Does he have a crush on me?quiz

First time Reddit user here🖐
I (F20) have a crush on one of my guy friends (M22)
Hindi ko alam kung pano nagstart or bakit pero nagka-crush ako sa kanya. Grade 8 kami unang nagkakilala and magkaklase kami nun. Describe ko nalang din sya since baka may hint kung bakit ako nagka-crush sa kanya at baka importante.
Matangkad sya, pogi (at least for me), mabait, tahimik, naka-salamin, gentleman (ksi lagi nya kaming pinapauna pag naglalakad), and introvert.
Nalaman ko rin na nilalaro nya rin ung game na nilalaro ko which is Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, and for me, ang rare makakita nun. Ksi nga naman, matagal na ung game na un.
Anyways, I think nagstart ako magka-crush sa kanya nung grade 9. Hindi naman agad agad pero during grade 9. And may signs narin pero I think I was in denial at that time. And some of my friends even told me na baka nga crush ko na raw/nga sya. And I always tell them na hindi or wala akong crush sa kanya.
So, the first sign is tuwing flag ceremony, lagi sya ung unang hinahanap ko sa pila. Hindi na ksi kami magkaklase kaya ayun. Then another sign is that nung one time, may bagyo nun and lahat ng mga friends ko, absent. And I was feeling down ksi nga wala ung best friend ko (which is also my classmate), then nung nakita ko sya, parang naging kumpleto ung araw ko. Ung tipong ok lang na wala ung iba kong friends as long as nandito sya, that kind of feeling.
Also, lagi kaming shiniship ng mga friends namin and we always get annoyed. One time, sabi ng ex-best friend ko sa kanya "magkacrush ka sa kanya" referring to me. And boy, was she right, except ako ata ung unang nagkacrush, LOL. I always thought na never akong magkaka-crush, since I never had one during my elem days. Maybe because I was too young to know that or it's just not my priority in life but...here we are.
So back to the story, there's also this one time na absent sya and required kami na atleast 80 books with passed quiz sa scholastic. And onti pa lang ung nagagawa nya so I willingly helped him with that. Which I've never done before and especially not to a guy, ni hindi ko nga ginawa un sa best friend ko (which to be fair, ginagawa nya naman ksi ung sa kanya and so as my other friends so...yah😅)
After kong mag-take ng quiz for him, umuwi na ko at chinat ko sya para ipaalam sa kanya. Sabi ko pa nga na kung walang tutulong sa kanya then sino? Fast forward, it was our prom (still in 9th grade) and during the prom, naglipatan ng upuan ung mga tao, including us and katabi ko sya. I was honestly expecting him to ask me to dance but he never did. Which is also another sign that I ignored. But I had fun anyways ksi may pinapakita sya dun sa phone nya sa FB na mga sentence, and sabay namin binasa. Tawa nga kami nang tawa eh, so it's not all bad. Plus nag-picture kaming dalawa at nagpicture din kami ng iba kong friends, at classmates.
Time skipped, naging school mate ko sya until 10th grade and nung last day na namin nung bandang March, un na ung huli ko syang nakita. Ksi nagka-pandemic nun. So during my senior high years, hindi ko sure kung kailan ako napaisip sa kanya pero at some point, naiisip ko na sya. We stay in contact at nakakapag-chat pa naman kami kahit onti. And whenever it's his birthday, I always greet him or whenever there's a special day like Christmas or new year. Sadly, he never greeted me on my birthday, not even once. Probably because hindi nya alam, nakalimutan, or whatever. But it wasn't a big deal since as far as I know, he's not chatty or doesn't talk much when it comes to chat. Everytime ksi na mag-chat chat kami, ang ikli lang ng reply nya while kay haba haba ng akin (yah, he's that type of person)
Which led me to today. Sabi ko sa sarili ko na baka hindi sya worth it maging crush. Ksi kung sa simpleng chat pa lang nakaka walang gana na, what more kung maging mag-jowa kami, right? I mean I get na hindi sya mahilig mag-chat or whatever, pero nakaka walang gana ksi pag ganun ung kausap mo, imagine mo nalang kung in person mo kausap tapos ganun mag-salita ung tao, diba? But anyways, sanay naman ako na ma-ignore or hindi replyan agad pero syempre nakakapagod din pag ganun. Anyways, ung crush ko sa kanya, parang hindi totoo. Ksi lagi kong iniimagine ung mga traits na gusto ko na meron sya tapos mamaya, wala pla, oh diba?
So infatuation lang tong nararamdaman ko sa kanya (or at least that's what I thought). I'm the type of person who has wild imaginations but can't illustrate them. I'm also an overthinker so when that two combines, it may become bad. Especially, if the results are negative or can result into negative things. So after a few years of thinking about it, I asked my college friends if may crush ba talaga ako sa kanya and they confirmed that I indeed have a crush on him. And dun ko lang nalaman na in denial ako all this time. Madalas ko ksi syang naiisip everytime na nakakakita ako ng black or red. And pag manonood ako ng anime, sya laging nasa isip ko.
And I also told myself na hindi ako inlove sa kanya ksi hindi ko naman sya namimiss. Or I do not crave for his presence. Tsaka isa pa, baka ung memories lang ung namimiss ko at hindi ung mismong tao. Another thing pla is may duda din ako ngayon kung crush ko ba talaga sya as a person or crush ko lang sya dahil sa mga fake scenarios na naiimbento ko sa isip ko? And yes, he does know that I have a crush on him, umamin ako sa kanya kaso through chat lang. Which sucks because he's my first ever crush and I want it to be special and memorable. Gusto ko sana na umamin in person pero since matagal na kami hindi nagkikita, I just decided to confess through chat.
I was honestly expecting to get rejected, like ready na ko na ma-reject but to my surprise, crush nya rin daw ako. Like...WTF?! Na-crushback ako, wow! But anyways, I wasn't really expecting anything since gusto ko lang umamin ksi baka pag-sisihan ko sa future pag di ko ginawa. Pero ayoko magka-jowa kaya wala akong ineexpect sa kanya. Pero at some point, parang gusto ko rin maranasan kung ano feeling ng may jowa. But because of today's generation, naging kontento nalang ako sa paggawa ng mga fake stories in order to cope up with my feelings.
Sa mga stories na un, inapply ko ung mga bagay na gusto ko sa isang relationship. Kaya I decided na maging single nalang forever and kalimutan ung crush ko sa kanya kaso, mahirap eh. Ksi pag nakikinig ako ng love songs, sya agad una kong naiisip (and ung ibang bagay na minention ko kanina na naaalala ko sa kanya). Like please, gusto ko lang naman mawala ung crush ko sa kanya. And just stay friends with him nalang.
So to my fellow single people out there na nakakaranas din ng ganito or sa mga taong naka-move on sa crush nila, please give me advice on how to forget my crush or lose this kind of interest in him.
And sorry sa sobrang haba na paragraph, I just wanted to share how I feel and I want to know na hindi ako nag-iisa. And if you need clarifications or you have questions regarding my story, just let me know. Thank you for your time💜

why does everybody leave me
i don't deserve to live
i hate myself
what the actual fuck is wrong with me
why can't i do anything right
why can't i just be good enough and act the right way for people
do i gaslight people??? am i a fucking narcissist??? why can't i do anything fucking right.
i sent my bsf of 2 years a quiz (specifically a uquiz) for shits and giggles that's just "would i have a crush on you" and they got the answer "yes, im so down bad for you" and they screamed at me. now they should know that i literally have zero fucking romantic interest in them we've my best friends for 2 YEARS and i already explained that i would NEVER have a crush on or want to date them because that would obviously ruin the friendship.
also for context my girlfriend of 5 months broke up with me 20 days ago and this happened yesterday. i am trying so fucking hard to be right and good enough for people. i hate myself, i hate the way i am. i didn't know it would make them uncomfortable i did it without thinking i hate when i do this i hate myself. it's all my fault i want to die
the start of the conflict:
them: but why’d you send that to me bro, Lowkey made me uncomfortable.
me: okay sorry
them: no bruh ur not sorry you’ve been making me uncomfortable for weeks now (i didn't know i was doing this to them :(( )
me: dude i am sorry i just didn't expect it to make you uncomfortable and i didnt mean to, please forgive me
them: No I’m not fucking forgiving you. You’ve made me uncomfortable to the point I can’t even look at you the same. This has been going on for MONTHS. Examples like you being HELLA invasive of my love life in general, you send me a quiz to see if you’d have a crush on me even though I’m in a relationship?, you bring sm stuff onto me like I’m some therapist for you, AND you ignore my boundaries more than 3 TIMES now.
(i didn't know i was being invasive i wish they had told me i'm so fucking stupid for not picking up on this why do i have to be like this)
them: And I know damn well you’re not gonna change either. (they are referencing me and my ex's fight because i "didnt" change even though i had no idea i was doing anything wrong, i didn't communicate with her at all because i wasn't used to sharing my feelings which also lead me to going behind back and i take full blame for that but when my (ex) bsf said this, it hurt. really fucking badly. also i have severe anxiety, self-hatred, depression, and self-harm issues)
me: the only reason i brought that stuff onto you was because you said i could you said that you were my "non-christian therapist bsf". i didnt want to ignore the boundaries i didn't mean too i promise, i really didn't expect that to make you uncomfortable or cross the boundary. i didn't. i'm not trying to be like that. don't say i'm not changing because i'm really fucking trying after what happened with {my exs name} and i'm really confident that i have, i haven't talked to you abt what i'm actually doing to change myself i fucking despise who i am i want to fucking change i hate frustrating people like this because i'm not fucking trying to. i don't want to lose anybody like that again. (i shouldn't of said these last few things but i was very distraught so i guess they just came out)
them: First of all I said that a long time ago, I thought it wasn’t bad back then but now it just plain annoying to me. It goes on and on on how sorry you are for yourself and how you actually hate yourself, even threatening your life MULTIPLE times and you just expect ME, a 15 year old girl to give you a d v i c e and comfort you ALL OF THE TIME. It doesn’t matter where or how you grew up {my name} you are not changing, not to your friends, not to your ex’s, not to men. All you do is complain to your fucking friends about your issues, doing the same old shit you’ve been doing to it me for a YEAR and a half. I know you just got out of a relationship but I don’t think you notice the things you send/say to people makes them uncomfortable like {examples of some of my friends}. You’ve been making me feel bad and worry for way too long {my name}, you’re so fucking close to getting blocked.
me: i'll stop
them: No you won’t, you said that to {my ex's name}.
me: i meant i'll stop going to you with shit. i'll stop talking about anything remotely related to relationships. which includes the quiz thing.
them: nah bruh fuck you, I’m done with your shit. Stop victimizing yourself.
me: okay (i am sobbing at this point)
me but 20 minutes later: i shouldn't of barraged you with all the stuff with {my ex's name}, it stressed you out and i understand and i am sorry.
them: It’s not just {my ex's name}. This has been stressing me out for a year. Just stop it with he sorrys because it’s never going to help no matter how much you say that shit. And don’t bring {my recently good friends name} into this either, you’re doing the same fucking thing to him.
(i only told him what was going on because he saw me crying while texting my bsf and asked what was wrong but i didn't tell my bsf this because i didn't know if they'd believe me or not)
me: you're right. i should of balanced out what i told you if anything and not tell you or anybody (besides an actual therapist) all of the self hatred part because that is victimizing myself. (i calmed down at this point)
them: You’re finally realizing this now bruh god
me: i guess so. Thank you tho ( i don't even know what the fuck i said thank you for but it sure wasn't what they thought i said thank you for)
them: Tried my best
me 9 hours later: are we cool? (but it didn't send because they blocked me)
what the fuck is wrong with me, i've lost 2 people i love more than myself, and one of them i would die for still (my ex). there's no recovering from this point because if i don't even know what's wrong with me, i don't want to lose anybody else, i wish i could just die so i could die with people i do still have.
Edit: i'm probably gonna get a lot of hate on this post just like i did on the one (it's taken down now) 20 days ago when my girlfriend broke up with me. please don't give me hate, i just want to know how i can fucking be good enough for people i love and not frustrate people faster and pick up on things because if i can't then i don't want to live to lose more people i love.
also don't fucking say take this as a learning point or experience because that doesn't change the fact that these people are gone.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be dead in the next 24 hours.
Whether that's the Costella family, or whatever this is, I'm not sure.
The police are taking forever, and part of me knows they're either refusing to believe me, or RC got them too.
I'm holed up on our school bus, so I've got nothing better to do.
I want to tell you about my team.
We met in our sophomore year.
Strangers standing outside the club room.
Levi was the freckled brunette who wouldn't stop talking about Game of Thrones.
Sunny, a pretty redhead, told him to shut up.
Tom, a sandy blonde, nodding his head to music corked in his ears.
I just wanted to be part of a club, and get away from my overbearing mother.
I won't say it was a perfect start. Our school was lacking in funding, so anyone could join, which made us more of a Quiz Club. I had some serious anxiety, so I stayed on the sidelines for a while, watching, rather than taking part.
It's not like we actually talked to each other initially. The first few weeks, we played Jeopardy, and attempted to find more members to cement us as an official Academic Decathlon club.
Unfortunately, though, it was just the four of us.
Which made it extremely hard for us to be taken seriously.
According to Google, Academic Decathlon teams were made up of nine members, placed by their GPA.
Our principal laughed at us, but he did let us become official.
Which was out of pity, I assumed.
The club was assembled, and we started meeting up after school.
Sort of.
Sunny barely showed up, and Levi didn't take anything seriously, preferring to spend the time telling us about his weird family turf-war.
Our principal dumped us in a tiny classroom with a resident rat living under the floorboards.
There was barely enough room to move, and the four of us crammed together for three hours was less than appealing.
Still, though, I wanted to be part of a club.
I had grown up with parents who were obsessed with board games, so I was pretty good at general knowledge questions. Our club room was too small for anything else but three desks (Sunny and I shared one) and a whiteboard we had to shove through the door.
But, again, we didn't start as an Academic club.
It was more akin to Story Time Club.
Arriving late on my third day, armed with quiz cards from home, I found Tom and Sunny completely mesmerised by Levi’s storytelling skills, drowned in shadow.
They didn't even turn the lights on.
I strictly remember squeezing next to Sunny, and hearing the words, “But there was so much blood all over the floor, and my Mom told me to go upstairs and hide under the bed…”
Sitting in front of them was Levi, perched on a desk, his legs swinging, a whiteboard marker between his teeth.
Sometimes he'd get up, and illustrate parts of his story.
It sucked that his drawings were all stick people.
I won't go into full details of his life, but Levi grew up as part of a family who had… interesting methods of making a living. I had seen the guy’s father multiple times when we hung out at his place, and, yeah, my friend’s family definitely had Soprano vibes.
Levi’s Draw My Life was nothing to do with the club, but it did bring us closer.
Even if, at that point, I was considering leaving.
But it's not like it was easy to walk away from these guys. It's like finding your soulmates. Levi wasn't the only one with an interesting life. Sunny Lang was an ex kpop trainee, who was kicked out for being too fat, which led her to develop a severe eating disorder, and a hatred for her own body.
Sunny explained her family were originally from Boston, her mother growing up in Korea.
She signed up for an idol agency focusing on creating a new girl group, and had gotten all the way to the final stages, before being kicked for her weight. Sunny told us her story with a smile, though there was a hollowness in her eyes I couldn't ignore. The other girls were judgemental bullies, and the idol diet and brutal regime almost killed her.
Sunny lived in a tiny apartment with 9 girls, who would tear each other apart for a chance to debut. Sunny said all the other girls debuted, and when we (not so patiently) asked for names, she shrugged, admitting she signed an NDA that prevented her spilling the beans.
What she did say, was the K-pop idol is a product, not a person– and are made and moulded into a product.
She had zero interest in throwing her humanity away to become a manufactured doll.
So, one of us was the son of an underground family, and the other was an ex idol.
Tom was an aspiring horror writer with a famous older step-brother.
His story times were usually, That one time I went to the Met Gala.
When it was my turn to reveal my story, I told them the only interesting thing about me.
I could smell when something bad was going to happen.
They laughed, but I was being serious.
When I was a kid, I smelled my mother’s brain tumor.
I remember it smelled like curdled milk.
I asked Mom why her head smelled of mouldy milk, and Mom laughed and said it was her shampoo.
It was actually a grade two tumor growing inside her brain.
Thankfully, the tumour was found quickly and removed.
Growing older, I became sensitive to smell. The little girl choking on the bus smelled of singed wood, and the old man crossing the road stunk of gasoline.
In the fourth grade, my classmate Alex Castor smelled of lemons all morning.
I sat behind him, choking on the stink all the way through class.
Ever since I met him, Alex had always smelled… off.
It was a distinct smell I could never understand, and as the days and months and years went by, that smell morphed into a subtle orangey musk that was so strong I had to cover my mouth and nose. Then, he smelled like lemons.
During Recess, I watched Alex fall off of the jungle gym, straight onto his head.
Alex Castor was dead before the paramedics arrived, my panicked teacher attempting CPR when his brains were leaking out of his ears.
The school claimed it was an accident, but Alex would have been fine if the jungle gym wasn't built on solid concrete.
I told my team members this, and Levi was sceptical.
“You can smell bad things?” He said, his lips curved around his milkshake straw. In the early days, we hung out in the local bar. It's not like we were allowed inside, but Levi could get us in anywhere.
I was squeezed between Tom and Sunny, while Levi took the seat opposite us. I couldn't help noticing our waitress was insisting on free milkshake refills, her frantic eyes glued to Levi.
I had zero idea why. Levi Costella was about as intimidating as a fruit fly.
Wearing a white shirt with a popped collar, a leather jacket thrown over the top, Levi was giving rebellious Harvard student, rather than son of a crime family.
Leaning forward, he raised a brow, clearly not believing me.
“So, you're like a stink psychic?”
I shrugged, sipping my own shake.
“Sure.”
I wasn't planning on telling him the club room smelled off on our first day.
Once we actually started the club, Levi surprised us as the smartest member, and getting to know him further, I came to the realization his family were infamous in our town.
However, his parents hid it well. Lucy and Michael Costella were the owners of a popular ramen store in our town, hiding under the facade of two successful business owners. The Costella’s were an attractive family.
Lucy was a sophisticated brunette with a lipstick smile, Michael, a handsome fluffy haired man who looked like he modelled glasses.
The two were fiercely protective over their youngest son, not so casually reminding us behind grinning smiles, that if anything happened to Levi, we would automatically be involved in the family.
I mean, they did laugh and say, “We’re joking! Look at your little faces!” when Sunny went deathly pale. But there was definitely truth behind their words.
Being Levi’s friend was… challenging at first.
Tom and I were in his room studying for finals, and an alarm went off, flooding Levi’s room in red light.
I had zero idea where it was coming from, but it locked all the doors and windows, forcing the Costella residence into temporary lockdown. Levi didn't seem fazed, casually mentioning his parents were taking care of it.
He had a whiteboard set up in his room, and was standing in front of it, cramming all of our textbook notes into one easily digestible drawing.
Levi wasn't just smart.
He was Ivy League smart, so we had struck gold with him.
His family were questionable, and yes, sometimes I did fear for my life, but as the more time we spent at his house, the Costella household became a second home. We got used to the alarms.
I just brought along ear plugs.
I wish I was writing this post about Levi’s family, and sure, they are a factor in what is going on right now, but I want to preface this by saying the events below involve the 2024 scholastic decathlon final in our town with the school’s listed:
Starbrook High School.
Ratcliffe High School.
Please note, the incident that took place last night was immediately covered up, and all phone footage was destroyed. Our town is mostly out of the way, and does not show up on Google searches.
We also have our own version of the academic decathlon, which is a more town-level competition, due to lacking funds. The four of us were desperate to start competing with our schools.
So, we started taking things a little more seriously.
We got a coach.
Mr Hanes, who was hesitant at first.
In his words, “You will hate me as your coach.”
He started by recruiting more members, announcing, “If you want to be taken seriously as an actual club, then I'll be taking the reins from now on.”
He did, and with our teachers guidance (and sometimes brutal honesty), we reached a level where we could start competing with other school’s in town. Now, none of us knew this, but Mr Hanes was obsessed with winning.
So, club meetings were twisted into two hour study sessions with no talking, followed by Mr Hanes Jeaprody, which was Jeaprody, without the actual fun.
We were quizzed multiple times, answer cards and practise questions quite literally thrown directly in our faces.
I hate to admit this (I really hate to admit this) but Mr Hanes’s tactics worked. Sure, we had been mildly brainwashed by our slightly unhinged coach, but with Levi Costella, we destroyed our competitors. Like I said, our town held their own version of the academic scholastic decathlon, but it was pretty much the same, with some changes.
Ten subjects. Language and Literature, Math, Social Science, Economics, Art, Music, Interview, Speech, and Essay.
Unlike the official Decathlon, ours was more like a game show, with the ability to be knocked out if a team member answers a question wrong. Whoever answers the most questions correctly wins. Team meet ups were either tests, study sessions, or quizzing each other.
Which leads me to last night.
The finals were held in the reigning champions, Ratcliffe High School’s, auditorium.
And we were about to win our town’s Scholastic Decathlon 2024 Championships.
Well…I was knocked out in the music section. Standing next to my coach who I was sure was going to asphyxiate from excitement, I could smell the sudden potent stink of lemon. I tried to ignore it at first, but the more questions my team were answering correctly, the smell got worse, suffocating my senses.
This wasn't just lemon. The stink was like a burning, singing smell trickling into my nose and the back of my throat.
It was stronger than what Alex smelled like.
This was suffocating, drowning my thoughts.
“Are you okay, Cassandra?”
Mr Hanes nudged me when a Ratcliffe girl was struggling to answer a question, only for Sunny to jump in with the answer. “You look quite pale.”
I nodded, forcing a smile.
My gaze was on the Ratcliffe coach, a scary looking blonde woman, whispering in one of her student’s ears.
The Ratcliffe kid freaked me out. He was way too tall, dark blonde hair, and bulging eyes I swear were not blinking.
His gaze was glued to Levi, who wore a smug grin.
There was a smaller girl next to the Ratcliffe kid, a Macbook balanced on her knee. Every so often, he leaned into her, the two of them in deep conversation.
“I'm just nervous.”
I jumped when Ratcliffe scored a point, their side erupting into cheers.
During the break, we had a mini team meeting.
Sunny rushed to the bathroom to freshen up, and I noticed a Ratcliffe girl with a bouncing ponytail following her.
Ignoring our coach’s speech, I joined the two girls in the corridor, that lemony scent hanging thick in the air.
I caught them in an awkward position.
The Ratcliffe girl had her fingers pinched between the material of Sunny’s dark blue shirt bearing our school’s name.
Sunny looked confused, her lips parted like she was going to yell.
Ponytail dropped her hand, suddenly, with a nervous laugh. “Oh! I'm so, so, sorry,” she gushed. “You had, like, the biggest spider crawling on your back.”
Sunny caught my eye, shooting me a reassuring smile.
“Thanks.” She made sure to keep her distance. “Uh, where's your bathroom?”
The Ratcliffe girl nodded down the hallway. “It's just down there. I'm going there too if you want me to show you?”
Sunny motioned for me to go back to the auditorium. “Uh, sure! That'd be great!”
I did try to follow them, only for Sunny to cough loudly.
I took the hint, reluctantly heading back into the auditorium.
My team was hyping each other up, Levi in the centre, sweating through his team shirt. He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “I can't do this,” He groaned. “Ratcliffe High is known to play dirty, man. They're unbeatable.”
“In what way do they play dirty?” I asked, joining them.
Levi gulped down water, shrugging.
“I dunno! They're already trying to distract me with the stink eye.” The boy narrowed his eyes at a grinning Ratcliffe kid who, after noticing our stares, jumped to his feet, waving at us.
“Hey guys!”
“That's Harry Cartwright, the son of the Cartwright family who tried to kill my parents in the third grade.” Levi mockingly waved back. “As you can see, their kid is a fucking sociopath.”
Huh. I wasn't expecting the smiley kid to be the mobster’s son.
Harry Cartwright was not what I expected.
Unlike his team members, he was the only one in casual clothing, a short sleeved white shirt and jeans, a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.
Tom went pale.
“Fuck.” He hissed. “He’s one of you? Then those bastards will have a reason to play dirty, right?”
Levi shrugged, averting his gaze. It was the first time I saw his eyes darken, like he was subtly telling the boy to back off.
“The Cartwright’s have been trying to buy our land for a while,” he muttered. “I wouldn't put it past them to use the Decathlon as a way to attack.”
“Attack?!” April, another member of our team, hissed. “Like, attack attack?”
Mr Hanes grabbed the boy, resting his hands on Levi’s shoulders. “Ignore them,” he said. “Hey. Look at me.”
Levi did, raising a brow.
“You're losing that spark in your eye, young man.”
“Spark?”
Our coach nodded. “Look at me, kid.”
Levi rolled his eyes. “I am looking at you, Mr Hanes.”
The man was shaking. I was guessing his whole career (or coaching career) was on the line.
“They know they're losing, Mr Costella.”
Hanes shook the boy, squeezing his shoulders. “You are being positive and Ratcliffe doesn't like that. They want you to be nervous. They want to make you second guess yourself and lose confidence. Don't let them get into your head.” he smiled, giving the boy a playful shove. “Kick their asses.”
“Exactly!”
I didn't realize Sunny was back from the bathroom.
The faint smell of lemons had followed her. I noticed a wet patch on her shirt collar, though she was quick to smile at me, admitting she'd spilled water down herself. Sunny wrapped her arms around Levi, squeezing him into a hug.
She hung on for a little too long, Tom dragging her away with a laugh. “Good luck, all right?” she backed away, ruffling his hair. “We’ve got this!”
When I hugged Levi good luck too, I had to resist covering my nose.
The smell of lemon was unbearable, just like fourth grade Alex.
But it wasn't as potent as earlier.
I vaguely remembered the smell starting to fade once Alex’s body was being carted away on a stretcher.
Following my captain through the crowd, I was right. The smell was less suffocating. Before he went back to the stage, I grabbed the back of his shirt.
The material was soaking wet.
“How are you so wet?” I said, swiping my hands on my shirt.
“Huh?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. Do you remember what I told you in sophomore year?”
Levi settled me with a confident, but nervous smile. “Thaaaat you're scared of clowns?”
“No. I mean the boy who smelled of lemons.” I gritted out.
Levi surprised me with a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
Levi did know what I was talking about. He brought up my stink sense a day earlier in front of his parents, and I had to cover his mouth to shut him up.
Leaning close, I whispered in his ear. “You stink of rotten lemons.”
He nodded slowly, pulling away. “Uh… thanks?”
I bit back a hiss of frustration. “No, you don't understand what I'm saying–”
“Starbrooke High School,” The host announced. “Can all members please return to the stage.”
Levi held up his hand for a high five.
“Can we do this later?” He winked. “I'm kinda busy carrying this spelling-bee on my back right now.”
I nodded shakily, high fiving him, and letting him jump back onto the stage.
Before his words hit like a tidal wave, ice cold water slammed into me.
Spelling Bee?
Slowly making my way back to the stands, Levi’s mistake was circling around my head. He did win a spelling bee, but that was in middle school.
Thankfully, the smell of lemons was gone when I returned to my seat.
Mr Hanes handed me a soda. “Chill out, Cassandera, it's just a game.”
He could talk. The guy was on his fifth coffee.
Mr Hanes was not chilled out in the slightest.
Surprisingly, the event went well. I was half expecting my team to be crushed by the rafters, or caught in a blaze started in the crowd. But we were doing well. No, we were winning.
Reaching the climaxing round, Sunny choked against a smug Ratcliffe boy, joining me on the sidelines.
Levi answered the next question with a confident smile.
We were winning, but Ratcliffe could still catch up with a miracle.
The second to last question was to Ratcliffe, and it was general knowledge.
”Where on the human body would one find the *orbit?*
I knew the answer, and so did Levi, his lips breaking out into a smile when the Ratcliffe boy was hesitating, eyes wide.
Our school’s buzzer went off, Levi slamming his hand down.
Bzzz!
The host turned to our team. “Starbrooke, can I have your answer?”
Levi nodded, shooting our team a victory grin.
“It's…!“ He opened his mouth to answer, his jaw slackening suddenly.
The boy’s shoulders slumped.
“Uh… “
“Um…”
“Huhhhhh…”
Levi inclined his head, blinking, his eyes glazing over. There was a sudden, hollow vacancy that sent chills down my spine. It was like someone had reached into his skull, and yanked out his brain, leaving a shell in his place.
To my confusion, our team captain frowned at his buzzer like he'd never seen one before. He pressed it, exploding into child-like giggles.
Bzzz!
The audience laughed along nervously.
Tom nudged me. “What the fuck is he doing?”
Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz!
Levi’s entire body was slumped, his hand slamming down on the buzzer.
I caught something pooling down his chin.
“Is he… drooling?” I whispered.
Mr Hanes looked mildly horrified. “Has he been drinking?
“Levi?” Tom spluttered. “Drinking?!"
Whatever we were watching, however, was definitely influenced by… something.
Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz!
“Young man, that is not a toy!”
The host wasn't amused. “Starbrooke High School, I need an answer from you,” He nodded to Levi, who was pressing the buzzer, his smile growing.
“Once again,” The host backed away, like Levi was contagious. “Where on the human body would one find the Orbit?”
Levi cocked his head, lips parted.
His gaze found the overhead lights, and he winced, his lips curling into a frown.
“Starbrooke High School!”
Levi jumped, tipping his head back and blowing a raspberry. “Palm tree?”
The audience laughed, and I started feeling nauseous.
Across from us, I could see the twist of a smirk on the Ratcliffe coach’s lips.
Bzzz! Levi slammed the buzzer again giggling.
“Starbrooke High School, if your team member continues to act like this, I will be forced to disqualify all members.”
Our captain stopped, gaze glued to the host, his hand creeping towards the buzzer, like it was a big red button.
The audience loved it, laughing like they were watching a sitcom.
“He wouldn't.” Tom whisper-shrieked.
The auditorium was silent for a moment, awaiting Starbrooke’s response.
Levi stuck out his tongue, slamming his hand down.
Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz–
When Tom dragged Levi away from his podium, a Ratcliffe girl hit her buzzer.
“Starbrooke High School, you are disqualified,” the host announced. “Ratcliffe High School, do you have an answer?”
It was Ponytail who nodded with a grin.
“The answer is the eye socket! The Orbit is part of the eye socket!”
“That is the correct answer.” The host was distracted, his eyes glued to Levi.
“Ratcliffe High School wins.”
Levi jumped when the Ratcliffe wide erupted into cheers.
His eyes were wide, clinging onto the buzzer for comfort.
Next to me, our coach looked like he was going to faint.
I barely noticed Ratcliffe’s victory, too busy watching our team captain, who was Harvard bound, tipping his head back and smiling at the ceiling like a new-born baby. Tom dragged the stumbling boy over to me, his mouth twisted.
“This was Ratcliffe, right?” He hissed, shaking our captain, who was struggling, squirming in his grip.
“Did they put something in his drink?!” He prodded Levi. “Hey! What did they do to you?!”
Still, though, drugging his drink didn't make sense.
Levi never left the auditorium, and kept his water bottle with him the whole time.
How did they even manage to slip something into his drink in the first place?
Did I smell our competitors drugging him?
Sure, intentionally inebriating my teammate was morally wrong and illegal, but why could I smell lemon?
“I doubt it was Ratcliffe.” Sunny squeezed next to me. “I've been watching them. They're harmless.”
“Then how the fuck do we explain this to his parents?!” Tom whispered, grappling with Levi, who was fighting to get back to the buzzer.
When Tom let go of him, he dropped onto the floor, crawling over to his podium. It was like watching a child.
Who was determined to piss off the adults.
Levi jumped back to instead feet, his gaze was glued to the host, a smile curved on his lips, when he slammed the buzzer again.
Bzzz!
“Someone, please remove the Starbrooke boy from the stage!”
I was embarrassed, our whole team ducking our heads as our captain was forcibly removed from the podium.
Mr Hanes grabbed Levi, pulling him off of the stage.
I expected our coach to be mad at him, but I think the teacher was more worried, a phone pressed to his ear while he forced the boy into a sitting position.
No, I don't think it's influence from alcohol, I could hear his conversation.
Levi kept trying to get up, mesmerised by the buzzer. The teacher was firm but gentle. “Hey. Sit down, all right? Keep still.” He went back to his phone call, gently prying Levi’s eyes open.
From what I can see, there's nothing wrong. He's just kind of…
Mr Hanes swiped his own hands on his jeans. ... wet?
Team Ratcliffe came over to rub it in our faces, though I was still tuned into our coach’s hissed whispering.
Water? No, I don't think it's water. It smells… no, I haven't told his parents…
“You guys did awesome!” Ponytail's voice was sugary sweet. Too sugary.
She held the 2024 trophy, bearing a satisfied smile. I noticed the Ratcliffe members were surrounding Harry, like guards.
“Better luck next time, okay?” She held out her hand, her eyes twinkling.
“No hard feelings?”
“Control your dog.” Harry said, amused eyes flicking to Levi, who was once again sprinting back to the fucking buzzer. His eyes had visibly darkened, lips curled into a triumphant smile.
Harry Cartwright was watching Mr Hanes chase our team captain like it was his own personal entertainment.
I had to look away before I died of second hand embarrassment.
“What did you put in his drink?” Tom demanded. “Weed? Edibles?” the boy attempted to shove Harry, only to be pushed back. “What the fuck did you do to him?”
Harry’s smile didn't waver. “Like I said. Control your mut.”
When the Ratcliffe team walked away, our red faced coach struggling with Levi, who was behaving progressively more erratically, informed us we were longer welcome inside the school.
Tom suggested calling an ambulance, but our coach was hesitant.
We all knew who Levi’s family were.
On the way out, Tom matched my stride. He was frowning at our team captain struggling to walk.
The way he was acting was already eyebrow raising.
But walking at an angle and being unable to stand up straight was worrying.
“I don't think they drugged his drink.” Tom muttered.
We pushed through the doors out of the school, and I revelled in the cool night air grazing my cheek. “If they did, he would be acting out of it, right? So, what's the deal with him acting like–”
“A child.” I finished for him.
“Yeah.” Tom leaned closer. “Do you think this has something to do with their turf war?”
I slapped at a bug creeping across my cheek.
Levi fell over again, this time bursting into giggles.
“Almost definitely.”
Levi was right about Ratcliffe playing dirty. I didn't realize how dirty until we were on the losers bus home. Levi was in the seat next to me, and the kid hadn't moved since we left Ratcliffe, his eyes wide, lips pulled into a dazed grin.
Bzzz!
The noise startled me from slumber. I was drooling, my head pressed against the window. Outside, the sky was pitch dark, and squinting through the glass, I couldn't get a bearing on where we were. I thought I was hearing things, but when I sat up, I heard it again.
Bzzz!
It was close.
Leaning over the boy, I glimpsed a smear of scarlet on his headrest.
I choked on my next words.
“Tom.”
Tom was in front of me, listening to music.
He didn't reply, his head of dark blonde curls nodding to the beat.
“Levi.” I managed to get out. I prodded him, and his head lolled into his shoulder. “Hey. Can you… sit up?”
Bzzz! Bzzz!
When the boy didn't move, I gently grabbed his shoulders and pulled him forward myself, something contracting in my stomach.
I don't know how long it takes for your mind to fully register something, but my body was already reacting.
Levi’s seat was infested with bugs, eating their way through the upholstery. I was aware of my body moving back. I threw up, instantly, screaming into my hand.
The back of my best friend's skull resembled a deflated soccer ball, what was left of his brain leaking from his skull where a swarm of skittering bugs chewed their way through brain tissue, metallic legs scratching the curved, pearly white of the base if his skull.
Levi’s head hung, his body flopping into mine.
But his eyes were still open, lips still stretched into a smile.
Blood ran in thick rivulets from his nose and ears.
Bzzz!
I could see them, black writhing dots alive in his eyes, wriggling movement under his skin.
“Tom!”
I jumped up, stumbling into the aisle, my stomach heaving.
And it was only when I was on my knees, swiping bile from my lips, when I realized the others weren't reacting.
Tom wasn't moving.
I pulled an Airpod out of his ear, a long, slithering string of pink attached to the end.
There was a stray bug skittering across his hand, his face starting to twitch and writhe.
Moving back, I checked myself over, my hands shaking.
Head.
Shoulders.
Hair.
Clawing through it, my breath was stuck in my throat.
Arms.
Legs.
Feet.
Mr Hanes was slumped against the window, a reddish froth bubbling from his mouth.
Sunny.
I started towards the back of the bus, but all I had to see was her bowed head, half of her skull chewed through.
Sunny was in a far more deteriorated state, her face had been ripped through, a skeletal smile glinting in the dim.
The thick black smear on the window next to her was moving.
When I screamed for the driver to stop the bus, he ignored me.
If anything, he stamped on the gas.
I moved forward to shake him, before glimpsing a bug creeping down his face.
Calling 911, the operator laughed at me.
“Bugs are eating your friends.” He said. “Do you know the penalty for calling with bullshit pranks?”
The bus didn't stop, so I stayed at the front, while the bugs took over the back, eating through my teammates.
After four hours, I risked leaning over the seat next to Tom to check on Levi.
They were eating him.
Chewing all the way through skin, muscle and bone.
I tried to stop the bus, but the driver’s hands were tightly wrapped around the wheel.
Another hour, and blood was seeping down the aisle, crawling with bugs.
Levi was gone, and in his place, a buzzing skittering pile of bugs, that I thought were going to move to a second victim, maybe burrowing into the seats.
But, no.
These things began to tremble, replicating.
Building.
Slowly, nothing became static, and static became muscle.
Then bone.
Then flesh.
When a body began to slowly form, moulded from the dead boy, I stumbled back.
These things weren't eating Levi Costella.
They were rewriting him.
…
Edit: I'm still on the bus. I'm 99.9% sure that I'm infected with whatever this thing is. I can't stop fucking itching.
I keep picking them off me but they won't stop. This bus isn't going to stop until I'm like the others.
…
Edit 2:
I can feel them chewing into my skull. They're in my ears. I keep spitting them out. Please, someone get them off of me. Help me. I don't want to die at 17.
Edit 3:
Still alive. Still breathing. Maybe they're leaving me alone????? I think I'm okay. There is a pile of bugs at my feet, but they're crawling off of me.
Edit 4:
Levi really wants to go home. Like, he just told me he REALLY wants to go home. He's got a gift for his parents.
I have a feeling I know what it is.

