in the comments and messaged me on here too. Blocked her. Additional Information from OOP OOP on the message from Sam OOP: No, I just ignored her. It might be an empty threat just to make my life harder, but I’m unsure. Her message said: So I was scrolling tiktok and ended up on an account where they read reddit posts and guess who’s post they read? YOURS!!!! First you tell friends and family and then you go to a bunch of strangers and tell them OUR life story?! I can’t believe you, it isn’t just your business to tell. “Becca” would be so disappointed in you. Be prepared cause I think I’m gonna be suing you for this, this was no one else’s business. You did this to yourself, remember that. I’m actually baffled. She thinks Becca would be disappointed in ME… wtf.   Trigger Warnings: suicide I don’t think I can do this anymore.: June 11, 2024 I have been as strong as I can be but I have been really struggling. So much is going on and I’m just so tired. How can I keep going? I just want to be with Becca, I miss her. I miss her smile, I miss her laugh, I miss how she’d try to make you laugh when you were sad by telling dad jokes, I miss how she liked being in the garden with me, I miss seeing all her new drawings, I miss her beautiful eyes. I miss everything about her. I just want her back. I need her back. Edit: I am okay. I just needed a space to vent. I was getting so many messages asking if I’m alright, and I just wanted to say thank you to those that reached out. I am okay, I will be okay. Some days are harder than others, but I think I’ll get through this. I’m so grateful for the little community I have here, thank you all so much ❤️   Sam took her life on June 20th 2024: July 4, 2024 Sam ended up taking her own life on June 20th. I am still trying to process everything. She had hurt me deeply, but this isn’t something I wanted whatsoever. And Derek blames me. I feel so many things and am gonna be away for awhile again, but I wanted to update you all. Thanks for the love everyone ❤️ Comments OOP on how she is doing after Becca’s death and now Sam’s passing OOP: I hope they’re together again. And I hope they’re both at peace too. That’s all I hope for. Thank you ❤️   Taking a break from Reddit and going on a trip in a week!: July 11, 2024 Well, I’m doing it, I’m taking the advice that so many of you had - I’m going on a trip since my job doesn’t need me til the middle of August. I was so lucky I had my mom come stay with me a lot, and had my best friend come stay with me when my mom couldn’t. But I felt like I was asking too much of them. So I decided that maybe traveling might actually be a good idea. In a week, I’m going to Norway!! Becca and I always wanted to go there one day, it was on our bucket list. I’m actually excited. I’m also thinking of getting a pet when I come back. But might wait til I move. Thank you to those that recommended I do this! Becca would be happy I’m doing this, she’d be so fricken thrilled for me. You probably won’t hear from me for awhile, I’m taking a long break from Reddit and all my social media. I think it’s best for me. But just know, I love and appreciate all of you that have been there for me, I would have been so lost without some of you. Yours truly, Alyssa ❤️   Editor’s Note: The latest new update is over a month old ---OLD NEW UPDATE---- A few updates!: October 24, 2024 Hi everyone! I haven’t been on here in so long, I got so many messages asking me to do an update, so here it is :) Norway was absolutely breathtaking. I had so much fun and met some amazing people while I was there. I plan on returning in the future for sure. A couple weeks ago was the 6 month anniversary of Becca’s death. It’s been hard, but it’s getting easier to live everyday life, but it also pains me to say that, because I feel guilty for “moving on” and healing. Idk if that makes sense, maybe it does to those who have also lost someone close. I moved out of Derek and my house a month ago and got myself a cozy little house all to myself, and oh yeah I got a dog!! His name is Charlie and he’s a darling little cavalier spaniel, he’s been great! I absolutely love him! Also, I AM OFFICALLY DIVORCED as of last week!! It was a very easy divorce and I’m so happy about that. But Derek didn’t want any of Becca’s things when we tried figuring out who gets what, he left it all to me. I tried hard to get him to take something because I feel like he’ll regret it but he said he didn’t want anything, so I have all of Becca’s stuff. I have no idea why he didn’t want anything but I have it all in the guest bedroom right now. I’m trying to figure out what to do with everything. Derek is apparently an alcoholic now and quit his job. He seems to be doing terrible. Besides all that, idk if I have anything else to share. I just wanna say thank you again to all of my supporters, I’ve made some friends on here and I am so thankful for you all. I appreciate every one of you. Top Comments Commenter 1: Alyssa, I think of you often and check back periodically for an update. I’m so happy to hear that your trip went well. Equally exciting to hear that you’ve moved on with your life, have a new house, and a dog! Cavaliers are so cute and sweet! Enjoy! Becca’s things belong with/to you. You will know how best to honor her. Wishing you the best life has to offer! Thank you so much for letting us know how you are doing! ❤️❤️ Commenter 2: I’m so happy you enjoyed Norway. I spent a summer there many moons ago when I was 17 yrs old. Lived with a host family in a tiny little town in the western fjords. It was amazing. I’m also glad to hear you are moving forward w/your life. You should definitely preserve Becca’s things. I imagine Derek didn’t want them b/c he intends to head down a path of self-destruction from which he may not come back. It’s a shame he couldn’t face his grief & find healthy ways to cope w/the pain. If he had, he likely wouldn’t have destroyed your marriage & played a part in the destruction of Sam. Last we heard from you, Derek was blaming you for Sam’s death. Does he still blame you? Or is he too drunk to care anymore? Hold Becca in your heart & remember all the ways she was amazing. You may end up being the only one left to carry her memory into the future.   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

Hi! I have three kids aged 10-12 and I'm just realizing how few years I have left with them before they leave home. My eldest is in grade seven and I know once he hits 16 or so, the summer jobs start and then with university...who knows! COVID and personal health issues ate up so many of the good years of ages 6-9 - so now I'm making up for lost time! I'd love to know what trips you'd prioritize to do with your kids before they leave home. I'm sure we'll travel together when they're in their 20s too, but we also know how much harder that is logistically. I'd love reccos for once in a lifetime "seeing the world" experiences as opposed to relaxing beach vacations (which we've done many of). We have a safari booked for next year and this year we spent a week hiking through the US southwest. Things I've considered: backpacking SE Asia, thru hiking somewhere like the Rocky Mountains or Patagonia, a "Northern" adventure trip in Alaska or the Yukon, a private guided tour through China, a trip to meet the kids we sponsor in Nicaragua, exploring the Galapagos ...chartering a sailboat, learning to cook in Italy! Japan! New Zealand! Colombia! Ahhh would love some help! What have been your most meaningful family travel experiences with your preteen/ teenage kids? Thank you! submitted by /u/Bluesiderug to r/chubbytravel [link] [comments]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/SailorBlackStar AITA for not wanting to date a critic of my work? Originally posted to r/AITAH Thanks to u/soayherder for suggesting this BoRU Previous BoRU TRIGGER WARNING: Bullying, past trauma, physical assault, stalking, harassment, gaslighting, bigotry, sexual harassment, ableism Original Post March 30, 2024 I am a published author, I mean I am no James Patterson, Stephen King etc and really it's not the purpose of me writing but I make fun money off my book sales. In a given month I am in the green by $100-300 dollars on a new book depending on the book genre and season when first published. I don't really even do it for the money, like I said. I have a fulltime job and do plenty of other gigs as a performer slash artist on the side because it makes me happy. Artistic expression just makes my world brighter and helps me from falling into bad mental health cycles as I am diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, or what I like to call, the Holy Bullsh*ttery, blessed be it's name. I started writing as a kid because I am dyslexic - highly - like ever see a person when you spell a weirdly spelt word and they look like they want to jump into oncoming traffic? I'm worse. Don't give me verbal directions FFS text it. Point. Anything. The second my mental word is required to need to know too many words at any given time, I panic. I have tried every class, app, TikTok lifehack...its not my strength. I am good at other things like coding or planning events etc. I have other strengths. So I just do my best and keep swimming like a dyslexic Dory. THAT SAID I was teased and bullied relentlessly all through childhood a lot growing up and labeled the dunce so the trauma lives. For an example, I was in my local paper - small town - for an event at school. I was like 2nd grade at the oldest. I made a whole imaginary town out of recycled materials and and had a story with it as my end of year project. I worked on it for literal months, even figuring out how to make it foldable so it easier to travel with it in my grandfathers minivan. My story had 10 chapters and was handwritten in my messy kid handwriting. I had a teacher Ms. Smith. That's her real name because F that woman and it's common enough. She said my project was low class but "I guess I shouldn't expect much from you" and she walked off. Her son, my classmate, stomped my project to oblivion. He smashed my playdough figurines of the people and pets, and as if that was not enough, he pointed and laughed at me when I cried. He then put copies of the article with my picture but added a dunce had and laughing faces in the school - lunchroom, homeroom, etc. I mean the guy could cure cancer if he used that determination on it, I will give him that. If you're reading this Tyler - F you in particular and may your socks always be just a little damp. I was unlucky enough that when I moved, Tylers mom happen to as well, so guess who had the privilege of that gem's company for 3 grades? Tyler shoved me lockers in the 4th grade. He called me dumb every day. In 5th grade I was called dumb and fat (I was an underweight child). So fast forward and I am now in my early 30s, still dyslexic as hell. I live in a different state. I have a life and learned ways to deal with my weird brain and function. I moved on from childhood trauma, therapy, etc etc... There is a guy I liked, Brian, and Brian seemed to like me too so we decided to do "non-date causal hangouts" to see if we vibe enough to consider dating (his words and idea). We hung out one on one for several instances but once he was super late so I had my laptop out. He saw me when he arrived and asked what I was doing and I sheepishly responded I was working on my next book. He inquired more and I told him I published my first when I was 17 and have published at least 1 every year since then and told him of Ms. Smith and Tyler and more horror stories I won't get into as this is now a novel itself lol but that it spurred me to prove them wrong and beat this weird stereotype that neurodivergent folk are dumb, etc. He asked to read it, and I said no. I use a pen name on purpose as those Amazon reviews can make you want to yeet your own soul from your body so I keep it separate from everyday life. Well, turns out if you know me and my nerdy joys, my pen name is easy to guess. From there its easy to find because I mentioned Amazon and let's just say my bio makes it pretty clear. At our next meetup he asked me if I was said author and my shocked Pikachu face told him everything so he started reading the series. He came back the next time we met to laugh and say "I see why you don't put your name on your works. Don't quit your day job. Your writing sucks." and he placed a copy of one of my books down on the bar. I couldn't help but drop my shoulders. He was laughing and talking, not seeing my expression and kept saying how he wasted hours of his life and FFS someone take my laptop as it might be a lethal weapon meant to kill us all with boredom. Turns out he's not into mysteries or fantasy. I said that maybe it's just not his genre and he said it wasn't but "an [R-word] 3rd grader could have done better" and it's a good thing I am good at my job. It was then that I could see he actually took in my expression and he backtracked. "I mean you clearly don't do it for money so it's whatever right? " and said I have other strengths but he did not believe at all that I make money off this. He asserting surely, I buy my good reviews and probably bulk buy my own books to improve sales. I don't do any of that. I just smiled it away and said "well, I can't please everyone but I did make 250 this month from the sales of my last book alone so some people must like it" and laughed it off. But I knew then and there I didn't want to pursue him anymore. When he texted to see if I planned our next hang out, I was honest and texted back that I wasn't interested and said that while I can take a note or any criticism, the way he went about it was hurtful and I don't want to be with someone who treats me that way for a hobby, that we are different people but I would like to remain friends, as otherwise we get on well, but nothing more. He went off on me saying I picked the wrong time to lash out as he was having a bad day and now I've made it worse and that I am so rude and petty to be mad at honest criticism. He said that if I am so sensitive over honest opinions, good luck finding anyone who would want my dumb🍑 since looks are all I have with makeup and work and "nothing between the ears" I blocked him but we have a mutual friend group and almost all of them have been asking me what's going on and that I broke his heart. I was thinking what? How? They said he's been depressed and asking about me and figured out I blocked him on everything and wants to give me a birthday gift (my birthday party past last week and I didn't invite him). My friends are saying we are adults and this is immature. I mean I am not a saint and I have toxic traits too, but I don't want to be with someone who criticizes me and my work that way and treats me like bantha poodoo. Am I crazy? Am I TAH? Update May 5, 2024 Hi - so for anyone who cares to know, Brian told all our friends that I rubbed my achievements in his face and called him an idiot (I never said anything like that). He told them also about my post so he found it somehow and started telling everyone that I am trying to slander him as "girls can ruin a man's reputation by snapping her fingers" and suggested my next move would be to say he assaulted me. Some of our friends came at me hard saying I was bullying him and trying to ruin his rep and all he did was asking a girl he liked out for drinks and that I need to apologize and just suck it up and go to drinks with him. They since have either outright not invited me out with the group or disinvited me to events and it was really hard to accept. I was realy confused, because he was the one who made fun of me and I wrestled with myself going over every talk again and again wondering if I inadvertently said or did something to upset him. It wasn't until I checked our text and message history that it occurred to me to send the screenshots as he called me a moron and then when I rejected him he called me fat, desperate, and stupid. And there were more such messages after he found my book series. So I took screenshots and sent it to my friends and they were shocked. Apparently according to Brian my outwardly "sweet demeanor" hides my judgemental and cruel side and that I strung him along anf called him a loser when I told him I wasn't interested in dating him. I even pettily went back before all of this and screenshot spme of his rude or mean texts he made. And I screenshot my actual rejection text and his response and sent that along as well. Now the tides have shifted and most of our friends think he was the AH and 2 of our friends are saying I am sending "my choice" of screenshots to make him out to be a villain and that they have seen the "real" screenshots of me bullying him. I asked them to produce such screenshots but they refused and said I wouldn't be worried about them if I was innocent as some sort of "gotcha". I feel really bad as I wanted to stay friendly but I can never look at him with any semblance of respect anymore. I am glad it's cleared up with my friends (sans the 2 holdouts but they are now also on the outs with the group) so things are looking back to normal. I have my first publishing party for my next book and everyone is invited but them. Weird way it all ended but oh well. Update 2 June 22, 2024 So this has taken a turn for the unnecessarily dramatic. I don't know how to update correctly as mentioned in my last post but I did learn to link them (thanks to some kind reddit-folk) so here is my last post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/pnn60hOtdA Anyways, I had opted to ignore Brian and any attempt he made to get a rise out of me. He apologized to the group but then said he was forced to or be ostracized. He said i was using ly "social captial" to go after him and has since been trying to get any direct cruel words from me which i have not provided him. After a month I can list my top 5 favorites: Going to places I also frequent and sitting nearby me no matter how much available seating there is elsewhere or me moving my usual spot leagues away, and he will loudly have "phone calls" talking about the b*tch who broke his heart because "women are so sensitive" ​ Getting an alt account on nearly all social media to find me and follow my accounts which are public, as a workaround my blocking him, to comment "reviews" on any of my art (books, acting, modeling, doesn't matter, he will comment a reason I suck) and then will simply make a new account when I block the last one and delete his comments. ​ Any time the groupchat pops off with invites to events and I say I am going, he will reply to that with "my GF is the kindest person but I don't think she'd like me hanging out with you" etc. And if I don't reply to invites until he is he will say it's a good thing I'm not coming because of his GF or that now he can't come because if I come his GF will be upset I'm hanging with an ex. (We never dated) - when any of us ask who his GF is he says she's shy and he will introduce her eventually etc. ​ I am speaking at a conference and got excited and shared in the group chat and everyone congratulated me but he said that was okay but not newsworthy and then looked up the conference and saw I have a relative also presenting and suggested that is how I got the spot and not on my own merit. ​ Revealing this reddit name to the friend group and linking my first post as "proof" I bully him despite not speaking to him, not naming him, and leaving put most if not all identifying info about him. He's insisting I edited out the worst parts and I can't prove I didn't so, whatever. So all of that has been happening and yes I unblocked his phone number only because it was screwing up what I was seeing in the group chat and I got lazy and didn't figure it out. Plus he doesn't text me directly anymore anyway. Well about a week ago, I went up to housesit for my parents a small drive away from my own home and was due to stay for about a week. I only told the few friends in the group that didn't side with Brian the first round of bs. I used this time to go to work, and then spend my nonworking hours on my book and I came up with a new pen name. I decided to revamp the whole fictional universe I created and was excited after I designed the cover for my first next book. I shared it with all in the group but him and his 2 flying monkeys but he found out about it anyway and flipped out in the group chat saying I was trying to show off again and that I was trying to steal his spotlight as we all know damn well he is publishing his first book on Amazon this summer and me publishing mine at the same time with my fancy cover etc was just another form of Bullying. He akinned it to if inwore white at his wedding. I have to honest here. I had enough. I put up with this behavior for months now. So I flat out said he never mentioned a book to me, and shared a screenshot of calling writing the profession for the [r-word] but unlike sharing the screwnhsot before, I didn't blank out the word. What a difference a word can make. Apparently the friend group thought the word I blanked out were "milder" and not slurs and we as a group are quite diverse on every spectrum save maybe politics. So they dogged him for using a slur and he said that he's autistic and he can use that word just like I am black and can say the N word except he typed the full word. I said "Right - so I'm done with this." And left the chat. I didn't argue or do anything other than leave the chat. I was working at the time and put the phone down like "That's enough humaning for today" and went about my business. This man rage texted me for hours until I got off work, saw his messages, and blocked him. I then see ads on FB and Instagram about his book, he was paying for ads on social media, his name is on the cover and he has comments underneath calling the book incredible, a masterpiece, undiluted artistry etc.and his book isn't out yet. He said his publishing date was August. I remember because my next book is to come out in July and he had used that as another form of proof I was updating him, like setting my wedding date before a siblings to show them up. A few nights ago, he saw me at a spot I frequent for karaoke and I admittedly had been doing shots so I was pretty transparent in my disappointment that he was there when he approached me, calling my name. He went in to hug me and I backed up and cold but politely said hi. He sensed my attitude and thre his hands up laughing saying "ooooh are you in another mood" and I opted to ignore him and move seats closer to the singers and some friends. A few fellow regulars told him to leave me alone and he was spinning a tale that we slept together and I led him on, and now I am ignoring him and acting like I hate him, all because he is writing a book. He said I inspired him to write and I was angry his book was better and cited the reviews he got on social media. Well, that was enough for some to call him a creep and he went off about it. Shouting and the like. He started to call for me to "come the fck over here and tell them the truth" and that I was trying to ruin his reputation and the time we "slept together" (never happened) will eventually be me lying about being rped. Turns out if you start shouting that sort of thing in a public space while there is karaoke, to a person many in the room know personally...you get kicked out. It's been beautifully quiet since. I told the friend group what happened and he is out of the group chat. Some still speak to him (the 2 holdouts from before) but they have not said boo to me directly. So I guess this makes this my final update. Not very exciting but a bucket of crazy and I had to share. My neighbors know because one of the regulars at the bar lives walking distance from me and he told everyone at the community pool etc. I have such kind folks I never spoke to but have seen in walking my dog etc saying they are being watchful of my home and to call if I need anything. I didnt know people could be like this because he was never like this before. He always was sweet to everyone in the group and we agreed on damn near everything, he would be compimenting me, telling me how smart and pretty I