#DO I GO BACK TO REDDIT??

[stoicatol21445]

that's it. i've reached the end. there is no more tumblr. the bar is at the bottom.

[lonelychicago]

r/relationship_advice

u/hot_pilot84 • 2d ago

MY (40M) BOYFRIEND? (33M) IS IN LOVE WITH HIS BEST FRIEND (36M) AND IM THE THIRD WHEEL

I'm new to this reddit stuff, but a coworker suggested it, and I thought I'd give it a try. I probably should start saying he's not really my boyfriend??? We just started dating a few weeks ago, and it's been... interesting. But I really like him and he is a nice, sweet guy.

He recently came out, so I've been trying to be patient and understanding. But recently it's been hard to spend any time alone because his best friend is always there.

Now, I also like the guy, so I don't really mind, and to be honest, I kinda suspected from the first moment they were in love with each other. They both talk about each other all the time, and when we hang out together, I can't help but feel like intruding on an intimate moment I shouldn't be part of.

Like, our second date was at his sister's wedding and the best friend spent most of the time glued to our side. He has a son who my date adores, so they danced together for most of the party as well. It was cute, but again: it felt like intruding on a private moment.

Then we had a relaxing night at his place, eating take out on his couch and watching a movie.... when the best friend just, came in. No notice, no knocking. He has a key to the place and he just walked in. It was awkward at first but we insisted it wasn't a big deal so he stayed for tge rest of the night.

By the time I was leaving, my date was telling him to just get comfortable on the couch.

Another thing is. My date? Situationship? I don't know how to call it anymore. Well, I recently found out that he is the legal guardian of his best friend 's kid? In case anything happens? I wouldn’t find this weird at all if it wasn't for the fact this man has parents and sisters and other close family members that also have a less chance of dying along with him on the job. (They work together.)

Also. Recently, the best friend broke up with his girlfiend and called this guy in the middle of our date. So, he crashed again.

All of this to say, I'm not really hurt? This was new and sure, I like the guy. But to be honest my expectations were low. This is fairly recent, so it's not like my heart is broken and I just lost the love of my life. No, that's not the problem.

I just don't think these two know they're in love with each other, and it’s starting to get really uncomfortable for me. Should I say something? Should I talk with my date about it or just break things off and keep it vague, but that we should still be friends? Should I talk with both of them at the same time and confront the situation?

This is a situation I don't even know how to begin to get a handle on. Does anyone know where I should start?

rctherpcliarredditor • commented 1d ago

to be honest, i don't really have any advice for you. i just find this gay drama really hilarious. thoughts and prayers for you, my man 🙏🏼🙏🏼

twohottakes • commented 6hrs ago

definitely have a conversation alone with your date. point all of this out to him and tell him you don't wanna get in the middle if there's deeper feelings involved for someone else. all the luck to you, man!

storyreddit23 • commented 2hrs ago

talk to ur date!! and pls, post an update if u do. i wanna know how this ends.

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.

[d8tl55c]

hey wait a minute

so it's the start of AvA part 7 and Chosen and Dark are talking, right? and the former has this vision of terrible things happening if they don't stop the latter, right here and now.

they see the ViraBots descending on the last remnants of stick kind with Dark as their leader (or Lord if you will. ha ha) and i, trusting viewer, took their assessment as reliable*. we JUST saw Dark getting uncomfortably violent in earlier scenes after all

but

however

notwithstanding

unless Chosen has demonstrable prophetic powers (like how Orange has** in the past seen things currently happening (horizontally-prophetic let's call it: seeing faraway in the current time) (there's probably a better word for this but let's move on)), how did they know this was definitely what Dark was leading up to?

** ⬆ examples of Orange horizontally-prophesizing in AvM episode 11, SkyBlock (unconfirmed but referenced as, "uh? well maybe??? maybe i didn't think about it yet-" (abridged quote from AvG react video)) (op will die /j /extremely pos if this is used again in AvA 11 (HAH they'd both be episode 11 (op just giggled maniacally)))

Dark doesn't even have his control bracelets on.

because Chosen didn't know about them yet.

because this is not a prophetic vision.

Chosen is just that... reactive. what was it. @compressedrage (hi o/ ) had a good wording let me find it. yeah i guess it was reactionary

the ONLY time we've seen them stop to think things through is actually just a terrified anxiety breakdown while they stand there, frozen, imagining the worst, until they snap out of it JUST in time to impact their reality.

but with no time left for debate. reasoning. they assumed Dark was beyond reasoning from the moment he showed off what his device could do............. because they were beyond reasoning out of fear.