As our show has gone through fourteen seasons, our popularity has increased immensely. So much so that we are receiving submissions from Pokémon of legendary, almost celebrity status! This season is dedicated to those star-studded Pokémon with incredible battling experience. 17, yes you heard me right, SEVENTEEN Pokemon each representing a different gym or leader or legendary trainer are here to show why their trainer’s team is the best and also win the glory and prize for themselves! I'm sure you’re getting excited so let’s reveal the celebrity cast for this season of Bunny’s Pokémon Big Brother 15: The Iconic Fifteenth!
Season 15: The Iconic Fifteenth!
Meet the Cast:
Arabella the Aggron – Representing Jasmine of the Johto league, Ara is a fiercely loyal member of the Olivine community. She grew up really shy and timid but after training with Jasmine for so long, she grew stronger and bigger and incredibly protective. Though she is still shy, she will fight to protect her team and at all costs in order to protect the person who saved her and the people she cares about the most.
Eliza the Vileplume – Representing Erika of the Kanto League, Eliza is ready to bloom into her own in this game. Eliza was always teased for being an ugly and smelly flower and shied away from others because of it. Her lovely trainer, Erika, took her in and showed her love and kindness which allowed her to grow into a beautiful and graceful fighter. She wants to show the world what love and kindness can do!
Eloise the Banette – Representing Phoebe of the Hoenn Elite Four, El is…well she is here. El fought fiercely for Phoebe alongside her sister for many years, spooking away and tricking any Pokemon who would even try to open against her team. But when Phoebe went to diversify her team for the big leagues, El was dropped and her sister stayed. Now, with a sense of indifference to life, El is just here to have something to do so she doesn’t rot away in the box.
Ember the Dragonair – Representing Clair of the Johto League, Ember is a perfect match for her trainer. She was trained specifically for battle and knows that power means authority. She knows who is superior to her and who is inferior to her and does not take any orders or direction from those weaker than her. She knows her own worth and is ready to find some strong competition in this game, but doubts anyone will be as strategic as her.
Genshin the Gengar – Representing Agatha of the indigo League Elite Four, Genshin hides a lot behind his smile. He is the OG prankster and mischievous ghost, wrecking many teams who dared face him down. He is good at tricks and pranks yet also can charm anyone with his wide smile. Despite his trickery and impish nature, he is still incredibly loyal to Agatha and wants to win for her sake!
Gehrmund the Slaking – Representing Norman of the Hoenn League, Gehrmund has woken up. Gehrmund has spent his whole life holding back and not going full out because of his leader’s place in the league. He can shake off his laziness but if he went at full strength, all of the baby trainers in his region would never be able to get a gym badge. Norman has given him full permission to go full out this time and Gehrmund has done his stretches and is ready to crush the competition.
Gigi the Garchomp – Representing Cynthia, Champion of Sinnoh, do we even need an introduction here? Gigi one of the most notorious team sweepers in any Pokemon League, known for his devastating and versatile tactics of tearing down even the most well-prepared teams. His strength comes from an unbreakable bond with Cynthia, and he is actually a very kind and gentle soul. He is here to show that he can do stuff on his own, without Cynthia, and still tear apart the competition.
Irina the Palossand – Representing Acerola of the Alola League, Irina is super excited to play! Irina is high energy and huge strength! She was one of the founding Pokémon in the Alola league and was nervous about it then, but her many victories as well as learning to accept losses has shaped her into a Pokemon with a bright outlook on what it means to win and lose. She is super positive, if not a little bit creepy, and wants to see the strength that other Leagues have to offer.
Levon the Beartic – Representing Candice of the Sinnoh League, Levon is going to cast an icy wind over the house. One of the more recent additions to Candice’s team, Levon was rescued as a cub and nurtured back to health. He doesn’t really like talking to other people, but is willing to do so if it makes Candice happy. In his past, he was hostile and aggressive and is proud to have overcome that side of himself to be where he is today.
Lizadon the Charizard – Representing League Victor Red from Kanto, Lizadon is here to kick butt and take names. Liz was one of Red’s first Pokémon and was a core member of his team. Together they had two goals in mind: Catch em all, and Win every battle. She has been with him since the beginning and is incredibly loyal to him and him only. She knows this game is about social connections but deep down only wants to win and see if she can add more Pokémon to Red’s roster.
Lucky the Lucario – Representing Maylene of the Sinnoh League, Lucky is focused and charged up for the competition. Lucky has gotten to be a feared name in the Sinnoh league not because of his luck but because of his fierce discipline and focus. He is agile and strong, ripping through teams even unfettered by his teammates. Yet, he is also very calm and loyal in real life and plans to use that to his advantage in the game.
Luis the Golisopod – Representing Guzma of Team Skull notoriety, Luis isn’t here to play fair. Luis has a tough exterior, intimidating those who would even think about going up against him or Guzma. He is untouchable in combat and doesn’t take any insults lying down. Despite this, he is actually a scared Wimpod oon the inside. When the going gets tough, he gets going, scared to let down the man who trained him his whole life. He still won’t play fair in the game, however, because that’s no fun.
Matthew the Dudunsparce – Representing Larry of the Paldea League, Matthew is about as normal as they come. He was never the star of his team, only a mere grunt. He felt overshadowed his whole life and being on Larry’s team just felt like another boring job. As such, he is bored and unimpressed by life. He has no hobbies, no friends, and a meaningless job, so what can he lose by signing up for this show?
Missy the Seadra – Representing Cissy of the Orange League, Missy is here to prove the strength of the Orange League. Missy knows she is strong but has gone her whole life dealing with people who tell her that the Orange League doesn’t count and that Cissy isn’t a real gym leader. She has never and will continue to not take that, and is here to show why. She is Missy, the prized Seadra of Cissy, and you will know her power!
Persephone the Zorua – Representing Celebrity Trainer N of Unova, Persephone is going to use this game as her platform. Once a cunning trickster in Castelia, she didn’t really care for others too much. But after meeting and training with by N who trained her as a friend outside of a Pokeball, she learned the strength of bonds with others. She wants to play this game for other abandoned or mistreated Pokémon and show them that they have a purpose and place where they belong.
Raba the Emolga – Representing Elesa of the Unova League, DJ Volt Switch is going to get this party started! DJ has always known she isn’t the best fighter. Being part of a gym leader’s team is a big surprise to her. Yet she makes up for strength with her incredible strategy including Volt Switching every turn to make her team unoredictable. She is a musical mastermind and worked behind the scenes on every theme for the Unova league as well. Maybe the game will help her promote her album!
Zoltan the Jolteon – Representing Celebrity Trainer Serena of Kalos, Zoltan is overflowing with energy! Zoltan has always been a hyper Pokémon, reaching an incredibly high speed stat very early in his life. Serena harbored his love to run into a battle strategy that promoted his off the wall energy. He is very eager to learn and try new things even if he goes through them very quickly. He plans to cool down just long enough to strike at the right moment and win the game!

