Fate's Complaining Corner

I was driving through Vermont with a friend, and we pulled over at a tiny shop offering Maple Items. We were on the state highway, not the interstate, so "pulling over" meant "squeezing my tiny car into a parking bay the size of a broad highway shoulder."

As we got out of the car, an older woman emerged from behind the building where she had been pruning her roses. She introduced herself as Tammy.

Her shop offered the promised variety of Maple, but also a number of small antiques and a plethora of dog figurines, plaques, and clearly-hand-stitched garden flags.

A huge purple ribbon hung on the wall behind the register, along with many pictures of small dogs. This was no county fair ribbon. It was the size of my torso. The material had the soft sheen of actual silk.

As I placed my purchases on the counter, I asked, "Do you... Breed dogs?"

Yes. She does. She has bred Yorkies for the last 40 years. Her mother bred Yorkies before her. The purple ribbon was from her national championship winning Yorkie.

You may be expecting that the infodump was going to be about Yorkies.

It was not.

It was about 40 years of drama in the Yorkie breeding community. Where – you must understand – the judging at shows is often about who you're in with, not about the dogs. This is especially true when Tammy's opponents win anything.

And Tammy's mother! Well. Phyllis has been on the Yorkie scene since Yorkies were invented. Because of this, many women of equally venerable age hold deep grudges against Phyllis. The sort of grudges that result in episodes of Midsommar Murders.

This led to deep injustices against Phyllis on the part of judges and prevented her dogs from winning so often she retired from the scene. Judging is all about who you're friends with, after all.

After 20 years in hiding, Phyllis – the One True Queen of Yorkie Breeding – hatched a plot. She may have been out of the show circuit, but she was still breeding dogs. She entered an absolutely perfect bitch in the national competition, but sent her with a handler rather than go in person.

None of the usurpers knew who this dog belonged to, and in dog-breeding circles this Does Not Happen. This could have resulted in further injustices, but Phyllis was crafty. She knew this tournament was being judged by a man from the UK, who knew naught of the drama in the US Yorkie Empire.

With these advantages – and being the best dog there – Phyllis's bitch won the highest honor at the show.

Incensed by this insult to their ill-gotten supremacy, the other owners descended on the handler after the show, demanding to know for whom he was working.

"Phyllis," said he.

The name of the overthrown queen evoked horror in the usurpers.

"PHYLLIS!? She's still ALIVE!???"

Yes, Phyllis yet lived, and this bitch – the dog, not the woman – went on to mother Tammy's current dogs. One of whom, Lucy-Fur, is the reincarnation of Tammy's sister (also Lucy). This is certain for two reasons.

Firstly, Sister Lucy absolutely went straight to Hell upon her death, and Lucy-Fur the dog is positively as evil as Sister Lucy was.

i was working at a little cafe where I could deny service over bad behavior, harassment etc. & mask mandates had just ended a week before & already people were being weird about me still wearing mine—an N95, the kind shaped kinda like a duckbill.

so this man walked in, looked at me sooo scathingly, laughed at me, and said “damn. never known a woman to choose…practicality over looks.”

And I just said, “oh. you can go, you’re not getting a drink.” And he said, “what???”

I said, “sir, you just walked in at 6 am & called women impractical and me ugly in one sentence.”

Picard having trouble at

the replicator.

some of the rooms have fully stocked pantries with cooking equipment, some have movies like the one described above, some have books you're allowed to just take but people always put back- every day people bring things from the outside. artists often set up galleries there. there are rooms with mattresses and hammocks set up for people to sleep. one of the room is just a place where people leave shoes for the fun of it.

Just actively added to the idea that our love is ~persecuted~ and he's the ~only one who understands me~...

also, I'm not an expert. This is just someone who's been thru it kind of sharing what made things worse for them and what eventually helped them get out. I'm not a psychologist or anything like that.

Don't shit talk the abusive partner. No seriously, don't do that. It's entirely likely that the abusive partner has woven a narrative about how often people hate them for "no reason"/created a really compelling case for them being a victim of mistreatment. If you shit talk the partner, that's going to add to that narrative.

Don't invalidate their feelings about the abusive partner. For the love of God, do not tell them they don't actually love their partner. Don't say anything like "it's infatuation" or "they manipulated you into loving them" or things like that. If you invalidate your loved one's feelings about their abuser, they're just going to see you as yet another person who ~doesn't understand~ and who they cannot trust. If you do this, you're actively helping to isolate them.

Don't just tell them to dump their partner. If it was as easy as just dumping your abuser, no one would get trapped in abusive relationships. If you're constantly on their back about how they need to dump their partner, constantly telling them how abusive said partner is and etc., they're going to stop coming to you for help or to talk.

Don't gloat whenever something bad happens with their partner. This is a big one, imo. If they're telling you about something shitty their partner did, do not rub it in their face that you ~told them~ the partner was shitty. No " I tried to warn you", no "I told you so" none of that shit.

Don't try to FORCE them into ANYTHING. If someone is being abused, I literally think one of the worst things you can do is try to force them into anything. No ultimatums, no "I'm not going to talk to you anymore unless you do x, y, z". They're probably already dealing with that from abusive partner and once again, this gives their abusive partner ammunition to use against you as a friend/loved one ("if they were really your friend they wouldn't try to make you do things against your will...")

Some things that people did which did eventually help me get out of my toxic/abusive relationship

Offer a shoulder to cry on/a listening ear without judgement. One of the biggest things that helped me was having people that I could talk to without feeling like they were judging me -- who didn't think I was stupid or weren't going to try to influence my actions or try to force me to do anything.

Offer advice when asked for. If they ask you for advice, then you can give it. But again, don't be an asshole about it. You wanna offer advice gently if possible, especially early on. If they're already starting to show that they're done with things, that they want out, you can start being a bit less tactful with advice.

Tell the truth but don't harp on it. If they tell you about shitty things their partner is doing, absolutely say like "Um wow, that's not cool?" or "they really shouldn't do that..." but honestly, avoid like "that's abuse". "That's really not normal" is a good one, it kind of helps get the wool off your eyes.

but also like, at the end of the day, you can do everything "right" and they might not leave the relationship and you might not be able to stay with them thru it because of your own personal reasons. That doesn't make you a failure and it's also not anything against the person being abused.

It's really fucking hard to get out of an abusive relationship, esp since a lot of people who fall into them are already abuse victims/survivors and we've already been kind of groomed into this sort of dynamic and might not be able to really grasp that how these people make us feel is wrong because it's all we've ever known.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.