<community post version>

[chirpsythismorning]

The way fans on the st sub are almost all in agreement Nancy ending up with neither Jon nor Steve wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and how they can even come up with a sleuth of reasons as to why, honestly pretty valid and fair reasons, but then are absolutely gobsmacked when fans merely speculate something along those lines for El is, quite something.

[spacedlexi]

i actually love thinking about preS4 vinerva and how their relationship deteriorates throughout the season and how it relates to the clemvi romance and just violets character in general but unfortunately some people cant be normal about them so instead i just gotta keep it to myself

[markantonys]

day 71 of asking why reddit has suddenly become convinced that the 'finn and mat's rhuidean trip are a waste of time and easily cut, and that season 3 will obviously feature him splitting off from the friends he just reunited with in order to spend the entire season dicking around with thom and getting into shenanigans, as that is much more important to his overall character arc than his 2-book waste arc

like there have been SO MANY posts like this lately and all of them are filled with comments of universal agreement! am i having a stroke? what the hell is going on???? i'll admit mat doesn't have a huge amount of specific stuff to do in the waste aside from rhuidean, but rhuidean is crucial to his character and s2 had Mat-Finn Connection Foreshadowing out the wazoo, plus the waste plotline is MUCH more fertile ground for creating additional Specific Mat Stuff and enhancing his character development & relationships with other main characters than his TDR plotline of dicking around with thom is.

[moonchild-in-blue]

Good timezone, Darya! The Brobecks are back

???? The Brobecks are Broback???? Where are you getting this info anon, what.

[randum-famdoms]

Hhhhhh I wanna do a dnd campaign so baddddd but I don’t have enough friendsssss

[mspainttaz]

official rip to my drawing tablet, goodbye my old friend you never really worked in the first place but illl miss u anyway lol

[jrueships]

thinking abt how other wide receivers are dressing josh allen in their drip, and it doesn't even match his dopey bull in a China shop gentle cow doe eyes aesthetic... it just doesn't feel Right. it just doesn't feel like. Them. (Diggs/Allen)

[rigelmejo]

some basic language learning thoughts (based on some common questions i see on reddit forums). as usual, if you don't like the suggestion, feel free to ignore and throw it out! what works best for you will be what works best for you - everyone is different. at the end of the day, if you continue studying (hours add up), study some new stuff (expand your knowledge), and practice/review some stuff you've studied (improve comprehension of what you know), then you'll improve. You can achieve that in a ton of different ways, and any way which motivates you to keep doing it is great.

What's the easiest language to learn? My thought on this question is... it doesn't matter as much as it might feel like it does. If any language is going to take hundreds or thousands of hours of study, you will probably want to have goals that motivate you to study for THAT long, for years. If Danish 'takes less hours to learn' than Thai, but you watch Thai shows everyday and follow thai webnovel writers and twitter, and don't have much interest in anything Danish (and no friends that speak the language), then Thai is going to be 'easier' because you have more reasons to USE it. If Spanish and French seem to take a similar amount of hours to learn, but you're planning to go to school in a French speaking country and get a job there? Well you have a more pressing Need to learn French, that will hopefully help motivate you. The 'easiest' language to learn is the language you have REASONS to learn. The language you will use, and keep using. If you have no pressing reason to learn any language, but want to learn a language? Find reasons. Make goals that require the language.

(Here's one from me - I wanted to learn Japanese, in theory I can mostly do anything I want by just reading/watching/playing translations, however I am the kind of person that really enjoys reading originals in their original form... so that's motivating. My recent kick to study more? A show I want to watch is untranslated, so I better get to studying so I can still watch it.) Your goal can be anything from: I want to visit X, I want to talk to X friend/family better, I want to blog in multiple languages, I want to watch untranslated media, I want to sing my favorite musicians songs easier, I want to work in a country that speaks it, I want access to more recipes in X language, I am into history and want to read a history book from X time period in X language, I want to play a video game before localization, really the sky is the limit on goals you can set. Your goals, and how much you want them, and how often you do the sub-goals (so if reading untranslated cnovels by an author you love is your goal, maybe along the way you read easier webnovels to motivate you and find more writers you like), is going to push you to keep studying. Even if your goal is 'pass language B2 test' if it has a deadline, and it's a goal connected to other goals (like going to work in a country with the language, translating work, writing better), that will keep you motivated. Motivation is what will make a language 'easier.' If you can't find the motivation, even the languages which should take the 'least amount of time' will feel hard.