Intro: Seventeen Pokémon stand on separate lifts in a dark room, all in anticipation of the Legendary summer that is approaching. Suddenly, the sound of mechanical whirring starts and the lights flash on. Each lift moves upwards and upwards at a steadily increasing pace until they finally arrive at the top in another darkened room. All look around at each other for a moment before KAPOW the shades on the windows drop and multicolored lights floods in. The beautiful mosaic glass windows of the Kalos Pokemon League stand regally in front of our houseguests. They represent the iconic nature of the season we are presenting in this grand castle. All of them get ready to compete in the first HOH,
First HOH: All houseguests are in Champion Diantha’s room standing on platforms suspended over the abyss (with safety cushions underneath duh). Periodically, an element of the Kalos Elite 4 strikes out, knocking houseguests off. As the houseguests fall off they are sent to their new rooms. Matt doesn’t even make it to the first obstacle before falling off. When the waves of Siebold start washing over, Irina is washed away and Luis emergency exits. Ember holds to the end of the wave but gets washed away at the last second. Next, Malva’s flames burn up. Levon can’t take the heat and drops. Followed by DJ and soon Persephone. Eliza is the last to succumb to the flames. Next, large swords start to swing and the houseguests must jump over. Genshin is the first to trip up. Lucky gets knocked out next. The swords swing for a while, claiming Gehrmund as well who is slacking off. Finally, Drasnea’s dragon blows hot dragon breath, sending a wind at the houseguests remaining. It is supereffective on Gigi, and Missy feels the heat as well. The wind continues to blow, catching in Lizadon’s wings, leaving it between Zoltan and Ara. Ara sends strong due to her heavy metal, but Zoltan is having a breeze, and after a long time, Ara gets tired and slips up, giving Zoltan the first HOH!
Week 1: Fresh off the HOH competition, Houseguests are split into rooms based off of the four Kalos league members. In the fiery Malva room, Matt sulks while Levon and Genshin sideeye Gigi for being Cynthia’s Garchomp. In Siebold’s wavy room, Irina, DJ, and Missy all enjoy each other’s company while Lucky rests up. In the steel type Wikstrom’s room, El and Persephone begin scheming while Liz complains to Matt how she got so close. The irony is lost on her. Finally, the draconic Drasnea’s room has Ember and Gehrmund already at Odds while Ara and Eliza try to keep the peace. In the HOH room, El and Persephone plot to get in good with Zoltan to keep them in safety this week. Genshin goes to Gehrmund’s room to complain about Gigi, while Levon does the same about Levon, thinking he is gonna be a massive threat. Sensing Gigi’s name going around, El plots to get Gigi on their side by telling him about his name floating around. He takes it well, knowing he would be a threat. He does agree to work with them though.
Zoltan ends up settling on two noms, Matt for being pitiful at the first challenge, and Missy because her tenacity in the challenge and her drive to win is scary. Irina, El, and Lucky are all chosen to compete in the veto. Zoltan tries to hold back Missy by misleading her, causing him to lose as well with Matt jusy doing bad. Missy still holds up but can’t catch up and the other three pull ahead. Irina comes out victorious. Missy pleads with her roommate to save her but Irina doesn’t want to rock the boat and keeps nominations the same. Missy goes on the offensive, making statements about wanting to prove the strength of the Orange league. Matt, meanwhile, does his best but, only Gigi will take the time to listen to him. Gigi offers to his alliance about maybe keeping Matt because he would be easy to beat. In reality, he just pities him. They decide to but El tells him the vote is still for Matt, so he doesn’t know to try and keep Missy. At the eviction ceremony, Gigi is shocked as he is one of the few to vote for Matt, seeing Missy out the door as the first evictee. She is distraught but says she still felt she did well.
Week 2: Week 1 was long but set things up well! The HOH is a tribute to Gym leader Viola, with large webs setting up silks sacs that the contestants hang from. It comes down to Genshin, Gigi, Gehrmund, and Ara, some of the strongest mons in the game. Genshin scares Gehrmund causing him to drop and making him mad. Genshin’s laughing causes him to fall as well. Between Gigi and Ara, Ara lasts longest and wins this time. Lucky starts lashing out at DJ for her music being a disruption. The Emolga is saddened and goes to play it elsewhere, which makes Ara think she is an easy target. Ara puts up DJ next to Luis, who is not making enough waves for her. DJ bonds more with Levon with her music and then selects him for Houseguests Choice in the veto. They end up the top two of the veto and he wins. Despite their bond though, he doesn’t save her. She realizes she has to fight for herself now and starts trying to work on Irina and El. Lucky goes off on El for her sneaking around and she decides she needs to spite him. So she starts to work on the house, convincing Levon he made a mistake by not saving DJ. Persephone makes her statements about working for neglected Pokemon and it goes well with the house, allowing her to go to Levon and further drive in the point of DJ being on the outs. At the eviction, the work of the duo is successful, and Luis emergency exits out of the game. Gigi feels left out of the vote again.
Week 3: This HOH is a tribute to gym leader Grant, being a rock wall competition which comes down to Ember, Eliza, and Persephone. Ember calls out the other two, saying that she is not losing to people inferior to her. She is the next to drop though, followed by Eliza, giving Persephone the win. In the HOH room, Levon, Irina, and Liz come up to the room with Persephone to complain about noticing El and Zoltan scheming. To save her skin and avoid implication, she plays coy and suggests they keep an eye out for those two. Each of them go back to their rooms and bring in a plus one to the alliance, adding in Ara, Eliza, and Matt, who is evstatic to be involved. To avoid suspicion from both sides, Persephone nominates two of the strongest houseguests, Lucky and Gehrmund. At the veto, Lucky goes on to win it. Lucky, now safe, admits his fears to Irina and DJ about not being strong enough when it matters. When replacement nominees are thrown out, the alliance suggests El and Gigi, but Persephone deflects by bringing up Ember and Genshin which causes the alliance to split between them. She sides with Eliza and puts up Genshin. Not wanting to get let out of the vote again, Gigi goes to El to ask her how the vote is going and she says Genshin is going. He doesn’t trust her and goes to people outside of his alliance, Irina, Lucky, and DJ in the next room, to see what they think. All of them want Gehrmund out so Gigi goes with his gut. At the eviction, his gut is correct and only three votes go to Genshin, evicting Gehrmund 9 to 3.
Double Eviction: Are you surprised to see one so early? Well with 17 contestants we had to keep the season going smoothly so why not see two pre-jurors out on the same night? The HOH is a cycling tourney from Grant which sees Irina, Ember, and DJ in the lead. DJ, empowered by her music and knowing she is on the bottom, goes on to win it. She puts up Lucky for being a jerk to her and Gigi because she wants to make a big move against him. At the veto, Zoltan lets slip to Gigi about their alliance which tips off DJ that something is up. Lucky ends up winning and saving himself. DJ puts up Zoltan because of knowing of his alliance with the dragon. Both alliances split up on the vote and ends up with Persephone being the deciding vote between the two. She chooses to cut off Zoltan, evicting him so early.
Week 4: With Zoltan gone, one more HOH is being played, and DJ is unable to compete. This time, the contestants are in a skating rink like Korrina’s gym, skating and avoiding obstacles to be the last one standing. Persephone easily skates through and wins it. DJ compares notes with Gigi after he gets off the block and he reveals Persephone was working with them too. She talks to Irina in her room, and he talks to Genshin in his room who don’t know a thing about it. But when Irina goes to Ara and Eliza about it, they are ticked that Persephone was alluding them like that. The six form an alliance. Persephone continues using easy nominees to hide her loyalty seeing Lucky hit the block again next to Ember. The veto is close, with Lucky looking he will win again. But Ara pulls out the win and stops him from saving himself. The new six person alliance is split on who to vote, with DJ and Irina seeing Lucky’s strength and wanting him gone. But Gigi, Eliza, and Ara know that Lucky is Persephone’s target and doesn’t want her getting her way. El plots with Gigi to convince him about Lucky winning too many vetoes to try and sway his vote. At the eviction, the house is split between honoring Persephone’s wishes or evicting someone who is kind of a jerk. Ember doesn’t make it easier by claiming she is better than most of them. In the end, strategy wins out and Lucky is sent home, leaving Gigi at odds with his alliances again.
Week 6: This is the last week before jury and it is a vine climb challenge themed after Ramos. Irina, Levon, and Liz climb the fastest but Irina finds a shortcut and wins. Irina and Eliza confront Persephone about her double-crossing and she storms off. Liz, Matt, and Levon ask how they found that out but they brush it off. El, having done a lot of behind the scenes plotting, comes into the spotlight as the target next to Ember, who isn’t making any new friends with her attitude. DJ begins playing samples of her music around the house to people who will listen to her. Irina and Liz actually are swayed by it and the three bond more. At the veto, Persephone is in the lead, aiming to save El. But Genshin blocks her at the last second to win. He keeps the nominations the same, seemingly sealing El’s fate. Liz lashes out at Persephone for her betrayal, saying that it was awful. Persephone says it is just a game and to relax. Ember borrows something from Eliza but then breaks it. Her reaction is to tell Eliza “oh well” and shrug it off. Annoyed, the plant goes to her different alliances and tells them Ember is too much of a liability to have in the house. Genshin remains insistent on El leaving but DJ considers it, seeing that El’s game is in the open now. She tells Gigi that the plan has shifted to Ember and he appreciates her for telling him, solidifying their bond. At the eviction, the push is successful and Ember is sent out of the door. She initially refuses, saying that she is superior and no one else deserves the win. But Levon cuts her off, claiming that if she was the best she would have proved it, and kicks her out of the door.
Week 6: The jury starts this week! The HOH is themed off of Lumiose tower and Clemont’s gym! The quiz includes physical and endurance elements as well which is an equal opportunity for more people, especially the smaller DJ and El. El pulls ahead and ends up winning, chuckling looking at everyone else’s faces. Persephone tries to come back to her but she brushes her off, saying that she put her game in danger but she won’t hit the block because she appreciates her friendship as long as she doesn’t talk. El also gets the power to shuffle the rooms, choosing to put people with others that they hate. {Persephone, Genshin, and Eliza are together. Liz, DJ, and Levon are together. Leaving Irina, Gigi, and Matt in the last room. Her initial target is Eliza for seemingly having a lot of roots in the house. She is put up against Matt, for being a good pawn. At the veto, El is irritated as Persephone tries to trick her and give her a run for her money. El ends up winning but stays bitter at Persephone. Matt tries to go on the offensive, campaigning against Eliza. But Eliza has a lot of power through most of the house and Irina, Levon, and Liz aren’t really on his side. Persephone jumps on the anti-Matt train to spite El, with Gigi and DJ finding out and sticking with the house to not rock the boat. At the eviction, El watches as her target stays and Matt leaves unanimously.
Week 7: The next HOH is themed after Valerie’s Fairy gym and sees the houseguests navigating the maze-like house to come out first. Ara, Gigi, and Irina continue to stay leading the comps, with Irina winning her second HOH. DJ realizes that she can shield herself using these strong players and tries to work on getting Ara on her side. Meanwhile, El and Gigi get into an argument, dragging in Liz to Gigi’s defense. Irina decides that this is the time to pick sides and consults Ara and Eliza, who decide to side with Gigi and turn on Liz, putting her and El on the block. Persephone breathes a sigh of relief for avoiding the block. At the veto, Irina goes on to win it again. Liz approaches her, flaming mad wondering why she was on the block instead of Persephone for being a sneak. Irina backs down on her plan, much to Eliza’s chagrin, and takes Liz off the block, sitting Persephone next to El. Eliza goes on a tour of the house, checking in with her allies on both sides to make sure she is still in good with them all. Due to her good nature, it is well received. She convinces Liz that Persephone already blew her own game up and owes more to them than El does. At the eviction, Liz flips her vote to El, breaking the swing and evicting EL.
Week 8: The next HOH is a quiz themed after Olympia and her psychic Pokémon. Gigi does well again but Eliza proves to be really smart and comes out on top. With Irina and Ara, she decides how they should play this week and which side they should pick. Eliza has the idea to let the two sides fight, and they survive in the middle, not getting picked off. Genshin and Liz go on the block, confusing everyone. Liz is filled with rage and knows she can’t trust Eliza or Irina now and takes her game into her hands by winning the veto. Levon goes on the block in her place. DJ has a breakdown when she realizes that she was played. She cries to a similarly annoyed Gigi, who comforts her and tells her they need to plan ahead. Genshin and Persephone get in a big fight, as he blames her somehow for him going up. Ara pushes the fight forward, hoping that the two sides stay at each other’s throats. DJ and Gigi are resolute in saving Genshin, as Liz is to keeping Levon. But Persephone hesitates, not really trusting Levon as part of her alliance anymore. At the eviction, Persephone confirms that she is voting Levon, causing Ara and Irina to vote that way as well, evicting him in 9^th place. Liz and Persephone decide not to work with the trio anymore though.
Double Eviction: Surprise part 2! We are continuing this crazy week by sending one more person to the jury house! The next competition is a crazy psychic maze. Liz goes all out to save her skin but is unsuccessful when Gigi finally wins. He puts up the obvious two in Liz and Persephone. At the veto, he goes on to win it. In the interim, Liz gets into a shouting match with Ara and Irina. At the veto ceremony Gigi looks to DJ after they had a talk. DJ nods at him and he saves a shocked Liz. In his place goes Irina. However, at the eviction ceremony, Irina has a beautiful statement prepared, exposing Persephone as the ultimate double-crosser and revealing nasty things she said about everyone. The houseguests voting realize they have no choice but to vote Persephone, who goes home unanimously.
Week 9: The final gym leader HOH is the icy block pushing comp themed after gym leader Wulfric’s gym, with ice slides leading to new rooms. Fresh off the block, Irina wins it. Ara ends up in the Drasnea room with DJ and Gigi while Liz, Genshin, and Eliza end up in a room together. DJ and Gigi get closer to Ara in order to get closer to her and stay safe this week. It works when Ara vouches for them to Irina when deciding who goes up next to Liz and Genshin hits the block. At the veto, Liz wins again, saving herself. Feeling scared for himself, Gigi talks privately with Irina about DJ trying to save all of the big names to be shields over her to get her put up over him. Irina likes both of them though and shifts the target to Genshin, putting up Eliza as a pawn. Gigi is shocked but hides his deception out of shame. Liz continues to isolate herself because she feels on the outs, but DJ goes out of her way to comfort her, saying that no one deserves to feel lonely for so long. Genshin commends Irina for finally turning on Eliza and says they can make a sneaky ghost type final 2 deal. At the eviction, Gigi cotes Eliza to try and break the alliance, but everyone else votes for and blindsides Genshin.
Week 10: The HOH is a gym badge puzzle consisting of elements from every gym. It is a close race but Ara beats out Eliza for the win. Because of her connection to DJ and Gigi, she wants to save them again, so she puts up Liz next to Eliza for winning way too much. Liz is used to this by now and starts to give up on herself for being in such a bad spot. DJ continues to try and hype her up, even though she doesn’t want to keep her, she hates seeing her so sad. Liz fumbles in the veto, seeing Irina win again. When she saves herself, Ara puts up Eliza in her place. Angry at Ara for picking a side, Irina and Eliza reveal to DJ that Gigi and Ara tried to throw her under the bus. She thanks them but then goes off to cry, feeling distraught and feeling even more on the bottom. At the eviction, it is a clean sweep vote to eliminate Liz.
Week 11: The next HOH begins, sending the final 5 through all four of the elite 4 rooms in the same order as the first HOH. In Siebold’s room, Eliza finishes last and is eliminated. During Malva’s room, DJ and Irina swiftly make it through the competition but Gigi catches up, barely making it through. Gigi continues to fall behind in Wikstrom’s room, eventually losing his footing and falling off. Finally, Irina and DJ go head to head in Drasnea’s wind battle. DJ wants to prove herself and finally win something while Irina wants to preserve her lead on the game. DJ ends up coming out on top, winning. DJ knows Irina is tough competition so puts her up next to Ara, who she feels betrayed by. At the veto, Ara goes on to win and saves herself. Eliza goes to remind DJ about her betrayal at the hands of Gigi, and DJ sadly puts up Gigi. Gigi goes on damage control and goes back to DJ, who is initially reluctant to see him. However, he is sincere with his apology, and reflects on his shame. She says she doesn’t know how to feel and needs some time. Once he leaves, Eliza goes back to whisper in her ear. She whispers rumors and plays on DJ’s fears of beating him in the end. At the eviction, Eliza sticks with Gigi by voting Irina, while Eliza votes Gigi. DJ is faced with the tie and ends up forgiving her friend, voting out Irina.
Week 12: The final 4 HOH is a Champion cup between Eliza, Gigi, and Ara. They all are in Diantha’s room, enduring a grueling rotating competition. During the comp, Eliza tries to haggle with Gigi and Ara, knowing she is on the outs. She ends up cutting a deal to save the two of them if she wins and Gigi, on the edge of his wits, agrees to the alliance. Him and Ara drop, crowning Eliza the final 4 HOH. She immediately goes back on her word by putting Ara and Gigi. They both feel betrayed but can’t say anything with DJ clueless of the competition. They just have the veto to save themselves. To their shock though, DJ beats both of the powerhouses she was using as shields to win the veto, proving herself. Gigi goes to DJ again to explain his situation but this time, DJ is even more mad. She says that he keeps trying to turn on her whenever it seems right for him and then feels guilty and apologizes like it’ll fix everything. The Garchomp reflects on this, not really knowing the pressure of being on the backfoot being a veteran battler. He asks her at least to consider taking her closest ally to the final 3 and she says she doesn’t have one of those. At the eviction, DJ has the power to decide who goes home again, with Gigi on the block again, but she hesitates with the opportunity to eliminate Ara. In the end, she reveals that she is evicting Ara, shocking Gigi and Eliza both.
The Reunion: In the front plaza of the Kalos League, we sit with all of the jurors so far. Matt, El, Levon, Persephone. Genshin. Liz, Irina, and Ara are here to talk about the game. El and Persephone are up first to talk about their drama. El says that she may be sneaky but at least she was up front and didn’t claim to fight for neglected Pokemon before leaving her allies behind. Persephone says that its just a game. Liz points out that it is a game broadcasted to so many people live and Persephone could have let her dans down. Levon asks Irina and Ara about their choosing sides, wondering why they were so obvious about being in the middle. Ara says that they had to choose their best path to the end. Irina then counters Ara questioning why she sided with Gigi and DJ instead of her and Eliza, who she thought they had something with. Ara is speechless at being called out. Matt goes to speak but is cut off by Genshin starting beef with Levon. The jurors are asked who they are rooting for so far. Ara says that Gigi is super strong and deserves to get another champion crown. Levon and Genshin agree. Irina and Liz back up Eliza for having roots all over the house. Persephone agrees, saying that she played sneaky and only told the parts of the truth that would save her and put other people under, which is smart. Matt finally speaks up. Telling everyone not to sleep on DJ. She is incredibly kind and sociable but also can win challenges and positioned herself in a place where she was never at risk of going home. El agrees, saying that she picked the right allies who slowly tore their own games apart. The jury reflects and comes out still not knowing who to pick.
Final HOHL Gigi, DJ, and Eliza prepare for part 1 of the HOH, a grueling physical race up victory road. Gigi easily clears the other two. Watching on screen, Ara comments that she was right about his strength. DJ and Eliza face off in part two, piecing through each gym badge who played in what competitions during each gym badge and whoever got the fastest wins. Eliza gets confused due to not remembering which side she was on each week but picks up steam near the end. DJ uses her agility to get ahead, even when she is confused. DJ’s time is faster by a minute and a half. Levon thinks aloud how she really did know a lot more than she let on. Liz says that she probably had a tune for every week and type. In the final part, DJ and Gigi face off. During the quiz, Gigi again tries to apologize to DJ. She simply tells him to focus on the comp so she has real competition. It comes down to a tie-breaker question about the gallons of water flushed through any competition using water. Gigi guesses an admirable amount but DJ realizes the question is a trick, as none of the water would hold in the pipe system, so she answers and wins!
Final Eviction: Gigi and Eliza face eviction from DJ. She tells them both that they were great gamers and she feels honored to play with them. She feels like she really grew into her own in the endgame and was able to beat people at competitions! But she says that her choice tonight comes down to honesty. One person was honest with her with the painful truths, while the other was only honest to save their own skin, and the line between the two is very blurry with these two. Ara says there is no way she saves Eliza now. Genshin says that this is about Gigi for sure. But she shocks almost everyone in the jury when she evicts Gigi. The dragon accepts defeat. He apologizes to DJ, who is starting to finally break and cry, for his betrayal and commends her strength in evicting him. He promises to learn more and be a better champion level Pokemon. She hugs him as he leaves, Eliza smirking in the background.
Jury Questioning: Eliza and DJ face the jury. Eliza goes first, she claims her game with absolute eloquence and finesse. She had vines all over the house, granting her a certain path to the end. Even when she was on the block, she had more allies voting on her side and still got her way with who hit the block every time. She states how she manipulated the ultimate champion and caused him to break, showing her power and how great she was at the game. DJ follows, initially Timid. She tells a story about starting on the bottom, not really in any alliances, but how she found her footing and won competitions to win. She looks up and Gigi is looking right at her from the jury. He nods, and she composes herself. After a breath, she speaks with utter confidence that she deserves to win the game more than anybody else. She was always honest and upfront and dominated the social game to the point that no one wanted to put her up because of her joy. She convinced Irina’s trio to side with her and Gigi, convinced Ara to side with her and Gigi, and won out at the right time, deciding who went home in the last three evictions to shape her game to where it needed to go. And now, she sits next to someone who claims to be in control but really, had a huge blind spot. Or more like a deaf ear to the amazing symphony of music happening right next to her. The jury is speechless, Gigi and Liz both smiling.
The jury Votes: Matt says he told everyone and they didn’t believe him. El says that she believed him and everyone better now. Levon says he is very impressed and ready to buy in, Genshin asks how much the album will cost when it comes out, Liz says she is voting for the person who showed her the utmost kindness even when she broke down. Irina says that she has no choice now well this jury speech went, Ara says that she learned about true power tonight. Gigi gets up and goes to vote. He says that he may be a champion’s Pokémon, but someone here is a Champion-Class Pokémon who he is proud to call a friend. And the winner by a unanimous vote is…
Winner: DJ!!!!!
Runner-Up: Eliza
Fan Favorite: Ara
My Favorites: DJ, Gigi, Liz, Irina, El, honestly almost everybody.
My thoughts: I enjoyed writing this season more than most. A lot of it seemed like there were so many shifting alliances or friendships that the decisions came out of nowhere and I was able to write in how they happened and how they got there. And it created one of the most touching winner storylines we have had yet. I don’t think DJ really had full control over the game and was playing from her foot, but she had cheek and charm and didn’t give up even when the times were tough. Her allyship with Gigi was beautiful and him continuing to turn on her only to back out was heartbreaking. But it did make fir a good story to write about it. DJ is an emotional and great winner for her social game and deciding the end game by herself pretty much. Other storylines that were good were the Persephone and EL storylines collapsing around them while Gigi survived. Liz falling apart but still winning her way further than she should have. Eliza and Irina leading the house only to lose control because of Ara. And Eliza using her half truths and deals to squeak by at the end. But DJ had a really good story and came out absolutely jamming.
So what’s next? Well there are two seasons left and I already have ideas about them. Keep an eye out for the next sign-ups as they will be a bit different. It will also include a poll about this season and it’s legendary characters as well. Thank you guys for another iconic season, til next time!

