u/lordoftheshire97

Title pretty much sums it up. My spouse and I want a long term MMO to play for the foreseeable future. I play a lot of them already, such as runescape, WoW and FFXIV but my spouse is new to it and is very against subscription models, which rules all of the MMOs I play out. Anything we are going to play together has to be something you can play without a subscription (one time purchases of expansions is fine).

An easy to follow story/questing experience would be a bonus. Gameplay doesn't matter too much, we'd be willing to try anything in that regard. I think my spouse would enjoy it more if there were cosy side activities like housing or pets.

I absolutely adored the epic quest at the start, beginning in the shire and working my way through the quests there and arriving at Bree for the first time.

Ive come back from a long break (house move) and im not finding the trollshaws quite as engaging as the earlier levels. Is this common, or perhaps more of a symptom of my break?

If it is common, does it get better again afterwards?

I'm about 20 hrs in, which I know is very early game for dreamlight valley, however I have reached a point of progression where I am getting quite a lot of resources and only have a few biomes left to open.

I'm someone who is likely far too organised when it comes to video game inventory management but if i'm not, I get overwhelmed and discouraged, so it's worth the time to me to set up a decent system.

I'm not too sure what that decent system would be for me at this stage. Ive been looking on youtube for inspiration but most of them are storage island videos, which i'm keen to make in future before I start with the DLCs, but right now i'm just not far enough in the game to even consider that an option.

Ive also seen people make storage house(s) and I like the idea in principle but im concerned of getting fed up of loading screens whenever I need an item.

The last option I thought of was just making an outdoor storage area somewhere in the valley. But im hesistant to take up space for character houses and decor.

Each thing obviously has pros and cons and I just wanted to check there isnt options i've missed, or get an idea of what system has worked well for others. I want this to be a permanent set up to serve me until I can get an island set up, or even just keep forever if I end up liking it.

I have been with an NHS therapist for CBT for a few months now. Shes great generally, and really good at helping me with my OCD and anxiety, however the biggest problem I have right now is depression and anger and feelings of shame/dysphoria and she doesnt seem to be the best with those things.

Shes not horrible by any means, but I talk to her about transphobic things my Dad does all the time and she still insists that I have a good relationship with him just bc hes supportive in a practical way and says its just a generational thing, which I get but feels a bit dismissive. Ive spent my whole life having my Dads behaviour shrugged off as "hes just old fashioned" by my Mum and family and friends so I wanted the therapist to be different. And shes also not very aware of the current situation in the UK legislation wise so I spend 10 mins of the session just explaining everything before I can even get into my feelings. I think its holding me back from progress.

Has anyone struck therapy gold with everything going on and if so, how did you find them?

Hi everyone.

I'm new to Pokémon card collecting and I'm really excited about starting my own pokédex binder. Ive found the binder im going to use, ive got some placeholders, now I just need the cards!

I see a lot of people saying don't buy bulk lots, but if the goal is just to get one of each Pokémon, regardless of card rarity, would these actually be a viable way of kickstarting the collection?

I'm happy to fill it with commons and just upgrade it with nicer cards over time, if I get them, but considering I am into MTG as well I really just want a fun but cost effective collecting experience.

Any other advice on how to do this? Or general advice if you have done this/are doing this?

just wanted to create a space for people to talk about their feelings in regards to the scrutiny period ending tomorrow.

my main gripe right now is that im frustrated that people who claim to be allies dont seem to be talking about this at all. i have friends who dont acknowledge any of it, never reach out to ask if im ok, or anything. will post all types of political stuff on their Instagram stories but nothing about this. just frustrated.

feel free to express any feelings you are having below. if nothing else i want this post to be a reminder that no one is alone.

28 yr old FTM trans person for context.

I put a post a few weeks ago about convincing my dad not to vote reform and since then it has unfortunately just reached a point where I have no faith in his views changing. He has also actively said his support for TERF views and no amount of discussion will change that. He calls me his son and everything else, but doesnt seem to be able to connect me to the wider trans community and thinks I will be magically uneffected by all this. He visibly recoils whenever I use the word trans around him or bring up anything I go through. I am set to move out of the family home soon, so now I am starting to think about the above question. I havent moved out yet as I had to prioritise paying for VISA fees for my spouse instead of putting a deposit on a house.

I am very close with my Mum and sister. And as a family unit, we are tight knit. E.g. every Monday we all meet up. Christmas and everything too. And I do enjoy this when he is not actively talking politics. He is financially supportive (not actively right now, I pay for everything myself nowadays, but in the past) and has always kept me fed and watered and well looked after, and he does have his nice moments. However in day to day life I feel deeply uncomfortable around my dad and he has done so many things to my mental health that just gets shrugged off as "Dad being dad". He has never stepped up to fight for me - when I was bullied at school, I was too sensitive and it was my problem. Now I am being bullied by the government and media, im being selfish for not thinking about women. And if I ever try and say to him that I am angry with him for the above, he uses all the financial stuff hes done for me to leverage. He has actually brought up that he never kicked me out when I came out as a "how dare you say i dont care" argument lol.