All that said, I am now about to contradict myself. While I really think motivation is the biggest factor in if you'll keep studying and keep learning... there are languages which due to their similarity to languages you already know, will take less Total Study Hours to make progress. As an English speaker, it only took me 6 months of very lazy unorganized studying (half hour most days) to be able to start reading non-fiction French with only a handful of word lookups per page. A lot of that was because French (especially science words and proper nouns like places) has so many cognates with English. I basically 'had' thousands of words of French I already knew, just because I knew English. It took about a year to read fiction books in French only looking up a handful of words per page, for 'general main idea' comprehension. When studying Chinese, it took me also about 12 months to read fiction, look up a handful of words, and understand the 'general main idea.' But I was studying 2 hours a day. So I studied around 182.5 hours to read French fiction with word lookups, and 730 hours to read Chinese fiction with word lookups. And the Chinese also took longer to learn to read with NO word lookups, since there was no english-cognate carryover to sound-out and over rely on like with French. (Although at a wonderful certain point, you know enough Chinese hanzi that new words are built of mostly hanzi you know, and you can use that to guess the gist of a LOT of new words when extensively reading with no word lookups - that happened for me at about 2 years). My point is: Chinese DOES take more hours of study to reach language skill milestones as an english speaker, compared to French! It took me the same amount of months, because I studied Chinese more hours per day (to make up the difference - and I had a better study plan with Chinese). But if you are a total beginner, and unmotivated and KNOW you will study maybe 1 hour per day and probably not more, then learning a language that is more similar to one you already know WILL take less study hours total to reach skill milestones. And that will hopefully be motivating.

(Another example: I spent 3 months of 1-2 hours a day studying Spanish, and can read Spanish nonfiction - thanks to the similarities to French and English. I can read fiction too but it requires word lookups. Japanese, due to kanji, also got 'easier' to read once I had learned more Chinese hanzi. So if your goals include learning languages with some similarities, then once you learn some of those similarities it will make future learning 'faster.')

I spent a month once studying Esperanto (a constructed language). Do I ever use Esperanto? No. Did I find the experience helpful? Yes. Because Esperanto is designed to be fairly easy for european language native speakers, has no exceptions, it had 1. a lot of similar-words to english so I could practice 'guessing similar words' (a skill I'd use a lot with French and Spanish later), 2. practice guessing what word endings mean grammatically (since Esperanto has no exceptions the grammar patterns are much more obvious than say grammar patterns in French). 3. Practice recognizing spelling to sound connections. Those 3 skills are useful in learning any language, but natural languages will have more exceptions to the patterns.

After spending a month on Esperanto, I saw HUGE progress after studying a few hundred words, noticed a huge amount of grammar patterns and how to notice them, and just generally got the experience of 'this is what skill milestones feel like.' Later, when studying French, I used that experience to recognize French word endings and what they tend to indicate, word functions, patterns in pronunciation, guessing with cognates/similar words, and I knew what the first 'milestones' I was aiming for would be. In a similar pattern: French milestones took me a few months each to hit, so when I studied Chinese later and it was taking 2-3 times as much study time... I knew which milestone to expect myself to 'work toward' and achieve next, and knew what making progress should feel like (even if it felt like it was moving slower) so I didn't give up. I was aware that Chinese language skill milestones might 'take more hours' so I didn't panic when it was taking me almost a year of reading graded readers in Chinese to move on to simple webnovels, whereas in French I'd only been reading graded readers for half a year before I felt ready to move on. I knew the general process, because I'd done it before in a shorter timespan with French, with Esperanto.

Is Esperanto useful to you? Only you know that. I personally did not find it useful in general for me, and didn't continue to study it. But it did teach me 'how' to study a language, what progress to monitor, and gave me the confidence that I was capable of learning.

If you really feel you're incapable of learning any skill in a new language, then spending some time on a language more similar to what you already know (if possible - a language you have motivating goals with), may help you see you are capable and can learn. An addition to this: spend a LOT of hours studying as a beginner, if lack of progress demotivates you. Once you push past the beginner stage, you'll be able to do goal-related things in the language you study and that will keep you motivated. But in the beginning, progress feels slow and you feel very confused. So the more upfront studying you do, the quicker you will push through that hard-to-motivate stage.