TW: Self-harm, suicide, mental illness (I wasn't sure whether or not to mark this as NSFW)
When I was a child (now 16M), my parents fought often. Physical fights, verbal fights, all of it. Like, my mother dropped a cup. It broke and they started beating each other up over that. When I was six, maybe seven (or around that. Or younger) she drank toilet cleaner to kill or hurt herself.
My father sent her to the hospital a few times. Head injuries happened too. I was beaten too (don't remember how often). My father once broke down crying while I was sleeping with him. He once yelled at me that it was all my fault. My mother thought he was cheating on her, he thought she wasn't a 'good woman' or whatever, and that was pretty much the basis of their fighting.
I tried my best to mediate the fights. Tried to get them to apologize, all that kid stuff.
I was a straight A student (no friends. Didn't want those. And socially awkward) and the fights kind of mellowed out after I turned eight. Just...fizzled out. However, there were still issues (just verbal stuff. I think. My memory's grown blurry). And after COVID came, I got bored of class and started doing stuff on my phone. One day I just found an article on Asian Parenting and some criticisms of it and that's when the first thought that what I was going through wasn't normal came up.
(This is important for later) They put me in the Cambridge Board in sixth grade.
My grades slipped during COVID by a ton (not depression or anything. Just boredom). This was seventh and eighth grade, I think. Again, memories are blurry for me these days.
I wasn't really the most sane child either. I was kind of spoiled and bratty (I pulled a knife on my mother after she interrupted a video game I was playing. Pushed her too). I think I might have a personality disorder (to those of you who want to lecture me about self-diagnosing, please, tell my parents to take me to a therapist. They'll whack you over the head and slam the door in your face. Then they'll lecture/scold me).
I got friends in eight grade though. Which was nice. Three girls, one of whom turned out to have a crush on me (that ended badly with me just trying to ignore her advances until she outright spelled it out, and then telling her I wasn't interested but wanted to stay friends. Then I accidentally offended her. She said she wanted a sibling, I told her to ask her parents -as a joke- and it turns out her mother had an operation on her fallopian tube. Awwwwwwwwkwaaaaaaard).
Come ninth and tenth, something happened. Well, first off, we shifted states. Second, my mother's father died. She went off the deep end after that. Started doing the same things she did when I was a kid. She would constantly badmouth my father and his family (she blamed him for her father's death). This led to several physical altercations. I tried to get my little brother (who I have also been horrible to. Not as in, terrible terrible. Asian parents level, I guess. I'm trying to be better) to not watch, but he insisted on trying to stop them.
He really is my brother, I suppose. As self-destructive as I am.
My two remaining friends stopped contacting me after I moved, despite them all promising to keep in touch. Well, one of them pretty much stopped contacting me months before. I'm not sure why (I might've mentioned wanting to talk to their sister again. I swear, I didn't have a crush or anything. I'd only spoken to their sister once and spent half the conversation laughing since she was funny so I just wanted to do it again. My social skills weren't great at this time. They still aren't. I also misgendered them a few times on accident, but I don't think that was the issue since I apologized and did get their gender right later on).
Yeah, so my grades were kind of weird during this time. The board wasn't easy nor was it difficult. But I could barely muster up the energy to actually study (habits from COVID. Also, maybe some fatigue from my parents). I didn't get terrible grades but they weren't picture-perfect either. But that's partially because (apparently) some of the science teachers took questions from 11th year past papers.
Ultimately, I am currently waiting for my Board results (they went fairly well if I say so myself. I'd say, at least a B for everything other than French. At least. Hopefully).
For ninth grade: I had a friend (female), but I never really talked about this stuff with her.
Physical fights at my house were common. My dad beat me up sometimes too (or at the very least, insulted me with hurtful comments. I don't think he understood how deep they really cut).
My father left the country mid-year, leaving me with my mother and brother. My mother continued her muttering, and sometimes she even broke furniture when she was having a bad day (and slapped my brother around when she was mad and he was being slightly annoying). She slammed a cabinet door so hard the glass broke. Then she broke another cabinet door.
However, during this time I think I might've suffered from some kind of disorder. Mild form of depression, maybe. I'd enter these 'episodes' (not sure how else to describe them) of constant negative and self-deprecating thinking. Suicide attempts (Usually consisted of me trying to smother myself with a pillow, strangle myself, or slit my wrists with a geometry compass) and self-harm (biting, sometimes banging my head on the wall, and stabbing myself with a pen -this wasn't hard enough to bleed).
The pain helped drown everything else out.
This was the year I discovered my bisexuality too. And tenth grade was the grade I fell in love. Hard. Like, 'Fire Meet Gasoline' by Sia (am I getting old? I feel like this is kind of reference someone from the nineties would make) kind of hard. And yes, I'm fairly certain this was love rather than a crush. So, this guy I knew from ninth grade (cold, used to joke he had this 'sociopath serial killer look', worked with him and that one friend I made in ninth for a school project) was there, and I just invited him to sit with me and my friend, and then stuff snowballed.
He was hilarious, charming (to some people, at least) and most of all: he was challenging. Not in a bad way, just very snarky and stuff.
He's aromantic and asexual. I insisted on touching him (hugs, hand-holding, sometimes even resting my head in his lap and touching his hair). He never said no to it, though I didn't think he liked it either. But personally, I think I was touch-starved and just really needed physical affection of some kind. Oh, and also, now that I think about it, he might've been the one person to hug me in years. I tutored him for math in ninth and he hugged me after getting a good grade. That friend I made before him wasn't really into physical affection much.
Alongside that, I often made comments about him. Not sexual stuff (though I did tell him he was handsome a few times. He has a habit of downgrading himself which I find both kind of weird and adorable, and I enjoy setting the record straight for him), more like 'I would set the world on fire for you' kind of simpy crap.
So, yeah. I'm pretty sure everyone knew about this in my class. I'm pretty sure half the class already might've thought we were dating (though I've heard rumors about me and that girl too, which just...no. We are friends. She is not my type). I caught some guys looking at us weirdly (not homophobic, I think. Just curious) and I think a part of me enjoyed the attention on the two of us (like "This is mine, you got that fucker? Stare all you want, but if you come an inch closer I'll rip your jaw off").
I got jealous when any guy came close to him. Even his cousin (look, Targaryens did it, why not this guy? Yes, I'm an idiot). He once jokingly asked if I was jealous of his mother too and I pondered whether or not saying the truth was worth it.
I confessed ages ago. He told me he wasn't interested in me that way. We're still best friends and I'm slowly getting over it (yes, I still want to kiss him, but it's less intense, I guess?). Oh, and he was the first person I told about my parents. Afterwards I told the girl I'm friends with as well, and I also somehow managed to make two more friends/ friendly acquaintances. So I guess that support system is nice.
The girl I'm friends with even asked her mother to bring me food since they are convinced I'm being starved. Which, honestly? They might have a point about (before this I always had hunger pangs till lunch since breakfast was usually small. And even after lunch, sometimes it wasn't enough. I just ignored it. I might've even preferred it since I was also more self-conscious about my looks and weight).
Oh, and I also fell for some other guy (this is way more schoolboy crush stuff). Some guy who I'm pretty sure has seen all of my most embarrassing moments (running away after he asked me a question, yelling 'WHERE' after the soccer team asked me to get their ball for them despite it literally being a metre or so away -I couldn't see it- and saying some pretty stupid things).
He invited me to a party (celebration for the end of 10th grade Boards) and I saw him dancing with another guy (It was a waltz. A fucking waltz. My black, hollow husk of a heart chipped off a few ashes after seeing it). And I was emotionally immature enough to slam my glass of lemonade down on the table (I don't think anyone noticed, but if he did, I want to apologize. It was his birthday and I might've ruined it).
He also politely rejected me when I suggested keeping in touch over the break (to be fair, we barely know each other and I think he might've realized I had a crush. My reasons for keeping in touch were just platonic, though I might've hoped something more would develop).
This was easier to get over than the first guy. That was also how I discovered my type was 'Hard/Impossible to get'. I've heard Scorpios like challenges, but I never really got that (wasn't interested in academic stuff, though I can be competitive in sports) until I realized that I fell for the standard 'popular boy who is super nice but also in a drastically different social circle' and the 'asexual, aromantic guy'.
Pretty much nobody knows about either of these except maybe the people involved.
Anyway, so, all of this shit happens. Break starts and my father comes back to the country. Some more fights happen, and it turns out he wants me to do freaking IIT. Now, just to explain something: I have been doing Cambridge for over four years. I am used to things being fairly easy for me because this Board came way more easily to me.
Also, I had no interest in IIT. I was willing to do Computer Science and STEM if that's what my parents wanted (though I in truth just wanted to get an economics degree), but while I did get that IIT was a great opportunity, I just didn't want to put in the extra effort when I was already doing well in my previous Board. And the effort is a lot. Like, people who study for this from sixth can't get a good ranking. I'm starting from eleventh.
IIT is based on the state board in my country and it is way harder. The foundational math they teach these students (the stuff they learn in eighth and ninth) is more difficult than any tenth grade stuff I was doing. And the teachers are absolute- ugh! They're bunny hopping from topic to topic like (hold on, let me think of a good, hilarious example)...like rabbits on steroids and caffeine!
The classes are boring as fuck. It doesn't help that I never wanted to do this either. My lack of choice (and my parents literally said I didn't have a choice when I asked, despite me laying down all the reasons this was a bad idea) was probably the main reason I'm struggling. I hate being forced into anything.
Self-study is impossible too because the books fucking suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I've also been self-harming a lot more recently. I have scars all over the bottom of my left wrist (my parents don't particularly care. Or they just haven't noticed, which I find kind of odd seeing as I don't go about making any extra effort to cover it up. I just figured I'd tell them a cat did it or something, but they never asked. Half of the scars are from times my father was home).
The only time my Mother noticed was when they were on my neck (remember I said I was trying to be a good brother? Emphasis on trying. I'm an abusive piece of shit one day and he was screaming and I was angry and he kept hitting me and swearing at me so I just lost it. He's eight). I stormed into my room after leaving him a sobbing mess on the floor and just started hacking at my arm with a geometry compass. Remember the personality disorder thing?
I moved on to my neck, dragging three long vertical lines (the cuts were shallow, thankfully). I contemplated plunging them into my eyes (this is something I've thought about often. After all, my parents can't force me to do anything if I'm blind, right?) but decided against it. I told my mother my brother scratched me (he does this often. She cut his nails afterward, which, makes me feel even worse for hating her because I think she genuinely does care. But at the same time, she's a paranoid, mentally ill person who picks fights with people often and was partially responsible for making my childhood and even my latter teenage years miserable thanks to constant physical and verbal fights with my father).
I told my friends it was a cat. The girl seemed to believe me, but the guy (the one I had a crush on) may not have brought it as easily. I've been way more honest about my self-harming and suicidal tendencies with him (though sometimes I feel like I'm just burdening him. Which, honestly? I probably am. But it feels good to have someone validate that this situation sucks and to actually show me care. My father tries, but it feels like everything's tainted with resentment toward him. I don't want to stop hating him, partially because I don't think he deserves it and because he still hasn't stopped being a complete dick. I mean, sure, he's better than before, but that's more due to him growing old and exhausted thanks to my mother than anything else).
The guy has his own problems (he thinks he suffers from ADHD. He mentioned that he knows some relatives who have the same and has attention issues to the point where he skips important information in an actual test. Like, outright stated information that would make the answers crystal clear). He's told me that I'm not burdening him since either way he'd still be suffering the same problems (he isn't the most empathetic person in the world, but that's more due to him not really showing his empathy. He's probably been my biggest supporter through all of this. Also, I got 16 on a quiz for empathy while he got around 48, so...)
Alongside that, another thing about me: I think I might be suffering from Apathy or Anhedonia. It's hard to find genuine pleasure in some activities (it's gotten better recently. Partially due to this guy -I should give him a fake name but I'm too lazy- but it still feels like I'm just going through the motions on most days).
Back to academics?
So yeah, I wasn't really surprised when I got 30% in the final exam (I'm doing IIT Coaching over the summer break). Which was a couple of days ago. My mother pretty much dropped that out of the blue (I didn't know the results had come out) with my father on call and he just slapped his forehead and started muttering. We were having a decent conversation till then (I've been trying my best to avoid him and his calls, but the few ones we've had recently have been fine. Not affectionate, at least not on my side. But calm. Maybe cold).
So yeah. I just, I think I might've kind of just dissociated there. Cut the call, blocked his number (my mother does this often with him too. Like, just cut the call regardless of whatever he's saying. She pretty much just despises him and his family), and then just ran to my room. I've been trying my best to avoid speaking to him too.
Which brings us to today. He called me again, asked me why I was avoiding him (I hate him. Also, some of these conversations genuinely mess with my head and I'd rather not have more negative thoughts about myself than I already do), reminded me that there are people on the streets who make it to the top, asked me if I was gonna be able to do IIT or not (this was where I was an idiot. I just shouted 'I told you I wasn't going to be able to do IIT!". And I did. I made it clear plenty of times. I don't want to work hard. At least, not to the level he wants me to work hard. And I struggle with motivation most of the time too. I don't know if it's a side-effect of my own crappy mental health or just laziness.)
He asked me why I wasn't more ambitious. I'm not. I'm really not. Sure, I have delusions of grandeur and talk a big game to my friends. But they and I all know it's just talk. My dreams are largely just domestic. A husband, two kids, stuff like that (sometimes I fantasize about being pregnant). Would I like a ton of money? Sure. But ultimately, what I want is a choice which he took from me.
I wish I was more ambitious. But half the time I just feel empty and bored. I only really come alive when I'm with my friends. Or when I'm singing, or reading. Otherwise, everything just feels like going through the motions.
He told me that he was a railway conductor's son who became an engineer and I'm an engineer's son who became nothing. I'm dragging his name through the mud, all that.
So yeah. He cut the call afterwards. I broke down crying in front of my mother telling her that I wasn't ambitious and that I just wanted to study and leave (I don't think I communicated myself clearly here. What I ultimately want is to study what I want to study and leave. Preferably with my father's financial support because there's no way I can get a scholarship, but I'd be willing to do without if I really, really had to).
I don't know why I got so emotional. I feel idiotic. I really don't want to face my mother. She tried to console me, but I don't think she even understood why I was upset. Just told me that her parents used to say far worse.
So yeah. This is a full ramble on everything that's happened in my life in the last few years. Everything I wish people knew about me so instead of just seeing me as an idiot (which I am), they'd just, I don't know, acknowledge that something happened to fuck me up like this. A combination of genetics (I don't know whether or not whatever my mother has is genetic, but I think so. Personally, I tend to phrase it as 'madness runs in my blood' because it sounds cooler and I'm a diehard House Targaryen fan, but the base idea is the same, I guess) and crappy circumstance.
And before anyone says this: I'm aware that I have it better than most people here. I get away with words and insults that most people wouldn't (though in my mother's case, that's largely because she just doesn't care much). This isn't a grief pageant, as your rules so plainly put it.
Am I doing this for attention? A part of me thinks so. But I just wanted to get this out.
Sorry if it's hard to read.
​

For seasons we have had casts full of amazing characters and contestants in and out of the house. Some have been legends, some have been duds, but so many have been absolute fan favorites! From being lovable goofballs to intense gamers, we are bringing some of these favorites back! But on top of that, we are introducing a set of 8 superfans into the house without telling them about the favorites. Just how well will their game knowledge come in handy in playing against their favorite players? Find out this time on Bunny’s Pokemon Big Brother Season 14: The Esteemed Fourteenth!

Season 14: The Esteemed Fourteenth

Meet the Cast:
Fans –
Dana the Dartrix – First up is this Iki town bird with a heart of gold. Dana has approached everything in life with a sense of caution. She is scared of taking risks and avoids them if she can. She avoided applying til this season because she was afraid of how she would do. But she has shaken off that fear in order to finally apply and made it! Now she can relax because theres no way she will be competing against legends…right?
Fanny the Furret – This superfan from Goldenrod has always been quick on her feet and is ready to be quick on her wit! Fanny never had a TV so shes watched every single season by peeking in the windows of other people’s homes. She is that dedicated. And now, she doesn’t have to peek anymore because she is directly in the action! How EXCITING!!!
Lizzin the Volcarona – From the Lush Jungle, Lizzin has seen so many of his neighbors get to compete on the show he has always loved! He has auditioned so many times but always sees the other people around him make it. He has finally made it on and is ready to go from Superfan to Superstar!!
Oshun the Brionne –Thus HeaHea superfan is the definition of fake it til you make it! She initially applied having never seen a single episode. She still hasn’t, but she has amassed a ton of information from all of her internet sources to get by. Her main desire is television stardom and if she has to put in months of internet sleuthing to do so, than she will do it and she will bring this hard work to succeed in the show!!!! We hope…
Speety the Boltund – Don’t blink or else you’ll miss this Mauville pup! Speety, true to his name, moves as fast as a bolt of lightning. His candy addiction has caused him to do everything hyperactively. He talks fast, runs fast, and watches our show fast. He doesn’t know what he will do without candy in the house but does know that he plans to win the game as fast as possible!
Starz the Umbreon – From a mysterious background, Starz is ready to shine bright! Starz was a lonely Pokémon, not having a family or a lot of friends. She lived in an abandoned house that still had cable for most of her life. Through this, she found our show and loved seeing all different types of Pokémon compete. Now she wants to show Pokémon like her that they can succeed and meet all sorts of new people!
Tyson the Tyranitar – Hailing from Mt. Coronet, Ty is here to plow through the competition. Though he is a work horse and absolute unit, Ty suffers from crippling anxiety and is dreadfully shy. He has loved the show since he was young, but got stuck fighting for a trainer for years. Finally free from his Ultra Ball, Ty plans to stay in the house as long as possible!
Vlad the Sawk – Don’t lose your mind around this Unovan philosopher. Vlad is a connieuseur of philosophy and is constantly seeking the answers to existence. Our show has become a social experiment of sorts to him as he ponders the meaning of life through others’ suffering and fortune alike. Though his ramblings tend to make people go mad, he knows all he needs to go all the way in this game!
Favorites:
Dayley-Jane the Dewgong - Season 7
Dom the Mightyena – Season 13
Haleena the Hatterene – Season 3
Karol the H. Zoroark – Season 12
Melanie the Leavanny – Season 8
Peeps the Natu – Season 9
Royale the Oricorio – Season 10
Rufus the Scrafty – Season 4
Intro: After a couple of really intriguing house locations, we have to play it simple this time around. We are going to lovely Lumiose City where we have a full location built in the center plaza by Lumiose Tower. Surrounded by all the bright colors of the city, this house is all about bringing joy to our wonderful viewers! The first four to enter the house are Lizzin, Starz, Ty, and Vlad. All of them except Lizzin don’t speak that much and just take in the sights of the house! Soon to follow are a cautious Dana, fidgety Fanny, chipper Oshun, and hyperactive Speety. The 8 choose their rooms. Settling in randomly spread out amongst the 4 rooms. But we soon alert them to a presence at the front door. Not just one presence, but eight of our fan favorites walk in the door after them! Dana nearly faints. Fanny and Speety are bouncing off the walls. Ty has a panic attack. Oshun is clapping along, trying to do mental gymnastics to remember who Rufus is, but he is kind of cute. All together, they go compete in pairs for the first HOH!
First HOH: 8 pairs are competing. Ty and Haleena, Fanny and Rufus, Lizzin and Dom, Speety and Melanie, Vlad and Day, Starz and Peeps, Oshun and Karol, and Dana and Royale. Day and Vlad come out victorious. They are told to pick who to be the first HOH and Day graciously allows Vlad to have the power, granting her some favor with him. Vlad knows that the favorites are all powerful and he wants to side with them. So he shortlists four fans for nominations. Though he settles on Speety for being way too hyper and Ty for being way too shy to even talk to.
Week 1: Day volunteers to become the house chef and everyone likes her for it. She also continues to stay close to Vlad. Dom surprises everyone by being a lot more personable than his previous season. Rufus and Melanie get in a fight when she insists the favorites should never target each other like Vlad is targeting another fan. Rufus doesn’t like her telling him how to play his game. Rufus goes on to win the veto and uses it to save Ty, who he has gotten to know and enjoy the presence of. Day, Dom, and Peeps form a coalition of favorites with Haleena as their fourth. Using Day as their voice, they pull in Vlad and have him put Melanie up next to Speety, just to scare her a bit. At the eviction, Day and Dom do throw votes at Melanie to rile her up, but the rest of the house votes for Speety, seeing him speedrun his exit from the house.
The Twist: Fans, this season is for you! And we have given you this first week to decide on a houseguest to save all the way until jury! You have let your voice be heard and the winner is… Dom! Looks like all of his positive changes have really helped.
Week 2:>! Melanie uses her fury from the last week to go on to win the HOH. Though she doesn’t want to target the favorites yet, she does put three of them up as Have-Nots. She puts Ty back on the block next to Fanny, who is getting annoying with how much she is following her every move. But Fanny’s speed ends up winning her the veto so she saves herself. While Peeps, Dom, and Haleena are in the Have-Not room without Day, they are angry that Day got them into this mess but she went unpunished and decide not to work with her. Meanwhile, Rufus and Ty continue to get close, with Rufus mentoring Ty on the game. Melanie doesn’t like this or Rufus and already breaks her vow of not targeting faborites by putting Rufus on the block next to Ty. At the eviction, Rufus proves detrimental to the favorite’s plans so he is evicted in a 9 to 3 vote.!<
Week 3: While everyone is forming plans, Fanny has been watching them all and uses her knowledge to win the HOH. As for nominees, she puts up Peeps as her target next to Oshun, who was in the have not room with them. Peeps and Oshun weren’t too close before this but Fanny putting them up causes the two of them to bond more. Day comes clean to Melanie about the week 1 plan and the bug surprisingly forgives her. They get with Peeps and Oshun and pull in Royale and Karol as well to try and work out a way to get both of the nominees to stay. Melanie lucks out and wins veto and uses it to save Peeps. Day goes to Fanny and throws out Vlad’s name as a scapegoat, causing him to go up as the replacement nominee. At the eviction, the new alliance successfully overturns the vote from Oshun to Vlad, seeing the philosopher fizzle out in third.
Week 4: This week is backwards week and everything will be performed in reverse! First things first is the nominations! Every houseguest votes for two people to be nominated and whoever gets the most votes are the two nominees. The almost unanimous choices are Lizzin, who continues to creep everyone out, and Starz, who has kept to herself and not made too many friends yet. Peeps wins the power of veto and chooses not to save either one, as the status quo is pretty important. During the week, Day and Karol bond more about feeling like they got so close in their original seasons. They want to carry each other further in this season as well. Royale gets up to shenanigans and pulls a prank on Ty that causes him to flip out on Haleena. The two get in a fight and Royale gets off scot-free. Peeps wins the HOH and gets to decide which of the nominees to evict. They decide to give Starz another chance and evicts Lizzin.
Week 5: Seeing their numbers diminish, the fans realize they need to start winning things. Dana pulls it out by winning the next HOH. However, upon discovering that Oshun is working with the favorites, she puts her up as a nominee. As for the other nominee, Dana was thrown off by Ty’s outburst last week and puts him up. Fanny questions the bird, who admits she got too scared to put up a favorite. Fanny tells her to reconsider after the veto. Fanny goes on to win the veto and uses it to pull Ty off the block. This move surprisingly impresses everyone. Karol scolds Royale for how he treated Ty last week and the bird fights back, causing the favorite’s alliance to fracture. Day and Karol stay together and they pull in Fanny because she is really intuitive. On the other side, Peeps and Royale side with Dana, forming a feathers alliance. Fanny gets back to Dana about how she should make her next move by putting up a powerful favorite and it works, with Melanie hitting the block again. Because of her power, the Favorites see this as an excellent time to cut one of their own. At the eviction, this comes true as Melanie becomes the last pre-juror.
Double Eviction: It is officially jury time so Dom is no longer safe. However, the jury starts tonight and one of the houseguests will walk out the door RIGHT after Melanie as a juror on the same night! Royale wins the HOH and puts up Ty, who he doesn’t like, next to Dom, who has yet to have to do any heavy lifting all game. Oshun wins the veto and uses this to leverage her position in the quicktime and buy the fans more time. She pulls in Dana and Day. Day convinces Peeps to drop Dom as an ally and they also get Royale on board. Oshun saves Ty with the veto and Royale puts up Mama Karol, who everyone enjoys. Peeps and Dana still vote for Karol but they know it won’t matter and Dom is evicted right after he got immune. Looks like this power really isn’t all that powerful.
Week 6: One last HOH is played tonight and Day wins. Because she has so much of the house wrapped around her fins, she puts up the only two players she isn’t allied with as a safe vote. Thus, Haleena and Starz hit the block. During the week, Day accidentally reveals to Dana her alliance with Karol, and Dana goes off on Peeps for not telling her. Peeps claims to have not known and confronts Day about it. Day is publically ousted from that big alliance but still has her trio. Karol wins the veto and Peeps wins a secret veto. Karol saves Haleena to try and get her on their side now that the power is collapsing. Day puts up Peeps for blowing up her game. At the eviction, Starz lack of attempt to befriend anyone comes back to bite her as she is evicted 6 to 1.
Week 7:>! Feeling the pressure of the competition, Karol goes on to win the next HOH and save her side. She tries to cause chaos on the other side by putting up Royale and Ty to capitalize on their rivalry. Haleena, who is still floating in the middle having not chosen a side, ends up winning the veto. With a little bit of prodding from Day, she chooses not to use it. Just as Karol intended, Royale starts up beef with Ty again and the argument the two have gets more heated. So much so, that Oshun drops her plans to work with the two of them. Karol’s alliance tries to pin the blame on Royale to get him evicted. Meanwhile, Peeps and Royale bond and Peeps goes around reassuring the fans that they’re safe with Royale. Oshun ends up an important vote and because she didn’t like Ty’s outbursts nor Royale’s prodding, can’t decide which way to vote. At the eviction ceremony, Oshun chooses to side with Peeps and Ty is sent home.!<
Week 8: Eight houseguests remain, 3 fans and 5 favorites. But the house structure is evenly divided. Royale wins HOH and chooses to put up Karol for trying to get him sent home, next to Haleena, who he is urging to choose a side already. The birds’ alliance is trying to target Karol and use this week to get Haleena on their side. Haleena ends up picking a side by vowing to Day and Karol that she will go side with Day if she survives over Karol and send those birds packing. Oshun wins the veto and, now being on the fence herself, chooses not to use it. Dana heard all about Haleena’s plans and despite Peeps and Royale wanting Karol out, she is cautious and doesn’t want an angry Haleena against her. At the eviction, Dana flips the vote on Haleena, sending her out the door.
Triple Eviction: Do you like surprises? Because we like surprises! Tonight is a triple eviction! Two more houseguests will be following Haleena out the door so this HOH is incredibly important for whichever side wins it. It is a tough competition between everyone involved but Karol comes out on top, solidifying her alliances place in the top 5. She puts up Peeps and Royale but saves Dana as she saved her the last round. Oshun goes up instead. During the veto, Oshun pleads to Fanny to save her, claiming that she will be on her side for the fans. Fanny smirks and eagerly accepts this proposal. Day wins the veto and keeps the nominations the same for Karol. Dana votes to save Royale but with Day and Fanny voting to save Oshun, the birds alliances looses almost all of its feathers sending Royale and Peeps packing.
Week 9: One more HOH comp will be played tonight and Dana knows that now more than ever she needs to win. However, Day ends up winning it. Crushing Dana’s spirit. Day gets a task to pull pranks on the other houseguests making them believe they have received punishments. As she does this, Fanny lets slip about Oshun’s little duo plea to her. She says she didn’t really want to play in the end with her but wanted the birds out more importantly. Day goes to Oshun to confirm and the little seal confirms and breaks down, worrying that this will tank her game. Day comforts herm and thnanks her for being so honest. Day wins the veto to ensure her power over the week and, even though she considered saving Oshun to blindside Fanny, the ferret’s loyalty to her convinces her not to go through with it. She keeps the noms the same. The eviction is exactly as planned and Dana is sent home 2 to none.
Week 10:>! This HOH is incredibly important as it decides who makes finale night. Oshun knows she has to win this because she is up against a great trio. Unlike Dana before her though, Oshun pulls it out and becomes the final 4 HOH. The initial noms are Karol and Fanny, as she wants to sow as much discord as possible. This does happen as Fanny scrambles to Day about getting her vote. Karol feels hurt that Fanny would so easily leave her behind like that but focuses on winning the veto. And this works when Karol in fact does win the veto. She saves herself and Day is put up. Karol goes to Day and asks if she really trusts her. Day says she was her number 1 from day 1 and she still plans to take her to the end if she makes it there. This reaffirms Karol’s conviction and at the eviction, she saves Day, sending home Fanny.!<
The Reunion: The jury members are brought out in front of Lumiose tower to watch the finale and answer all of the burning questions about the season. Starz is questioned about her lack of an attempt to make friends and she said she did try, but it was by the time everyone else already had allies. Royale tells her they definitely could have used more allies so her giving up at the end didn’t help. Dom us asked about getting evicted right after he was immune. He says he knows he was a physical threat and didn’t do a good job downplaying that so that he didn’t get cut off right when there was a chance. Haleena reflects on her choice to stay in the middle sating that she didn’t realize how tight the two sides were. She says she would have sided with Day any time because of her easy to approach manner. Ty and Royale address their beef, and the bird apologizes, claiming he wasn’t himself in the house. Ty accepts the apology but is advocating for himself now and will do what is best for him.
The Final HOH: Day, Oshun, and Karol play in part 1 where Karol wins! Day and Oshun compete in a grueling endurance match for part 2. During the competition, both are dried out in a hot sun. Day reveals to Oshun how she reminds her of herself when she was younger and loves her plucky attitude, and is sad they have to be against each other at this game. Oshun is shocked to be being complimented and cries a little bit. The two continue for almost hour before Day gives out, giving the win to Oshun. Oshun helps Day back into the house and water. In part 3, Oshun and Karol go up against each other in the live quiz challenge. Both do well and it comes down to the final question about Dana. Since Oshun was closer to Dana, she gets the answer correct and wins, beating Karol and making the final 2. She collapses in sheer amazement that she is so close. Karol and Day embrace, saddened that they can’t be in the final 2 together. Oshun goes to the two of them and makes her speech to evict. She says she is so happy to have played with the both of them and feels like she overcame something in herself to make it this far. She thanks them both for playing the game and says she is picking to go to the end with the one she connected with more and evicts…Karol. Karol walks out the door and to the stage in front of the tower and is met with uproarious applause.
The Jury Questioning: Day and Oshun face the jury. Day goes first and brings up how strong of a social game she played to survive in such a crazy season. She says that she made a lot of allies and friends in the house and even when she was exposed for playing the house, she still was allowed to get by because she was such a strong social player. Peeps asks her if she think Karol was the reason she made it so far. Day admits Karol winning when she did helped Day get further in the game but says that picking such a good ally should have been a positive note on her game because she still was taken to the end over her. Oshun goes next and talks about how she felt lost in the game at first against all of her favorite players. She admits that she hasn’t ever watched an episode due to not having cable but knew all about how the game was played due to he rinternet sleuthing. She says she made some moves in the middle to target the favorites and save the fans. And though she got lost in the middle, she still ended up safe through the crossfire when the feathers alliance went against the girls trio. She was an underdog and won out at the end beating all of the overdogs. Haleena asks her if she thinks her competition wins at the end were enough to get her the votes she needs the wins. She says that the competition wins were the cherry on top of her survival skills in this game, surviving against some of the greatest players in the game! The jury takes everything into consideration.
The Jury Votes: Dom says he has to vote for someone who proved her power regardless of fan or favorite, Starz says she is voting for the underdogs in the world, Ty says that he always had a full stomach in the house, Haleena says that her cote was changed tonight due to the conviction of one of the finalists, Peeps says that underdog or overdog, one of them played a better game, Royale says that both had a great finish but he had more fun with one finalist than the other, Dana says she is voting for a good friend, Danny says she is voting for someone who mentored her and helped her. Karol says she is voting for a true, lifelong friend that she will never forget. And the winner is…
Winner: Dayley-Jane
Runner-Up: Oshun
Fan Favorite: Dom
My Favorites: Karol, Oshun, Peeps
My Thoughts: This season was actually wild to me because of a mistake I made while simulating resulting in me losing all of my progress and typing. I actually got really frustrated because the season was going well but I lost it all right as it was getting good. That being said, I am happy with how this season turned out! The fans and favorites had some great interactions even if it turned into the fans surviving in between the crossfire of the favorites. The two sides of the house going against each other gave this season some flavor with the Feather’s alliance going against the femmes. And Karol and Day won out over and over. Though they won competitions a lot, Day still proved that social game is king. Even when her side didn’t win, she still was the most wanted to continue because she was so well-liked and appreciated around the house. All of the final three were great to me. Karol played an amazing game this time and secured her place as a legend in the game. Her not going to the final 2 killed me. Oshun was adorable and lovable. Her not picking a side but then playing a great underdog game was fun but not enough in the end over a really good overdog game. And of course miss Dayley-Jane warmed my heart being older and wiser than her last outing. Great cast of chaotic prejurors and jurors and everyone. Even if it was rough with what happened simulating it, Im happy how it turned out!
So what is next this time? Well I have a roadmap for how the next couple season will go. I will be honest, with summer coming up, I am starting something new IRL that will take all of my time so I will be trying to wrap up the series in May. Only a couple seasons are left and I am already sad about it. Oh well… I will look bright and happy for the future of the series! Thank you guys and look out for the next season soon!

