u/asexualrhino

Random thought just occured to me.

If the whole world is affected by a fertility crisis and so many girls are never even getting their period...I bet most people probably aren't using condoms (outside Gilead. Inside Gilead is a different beast). A lot of people use condoms with pregnancy in mind and aren't using it if pregnancy isn't a possibility. And that's in our world now. A world where the chances of getting pregnant are slim to impossible...

Everyone has herpes now 💀

(I don't just mean Gilead, I mean everywhere)

​

This show has a fantastic way of completing evading predictions, but I'm going to throw mine out.

That was definitely not Mayday. It makes 0 sense for so many reasons. I think it was a squad of female Eyes, or a squad of Aunts that are specially trained to handle these types of situations. Either way, not Mayday.

I believe they'll try to cover the murder up in some way. A SA'd daughter murdering her father because the people in charge failed to act doesn't look great. It would be much cleaner if Dr. Grove "committed suicide" and Becka was the one to find his body and had a breakdown and ran off. Or - and the scarier one - they'll pin the blame on someone else. Rosa was not there that night and I'm a little worried about where she was and what that could mean. She has no alibi that we know of. They could claim she's Mayday and killed Grove and that Becka saw it (running to the house were Rosa lives is stupid, but this cover story doesn't need to be perfect. It's easy to blame a Martha).

Once that's adequately burried, they'll try to marry Becka to Garth to get her out of the picture where she could say or do something to refute their story. But she'll end up leaving him at the alter. >!I think that she will become a supplicant at that point!<

In their season 2 announcement, we see June getting a honey jar with a secret message. I believe Mayday will come try to get Daisy because she's messy, but she'll refuse to go with them and stay in Gilead.

We'll also find out who Garth's handler is. The obvious answer is Lydia, but I'm wondering if that's too obvious. She could be helping Mayday but not as a handler. I'm guessing there will be a twist and it will be Vidala. Maybe the extraction mission on the bus was actually supposed to be to retrieve her. That could also be why she was unhappy that Garth was in the running to marry. It gets him out of the Mackenzie house where she wants him. Or a way crazier tinfoil guess - Paula is his handler. There's no way that's true, but I'm throwing it out there. She could be the one to pin it on Rosa which is where the "what did you do?" line comes from. The comment about executing a broken horse is going to come back somewhere. Having someone so awful fighting for the good guys could be fun.

Weston is going to be called away right before Agnes's wedding. I don't see Agnes getting married or >!becoming an aunt!< this season. I think one of those things will happen eventually, but not yet.

I also want Agnes to get a smooch in with Garth. I don't care one way or the other about a romance plot, but I want her to have her first kiss with the person *she* wants to kiss. Give her back some agency.

Penny will die at the end, just in time for poor Shu to get her period. At that point, AL will reveal that Judd has been >!killing his wives!<

The handmaids are supposed to be women who have *proven* that they're fertile by already having healthy children. They're made into handmaids because they've been "saved" for a higher purpose after their sins. Otherwise they would have been killed or sent to the colonies.

Esther had never given birth, had never even been pregnant. She had a period, but that doesn't make her fertile and Gilead knows that.

She should have been sent to the colonies or killed outright, but this show kept her around for plot, and now the rules of the handmaids don't make sense.

Why wasn't Eden turned into a handmaid? Will Becka now be turned into a handmaid? >!They're not following the book, so it's possible she won't become an aunt!<. Also, turning murderers into handmaids seems like a bad call on all accounts. Esther was out here poisoning people and they thought she wouldn't try something as a handmaid?

Does anyone with a period who commits sin automatically become a handmaid now?

I just think it said a bad precedent.

Disclaimer: he has a GI appointment tomorrow and I will bring it up. I'm looking to see if this has happened to other kids and not been part of some bigger issue.

My almost 3 year old son (33 months) hasn't grown in a long time. He was previously always 97/98/99 for height, somewhere between 50-65 for weight. (Bio father is a sperm donor. 6'5, 180lbs. I'm 5'6, 200lbs).

My son has had GI problems pretty much his whole life. Constipation, weird diaper rashes that made multiple doctors scratch their heads, extreme stomach pain that leaves him screaming for hours some nights, bloating even on days he's pooped, etc. He once was so constipated that it shut down his ability to make urine and he didn't pee for 36 hours despite the fact that he had been pooping every day up until then. He was in the ER for 10 hours. That was September 2025. Put a pin in that.

We've done a lot of non-invasive tests trying to rule everything out before moving to the big stuff. Nothing so far. They think he might have Hirschprungs and are going to be doing a biopsy soon.

I'm not horribly worried about his growth yet, but I've definitely taken note of this and have a chart written out for his doctor's appointment tomorrow.

My son basically hasn't grown any appreciable amount since September.

