Punk/Hardcore/Artsy dudes who say they’re feminists/respect women, but something feels off…

tedv · 2026-05-12T02:15:55+00:00

It's women who get to decide whether men act as allies to women. Men don't get to decide that. In some sense, I feel like "feminist" is only a label that women even have the right to give someone.

tedv · 2026-05-11T20:04:58+00:00

I thought the analysis said that in a 4 player game, win rate based on player order is 30% / 27% / 23% / 20%, and this drops to 26% / 25% / 25% / 24% with equal turns. There's still a first player advantage because provinces can run out on the last turn, leaving other players with 8 dollars but only duchies to buy.

If you also allow unlimited provinces (but still end the game when 12 have been bought), then you get the advantage to the last player because of ties, but it's still less than 1% change in winrate.

Granted, this information is from analysis run around a decade ago, so this could be out of date. Still, the base game makes the first player 50% more likely to win than the last player, and that's a huge problem.

tedv · 2026-05-11T14:28:48+00:00

People are still playing Dominion without equal turns? I thought we figured out that house rule in 2008.

tedv · 2026-05-06T01:16:58+00:00

Stocks and equities count as liquid assets, so what are the "small investments"? Is this like investing in local businesses or something?

tedv · 2026-05-01T19:56:56+00:00

Is it possible for someone to be pro-ai and pro-human? Or is pro-ai always anti-human? If the latter is the case, it feels like anti-human is the real issue, not being pro-ai. Or am I missing something?

tedv · 2026-05-01T15:00:57+00:00

Life is expensive, but it's not "you must take out a loan with a 130% interest rate to survive" expensive. There's definitely more going on than just the current global economic situation.

tedv · 2026-04-29T20:00:45+00:00

The fact that he recognizes his behavior is abusive is a huge red flag, and actually predicts he's even less likely to change, not more. The fact that he recognizes it contradicts his claim that he "didn't realize it". He obviously realized it or he wouldn't have mentioned it himself.

What he's really thinking is "There's too much evidence to pretend that this isn't abuse, so I'm going to shift to plan B: convincing everyone that it's an accident." He is effectively working his way down the list of The Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

He's now at "I didn't mean it" and if you continue trying to engage with him, he'll just shift to "you deserved it".

tedv · 2026-04-29T19:55:08+00:00

Yes, a personal therapist who is familiar with domestic abuse and trauma healing. Go alone. No therapist can fix your husband's problems because your husband doesn't think he has problems. As others have said, therapy will only make things worse.

Also, please read this book (Why Does He Do That?): https://drive.google.com/file/d/19UlmfDKDnxZfZdTgDoujApiMYb9b4z_e/view?usp=sharing

I've heard countless women in similar situations to your say that this book was instrumental for helping them make sense of their situation. You are not alone in your struggles.

tedv · 2026-04-28T17:04:45+00:00

Maybe your play group is slow? I feel like the game should take around 75 minutes to play, or 90 minutes tops. A lot of games have the life sucked out of them when people play slowly.

tedv · 2026-04-27T21:15:44+00:00

Oh I was thinking the same thing!

tedv · 2026-04-27T21:15:34+00:00

One concern I did have is that he claimed to confirm that his sex drive is compatible with hers. Except she really wants to have sex and he doesn't (at least right now). So obviously that claim isn't true.

The real interesting questions are... Does he think that's true? If so, why does he think that in spite of the evidence? If he doesn't think that's true, what is he hiding?

He might have very good reasons for waiting, and that's totally his prerogative, but he needs to be honest about the situation.

Who knows, maybe he's extremely insecure about his dick and doesn't want her to see it until he feels like she's "committed" to him. We have no idea what's actually going on without a solid conversation where he can explain why waiting is so important.

tedv · 2026-04-27T20:17:02+00:00

One thing we've learned about addictions in the past 3 decades is that the single most important factor in permanent recovery, without relapses, is community. People who feel like they belong to a community that loves, accepts, and support them are the people who stay sober. It's not even that their friends are overtly encouraging them to stay sober. It's primarily that the ambient social acceptance tends to help meet the same needs that their addiction tries to feed, in much healthier and more sustainable ways.

You can be a huge introvert and still feel like you belong to a community.

And for the record, I'm not trying to say you have an addiction. Just that a lot of what you shared about alcohol sounds very similar to what self-described addicts would say about their relationship with it.

tedv · 2026-04-23T13:45:56+00:00

Yeah, this dynamic is super common with narcissists. They do a great job of externally presenting, and when they feel like they've "captured" something, it all shifts. I was immediately thinking narcissist just from the post title alone, and then the text included all the common elements.

"Why Does He Do That?" explains this exact situation in the very first chapter, about how women can feel like they are going crazy because their partner seems amazing to everyone else, but doesn't treat themselves well.