Okay, I have a story to tell. It’s a long one, so buckle up. Just bear in mind, though this story is true, most of it happened a long time ago. I’m going to try to write it down as best as I can remember. As I said, it took place a long time ago; remembering some events is like grasping at smoke in the wind, while some memories are sharp and vivid, etched in my mind as though they happened a few hours ago. I’ll try to piece it together to the best of my abilities. I’ll try my best not to use any names, I hope that will not make it too confusing.
When I was in high school—a long long time ago—I was head over heels for this one girl. We were friends. We had a class together for two years, and worked together running one of the after school clubs. The biggest problem was that I really didn’t belong there. I was too old. I had been in an accident, and was severely injured—almost died. I worked hard for years to get my life back, and when I could physically handle the day to day grind I returned to school. I wasn’t at 100%--I never will be (I had a damaged lung, breathing issues, and lost an arm in the accident). I re-started high school as a freshman at 18 years old. I met her when I was 19 at the beginning of my sophomore year. She was a junior at the time, and had just turned 16. Bear in mind, this is long before social media, smart phones, texting—none of that existed yet…I’m talking dawn of the internet—dial-up AOL pay by the minute access. Yes, I’m as old as dirt. Even for the time, I was old fashioned. I was also not in the best state of mind when it came to confidence with girls. Every other aspect of life, I was good to go, but when it came to dealing with the opposite sex…I was worried nobody would want someone as broken as me.
I couldn’t just ask her out, but I couldn’t ignore what I was feeling either, so I wrote her a note explaining what I was feeling and asking permission to pursue her. Yeah, I’m old, we’ve established that. Her response was more or less what I expected; she said she thought I was really cool, but she thought it would be a bad idea, and we should just be friends for several reasons: First, she was interested in someone else, and if he were to notice her she wouldn’t want to hurt me because I was such a nice guy. Second, her parents didn’t allow her to date. And third, even if her parents did let her date, they would never let her go out with someone so much older.
So, she gave me a solid no. I get it. I understood. I decided to back off and create some distance until what I was feeling could pass. I sat at a different table in class. I sat with a different group in the after school club we were both a part of. I tried to keep my distance from her. The faculty advisors of the club had other plans. They decided that our abilities complimented each other and put us in charge of the club. Now I had no choice but to directly interact with her. My mind was still in recovery mode, so quitting the club (or anything else for that matter) was not an option for me.
She and I were still friendly, so I bit my tongue, swallowed my feelings, and did the work. I sat with her in class, headed up the club meetings beside her, and worked head to head with her on all club business. By the end of December I was driving her home every day; I had my license, my own car, and a sweet handicapped parking spot right outside the school.
More than a few classmates took notice of the amount of time she and I were spending together. I was asked on more than one occasion if we were dating, or told that I should ask her out. My response was always that we were just friends. I even started using our age difference as an excuse. In fact, I used my age as a shield for any inquiries into who I might be interested in at school; playing what I called the ‘forbidden fruit’ card on several occasions. I tried going out with a few other girls my own age, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I knew it didn’t make sense, but I still only wanted to be with her, knowing I never would. So I just gave up and buried myself in work.
I was still trying to get myself back to where I was before I got hurt, even though I knew I’d never get there. I was into martial arts, kendo, and fencing; I was actually quite a good fighter at one point, so when the summer came, I threw myself back into training as much as I could. I still had difficulty breathing, but I was trying to build back my strength and stamina. Over the summer months I was either working or training, but no matter how busy I kept myself, I couldn’t keep my mind off of her, wondering where she was, what she was doing…daydreaming about spending time with her, then beating myself up, knowing that it was never going to happen. I kept telling myself to just get over it, with no luck.
When September rolled around I headed back to school, confident that I could just drop back into the daily routine of burying my feelings, wrapping myself in my stone-faced, icy exterior and working through the grind beside her. And that worked just fine for about the first 60 seconds after she walked into the room. I had to excuse myself, went to the bathroom and put cold water on my face just to regain my composure. I didn’t think seeing her again would hit me so hard, and I don’t think anyone noticed how close I was to falling apart. A few deep breaths later and I was ready to get back to business as usual.
That day, I met her younger sister, and drove them both home. Not long after that she volunteered me to drive another girl home as well. I didn’t really mind; I had been hurt walking home from school so just the idea of someone walking home gave me the shivers. The thing was, the sisters lived closer to the school than this third girl. It would have made more sense for me to drop them off before the third girl, but she insisted that this girl get dropped off first. She also insisted that this girl and her sister sit in the back seat while she rode shotgun. I didn’t really think about it at the time, but it does seem strange now that I’m thinking about it.
We were back in the groove of classes and after school club meetings; I was keeping myself focused and on task. I kept my feelings buried, nose to the grindstone, and focused on the task at hand. A few months into the school year the club’s first project was nearing completion. She and I stayed late, making copies in one of the office rooms, and nearing the end of the day’s work I noticed that she had a smudge of ink on her face. I laughed and pointed it out. She tried to wipe it off, but rubbed the wrong side of her face, so I pointed out the location of the smudge by reaching out with my hand. I didn’t quite touch her face, but I did seem to rattle something loose in my head.
All I had to do was take one step forward, put my hand behind her head, and draw her in for a kiss. Instead, I stepped back, excused myself, and quickly made my way to the nearest bathroom in search of some cold water to splash on my face. Five minutes, three handfuls of cold water, and several deep breaths later, I had regained my composure. I dried my face off, went back to the office, and took her home. That was a close call. I told myself I had to find a better way of controlling my emotions. And for a while, it worked.
After Christmas break we started ramping up the club’s second project, and I was determined to keep myself focused and under control. I did okay for a while, kept my composure, and got my work done. January was pretty uneventful, but February was hard. Valentine’s Day was brutal, and that was the day I finally broke. I decided I was done, that sometimes it was okay to give up and quit. At the next club meeting just before February vacation I chewed out most of the club members for some poor behavior, announced that I was quitting, and walked out. I told her that I would still help, but I wasn’t going to put myself through the club meetings anymore. That was a lie. I had no intention of going back to the club, and in fact had intended for the next day, Friday, to be my last day in school. I cut the class we shared because I didn’t want to face her. I also intended to turn in my books and leave early, stranding her and her sister without a ride home…dick move, I know, but I felt it was for the best.
My faculty advisor, the teacher whose class I had just blown off, tracked me down the next period in study hall and sat across the table from me. Mrs. L. informed me that I could not quit the club because, for me, it was part of her class, and if I quit the club she would have to fail me. She just about fell out of her chair when I told her she could go ahead and fail me, because I didn’t need the grade. Then I let her know one of my little secrets; my guidance counselor worked with the assistant principal to arrange a time during February vacation to take the GED exam. A $75 fee and an afternoon at a testing center in the next town over would get me my certificate. I wasn’t coming back.
Surprised, Mrs. L shook her head and sighed sadly. She told me that she understood that I was going through a difficult time, but that I’d gone through so much and I shouldn’t give up. Then she just about knocked me out of my chair; she said she could tell that I was always sure of myself, but not everyone was as confident in themselves. She said “you’ve got to give her more time, she’ll come ‘round”.
Wait, what? She laughed at me and told me that, though she was only a teacher, she was not blind or stupid. She said she could tell that there was a connection between me and this girl, that she had never seen two people more suited for one another, but this girl just wasn’t ready to accept it…but she would come around, and I needed to give her more time. Or, I could just walk away, and never know.
Mrs. L left me with a lot to think about. I stuck out the rest of the day, drove the sisters home, and headed off to think. Needless to say, that GED exam that I paid for went untaken, and after vacation I was back at school, back to the club, and back to my day to day grind. Mrs. L. let the club know that I was back under protest, because of her class. My plan to leave was never spoken of again until I just typed it out.
Not much changed over the next month, until one dreary day in March. Most of the underclassmen were on a field trip, and this girl and I were pretty much alone in Mrs. L.’s class. We were just sitting at our table talking about nothing of any consequence; until she looked down and started telling me about a guy she worked with. She told me that this guy was cool, but kinda different. As she went on describing this guy, her description seemed more and more familiar. Everything she told me about this guy could also apply to me. Then she said that she liked him, and he liked her, but he was older than her, so nothing could ever happen between them. Was she really talking about me? I have no idea…and at this point, I never will. That conversation has stayed etched in my mind for 30 years. Just typing out this paragraph pulls my heart up into my throat.
April popped up, and I walked into Mrs. L.’s class where I found this girl totally freaking out. She had forgotten her science project at home and her mom wasn’t home for the day. Without that project, her science grade would drop. Me being me, I volunteered to take her home to pick it up. Mrs. L. couldn’t give us permission to leave the school, but she said as far as she was concerned, she saw nothing, heard nothing, and knew nothing. This girl and I snuck out of the school to my car, and I took her home. When we got to her house she asked if I wanted to come in for a drink. I declined, telling her we should probably hurry back before we were missed. She went into the house to retrieve her work, taking what I felt was way too long to simply grab a project. As she climbed into my car she slipped, crashing into my shoulder. It would have been so easy for me to just lean in to her and kiss her, but I just sat back and tried to help her into her seat. I was able to get us back to the school just before class ended. She went to drop off her project in the science lab while I went to let Mrs. L. know we were back and our mission was accomplished. I picked up the book-bag I had left in Mrs. L.’s room and started walking toward study hall. Instead, I walked to the library and asked my media teacher if there was a quiet place where I could get some work done alone. He gave me a key to one of the empty media labs and told me to return it by the end of the day. That’s where I sat, in the dark, through my study period, lunch, and my next class. Breathing deeply, trying to meditate, center myself, whatever I could do to regain my composure, I found myself shaking in the darkness. After about an hour I was able to steady myself, calm down, and regain emotionless self-control. After I dropped the sisters off after school, I headed home and sat in my room until the next morning.
The rest of the month was difficult, April vacation serving as a cursed blessing; I was away from her for the entire week, but I was away from her for an entire week! No…not even a school vacation can be easy. As May crept up on me, Mrs. L.’s words “you’ve got to give her more time, she’ll come ‘round” started to weigh upon me. She was a senior, and would be graduating in the beginning of June. Time was running out. As much as they hurt, I wanted to hold on to those days as long as I could. And finally, time ran out. On her last day, when I dropped her off, I gave her a small gift, and said goodbye. For some reason, I was sure I’d never see her again. I went home and locked myself in my room. It was over. Time was up. She didn’t come ‘round. As much as it hurt knowing she was gone, I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I wouldn’t have to mask my feelings with her anymore. There would be no one to shake my self-control. There would be no more daily torment. I was free from my daily agony.
My peace lasted all but a week. She turned up at school with the club’s final project for the year. She showed up to pick up her sister. Like a bad penny, she kept showing up, and every time I just wanted to hug her, hold her close, and never let her go. When summer finally came I found my numbing relief, as I was away for much of the break. This time, I knew it was over. If I could put the memory of her out of my mind, I knew I could find some kind of peace.
A few weeks away helped me get my head right. I was solidly in control. I had, over the last few years, regained much of my strength. And now I finally had my self-control back. Now, nothing could shake me. Nothing could distract me. She was gone, my heart was dead, and I was good to go. Until…
It was early. I’d just gotten out of the shower and gotten dressed when my phone rang. It was her. She called to ask if I’d still be able to give her sister a ride home from school; something I had already agreed to do. She told me it was her 18th birthday. She was finally free of her parents’ rules. She told me about her college in the city, about her new dorm, and about how her school would allow her to have guests stay with her. She was excited that she was finally living by her own rules. I wanted to cry. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. I didn’t know what she wanted me to do. She’d earlier told me she thought my pursuing her was a bad idea. She’d said that nothing could ever happen because of our age difference. She’d given me a solid no…twice. After 45 minutes on the phone my mind short-circuited. I couldn’t breathe. A tear ran down my cheek as I told her I was sorry, I’d love to talk more, but I had to go to work. I didn’t really have to go anywhere, but I didn’t want to be on the phone with her and have an emotional breakdown. I prided myself on being unemotional, and I was about to fail. I spent the rest of the day fighting tears, wondering what that whole conversation was all about. Was it just mundane chit chat, or was there more to it? Was there something she wanted me to say, or was she oblivious to how I felt? I’ll never know.
Over the next few months I’d hear from her every once in a while, a random phone call, a message sent with her sister, but contact was limited, and I was able to stay composed through the days and weeks without her presence. I began to feel as though she knew how I felt, and was just having fun tormenting me from a distance; or at least that was the impression I got from her sister. But distance seemed to help, because I could tell myself that I’d never see her again.
Then there she was. Half day of school, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I walked into the northern wing of the school, and there she was, standing outside the English department office. I wanted to drop my bag, pick her up and never let her go. What I did was say hello with a quip about, after escaping this place, why would she come back? She said she was there to visit her old teachers. I told her that I’d like to talk, but I had to get to English class because I had a quiz to take, then I scurried away…happy to have seen her but dejected that she wasn’t there to see me. I failed that quiz, by the way. Couldn’t concentrate. After English was over I went to the wrong room for my next class. When the school day was done I got into my car, and a half hour later I looked up and had no idea where I was. I’d gotten lost on the way home. It all just seemed so wrong.
We shared a few more phone conversations over the next few months; she told me how much fun she was having in the city, how many good schools there were in her area, and how many cool people she was meeting. She inquired as to how things were going with the club or where I was thinking of going to school, and what I intended to study. She joked about throwing pastries out her dorm room window at the resident assistant, and making up silly imaginary infomercial products…but it all seemed so empty. When I told her that I was looking at schools across the country she seemed surprised. I told her I had no reason to stay, and nothing keeping me in the area. That was the last phone call we shared.
I saw her once more at school that year. Her sister was in the school play, and I saw her in the audience talking to a friend during intermission. We made eye contact for several seconds, but we didn’t speak. I approached her after the performance, but overheard her being asked if there was anyone else she wanted to see that night. Her reply was no, so I backed away. I didn’t sleep that night. I just sat in the darkness wishing the pain away.
I threw myself into my work, took on new projects, and tried to ignore everything I was feeling. I turned to my friends, and put my energy into helping them through their troubles. I always believed in helping others when I could, and I figured if I could see them through their tough times, maybe The Fates would find a way to help me through mine.
As summer started creeping up, and my graduation day drew near, I began the process of pushing my responsibilities onto those who would be taking my place in the club. I started taking better care of myself, and paying attention to my own hobbies. I needed some research materials for a new personal project I decided to take on so I headed to the book store that I had haunted for the past six years. After searching the shelves for the books I wanted I walked to the checkout counter and looked up from my intended purchases right into her face. She had gotten herself a job at the book store for the summer. It was the first time I’d seen her in months. It felt like a sledgehammer hitting me in the chest. But something was different. She seemed cold…flippant…almost, well, I don’t want to say mean...maybe indifferent would be the best word to use. I said I was surprised to see her, and she said that she had worked at the book store at her college, so it seemed a good fit for a summer job. Then she looked me dead in the eye and said that, now that I knew she was working in the book store she supposed that I would be hanging out there all summer, as though my presence would be a massive burden to her. I made my purchase and walked away without another word. I would not be back.
I graduated a few days later. I’d spent years in recovery trying to get my body working well enough to go back to school, four years working through school, trying to keep up with kids 3 to 7 years younger than myself, building a path forward for the life I wanted. The day I’d worked so hard for had finally come… and it meant less than nothing to me. I should have been excited, elated, jubilant. I wasn’t. It didn’t matter.
That summer was difficult. I actively avoided her at all costs. If I had to go to the mall that contained that bookstore I would look for her car, and refused to go in if she was there. One day I needed to go to the mall to return a gift someone had given me. I carefully checked the parking lot before going in, and it seemed safe, so I entered. After I finished with my business, as I was headed for the door I heard someone call out my name. I turned my head and saw her sister walking through the doorway with the guy I assumed she was dating. A moment later, following her sister, she walked into the mall hand in hand with some guy. I nodded my head in a polite greeting before quickly exiting the building. That was my final visit to the mall that summer.
A month later I was on my way across the country to start my freshman year in college. I should have been excited. I wasn’t. I was heartbroken, depressed, and lost. I hoped the distance would help me heal my battered soul, but I just didn’t feel like myself. I’d worked so hard to regain who I once was; I’d excelled in every undertaking, and now, suddenly, I was empty. I stumbled through my freshman year in college, worked part time as a bouncer at a strip club on the beach, and tried to focus on my own projects, but as the days wore on nothing felt right.
When May returned I finished my finals and made the long drive home. I’d decided that I wasn’t going back; it just wasn’t worth it. I could be depressed at home without it costing me thousands of dollars every year. And at least if I was at home I’d be near my friends, some of whom were also going through tough times. One friend was having a battle with pills. Another was having relationship issues. And one was having all kinds of money and life issues.
I knew I couldn’t fix my own life, but I was always good at helping others, so I took it upon myself to solve everyone else’s issues. I was able to get “Pill Boy” into a rehab facility, and did my best to encourage “Lovesick Lad” and his lady into a relationship. The last one was the toughest. She was a long time friend…and the widow of my best friend. He had died after rolling his Jeep shortly before I started High School. He’d been married less than a year before he died, and he left his wife two months pregnant, and would never get to meet his baby girl. The widow had to move in with her mother just to afford to live. Her mom would watch the baby during the day while the widow worked, and they’d trade off in the afternoon; widow taking the baby while her mom worked at night. But the widow simply wasn’t making enough money to give her little girl a decent life, so she took a second job. That’s where I came in. I’d get off work, drive to their house and pick up the little girl and the widow’s mom. I’d drop mom off at her job and take the baby home with me, babysitting until the widow got out of her second job as a retail worker at the mall. She was working from nine in the morning till ten at night; her only break a thirty minute drive between her two jobs. I’d watch her little one Tuesday through Saturday, and occasionally on Sunday. I’d pick her up, feed her, play with her, read to her, and take her to the mall to meet the widow when her shift was over. The only real problem I had was the fact that someone else also worked a closing shift at the mall.
I still avoided her, but would occasionally see her leaving the building while I waited for the widow to come out and retrieve the little one. That summer seemed to go on forever, but by the end of August the widow had saved up enough money to move herself, her mom, and the little one to Montana where she had been offered a job working for her dead husband’s family. Her in-laws would be able to help with the little one, and the money would be enough to give them both a better life. I encouraged her to go, and offered to help with the move. She thanked me, and took me up on the offer. I helped coordinate with her in-laws, planning her move for February, giving her about six months to pack up, sell the house and find a new place to live close to the family.
In October I decided to get an apartment with the “Lovesick Lad” so he could be near his girlfriend. I was doing my best to ensure that their budding relationship didn’t die on the vine. If I couldn’t be with the one I wanted, I needed to be sure someone could. Yes, they were obnoxious, but they seemed mostly happy, so I did what I could to keep them together.
The New Year came, as did the time for the widow to make her big move. Her mom flew to Montana with the little one, but the widow was driving a big moving truck full of their belongings to the new house. Before she left she decided to visit my apartment for a day. I gave her the tour, showed her some of the trinkets I’d found that her late husband had given me, and introduced her to my newest plaything; my new AOL account. She found the internet fascinating, sitting at my computer for hours. I sat on my bed drawing while she sat at my keyboard playing an AOL game called Slingo while we talked; except she wasn’t really playing Slingo. She was using the internet to track down “you know who”. Using my account she sent an email, hoping to force a conversation. The widow never liked her. She’d met her a couple times at the mall over the summer, tracking her down to see what she was like. Hoping to show me that “she” wasn’t worth my time or heartache, the widow decided to force me to face the situation, rather than avoiding it, as I was.
Amazingly enough, she replied to that email…and it did not go well. We traded a few emails, and eventually I was informed that I had been stalking her all summer. What? Apparently I had been stalking her every night as she was leaving work. Who knew? That accusation crushed me. I thought she knew me better than that. I was so hurt that I didn’t even want to argue…didn’t even want to defend myself, so I just told her what she wanted to hear. I just “confirmed” her suspicions and apologized for the emails, telling her I would no longer contact her, and asking her to consider me dead.
That was the hardest thing I ever had to write. I never thought I could feel that empty. I found myself in a very dark place. All the things I’d done, all those I’d helped, the pride and honor I’d built myself upon…all gone. I began to wish I hadn’t survived the crash that took my arm.
Watching “Lovesick Lad” and his girlfriend fight, make up, fight, and make up again started to enrage me. Watching them together slowly built a wall of resentment around me. Who the fuck was he? What battles did his weak ass ever fight? What blood did he shed? What pain did he endure? What did he do for The Fates to show him favor? Why was he with the one he loved while I was crushed…so far away from the life I wanted; the life I’d earned? I knew it was irrational, but I wasn’t really thinking straight; and wouldn’t be for quite a while. I no longer cared about anyone else’s feelings. I’d grown harder and colder than ever before, determined to never feel that broken again.
I moved on long before I ever let go of the pain and anguish of my interactions with her. Eventually I found someone, got married, and had a little girl of my own. Just as I had finally begun to let go of the past, two days after my thirty-third birthday, I opened up my MySpace page (yeah, I know, I’m old) and found a message from her. After almost ten years…finally believing my heart had healed from being ripped away, here I was reading a message which was dated on my birthday. The woman who had accused me of stalking her…the woman who had broken my heart, crushed my spirit, and burned my honor away, the woman I was finally able to let go of, with one simple message, pulled me back in.
Starting with “Hey, how is life treating you?” and ending with “I’d like to hear back from you if you have a chance…” kind of messed me up. The last time I’d communicated with her, she was pretty adamant that I was stalking her. Now she tracked me down and was messaging me? Who does that?
A lump in my throat, and a 1000 lb. weight in my stomach, I replied to her message, struggling to answer her in vague terms and as politely as possible. Thus began a five month back and forth message storm. It began with ultra-polite “catching-up” messages. We discussed our families, our work, and our current projects. The cloyingly sweet tone of her messages—messages sent to a guy she had accused of stalking—gave me a queasy feeling, so I broke our unspoken protocol of courteous conversation to question why she would message me ten years after accusing me of something so dark. I wanted…needed to know why she would message “her stalker” in this way.
She said she’d seen my profile on someone else’s page, that she always thought of me as “smart nice and cool” despite some of my “sometimes worrisome issues” and that she never believed that I was stalking her. Those close to her, her family and at-the-time boyfriend had tried to convince her that I was a stalker, but she never saw me as a threat. She went on and on as to how she always saw me as somewhat harmless, and never saw me as a stalker. She finally said that she actually thought that I was there in some misguided attempt to protect her because of the late hour and sketchy area. Then she finally asked the reason for my presence.
Her messages didn’t really sit right with me. I didn’t trust her motives. Her sickeningly-sweet messages were too…complementary. That wasn’t the girl I knew. I felt there was something more behind these messages. I also knew telling her the truth would be a waste of time. She had a narrative in her head, and her mind was made up as to why I was there, so I gave her the story she wanted-a gripping tale of someone out to get her from whom I was protecting her. A completely unhinged story that nobody would believe, but fit in with the narrative she had settled upon.
Just the fact that she accepted the story set off alarm bells in my brain. She’s not stupid. She’s not gullible. Clever? Crafty? Absolutely. But she also always had a bit of arrogance to her; always believing she was one step ahead of everyone else. Her replies to my messages, the tone she took, the way she answered my questions while at the same time sidestepping their clear intent was just…I don’t know…off. She was up to something. She had an angle, and I felt like I needed to know what it was.
We went on messaging back and forth for several months, remaining overly polite the whole time. We discussed the projects we were each working on, the issues we each had in our chosen paths. She invited me to see her at a local performance she was giving, though I had to decline. It was difficult enough to exchange messages with her, and I wasn’t sure how I would react to physically being in her presence. Reading her words was one thing, but seeing her, hearing her voice, feeling her presence was not something I was willing to put myself through. I’d achieved some distance, and my suspicions were keeping me on edge. I couldn’t let raw emotion affect my focus. I didn’t want to get sucked back into her orbit.
Then it happened. She cracked. She made a mistake that gave me a big piece of the puzzle I was looking for. Without going into detail, I’ll just say that, though we had discussed the projects we’d each been working on, it became clear that someone else had told her of my project first. She’d contacted me in an effort to learn more about what I was working on, which I was always very vague about. Her mistake was a comment which, in effect, assumed credit for my work. She had done that in the past; taking credit for my work, my ideas, my achievements…and I never challenged her. After ten years, after accusing me of stalking her, after breaking my heart over and over again, I could no longer allow her to assume my work as her own. When I corrected her, and denied her effort to insinuate herself into my project by pointing out her misconceptions, her messages abruptly stopped. As soon as I challenged her narrative, she became uncommunicative.
We had no contact for several more years, until someone sent me a Facebook post she had made. We had a few brief interactions, but nothing of note. I was over the whole excessively-polite banter we shared on MySpace, and picked apart anything she wrote, challenging her narrative every chance I got. I really wanted her to realize that the narrative she’d adopted wasn’t always reality. Always telling her what she wanted to hear didn’t encourage her to look more critically at the world around her, so I tried challenging her world view. Of course, in the world we live in today, my voice was drowned out by those sharing the hugbox she had constructed for herself.
I had to accept that the person she had been, the girl I loved, was gone, consumed by the twisted, backward narratives of those she chose to associate with. The chemistry between us, the connection we shared, visible to many around us, had been disregarded. I accepted that she made a choice to ignore the bond I know she felt between us. She made a choice; and she didn’t choose me. Mrs. L was finally proven wrong. Time ran out long ago, and she never came ‘round. There will always be a part of me that loves her. I’ll always wish I’d done things differently. I miss who she was, and I mourn what could have been, but I still wish her only the best in the life she has chosen, even if it is without me.
Why am I writing this? Call it therapy. Call it my need to bleed my pain upon the paper. Call it my desire to write the story down to encourage others not to make the mistakes I made. I can see the end of my story approaching. I know it’s almost over for me. I’ll succumb to my injuries and health issues sooner rather than later, and I can only wish my tale can encourage those who see their future in the eyes of another to take that step forward, to lean in, to drop the bag and embrace their destiny. Take the chance, because if you don’t, you’ll regret it till you take your final breath. As I await my final gasp I can’t help but wonder…is my vision as clear as I believe it to be? Or am I only seeing what I need to see as I cross the finish line? Sadly, I’ll never know.