am and would even joke "Im not hitting on you" and laugh. To be honest, I am excited for August. I will be the first to buy his book. He's using his real name and has been advertising about it so...hey... NEW UPDATE Update 3 Aug 16, 2024 Sorry I forgot to update this after flip flopping about it since i said my last update was the final,and I mostly read posts and not used to writing them. A commenter reminded me about this so here's the Update since last month because if figure if you don't care you don't need to read it but if you do, here it is. For reference my last post is about this guy I used to like that I think I named "Brian" basically negging me (I hope I used that term correctly) specifically about the books I write and have written since I was 17 and then pretty much going nuclear when I told him that due to this, I don't want to date him - if you care to read its here https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/4FitD6z0ON So Brian's promised book came out on the 1st - the cover art looks AI generated and I know he's really into a site/program called Mid-journey that he makes memes with this month on Amazon. His page promises that it's the start of a series. Even before it came out, it had reviews raving about it being a masterpiece so okay, I went and bought myself a copy. It's a fantasy story. About 30ish chapters. I don't want to say too many details that could identify him or myself even though I don't overly beleive too many others read it but I suppose I can share that it's smutty but like in a way horny teenaged boy would want it to be, if that makes sense. I actually read the whole thing. There is an elf character by my real first name that the main character sleeps with and she is described remarkably similar to my appearance including my non-natural colored hair. She ends up be outted as a narcissistic traitor and is killed...like GAME OF THRONES style dead. I talked to some friends that know the both of us about it and even brought the book and we spent a good chunk of time reading pieces of it over drinks and my friends agree it's a rage-write - they even pointed out other characters named and given the vague appearance of other people Brian knows or has talked about and the ones we know he doesn't like (such as our friend group that cut ties with him) all have something awful done to them and characters with the names of his 2 friends that sided with him (still waiting on those screenshots and proof I bullied this man, guys) became rulers in this fictional land and were portrayed as heroic sidekicks to the main character that has HIS real name and of course is the hero of the story. It had several plot holes and I'm not trying to be mean, but it didn't have an editor and it showed. I promised I am not trying to be cruel about this because the dude did write a book and I know from personal experience that that in and of itself is a hell of a feat. It's hard and at times infuriating and it takes a lot of dedication and time. I'm not trying to belittle his efforts at all - fair play to that - but its quite clear it was rushed. The chapters vary in length with some being super weirdly short and choppy and others being super long and wordy. If you write a book, have it edited. Trust me on this. I'm a wordy person too (if you haven't noticed lmao) plus my brain has a hard time with typos and the like, you don't want something out there not read over at least once at the very least by someone you know to check for these issues. Brian saw me about a week ago out and about and he b-lined to me - I mean he was zero'd in on me. I knew what was happening before he even opened his mouth. He needed to talk about his book. He was so "nice" to me it was actually uncomfortably nice but I can't explain the look in his eyes. He HATES me. He launched into the whole story that he wrote a book too and it was so easy and it's selling really well, probably better than mine (his exact wording, because it was such an obvious jab I couldn't forget, was "Yeah I was so surprised I think I have like double your numbers or something. Maybe it's how I marketed it or something. Maybe you should try...") and he went on to give me "tips" that I so clearly needed. Then it was time for him to hand me a copy to give it a read. I told him, oh I have a copy. I bought it as soon as I could. He looked shocked at that and I said that I of course wanted to support other authors and he was like "You did, huh? Where is it?" And I said I let a friend borrow it and he handed me a copy anyway eluding to the fact that he figured I was lying or being sarcastic. I had previously taken a picture to send to a friend via text so I showed him the photo on my phone of his book on my coffee table and he sort of glossed over that with a "Well now you have an extra so your friend can keep the other one". I thanked him and turned to move on with my day but he sort of moved in my path and asked me if I read it and then what I thought of it. I shrugged and he had this grin and "muttered" (loudly) "yeah I thought you'd act that way" but I just kept moving. A mutual friend sent a screenshot of his Facebook post that he posted that evening of how jealous people are so funny and pathedic and that his book has record sales. The same friend then Commented on the post asking for a pic of the dashboard that would show said sales and he commented a photo I sent in our old friend group chat of MY sales from several months ago when I got a bump in sales. So my friend took the time to scroll back in the chat, screenshot that part showing it was mine, and commented it under that which caused a lot of drama in the comments. People went from congratulations to WTF quick and Brian deleted the entire post and blocked my friend. Since then he's been avoiding me publicly, but keeping up his fake social media profiles and insulting me every chance he can. He talks to himself as alternate accounts "gossiping" about how I am fake, rude, a bully, jealous, and the like. If I block one another pops up, and a comment will appear from another account "outting" me as someone who blocks anyone I don't agree with for "calling me out". I stopped blocking mostly because in our new friend group chat, we post screenshots of the comments and messages and it's become a sort of game to spot his accounts. So "Brian" - becauae I know you're reading this - I will be keeping this account and I've found writer subs here I will be joining. You're welcome to follow this account and good luck on your sequel. I will be the first to buy it. 😘 PS: thanks for the boost on social media as well. Its helped make my accounts more visible - I appreciate the free marketing. THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7 submitted by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

Ok I’m cracking up. I was newly postpartum summers 2021 and 2023, and my only goals were to survive and sleep a few hour stretches at night 🤣🫡 honestly I give her credit! submitted by /u/Bubba_muffin to r/LittlePeopleBigWorld [link] [comments]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/SailorBlackStar AITA for not wanting to date a critic of my work? Originally posted to r/AITAH Thanks to u/soayherder for suggesting this BoRU TRIGGER WARNING: Bullying, past trauma, physical assault, stalking, harassment, gaslighting, bigotry, sexual harassment, ableism Original Post March 30, 2024 I am a published author, I mean I am no James Patterson, Stephen King etc and really it's not the purpose of me writing but I make fun money off my book sales. In a given month I am in the green by $100-300 dollars on a new book depending on the book genre and season when first published. I don't really even do it for the money, like I said. I have a fulltime job and do plenty of other gigs as a performer slash artist on the side because it makes me happy. Artistic expression just makes my world brighter and helps me from falling into bad mental health cycles as I am diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, or what I like to call, the Holy Bullsh*ttery, blessed be it's name. I started writing as a kid because I am dyslexic - highly - like ever see a person when you spell a weirdly spelt word and they look like they want to jump into oncoming traffic? I'm worse. Don't give me verbal directions FFS text it. Point. Anything. The second my mental word is required to need to know too many words at any given time, I panic. I have tried every class, app, TikTok lifehack...its not my strength. I am good at other things like coding or planning events etc. I have other strengths. So I just do my best and keep swimming like a dyslexic Dory. THAT SAID I was teased and bullied relentlessly all through childhood a lot growing up and labeled the dunce so the trauma lives. For an example, I was in my local paper - small town - for an event at school. I was like 2nd grade at the oldest. I made a whole imaginary town out of recycled materials and and had a story with it as my end of year project. I worked on it for literal months, even figuring out how to make it foldable so it easier to travel with it in my grandfathers minivan. My story had 10 chapters and was handwritten in my messy kid handwriting. I had a teacher Ms. Smith. That's her real name because F that woman and it's common enough. She said my project was low class but "I guess I shouldn't expect much from you" and she walked off. Her son, my classmate, stomped my project to oblivion. He smashed my playdough figurines of the people and pets, and as if that was not enough, he pointed and laughed at me when I cried. He then put copies of the article with my picture but added a dunce had and laughing faces in the school - lunchroom, homeroom, etc. I mean the guy could cure cancer if he used that determination on it, I will give him that. If you're reading this Tyler - F you in particular and may your socks always be just a little damp. I was unlucky enough that when I moved, Tylers mom happen to as well, so guess who had the privilege of that gem's company for 3 grades? Tyler shoved me lockers in the 4th grade. He called me dumb every day. In 5th grade I was called dumb and fat (I was an underweight child). So fast forward and I am now in my early 30s, still dyslexic as hell. I live in a different state. I have a life and learned ways to deal with my weird brain and function. I moved on from childhood trauma, therapy, etc etc... There is a guy I liked, Brian, and Brian seemed to like me too so we decided to do "non-date causal hangouts" to see if we vibe enough to consider dating (his words and idea). We hung out one on one for several instances but once he was super late so I had my laptop out. He saw me when he arrived and asked what I was doing and I sheepishly responded I was working on my next book. He inquired more and I told him I published my first when I was 17 and have published at least 1 every year since then and told him of Ms. Smith and Tyler and more horror stories I won't get into as this is now a novel itself lol but that it spurred me to prove them wrong and beat this weird stereotype that neurodivergent folk are dumb, etc. He asked to read it, and I said no. I use a pen name on purpose as those Amazon reviews can make you want to yeet your own soul from your body so I keep it separate from everyday life. Well, turns out if you know me and my nerdy joys, my pen name is easy to guess. From there its easy to find because I mentioned Amazon and let's just say my bio makes it pretty clear. At our next meetup he asked me if I was said author and my shocked Pikachu face told him everything so he started reading the series. He came back the next time we met to laugh and say "I see why you don't put your name on your works. Don't quit your day job. Your writing sucks." and he placed a copy of one of my books down on the bar. I couldn't help but drop my shoulders. He was laughing and talking, not seeing my expression and kept saying how he wasted hours of his life and FFS someone take my laptop as it might be a lethal weapon meant to kill us all with boredom. Turns out he's not into mysteries or fantasy. I said that maybe it's just not his genre and he said it wasn't but "an [R-word] 3rd grader could have done better" and it's a good thing I am good at my job. It was then that I could see he actually took in my expression and he backtracked. "I mean you clearly don't do it for money so it's whatever right? " and said I have other strengths but he did not believe at all that I make money off this. He asserting surely, I buy my good reviews and probably bulk buy my own books to improve sales. I don't do any of that. I just smiled it away and said "well, I can't please everyone but I did make 250 this month from the sales of my last book alone so some people must like it" and laughed it off. But I knew then and there I didn't want to pursue him anymore. When he texted to see if I planned our next hang out, I was honest and texted back that I wasn't interested and said that while I can take a note or any criticism, the way he went about it was hurtful and I don't want to be with someone who treats me that way for a hobby, that we are different people but I would like to remain friends, as otherwise we get on well, but nothing more. He went off on me saying I picked the wrong time to lash out as he was having a bad day and now I've made it worse and that I am so rude and petty to be mad at honest criticism. He said that if I am so sensitive over honest opinions, good luck finding anyone who would want my dumb🍑 since looks are all I have with makeup and work and "nothing between the ears" I blocked him but we have a mutual friend group and almost all of them have been asking me what's going on and that I broke his heart. I was thinking what? How? They said he's been depressed and asking about me and figured out I blocked him on everything and wants to give me a birthday gift (my birthday party past last week and I didn't invite him). My friends are saying we are adults and this is immature. I mean I am not a saint and I have toxic traits too, but I don't want to be with someone who criticizes me and my work that way and treats me like bantha poodoo. Am I crazy? Am I TAH? Update May 5, 2024 Hi - so for anyone who cares to know, Brian told all our friends that I rubbed my achievements in his face and called him an idiot (I never said anything like that). He told them also about my post so he found it somehow and started telling everyone that I am trying to slander him as "girls can ruin a man's reputation by snapping her fingers" and suggested my next move would be to say he assaulted me. Some of our friends came at me hard saying I was bullying him and trying to ruin his rep and all he did was asking a girl he liked out for drinks and that I need to apologize and just suck it up and go to drinks with him. They since have either outright not invited me out with the group or disinvited me to events and it was really hard to accept. I was realy confused, because he was the one who made fun of me and I wrestled with myself going over every talk again and again wondering if I inadvertently said or did something to upset him. It wasn't until I checked our text and message history that it occurred to me to send the screenshots as he called me a moron and then when I rejected him he called me fat, desperate, and stupid. And there were more such messages after he found my book series. So I took screenshots and sent it to my friends and they were shocked. Apparently according to Brian my outwardly "sweet demeanor" hides my judgemental and cruel side and that I strung him along anf called him a loser when I told him I wasn't interested in dating him. I even pettily went back before all of this and screenshot spme of his rude or mean texts he made. And I screenshot my actual rejection text and his response and sent that along as well. Now the tides have shifted and most of our friends think he was the AH and 2 of our friends are saying I am sending "my choice" of screenshots to make him out to be a villain and that they have seen the "real" screenshots of me bullying him. I asked them to produce such screenshots but they refused and said I wouldn't be worried about them if I was innocent as some sort of "gotcha". I feel really bad as I wanted to stay friendly but I can never look at him with any semblance of respect anymore. I am glad it's cleared up with my friends (sans the 2 holdouts but they are now also on the outs with the group) so things are looking back to normal. I have my first publishing party for my next book and everyone is invited but them. Weird way it all ended but oh well. Update 2 June 22, 2024 So this has taken a turn for the unnecessarily dramatic. I don't know how to update correctly as mentioned in my last post but I did learn to link them (thanks to some kind reddit-folk) so here is my last post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/pnn60hOtdA Anyways, I had opted to ignore Brian and any attempt he made to get a rise out of me. He apologized to the group but then said he was forced to or be ostracized. He said i was using ly "social captial" to go after him and has since been trying to get any direct cruel words from me which i have not provided him. After a month I can list my top 5 favorites: Going to places I also frequent and sitting nearby me no matter how much available seating there is elsewhere or me moving my usual spot leagues away, and he will loudly have "phone calls" talking about the b*tch who broke his heart because "women are so sensitive" ​ Getting an alt account on nearly all social media to find me and follow my accounts which are public, as a workaround my blocking him, to comment "reviews" on any of my art (books, acting, modeling, doesn't matter, he will comment a reason I suck) and then will simply make a new account when I block the last one and delete his comments. ​ Any time the groupchat pops off with invites to events and I say I am going, he will reply to that with "my GF is the kindest person but I don't think she'd like me hanging out with you" etc. And if I don't reply to invites until he is he will say it's a good thing I'm not coming because of his GF or that now he can't come because if I come his GF will be upset I'm hanging with an ex. (We never dated) - when any of us ask who his GF is he says she's shy and he will introduce her eventually etc. ​ I am speaking at a conference and got excited and shared in the group chat and everyone congratulated me but he said that was okay but not newsworthy and then looked up the conference and saw I have a relative also presenting and suggested that is how I got the spot and not on my own merit. ​ Revealing this reddit name to the friend group and linking my first post as "proof" I bully him despite not speaking to him, not naming him, and leaving put most if not all identifying info about him. He's insisting I edited out the worst parts and I can't prove I didn't so, whatever. So all of that has been happening and yes I unblocked his phone number only because it was screwing up what I was seeing in the group chat and I got lazy and didn't figure it out. Plus he doesn't text me directly anymore anyway. Well about a week ago, I went up to housesit for my parents a small drive away from my own home and was due to stay for about a week. I only told the few friends in the group that didn't side with Brian the first round of bs. I used this time to go to work, and then spend my nonworking hours on my book and I came up with a new pen name. I decided to revamp the whole fictional universe I created and was excited after I designed the cover for my first next book. I shared it with all in the group but him and his 2 flying monkeys but he found out about it anyway and flipped out in the group chat saying I was trying to show off again and that I was trying to steal his spotlight as we all know damn well he is publishing his first book on Amazon this summer and me publishing mine at the same time with my fancy cover etc was just another form of Bullying. He akinned it to if inwore white at his wedding. I have to honest here. I had enough. I put up with this behavior for months now. So I flat out said he never mentioned a book to me, and shared a screenshot of calling writing the profession for the [r-word] but unlike sharing the screwnhsot before, I didn't blank out the word. What a difference a word can make. Apparently the friend group thought the word I blanked out were "milder" and not slurs and we as a group are quite diverse on every spectrum save maybe politics. So they dogged him for using a slur and he said that he's autistic and he can use that word just like I am black and can say the N word except he typed the full word. I said "Right - so I'm done with this." And left the chat. I didn't argue or do anything other than leave the chat. I was working at the time and put the phone down like "That's enough humaning for today" and went about my business. This man rage texted me for hours until I got off work, saw his messages, and blocked him. I then see ads on FB and Instagram about his book, he was paying for ads on social media, his name is on the cover and he has comments underneath calling the book incredible, a masterpiece, undiluted artistry etc.and his book isn't out yet. He said his publishing date was August. I remember because my next book is to come out in July and he had used that as another form of proof I was updating him, like setting my wedding date before a siblings to show them up. A few nights ago, he saw me at a spot I frequent for karaoke and I admittedly had been doing shots so I was pretty transparent in my disappointment that he was there when he approached me, calling my name. He went in to hug me and I backed up and cold but politely said hi. He sensed my attitude and thre his hands up laughing saying "ooooh are you in another mood" and I opted to ignore him and move seats closer to the singers and some friends. A few fellow regulars told him to leave me alone and he was spinning a tale that we slept together and I led him on, and now I am ignoring him and acting like I hate him, all because he is writing a book. He said I inspired him to write and I was angry his book was better and cited the reviews he got on social media. Well, that was enough for some to call him a creep and he went off about it. Shouting and the like. He started to call for me to "come the fck over here and tell them the truth" and that I was trying to ruin his reputation and the time we "slept together" (never happened) will eventually be me lying about being rped. Turns out if you start shouting that sort of thing in a public space while there is karaoke, to a person many in the room know personally...you get kicked out. It's been beautifully quiet since. I told the friend group what happened and he is out of the group chat. Some still speak to him (the 2 holdouts from before) but they have not said boo to me directly. So I guess this makes this my final update. Not very exciting but a bucket of crazy and I had to share. My neighbors know because one of the regulars at the bar lives walking distance from me and he told everyone at the community pool etc. I have such kind folks I never spoke to but have seen in walking my dog etc saying they are being watchful of my home and to call if I need anything. I didnt know people could be like this because he was never like this before. He always was sweet to everyone in the group and we agreed on damn near everything, he would be compimenting me, telling me how smart and pretty I am and would even joke "Im not hitting on you" and laugh. To be honest, I am excited for August. I will be the first to buy his book. He's using his real name and has been advertising about it so...hey... THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7 submitted by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am STILL NOT the Original Poster. That is u/Miserable-Mousse-637. They posted in r/amiwrong. Original BORU post here. Paragraph breaks added for readability. New updates marked with ****\* Thanks to u/Choice_Evidence1983 for letting me know about this! Trigger Warning: infidelity Mood Spoiler: happy ending for OOP Original Post: September 18, 2023 I’m retiring in about 3 ½ months (January, 2024), and my husband and I disagree on how the division of labor should be once that happens. Since meeting my now husband, I have been very vocal about my plans to retire when I turn 40. I’ve planned my life around this goal, lived below my means ever since college, and gave up things to meet this goal. We got married in our early 30s, so it’s only been 7 years since then. He also saves for retirement (I finally got him to up his amount to 20%), but won’t be able to retire until at least 62. He’s instead chosen to spend his money on things that make him happy, and I fully support and encourage him in that –everyone has different goals in life. We are both child-free by choice so that isn’t a factor here. I’ve said in the past that I’m not going to be doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and finances once I retire because I don’t want to replace one job with another. I currently do all of the cooking, most of the finances, and probably 25% of the cleaning. I think that it’s fair as my husband usually works more hours than I do and I’m a picky eater so it just works out the best. He recently made a casual comment about how he’s going to start working more overtime once I retire because he’ll have less household stuff to do. I asked him what he meant by that since my retirement doesn’t really change anything for him, and that I preferred he didn’t work more overtime so that we could spend time together. He said that most husbands with stay-at-home wives don’t clean the house. I didn’t know what to say because I thought we had already discussed this, so I tried my best to change the subject, but we had an argument about it yesterday at dinner and he’s now giving me the silent treatment. I slept in the guest room last night as he locked our bedroom door and wouldn’t let me in. I just don’t know how to get through to him. Even though I’ll no longer be working, I won’t be a stay-at-home wife (by my own definition). To me, a stay-at-home partner is the “manager” of the home and doesn’t bring in much, if any, income. Their job is to take care of the home. I’m not trading one job for another, I’m retiring. I’m still bringing in income, I’ve just planned my life so I no longer have to work 9-5 to do so. I have multiple hobbies that I have been super excited about devoting more time to. I love rock-hounding, crocheting, and hiking. I’m an unpublished writer and have always dreamed of becoming published. I have a lifestyle blog and a pretty active Pinterest following; I’m not super consistent and they’re not big enough to monetize so I count them as hobbies not “side jobs.” I also have a very long travel bucket list. I’ve already started looking into non-profits in my area I could volunteer for. I know I still have limited hours in a day, but even if I only volunteer 1 day a week, I still feel like I could be helping our local community. I know we’ve had conversations about this and he’s always been supportive, even of me leaving for a few weeks every so often to solo travel, he’s always been excited for me. I’m totally confused about this change and I’m freaking out. I thought I communicated my expectations, but he’s saying that he doesn’t ever remember talking about it and that he’s not okay with me retiring if I’m “just going to be lazy.” I don’t see it that way, am I wrong? Relevant Comments: How are you currently splitting expenses? "We split expenses proportionally based on income. I pay 70% of expenses and that will continue once I retire." More about husband: "To be fair to my husband, this post is about an argument we’re having. I didn’t put in my post all the great things about him and all the other things we agree on. I struggle with depression and anxiety and he’s the only partner I’ve had that has helped my mental health rather than hurt it. He’s usually very understanding, kind, and reassuring. The things that make me good at money management make me bad at enjoying life. I’m very serious and can be a realist (despite my fantasy worldbuilding lol), but he’s an outgoing, fun guy who has taught me to live in the moment and relax. The reason I thought to post here is because this argument is not normal for us and his attitude and behavior caught me off guard. He does pull his weight, all the jobs he does are the ones I’m literally physically unable to do or ones that I hate and he doesn’t mind. So I very much enjoy our arrangement." Locking you out was not ok: "I will definitely address what happened last night. Locking me out is one of main things about what happened that concerned me enough to ask for outside opinions. But from reading the comments, I think I may have been too quick to shut him down instead of coming up with a compromise or figuring out why he was changing his mind on the topic." When is the last time you brought this (retiring early) up with him? "I went on a weekend backpacking trip about 5 months ago, and when I got back I made a comment about how I can’t wait to be able to hike more often. We ended talking about my travel plans for the next few years. Because I do all the cooking, that was brought up as well, he wanted me to make all of his meals ahead of time before I leave, but we ended up agreeing that I would stock the fridge and he would either cook for himself or get takeout. If he retired, he wouldn’t do more work either, I know this because it was hard enough getting him to agree to do the chores he does now. Because I do all the cooking (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), most of the finances, grocery shopping, and kitchen cleanups, vacuuming/mopping, general picking up around the house, dusting, I also manage any repairs. We live in my dream house, but because it’s old it needs a lot of care. My husband wanted a newer home so I agreed to take on all of that. I also manage the carriage house that we rent out. If I did any more of the chores I wouldn’t have time for anything else. He does landscaping, cleans bathrooms, takes care of his turtles, cleans windows and blinds, and takes care of his laundry and the communal laundry (towels, sheets, etc). I think it’s fair as we both do most of the chores over the weekend (obviously except daily chores) and we both have free time." It feels like you two are living separate lives at this point, at least as far as finances go: "Well, other than joint expenses, we keep our finances separate. When we first started dating he had about 100k in debt, I helped him get a plan in place to pay it off and payed about 20k of it myself. I own multiple rental properties that I bought in my 20s that aren’t marital assets. Most of the stuff I gave up was in my 20s before we met because I made less money. I never went out and lived on 35k/yr even though I was making 70k pretax. Now I make enough to save half my income but still have around 100k left for expenses. I pay 70% of the bills, but I’ve given up trying to get my husband to think more seriously about retirement. I love him and we agree on everything except finances. It’s never really been a problem until now." Why DON'T you want him to work overtime when it would allow for him to save more? "If he wants to focus more on retirement, I would be more inclined to do more of the housework and have him work overtime. But I would want him to agree to putting that money into retirement instead of spending it like he has in the past. Even with this arrangement, I still wouldn’t want to do everything." What does he spend it on? "He spends a lot on expensive legos, action figures, and limited addition comics (I knew what I was getting myself into, we met at a convention). I pay 70% of our expenses. That includes date nights, our house, and our cars. I have hobbies as well, I crochet but buy cheap yarn (I don’t sell anything so it doesn’t matter to me), I love geology but I find new rocks instead of buying expensive specimens, etc." Update Post: September 25, 2023 So he came home very late that night after ignoring his phone. We didn’t end up talking about it and I slept in the guest room again. He works from home Tuesday and Thursday, so the next day he was home when I got off of work. I spent the day gathering my thoughts and preparing to have a calm discussion. I tried to remain calm, but he was so defensive and accusatory that I was getting very frustrated. We weren’t very productive and we ended our talk with him denying that I pay 70% of the expenses even though we planned this out and budget together based on it. I told him I’d go through our expenses to prove it. And being the person that I am, I did so the next day. This is where the problem starts. When I was going through our expenses, I found a charge on my husband’s credit card from 2 weeks ago that I did not recognize. It was not an insignificant amount so I originally looked into it just to see if it was a household or personal expense to use in my calculations. It turned out to be a bill paid to a law office. For very obvious reasons I wanted to know more information on why he was being billed by a law office. I looked up the office and it was a divorce attorney specializing in property division. I logged into his email (I have proof that he has given me permission to access his email at any time to go over expenses and expenses-related issues) and found his conversations with said lawyer. He was trying to find a way to overturn our prenup so he gets half instead of what is agreed upon in our prenup and wanted to try and get alimony as well. I had no idea he wasn’t happy until we started arguing on Saturday. That morning, he woke me up with breakfast in bed, a total surprise since it wasn’t a special day and he almost never cooks. 2 weeks ago, we had a Star Wars movie marathon and ran around the house in a lightsaber battle. Last month, he communicated that he felt like we weren’t spending as much time together as we normally do, so I planned more date nights. He’s gotten me flowers at least once a week for months now. I just didn’t understand why he wanted to divorce, without even trying to express what he was feeling to me first. When I went all the way back to the very first emails (late July), a woman we’ll call “Ashley” was brought up. I tried to think of a way to confirm my suspicions without him suspecting that I know what he’s been up to. On Saturdays, we sometimes get takeout, so I purposely left my phone upstairs and asked him if I could use his to order the food, and I was taking too long to “figure out what I wanted” so he went downstairs to finish what he was doing, giving me more time. It was hard to wait that long without letting on what I knew, but from Thursday to Saturday I began to get a plan in place. I spoke with a divorce attorney and scheduled my consultation, and made sure I had any legal and financial documents I may need. On Saturday when I went through his phone, I found instagram messages between him and “Ashley”. By going through the messages and looking at her account, I figured out a lot about her. Ashley seems to be a nice girl he met on Tinder back in May. She is 27 and married to her high school sweetheart who can’t bring in enough income for her to be a stay-at-home-wife. Considering my husband works in tech (and by looking at the messages, lied about how much he makes), he is obviously the better option. He’s lied to her about wanting to have kids and has told her that it’s the reason he is unhappy in our marriage. I don’t know what he’s thinking she’s going to do when she finds out he had a vasectomy. Ashley is apparently willing to be a “proper woman” and do “wifely duties” (these are her words not my husbands). From cross checking dates, when he’s supposed to be hanging out with friends or at a work thing, he’s actually with her. She has a weird work schedule so she sometimes COMES OVER TO OUR HOUSE on the days he works from home and I’m in the office. She is convinced that after they both go through their respective divorces, that they’ll live in the house together, get married, and have kids. He has just gone along with everything she says. He’s told her that I’m lazy and hardly make any money, and that I wanted to quit my job and not do any work which is why he’s “finally” gotten the courage to leave me. He said that he’s taking extra care in the divorce because he “doesn’t want to leave me with nothing.” He also told her I changed my mind about having kids and that I’m denying him his masculine desire to continue his lineage. Now you may be thinking. Are you stupid? How did you not know? The answer is, I had no idea and I must be dumb as he played me for a fool. I’m trying to put some humor in this for my own sake, but I’m sobbing as I write this. I just got back from my new attorney’s office with a lot of forms to fill out and I’m so overwhelmed and still feel confused for some reason. Like this must just be a really bad dream. I reached out to Ashley’s husband so they’re probably heading towards divorce as well. He seems like a nice enough guy, also totally blindsided by the affair. I told my husband I was divorcing him last night and told him he could either sleep in one of the guest rooms or get a hotel room. He chose the latter. So, that’s my update. Our prenup has a 99% chance of holding up in court, but we also have an infidelity clause that I’m hoping to prove so I can keep 100% of the house. I was willing to put my dream house in the infidelity clause because I knew I would never cheat, he was fine with it at the time as well, but is now blowing up my phone about it. If I can’t prove his affair (which is unlikely considering the evidence I have), I would have to pay him about 25% of our equity in the house. Which is enough for a downpayment on another house, so he wants me to not bring his affair into our divorce. Which is weird to me since he had no qualms with bringing the affair into our marriage. Relevant Comments: Did he text you asking you not to bring up the affair in the divorce? Because that's evidence "Yeah… I never said he was the smartest. In the texts he’s saying to not bring up Ashley (doesn’t mention an affair), and that she shouldn’t be involved in our divorce, that we should keep things to ourselves, etc. But I sent myself screenshots of the messages from his phone that prove infidelity." About his "lineage" line: "The funny thing is that he just made it up! He got a vasectomy before we even met and is even more staunchly no kids than I am." About Ashley: "I’m pretty sure she’ll find out the lies from her husband since I told him everything. I’m now hoping her husband will get a big promotion suddenly or something where he’s “finally” making “enough money”, but now they’re divorced and she is stuck with my husband or left finding someone else." Has he been watching Andrew Tate at all? "I don’t think so, I think he’s been trying to emulate a very masculine, well-off, traditional man in how he presents himself to Ashley. From the outside I could see him doing a good job at that. He’s a lego/Star Wars/Marvel nerd who also happens to be tall and still has all his hair. He’s always been confident in himself and what he likes, and everything he’s said that sounds ridiculous like that I know to be false, and I highly doubt he believes it himself." I wonder how long he's been doing this: "I know that they met on Tinder in May, but I don’t know if he’s ever done anything like this before. Since it’s very likely I’ll be able to prove infidelity in court, I don’t necessarily need to know if he’s had other affairs, but I hope he’ll tell me the truth if I ask. Maybe he will if I ask him after the divorce is settled so it wouldn’t hurt him at all." Ask her husband to send you evidence too: "Yes! I’ve sent him all the screenshots I sent myself from my husband’s phone. Ashley also isn’t staying with him, and he’s trying to get her to tell him the name of the hotel she’s staying at to see if it might be the one my husband’s at. Neither one of us share locations with them so that’s probably why it took so long to find out about the affair." How OOP saved money/if she comes from wealth: I started saving in high school, so yes, I lived at home during that time. I lived on campus my first 2 years of college and rented with friends the last 2. I paid for my education with my scholarships, savings, and income. I will admit I had an eating disorder during that time so my grocery bill was very low; I do not recommend that. I was still on my parents’ insurance as well so I didn’t have to pay for my medical expenses. I also had help in regards to my high school education; I graduated from one of the best districts in my state and had a lot of school resources available to me. During college, I worked over 40 hours a week, went to school full time, and during the summer when I took a lesser course load I got paid internships. The commenter above says they’re 25, and when I was 25 I only had 1 property, not 3, so I’m not sure where you pulled that from. I agree that the current economic system doesn’t work and is not equitable, but I’m just one person trying to make things work just like anyone else. I’ve never tried to hide anything or lie. I had help in regards to my circumstances, but my siblings had the same and we all ended up at different parts of the socioeconomic spectrum and I find it strange that you can’t seem to wrap your head around the fact that I did indeed work hard to be where I am now. Mini update in comments: September 28, 2023 (3 days later) "I guess a mini update to what I replied to you about earlier, but it turns out Ashley is staying at the same hotel as my husband. Go figure lol" *****Update Post 3: March 20, 2024 (almost 5 months from last post, 6 months from OG post)****\* Hi everyone! A lot of people have asked for an update, and I’m officially divorced so here it is. I’m doing well, and have been focusing on myself a lot. I plan to start dating eventually, but I don’t feel quite ready yet. Hopefully everything stays fine and dandy, and this is the last you’ll have to hear from me. I didn’t want this to be too long, so I figured you guys could just ask me anything else you want to know! Link to prior post: https://www.reddit.com/r/amiwrong/comments/16ruuq9/update_am_i_wrong_for_not_agreeing_to_become_a/ Fake names to make things easier: My ex: Derek Ex’s Affair Partner: Ashley Affair Parnter’s ex: Jake Going back to the earliest piece of drama (Most of what I’m recounting is from the perspective of Jake as I was not directly involved in this story. I blocked Derek and communicated through my lawyer. Nothing crazy happened when he had to come to the house), in October, Derek had a meeting with his lawyer. We’re guessing his lawyer had some bad news for him or maybe finally told him that he was screwed. Whatever it was, it caused him to have a mental breakdown where he basically confessed everything to Ashley and told her that he was “going to lose everything”. It took her another day to show up at Jake’s house apologizing and wanting to make things work. He didn’t take her up on that and at this point they are also divorced. She claimed that Derek manipulated her, but they are now back together so I guess she hasn’t had enough yet. I don’t know if she knows about the vasectomy as I haven’t had contact with her, Jake hasn’t told her, and she didn’t say anything about that to Jake when she ran back to him. She could know, but I don’t know one way or another. That’s her problem now. And by “that”, I mean the whole man. Derek cried in court multiple times and screamed at his lawyer once. He genuinely didn’t look okay, and I do hope he figures things out for himself. Our prenup held up and nothing was deemed “unconscionable”. I came out with the house, my car, and all of my separate property. I had to pay him a small lump sum alimony payment. Stupid things he tried to argue he should get at least half of because they weren’t in our prenup: My rock collection (aka my baby). He knew this would hurt me the most. He didn’t get any of it. My fine china sets. They were painted by my great-grandmother and given to me by my grandma. I don’t know why he thought the judge would side with him. My car. I literally paid for both of our cars, and he tried to get half the value of mine and keep his. Make it make sense! Multiple vintage furniture pieces that I flipped myself and he had no interest in until now. He got a few of them, plus a bunch of other stuff so a furniture run is in order. Some other fun details: I had a divorce/retirement party at MY house after everything was finalized. All mutual friends stopped being friends with him after I told them what happened. He still has other friends, and they don't seem to care about the situation so who knows what he told them. His mom and I are still friends; she came to the party. I’m relieved that the divorce process has come to an end, and I can now look forward to a fresh start. I want to express my gratitude for the support and understanding you’ve all shown me during this challenging time. If anyone has any further questions, I’d be happy to answer them! Relevant Comments: The next chapter: Thank you! I’m currently planning a solo trip and I’m going to Machu Picchu with my dad in October! We kept putting it off, but we finally nailed down plans! He just wanted to drag things out for you, the dick: Thank you! And yes, things could have been over faster but he kept contesting things 😒 Security: Yes! I have a security system in place. I switched some things up recently so he doesn’t know where all the cameras are. Finally got one of those ring video doorbells. On dating: Thank you! I totally don’t want to rush into dating. I’m still getting myself together lol. I’m hoping it will come naturally; I have enough hobbies where I feel like I should have no trouble meeting new people! I’m excited to see where life takes me! A few of the top comment exchanges: Commenter: As a rockhound, I'm just livid that he would try to go for your rocks and the china painted by your great-grandmother. Reading that his mom came to your divorce celebration party lifted my spirits again, though. OOP: I think my ancestors were rolling in their graves. Same with some of my jewelry. Like I either bought it myself, it was gifted to me, or I inherited it. He seemed shocked he couldn’t get any of it besides my engagement ring and wedding band. I didn’t want it anymore so I just let him have it to shut him up. Commenter: "His mom and I are still friends; she came to the party." This sentence has everything. Victory, a semicolon, and a douche getting what he deserves. 