I dont want to completely cut him off because I do love his company in small doses and when its not at all political, and I can forget for a moment that he is hurting me the way he continues to, but I dont know how to limit contact without also limiting contact with my Mum especially. Just wondered if anyone else has had a complex family dynamic like this and what did you do about it?

Thanks in advance. Just trying to get better at protecting my peace.

EDIT: i'm asking this to try and prevent another vote going to reform. Not that my dads single vote matters, but if we can convince enough people, it could stop them. This isnt about improving my personal circumstances with him, but the context of how he treats me was needed to show the way he thinks, and a better relationship with him would naturally be a byproduct of him not thinking that way anymore.

This is going to be a long one but it needs to be for context, and also I just need to get it off my chest, I have dealt with it for years and I feel like a broken record with friends and other family.

My dad is a strange man, politically. He's typical British macho man working in engineering who has always talked about people being too sensitive nowadays and the "woke agenda." But he also used to love Labour for their working class approach to politics and he still supports some left wing idealogy to this day e.g. NHS and minimum wage. He has been entirely brain washed by the right into believing aslyum seekers and muslim immigrants are the root of all economical problems and increased crime. He has rose tinted glasses about the 80s, and he's very insecure in his own masculinity to the point where hes disgusted by the thought of gay men. He doesnt support LGBTQ+ as a concept, and talks about how its being pushed down people's throats. He outwardly admitted to me that if I was a transwoman instead of a transman that he wouldnt have been able to support me.

However he is nice to everyone he meets, is the epitome of "i have gay friends", he's 80% supportive of my transition (calls me his son and the right pronouns and name and everything) and he welcomed my immigrant spouse into the home. Though the 20% comes out when I try to talk to him about the issues we face as a community, when I have said that I am a man and deserve to be treated as such by other people, he has said the good old "i see you as a man but if you were dug up in future they would say youre female" line and said "everyone is allowed an opinion" like my identity is just an opinion to him.

He ultimately agrees with TERFs and Reform, and he has been absolutely adamant since brexit that he wants Nigel Farage as PM. Ive tried telling him what a Reform win could do to me - both as a person in a marriage with an immigrant and a transgender man - and he either shrugs it off saying it wont effect me or that the world doesnt centre around what works for me and the law should be put in place to protect women. This coming from the same man who is disgusted at the mere mention of a period and has never advocated for women's health, safety, etc. until it became a tool against immigrants and trans people. He said its ludicrous that theres even a court discussion about what makes a woman in the first place, as anyone who isnt biologically a woman is not a woman in his view. He doesnt say it out loud, but I assume the opposite is what he truly feels about me deep down, and that since I pass he just goes through life gaslighting himself that I was born a man so he doesnt have to face the fact that he's accepting of a transgender person.

Outside of politics, he has always been financially supportive of me, like I said, he welcomed my spouse in (as he should), he has always come to help me with practical things and he does seem to want to spend time with me and be in my company even though I often avoid him. We even have a good laugh together sometimes and I really enjoy tournaments like the World Cup because I feel its the one time the Dad I knew when I was a child comes back.

This all puts me in a really hard spot, because I have a Father that on the one hand does love me and my overall family dynamics are really close (my Mum and sister are basically my best friends so we all hang out every week) but on the other hand his political opinions and past comments to me make my skin crawl and all I can think about is that hes willingly voting against my best interests and it angers me to no end. My therapist insists we have a great relationship but I feel like 99% of my feelings of shame and guilt come from him. Ive tried talking to him many times and it always blows up into an argument, as he can never comfort me about this stuff. One time I even used the "if you care about me you won't vote reform" line, and he blew up so much that he told my Mum that hes "sick of being expected to pander to my views" and "he voted labour when i told him i hated kier starmer so why should i listen to him".

Is there any hope for him? I have the odd nice moment with him and get lulled into a false sense of security, try and open up to him, and literally watch him turn from my loving Dad to Reform's No.1 fan in a matter of seconds. And its become so normalised in my family for me to just deal with it (e.g. "its just the way he is, he does love you tho") that I feel bad even complaining about it.

If anyone has had a similar parent and managed to convince them, please give me any advice you can. Thankfully my spouse and I will be moving out soon when we have finished decorating our new home, which means I can get a bit braver with my tactics as ill have a separate house to go back to.