Meanwhile, a new village was forming that would also be making unreasonable demands upon my time (and dignity).
The following Monday evening, I met Paul Betz at O’Riordans again to finalize the schedule of my impending, part time servitude to him and Anna. Given Luke’s and Brooke’s schedules (she was still waitressing at the restaurant three to four days a week at this point), it was decided that every Thursday afternoon I would present myself at their condo with a specific set of cleaning supplies and then clean it from top to bottom. I would be expected to wash and fold their laundry for the week as well. We also decided that the third Tuesday of each month would be the target date for me to spend a minimum of four hours at their apartment preparing and serving them dinner and completing any other miscellaneous chores I was assigned. Paul brought along some clothes of his and Anna’s for me to take to the dry cleaners that afternoon. I was to pick up the clothes and bring them on Thursday when I showed up to clean for the first time.
It was left unsaid but was understood that I would be responsible for paying for the cleaning supplies and dry cleaning (and, later, for the food I prepared for them and their friends). That this was primarily another form of control and domination became clear when I showed up at their condo for the first time. At 2300 square feet (considerably larger than Brooke’s and my house), the condo was in a luxury high rise building that had been built a few years earlier in the town adjacent to the college. It was without question the most upscale residential building in the area with a large inground pool and gym on the third floor. I learned that Paul was a trust fund kid from an affluent family in northern New Jersey. Anna was also the product of a privileged upbringing and clearly fancied herself a princess. Paul’s parents had purchased him the condo as well as his BMW. So they didn’t need me to buy them anything; in fact, the financial sacrifices I made to do so, while not huge, were clearly noticeable on my professor’s salary. I was a serf paying tithes to my feudal lord and lady. And like the budding Medieval literature scholars they were, that’s exactly how they referred to me (at least some of the time).
My servitude to Paul and Anna was qualitatively different than my servitude to Brooke and Luke. For one thing, it was the first time that my subjugation was involuntary. I suppose one could argue that I was so in thrall to Brooke that my servitude to her — and, by extension, to Luke — was not entirely voluntary either. But, in fact, it was. As Brooke made clear, not following through on my vow of being willing to subjugate myself to her lover would result in me losing her, but that was still my decision to make (unthinkable as it may be). By contrast, I was being blackmailed by Paul. Failure to comply with his demands could very well result in me losing my job, not to mention in widespread public exposure, and ridicule. Those aspects ultimately proved to be academic (no pun intended), as you will learn, but I did not know that at the time, and they were powerful motivators in my early capitulation.
Another way it was different is that it did not involve the direct participation of Brooke. And while Anna certainly made her presence known to me — in ways that were routinely humiliating and often painful — it was Paul who really pulled my strings. So, although Luke was clearly my primary master, he held that position by virtue of his hold over Brooke. By contrast, Paul’s mastery of me was a more straightforward affair.
Our relationship was different for Paul and Anna as well. The other three submissives in their stable (all of whom I was eventually to meet and serve alongside at various times) were their contemporaries. As Paul pointed out at our initial meeting at the pub, I was old enough to be their father. The fact that they had an older authority figure under their thumbs, or to be more accurate, under their feet, was an endless source of amusement to them. This was reflected in some of their many nicknames for me: old man, professor page boy, professor serf, professor pantyboy, Dr. Deviant, professor pet, professor maid, Dr. Cuck, the old loser, etc. Another distinction was that their relationships with their other submissives were more or less consensual, I believe — closer in nature to my relationship with Brooke and Luke. They were driven by sexual obsession, masochism or possibly even some twisted form of love (or some combination of the above) on the part of their supplicants. And by what on the part of Paul and Anna? Sadism? Entertainment? Brooke would probably say they were driven by their love of the game. As an inveterate masochist, it was difficult for me to get into their heads. In any case, I was somewhat of an experiment for the young sadists; perhaps they had concluded that some form of coercion was required to ensnare the older victim they coveted.
When the doorman asked me my name that Thursday afternoon during the third week of November when I first showed up at their condo in my jeans and L.L. Bean jacket, mop and bucket in hand, I answered simply, “Walter.”
“Walter who?”
“Just Walter, please.”
“Mr. Betz, a Walter to see you. He doesn’t want to give his last name.”
The doorman was a skinny guy, roughly my age, dressed in a traditional doorman’s uniform such as one would routinely see on the Upper East Side of Manhattan (which somehow seemed a little absurd to me in a small city in Ohio, but Neil would probably say that observation was yet another manifestation of my elitism).
He smirked at me. “He said you must be the new maid. He said in the future that you should announce yourself that way — the maid — to avoid any confusion. Apartment 11B. The elevator is around the corner.” He spoke in a dismissive tone, thus establishing the hierarchy of servants in the building.
When I rang the doorbell to 11B, Paul answered it. He was dressed in a T-shirt, sweatpants and sweatsocks.
Would this be the point when Paul said, “Hi Professor Rollins This is all just an elaborate practical joke. Thanks for being such a good sport about it. Welcome to our home. Let me get you a drink.”, or something to that effect? Not that I really thought that was likely, but I did allow myself to hope momentarily.
Those hopes were quickly dashed when Paul said, Get on your knees.“
I looked at him, unbelieving, and said, “Out here? In the hall?”
“Yes, out here. I expect you to be waiting on your knees every time you come here until we open the door. You might consider getting yourself some kneepads, since you’re going to be spending a lot of time on your knees when you’re here.“
“But what if one of your neighbors sees me?”, I said, looking around the hallway apprehensively.
“How do you address me? That’s twice you’ve fucked up already.”
“Sorry, sir. But what if your neighbors see me, sir?”
“That’s really not my concern. But you shouldn’t worry too much about it. We only have two neighbors on this floor and, believe me, they’ve seen a lot more memorable things than someone kneeling at our doorway. They’re cool with it. And none of them have any connection to the college. At least none that I’m aware of.”
I dropped to my knees and looked up at him, now perversely hoping that he would admit me into the apartment as quickly as possible.
“You may enter. Shuffle on your knees.” I did as he commanded. He then inspected the contents of my bucket: Murphy’s Oil Soap, Lysol All Purpose Cleaner, scrubbing brushes, sponges. “Everything seems to be here. Where are our dry cleaned clothes?”
“In my car, sir. I didn’t want to wrinkle them, sir, with my hands full. Shall I get them now, sir?”
“No, you can get them later. Now stand up and strip.”
Incredibly ashamed, I removed all of my clothes but for my sheer white panties, the metal of my chastity cage clearly visible beneath the delicate fabric. At that moment, Anna came down the stairs of what was obviously a duplex condo.
”Fancy meeting you here, Professor Rollins!”, she giggled.
My cock throbbed uncomfortably in its cage. How could something so incomprehensibly humiliating — standing in skimpy female undergarments and a chastity device, in a position of utter powerlessness, before two of my students — be arousing? Yet it undoubtedly was, and the shame of it brought tears to my eyes.
Anna was dressed similarly to Paul except she was wearing tight, black yoga pants as opposed to his loose fitting sweatpants. About 5’ 8” tall with what I could see was a slender, athletic build, she had straight, long blonde hair. I later learned that she was co-captain of our college’s women’s volleyball team. In class I had noticed that she was attractive, of course, but I had never really taken stock of her until that moment. Since Brooke had entered my life, I had quite consciously paid less attention to the attractive students in my classes; why did I need to fantasize about any of them when I was married to my dreamgirl? However, as I regarded Anna that afternoon, it was clear that she was a quite lovely, sexy, young woman. I would soon come to learn that she had the imperious sneer and contemptuous smile down pat. Perhaps these qualities were not attractive to everyone, but to a masochistic male such as myself, they were quite alluring. I had to reluctantly admit that she and Paul made a remarkably attractive couple. A quite formidable one too, especially when it came to tormenting people with submissive natures. People like me.
For my book, I had been researching a fetish, sort of an offshoot or variation of the cuckold fetish, that had been rapidly growing in popularity recently in online forums and on social media: submissive men in service to “alpha couples,” who were typically young, attractive, athletic and dominant. Characteristically, the physically inferior, submissive male in such a relationship suffers from unrequited love for the female member of the couple, his “crush,” and simply accepts that a more deserving rival is worthy of her affections. This acceptance may happen after he is dumped by her (usually before the passive creature even makes it to first base), but just as frequently she makes it crystal clear from the very start of their relationship that he will never be more than her friend (or even her simp). It then becomes his duty to serve not only the object of his unrequited affection but to also serve the man whose affections she does return. Sometimes the rejected “beta male” is kept around by the woman in “the friendzone,” almost like a neutered pet whose presence is tolerated by the alpha male because he so obviously represents no threat. At the other extreme, the rejected male becomes a virtual slave to the couple, performing demeaning chores for them or even buying things for them in a form of financial servitude. Interestingly, in these extreme cases, the beta male sometimes develops a worshipful sexual attraction to the alpha male as well; surely the physical attributes that win the heart, and bed, of his beloved are worthy of his desire, too? And not only the physical attributes. Also the alpha male’s confidence, his dominance, perhaps even his cruelty. Usually, such relationships fall somewhere between these two ends of the spectrum. However, as you can see, many similarities to the chivalric love triangle and to certain types of cuckolding relationships.
Well, Paul and Anna were right out of central casting for the types of alpha couples I had been reading so much about. In fact, I later discovered that two of the other submissives in their stable almost precisely fit the description I just gave of servants to such couples. One was a young man, Issac, who was hopelessly in love with Anna but who had grown quite abjectly devoted to Paul as well. The other was more unusual, a female “friendzoned” by Paul, who had quite enthusiastically embraced her role as Anna’s lackey and doormat. This individual, Cindy, was a variant of a submissive cuckquean. Issac and Cindy differed from true cuckolds and true cuckqueans in that they had never had a sexual relationship with their beloved to begin with. In that way, one could argue that they were even more pathetic than I was. Never fear, Paul and Anna found creative ways of making me feel inferior to them as well.
“Well, aren’t you going to say hello?”, asked Anna.
“It’s just that I don’t know how to address you, miss.”
“Outside of the classroom, you may address me as Princess Anna or simply as princess. Kneel before your princess and kiss my foot, professor.”
I got back down in my knees, bent over and kissed her right foot through her sock.
“Now the other one.”
“Yes, princess.”
After I planted a kiss on her left foot, Anna said, “What about the feet of your prince?”
I kissed both of Paul’s feet through the thick wool.
“Ok, let’s give you a tour and then you can get started. You may walk,” said Paul.
“Thank you, sir,” I replied.
“Why don’t you make him call you ‘my prince’? Or, ‘my liege’? I like that. Especially since he teaches that kind of shit.” Anna was a sub par student, so I was not surprised by her vulgar, reductive description of the subject matter of my class.
“‘Sir’ is fine when he’s working as maid. Follow me,” said Paul.
First they showed me around the first floor, where there was a large kitchen with high-end, stainless steel appliances and granite countertops, including a large island. In addition to a large living room (at least twice the size of mine and Brooke’s), there was also a sizable guest bedroom, a full bathroom and an office on the first floor. We then walked up the stairs to the second floor, which was slightly smaller than the first, including an open area that looked down onto the first floor. On the second floor was Paul and Anna’s spacious master bedroom with a large en suite bathroom. Paul then unlocked a door to what I presumed was a third bedroom That’s probably what it was intended to be when the developer built the place, but Paul and Anna had converted the room into a makeshift dungeon. It contained a St. Andrews Cross, a padded punishment bench of some kind and a cage in which the prisoner could sleep or lay down (although not very comfortably). There were multiple riding crops, canes, paddles and straps hanging on the wall (similar to our hallway at home, but much greater in number).
Paul then opened a large closet containing a compact washer and dryer. I was at least relieved that I wouldn’t have to go down into some communal laundry room in the basement of the condo to do their laundry. On the other hand, following my tour, my first thought was that there was no way it would be possible for me to clean the entire place and do their laundry in only two hours (which turned out to be correct).
Paul said, “When you’re finished cleaning, Anna and I will inspect your work. Any shortcomings will be recorded in this notebook.” Paul pointed to a leather bound notepad lying on a small table in the dungeon. “I will record your demerits here. You’ve already earned two for failing to address me as ‘sir’ when you arrived. Of course, we still have to figure out methods of punishment that won’t be detectable to Luke and your wife.”
“How are we going to dress him when he cleans, babe?”, Anna asked Paul. Then to me: “I don’t suppose you brought a maid’s uniform with you, did you?“
“No, princess.”
“I like that page uniform you wore at the Ren fair. You know, with the white tights. Bring that next time.”
“I will try, princess. But the jacket belongs to my wife.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I doubt she’ll miss it,“ said Anna.
“With his chastity cage, I think he should wear stockings and heels like Chrissy,” said Paul.
Anna replied, “At least he’s shaved smooth already. He’s about the same height as Chrissy. I think I have a pair of thigh high stockings that Chrissy hasn’t opened yet. They should look good with his little, white panties. I’ll get them.“
Anna came back with a pair of sheer black thigh high stockings. They watched me as I pulled them up by legs, smiling derisively.
“It looks like he’s put on nylons a thousand times before,” said Anna.
“He probably has,” said Paul
“Let’s see if he fits into Chrissy’s heels.” She left the room momentarily and returned with a pair of black high heels. I had never worn heels before and was very unsteady on my feet. They were also tight and very uncomfortable.
“I think they’re a bit tight for him. I’ll order a pair one size larger, Anna “said Anna.
“Well, you’re off the hook, maid. You don’t have to wear heels today, but we will expect you to wear them in the future. Now get busy,” ordered Paul.
“The professor maid. I love it!,” snickered Anna.
I started by gathering up their dirty clothes from their bedroom and starting a load of laundry. I next began cleaning their master bedroom bathroom. For the most part, Paul and Anna reclined on the sofa and watched TV as I worked. Occasionally, one of them would come over to supervise my work, critically.
“Make sure you scrub behind the toilet. I check for dust on the back of the toilet, and I better not find any,” said Anna.
“Yes, princess.“
“The only way to clean back there properly is from on your knees.“ I did as she commanded and began scrubbing earnestly, conscious of her scrutinizing my efforts (and my panty-clad ass, sticking out).
“You know, I think he looks a lot more at home cleaning the bathroom floor on his knees than he does lecturing at a podium,“ Anna yelled out to Paul in the other room.
“He should be forced to lecture from his knees,” laughed Paul.
“And to take his own tests and quizzes. That 64 I got on that last pop quiz better magically turn into a 100 by the end of the marking period,” said Anna.
I had to draw the line somewhere, didn’t I? “Princess, sir, I have been meaning to talk to you about that. Surely you can see how it’s impossible for me to maintain my integrity as a professor, to maintain academic integrity, while inflating anyone’s grades. To do so would devalue the grades of everyone in the college, including your own. Surely you…”
“I don’t fucking believe this!,” exclaimed Paul forcefully, causing me to shut my mouth instantly. “Is this guy for real?!”, he asked Anna. “Look, you talk as if either of us actually give a rat’s ass about ‘academic integrity.’ I promise you we don’t. You will change my, Anna’s and Kelly’s scores to A’s on that quiz and on all future tests and assignments. You don’t even want to conceive of what will happen to you if you don’t.”
“He should change all of our grades since the beginning of the semester to A’s,” said Anna.
“I’m afraid that might be a little too obvious, babe. But certainly everything from here on out, including that last quiz.” He then turned to me: “You thought you were so clever giving that quiz after getting your ass beaten by me at the Ren fair and cleaning our shoes. Like you’d show us who was boss. Well, there’s no turning the clock back. We know what a pathetic beta you are now, and you will be treated accordingly from now on by your three favorite students. Got it!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now you have less than an hour left and a lot more to do. You better get your ass in gear.” With that he swatted me sharply on my ass. Anna giggled.
I worked at a frenetic pace, focusing on finishing the bathrooms, kitchen and laundry. I was interrupted twice to bring the young princess and prince a glass of ice water and a snack.
“I think he should curtsy to us like Chrissy does when he serves us,” said Anna.
“I don’t know how to, Princess Anna.”
“Learn how. You do know how to use the Internet, don’t you, geezer?”, Paul said. Anna snickered. “Now get back to work. You turn into a pumpkin soon and you’ve got a lot more to do still.”
Despite my best efforts, as I suspected, it tuned out that it simply wasn’t possible to clean an apartment that size in two hours —at least to their exacting standards. Even as it was, Anna found two hairs in the master bathroom shower and “unacceptable” grime behind the faucet in the kitchen. I had, in fact, noticed it but hadn’t been able to fully remove it with the granite countertop spray they had, despite scrubbing vigorously.
Paul said, “There’s a lot he didn’t get to. The living room is full of dust and shit on the floor. He didn’t even touch the dungeon. It’s probably not realistic to expect him to finish the whole apartment in two hours.”
Anna said, “It’s no problem. I’ll tell Chrissy to get her ass over here tomorrow morning. Professor maid should just focus on the bathrooms, kitchen and our laundry when he’s here. Chrissy and/ or Cindy will take care of the rest,” said Anna.
Paul said to me, “Come over here. Stand at attention in front of us.” I did as he ordered, standing in my panties and the loaned thigh high stockings before my seated young rulers. Paul pulled down my panties and with his right hand gripped my balls, which were jutting out from beneath my small chastity cage.
“Squeeze his little, geriatric balls, babe. Show him who’s really boss.”
Admittedly they were little, but geriatric?! I hadn’t yet turned 40! But the age discrepancy between the two of them and myself was a big part of the turn on for them in dominating me, and they were to miss no opportunity to rub it in in the months that followed.
Paul did in fact squeeze my balls that afternoon, causing me to stand on my tippy toes as I winced in pain. He held onto them firmly as he addressed me, “That’s five demerits. Two failures to address me properly. Two hairs and counter crud. Please record them in the notebook, Anna. We don’t have any more time today, so we will address them the Thursday after Thanksgiving when you prepare us dinner for the first time. We won’t be so rushed then. When you return, you’ll bring with you your completed writing assignment.”
“Writing assignment, sir?”
“Yes, punishment lines. I want you to write out neatly, 500 times: ‘I will never bring up the inane subject of academic integrity with Prince Paul or Princess Anna again.’ Good penmanship is important. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now get dressed and bring us our dry cleaning before you leave.”
After I retrieved the dry cleaning from the car, Anna smiled brightly at me and said (absurdly, surreally), “I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving, Professor Rollins!”
I replied (equally absurdly), “You too, Princess Anna, Prince Paul.”
I heard them crack up behind the closed door as I headed towards the elevator.
I hurried past the smirking doorman to my car. Although Luke mercifully was traveling that night, Brooke would be expecting some dinner when she got home from the restaurant.
Like I said, it was a very busy November.