10/10 would schadenfreude again. OOP: I love semicolons; I’ve been trying to use them more often. submitted by /u/LucyAriaRose to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/No-Ride-Throwaway. He posted in r/AmItheAsshole and r/EntitledPeople This is a long post. Mood Spoiler: long and frustrating but hopeful? Original Post: May 26, 2023 I 23m was repeatedly stuck playing the part of helper and babysitter on family outings. I had to move out of my parents' house because I kept being forced to help watch my three nephews. Last year we took a family vacation in summer to the coast. I rode along with my parents, and they paid for my hotel room. Only, I had to share that room with three rowdy boys because my sister and her husband wanted a room to themselves. I was promised time to do my own things on the vacation. But instead I ended up having to help with these kids. I complained to everyone about it, and was reminded I was there for free. And then we pretty much just did only one thing I wanted to do. Which was tour an art gallery. I like doing this whenever I'm at the coast. But the kids find it boring. This year my parents have a beach trip planned for June. And they assumed I'd be riding along the same way as last year. But I refused. I said I'd be driving myself, and paying for my own hotel stay to have my own room. My parents were shocked, and tried to remind me of the cost. I said it was no worry. I've got a good job and a decent running car. I can more than afford it. That's when the "Buts" started. I stated the previously listed things as why I'll be driving myself and paying for myself. I want to be able to enjoy this vacation as an adult, and not be treated like a child like last year. My parents told my sister, and she called to blow up at me that I'll be ruining the vacation if I'm off doing my own thing while she has to wrangle her three boys. I ended up yelling at her that last year all she did was rope me into her mess. I didn't really get to do much of anything I wanted to do. And I was treated like the bad guy for wanting to just go to an art gallery. I'm a grown man. I deserve my own vacation too. Now my sister is not speaking to me, and my parents are still trying to convince me to just ride with them to keep the peace. I'm still refusing. But the pressure is getting to me. AITA for not giving in? I know they'll have a pretty hard time when they won't have another person there to help. Edit: It's barely been an hour since I posted. But my sister is apparently a reddit lurker in the mornings, and she saw my post. Not only is she furious with me. But she's also upset no one in the comments is siding with her. To make it short, she went on a big rant about how it's so hard to be a parent to triplets. And the least I could do is help because I'm young and single, and she needs a break. I stood my ground on my decision, and now she's calling our parents to get them involved. I'm expecting a call from them any minute. Update: Well I'm off work now, so I can tell more of what went down. I guess you could say it's over. My sister got our parents involved, they looked at my post, and were absolutely horrified by the continuous influx of commenters. Yes they're very angry with me that I posted here. But I told them that if they'd just listened to me to begin with, I'd have never needed to. I'm sick of the whole keep the peace mentality that sacrifices me to placate my sister. They in turn went off on my sister, and to make a long story short the whole vacation has been canceled. The hotel wasn't booked yet anyway. But my parents are arguing with my sister, my sister is blaming me, and my nephews are crying because they aren't going to the beach. My sister called me at lunch and basically implied I have no life, which is why I have time to help. I recorded that and told our parents, and that's currently what they're fighting about. Smol Update: I wasn't gonna update again. But here's a little more. Parents said that they won't ever push babysitting of my nephews on me again, and have agreed that what happened last year was unfair to me. Right now they're VERY angry with my sister for telling me I should help her because she thinks I have no life. My sister is playing the victim. And my brother in law is basically saying "Nope!" to the whole mess and spending most of his time at work. Thank you to everyone who has commented. You made my day. OOP is voted NTA Update Post 1: June 2, 2023 (1 week later) A week ago I made this throwaway account to ask AITA a question I was found to be anything but TA in. I have too much to say to post in AITA as an update. So a friend recommended I come here. My posting on AITA essentially opened a Pandora's Box in the family. Basically, my parents and older sister had become VERY comfortable with me helping with the childcare of my young triplet nephews. I didn't leave home till I was 22 because I was trying to save money while also going to college. A scholarship covered a lot, and living at home kept me from getting rising debt due to my working part time as well. I'm very thankful for this. However after college everyone just seemed to act like I had endless time on my hands, and convinced me along on a family vacation. In this so-called vacation, I was forced to babysit my three at the time 6 year old nephews. I even had to share a hotel room with them. And believe me, those kids did not listen to a damn thing I said on the first night until I called their mother, TWICE! And I was treated like the bad guy for wanting to do other things during the trip. Like if it's something the family doesn't enjoy as a whole, then it doesn't happen. Which was extremely hypocritical because I'm family and wasn't included in that vote. And you can bet I aired this grievance with my parents after my last post. And they have acknowledged being in the wrong. After that awful vacation last year, I decided it was time to move out. And did so before the summer even ended. Which surprised everyone as I gave them no warning. I'd landed a great job pretty much right after college thanks to an internship, and used moving as an excuse to drop my commute from 45 minutes, to 15. My sister hated this the most because it meant no more free babysitting on weekends. But she still tried to make me do it. I caved sometimes. Usually by being bribed with pizza. And this sort of became a new norm. But then last month my parents announced plans for another family vacation to the same place along the coast. And they basically wanted it to go the same way. I immediately saw it for what it was. A trap! I knew that if I rode with my parents and let them buy the hotel rooms, I would be screwed over the same way as last time. So I just casually stated I'd drive myself and pay for myself. And that's when the shit-storm started. When my parents realized they couldn't entrap me like before, they resorted to borderline begging. And my sister practically tried to order me to go with the flow through gaslighting. News-flash, I didn't! After I didn't cave to my sister's demands, I made the AITA post after days of harassment. And then my sister somehow spotted that post in less than an hour. What followed was Pandora's Box. At first the family was against me. My sister called our parents, and they called me when I still had a little time to talk in the morning. My parents were on the phone with me while also reading my post. I asked them if anything in the post was a lie. They sort of steered around it and called the post an exaggeration. But I pointed out numerous details that made it pretty much on the mark. Then I told them to check the comments. There were already far too many to read. I was repeatedly refreshing the page on my home PC and telling them how many comments there were. Then I told them I was sick of their mentality of keeping the peace by forcing me to placate my sister. Then I said I was out of time and we would have to resume this later. Well my parents were positively horrified that hundreds, if not thousands of people were commenting in a matter of hours. And later on I told them that the numbers had basically doubled, and were still growing. Which only added to their horror. So I guess they were forced to take a long look at their own actions. My sister tried to call me to bitch while I was at work. But my phone was on silent till my lunch break, so all she could do was leave messages and texts. But she was persistent and managed to get through to me when I was eating my lunch. The gist of the conversation was my post had taken our parents away from her side. And now they were mad at her. In the ensuing argument between them, my parents canceled the entire vacation. Yes they later acknowledged they just passed the blame out of embarrassment. And have fully accepted fault. They told me no excuses could excuse the fact they made me their go-to free babysitter when I wasn't even living at home anymore. They did try to backtrack a little by pointing out they never charged me rent while I was in college. But I reminded them kids don't ask to be born, and I was doing my hardest to make my own way. Then I pointed out my father had the same kind of leg up from his parents. They let him live free of charge at home while he was in college. That basically ended any argument my parents had left. When my sister managed to call me at lunch, I presented the facts to her. And she showed her true colors. She implied that I have no life, and that my free time on weekends should be spent helping her because she is tired and unable to even go out without bringing her children with her unless someone is watching them. She is a stay at home mother with a husband that makes a decent salary. They live in a pretty decent house that's owned, not rented. And to be frank, my nephews aren't really my responsibility. They just forced them on me and expected it to stay that way. My sister angrily hung up on me. But I'd recorded the call and then played it to my parents later. They were furious. And they basically went to war with my sister. My sister dug her heels in, blamed me, and then doubled down on her belief my life should circle around hers. I told her that was the most narcissistic and entitled thing she's ever said about me. It took days, but her husband finally stepped in, and forced her to apologize to me. I'd never seen her cowed like that by anyone. But she was on the verge of crying. It ended up being admitted that one of the reasons I was the go-to babysitter was because my sister didn't trust strangers. It was never about the money. Or was it? Actually, my brother in law thought my sister was paying me for my time watching her kids after I moved out of my parents' house. She didn't even give me gas money. Just gave me cash that was enough to order pizza for both myself and the kids, and pocketed the rest. My sister had been short-changing me for months. He blew up at her when this came out during her half-assed apology, and she was forced to pay me what she owed me in cash entirely from her own savings, which she looked very sore about. Then my brother in law apologized to me for his own inaction in letting my sister walk all over me, and promised they'd get a normal babysitter from now on. Yes it'll cause a bit of a drop in the bucket for them. But my sister will be getting date nights back. Then came the family meeting the other day's evening. We all gathered up at my parents' house, and everything was laid bare. Apologies all around, and what-not. Then my parents reinstated the family vacation. And yes, I still plan to drive myself and pay for my own hotel stay. I'll even stay in a completely different hotel if my sister tries to revert me to child care. And I have stated this. She's promised me that won't happen. And if I don't update again after the vacation in another month or so, then you'll all know everything is fine. Relevant Comment: Did sis emotionally abuse you when you were growing up? "She put me down a fair bit when I was a kid. We've got a decent difference in age. But that stopped when she moved out on her own. It didn't really start up again till she had kids. Because once that happened, she set her sights on me as the free help. Yes she did gaslight me if I complained, whined to our parents that I wasn't being helpful enough, and then I'd fight with my parents and her. Thankfully college forced them all to ease up on me because I was busy with my education and an internship. Unfortunately once I graduated college, my sister took it as a free pass to believe I had endless time on my hands. But now that I've shown my backbone, I won't ever let her walk all over me like that again. And she knows it too because I've said so to her face. I just feel sorry for whatever babysitters she hires, because she's no doubt going to want to look down on them. I stated that to my brother in law, and warned him that I won't hesitate to go on Reddit about it if she does treat them like crap. He was not happy with me, but also admitted he understood my point, and will make sure she does not do that. Things are kinda neutral between us currently." Update Post 2: June 8, 2023 (6 days later) Having a family that knows about your Reddit account has it's disadvantages. Yesterday my sister called me after I got off work to ask me if comments are still coming in. She said she cannot bear the negativity of looking at them herself because the comments are all so hurtful towards her. So I was brutally honest. At least ten comments are still coming in daily, and most of them more or less say the same things about her. She started crying and demanding I delete my Reddit posts. But I refused and told her she can cry to anyone she wants. But the posts stay up because they are my assurance she won't try to treat me like crap anymore. After all, she literally felt like my life should revolve around hers, didn't pay me the babysitting money she was supposed to and pocketed it for herself, and forced me to be the constant babysitter on last year's family vacation so I had pretty much no fun the entire time. Is it really any wonder people are having so much hate for her when she treated me like that Then when I mentioned the posts have already spread to other websites because I was asked a couple of times to let an article be made about my situation. And there are some videos that were read as well. My sister shrieked hearing that and hung up. My parents then called me begging I take the posts down. I've refused, and stated that I only did this because they didn't stick up for me. This would have never happened if they'd told my sister to treat me like an equal and not a servant. I'm not her butler, babysitter, or handyman. I'm her freaking brother, and a grown ass man! Wouldn't they be tired of this crap in my shoes too? They agreed, but still begged I take the posts down. I refused, and said that I'll keep making more if they don't start sticking up for me more when my sister comes crying to them. Let her clean up her own messes. Because all the enabling of her led to this. I didn't father those kids. I've got a life of my own, a career I'm still new to, and hopefully soon enough a girlfriend as there's someone I want to ask out. I'm moving my life forward, and I won't be held back. They can either step out of my way, or keep trying to enable my sister. But I assured them that the latter would end badly for them. The only way this posting on Reddit will stop, is if the drama stops. I've kept things anonymous, and I've got a right to vent my very valid frustrations. Well that left my mother crying, my father just went silent, and I said tears don't move me. They know what it'll take to end this, and that's to stop enabling my sister. Well my sister called me again to yell at me that our parents have told her they aren't dealing with this anymore, and to figure it out herself. Oh, and they told her to be nicer to me too. I just pictured her eye twitching as she internally screamed after hearing that. "Be nice to my kid brother? What is this? Do I look it up on Google?". Yeah I was that sarcastic to her. But it left her crying too when I hung up. My brother in law called me later to get my side of the story. He was mad I'm still posting and made his wife cry. But I explained everything to him, and he said he'd have another talk with my sister. I'm hoping this drama finally ends here. But the family vacation is still on for late June. I've already booked my room and put in for a day off work so we can all leave on a Friday. My room is also not near the ones my parents, sister, BIL and nephews will be using. In fact, it's not even on the same floor. And when we go to the coast, when it's not a family activity, I'm going to go where I want and do what I want. And you can bet I'm gonna tour those art galleries, pig out on local food, and just enjoy being carefree for a change. Update Post 3: July 3, 2023 (almost a month after last post) Well the family vacation is over. Some things both good and bad went as expected. Good in that being my parents didn't enable my sister's trying to make me babysit. Oh yes, she did try. But bad in that being my sister did try to find out which room I was in. But that failed and got her in trouble with her husband again. Firstly, I made sure to tell the hotel in advance that they were not to give out any of my information to anyone who asked except for police, if something needing that were to come to pass. They assured me over the phone they would not tell a soul. Then on the day of the vacation, I left earlier in the morning than the rest of the family. I knew they wouldn't be able to get moving as a group till a least 10:00 AM. So I left at 9:00 AM. Check-in wouldn't be until 1:00 PM. But I wanted to make sure I had a head start. I sent out an FWI group text and was off like a shot to make the three hour drive. My parents were upset because they'd planned a family brunch on the way. But I pointed out I was never made aware of that. So it was canceled in favor of fast food. Like I planned, I arrived to the hotel early. Too early for check-in. But I told the desk staff I was there to make sure my parents or sister didn't give them my information. They claimed they don't do that. But I told them I know for a fact it still happens sometimes. So I'm covering my ass. When they happen to be dealing with my mother, and my sister, and three potentially crying boys trying to guilt them at the desk, they had better not yield. And I wanted to know if they try anything. They awkwardly promised me no one but me would get access to my room. Then I decided to go out and get something to eat. I came back more than an hour later, and there was my parents' car and my BIL's big SUV. I went to the desk to check in after making sure the lobby was clear. And it was. Then I asked the clerk if my family had asked about me, and where I was staying in the hotel. Yeah, they did. But the clerk refused to tell them. My sister had apparently tried to push it. But her husband shut her up. I checked in, went to my room, and then called my folks. I didn't mention I knew what they tried with the clerk, and they conveniently didn't mention it either. Then we all met up as a family to go out and tour around. My sister at one point asked me to watch her kids for a moment, to which I replied "Hell no!" because I knew exactly what she was doing. She would pretend to be gone for a moment, and then would be gone for an hour. I called her out, and her husband told her to stop trying to make me watch their kids. What did my sister do? She just started crying on the spot that she needs a break. Her husband scolded her that he's a tired man, but he wasn't complaining. My mother have me a nasty look, so I went right to her and said that if she tries to even think that I should be watching those kids, I would walk away from this family vacation right now. It's not my job, and I'm sick and tired of her and my sister acting like it is. Well that made my mother start crying too. And then she just started repeating the words "You're right!" over and over again. This is another old tactic of hers. She tries to look pathetic to guilt me. But I just said I am right, and to just let it go, before walking away. Neither my mother or sister tried anything for the rest of the day. When we got back to the hotel after dinner, my family were all crowding the elevator. But I didn't get in with them. They asked why and I said I'd wait for the next one. My sister glared at me because she knew exactly what I was doing. Then I just sat in the lobby watching youtube on my phone for fifteen minutes, and then took the elevator up. I was on a different floor, and on the other end of the hotel. I had a splendid night, and the next morning we all went out for breakfast. But I made sure they left first. I was the last one out, just like I was the last one in the night before. Breakfast went fine. Then I gave an FWI that I was gonna be doing my own thing for the day. My mother tried to bring up plans to go to the aquarium, and a couple of other places. So I said I'd meet them for those. But the rest of the day was mine until family dinner. They accepted this. And that day went fine too. Back at the hotel that evening though, my sister caught me leaving my room. She must have been stalking the whole floor looking for me. I went back to my room to chill a bit before dinner because I was tired from walking so much. And my sister was just down the hall when I left my room to meet them for dinner. She tried to corner me and say that I'd ruined the family vacation for her because now it wasn't hardly any different for her than at home since she had to wrangle her kids. I called bull-spit because my parents were helping her a lot. Then told her that I'm sick of this song and dance of being her scape-goat, and it's already over. So leave me the hell alone and get on with your own life. Then I started walking with her yelling "Hey! I'm trying to talk to you!". I told her I didn't give a crap, and was going to dinner. She followed me to the elevator, and we both said nothing to each other. I didn't stay silent and told my parents and my brother in law that my sister had stalked me to find my room. She was scolded like a child. She had a pity party, I told her to stop milking it and grow up. The old days when she could force her will on me were over. And then I walked out of the lobby and to my car. This time, I was the first one to dinner. When everyone else arrived, my sister looked depressed. But not a damn thing was said about what happened before. And that was just fine with me. My sister refrained from making eye contact with me the entire evening. And this time I didn't give a crap about riding in the elevator with the rest of them. And I told them bluntly that unless it was an emergency, no one is to come knocking on my door. I had a "DO NOT DISTURB!!" sign for a reason. The final day everything went swimmingly. Neither my sister or mother bothered me at all. They'd fully surrendered at this point. Yes during the whole vacation, I did play with my nephews a bit. I'm not a complete jerk, I didn't stonewall them. I kept up being the fun uncle. Just not the babysitter uncle. The kids didn't even seem to care. They just wanted to play. I even bought each of them one of those little baggies of crystals and polished stones to take home as a souvenir. There was a bit of mild drama between my sister and her husband. But that was just some small disagreements that I didn't bother to pay attention to. All in all, I'd call the vacation a win because it finally hit home for my mother and sister that the old way they did things involving me is over, and I have my own life. Update Post 4: July 7, 2023 They really don't know when to let well enough alone. Hey mom, hey sis! I warned you that if you didn't stop, I would go right back to Reddit. And here I am. The short of it is that my mother and sister saw my last POST and freaked out. My sister was stalking my account for days because she knew I'd post. Well what did she expect? That I would just say everybody had a good time. She called me and cried that I made her look like a bad mother. I ended up replying "Well if the glass slipper fits!". My sister argued with me some more. But I asked her to name anything in the post that was a lie. She tried several times. But I pointed out that every detail was spot on. So what does she do? She calls mommy! Then my mother showed up at my door demanding I delete all the posts. I told her no. And now I have ammunition for one more. I ended up making her leave crying. I spoke with my mother and father over the phone later, and bluntly told then that their enabling of my sister led to the previous family dynamic. I will never go back to how things were. So if they have any hope of that left, I'm snuffing it out for good. My parents then told my sister for the love of god to stop blaming me and to leave me alone. They can't take the stress of my retaliation anymore. Well my sister had a literal "No one loves me!" pity party. And my parents had to snap her back to reality. My brother in law hasn't called. Pretty sure he's staying indifferent/neutral. But this can't be good for his marriage or my familial connection to him. So out of respect to my brother in law, I am sorry man. But your wife just pushed me too far. Currently my parents are insisting my sister gets counseling. Because she can't be a mom and juggle the habits of her old life too. Woman up as they say. Either way I'm hoping this is my last post. You hear that sis! If you don't stop thinking I should have been your personal slave, babysitter, watchdog, ETC ETC, and want to keep acting like the whole world is against you because you can't lord over me, then we can't be around each other. Maybe we can get along and move past this crap if you're willing. Don't give me a reason to write anything else and the reddit posts about you end here. I'll only post ones involving me and the treatment I get from people. Treat me like a decent human being, and this will be over. Kapeesh?! Update: (Editor's note: I unfortunately don't know when this was added to the above post because reveddit, unddit and rareddit don't work anymore. Web archive did not save it nor did google cache.) My parents and I had a long talk, in which they have apologized. And for the moment we have agreed that I'll keep a bit of a distance until Thanksgiving. I also had a man to man talk with my brother in law last night over some cold beers. He told my sister she needed counseling, or he would separate from her. And they are in the process of finding her a counselor. He also told me that while my sister was an absolute witch to me, at home she is a very loving and endearing wife. But she also admitted that she liked being an only child. We're nearly a decade apart in age, so my sister held onto some resentment about that for a long time, and just let it build up. She's agreed that she does need counseling, and will be going as soon as they get it set up. They've also found a qualified babysitter to look after my nephews. Aside from those things, my brother in law did admit that he was angry with me too. But didn't step in when I needed him. So we've agreed that this was all just a very bad situation that needs to be ended. So we're just gonna let it rest in peace from here on out. Lastly, these posts have gotten me a gilfriend. The girl I like had a feeling it was me after she read them, and was just waiting for me to say something. And we'll be going on our first date tonight. So I thank everybody here for their immense support. I really needed it. submitted by /u/LucyAriaRose to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

