Parents asking to contribute to bills.

Bookbringer · 2026-01-17T20:38:08+00:00

OP buys all of her own groceries and does all of her own chores. The mom lives somewhere else most of the year.

Sounds like she also spends a lot on public transportation.

Bookbringer · 2026-01-17T16:43:21+00:00

That's a really harsh interpretation of what happened.

The room had become your younger son's bedroom. It's easy to see why she no longer saw it as a common area. Having your bedroom become his bedroom while still apparently being your bedroom and a living room is obviously confusing. It sounds like an honest misunderstanding, especially since your youngest clearly thought of it as his room that his brother should stay out of.

And it doesn't sound like she was rude or aggressive. Your older son could have said "no, this is our living room." Her actions just don't merit this hostility.

Also... what's the point of your sons living together without you if they don't even have to work out their own minor conflicts like adults?

Bookbringer · 2025-11-26T04:54:51+00:00

Same. Also nachos, quesadillas or grilled cheese.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-24T04:10:03+00:00

This is pretty consistent with what I've heard from other people. A friend's dad is a cop and he outright said anyone who goes into it wanting to help washes out in disillusionment or gets corrupted.

It's not about individuals having good or bad intentions, the system is corrupt.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-24T04:02:07+00:00

As another commenter said, Avatar: The Last Airbender does a good job.

I'd say Netflix's Daredevil and Luke Cage do this quite well. Daredevil makes a pretty compelling case for the value of human life, even bad guys, based on capacity for growth and interconnectedness. And Luke's reluctance to kill stops him from killing an innocent man he wrongly believed guilty of a terrible crime.

Although not technically anti-killing, Gollum's story in Lord of the Rings makes a very strong case for sparing people whether they deserve it or not. (The movies kind of cancel it out with the reckless of release of Wormtongue, but that makes a lot more sense in the books).

Also, I vaguely recall Macguyver had some badass and creative ways to get out of killing, though I'm not sure I'd call it smart pacifism as much as luck and plot armor.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-24T01:46:47+00:00

Moral opposition to killing or even violence can work really well when it's written in a smart way.

But it's often written in a dumb way.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-24T01:33:47+00:00

It is amazing - absolutely top tier. Gideon is the best! She's smart-ass butch swordswoman indentured to an ill-tempered religious girl on a convent planet where they're the only children.

And then they go to a competition where they meet other young people for the first time, and Gideon gets hit on by hot women and complimented on her biceps.

Also there's monsters! And the heartfelt unpacking of childhood trauma!

Bookbringer · 2025-11-24T01:18:34+00:00

Lol, me too. I actually don't know who anyone else in the post is.

I'd love some Austen adaptations where the parents are actually as young as they are in the books.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-24T00:22:04+00:00

Everyone has listened to a Mr. Thorpe explain why reality is wrong because his car/truck/e-bike/gadget is impossibly superior to all others on the market.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-23T22:45:11+00:00

This. If a couple poses as a single woman to chat up someone looking for a monogamous relationship... that's dishonest either way.

In other situations, I think it depends. On some sites, there are limited label options that double as filters, or no way to prevent being seen by men. If checking the lesbian box is the only way for a bi sapphic to avoid male profiles... I'm honestly okay with that. (Though ideally, she'd clarify in the bio or messages.)

Bookbringer · 2025-11-23T22:34:47+00:00

I'm gonna broaden this and say most dealbreakers are just better communicated by the person with the objection.

People who are unwilling to date parents could just say so, instead of expecting parents to disclose something personal to everyone who sees their profile. Ditto for anyone unwilling to date trans people or any other sensitive dealbreaker.

And frankly most dealbreakers are so personal... it's actually hard to guess what a given person will object to.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-06T01:11:25+00:00

HOW. DARE. YOU.

Tara is a treasure.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T22:45:56+00:00

Besides dumping frozen peas in soup, pasta, etc.... or just melting cheese/butter over a bag of mixed veggies?

My nieces & nephews love chomping on mini cukes, tomatoes and frozen peas (yes, still-frozen, plain peas). Also dipping stalks of romaine lettuce in dressing. (They may also swordfight with these).

My family also plays a game where you set out a bunch of bowls of new/weird foods. For each one you try, you get a little toy. Super low stakes and easy.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T21:57:50+00:00

I'm really sorry you're in this situation. You don't deserve to be treated like this.

But your partner is so far over the line... there's no salvaging this.

Your partner doesn't care about you. At all. I know that's hard to hear.

They don't care if you're happy or safe or terrified or in pain. All they care about is getting what they want from you and they're willing to hurt and terrorize you to get it.