The time has come! You have all been waiting for this moment for a while now and I can finally deliver! In just a few moments I, the luxurious Mazda, will step into the house to compete against fifteen other of the most dastardly villains known to this game. Be amazed as you watch and learn how the true contenders out play their competition. Rest assured; this will be the greatest season of reality TV show history yet! And as always before we go we have a quick refresh of the cast…
Mazda's House of Villains
Meet the Cast:
Averetta the Salazzle a.k.a. the Ringleader
Daenerys the Serperior a.k.a. the Vengeful Queen
Dread the Druddigon a.k.a. the Bully
Cyclone the Vivillon a.k.a. the Olympian
Ivana the Volcarona a.k.a. the Muckraker
Overlord the Spewpa a.k.a. the Accomplice
Lulu the Luvdisc a.k.a. the Movie Star
Mazda the Scolipede a.k.a. the Investor
Paloma the Vileplume a.k.a. the Prosecutor
Professor Bane the Crobat a.k.a. the Professor
Rockefeller the Dwebble a.k.a. the Baron
Vanity the Espathra a.k.a. the Corporate Vixen
Veena the Arbok a.k.a. the Model
Vomittar the Muk a.k.a. the Contamination
Xavi the Voltorb a.k.a. the Grifter
Zephyr the Dustox a.k.a. the Stunt Actor
Intro: H-hello? Are we…we live? Oh we are? Oh! Welcome all to Bunn—Mazda’s House of Villains! It is I, Bunny, your host for this adventure! And do not worry, there is no fine print keeping me trapped here in the studio to help while Mazda competes! Let’s go to the house and finally see our contestants enter the house! We go now to... wait what??? THEY GOT THEIR OWN PRIVATE ISLAND FOR THIS???? Um—I mean yes the Centipede Corps private island located off the coast of Undella town in Unova. Hey isn’t there an underwater ruin there? Anyways, we tune in now to see a series of jetties, helicopters, and boats settle in at the island.
Right as the get on the island, Dread goes to attack the Prof who deftly dodges. He is only stopped by Vomittar whose muck traps him. Looks like we have some tensions already. But just like tensions, some villains have some freidnships already. But will these alliances stick or does Rockefeller intend on betraying Overlord again? We will find out. Meanwhile, the first HOH is beginning! This sponsorship filled tourney is hardly recognizable but it appears to be a surfboard themed endurance competition. Veena of course does well as does Dany. Cyclone the athlete and Zephyr the Stuntman compete really well as well. But in the end, Cyclone comes out victorious.
Entering the house, Zephyr and Veena commend each other on their strong competition and decide they would be a good duo but they have to keep it secret and branch out. They agree on Lulu as a good ally too. Zephyr gets Rockefeller to join him but the Baron is wary of the easy alliance so makes a side deal with Mazda. Mazda keeps an ear on the house and realizes Lulu and Veena are in the center, so he gets in close with Veena. Cyclone puts up strong competitors on the block with Paloma and Zephyr. At the veto ceremony, Cyclone uses houseguests’ choice to choose her brother, Overlord, to compete. He fumbles the ball and the veto comes down to the two nominees. But to Zephyr’s surprise, Paloma pulls out all of the stops and wins, proving she is so much tougher than season 1.
Cyclone decides that her brother is too threatening with his brain and puts him up next to Zephyr, intending to get a strong social player out first. The week continues very affably, with all of the evildoers plotting in the shadows but being quiet up front. One notable conversation sees Dread and Dany connect the dots about their mutual benefiters who sold them out to bounty hunters but can’t figure out the exact name. Leading up to the eviction, Veena agrees to save Zephyr as do the duo of Vanity and Paloma. But Mazda did work with Lulu and Rockefeller to cut off the center of the house so they could be in control. At the first eviction ceremony, Zephyr is confident his alliance will pull through but is shocked when he is blindsided and evicted first.
** the chicken is out the nest, I repeat, the chicken has flown the coop** Why are we calling it the coop? **I did not decide on these code names, sir, I am simply the messenger** Okay… well thank you for your valuable info, poison powder. **hopefully we will get more in the coming weeks**
Week 2: Wow what a shocking blindside on week 1, it can only get better from here! The HOH becomes super important for the next round, with lines already being drawn and confused. Veena guns for it and is surprised when Lulu is going strong next to her. But it is Vanity who wins the competition and HOH. Her and Paloma reflect on the status of the house and read the pulse well with their combined intuition. Rockefeller and Vomm end up as the scapegoats and go up. The veto is a blowout with Xavi beating both nominees. Rockefeller tries to strike a deal with Xavi to save him but the orb knows all of the tricks and spins it on him, lashing out at his bad faith deals. Cyclone and Overlord reconcile after last week and realize brain and brawn together is better. Vanity tries to further her place in the house by getting in close with primadonna Lulu. Dread continues to get sources from Ave realizing she was sold out as well and it is likely Vomittar was but he needs to save Vomittar to find out. This strong push is counter to a strong push from Lulu and Mazda who want to silence Vomittar and save Rockefeller. At the eviction ceremony, it is enough of a push when they recruit Dany as well and Rockefeller is sent packing.
**moonlight here, looks like twister has reached the inner sanctum but there’s some sort of puzzle lock on the door** That’s not good. We have to find someone who can solve that. Someone who likes ruins. **affirmative, sir, our scouts may know just the bird**
Week 3: These first two weeks have been turbulent and the power structures keep losing out. This HOH is important but could see more leaders fall. Dread guns to win the HOH to continue getting info but him and Vomm are not enough when Veena sees herself against them. She finally wins her first HOH. Much to Dread’s dismay, she puts up Dany. She also puts up Paloma for being too aloof and probably smart or something. Dread and Ave decide to work towards their mystery and team up. Overlord spies this and blackmails them into an alliance with him and Cyclone. At the veto, Dany beats Ave and Veena. Though Veena gets a tip from Cyclone about the criminal’s alliance and replaces Dany with Ave. The criminals decide to pull through with operation chaos to make sure the vote stays going to Paloma. Knowing Veena finds Vanity very standoffish, Overlord flips mattresses all over the house to blame it on Vanity. Ave also steals one of Paloma’s belongings and gives it to Lulu, who breaks it thinking it’s Ave’s. Some more chaos leads to Xavi having a meltdown. At the eviction ceremony, everyone is so worn out over the chaos that no one has flipped to Ave. The hail mary is successful and Paloma is sent packing.
**poison powder here, there has been a hitch in the plan. we may need to use bird’s eye view surveillance now.** Poison Powder your efforts are commended but you must keep yourself out of harms way.
Week 4: The next HOH begins and it’s the wall comp! Doing surprisingly well, Mazda and Vomm face off to the end until Mazda finally drops. Vomm wins the HOH. Dread and Ave try to take the opportunity to get information from Vomm in the HOH room but he rebuffs them and is actually happy he got caught. As such, he has no qualms about putting up Dany on the block next to Ivana, the social butterfly. Vomm uses his houseguest choice at the veto to pick Lulu, solidifying his allegiance to her side of the house. When She wins the veto, she returns the favor by not using it and keeping his nominations. Dany lashes out at Lulu for her deception and running the house but Lulu acts like the victim and causes Dany to fly into a rage. Her anger leads to her breaking a ton of items around the house and even Dread admits keeping her would be risky. Ave tries to push for her to stay but Overlord convinces her that she has no new information. At the eviction ceremony, only Ave votes to save Dany, and the grass snake goes home.
**flamethrower, come in, ancient power has cracked the code and allowed for ttwister to make progress. we are sending in flash to survey the place** Copy that, have her send camera feeds to Calm Mind **affirmative, sir, we are looking into that now**
Week 5: The next HOH is a snow ball rolling competition and Veena continues to set herself off as a physical threat with her second HOH win. Veena puts up Ave and Vanity due to both of them being the most visible social players in the game and their potential connection from their season. Ave selects Cyclone in the veto to try and give Veena a stronger run in the veto. But as strong competition as they are together, Veena comes out and wins again. The stress of his search falling apart, Dread has a loud meltdown. Overlord and Cyclone decide they might need to jump the sinking ship and begin trying to branch out more. Overlord reaches out to Ivana and the Prof to reconnect and have a non-major side alliance. Cyclone schmoozes up to Lulu to get in the center structure of the house. Vomm finishes the push against the criminals by being another push against Ave. At the eviction ceremony, a combination of Vomm voting Ave and Overlord flipping sees Ave as the final pre-juror.
Week 6: The jury phase has started and the house is muddier than ever. Mazda is still in the house and firmly at the center so it looks like I’m stuck here hosting for a while longer. The next HOH is a knockout round where the winner eliminates others from the game. It comes down to Xavi and Bane and Bane wins the final round and the HOH. Having clued into Overlord flipping, he puts him up next to Xavi. Vanity struts around the house arrogantly which gets on everyone’s nerves. She believes herself untouchable. At the veto, Dread is selected to play and wins it. He saves his ally Overlord and Vanity is put up by Bane, who sees through her manipulative game. Veena is appalled as she was starting to want to keep Vanity. She gets in a huge fight with Bane about why they need to keep her as a jury goat. Though she is rattled, Vanity switches gears to being super sweet and kind to everyone and turning on the corporate narcissism. Due to this, and Xavi slowly crumbling under the pressure of the game, Xavi is sent to the jury shed unceremoniously.
** calm-mind I have reached another lock. but I can hear noise on the other side. The electrical currents are stronger right here** Copy that, Flash, I can sense a cavern north of where you are, looks like you can navigate through there to find another entrance. **got it, I will keep you updated**
Week 7: The next HOH is the infamous contaminated water HOH. Vomm was literally born for this competition and easily trounces it. Dread and Vanity are the easy weekly targets. Dread goes up to Lulu, who considers him an ally, to try and get another week of life in the game. She reveals that Vomm is getting too powerful and he needs to go soon. Dread wins the veto competition and saves himself. Vomm wants to narrow the pool of strong competitors and reveals his plan all along was to backdoor Veena. Veena is dejected and tries to turn to Vanity for friendship, but to her dismay, Vanity has turned her act on her, screaming at her for being an awful friend. She only has the Prof to turn to I this time of sadness. Lulu and Mazda, meanwhile, are scrambling though, as Veena helps them stay in the center of the house dynamics. They try hard to keep but with Vanity’s act, enough villains want to see the chaos and Veena is eliminated in 9th place.
Double Eviction!:>! Surprise!!!! This double eviction is happening really early this time! Isn’t that devious? In a shocking and karmic twist, Vanity wins the HOH. She puts Ivana up next to the Prof, who was Veena’s close ally and her new target. Dread wins the veto and doesn’t use it, hoping to see his old rival finally evicted from the game. But at the vote, Overlord cannot resist the urge to betray his other former ally and keep enough big dogs in the game for him to ride the coattails of and turns on his alliance and Ivana, sending her home as the second victim. !<
**moonlight, this is twister, we are making progress on the bust but we need another scout with water traveling capabilities to make it happen** Moonlight, this is Poison Powder speaking, we also need you to do something for us that you might not be happy about…
Week 9: Everyone is shocked at the rogue vote that broke a tie that should have existed and people begin to panic. One who doesn’t panic, is the Prof, who knows he survived by the skin of his teeth. He yakes advantage of the panic to win HOH. Overlord pins the rogue vote on Lulu and she loses the trust of her incredibly disloyal allies. The Prof puts Dread on the block as his former rival who he knows is gunning for him. He also puts up Overlord, who he has figured out saved him as a game move. And he wants that stupid move to be his last big game move. At the veto, Dread uses his pent-up rage to destroy the competition and win it. He saves himself and claims he will figure out just how the Prof turned on him and betrayed him outside of the game. Mazda pivots to the Professor and the two bond again. They look through their options and decide that Vomm has the next most power in the game so he goes up next to Overlord. Lulu sees her loss of power and has a monstrous tantrum throughout the week. The Professor gloats to Dread that his closest ally turned against him and voted to save the Prof. Dread is incensed but holds in his rage. At the eviction ceremony, Overlord sees his overplay bite him in the butt when Dread flips on him and sends him home.
**absolutely not** Moonlight its of major importance to the success of the plan. **I have not spoken to them in years. they broke me and are not trustworthy. is dizzy punch not enough?** If she was enough would we be asking you to find S—uh let’s call them Morning Sun. **…. fine but I am not happy about this.** We don’t need happiness, just success.
Week 10: At the next HOH, a lot of power players are gunning for this important power. But Dread uses his anger to solidify his spot in the final 6 and as the dominant power player in the game. Cyclone decides to form a side alliance with the house divas, Lulu and Vanity. But she then goes to Dread and says that Lulu tried to get her to join an alliance. She hopes that Dread will turn his anger from the Prof to Lulu, allowing the bat to last longer in the game and send Dread home. This works when Dread puts Lulu and Vomm up next to each other. Unfortunately for her, Lulu goes on to win veto. She saves herself and the Prof goes up. Cyclone goes into panic mode and goes to Dread about how the Prof is actually the one he needs to keep, with Vomm still having secrets. The Professor confirms this but won’t give any details. Meanwhile, Lulu goes on the offensive, being super sweet again and cleaning up Vomm’s mess around the house. Causing the sludge to lash out. Dread gives Vomm one more chance to tell him all he knows about the person who betrayed him and turned him in but the puddle spits in his face. At the eviction ceremony, Cyclone votes for the Professor to force a tie. Then, Dread shocks absolutely everyone by voting to evict Vomm from the game.
Double Eviction Part 2!: Oh yeah! We have a second double eviction! Isn’t that even MORE devious??? Tonight 7 goes to 5! Dread is unable to compete in the HOH but he gets to watch his best ally Cyclone win. Cyclone decides that the Prof and Dread will keep teasing each other but never send the other home quick enough she bites the bullet and puts Mazda up next to the Prof, with a secret plan to backdoor an ally if a nominee wins veto. She is lucky when Mazda ends up winning. She puts the dragon up next to the bat and the two rivals see each other on the block. Unfortunately for the dragon, Vanity and Mazda both have closer ties to the Professor (and his sponsors) so they choose to evict Dread. He refuses to leave and claws his way to stay in the house. The Professor gloats about his victory over the Bully again and says he will never beat him. Together with Cyclone, the two make a big gust to sweep away the shell-shocked Bully.
** flamethrower, this is calm mind. it looks like the plans are falling into place. finale night is when we make our move.** Excellent, every operative is in place? **yes sir. moonlight and poison powder are awaiting their deployment. ancient power and flash are in the caverns with the action team. morning sun and dizzy punch are preparing the net.** And off the coast? Did we find another operative there? ** yes sir. twister is awaiting with aurora beam** Excellent. And our target? **still in the house sir. we may have to capture every last one of them** I was hoping it would not come to this but we have a solid plan. **flamethrower, sir, we might have to be on ground duty ourselves** I feared as much, Calm Mind. This might be our last communication for a while. **we will get them sir. don’t worry.** Worrying is not in my nature.
Week 11: The five house guests left may seem friendly but they have all been trying very hard to make close ties throughout the house to succeed in this endgame. Cyclone needed Vanity or Lulu to win the HOH but Mazda goes on to win it. He recognizes Cyclone’s strong moves and puts her up next to Vanity, if only because the Prof and Lulu bring him more money. The veto is won by the Prof, who initially does not want to use it. However, he realizes that of the trio of girls, one of them has to work with him if she stays and the others do not. He saves Cyclone, forcing Mazda to put Lulu on the block. The two gals try to out nice the other all week by doing chores and cooking or acting super nice. Cyclone goes to the Prof to admit his move to keep her was very strategic and very smart because she has to work with him now, but he also has to work with her. They decide to let Mazda ruin one of his votes by forcing another tie. Mazda considers evicting Vanity but leans into his corporate Greed and evicts Lulu instead.
Week 12: the top four HOH comes down to a quiz comp that Cyclone stands no chance in. She relies on the Prof but he fumbles worse than she did, causing her to become suspicious. Vanity ends up winning it. The Prof reveals he voted Lulu to try and save Vanity and she is swayed to keep him. Cyclone and Mazda become the initial nominees. Cyclone realizes the Professor used the tie vote against her and tries desperately to win the veto. Unfortunately, Mazda wins it. The Prof is put up next to Cyclone and he smirks, knowing Mazda would keep him over her. At the eviction ceremony, he is proven correct when Mazda votes to evict Cyclone.
The Reunion: The Jurors are brought out of the Jury shed and into the finale night set, an impressive beach set full of fire and tiki torches! The jurors are sat out nice on their chairs and encouraged to speak about their experience in the house and who they think will win the game. Tensions don’t seem as high as they should be for being trapped in a shed for weeks but the eliminated houseguests do talk eventually. Veena goes first to gripe about how everyone in the house was really good at lying and playing nice for a bunch of villains. She pinpoints Lulu as someone who had a lot more power than she realized. Lulu smiles and calls her an idiot for not realizing it sooner. Vomm steps in to point out that Lulu’s allies all turned on her with a long way left in the game and she was never going to make it to the end. He claims that she left too many strong players in the game and was incapable of winning a competition herself, especially next to the big bully, Dread. Speaking of Dread, he is muzzled and tied up, but is growling angrily the whole time. Through his muzzle he growls out how the Professor and Cyclone will never see another daylight if he has his way. Cyclone, who is sitting right next to him, flutters away next to her brother. The two admit that they allied with Dread mostly to see the Professor leave but they both got outplayed by him. Veena pipes up again to say how Vanity also used her manipulation against many of them to survive the block next to them. In fact, in a game of villains, it’s the smartest and most manipulative to survive. Xavi admits that Mazda has no chance sitting next to Vanity or the Professor as they both survived off of their brains and survival instinct while Mazda simply headed a Ponzi scheme.
Final HOH: The jurors are shown part 1 of the final HOH, a log rolling competition which Vanity epically fails. After a long bout, the Professor says that he is up against two corporate overlords and, as a representative for education everywhere, he must win. Mazda laughs and sweeps him into the water. Vomm laughs, noting that the Prof was never going to win a physical endurance competition and his bold words were a bit mis-timed. Xavi hushes him as part two starts. The Prof and Vanity must complete a maze of previously evicted houseguests and competitions the fastest. The Prof, who spearheaded proper studying techniques, easily crushes Vanity in that competition. Lulu cringes when Vanity is revealed to have taken so long that the timer broke. The final 3 are then brought out of the house for part 3 of the final HOH, where they see the jury in front of them. Mazda puts on a concerned smile but the Professor stays focused. In the final jury-based competition, the Professor wins it, becoming the Final HOH. Back in the house, he gets to decide which of Mazda or vanity becomes the final juror. He goes on a preamble about how his biggest competition is already out of the house and he only won to ensure he had a bigger impact on the game. He flips a coin and it lands on heads. He evicts Mazda as the final Juror.
Reunion Part 2: As Mazda exits his house, I don’t get a rest from hosting as this is finale night. But the pre-jurors are flown in on helicopters so that’s pretty cool. Rockefeller steps off and nods at Ivana. They both send a daggering stare at Overlord, who winces having betrayed them both. Dany, Ave, and Zephyr enter the stage shortly after. Ave and Dany reveal they are actually close friends after how crazy the season was. They tell Dread that bygones can be bygones and he can still be in their little troupe if he pleases once he calms down. Zephyr is quiet the whole time, seemingly looking for something in the distance. Paloma starts to ramble about how she wasn’t given much of a chance to succeed and that she was evicted because of her ally and not herself. Ivana stops her and reminds her she is on a show about the villains, she stood no chance with a heroic mindset.
The Final 2 Face the Jury: The Prof and Vanity face the jury, both putting on their most affably evil personas. They go off claiming their moves in the game. Vanity’s big strategy involved sucking up to everyone and putting herself first all the time. She survived the block next to Ave and Xavi because of it, and turned the tables on Veena using that strategy. When Overlord asks her who she would have broken the tie for if he didn’t flip his vote, she says obviously the Professor would not be there. The Prof claims his strategy was reactionary. He waited for his opponents to make moves and then played the perfect counter to them. He cites putting Overlord on the block even though he voted to save him as not allowing Overlord to keep credit for a big move. He also points out that he used several tie votes to his favor including causing Vanity to put Cyclone up at the Final 4 because of his position in the tie. When Lulu asks him what would have happened if she won HOH instead of Vanity, the Prof says he would have lied but also, Lulu stood no chance at that HOH. Cyclone asks the Prof why he never took a shot at Dread and he says the dragon was setting up his own game to fail. Plus, he knew one of his allies would eventually want to turn on him. He gives Cyclone a wink as he says this. She shrinks a bit. Mazda asks Vanity if she truly saw him as a big asset to her game and she says that his power and strength in the game was what allowed her to get as far as she did. Xavi rolls his eyes.
The Jury Votes: Xavi says that one villain out-villained all of the rest of them and deserves the win. Veena says she has two allies up in the final two but one of them had her back all the time, which even villains need. Ivana says that both finalists would make excellent stories to write but one of them has an easier tale to tell. Overlord comes right out and says he got outplayed and recognizes it. Vomm commends the finalist who played the most chaotically. Dread grumbles through his muzzle but we can’t tell what he said. Lulu shines and sparkles as she walks to the voting booth and silently casts her vote. Cyclone flutters over and echoes her brother’s sentiment that to beat the best, you have to be the best, and she got beat. Mazda goes last and thanks the final 2 for an amazing program. He knows the rating will go through the roof and they will be picked up for a second season. And the winner is…
Winner: The Professor
Runner-Up: Vanity
Fan-Favorite: Cyclone
My Favorites: Cyclone, Overlord, the Prof, Vanity, Dread
My Thoughts: This season definitely lived up to the hype as an All-Villains season. No one played a truly loyal game and the winner was someone with no true close allies by his own volition. Everyone played viciously and backstabbed or manipulated and it was glorious. The crumbling criminal’s alliance was of course a highlight. And the revival of the Dread and Professor rivalry was fun to see happen again. But to watch as Cyclone unwittingly played into the Professor’s hand by getting Dread to keep him was amazing. Cyclone was a true power player who made a ton of strong moves in the game and could have won if she won just one more competition at the end. I think a Cyclone and Professor final 2 would have been even more epic, but he did not want to risk that and it was epic when he pulled his tie against her. Dread was not who I expected to be running the strongest alliances of the house but I guess he had a demanding presence this time around. And of course watching Lulu come back at full Lulu diva force was epic, even if her game fell apart. Overall, my personal favorite season!
What’s next?: Well that was an exciting first season of Mazda’s House of Villains and at this rate it will be picked up for a second seas—wait whats that? Is that…Stellar Guard in the Jury Shed? But how did he…? And April too??? Wait a minute it looks like Paloma is opening the doors to the house to let Pokémon Police to the stage along with Tiny and Peeps? Naomi is tugging a boat and Dayley Jane is rounding up the villains. Who is that up by the moon? Zephyr is flying with…Seraphina! The two are spreading a big ole net all over the stage with the help of Lora and they are wrangling everyone! Mazda your villainy is over! “And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”
I am finally free! Admittedly Mazda is a great producer but that fine print and those NDAs really threwoff my mojo. But I have plenty of ideas for future seasons and am reinvigorated to see the next set of newbies enter the next house! But first, lets go see all of these dastardly villains sent home in cuffs!
**calm mind—er--april here, it worked out actually quite well that mazda left the house so late for story reasons, but we have checked and no riggory or cheating was detected on his part. turns out he actually was good at the game this time around. wait there's a silhouette flying towards the moon. did we miss one? oh well... it can't be that serious... i hope**

My mom sent my math tutor photos of what I look like. She betrayed my trust, so i'm refusing to speak to her.
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For context, i was struggling in math for a few years and finally (against my will) my mom explained to me that she found a math tutor online who could help me. She told me this right before I had to meet with him. (I am very introverted, and I have horrible anxiety) she didn't warn me or tell me that she was looking for math tutors, she just forced me into sitting down with a random internet man who was going to validate any self-worth I had back then.
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At this time, I was really struggling with my appearance and i was very insecure about how i looked. When I went onto the skype meeting with him and my mom INSISTED that my camera should be on because It would "be weird without it on."
As soon as i joined the skype call, he asked me about what i knew, what i didn't, ect. Normal questions, But immediately after he began to rapid fire questions at me and every question i answered incorrectly, he would yell out "wrong, wrong again, wrong."
After his quiz he just said, "you don't know how to do this. you lied to me." For some reason hearing that just broke me. I literally got up and ran off to cry. My mom pulled me back down to finish the meeting and compromised with me that I could do math tutoring without the camera on.
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It's been two years since then and I have drastically improved at math. But I still have kept the camera off. i've grown close to my tutor and we talk about recent events, what we did on weekends, ect. It's nothing weird or out of the ordinary just friendly small talk. Just friendly banter.
Sometimes, my math tutor would joke about never seeing my face, saying stuff like, "if we ran into each other in real life, i wouldn't know who you were." It was just lighthearted comments, and I never took them seriously. But i guess he really persisted on me turning on my camera because he texted my parents about me not ever showing my face. My parents pressured me to turn it on. Also, to throw it out there, my gaming laptop does not have a built-in camera, so i literally couldn't turn on my cam even if I wanted to. I explained that to my parents. I also said that my camera being on wasn't important and I was there to do math, not to show off my face to random strangers. And that was that.
Recently, my family took a trip to Colorado, and I skipped a math tutoring lesson because of our trip. My mom was texting my math tutor about our trip and send him photos of our family. He asked who I was. In the first pictures, i was wearing a ski mask, helmet, and goggles; therefore, my entire face was covered. So, for some reason my mom takes it into her hands to go out of her way and find pictures of my face from her photo albums to send to him. She didn't even ask me or showed me the pictures before she sent them.
She knows I am insecure about the way I look and that i don't like taking pictures. She KNOWS i didn't want to show off my face and she just did it anyway. I saw the photos she sent him because she told me about this whole interaction on the way home from school.
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I feel so hurt especially because my mom and I are so close. I haven't looked her in the eyes since then and I haven't spoken to her either. This may not even be that big of a deal to most people, but i feel so betrayed. the photos were really unflattering angles of my face as well. i have good pictures of me on MY phone i could've sent her, but i guess she didn't think about it??? ITS JUST SO WEIRD.
I don't know why she did it, all i can think about is how hurt I am. My sister and my mom even had the audacity to say I had a crush on my math tutor because I was so pressed about her sending photos of me. I was so pissed off.
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So yeah. I'm ignoring my mom until I stop feeling so hurt ig? I don't really know what to do. I had a meeting with my tutor right after that and I just felt a completely different vibe with him. He wasn't as friendly to me, and he didn't try to make small talk with me or ask me about recent events like we usually do.
I just.. I don't know. All i could think about doing was making a post because I don't know who else to talk to about it.
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Am I the asshole?

I finished Umineko a few days ago and help, this visual novel has got me in a chokehold. I'm currently drowning in an abyss ruminating on what to do with my life. Sticking with a story this long meant that it essentially became a part of my routine. It took a little more than three months for me to complete, and I'll miss relegating it as my reward every day coming home from a hard day of university or work.
I wanted to give some scattered thoughts about the story so I modelled this post off of Rose Matter's post game discussion video. I’ll also be including other miscellaneous, intermediary musings.
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What are your favourite and least favourite episodes?
My favourite episodes are 8 and 7. While I enjoyed Umineko's metafictional debates and triangulating the mystery from multiple angles to reach a solution, I'm a girlie who likes literary fiction and coming-of-age stories. I immediately knew I had to brace myself for an emotional rollercoaster when Battler said he'd open the gameboard one last time to make Ange happy. And Episode 8 did not disappoint. It was a beautiful coming-of-age tale of a girl letting go of the ghosts of her past and learning to live. I also thought that the episode was really clever in presenting the metatextual layers that certain characters, settings and plot developments embody. I really like how Evatrice exemplifies the lid of the unsolved mystery or "cat box" in addition to the goats who symbolise theorists who devise corrosive theories for their own amusement; even if it means dismantling the resting place of the deceased. And of course, the double suicide of Battler and Beatrice is one hell of an image that will forever be burned into my mind. I was fighting tears and the lump in my throat during that sequence. The ending really went the extra mile with the "deaths" of Battler and Ange Ushiromiya and how they both had to put years of distance between them and the Rokkenjima Massacre to heal. I found it so sad that Ange had to accept Tohya's wish to see him as his own person and not her beloved brother. But I hope that their joint réunion with everyone in the Golden Land wouldn’t be the last time the siblings see each other. Regardless, could Tohya finally have accepted his identity and memories as Battler upon being reunited with Beatrice in the Golden Land? Because she welcomes him back as if time merely just paused and resumed. What do you think? Regardless, the ending was the right mix of happy and bittersweet.
I also really enjoyed episode 7 since I saw it as a long time coming. Like Battler, I’m an optimistic person and was pretty bad at solving the mystery at the beginning. I had a hard time suspecting people as I didn’t want to think about anyone possessing the resolve to commit an atrocity of this scale. Since episode 1, I felt largely apathetic about the ‘how’ because it didn’t matter unless I understood the ‘why’. So I appreciate there being an episode dedicated to the ‘why’. But it was episode 7’s Tea Party that had my jaw on the floor. Judging from the squabble the Italians and Japanese had over the gold, I knew immediately that a massacre was going to transpire once the adults solved the epitaph. I don’t know why I was shocked at Rudolf and Kyrie being the perpetrators. Them massacring everyone in cold blood was totally in character. Let’s be real, they’ve probably gutted businesses and are ringleaders in a cartel or something. The Sumaderas probably have ties to the yakuza anyway. And I cried when Eva vowed to never tell Ange about the truth of her mother’s final moments. In that moment, she instantly became a redeemable character. Well played, Ryukishi07.
Just before I name my least favourite episode, I want to make it known that I don’t think there are any bad episodes. The VN maintains a high quality of writing throughout that even my least favourite episode had some great moments. But it’s episode 2. I actually didn’t mind the Downtown Abbey drama between George/Shannon and Jessica/Kanon, (especially now knowing how the truth recontextualizes everything). But I got disheartened at Battler losing the game in such a humiliating manner that it slightly demotivated me as a reader. Maria and Rosa also get more content but the writing in episode 4 has sharper drama reflecting a social realism that hits harder.
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What did you think of the balance of mystery and fantasy elements? Any comments on the theory-crafting mechanics of the game?
Umineko is one of those stories that does this seamlessly. I was initially surprised at how the Agatha Christie novel with a dash of slasher horror swerved into an extradiegetic epilogue with the previously unseen Beatrice breaking the fourth wall and appearing on-stage. When all is said and done, I really liked how the fantasy creatures ended either being metatheatrical vessels in the theory-crafting discourse, (e.g., Dlanor, Erika, Will) or cases of maladaptive daydreaming by trauma-bearers. Bridging that gap between reality and fantasy is done very creatively. For example, something I’ve noticed is that the fourth Chiester sister on the ‘Characters panel’ is shown as severely damaged and ‘dead’. If we consider the theory brought up by the goats in episode 8 that the sisters are magical versions of Maria’s toy rabbits, then the fourth sister was ‘killed’ by Rosa as a result of her intentionally breaking one of Maria’s rabbits in episode 4.
It’s also very cool how theatrical Umineko is with the characters returning to the metaverse or backstage to debrief like actors on a stage. Umineko has its fair share of metatextually convoluted and indulgent moments of pantomime theatricality. I mean, hideously smirking characters getting off on the orgasmic pleasure of intellectually humiliating others is iconic. That image of Battler and Erika’s wedding is WILD.
And I love how despite providing answers, Umineko was still able to have its cake and eat it too by ultimately framing everything as conjecture and locked inside the ‘cat box’. On a side note, I like how the Red Truth is used for emotional effect such as the pacing of a reveal being timed to crush a character’s dreams. Logical quantifiers laying out as rules for fair play in the mystery (e.g., Red Truths, Knox’s Decalogue, Van Dine’s Commandments), actually don’t resolve the ambiguities in the mystery. It’s to engage with what could have happened more than what and how it happened. They rule out hypothesized explanations but do not suggest alternatives. And though people might complain that being suspended in this state of uncertainty is frustrating, it effectively ties into the theme of the ‘catbox’ enigma.
But the best thing that fantasy does for the mystery is inject heart into it. I think this is put the most explicitly by Will, a detective driven by his care for the people affected by mysteries. Of course, the dissonance between his goals and Erika’s are very stark as these characters are essentially the antithesis of each other. It’s a shame that they never had a formal conversation together as that would’ve been interesting. Furthermore, the importance of understanding the story’s heart is also exemplified by the gold truth which I interpreted as representing conclusions drawn by someone who understands the story completely.
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What were your most emotional moments?
Oh boy, where should I start?