This was my favourite saga from 2022 and now we have two new updates, including a sex schedule? My last day obeying orders and getting yelled at posted by u/Disgruntled_Veteran in r/teachers on June 27, 2022 Context from r/ProRevenge Ok, So this happened at the end of this school year. I posted what was going on in the r/Teacher group and several of the people there told me to post what happened in here. This story is in four parts and I apologize for the length. I also apologize for any teacher slang I use as it is like second nature to use it just like military cargo was when I was in the military. Basically, I was told that all the Assistant/Vice Principals in the district (other han at the high school) were being let go and a “teacher-on-assignment (TOA)” was going to take our jobs. I was not heart broken over this, but was treated badly by the new admin team taking my job and my principals job. Also, I tried to help my staff on my way out and it seems my bosses cared more about their images than my staff’s happiness. So here is the story. Part 1: So none of the other admin in my district had received our contracts for the coming school year yet. I was wondering what was going on, but I heard rumors about a pay scale shift and that was the reason for it. I found out Wednesday what is actually happening. Every assistant principal and vice principal in the district (why we have two different titles, I have no idea) is not getting renewed contracts (except the ones at the HS), their positions is being eliminated, and their jobs are being replaced with a new position that pays a teachers salary + a $2000 stipend. They are replacing the APs with “Learning Coordinators”. Apparently, the budget is the given reason, but I also heard rumors from someone at the district office. Each of us APs/VPs were scheduled to meet with one of the Asst. Supers Wednesday. We though it was about our contracts and we were correct. When I arrived, the “Acting” Superintendent was there with the head of HR. I was told about the elimination of my position, but not the reasons why. I was then given an option for the coming school year. I could go back into the classroom, I could work in the district office, or I could apply and interview for the new positions that is replacing my job. WTF! I wouldn’t care one lick if I was told that my position had been cut completely and I needed to go back into the classroom. I love the classroom. I miss teaching full time. However, to tell me to apply and interview for a job I already have is bullshit. We were told to give the district our answers by Friday and they would draw up contracts or schedule interviews. Wednesday afternoon, I went to see Tony who is an Asst. Superintendent and one of the few decent leaders in the school district. I heard from Tony that there was an internal shake up, but he wasn’t allowed to talk about it or even give me a hint about what happened. However, one of the Asst. Supers was being “reassigned”, aka demoted, to being the principal of my current school, my principal was not coming back due to health reasons, the Superintendent was “released from his contract”, and my school’s new Learning Coordinator position had already been filled. Who filled it? A school counselor from one of the high schools who just happens to be a friend and lackey of the Asst. Sup. that is now the new principal. So, early this morning I gave them my answer. I decided that I didn’t need until Friday to decide. I tried to make sure I sounded professional, but I made sure that my message was getting across by speaking with authority. I went in to the Acting Superintendent’s office and told him that I thought that laying off a bunch of people so they could hire others to do the same job but at less pay was bullshit. I told him that the way the school district handled certain situations was idiotic. I then gave several examples. I next told him that he was going to ruin a perfectly good school with an amazing team of educators by putting a lazy, mean, parent pleasing person in as its new principal and letting her put a lackey in as her second in command. I said that she was as useless as a screen door on a submarine and as mean as Dolores Umbridge. I finished the 3 minute speech by stating that I will work my ass off and finish the school year strong. I will prep things for the next school year so that the TEACHERS have an easier time. I also let him know I would never work at or recommend the district to anyone ever again. Then I left letting him know that I expect an amazing Letter of Recommendation by the end of the school day Friday afternoon since I earned it for my service the past few years. So what am I going to do now? Well, I called up an old friend Wednesday who is currently a principal at a STEAM charter school thats part of a chain of Charter STEAM schools and asked if he had a teaching position available? He’s been asking me every year for the past 5 years to come work for him. He told me he had three openings and I could have my pick of them. So next year, I will be a…. drumroll please: 6th Grade Teacher! And I am very happy about it! I even get to design my curriculum as long as it meets state standards! I could apply elsewhere for admin positions, but I think I need a break from school leadership. I need to love my work again like I used to as a teacher. Yes, there were/are many challenges and sometimes I hated going to work, but i do love being a teacher. I feel bad for my current staff because the regime change will hit them hard, but there is nothing I can do about it. I wish I could help them. The most I could do would be to take a teaching position at my current school, but then I would be miserable with them and be helpless to do anything to aid them. So, for myself and my daughter, who I love more than anything, I am making the move to a new school and going back to what I enjoy doing. Teaching. I am even bring my daughter to my new school to start next year as a 5th grader. I asked her if she wanted to stay at her current school or go to the STEAM school with me and she wants to go with me. She was excited since she has visited there several ties and loves the technology room, the robotics class, and the science labs. Plus she is friends with some of the kids there already. As a goodbye to myself staff, I am going out this weekend and I am going to buy some nice letter paper and scratcher tickets. I am going to write short, individualized goodbye to each of my staff members and at the end I will include the following words: “I’m giving you some scratcher tickets. My hope is that you are as lucky scratching them as I have been lucky to have worked with you.” So thats it. I have to finish my contract, but at the end of June, I am free. I am looking forward to teaching full time again and having a boss who will let me just do my job and not interfere. I don’t think I want to work in administration again, but maybe after a few years I will decide to work as an AP again. Note: Sorry for any spelling/grammar/punctuation errors. I am writing this while making my morning rounds. PART 2 So I put together goodbye gifts for all my staff and I'll be handing them out Friday (their last day with kids). They have a bunch of goodies that I posted about weeks ago. I was think this weekend about how to give the finger one more time to the district office and help my teachers out. Even in a small way. So I came up with it Sunday night. My district requires each teacher to attend additional training throughout the year. These are outside of the regular staff development trainings. They are run by district staff, SPED teachers, and admin. The training normally last 1-3 hours and the teacher gets a certificate for the time spent in the training. Each teacher is required to attend 24 hours of these before the end of the school year. Most teachers take them over the summer(if they are offered) so they don't have to take them during the school year. So I yesterday morning, before work, I was making copies of the certificates for all the courses I have run here the past few years. Classroom Management Strategies, Lockdown Procedures, Social Studies Strategies, Math Strategies, Reading Comprehension, and Environmental Print. I am going to fill them out with each of the teacher's names and number of hours. I am adding all the times I EVER spoke to the staff about these topics and putting down hours to correspond (rounding up to the nearest hour...ish). Wouldn't you know, each of those topics was 3 to 5 hours in length. Each staff member will have exactly 24 hours worth of training. I filled out the dates of the training for the 2022/2023 school year. Oh and I have an attendance sheets with ALL of their names and have them marked as being present. *Note: I checked with district and since I am still an administrator into the summer, I am allowed to run these training over the summer before I leave. Now, they can have their summer to themselves and not worry about taking classes during the school year. They can if they wish, but 99% of teachers here hate the mandatory training hours. I hope the staff likes the present. Since Friday, I am no longer a school administrator. I technically have another week to work, but I took vacation during that time because…. well, screw them. Now, I spent the last week packing up, giving aide and comfort to my (now former) staff, and causing problems for the new administrators who are assholes. Now, besides giving the entire staff a year free from additional PDs, I wasn’t planning on causing any more problems. Just quietly leave and drive off into the sunset. Shane style. But no. Apparently I don’t deserve a quiet week. The new principal (demoted from Asst. Super.) and her new Teacher On Assignment (TOA) decided, for some reason, to be rude to me. There was only one response to that… I aimed to misbehave! How were they rude to me you ask? First off, they ordered me to hurry and clean out my office. Apparently, the TOA wanted to start redecorating my office. I was literally told “Get all your personal stuff out of here ASAP. She wants her office now!”. I still had a week to work there and actual work to do. Second, the new principal tried to steal my personal chair and my personal office supplies and decorations. That chair was a gift to me from a friend. I found her just wheeling it out of my office and into her’s. My desk supplies and a banner from my wall were stack on its seat. I told her that it was my personal chair. Not the districts. She said “ok”. The very next morning, I found it missing. She had moved it into her office after I left for the day. Third, I was given a list of tasks to complete by Friday by the TOA (who is in no way, shape, or form my boss). These were not my job to do and are in fact the incoming admins duty to complete. Stuff the new admin are supposed to do. Things like: put together a new staff packets, schedule next years PDs, fill out and submit request forms, ect.. Finally, I was talked down to every single day by the new admin team. I was spoken to as though I were the hired help and they were the Royal Bitches. Seriously, I speak to a waitress that messes up my order with 20x the amount of respect that they showed me. They actually tried to get my attention by snapping their fingers at me. Like that would work. *Note: The new principal also has made some pretty anti-LGTBQ+ comments. I don't like narrow-minded people. So, I decided to to as I was told. I was a soldier, so I know how to follow orders. I removed EVERYTHING that was my personal property. That included my chairs, decorations, the stress relievers (punching bag, ect.), the fridge from the office, and the file cabinets in my office. Yes, I bought government surplus cabinets because I didn’t have any. All my files and all of my former principal’s files were in there. I had even bought the manila folder I used in it. So, I took ever piece of paper out of my cabinets, removed them from my labeled folders, and stacked them on the floor into one large pile. There is no order to how they are stacked. I took my chair from the principals office while she was in a meeting with parents. I just walked in and rolled it out. She stopped talking to the parents to ask what I was doing, and I responded that I was taking my personal property out ASAP as I was ordered to do. I had an old medium sized fridge I had placed in the office work room for office staff to store their food in. But it is mine, so I took the fridge. I brought in right out the front door and loaded it into my truck. I even took the new admins food out of it and left them on the table. Its my fridge. I warned the rest of the office staff I was taking it, but forgot to tell admin. Darn. I copied all my digital files over to a flash drive and then deleted everything off my work Google drive. Any thing I personally created or designed. Copied all my emails too. I informed the staff that if they need time off next year and need it approved, to submit the forms to me this week. I got several and they are all now approved. I got this idea from someone who messaged me here on Reddit and suggested I do this. Thanks for the advise. I approved every supply list item the staff submitted and even drove to the district warehouse to pick up some items personally. I even approved funds for a second-hand kiln for the art teacher. She found a good one on Craiglist. I had repaired my desk with bolts and tool from home. I took the bolts back. The desk is now lopsided again. The closet door was broken when I got there. So I repaired it. I have now put it back as it was when I was hired. The two way mirror to the detention room was mine. I had gotten it from a friend at another school (different district). It allowed me to watch ISS and detention students from my office without them seeing me. It popped that right out and took it home. Now the TOA has a hole in the wall the detention kids can look through. I had put together all the lockdown buckets and fire drill bags myself with my own money. I took all of them back. This I felt bad about, but i will give them out to the staff at my new school. I put a rush order on all classroom and building repairs and have an approved order to have every classroom repainted. I assembled new staff packets and the new school year binders. Besides the basics of what is required, I have included throughout the binders in random places: Dilbert cartoons, Famous Harry Potter quotes, The lyrics to Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me”, “I Kissed A Girl” by Katie Perry, “All Star” by Smashmouth, and “We Built This City” by Starship. A map of the area where I marked all the good places to eat lunch off campus, Funny Farside teacher comics, Cheesy “Teacher Jokes”, The union contact info., Crosswords, sudoku, and word searches A list of educational lawyers.... just in case. I also included in the binder the admin Wifi password for them since that signal is stronger for some reason. I went ahead and wrote out the PD schedule for next year. Oddly, Every Wednesday is listed as ”free time” or “work in your classroom”. I’m sure they will change it, but I don’t know when they will find out what it says. I had a master list of donators and partners in the community. It was posted on a whiteboard in my office. I got over four dozen businesses and people in the community to help with various things or donate over the years. I spent a lot of my time building relationships with them and making deals. I took a photo of it and then I erased the list. And took the whiteboard since it was mine. Friday, I flew the LGBTQ+ flag instead of the state flag. I also placed LGBTQ+ flags in each classroom in case the staff want to display them. Then I got yelled at...... three times. The first time was when I took back my chair. I was told it was unprofessional to just take it without asking. Especially with guests present. I responded with “Yes, it was unprofessional to take MY chair without asking.”. The second time was when the TOA found the refrigerator gone. She said that it was community property. I told her “No, its my property and I was told to take all my property from the campus.”. The third time was when I was in the parking lot leaving and they found the piles of papers. The principal flagged me down and told me to clean it up. I told her I was off the clock and that the district never reimbursed me for the cabinets so I had to take them with me. I am expecting a call from HR today asking for my assistance setting everything back up since with all my stuff removed and erased, the admin team has to actually put in some hard work. I’d come in. For my consultant rate. $75.00 an hour with a minimum contract for 12 hours. Update: I Don't Work Here Anymore. Posted on July 12, 2022 So, as some of you know, I left the world of being an administrator a few weeks ago. I tried to leave behind some nice .... gifts when I left. I wasn't looking to cause problems my last few weeks, but the new admin team treated me in a way that was unacceptable. So I decided that Malcolm Reynolds had it right when he said "I aim to misbehave.". Well, the Tuesday after I left, I received a call from HR. I ignored it. I then left for a road trip with my daughter where we went to San Francisco for a few days and went to two Giants games. Unfortunately, they lost both games. While we were on our trip, they called and emailed me at my personal email account (my work one was deleted by them). I ignored the calls and never opened the emails. My daughter and I then went to Disneyland for a few days of fun and then returned this past Friday. I then checked the voicemails and emails. I was asked, begged, and then ordered to come to the HR for important meetings. "It is very important that we speak to you as soon as possible." is what they said repeatedly. So Yesterday I went in to the district office wearing cargo shorts, a shirt I got at Disneyland, and flip flops. I don't work there so I don't need to dress up. When I arrived, I was originally treated like a visiting VIP. The HR manager and her assistant tried to butter me up like a Pillsbury biscuit. After a few minutes of them trying to make small talk and me then letting them know I had plans to go to lunch in 30 minutes, they got to the point. They wanted me to turn over a few things took with me that, though they belonged to me, they said were sorely needed at the school. They gave me a list from the new principal which included, but limited to: My chair (Seriously!) My refrigerator and appliances My community contacts board (People/businesses that I build relationships and partnerships with) My personally designed forms and worksheets Two way mirror My Lockdown Buckets and FireDrill Bags They also wanted copies of every record I kept and notes I took on the staff and students. The notes I took on the staff were so I could personalize gifts for them and have conversations with them on their interests. I said "No" to all those requests. I told the ladies that the furniture and appliances were mine that I brought in. I stated that the chair was a gift to me from a friend and that the new principal can afford to buy her own chair. I also stated that I left any official school/district documents there and any I took with me and/or deleted were of my own making and my intellectual property. I also stated that my contacts were developed over the years on my personal time and at personal cost to me. I also stated that everything I took, that I had submitted reimbursement, was never reimbursed. I kept my records and pay stubs. I never saw a red cent from those submissions. They offered to pay me for some of the items and gave me a rough figure of what the district would pay me to return the fridge, the forms, buckets, bags, mirror, and contact board. I told them that I did not want to hand them over to the new admin team since they had treated me so poorly. The asked me again and tried to reason that some of those things could be interpreted as school property. I told them that The were welcome to try and force me to return anything that was legally mine to them, but I would be willing to fight it in court. I also told them that those two new administrators made me uncomfortable and that their treatment of me could be considered making a hostile work environment. Especially when they tried to make me do their jobs for them. I then gave the HR team my lawyers info. * Note: I dated a lawyer after my divorce for a few years and we are still good friend and she has offered herself as my "forever retained lawyer" that I can use her name and she'd help me if she could. I rarely use her name, but when I have needed her legal advice, she always comes through. I also help her with physical chores when she or her family needs help. I then wished the lady a good school year in the term to come and left. I doubt I will ever hear from them again. Update: Karens With Power Are As Dangerous As They Are Annoying Posted July 27, 2022 Ever notice that there are always people out there that just have to break beautiful things? The people who see a sand castle and stomp on it or the idiots who visit Stonehenge and carve their names into it. Why? Note: The new principal is the kind of person who smiles when things go wrong because she has already thought of someone to blame it on. So as some of you may know, I am starting my new job in a week in a half. I haven't heard back from my old district since I met with their HR department after my road trip with my daughter. But Monday I heard from the senior secretary (aka Office Goddess) of my old school. She's been at the school for something like 20 years and knows everything that is going on there. Its her turf. She cares about the kids and the staff and she is great wonderful AMAZING! Well, I got a call from her and she asked if I would do a welfare phone call to one of my former staff members who we will call Beth. I asked her why does she want me to call and why me instead of the someone who still works there. I don't work there any more and I am sure someone at the school would be better suited for it, like a counselor. Then she told