Hi everyone.

With the end of June only 2 weeks away and the EDM motion to block the guidance being dismissed so far, i'm feeling really intense anxiety and sadness and, honestly, anger and shame.

Unfortunately i'm also really struggling with guilt about those feelings as i'm a passing transman, so the likelihood of the guidance causing any practical problems for me is slim, apart from maybe in employment or if I end up in hospital. Day-to-day bathroom use shouldn't theoretically be a problem.

However the knowledge of that doesnt seem to shift the feelings I have. I hate feeling like im always looking over my shoulder and can never fully relax, and like im carrying this heavy secret where people would change their opinion of me if they knew. When I speak to my loved ones about being scared, the first response in an attempt to comfort me is to mention how no one will know and I can carry on as normal or I wont be arrested etc. but that's not really the point.

I also get the vibe that a lot of people who do support trans people usually are still reacting with pretty laidback apathy at this stuff. Because its transphobia layered nicely under a load of boring policy and they keep going on and on about DiGnIty aNd ReSpEcT in the media, its not coming across as dangerous to our lives as it really is. I wish there was more uproar within my left-wing circles.

Does anyone else feel this way? Any advice what I can say to these loved ones to explain why it still bothers me? Or what to say to allies who do mean well but don't see the alarming nature of all of this?

I love the first mistborn trilogy.

I love Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. I talked about how much I love these books so much that birthday and Christmas resulted in people getting me Oathbringer, Rhythm of War and the second part of mistborn box set.

I can't for the life of me seem to enjoy Oathbringer, and I'm really disappointed because I want to get more invested in the cosmere, but I also don't have the free time to read books I don't really enjoy.

Maybe I'm just being picky but none of the characters feel grounded anymore, and I've just completely lost the urge to find out what happens to them next. I'm 350 pgs in and it's taken me since October 2025 to get that far because I just keep picking up other books. But as I was gifted so many cosmere books I kindof feel guilty to drop it.

I'm making this post to see if anyone has had a similar experience? I'm not denying it's fantastic work which is why I'm so confused about not enjoying it anymore.

We have lived with my parents for most of the 2 years and have just completed buying a house, so figured now was a good time to get the evidence from the old address in order. For context my spouse arrived as fiance in August 2024, then got approved for first spouse visa in Nov 2024, due to renew in June 2027.

Does the below schedule meet the requirement for evenly spreading out evidence and providing enough evidence when mixing joint and seperate documentation?

-Nov 2024: Bank statement (me), national insurance number letter (spouse)

-Jan 2025: GP registration letter (spouse)

-April 2025: P60 2024 - 2025 (me)

-September 2025: joint bank statement

-Jan 2026: Letter confirming start of pension by Local Pension Organisation (spouse)

-March 2026: Mortgage offer letter (me)

-April 2026: P60 2025 - 2026 (me) P60 2025 - 2026 (spouse)

-September/October 2026: Doesn't yet exist - new address, likely utility bill or tv license

-March/April 2027: Doesn't yet exist - new address, likely our first council tax bill

Apply for visa in June 2027

Where i work uses an employee passport basically designed to help support employees with long term health problems. It lists the condition, warning signs of it getting worse, and a list of agreed accommodations to make being at work easier while ill. The passport means you can take it with you around the entire organisation if you change jobs and the management you end up under has no choice but to follow it and take it into account.

I have one for my mental health problems after being off long term sick with it last year, a few months after the SRC ruling (and other life stressors). In this document, it states that one factor that contributes to my low mood/depression/OCD is struggling with the hostility towards trans people and current political climate along with gender dysphoria. There are also possibly records of my identity going back years.

My line manager and my line manager's manager both know i'm a transgender man, this is because I didnt have documents in the right gender yet when I got this job. I pass 99.9% of the time in passing with strangers etc and now I have a GRC and a birth certificate that says male. They have always been supportive, particularly my line manager who is adamant that nothing will change bathroom wise. My legal gender record at work has always said male too.

However theres no guarantee that my current line manager will always be here, and in the grand scheme of the overall organisation, she has little control on policy decisions and HR related stuff such as disciplinary action, meaning the organisation could enforce me to do something and she would have no say in it.

All of that context in mind, do you think it would be a smart idea to speak with my line manager and ask to have anything related to being transgender removed from my records? the employee passport and so on? Or do you think this wouldn't really achieve anything if people above my line manager already know about my identity anyway?

Thanks if you read all of that and can provide me with advice. Im not saying this is the right thing for everyone to do but at least in employment I would like to be as stealth as possible.

Nothing more to say really but feeling pretty bad about it and anxious and just making a post for anyone who feels the same to vent or for people to offer reassurance/kind words