Is learning a language that is more similar to ones you know going to take less hours of study? Probably. But either way, motivation over hundreds or thousands of hours, for years, is going to be needed. So the goals you wish to achieve will be more important in your success, rather than how many 'hours' it will take.

What do you do if you get demotivated that it's taking SO LONG to hit the next language skill milestone? Fair concern. I got demotivated OFTEN by how much longer it took to reach milestones in Japanese compared to in French. First: try to keep perspective. It's normal for it to take more hours to understand certain things, if the language is not very similar to ones you know. You have to build a bigger foundation of understanding for lots of totally new stuff. Second: you're going to hate me but I'd suggest upping the study hours per day (or week). Studying Chinese RARELY demotivated me, despite it taking more actual hours of study to hit milestones compared to French, and why? Because I increased my study time for Chinese so I was still REACHING milestones in a reasonable amount of months (very similar to the months it took to hit French milestones). 2 hours a day of Chinese study was more than 1/2 an hour of French study, but 2 hours was doable. And it meant I still got to watch shows and read within a few months, and watch/read without looking many words up (depending on difficulty) by the end of year 1. Once you are doing the goals or sub-goals you have, it becomes so much easier to stay motivated. Once I could watch cdramas before they got translated, or read any novel I wanted using Pleco or Readibu to help? It was very easy to stay motivated and do things I WANTED to do in chinese. From there it was just practice/learn using activities I had the goal of doing.

Finally, similar to the suggestions above, if you find yourself in a motivation rut what can you do? I personally try to do 'study sprints' when I'm getting demotivated and need to see significant progress. What I do is pick a small goal, then spend 1-2 months studying as much as I can to improve in that goal. Suggestions: A beginner may make the goal to study the alphabet, a pronunciation guide, and 300 common words and see how far they get by the end of the month. (If at the end of the month the pronunciation is easier to hear and alphabet is easier to read then they succeeded - and they likely will). Another beginner may make the goal to read graded readers 1 hour per day or more all month and see how much they can read. (If the first graded reader they read is easier to read at the conclusion of the month, such as less unknown words or faster reading speed, then they succeeded - and they likely will see progress). A beginner/intermediate learner into flashcards might try to study as many flashcards in Anki as they can for a month. An intermediate learner may pick an audiobook and try to listen to AS MANY chapters as they can in a month, or may pick a novel and look up every unknown word while reading for 1 hour per day or more, until the end of the month. The idea is to pick a goal where you KNOW you're current skill level, work HARD on studying to improve that skill for a month, and then try to do the skill again and see how much progress you've made. I find it very motivating. It can take months to broadly notice progress milestones like managing to improve in your overall reading skill to tackle more difficult novels. But it can take just A MONTH to learn a few hundred new words and make the current novel you're reading become much EASIER to read, or the current show you're watching to become much EASIER to follow, or for the listening skills you're struggling with to become much more instant and reliable.

Example: one of my most recent sprints was to improve my Chinese listening skills. So for a month, I listened to audio flashcards of chinese-english sentences audio, and audiobook chapters (re-listening to each chapter a few times). I saw progress in 1. The audiobook got easier to understand over time, and 2. I tried watching a cdrama I've watched before, only this time I watched it without any subtitles, and it is now much easier to quickly comprehend and follow the lines (even without chinese subs). A sprint I did after a 2 year funk with minimal japanese progress was to cram study 2000 words in memrise Nukemarine's LLJ decks (took 3 months) then try to play a japanese video game I'd tried playing before the sprint. Another japanese sprint I did was listen to japaneseaudiolessons.com free lessons for a month, to work on improving my listening comprehension and recognition of word-order faster, and it did really help with seeing an improvement in those things.

As a beginner, I think the sprints can help with staying focused on small achieveable goals and seeing your progress (like reading daily, watching a show daily, studying X new words daily, going through a chapter of a grammar book weekly, etc). And then as you get farther and can actually do some of your sub-goals, can help with pushing yourself to some significant improvement in a particular area. (Like if you reached a sub goal of reading easy webnovels, it might be a month where you read a webnovel with more unique words that's 'harder' and look all unknown words up, and by the end of the month you see that medium-difficulty webnovels now feel as easy as the 'easy' ones did at the start of the month).