Everyone knows that measurements taken in the clinic are often inaccurate, and his official medical charts reflect that. He'll go in twice in one week and somehow lose 1.5 inches between appointments and then gain 2 inches a week later. It goes up and down like crazy due to inconsistent measuring methods. Weight also does that, but that's to be expected as weight naturally fluctuates with eating, pooping, etc. I generally trust my height measurements more because it's the same person doing it the same way every time.

Basically, he was coming in at 37.5 inches, 29.5 lbs in September when he was 25 months. He's now 33 months and is 38 inches. His weight still fluctuates between about 29.8-31.5 lbs. He's always weighed naked because he gets out of the tub and likes to play on the scale that's in the bathroom (weighed 30.5 a few days ago).

So in 8 months, he's gained half an inch. And not enough weight to make a noticeable difference since he's been fluctuating between the same weights the whole time.

My 99th percentile kid is now at 82.

He's still healthy and active. Same kid as he's always been, just stalled. He's stalled a few times before but only for a few months and then would shoot up. This has gone on for so long now.

Anyway. Like I said, it's not something that's keeping me up at night with anxiety, but it's starting to get ridiculous.

Has anyone else's once large kid dropped like this?

My 2.5 year old has had a lot of sensory, self-control, and social difficulties pretty much his whole life. What he does has evolved over time, but he doesn't like being dirty most of the time and it gets in the way of play/eating sometimes and causes distress. Small sounds like running water and sizzling bacon trip him out, and washing his hair results in massive tantrums that sometimes even have him screaming until he throws up. He's also very rigid in what he's doing and trying to divert him often results in meltdowns and occasionally punching himself in the head. Socially, he plays with his cousins that he sees every day (age 3.5 and 7) but will not play with other kids near his own age or really even acknowledge their existence. He likes babies, much older kids, and adults, but not his own age. You'll find him on the outskirts at every birthday party or hanging out with the adults.

He was screened last week, and did not meet the requirements for That Thing that isn't allowed to be mentioned in this group. That's not surprising to me as there are many other areas of his development that are either average or advanced, and he hit nearly every milestone early.

Regardless, his behavioral health provider can see that, obviously, he needs extra help. I really appreciate that she didn't just say he doesn't have it so he's fine. He's going to be put into occupational therapy to help with the sensory issues. She also is putting him in something called Help Me Grow and specifically wants him to go to these play groups they have that are led by a psychologist. She hopes this will help him with his social skills.

I've never heard of Help Me Grow. I looked it up and it's available in many other states and counties, but there are no reviews for our chapter and I don't know anyone who used it despite knowing a few parents of neurodivergent kids. Has anyone used their local Help Me Grow? Obviously it will be different for every group, but I'm looking for a general sense of what it's like.

Not even for sake of the girls and Mayday, but for *me* lol. We already did the forbidden guardian romance who turned bad. I have no interest in seeing repeat of it. That's boring. That's the second death star of plot twists.

I would much rather see a kid who managed to unbrainwash himself and choose the light even though it gives him no advantages and he has no reason to do it. Give me a man who's willing to fight his own family if that's what's right. Someone who risks it all to help save strangers.

That's far more interesting to me than a secret villain

They said he was poisoned, which automatically brings Jezebel's to mind or even the wedding, but that makes no sense. Agnes said he led Boston and it would have fallen days before without him. That means he outlasted Jezebel's by a lot. The mayday assassination attempt was either 1) way later 2) didn't happen. I think maybe he poisoned himself in the face of his failure, and it was covered up.

As far as what radicalized Garth...I think we're all waiting on that flashback episode, but I kinda hope nothing happened. I hope he's just a deeply good person who saw injustice being done and decided to do something about it. There are plenty of irl examples of people who were raised by bad people and decided to fight against them.

Warren, Winslow, Wharton, Weston...

I'm mixing up my creepy white commanders

The show runner has says they want to do 3-5 seasons, he hopes 5, but I'm wondering how they're going to play out. Obviously, we've stepped quite away from the book, but the book wouldn't really have been adaptable to TV anyway. So much of it is internal dialogue and it spans 10 years with wide time jumps.

I haven't read the book since it came out several years ago, so I've forgotten a lot, but I know Agnes doesn't get out until she's around 25ish. The voice overs in the show are in line with her not getting out until she's an adult.

So I'm curious how they're going to do this. I think Becka will go into Aunt training soon, but I don't see them (the showrunners) sending Agnes there now. 5 seasons of her training to be an aunt and learning how to read? Probably not. So I wonder how/when/if that's going to happen and what will happen in the meantime? Is she going to end up marrying one of these commanders? Is she going to join Mayday *before* becoming an Aunt? Will Daisy get back to Canada before Agnes? Is poor sweet Garth going to make it past his wedding with Becka? I don't see this ending well for him as I don't think a married women can just leave to be an aunt, nor do I think they would allow her to leave him at the alter, yet we've seen her in a wedding dress. They would probably let a widow be an aunt though 😬

Anyone have any long-term predictions?