me why she wanted me to call. So the new principal and TOA have made many several changes to the school in their short time there. According to the Office Goddess, they have: - Eliminated the House System. (The old principal and I created 4 Houses to have the kids compete year round for points with prizes for the top house each year.) - Moved 8 teachers to different grade levels at the last minute. Including moving a teacher who has spent her career (15ish years) only teaching Kinder to teach the 6th grade. - Cancelled several staff activities including the monthly breakfast bash and the Welcome Back competition (usually laser tag or bowling). - Ordered special office desks for themselves that can be raised and lowered depending on if they want to sit or stand. (She said that the ones ordered run something like $500 a pop) - But worst of all, the moved the librarian, Beth, to teach Middle School ELA. Now Beth is a very kind and well like staff member. She is hard working and also adaptable. She is also certified in Early Childhood Ed., Elem. Ed, and Secondary ELA. She also has cancer. She has been fighting it for a few years now. I've watched her struggle and keep fighting it. I've also watched a healthy athletic woman of about 130 lbs drop to a pale shadow of that which couldn't weight more than 90 lbs soaking wet. Beth was a teacher for years at my old school, but a while back, when she found it hard to teach while going through chemo, I made her the librarian and fought to keep her at her teacher salary. The district fought me saying an aid was cheaper and could do the job. I wrote a post on here about it a while back. Officially, Beth is the school's media specialist, library arts teacher, and an ELA support specialist. Unofficially, her job is to basically reads to the younger students, encourage them to read, helps older students with their research, and helps older students learn how to cite their work. The position also gave her plenty of time to rest, let her go to medical appointments easily, and gave her a bathroom next to her desk since she needed to go more often now. Plus it kept her pay the same and kept her health insurance going. It was a rare example of a true win win. I had an amazing librarian and she got paid, benefits, and a lighter work load so she could heal. Well, the new principal, in all her Jar Jar Binks wisdom, has decided that Beth would be better off in a classroom again and that parent volunteers should run the library. Its saves money and puts Beth where she is useful according to the admin's twisted sense of logic. And yes, they know of Beth's condition and why she is in that post. Beth found out Friday about the reassignment. (Yes, it is legal as her contract doesn't specify librarian. Just teacher and her pay scale level.). Beth tried to explain the situation to the idiotic woman who, if you gave her a penny for her thoughts, you'd get change back. But she doesn't seem to care. She says that Beth will be just fine in the classroom and will really help the kids academically. So I called Beth yesterday and we talked for about half an hour. She told me that she may have to resign because she can't keep up with the rigors of teaching middle school ELA in her condition (which is not improving unfortunately). She is supposed to go through another cycle of chemo treatments soon. I told her I wish I could help her. She said she may just become a substitute and work when she can. She said she is covered under the husband insurance already, but ours was better. I feel really bad for her. I suggested that she go to HR and let them know that if she is moved back into a full-time classroom that it would have a negative effect on her health and put her at risk. I also told her to get notes from her medical providers stating her case to stay in her less stressful position. I then gave her the name and phone number of a lawyer that specializes in educational law. I also let her know that I would help her find work if she wanted me to. I have already reached out to a few people I know. I contacted my ex-wife's sister-in-law who works for a non-profit that provides digital literacy and citizenship programs for people who come to the U.S.. She said she might be able to hire her on to give remote lessons via Zoom. So lets keep our fingers crossed. This is a perfect example of what happens when people with the compassion of Ted Bundy and the ego Donald Trump are put in-charge of others. The new admin team cares more about the budget and losing like they do something rather than whats best for the staff and students. I don't know what day in history it was when educators stopped leading schools and the politicians and the parent pleasers looking for a pay increase took over, but it was a dark day for us all. I wish I had a happier story to share, but my old school is going to Hell in a handcart according to the Office Goddess. I wish all of you a great coming school year. I Feel Loved: Update To I'm Not The Vice Principal Anymore? Ok. No Problem. Posted Sept 13, 2022 So here is an update to what has happened at my old school. I will say that their action make me proud, fill me with energy, and make me feel a little loved. Now, I haven't heard from anyone in the school for the past few weeks. I have been really busy with my new teaching gig. I love my class by the way. Well, it turns out that my misbehaving spread like a wild fire amongst the staff. My friend Tony let me know while we were watching a baseball game this weekend. Here is a summary of what has happened. I also heard from 2 of my old teachers. Here are the highlights. The new principal enacted new policies. Here are 3 that pissed off the staff. - Every teacher has duties everyday at least once a day. (I NEVER made my teacher work duty.) - Every teacher is required to have Zoom meeting with all their parents at least once a quarter. - Every teacher must do 2 of the following: sponsor a club, be on a committee, or coach a team. - Lesson plan (For the next week) reviews with the TOA every Friday during prep periods. - No office referrals for anything considered to be a minor infraction no matter how many times it happens. - Teachers must sign in every morning in the office and out at the end of the day and record the times. - No leaving campus without approval. - Teacher will need to cover for other teachers that are out. 2) During the first day back meeting where she shared these changes, she apparently spoke harshly, authoritatively, and wouldn't allow the teachers to speak their mind. A "My way or the highway" atmosphere. 3) In response to the above and more, together over a dozen teacher took their "Welcome Back Baskets" (A school mug, cheap candy, Post-its, and pens) and slammed them on the principal's desk and voiced their displeasure. She threatened to write them up. They threatened to quit. This was their first day back from summer break. 4) The new principal got tired of them mentioning that I never made them do these things, so she lost it and "Disgruntled_Veteran isn't here any more. You are not to mention him anymore. I'm in charge here and he can take his retarded ideas and shovel them up his ass!" Apparently, she immediately regretted saying that an tried to back peddle. 5) Half the teacher who heard the above went to HR and filed complaints about being yelled at, the uses of the word retarded, and even claimed they felt "sexually harassed" by her statement about shoving thing in my ass. I don't know how serious HR took them. 6) Multiple staff members threatened to not renew their contracts at the end of the year. They said they can get teacher jobs anywhere due to the shortage. One even threatened to give her 30 days notice right there. 6) Multiple staff members complained to the union who contacted the district and stated that the policy changes that were not in place last year and not in their contracts. 7) Two staff members complained to the union and HR about the principal removing the LGBTQ+ flags from their classrooms. They aren't in FL. 8) The Superintendent had a meeting with the principal. Tony couldn't get into all the details, but basically she was told that if she doesn't drop the bullshit, stop pissing the staff off, and gets any more serious complaints that she will be removed from her post. My old staff members said that for the past two weeks, she hasn't left her office. She never see her and only the TOA is sending emails. I guess only the TOA is running Wednesday meetings and she is clueless on what to do and wastes a lot of time. So the staff stood up for themselves (and me to a point) and they came out on top! I am very proud of them. According to a comment, u/DisgruntledVeteran advised Beth is now working somewhere else, with a health plan and kindness. Admin Wants Sex Schedules posted February 18, 2023 So my last school school, as well as its district, are real shit show. Some of you might have seen my post in the past about when I left the vice principal position there and the new school administration didn't take it so well. Well, I've been so busy lately that I hadn't really chatted with any of the people from that school in the past month or two. Life, right? Well, last night I ran into a couple of coworkers at TGI Fridays. They asked me to join them and promised me some fantastic information. How could I refuse? So apparently the principal of their school, a recently demoted assistant superintendent, has been gone for the last 2 days. Apparently at the Wednesday staff meeting she made the comment that there were currently five members of the staff who were pregnant. She then mentioned that she is struggling to find people to be able to cover the maternity leave for the teachers that I'll be out before the school year ends. And also that it would be difficult to find coverage at the beginning of the school year for anyone who's going to miss the first few weeks or month of it. She then said something really really stupid. She said: "If anyone here is planning on trying to have a kid or planning on doing anything that could get you pregnant, can you please talk to me first so we can see if it'll fit into the schedule." Now, maybe she meant it as a joke. However, she's not very well liked it that school and that was enough for several members of the staff, including two of the pregnant ones, to go down to HR and complain right after the meeting. Thursday morning the principal was not there and they were told by the instructional coordinator that she would be off campus until further notice and all inquiries and problems should be directed towards her instead. Come friday, still not back. Then some people did some digging and it turns out that the principal may be on a suspension for making comments of a sexual nature towards the staff and asking them to coordinate their sex schedules with her. As far as my former co-workers know, they have no idea when she's coming back, but her instructional coordinator has already told them that many of her meetings next week are canceled and that she'll be taken over several of the planned meetings. So as a warning to all administrators out there, don't ask us to tell you when we plan to have sex. Sex Schedule Principal is Back Posted February 25, 2023 I was having a game night last night and some former colleagues from my old school came by for some Cards Against Humanity and Munchkin. I asked if their boss came back yet. And they gave me the run down. So she returned on Wednesday. Exactly one week after the incident. She showed up to the Wednesday staff meeting. And she wasn't alone. Someone from HR and an asst. superintendent was with her. Before the regular meeting began, the principal gave a short speech. Somewhere in it was a brief "I'm sorry" followed by repeated remarks about not taking every joke seriously and coming to her directly if there is a problem. Neither HR nor the asst. super spoke up or stopped her. At some point in the rant, two of the most veteran teachers grabbed their stuff and walked out of the room. I guess HR followed them out, spoke to them, and brought them back in a few minutes later. After the cesspool of a speech was over she continued to run the meeting like nothing happened. the HR rep and asst. super sat in back watching. Apparently, several people went to the HR rep after the meeting to voice their problems with them going directly to her or that they shouldn't take jokes seriously. They were all told to schedule an appointment to speak to HR if they have concerns. Those same people then went to the principal's office to complain about her "apology". She told them to schedule individual meetings with her through "her secretary". She doesn't have a secretary anymore. That person resigned months ago and was not replaced due to the budget. The principal forced the front office receptionist to act as her personal secretary. This just goes to show that the principal, a recently demoted asst. super, has something on the higher ups or the district itself. Something that is allowing her to keep her post for the rest of the year. If she does any other stupid stuff and I hear about it, then I'll share it. I guess the scuttlebutt is that no matter what, she will not be offered a position for next year. I heard she is already applying for other admin positions as they appear online submitted by /u/mermaidpaint to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

Ok, So this happened at the end of this school year. I posted what was going on in the r/Teacher group and several of the people there told me to post what happened in here. This story is in four parts and I apologize for the length. I also apologize for any teacher slang I use as it is like second nature to use it just like military cargo was when I was in the military. Basically, I was told that all the Assistant/Vice Principals in the district (other han at the high school) were being let go and a “teacher-on-assignment (TOA)” was going to take our jobs. I was not heart broken over this, but was treated badly by the new admin team taking my job and my principals job. Also, I tried to help my staff on my way out and it seems my bosses cared more about their images than my staff’s happiness. So here is the story. Part 1: So none of the other admin in my district had received our contracts for the coming school year yet. I was wondering what was going on, but I heard rumors about a pay scale shift and that was the reason for it. I found out Wednesday what is actually happening. Every assistant principal and vice principal in the district (why we have two different titles, I have no idea) is not getting renewed contracts (except the ones at the HS), their positions is being eliminated, and their jobs are being replaced with a new position that pays a teachers salary + a $2000 stipend. They are replacing the APs with “Learning Coordinators”. Apparently, the budget is the given reason, but I also heard rumors from someone at the district office. Each of us APs/VPs were scheduled to meet with one of the Asst. Supers Wednesday. We though it was about our contracts and we were correct. When I arrived, the “Acting” Superintendent was there with the head of HR. I was told about the elimination of my position, but not the reasons why. I was then given an option for the coming school year. I could go back into the classroom, I could work in the district office, or I could apply and interview for the new positions that is replacing my job. WTF! I wouldn’t care one lick if I was told that my position had been cut completely and I needed to go back into the classroom. I love the classroom. I miss teaching full time. However, to tell me to apply and interview for a job I already have is bullshit. We were told to give the district our answers by Friday and they would draw up contracts or schedule interviews. Wednesday afternoon, I went to see Tony who is an Asst. Superintendent and one of the few decent leaders in the school district. I heard from Tony that there was an internal shake up, but he wasn’t allowed to talk about it or even give me a hint about what happened. However, one of the Asst. Supers was being “reassigned”, aka demoted, to being the principal of my current school, my principal was not coming back due to health reasons, the Superintendent was “released from his contract”, and my school’s new Learning Coordinator position had already been filled. Who filled it? A school counselor from one of the high schools who just happens to be a friend and lackey of the Asst. Sup. that is now the new principal. So, early this morning I gave them my answer. I decided that I didn’t need until Friday to decide. I tried to make sure I sounded professional, but I made sure that my message was getting across by speaking with authority. I went in to the Acting Superintendent’s office and told him that I thought that laying off a bunch of people so they could hire others to do the same job but at less pay was bullshit. I told him that the way the school district handled certain situations was idiotic. I then gave several examples. I next told him that he was going to ruin a perfectly good school with an amazing team of educators by putting a lazy, mean, parent pleasing person in as its new principal and letting her put a lackey in as her second in command. I said that she was as useless as a screen door on a submarine and as mean as Dolores Umbridge. I finished the 3 minute speech by stating that I will work my ass off and finish the school year strong. I will prep things for the next school year so that the TEACHERS have an easier time. I also let him know I would never work at or recommend the district to anyone ever again. Then I left letting him know that I expect an amazing Letter of Recommendation by the end of the school day Friday afternoon since I earned it for my service the past few years. So what am I going to do now? Well, I called up an old friend Wednesday who is currently a principal at a STEAM charter school thats part of a chain of Charter STEAM schools and asked if he had a teaching position available? He’s been asking me every year for the past 5 years to come work for him. He told me he had three openings and I could have my pick of them. So next year, I will be a…. drumroll please: 6th Grade Teacher! And I am very happy about it! I even get to design my curriculum as long as it meets state standards! I could apply elsewhere for admin positions, but I think I need a break from school leadership. I need to love my work again like I used to as a teacher. Yes, there were/are many challenges and sometimes I hated going to work, but i do love being a teacher. I feel bad for my current staff because the regime change will hit them hard, but there is nothing I can do about it. I wish I could help them. The most I could do would be to take a teaching position at my current school, but then I would be miserable with them and be helpless to do anything to aid them. So, for myself and my daughter, who I love more than anything, I am making the move to a new school and going back to what I enjoy doing. Teaching. I am even bring my daughter to my new school to start next year as a 5th grader. I asked her if she wanted to stay at her current school or go to the STEAM school with me and she wants to go with me. She was excited since she has visited there several ties and loves the technology room, the robotics class, and the science labs. Plus she is friends with some of the kids there already. As a goodbye to myself staff, I am going out this weekend and I am going to buy some nice letter paper and scratcher tickets. I am going to write short, individualized goodbye to each of my staff members and at the end I will include the following words: “I’m giving you some scratcher tickets. My hope is that you are as lucky scratching them as I have been lucky to have worked with you.” So thats it. I have to finish my contract, but at the end of June, I am free. I am looking forward to teaching full time again and having a boss who will let me just do my job and not interfere. I don’t think I want to work in administration again, but maybe after a few years I will decide to work as an AP again. Note: Sorry for any spelling/grammar/punctuation errors. I am writing this while making my morning rounds. PART 2 So I put together goodbye gifts for all my staff and I'll be handing them out Friday (their last day with kids). They have a bunch of goodies that I posted about weeks ago. I was think this weekend about how to give the finger one more time to the district office and help my teachers out. Even in a small way. So I came up with it Sunday night. My district requires each teacher to attend additional training throughout the year. These are outside of the regular staff development trainings. They are run by district staff, SPED teachers, and admin. The training normally last 1-3 hours and the teacher gets a certificate for the time spent in the training. Each teacher is required to attend 24 hours of these before the end of the school year. Most teachers take them over the summer(if they are offered) so they don't have to take them during the school year. So I yesterday morning, before work, I was making copies of the certificates for all the courses I have run here the past few years. Classroom Management Strategies, Lockdown Procedures, Social Studies Strategies, Math Strategies, Reading Comprehension, and Environmental Print. I am going to fill them out with each of the teacher's names and number of hours. I am adding all the times I EVER spoke to the staff about these topics and putting down hours to correspond (rounding up to the nearest hour...ish). Wouldn't you know, each of those topics was 3 to 5 hours in length. Each staff member will have exactly 24 hours worth of training. I filled out the dates of the training for the 2022/2023 school year. Oh and I have an attendance sheets with ALL of their names and have them marked as being present. *Note: I checked with district and since I am still an administrator into the summer, I am allowed to run these training over the summer before I leave. Now, they can have their summer to themselves and not worry about taking classes during the school year. They can if they wish, but 99% of teachers here hate the mandatory training hours. I hope the staff likes the present. PART 3 Since Friday, I am no longer a school administrator. I technically have another week to work, but I took vacation during that time because…. well, screw them. Now, I spent the last week packing up, giving aide and comfort to my (now former) staff, and causing problems for the new administrators who are assholes. Now, besides giving the entire staff a year free from additional PDs, I wasn’t planning on causing any more problems. Just quietly leave and drive off into the sunset. Shane style. But no. Apparently I don’t deserve a quiet week. The new principal (demoted from Asst. Super.) and her new Teacher On Assignment (TOA) decided, for some reason, to be rude to me. There was only one response to that… I aimed to misbehave! How were they rude to me you ask? First off, they ordered me to hurry and clean out my office. Apparently, the TOA wanted to start redecorating my office. I was literally told “Get all your personal stuff out of here ASAP. She wants her office now!”