And then... if you study like me, which tends to be periods of a LOT of study followed by lulls where I might watch/read/listen to the language but not do much active study, then the sprint goal months tend to help cram in 100 hours of study every so often. So that you'll still (on average through the year) have studied 1-2+ hours a day. I do not focus well, and sprint goal months along with more relaxed months where I just watch/read/listen to stuff when I feel like it, is the only way I can get myself to study regularly. If you can consistently study daily, then sprint goal months can help you make Significant progress in a very specific area if some slow-progress area has been demotivating you. (And you can turn the sprint goals into challenges with friends, or tests to see what study methods work great for you versus bore you).

[feldsparite]

google search what to do if TA takes 30 mins of your presentation time without warning with their own stupid fucking activity and you don't get to present because you were the last speaker in your group reddit

[weeddennis]

possibly conch reversal opinion but I don't get the obsession w mac being cool or thinking of ways he could be cooler like being profoundly cringe and embarrassing and lame isn't mac's most prominent character trait

[chirpsythismorning]

I haven't been active in the byler fandom, why would redditors be mad at the play being canon?

Most, not all, but most active reddit users on the ST sub have been bombarded with byler evidence for the last year. So to remain sane through it all, they have resorted to insisting that almost every detail fans come across and try to share on the sub, are just mere coincidences.

This is because they've realized that if they are considering other really minor details meaning something bigger, that means they might have to start considering the possibility that the details pointing to byler are also intentional. This is how they cope.

You would think after saying 'it's just a coincidence' for the hundredth time, they might be starting to rethink their position on things, but the reality of the situation just isn't setting in I guess (aka they don't want it to happen so they are refusing to let themselves truly consider it until they have no choice).

The reason I still partake in the reddit sub, despite losing braincells over half the takes on there, is bc there are still a handful of users that are really smart and do great analysis on the supernatural side of the show, in particular things I have no knowledge on at all and would greatly benefit from looking at to expand my understanding of things and different perspectives.

The really smart ones that exist are usually indifferent to the romantic arcs in the show, although they do have a milkvan bias bc the straight bait is straight baiting. And so these are the few posts theorizing, that consider the details meaning something more, that just so happen to get support from the hardcore milkvans on there. And it's bc as long as it's coming from someone who doesn't think byler is going to happen, they will listen.

I will say the one thing that is sort of obnoxious about all of this is that regular fans without any ship bias, will pop on there semi-regularly with a post, accompanied by basic common sense questions like, 'wait this makes no sense...' or 'why did they do this this way?' in many cases, with the confusion surrounding the build up of Mike and El and Will's role in all that. These people aren't milkvans or bylers, they are just fans picking up on obvious subtext and they are looking for insight about it from fans. And every time they get bombarded with condescending and bitter milkvans that are having to defend mike and el's honor, and s4 really made this a full time job for them lmao. That sort of resentment has manifested into hating anything and everything that considers deeper meaning in relation to Will and Mike, but especially in Will's case. Because that's the thing, they have to deny any importance of Will's role bc Will being important fucking terrifies them. It means that everything could be important basically. It's their worst nightmare and they will hound you for even speculating something. It's insufferable to watch unfold honestly.

I say all of this bc it's important in the context of the play, given that there are a lot of theories out there swirly around, theories that mostly reside on Tumblr. Many of those theories are viewed by redditors as being crack theories that have no evidence supporting them (bc they come from bylers), like the weirdness around Alice not being in the play (and potentially connecting to Karen), or the fact that they insisted the silhouette of Henry's actor right before the cast announcement couldn't be him bc he was too old to be Henry (umm time shenanigans, duh), or that the truth about Brenner's involvement runs a lot deeper than everyone assumes.

And so naturally, leading up to the play, a lot of active (very vocal) redditors in both the main sub and the Hawkins AV Club sub, have commented on posts related to the play, trying so hard to convince others (themselves) that this play is not canon and we shouldn't waste our time with it because it wont matter in the context of everything going on in the literal show. They go as far as to insist it's not canon, even though it already was said to be canon.

And now with this post, they are again having to face the reality this show is a lot deeper than they have had to insist it to is combat byler speculation. All byler evidence is seen as reaching to them. And they'll do everything they can to insist anything bylers are speculating is delusional, which includes theories surrounding the play. All of that denial has led us to this moment, which will only hurt their ego as time goes on and they are being hit with sign after sign after sign... that it might just be that deep.