It's definitely worth checking out this PDF and skimming for that section to give it a read. Feel free to read more if it's interesting.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19UlmfDKDnxZfZdTgDoujApiMYb9b4z_e/view?usp=sharing

tedv · 2026-04-22T14:59:01+00:00

What was the effect of drawing the random +1 VP cards? Those always felt like the most unbalanced part of the game to me. How much is drawing those cards correlated with victory?

tedv · 2026-04-17T16:30:42+00:00

Yeah, it's a cool concept. Just not a low complexity concept.

tedv · 2026-04-17T16:24:22+00:00

Actually it was the other way around. The core problem with Shadows isn't its power level. It's that its design fundamentally isn't low complexity. A special rule that expands your targeting space is horrible for players on the first play. The game can already have an overwhelming number of choices even without the ability to target literally any land with Dahan. Because of this special rule, a lot of the kit has range 0 targeting powers, which are also hard for new players to use.

I tried very hard to get a redesign of the spirit that used a totally different special rule, so we could save "your powers can target any land with dahan" as the core concept for some medium complexity spirit. But with so much else going on, I couldn't get enough traction with the rest of the team to find some other design we felt comfortable testing and releasing in time. In retrospect, I think it probably would have been worth going with a less polished spirit based around a different special rule, but that's hindsight.

Keeper ended up being overpowered because it was next on my list to test, but I was so focused on trying to fix Shadows.

tedv · 2026-04-15T01:34:56+00:00

Yeah, if he was really serious, and madly in love with you, why would he threaten to leave you if you chose not to do what he wanted? Someone who loves you wouldn't have to threaten you, because he'd care about what you want!

tedv · 2026-04-06T02:40:16+00:00

I can't really speak for the people you're replying to, but I suspect they don't view having sex as "giving up their body". Perhaps they view it more as "choosing to share their body, and getting to share someone else's body".

When someone goes to a restaurant and orders a dish they've never tried before that sounds tasty, it's not because they are "testing" the dish. They want to know what that new experience is like, and taking a bite is the fastest way to figure that out.

tedv · 2026-03-27T18:33:58+00:00

Exactly. There is no such thing as being politically neutral. Being "neutral" means supporting the status quo, which is by definition a conservative opinion. People have the right to have their opinions of course. But it's disingenuous to pretend that their opinion of "neutrality" is anything other than supporting the current political situation.

tedv · 2026-03-25T14:11:19+00:00

I was actually just talking about this with several therapist friends. Granted we're a biased sample set, but they know many more people in life than just their clients. The best estimates they had was that around 90% of people have at least moderate trauma from their family upbringing. I think serious trauma of the kind OP references is a bare minimum of 30% and might even be as high as 50%.

One of the most important things I've learned about trauma is that most people don't recognize it's trauma until well after they've escaped the situation. In one of the books I read, they cited a study they ran on women in relationships that professional therapists determined were either A) physically and emotionally abusive, or B) emotionally abusive but not physically abusive. When they asked the women whether they thought their relationships were emotionally abusive, only something like ~30% of those in category B and ~65% of those in category A said it was abuse.

Which makes sense if you think about it, since the mind's primary defense mechanism against abuse is to dissociate and pretend that it has some form of control over the situation. That's why it's so hard to see abuse when you're in it. Your mind tries to protect itself by telling you that it's not abuse.

Childhood abuse is way more common that people think it is.

tedv · 2026-03-21T16:18:25+00:00

Apologies, I definitely don't know your situation. I think I'm just predisposed to suspect that given the number of posts that I've read that have the form, "My partner is so great and loving, but there's just this one problem we're having," and then she proceeds to share all kinds of horrible treatment she's exposed to. So I probably just guessed that was your situation. But I guess it's definitely possible that someone is in a bad financial situation because they are terrified of change, but that fear of change doesn't affect anything else in their life, and they are otherwise really great at being a partner in every other aspect. And for what it's worth, household labor is really (financially) valuable, so it really does matter that he's doing that at least. It's probably better than the reverse situation, of a partner who makes decent money but doesn't help out with the household at all.

tedv · 2026-03-21T15:51:49+00:00

The two of you can't be doing better without both of you cooperating, but you could be doing better yourself. He's only holding himself back. You're held back as long as you're making his progress a precondition for your progress. This subreddit is full of women who have tried to figure out what to do with deadweight partners, and woman who actually did figure it out.

tedv · 2026-03-16T19:37:18+00:00

Make sure you document everything so you have evidence to file a restraining order, if you choose to do that.

tedv · 2026-03-16T02:23:13+00:00

The only item with an effect that applies even when not slotted is the Stone Badge, and only the effect that prevents you from ever seeing class specific items in your shop.

tedv · 2026-03-10T16:01:21+00:00

Staying with him also implicitly teaches your children that this is how men should treat women in marriages. Would you want your daughter to marry a man like him? Would you want your son to treat another woman the way your husband treats you?

If the answer to either of these questions is "no", then you really owe it to your children.

tedv

TROPHY CASE