. I still had a week to work there and actual work to do. Second, the new principal tried to steal my personal chair and my personal office supplies and decorations. That chair was a gift to me from a friend. I found her just wheeling it out of my office and into her’s. My desk supplies and a banner from my wall were stack on its seat. I told her that it was my personal chair. Not the districts. She said “ok”. The very next morning, I found it missing. She had moved it into her office after I left for the day. Third, I was given a list of tasks to complete by Friday by the TOA (who is in no way, shape, or form my boss). These were not my job to do and are in fact the incoming admins duty to complete. Stuff the new admin are supposed to do. Things like: put together a new staff packets, schedule next years PDs, fill out and submit request forms, ect.. Finally, I was talked down to every single day by the new admin team. I was spoken to as though I were the hired help and they were the Royal Bitches. Seriously, I speak to a waitress that messes up my order with 20x the amount of respect that they showed me. They actually tried to get my attention by snapping their fingers at me. Like that would work. *Note: The new principal also has made some pretty anti-LGTBQ+ comments. I don't like narrow-minded people. So, I decided to to as I was told. I was a soldier, so I know how to follow orders. I removed EVERYTHING that was my personal property. That included my chairs, decorations, the stress relievers (punching bag, ect.), the fridge from the office, and the file cabinets in my office. Yes, I bought government surplus cabinets because I didn’t have any. All my files and all of my former principal’s files were in there. I had even bought the manila folder I used in it. So, I took ever piece of paper out of my cabinets, removed them from my labeled folders, and stacked them on the floor into one large pile. There is no order to how they are stacked. I took my chair from the principals office while she was in a meeting with parents. I just walked in and rolled it out. She stopped talking to the parents to ask what I was doing, and I responded that I was taking my personal property out ASAP as I was ordered to do. I had an old medium sized fridge I had placed in the office work room for office staff to store their food in. But it is mine, so I took the fridge. I brought in right out the front door and loaded it into my truck. I even took the new admins food out of it and left them on the table. Its my fridge. I warned the rest of the office staff I was taking it, but forgot to tell admin. Darn. I copied all my digital files over to a flash drive and then deleted everything off my work Google drive. Any thing I personally created or designed. Copied all my emails too. I informed the staff that if they need time off next year and need it approved, to submit the forms to me this week. I got several and they are all now approved. I got this idea from someone who messaged me here on Reddit and suggested I do this. Thanks for the advise. I approved every supply list item the staff submitted and even drove to the district warehouse to pick up some items personally. I even approved funds for a second-hand kiln for the art teacher. She found a good one on Craiglist. I had repaired my desk with bolts and tool from home. I took the bolts back. The desk is now lopsided again. The closet door was broken when I got there. So I repaired it. I have now put it back as it was when I was hired. The two way mirror to the detention room was mine. I had gotten it from a friend at another school (different district). It allowed me to watch ISS and detention students from my office without them seeing me. It popped that right out and took it home. Now the TOA has a hole in the wall the detention kids can look through. I had put together all the lockdown buckets and fire drill bags myself with my own money. I took all of them back. This I felt bad about, but i will give them out to the staff at my new school. I put a rush order on all classroom and building repairs and have an approved order to have every classroom repainted. I assembled new staff packets and the new school year binders. Besides the basics of what is required, I have included throughout the binders in random places: Dilbert cartoons, Famous Harry Potter quotes, The lyrics to Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me”, “I Kissed A Girl” by Katie Perry, “All Star” by Smashmouth, and “We Built This City” by Starship. A map of the area where I marked all the good places to eat lunch off campus, Funny Farside teacher comics, Cheesy “Teacher Jokes”, The union contact info., Crosswords, sudoku, and word searches A list of educational lawyers.... just in case. I also included in the binder the admin Wifi password for them since that signal is stronger for some reason. I went ahead and wrote out the PD schedule for next year. Oddly, Every Wednesday is listed as ”free time” or “work in your classroom”. I’m sure they will change it, but I don’t know when they will find out what it says. I had a master list of donators and partners in the community. It was posted on a whiteboard in my office. I got over four dozen businesses and people in the community to help with various things or donate over the years. I spent a lot of my time building relationships with them and making deals. I took a photo of it and then I erased the list. And took the whiteboard since it was mine. Friday, I flew the LGBTQ+ flag instead of the state flag. I also placed LGBTQ+ flags in each classroom in case the staff want to display them. Then I got yelled at...... three times. The first time was when I took back my chair. I was told it was unprofessional to just take it without asking. Especially with guests present. I responded with “Yes, it was unprofessional to take MY chair without asking.”. The second time was when the TOA found the refrigerator gone. She said that it was community property. I told her “No, its my property and I was told to take all my property from the campus.”. The third time was when I was in the parking lot leaving and they found the piles of papers. The principal flagged me down and told me to clean it up. I told her I was off the clock and that the district never reimbursed me for the cabinets so I had to take them with me. I am expecting a call from HR today asking for my assistance setting everything back up since with all my stuff removed and erased, the admin team has to actually put in some hard work. I’d come in. For my consultant rate. $75.00 an hour with a minimum contract for 12 hours. PART 4 So, as some of you know, I left the world of being an administrator a few weeks ago. I tried to leave behind some nice .... gifts when I left. I wasn't looking to cause problems my last few weeks, but the new admin team treated me in a way that was unacceptable. So I decided that Malcolm Reynolds had it right when he said "I aim to misbehave.". Well, the Tuesday after I left, I received a call from HR. I ignored it. I then left for a road trip with my daughter where we went to San Francisco for a few days and went to two Giants games. Unfortunately, they lost both games. While we were on our trip, they called and emailed me at my personal email account (my work one was deleted by them). I ignored the calls and never opened the emails. My daughter and I then went to Disneyland for a few days of fun and then returned this past Friday. I then checked the voicemails and emails. I was asked, begged, and then ordered to come to the HR for important meetings. "It is very important that we speak to you as soon as possible." is what they said repeatedly. So Yesterday I went in to the district office wearing cargo shorts, a shirt I got at Disneyland, and flip flops. I don't work there so I don't need to dress up. When I arrived, I was originally treated like a visiting VIP. The HR manager and her assistant tried to butter me up like a Pillsbury biscuit. After a few minutes of them trying to make small talk and me then letting them know I had plans to go to lunch in 30 minutes, they got to the point. They wanted me to turn over a few things took with me that, though they belonged to me, they said were sorely needed at the school. They gave me a list from the new principal which included, but limited to: My chair (Seriously!) My refrigerator and appliances My community contacts board (People/businesses that I build relationships and partnerships with) My personally designed forms and worksheets Two way mirror My Lockdown Buckets and FireDrill Bags They also wanted copies of every record I kept and notes I took on the staff and students. The notes I took on the staff were so I could personalize gifts for them and have conversations with them on their interests. I said "No" to all those requests. I told the ladies that the furniture and appliances were mine that I brought in. I stated that the chair was a gift to me from a friend and that the new principal can afford to buy her own chair. I also stated that I left any official school/district documents there and any I took with me and/or deleted were of my own making and my intellectual property. I also stated that my contacts were developed over the years on my personal time and at personal cost to me. I also stated that everything I took, that I had submitted reimbursement, was never reimbursed. I kept my records and pay stubs. I never saw a red cent from those submissions. They offered to pay me for some of the items and gave me a rough figure of what the district would pay me to return the fridge, the forms, buckets, bags, mirror, and contact board. I told them that I did not want to hand them over to the new admin team since they had treated me so poorly. The asked me again and tried to reason that some of those things could be interpreted as school property. I told them that The were welcome to try and force me to return anything that was legally mine to them, but I would be willing to fight it in court. I also told them that those two new administrators made me uncomfortable and that their treatment of me could be considered making a hostile work environment. Especially when they tried to make me do their jobs for them. I then gave the HR team my lawyers info. * Note: I dated a lawyer after my divorce for a few years and we are still good friend and she has offered herself as my "forever retained lawyer" that I can use her name and she'd help me if she could. I rarely use her name, but when I have needed her legal advice, she always comes through. I also help her with physical chores when she or her family needs help. I then wished the lady a good school year in the term to come and left. I doubt I will ever hear from them again. *NOTE: Update posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/w9upn6/update_karens_with_power_are_as_dangerous_as_they/ submitted by /u/Disgruntled_Veteran to r/ProRevenge [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/SuccessiveApprox to r/grandrapids [link] [comments]

[I wrote up the original version of this on my blog if you want to read it there--it's more nicely formatted and also has pictures] The 21 Essential Things To Do Go thrifting at Urban Ore This place has more doors than Monsters Inc. It has even more toilets than it has doors, and all of those toilets are terrible, but checking them out is always the highlight of my visit. There’s a cat that hangs out among the bins full of paintings. Beware of Urban Ore if you have a rust-related phobia. Trespass on the Pier at the Berkeley Marina Actually, don’t do that. While I’ve visited many times, I’ve yet to jump the fence. The pier was originally built as a ferry dock to San Francisco, and on Big Game days traffic would be backed all the way up University as a result. The pier itself is massively long (originally 3.5 miles) and stretches towards Alcatraz. It’s mostly rotting now, but I think that the city council is considering rebuilding it, so fingers crossed that we’ll be able to set foot on it someday. In terms of things that you can appreciate more legally, consider throwing a barbecue or visiting the turkeys. On the way out you’ll notice how terrible the road is. My Uber driver once told me that this is because so many people would drag race up and down that they just stopped repairing it, and now driving it is an awful experience for everyone. Eat Tacos While Watching a Rose Garden Sunset This one feels pretty basic, but it’s remarkable how many people I know who haven’t ever given it a visit. One of Berkeley’s best civic installations, I think. Roses bloom between March and graduation, so get out there!!! Smell at corpse flower at the Botanical Gardens Depressingly few Berkeley students take advantage of the fact that admission is free for them. You probably won’t be able to see the corpse flower since it only blooms every seven years (though you can see the plant in its non-flowering state--the entire thing is just one leaf that looks like a tree), but you’ll still be able to appreciate the Chinese Medicinal Herb Garden and the extremely specific ailments that each plant soothes. Pretend to get married under the trellis in the Garden of Old Roses. Resist the temptation to steal a vegetable from the edible garden. Buy me a succulent at the garden store (or look for the pencils I designed that are carried there!) Read Paradise Lost on a bench at the top overlooking all of Berkeley. Look for salamanders in the Japanese pond. Find the petrified tree log. Appreciate how well-kept the Bamboo Path is. And if you find pineapple sage, please bring me some. Save Hundreds While Shopping for Spices in the Sari District I don’t think that anybody calls it the Sari District beyond me and my friends. If you’ve ever taken the 51B down University though, you’ll probably have noticed that there are like three sari stores and three Indian grocery stores all clustered together. There is no better place to buy spices in all of Berkeley. If shopping is a social experience for you, as it is for me, it can be fun spending 30 minutes appreciating the massive selection that these stores offer, and if you plan on celebrating Diwali, also pick up some rangoli powder and candles! Spend a day in Tilden That there are some fantastic hikes up here is a given--I’ll let you find those on your own. There are several other things to try out up here though: • Walk the rim of Lake Anza • Hunt for mushrooms • Visit the Little Farm (it’s a petting zoo I think?) • Ride the Carousel Find the Weirdest Artifact in Elmwood There are some strange stores up here. Foremost is Tail of the Yak, David Sedaris’ favorite shop in Berkeley, which has several live birds in cages. There’s also a very cool Ohlone art gallery, some famous bookstores, and usually way too many kids. While you’re here, grab a chocolate sample from Casa de Chocolates and find the weirdest ice cream flavor at Humphrey Slocombe (my favorite so far is candy cap mushroom brownie). Also check out the indie comic book store and Star Grocery on Claremont Avenue. Fly a kite at Caesar Chavez Park Allow a Monitor Lizard to Inspect your Soul at the East Bay Vivarium And while you’re there, explore 4th street. Try a new Fruit at Berkeley Bowl I love their pomelos. Quinces boiled in sugar and cinnamon are also excellent, and, if you haven’t ever tried cactus fruit, consider a prickly pear. Or a buddha’s hand. Don’t get cherimoya fruit though—I accidentally dropped $11 on a single one the other week, not realizing exactly what I was getting into. I exchanged it for a bag of roasted peanuts and an $8 return. They also have an impressive selection of roots that I can’t even begin to appreciate (though I did once try their Taiwanese burdock just because it was so absurdly long), and their quick-sell rack has produce for less than $1. If it’s the right time of year you can also find Turkish delight. Contemplate the Economics of BioFuel Oasis One of the Bay Area’s fabled biodiesel stations, located on Ashby west of campus. My professor had a story about a guy who would drive here all the way from Menlo Park, and use up half of the gas he bought each time just driving there and back. Crash an End-of-Year Barbecue at Bowles I don’t think their parties are exclusive? I’ve never asked. It’s a tradition though, and they’d probably be happy to have you. Or even better: Attend Dinner at Cloyne Court. Sign Your Soul Over to the BSC. And Then Escape. Green Day, No Doubt, and Elliott Smith all played here, back when the punk scene in Berkeley was alive and well, and back when Cloyne wasn’t substance-free. This repurposed hotel, which I have written about many times before, was designed by John Galen Howard (the guy who designed the Campanile and many other buildings on campus--note the resemblance to North Gate Hall!) and named for Cloyne, Ireland, the town from which Bishop George Berkeley (!!!) hailed. They have a sauna and ghost stories and some of the strangest culture you’ll find anywhere in Berkeley. Read literally anything that I wrote in Spring 2020 because there’s no way I can even begin to scratch the history of the building here. Witness 4/20 on Memorial Glade Whatever your relationship with weed, it’s a sight to behold. I was on Bechtel Terrace, attending English 165, on 4/20/20 at 4:20. I observed that a national pandemic didn’t stop them. The year prior, Cal Day would have fallen on 4/20, but there was no way they’d let parents onto campus that day so they changed it back to 4/13. Peruse the film archive at the BAMPFA This is another opportunity that woefully few students take advantage of. They have both rotating and stationary exhibits, and at the start of each school year they give out free pizza and posters. Visiting the library is fun regardless of how much you know about film (for instance, who isn’t interested in at least the \idea* of Soviet animation), and you can also go to artsy film screenings put on by the BAMPFA student committee.* Watch the moon rise over the Berkeley Hills Sunrises are overrated, and our view is blocked by the hills anyway. Moonrises are, in my opinion, just as beautiful, though they’re much more difficult to catch because the moon 1) goes through phrases and 2) rises an hour later each night, so it takes a lot of planning to catch it. On the right night, the tendrils of clouds in the hills will appear to catch fire, and it’s surreal to see an orb appear to melt in reverse, warped by the shape of the hills. To catch the moon rising, look up the day’s moonrise, and expect to see it rise above IHouse. When you’re further from the hills, it will appear to rise sooner (because the hills will be comparatively closer to the horizon)--at the Berkeley Marina for instance, a 7:22 moonrise might actually occur around 7:30. If you’re trying to catch it across from Kroeber, expect to have to wait 40 more minutes. Buy something you didn’t need at the Berkeley Flea Market, or any one of the farmer’s markets You’ve probably stumbled into one of these by accident at least once. There’s a craft fair on Telegraph most weekends in December, a permanent flea market on Ashby each Saturday, and three farmers markets scattered across Berkeley throughout the week. At the very least, try some cheese samples. Spend a memorable Halloween or Valentine’s Day participating in the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the UC Theater If you’re looking for a more mellow event, go to a concert at Cornerstone. I saw Summer Salt, Motel Radio, and Kid Bloom for $15 total. This is one of my favorite Berkeley venues. Befriend a cat a Sleepy Cat Books They only want to be your friend. The owner is also really nice. And look for the rest of Berkeley’s indie bookstores: • Revolution Books You might have seen their iconic corner signs on Telegraph. Here, the counterculture is alive and well. • Moe’s If you’re looking for other locations featured in The Graduate, there’s also Sproul, Theta Delta Chi, and that boarding house on Dana and Channing • Pegasus • Mrs. Dalloway’s • Half-Price Books • Eastwind Books Stop into a store you’ve never visited on Shattuck or Telegraph At the least, every Berkeley resident should be able to say they’ve set foot inside of Amoeba or Games of Berkeley. J-town is good for snacks. If you’re closer to Northside, Victory Point Cafe is an acceptable substitution. Weird Berkeley History and Rabbit Holes To Explore & Visit Because of the nature of rabbit holes, I’m going to keep this section light so that you can discover each story for yourself. What Was Formerly Barrington Hall Okay the stories about this place are WILD. Barrington (located near the Academy of Psychic Studies) used to be one of the houses in the Berkeley Student Cooperative. Steve Wozniak was a resident. Among other things, it was significant to the Berkeley punk rock scene, and maybe the heart of Berkeley counter culture itself. The cooperative was notorious for its non-stop partying and general lack of personal accountability (it was hard to say who was and wasn’t a resident) and eventually was shut down. There are stories of a python that escaped in the house, the “Hell Summer” that ensued when the BSC tried to crack down on the cooperative, and it birthed my favorite quote, “the poetry reading is out of control,” uttered by a police officer as Barrington residents took their last stand against eviction. Here’s where I’d begin, though as with all good research, the real facts are in the footnotes. Also be sure to read the response. It’s hard to say how things really were, since Barrington is often used as a scapegoat for counter-culture itself, but we can be certain that it was a wild ride. Some of its legacy lives on in Casa Zimbabwe (and for a while, in Cloyne, although since the university owns the building they were able to crack down on the drug culture and it’s now substance and punk rock-free) and at 924 Gilman. 2603 Benvenue #4, or, more famously, the apartment from which Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army This is a private residence, so if you visit please just glance at it before moving on. I make an annual pilgrimage here while listening to American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin. I think a lot of my generation is unfamiliar with the story (I only came across it while listening to an interview with Terry Gross), but it was one of the most high-profile kidnappings in California history. To begin, I recommend the aforementioned book--it’s good audio for walking around Berkeley, though I think that Tobin held a certain amount of disdain for his subject--or even just Wikipedia. There’s a lot to dig into. Unabomber’s Cottage (2628-A Regent Street) He only taught here for two uneventful years, but somehow he’s inextricable from the Berkeley Identity. You can find your own way to this rabbit hole. While you can’t walk up to the cottage itself, you can catch a glimpse of it behind a gate. I’m unsure of whether they ever let strangers visit. Or if you’re looking for something wholesome, this Cal student’s blog from 1999 This is truly a gem. This student wrote about his insecurities and friendships candidly. As a student who also writes, it’s so fun and strange to see many of my own thoughts written out two decades before I ever thought them. His photos are also excellent--there are a few shots of parts of campus that don’t exist anymore. Aashna and I did some sleuthing and found his LinkedIn profile today, and it seems that he’s accomplished all of his dreams and more. In a time of uncertainty--both in my life and in my country’s history--it really meant a lot that I was able to read his story and see that things turned out alright for him. Trips By Bus El Cerrito--Sunset View Mortuary Find the oldest headstone. Spend 20 minutes at the Mausoleum at the top of the hill--inside it’s spacious and light-filled--and see how much you can learn about local history just by reading the names and symbols that appear on the memorial plaques. On Sundays they give sermons, and it’s haunting to hear the words echoing through the halls. You don’t need to listen closely. Oakland—Mountain View Cemetery This was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead--the same guy responsible for Central Park and, unfortunately, the Stanford University campus. Ghirardelli was buried here! Unfortunately the Cemetery itself is closed to the public, and I have some… mixed feelings about that, but the Mausoleum is open and it’s worth the trip. It’s a Julia Morgan building (she was buried behind it, and so was Bernard Maybeck) and I can’t believe that some of the rooms are indoors--they’re filled with plants and mosaics and water installations. It’s gothic, but it’s also uniquely Californian. Albany—Albany Bulb This is one of my favorite trips I’ve ever taken--I’ve been thrice now. This former landfill was home to an art community for several decades. You can still go visit their installations if you’re willing to do a little bit of exploration. There’s a labyrinth, dragons made of driftwood, and giant sculptures made of twisted metal. It’s a quiet place. Definitely read up on its history before you go. Albany—TEPCO Beach This Albany beach is littered with porcelain. It was the former dumping ground for a ceramics company. When I went I was only able to find four different colors of porcelain (the periwinkle is beautiful), not including algae-stained shards and sea glass, but maybe you can do better? The shards with the Tepco logo printed on them are highly collectible. Oakland—Lake Merritt Surrounded by interesting things on all sides. There’s a bonsai garden, tropical garden, community garden, and creepy Children’s Playland. Oakland—Phap Duyen Tu This place has one of the most interesting origins of any of the sites I’m mentioning here. Some guy was tired of neighbors dumping trash on his cul de sac, so he put out a statue of Buddha hoping it would commend some respect for his corner. While he himself was non-religious, the local Buddhist community adopted the statue and gradually began building a shrine around it. What started out as weekly offerings slowly became more elaborate, and today the shrine draws worshippers every morning. Oakland—Jack London Square I’d sometimes find myself here after shows at the Fox Theater. There are lots of great plaques to read, if you’re into that. There’s also a fantastic Thai restaurant--at the least, try one of their desserts--a replica of Jack London’s Alaskan cabin, and plenty of quiet docks to watch the water from. Scenic Walks Codornices back trails Find the fence covered in paintings on the northern end of the park. There’s also a beautiful glade of wild onion flowers that gets trampled every year by seniors taking photos, don’t be like them. Ohlone Park & Berkeley Greenway; bike it to Solano or Richmond You’ll pass community gardens, dog parks, and street art. Albany Hill Mark’s Yard Art Blake Gardens Orchard Lane Berkeley Poetry Garden Ginsburg was here. Kerouac too. Maybe you someday. Probably not. Big C & fire trails. If you’re lucky, you might encounter some goats in the hills. Wander the neighborhoods of North Berkeley I usually start on Euclid to the Rose Walk (which was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps) and from there take as many staircases as possible. There’s a Monastery with a fantastic view of the Bay if you can find it, and Grizzly Peak Blvd, not to be confused with Grizzly Peak Overlook, is one of my favorite places to catch the sunset. If earthquakes and finances weren’t an issue, would you live here? Berkeley Rock Parks I like grabbing a chicken sandwich and potato puffs from Gregoire’s before embarking on a journey to any one of these: Live Oak Park (good for lunch dates since it’s near Gourmet Ghetto) Indian Rock The vastly underrated Mortar Rock Park Grotto Rock Cragmont Rock (good for rappelling if you have the equipment) Remillard Great Stoneface Park (explore Thousand Oaks--look for the urns designating the turn-of-the-century boundaries, as well as the indentations in the rock where Ohlone people would grind acorns) & all of the natural boulders worked into the neighborhood nearby John Hinkel Park (sometimes an outdoor music venue; pretty, ivy-covered walkways. I’d call it romantic.) submitted by /u/dvoraak to r/berkeley [link] [comments]

Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/50124 Hey Guardians, As some of you know, I didn’t work on Destiny before it shipped in 2014. I started out as a Guardian. I got hooked on running the Vault of Glass, trying to get my Truth drop in a Nightfall, and, yes, sometimes trolling my fireteam with inopportune Ward of Dawn placements. After playing for just a few short weeks, I knew I wanted to do whatever it took to work on the game. Destiny changed my life. Back then, I knew Bungie had just begun the journey of what Destiny could be – and what it could mean – to so many Guardians like me. When I walked through the doors of Bungie for the first time, The Dark Below had just shipped and the team already had their eyes up, outlining ambitious plans for the future. It was clear that everyone at Bungie loved Destiny fiercely and believed in its future as much as I did. Flash forward to today. Season of the Chosen has launched, and it's incredible to see how far the game has come. Right now my Guardian is crushing Battlegrounds, perfecting a new build for Master Lost Sectors, gilding titles, progressing Seasonal Challenges, working on catalysts for some of the most unique Exotic weapons we’ve ever added to the game, and experiencing more Seasonal narrative progression in Destiny than ever before. It’s humbling to think how much of these systems and this content didn’t exist two years ago, last year, or even last month. Though going to work these days includes video calls, guest pets and kids, what continues to humble and motivate me since my first day is how this team still looks at Destiny with fresh eyes every day. We see possibility in Destiny at all levels on the team and working on this game has really become life-changing for many of us. Destiny, this friendship-maker-and-sometimes-temporary-friendship-breaker; this catalyst to make memories; this universe that we all love. We’re lucky to be here and share these moments with you. Destiny has so much to offer to so many different types of players, and even more than that, it means something different to each player. It’s complex, intricate, and demanding, and that makes it an awesome challenge to work on. As massive as Destiny is, we believe there is so much more potential to unlock in this amazing game, stories to finish and new stories to come, and that will keep driving us to make it better every week, every season, every year. The Witch Queen, Lightfall, and Beyond Last summer, we outlined our ambition for the next era in Destiny 2 by announcing the full arc, starting with Beyond Light, followed by the Witch Queen and Lightfall. As we began to scale production on the Witch Queen last year, we made the difficult but important decision to move its release to early 2022; we also realized we needed to add an additional unannounced chapter after Lightfall to fully complete our first saga of Destiny. We’ve long thought about moving Destiny’s annual release to the early half of the year primarily for the health of the team, but the Witch Queen and not being tied to legacy expectations allowed us to make this choice early for three important reasons: The Witch Queen represents an important evolution in the ongoing story of Destiny 2. Beyond Light built the foundation and allowed us to weave the world-building of Destiny and Destiny 2 together, but The Witch Queen will light the fire on a strongly interconnected narrative across Lightfall and beyond, unlike anything we’ve ever attempted before, with characters, arcs, heroes and villains that persist over multiple future releases. Even more importantly, the conclusion of these releases will also conclude the “Light and Darkness Saga,” the conflict we first introduced with the launch of Destiny many years ago. As we’ve been developing The Witch Queen, we realized that we needed this release to be the first of many moments crucial to the story of Destiny. With so much leading to and dependent on what happens in The Witch Queen, we wanted to make sure that we gave ourselves enough time to build out this journey in the right way, starting with an exceptional first chapter in The Witch Queen. With Destiny now committed to being an everlasting evolving world, we want to make sure we are still taking the time to upgrade the systemic foundation of Destiny 2 to support everything we want to do in the future. Our ultimate vision for Destiny 2 still stands – a definitive action-MMO, a unified global community where you can play Destiny anywhere with your friends. For 2021 this means upgrading our approach to keeping Destiny’s weapon and armor game fresh, refining our vision for PVP, implementing transmog, and adding Crossplay. More below. Finally, and the most important reason, we are proud to be uncompromising when it comes to our commitment to the health of our teams. With COVID-19 keeping us away from the office, and the large amount of work on our plates, we needed to move the date in order to make sure that both this year's updates and The Witch Queen were both delivered at the quality we strive for, and on a schedule that made sense for everyone involved. Making this choice is not one we took lightly. Believe me, as someone close to The Witch Queen’s progress, there's no one more than us that wants to get it out as soon as it’s ready. But at the end of the day, we know we’re making this call for The Witch Queen and future chapters in Destiny 2 for all the right reasons, ones that puts our team first and our game at the quality bar we strive for ourselves. We'll have more to share on The Witch Queen and beyond in the late summer of this year. But today we need to talk about what’s happening in 2021. Let’s get to it. Rewards That Matter With Season 11, we introduced infusion caps, an iteration on infusion designed to keep Destiny’s gear game fresh from release to release and to create a healthy ecosystem for our aspirational content. While we still believe in these goals, it's clear our execution was off the mark. Infusion caps helped us meaningfully shift the meta in Beyond Light and create a rewards ecosystem that was manageable to balance and monitor, but the system has also made our rewards feel like they have an expiration date and have frequently made playing our legacy content feel shallow. We want the rewards you’ve earned in Beyond Light and its subsequent seasons to feel like valuable tools you can use in the incredible challenges you’ll face in The Witch Queen. So, we’re making a change. We’ve made the decision that any weapon or armor that can currently be infused to max Power will continue to be able to reach max Power permanently. Starting in Season 14 we won’t be capping the infusion on any weapons or armor that have not already reached the cap as of the start of Season 13. This means you’ll be able to take your Trustee, your Falling Guillotine, and all the high-stat armor you’ve earned this year to take on the raid in The Witch Queen. While we still strongly believe that Destiny needs a method to shift our meta in the game’s most challenging activities, we don’t believe that infusion caps are the right answer. We’re taking time this year to research and validate a plan that creates a fresh and balanceable ecosystem for our most aspirational content, one that doesn’t make our rewards feel like they have an expiration date. We’ve learned a lot this year and don’t want to rush finding the best plan, so don’t expect to hear anything more about this until after The Witch Queen. Because we won’t be capping any more of our weapons, we must consider more variables in the game balance of our upcoming seasons and releases, so expect to see tuning when it comes to our biggest outliers in PVP and PVE. Yes, I’m looking at you, Felwinter’s and Warmind Cells. This is a big change for Destiny and one that we did not make lightly. However, we believe there’s nothing more important in Destiny than getting our rewards right. Power Play Now that we’ve talked about rewards, let's talk about Power. Last year we started a paradigm where we raised the overall Power cap by 50 each season. While this helped ensure that infusion caps shifted the meta, it also made each season feel like a significant reset to the Power you had accumulated. To combat this, we will be experimenting with a new Power level cap. Starting in Season 14, we will only be raising the Power cap by 10 for each non-expansion season. This means if you reach the maximum Power in Season 13, when next season rolls around you will be directly in the 10-point Pinnacle band of the Power pursuit. This Power increase should feel familiar to anyone who played Season of Dawn last year, and we’re excited to see how this progression feels alongside our new systems. We believe this change will make it even easier to pick up and enjoy Destiny each season, while still allowing us to have a deep RPG Power pursuit when we launch The Witch Queen. Angels of Death Like many of you, I am passionate about PVP in Destiny 2 and it’s clear that we haven’t had a consistent message around these modes. So, I’d like to share our high-level vision for the Crucible: Direct player versus player competition is essential in Destiny as an option to express mastery of your Guardian and showcase the strength of your arsenal against other players. It’s a simple vision, but it's one that’s crucial to making the game feel like a real place for those players that crave that showcase, where the rewards you’ve earned, the skill you demonstrate, and how you’ve built your Guardian all matter. So, let’s talk about what we’re doing this year for PVP, starting with our two priorities: improving gameplay sandbox balance in the Crucible and upgrading the experiences of our most aspirational game modes. When it comes to balance updates, these can be divided into three major buckets. First, in Season 15 we will be addressing “three-peeking” in Trials and Competitive. In these modes, emotes will be disabled and players will be unable to pull out any third person weapon that doesn't have ammo. Third person experiences are part of what make Destiny’s gameplay feel so good, but it was clear in our most competitive arenas that these mechanics were being used in ways we did not intend. This is a tricky problem to solve in Destiny's complicated sandbox, but we think this is a good starting point. Second, over the next several seasons, we will be making changes to Stasis and Light subclasses in order to achieve a healthier balance of subclasses in the Crucible. Across Season 13 and 14 we will be adjusting Stasis in the Crucible in order to bring its overall effectiveness in line with our Light subclasses. Here are some of the changes you can expect coming to updates this Season and next: Behemoth Titan: Decrease Super damage reduction. Increase Super energy cost when performing light attacks. Remove freeze AOE on Super cast. Reduce travelling efficacy of Shiver Strike when slowed.Revenant Hunter: Decrease Withering Blade damage and tracking. Decrease slow stacks applied to targets. Remove Shatterdive damage reduction. Shadebinder Warlock: Fix bug where Iceflare Bolts wouldn’t track towards targets immediately on creation. Fix bug where Shadebinder Super projectiles were not tracking until a certain distance travelled. General: Decrease crystal shatter damage. For Season 15 we are also looking at universal adjustments to Stasis by increasing damage reduction when frozen to provide more survivability for the victim. Following this Stasis tuning, in Season 15, we will also focus on Light subclasses and release a set of targeted buffs to our most underutilized specializations. The goal of all these changes is to keep Stasis feeling great in PVE and to bring its representation in PVP more in line with our Light-based abilities. Finally, we want to continue to adjust weapon archetype performance and introduce new perks that shift the meta in the Crucible. I think the team has done a great job in this area over the last several months, introducing balance changes both at the seasonal boundaries and at the mid-season, and we want to continue to drive down this path to diversify the types of loadouts you encounter from season to season. In addition, at Season 15 we will also be looking to adjust overall ability usage rates to make sure guns and gunplay are always key to success in the Crucible. Of course, gameplay balance only matters when the underlying playing field is fair, and unfortunately cheating continues to be a significant issue, especially on PC. We’re always working to maintain security as new exploits emerge, and as always, we don't want to talk about a lot of those improvements for fear of empowering the bad guys. A few areas we can talk about are: We’re aiming to nearly double the size of the Bungie game security team this year, reflecting our long-term commitment to fair play. We’ve begun regular surveys to better understand your experiences with cheating and to measure our progress. This new data enriches our existing streams from player reports (thank you for reporting!) and game instrumentation. If you receive one of these surveys, please share your experiences to help us fight cheating. We’ve begun a strategy of aggressive legal action against cheat developers. You may have seen news articles about some of our early actions here, and we will continue to pursue those who undermine fair play using every tool at our disposal, both in partnerships with other studios and under our own flag. We’ll share more security news when we can. Beyond gameplay balance and security, we also want to adjust the structures of our most aspirational PVP modes in order to make them a better experience for our players. First up, we’re targeting an overhaul of the Trials of Osiris rewards structure and matchmaking paradigms, to release before the end of this year. With this update we specifically want to target a few things: Improve the overall health of the Trials matchmaking pool, both by incentivizing a wider audience to engage, and better defining separation of skill tiers. Rebuild the Trials reward structure so that it encourages more players to stick to their active cards longer. Our current structure encourages a lot of recycling cards after a single loss, meaning the first games of your Trials card has a high chance of being incredibly challenging. We want to build a reward structure that continually pushes higher skill players to want to progress deeper into their card even after a loss, making 3-5 wins a more achievable goal for more players. Investigate opportunities for solo players to participate in Trials regularly. We believe this will not only make the matchmaking pools healthier, but also will also encourage more players to see what Trials is all about and hopefully form social connections with other PVP-loving Guardians. After Trials, we will be targeting a similar in scope refresh to Iron Banner. While there is a lot do when it comes to supporting the Crucible, we want to target our efforts around global PVP balance and our most aspirational modes first. Praedyth’s Revenge In Season 14, the Vault of Glass will return. The team will have a lot more to say about it before launch, but there are a few things I’d like to clarify now. Our philosophy behind bringing things out of the Destiny Content Vault is to keep them feeling like the content you remember while updating them to meet Destiny 2 difficulty and raid standards. So, while the high-level experience remains the same, you should expect the raid team to have a few tricks up their sleeves when you tackle the depths of Venus this summer. Vault of Glass will also launch with both a Contest mode in the first 24 hours and a World First race. Since this is a reprised raid, we’re going to do World First a bit different. Players looking to claim the belt will not only have to complete the raid, but also a curated list of challenging Triumphs. And while only one fireteam will walk away with a belt, there will be plenty of opportunities for players to earn the ability to purchase some sweet real-world loot through Bungie Rewards. Image Linkimgur One last thing. Before the end of the year we are also looking to add a Master version of Vault of Glass. We’ve been really excited about how Master and Grandmaster difficulty have altered Nightfall strikes, increasing the potency of combat and the importance of executing mechanics. We’d like all our future RAD (raid and dungeon) content to offer Master difficulty versions, where players can earn Adept raid and dungeon gear, and while we aren’t able to commit to a Season 14 timeframe for Master VoG, we do want to take the time to develop a sustainable structure that allows us to ship these closer together in future releases. Getting Reacquainted with Adelaide In Season 14, Ada-1 is returning to the Tower, and with her comes the ability for players to take any armor they have in their collections and turn it into a universal ornament. In Destiny 2 we will call this transmog system “Armor Synthesis.” Every season Ada will offer players a set of bounties that highlight various activity types. Players can complete these quests and receive the materials they need to power up Ada’s Loom, which can turn any piece of armor in your collection into a permanent universal ornament. Players short on time will also be able to purchase Synthesis tokens for Silver. Once you’ve acquired some new universal ornaments, you will want to head over to the new appearance screen in the character menu, where you can manage the ornaments on all your gear in one place. You’ll also find that you can apply shaders here individually or on all pieces of your equipped gear with one click. To make it even easier to try out a bunch of new looks in Season 14 we’ve also changed shaders to be permanent unlocks, meaning you no longer will need to hold onto stacks of shaders in your inventory. At the beginning of Season 14 we will be including a starting supply of Synthesis materials as reward for completing the Seasonal onboarding quest. We know many of you have been looking forward to Synthesis for a long time and want to frontload your ability to create some of the looks you’ve been looking forward to showing off. Image Linkimgur Combined Fire We’ve still got a few quick things to cover, but I wanted to make sure we didn’t end without taking the time to recognize how incredible the team is here at Bungie. It's enormously difficult to make a game like this from home, but the team comes at it every day with unmatched enthusiasm and talent. One of the reasons why is that our team is full of Guardians: conquerors, Lighthouse frequent-flyers, lore masters, and people that just love to get in a strike or two with their family. All the work they do is because they believe that Destiny 2 can be the definitive action MMO on consoles and PC for years to come. So, without spoiling our plans for The Witch Queen and beyond, let's talk about a few more things the team is working on this year. Crossplay is coming to the masses in Season 15. We’ll be doing some internal rollouts and alpha tests in Season 14 to prepare for a widespread launch this fall. With Crossplay, you’ll be able to play with all your friends no matter what platform you call home. And don’t worry, we won’t be matching console and PC players together in the Crucible unless PC players specifically invite their console friends to play with them in the PC Crucible pools. Some of you have noticed that Ikora Rey has not been nearly as present recently in Destiny 2. We've missed her as well. Not only will you see Ikora again in Season 14, she will be playing a pivotal role in The Witch Queen. In Beyond Light, we introduced Stasis subclasses. Like Solar, Arc, and Void, Stasis will continue to evolve into a fully supported damage type. In Season 15, we will introduce our first round of Legendary Stasis Energy and Power weapons. There will be a lot more info here as we get closer to the fall. More recently in Season 13, we rolled out phase one of our new gilded title system, where players can gild our ritual titles like Conqueror, Unbroken, Dredgen, and Flawless each season. In Season 14, phase two of gilding titles will roll out. When players gild a title, it will now also display how many times that title has been gilded in the past. Image Linkimgur I can’t overstate how excited I am for what the team has planned for this year and beyond. What we're doing this year is about multiplying our potential for years to come, and while I promised not to spoil any of the things we will reveal for The Witch Queen later this year, I feel like I owe you a little treat for sticking with me after all this text. So, here’s an early concept at one of the wild armor sets you’ll be able to earn in our next annual release. Image Linkimgur Thanks for reading, Joe “Joegoroth” Blackburn Assistant Game Director Destiny 2 submitted by /u/DTG_Bot to r/DestinyTheGame [link] [comments]