[wundrousarts]

I was going to save this until I reread Hollowpox, but that last ask reminded me that I should share this here, so I present:

Musings on Maud: Why is she considered so powerful, how does this affect her dynamic with Squall, and why is he so scared of her?

(Bonus: How can I connect it to Silverborn?)

Two disclaimers: I haven't reread Hollowpox in ages, so if there's anything that could prove or disprove stuff in this post, send it my way. Honestly send any discussion my way. I love discussing theories. Second, this was originally a reply to a Reddit comment on a post, to which you can find here. The comment discussed Maud being a signatory for a Squall safeguard, so since this comment is copied verbatim, it references that.

---

If it’s not outright stated, it’s at least heavily implied that Squall helped create/build up the Republic. It’s only existed for about 90 years, and Squall has been exiled for about 100. He mentions in Hollowpox how he knows that Maud’s plan is to take over Nevermoor/The Free State, because the Republic took over the other states in the realm and he “helped them do it.” However, unless Maud is immortal and also 100 years old, she is not the one who started the Republic from the side of the Republic. Also, no clue how long it’s been around, but Squall Industries has likely been around for awhile as well (this is how he gets his connections and power in the Republic), with Squall just constantly grandfathering himself in with the vampire trick or something.

Interestingly, Squall says two things in this scene (Chapter 34 of Hollowpox) that stick out to me:

“I made the so-called Hollowpox,” he raised his voice above hers, “because I was asked to. Because I was compensated handsomely for it. And because when the most powerful person in the realm asks for a favour, even I don’t refuse.

And

“But you’re a Wundersmith.” Morrigan was utterly baffled. “Why can’t you just stop them if they’re such a problem? I don’t understand!” “Do you THINK I HAVEN’T—“ Squall shouted, then cut himself off abruptly.

He also mentions how the Hollowpox was initially meant for the Republic, but Maud snuck in an infected otter across the border into Nevermoor— “That was never part of our deal.”

There’s definitely a business relationship between the two of them of likely consistent deals, one favor for another, quid pro quo. However, we also see that Squall can’t really go against her, something he seems to have tried before. Two chapters before this scene (Chapter 32), has this moment:

“Yes, shush. Maud said the Wintersea Party might help if there was a squid crow po.” “Quid pro quo?” “Right, one of those. She said they won’t do something for nothing, but if we could convince Prime Minister Steed to meet with her, just to have a conversation, then she would try to convince her party to share their cure.”

While it could be easily explained as part of her job, Maud seems to get most of her power and do things by extracting deals from other people. Maybe she’s knackless, or maybe she has some sort of connection to Puppeteering or a knack related to that. Not Mesmerism, but something that allows her to be persuasive, manipulative, convince people of things, and get them to do what she wants. A sort of parallel or companion to Squall’s connection with Puppeteering that we see in Wundersmith.

It’s interesting that when we first meet Maud, there is this exchange directly after she tells Mog that the Wintersea Republic would only agree to help the Free State if there was some sort of deal:

“But they’re your party,” Morrigan pointed out. “Aren’t you the one with the power? Maud stiffened slightly and cast her a wary, calculating look.

And then soon later she says this:

“Even if I could persuade my party to do the right thing – and I’m not saying I won’t try – there’s no guarantee Steed and his government would come to the table.”

The whole exchange seems very manipulative, like, “oh, I’d LOVE to talk and get this figured out, but I can’t…” There’s a big focus on conversation. Maud is wary when Mog mentions power— she thinks she means a magical power, something secret that gives her an advantage, when really she just means politically— so I wonder if she was worried for a moment that Mog realized she had some sort of coercive power.

I wonder what exactly her power is that makes Squall so scared of her, and why it possibly makes it so that he can’t fight make and overthrow her. Aside from their business relationship, which allows Squall access to Wunder and being a Wundersmith, there’s this other layer as well.

As for safeguard: I don’t know if Maud would be a signatory for a Squall safeguard, as that seems to just be for Wunsoc students, but I think that whatever their deal is and whatever her power is allows her to keep him in check. Jess said that we will learn more about safeguards in Silverborn, and I think it would be interesting if Mog learns more about them from Squall instead of Jupiter— and maybe it does end up being similar to whatever he has going on with Maud, who knows! I don’t really have any safeguard theories myself, but I will keep an eye out for what you add to your comment.

A Silverborn “silver” side note: A “silver tongue” means that someone is persuasive when they speak….. perhaps this idea, theme, power, etc. will be expanded upon in the future 🤔