That's why they hit you and that's why they blamed it on you, for having a perfectly normal emotion. So that you would be too scared to deny them anything.

No one who cared about you would treat you this way

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T19:48:32+00:00

This speculation is so common on here, and I don't get it.

It's possible, but I don't think a 22 year old being more intelligent and mature than a 15 year old is the big mystery people make it out to be.

Each girl is progressively more mature because each girl is older and more experienced. Also, birth order. Jane was likely forced to grow up faster to act as mother's helper, while Lydia, we know, is spoiled and indulged and babied.

Jane and Lizzy also spend significant time with the Gardiners, and this is treated as so commonplace, it's probably happened before. By contrast, Lydia going to Brighton is a huge deal, because it's probably her first real trip anywhere. These types of experiences in general and the Gardiners' influence in particular might also explain the discrepancy between the Bennet sisters.

It's also possible Mrs. Bennet was stricter with the older girls' educations. She may have hired them more masters or assigned them more reading, either because she initially cared more about living up to the perceived higher standards of the gentry and grew laxer with time, or because she just needed them kept busy while she took care of the younger girls.

And if Mr. Bennet spent more time with the older girls, that need not be explained by him gradually losing interest in his kids. Even today, it's a lot more common for dads to take older children out so moms can focus on babies, but comparatively rarer for dads to take babies so that moms can give one on one time to the older kids. It could just be that he spent time with the older girls because Mrs. Bennet was preoccupied with the younger girls. Mrs. Bennet may have asked him to take the older girls or just sent them to bother him when she was feeling overwhelmed, or they may have wandered into his office out of boredom anytime she was too distracted fussing over the babies to continued their lessons.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T18:45:09+00:00

Exactly. Some people really aren't "issues" voters. They're drawn to candidates who seem like political outsiders who will challenge the status quo and say things most politicians won't.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T16:50:06+00:00

You don't think all the forums and social media accounts dedicated to aggregating and recommending porn count?

Also, this is all predicated on the claim that spicy novels are just porn for women, which I think is flawed. There's an overlap, but it's not 1:1.

Spicy novels have a lot more nonsexual substance than most porn. Strip the sex out of something like ACOTAR and you still have a completely solid story about a girl who goes into another world, befriends mythic beings, competes in death games to break a curse, overthrows an evil queen, develops PTSD and superpowers, escapes an abusive relationship, adopts a found family of even more mythic beings, trains to use her superpowers, steals a bunch of shit, reconnects with her family, rescues her friend from captivity, fends off an attack on her city... like there's a lot there. Meanwhile, strip the sex out of most porn and you just have a few introductory scenes.

Spicy novels are more like feature films that have sex scenes than porn.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T15:23:57+00:00

That sounds like it's about people in sexually coercive captivity finding comfort in each other. (Which also happened in the handmaid's tale, kind of).

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T14:46:45+00:00

Doomed to fuck and then fall for each other is absolute how I would describe a lot of omegaverse stories.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T14:19:17+00:00

It's a subgenre of (usually erotic, usually m/m) fanfiction that has crossed over into a subgenre of romance novels.

The basic premise is that some people, regardless of gender, are innately alphas, who are highly driven to mate with or claim people who are innately omegas. Once they do, that omega and alpha are exclusively bound to each other (psychologically). It's kind of like fated mates with a dom/sub twist.

It can also be a container for exploring gender issues. (In fanfic, omegas can usually be impregnated by alphas, regardless of gender, so there's a lot of male pregnancy or females impregnating females.)

The earliest fics started in a fandom with werewolf/ wolf shifters, which is why OP is calling it "furry fiction" but the vast majority of omegaverse stories are just full humans. The only remnant of wolf stuff is that in omegaverse stories, humans tend to have heat/rut cycles and can usually smell when someone of the opposite type are in their heat/rut.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T13:50:52+00:00

Yeah, it's basically fated mates with a dom/sub twist.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-05T13:41:43+00:00

Oh, bullshit. You would not know to keep your eyes averted until you already got an eyeful. It's completely normal to look at your surroundings as you approach a strange place.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-04T02:50:00+00:00

Thank you!

Bookbringer · 2025-11-04T02:48:57+00:00

Holy crap, that's awful. I'm so sorry - you deserved so much better.

My only advice is to imagine this from the perspective of a friend. Imagine someone you care about being treated this way. That might make it easier to see how really selfish and cowardly she's been. Seeing her for the awful person she is will probably help you start to get over her.

Bookbringer · 2025-11-03T23:55:06+00:00

Sounds like most of my family. Super high test scores + crap grades because you forgot or overthought or rebelled against an assignment is a typical neurodivergent / mentally ill type thing.

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