• The ending sequence of episode 8: Battler and Beatrice's double suicide into the ocean and the magic ending finale with the reunion in the Golden Land
• Natsuhi and Beatrice reconciling during the Halloween party in episode 8. In addition to Beatrice calling Natsuhi her mother and Ange calling Eva her mother.
• The episode 7 tea party, particularly:
  • Eva vowing to protect Ange from the truth of her mother’s final moments
  • Ange’s blood-curdling scream after Bernkastel declares in red that this is the truth of how that day transpired
• Ange walking atop skyscrapers with “wingless” playing at the end of ep 3 (this was officially the first time the VN took my breath away)
• Ange revealing her identity to Battler and sacrificing herself as a pawn at the end of ep 4
• Maria’s vengeful torture of Rosa in the metaverse in ep 4. This scene was a masterpiece with the sharply written drama reflecting the sad reality of our society’s epidemic of abuse. We were shown the nitty-gritty of who Rosa truly is - a selfish bitch. But brilliant character writing nonetheless.

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What were some of your favourite tracks?

• Sentimental: Ricordando il Passato 😭, Far, Soul of Soul, Hope, Wingless, Thanks for Being Born
• Hype/creepy: Patchwork Chimera, Golden Nocturne, Worldend Dominator, Birth of New Witch, Bring the Fate

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Which witch had the best drip?
Virgilia has the best witch drip. Love the Edwardian-style hat. And Beatrice's ballgown is iconic too. Funny story actually; I showed a family member a picture of Beatrice and they thought she was holding a cannabis bong.
Also, I burst out laughing during the Love Trials in episode 6 when George tells his motheEvatrice she’s too old to wear childish, lolita clothes.
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Who are your favourite characters?
My top three characters are the main protagonist and antagonist Battler and Beatrice and the secondary protagonist Ange.
First of all, Battler totally earns his namesake because he IS a fighter. His ability to put faith in the people he loves and cares about even when all evidence seeks to unjustly incriminate them is admirable. You want to see him succeed because he blinds you with his fighting spirit in spite of all his clumsiness and flaws. He can be a little naïve (e.g., this refusal to suspect family members, handing Erika her duct tape), but I also love how he’s very emotional. His honesty and heart even when he’s cornered into the abyss serve as a beacon of hope for us all. On a side note, he has mad rizz. Even though all of his pick-up lines are something that a serial killer would say, I still found myself blushing.
Beatrice is a tsundere. I love how theatrical she is (I’m addicted to her ‘hohs’ and ‘hora hora horas’). I will say that I wouldn’t have much appreciation for her as an antagonist if it weren’t for the way she is depicted and fleshed out in the ‘Confessions of a Golden Witch’ chapters in the manga. Her many identities give several dimensions to her character in what is essentially a tragic concoction of fatalism and bottled-up shame. Who knew that the detective and culprit in a murder mystery would be embroiled in a romance?
Ange’s arc is probably the most important thing I’ll take away from Umineko. I’ve already gone at length discussing how much I love episode 8 so you bet I’m an Ange stan. But I will say that I don’t understand why people love the Trick ending. I interpreted it as Ange joining arms with Erika as her fellow intellectual rapist. And that’s so sad to me.
My next favourite characters are the four unhinged mothers of Umineko: Eva, Natsuhi, Kyrie and Rosa. It’s key for literary fiction to have social realism so I commend Ryukishi07 on making each member of the Ushiromiya family feel like representational archetypes you’d see in society.
I’ve always been a Natsuhi fan since the first episode. Her silent anguish at being talked down to by her incompetent husband but being the glue binding her family together; speaks of her mental fortitude. Infanticide aside, she is one of the most morally rigid, duty-bound characters. She’s also a good mother to Jessica who definitely had the happiest upbringing out of all her cousins.
Eva is not an entirely a villainous character. She was given a lot of shit for not subscribing to subservient female gender roles in a traditional, patriarchal family. But her pushing her ambitions onto her son make her a toxic, tiger parent. Forking out a fortune to give George regimental lessons that he feels apathy and dread for is a relatable experience of children with overbearing parents. Micromanaging his schedule, keeping a vigilant eye on his grades and taking action on every disparaging comment made at parent-teacher conferences are all astute observations made by Ryukishi07. But Eva is redeemed at the end as she truly loves and cares for Ange, which is more than I can say for the other two mothers.
Rosa is a selfish bitch but one of the most layered, well-written characters in Umineko. Children learn from and copy their parents. Rosa perpetuated her father’s cycle of abuse by mimicking the way he would discipline her as a child. She became an abuser through instinctually copying behaviours that were her norm - such as her father frequently losing his temper and striking her and her older siblings bullying her. And any instances of her being a good and affectionate mother were to receive external validation and not for the genuine wellbeing of her child.
And Kyrie is a sociopath. She initially comes across as likeable when she’s helping Battler with his logic puzzles but she’s mostly façade. Sociopaths learn behaviours to get what they want and she needed to play the part of a loving mother and wife to keep Rudolf. In actuality, she sees all people as disposable. That’s why she’s able to coldly and calmly massacre everyone.
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Favourite battles in the series?
Of course, episode 8 is endgame. Therefore, I really liked what the combined effort of all the family members and the fantasy creatures in the penultimate battle symbolised. The preservation of the Golden Land from the goats and Pirate Erika made me genuinely emotional as did Lamdadelta’s swan song.
I also really loved George and Jessica’s love trials in episode 6. However, the fights did not steal the spotlight, the conversations between the adults and children did. Eva and George’s relationship got a lot more fleshed out and I was especially riveted by Jessica and Kyrie’s conversation which was a very underrated moment. Kyrie scarring her niece with her life story is in the contention for one of the best moments in the VN.
And they’re not physical battles but the sequences between Battler and Erika leading up to the climaxes of episode 5 and 6 were amazing.
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Some funny theories I came up with while reading (I look back at these and laugh so hard)

• I am very naïve so I thought that Kuwadorian Beatrice was conceived via cloning technology lol. Kinzo put money into scientific research that was ahead of its time to extract DNA from the first Beatrice to inject into stem cells to clone another Beatrice. The truth was a LOT more terrible and horrible than I could ever imagine.
• Battler and I seem to share the same idiotic braincells because I came up with my own small bombs theory. But unlike Battler’s assertion that the family were fed the bombs by Gohda, I thought the gold butterflies were simply ‘magic vision’ for microchips that would be attached to the victims then detonated. HAHAHA.
• I once thought that Battler was the man from ‘nineteen years ago’. I know this theory falls apart the more you get into episode 5, but I did consider this when Beatrice confirmed that Asumu was not his biological mother. I thought that Rudolf knocked up some woman and did some baby switching. I guess that turned out to be partly true.

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What were your thought processes solving the mysteries? What did you get right?
I always thought that it was unlikely for the twilights to be carried by one person. There’s just too many variables for one person to control, (even if Claire did say that she had to leave the roulette up to fate). I knew that accomplices had to corroborate false testimony to make it seem like a 19th person or a ‘witch’ was the culprit. And many murders doubled down on false testimony by showing supernatural elements as the direct cause of the murder. It was always the servants and Nanjo citing supernatural elements as the cause; as well as everyone corroborating supernatural phenomena in episode 4 (that was the most confusing one to decipher and really threw me off). But hey, with gold ingots you could bribe anyone. Furthermore, the Red Truth has some wiggle room. For instance, I always thought that Kanon’s deaths were dodgy due to a lack of a body. I mean it’s “no body, no crime” and the lack of a corpse means that Nanjo couldn’t check for sure if he’s dead. And if Nanjo is an accomplice then who is to say that he wasn't faking testimony of a bunch of corpses actually being dead. So I got a sense the crimes were committed by accomplices doubling down on fake testimony. I wasn't sure of the nitty-gritty details of the ‘how’ (I wish I thought more about that), but as I said, I felt apathy towards the ‘how’ and wanted to know the ‘why’ most of all.
I knew that Shannon and Kanon were in on it together at least. They always seemed bound together as far as their fates are concerned (both wishing for love as ‘furniture’). So if I was right in suspecting them as culprits or accomplices, then their quest for love must be a key motivation. After all, they kept talking about wanting to bring their loved ones to the Golden Land where everyone would give their blessings. But what sealed the deal was that in episode 4 they shared a conversation about the previous games. Now if I was smarter and paid more attention, I could've connected them to Beatrice instantly. Only the game master and everyone in purgatorio should have memories and not the resettable pieces on the gameboard. But still, the ‘why’ wasn't satisfactory for me. I understand maybe wanting to kill Eva and Natsuhi because both women would’ve forbid their children from dating servants but everybody? Even their beloveds George and Jessica and innocents like Maria? I did read ‘Confessions of the Golden Witch’ in the manga and so now I understand, but that did stump me. I did however pick up on what Battler’s sin was. I thought about what he did six years ago. And besides leaving the family register (which Beatrice confirmed was not the answer she was looking for), that left his cringey promise to come for Shannon on a white horse. But at the time that ‘why’ wasn't satisfactory to me because even if she hated him for that, why kill his entire family? I mean yeah, you can add Rudolf to the hit list for making Battler leave the family but still.
But no, I was dumb and didn’t connect Shannon and Kanon to Beatrice until episode 6. The topic of furniture was brought up again which was another puzzle that had me stumped. I had previously thought it was a derogatory term meaning sub-human but those love demons confirmed that sub-human meant incest. So Shannon or Kanon committed incest somehow. Would that mean they’re actually related to George and Jessica? So are they really orphans or was that meant to cover something else? Kinzo has always been a shady guy anyway. And seeing him hanging around the child-like Kuwadorian Beatrice always gave me the ick. But yeah, by the end of episode 6 I concluded that Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice were incomplete souls or ‘illusions’ that you could not physically love. I thought that the culprit could have dissociative identity disorder (DID) but it was more likely they had something similar to Maria where they maladaptively daydreamed to make each of their personas feel very distinct. I think Battler shut down the idea that Maria had DID anyway.
Overall, I think Umineko taught me how to be a more flexible thinker. I remember feeling proud for solving the cheese riddle in episode 6. And I managed to solve Bernkastel’s game in episode 8 pretty quickly. I knew as soon as she said her red truth after the second twilight, the culprit/s pretended to be dead among the first twilight’s victims and must've had an accomplice to carry out the rest of the murders. And the Halloween quiz tournament in episode 8 was also a ton of fun.
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What are some criticisms or things I’d change?
I don’t know if there’s a whole lot I’d change or criticise Umineko for. It’s a very well-thought out story that got progressively better the more I read. But I guess if I have to be nit-picky:
In the end, Umineko focused more on the ‘why’ as supposed to the ‘who’ and ‘how’ so I wished it didn’t get so bogged down in the nitty-gritty of the ‘how’ during Battler and Beatrice’s debates. I don’t know how these scenes will reread with the knowledge that the tools of murder weren’t as sophisticated as Battler speculated.
I also wasn't in love with how Battler acted in the middle of episode 6. I thought he was needlesly cruel to Beatrice that it seemed out of character. I know she's not the Beatrice he knows but it was still hard to read through.
And as much as I’m a stan of episode 8 and Ange, I thought it was an odd choice that she wakes up in the Golden Land after reading the book of truth. I thought that after being plunged into oblivion, the implications for Ange’s character would be darker. But I’m happy with what we got in the end so it’s a minor issue.
Concerning the subject of the manga vs the VN, I prefer the VN’s version that points to the existence of more than one truth. I think it is the better creative choice. The only knock against the manga’s adaptation of episode 8 is that it only points to one truth. But besides that, the manga’s adaptation of episode 8 is amazing and enhances the story quite a bit with extra scenes that give everything more context.
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What are your takeaway messages from the story?

• Don’t be a slave to your past, it’s better to turn to the future.
• But also don’t be too fatalistic or fixated on what or will happen. You have to trust that people will have the ability and empathy to understand.
• The truth can be undesirable and shouldn't always be aspired to.
• Some parents shouldn't have children. Better to break the cycle of abuse. Umineko may also have the best representation of maladaptive daydreaming I’ve seen.
• The past should be allowed to rest in peace. The dehumanisation and manipulation of the ‘gameboard pieces’ to satiate the public's amusement is whack. It’s important to preserve enigma of the ‘cat box’ by keeping the lid shut.
• There’s also probably a lot of ontological stuff about the mystery genre that went over my head. Perhaps more background reading will help me appreciate Umineko’s unorthodox mystery more. The only Agatha Christie story I’ve experienced is the Murder on the Orient Express film.
• And most importantly of all: ‘without love it cannot be seen’ 🙂

I am 18 M I have never dated someone but how do I know I’m bisexual because I know I had a crush on a girl and I have recently started having crushes on guys to but I’m not sure if I’m bi or just a curious person. When I look back in time I think I unintentionally had guy crushes before but never took it serious. Once I even kissed(peck) my guy best friend in 4th class and at that time I made an excuse and said it happened accidentally. And in the end of 2022 I was in my class and I kept my leg upon my another friend leg and he was shocked/disgusted by that and called me gay. That made me feel bad and I then stopped going to that class for rest of the 2 months I had left. That comment made me reflect on my self and I started exploring about Lgbtq+ community. But after doing that “quiz” on Google that says find your ‘sexuality’ it tells me that I’m bi-curious so what does that mean
P.S I didn’t mention my female crushes because I think there is no need for that

Do you hear that? The tides are raging and the ocean breeze is calling! Oh and also the big brother house is flooded!!! This time on Bunny’s Pokémon Big Brother, 14 new FISHY houseguests are taking a dive into reality TV! These watery foes will battle it out to determine who will sink and who will swim. But which way will the current go and who will be in the doldrums? Find out on this season of Bunny;s Pokémon Big Brother Season 7: the Nautical Seventh!
Season 7: The Nautical Seventh
Amaranth the Shellos – This Pastoria slug is sure to bring all the laughs to this season! Amaranth is a comedian and jokester ready to bring smiles to the house before he wipes em away and wins the game!
Ariel the Feebas – Inner beauty is the mantra of this Lilycove fish. Refusing to evolve into a Milotic, Ariel believes her true beauty is within oneself and wants to prove that simplicity is sometimes all it takes!
Cassie the Cloyster - Born in the Seafoam Islands, Cassie knows only of focus and dedication. Tunnel vision is an understatement to what happens when Cassie has a goal. Yeah she may be lonely, but she sure is successful!
Dayley-Jane the Dewgong – This seal knows country life and big city life having moved from rural Johto to metropolitan Unova. She is a sorority sister with a heart of gold and a way of partying through life. But don’t be fooled by her fun façade, she has a strategic bone to pick.
Irwin the Feraligatr – A true hero to the conservationist community in Galar, Irwin is ready to bring his message to the big screen. Having been hunted in his younger days, he wants to combat poaching and hunting the best he can. But he still plans on hunting his prey down in this game!
Johnny the Wartortle – Another marsh stomper from Pastoria, Johnny wants to win at all costs. Hes good at what he does and he knows it. And he will make sure everyone knows it…whether he wins or loses. But don’t be on his bad side either way.
La’Day the Lileep – This Superfan hasn’t seen the sun in years…millions to be exact. Having slept through the extinction events of other fossil Pokemon, La’Day still prefers isolation and spends most of her time watching TV and OUR SHOW! She just hopes the sun isn’t too bright…
Lulu the Luvdisc – This Sootopolis princess knows what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it. She is the mean girl and has no shame in it. It isn’t her fault she’s right all the time. Now just give her the money because we all know she is winning this thing, right?
Marley the Simipour – Peace, love, and good vibes are the message of this Akala simian. Marley is a musician who wants others to feel entertained and chill around him. He is kind of a legend in the Akala music community and wants to be a legend in this game.
Naomi the Dragalge – Having created urban legends off the coasts of Cyllage City, this seahorse is ready to make huge waves in the competition. Naomi is a speed racing demon who plans on using her speed and agility to win all of the competitions. And no, she is not signing autographs.
Robin the Palafin – It’s a bird…no…it’s a PLANE…no…its…its ROBIN! This Paldean superhero is a champion for equality among all Pokémon big or small! Robin will make sure everyone feels included and wants to show that honesty and morality can win the game!
Scout the Dewott – Do you hear that? How can you not when its this Sootopolis motivation speaker doing the talking? Scout is loud and proud with a huge emphasis on the LOUD. He wants to support and motivate sometimes to the extreme.
Splaatz the Stunfisk – Castelia city is home to many successes but Splaatz is not one of them. Splaatz is the definition of falling downstairs through life. He is awkward and weird and kind of just fails at most things he does. He is almost certain he will fail at this but…it could be fun!
Yves the Brionne – A dancing legend from Akala island…wait where have we heard this before? Akala seems to be the home to some of the greatest entertainers and Yves is arguably one of the best. An enchanting Ballerina, she is certain you will not miss a beat of her performance this season.
Intro: It’s the big day. Night 1 in the Big Brother house. A lot of natural construction was done this time to create great environments for freshwater and saltwater Pokémon alike to live together and flourish without destroying the natural environment. The solution? Rainbow Island! This natural island in Oblivia is home to many bodies of water and provides a great place for a spanning underwater cavern to hold the next Bunny’s Big Brother house!
Week 1: The 14 fish are put into a race through the cavern for the first HOH. Naomi and Day naturally take to the water and end up in the lead. Funny enough, Amaranth manages to keep right alongside them. When Naomi tries to take a shortcut to cut off Day, the two both crash and Amaranth comes out on top! When the housemates settle in, a lot of the ocean fish bond right away. Robin and La’Day form a close bond with Amaranth and Splaatz happens to be there as well by pure luck for the first time in his life. Irwin and Scout also bond due to Irwin being very vocal about his love for conservation. La’Day tries to go to bed really early but ends up thinking Cassie’s shell is a bed and the two laugh about the mistake because they both just want to quietly exist in corners.
Due to the two of them being the loudest out the gate, Amaranth puts up Scout and Irwin. The veto is a house hunt requiring speed and agility and smarts to find the differences in the house. Irwin and Day seem to be the frontrunners until they can’t find the last pivotal piece. Lulu comes out casually with the final piece, winning veto. Lulu teases Scout that she could use it and gets his hopes up but pulls the rug out underneath him and chooses to keep him on the block. Scout has a big breakdown over her dishonesty and how that’s not what water Pokémon should do when so many of them face challenges just getting thtough life. Splaatz stumbles into the breakdown by accident and apologizes for literally stepping on Scout’s toes. Everyone takes it metaphorically and he is loved for it, much to his amazement. Irwin has a chat with everyone about why he came on to the show to vouch for conservation efforts in the wild and he feels like his work might be better done outside of the house. At the eviction ceremony, Irwin tells the houseguests that he already got a huge amount of word out and he tells Scout to spread his message with his public speaking skills. It’s a sad vote but Irwin is evicted first.
Week 2: The next HOH starts and Ariel and Scout are the frontrunners to win the food delivery competition. Scout pulls out all of his emotional fortitude to win it out, ensuring his safety. La’Day and Marley have a falling out when Marley starts singing more and more by her and Cassie’s hidey corner. Scout uses this as a good reason to put Marley up next to Amaranth. At the veto, Naomi doesn’t make the same mistakes as before and wins the veto. Scout and Naomi talk and they realize Amaranth already has an alliance so they decide to team up and make a counter alliance including Johnny and Ariel. Ariel knows that the other side isn’t close enough to Marley and it’ll be an easy vote to get him out so they have to do a lot of work to target Amaranth. Naomi chooses not to use the veto. Lulu gets into more shenanigans by teasing Scout and screaming at Marley mid song. La’Day has had enough with Yves dancing as well and flips her bed over to expand her corner. Ariel does some work with Cassie and Day, who chill in La’Day’s corner and they actually don’t hate Marley that much. Cassie forms a plan to make Amaranth have a huge ego by hyping up all of his jokes and this rubs everyone but his allies the wrong way. At the eviction ceremony Amaranth tells some bad jokes and claims the house is a tough crowd. This makes it all the more of a blindside when he is evicted by everyone but his allies.
Week 3: The houseguest Soup HOH is next. A dirty water cave is prepared for the houseguests to endure. Lulu flat out refuses to even enter and Naomi barely lasts any longer. Splaatz enters early but is so flat no one sees him and Cassie and Johnny step on top of him so he can’t move. The competition goes on and comes down to Yves and Cassie with Splaatz still trapped. Eventually Cassie drops and Splaatz is stuck to her so he is eliminated too. Yves wins the HOH! She wants to get back for the hatred towards Marley last week so she puts up La’Day and Scout for his meltdowns. Scout goes on to win the veto so Yves puts up the other person who kicked Marley out of his corner, Cassie. Naomi and Lulu get into a spat over some missing items. La’Day finds them in her corner and gives them back to Lulu to make her just shut up already. Lulu believes Cassie must have taken them there to frame La’Day. La;Day doesn’t care and just goes back to corner sitting. At the eviction, Lulu leads the charge against Cassie and her thieving ways. Cassie reminds them that small currents exist in the cave but the tides are too much her way and she is evicted from the house.
Week 4:>! Ariel realizes the Yves is more loyal to the good vibes crew of her, Marley, and Day so she splits off from Yves. At the HOH, Johnny and Ariel take a quick lead and accidentally knock a bunch of important dirt onto Splaatz. Splaatz is blinded and accidentally makes his way to the end first, knocking off the dirt into the collection box. But he stops when he doesn’t know where he is and Johnny takes the win! Johnny continues the crusade against the other sides of the house putting up La’Day as the head of her alliance and Marley as the head of the Good Vibes alliance. Ariel and La’Day are close in the veto but Ariel comps out and wins. She chooses to stick with her alliance and not use the veto. Feeling down, La’Day retreats to her corner. Splaatz accidentally drifts in and tells La’Day about him kind of failing through life. He is surprised he made it to week 4. The two bond and she lets him stay in the corner. Naomi gets vindictive thinking that her alliance is going to target the wrong side and flips Yves mattress AGAIN. Yves doesn’t take this well and flips out on La’Day, who is innocent this time. This action is enough to convince Day and Robin that Yves and Marley together are not as chill. At the eviction ceremony, Marley is sent home.!<
Week 5: The next competition is a BB quiz comp. With her huge knowledge of the show and determination not to go on the block again, La’Day finally wins HOH! Robin goes to congratulate her in her corner (which has become her HOH room) but he is so loud about it she silently decides against working with him. She puts up the two people who have made her life the most difficult: Yves and Scout, the two alliance leaders. The veto comes down to two members of each alliance and eventually Ariel wins. She easily takes down her number 1 Scout, willing to sacrifice someone else in his place. This person put up by La’Day is Johnny. Naomi continues her crusade against Yves and lashes out at her for her mistreatment of La’Day getting her on the block. Ariel calms down Naomi and apologizes to Yves, making both of them feel more solid with her. At the eviction Ceremony, the good vibes and deep-sea alliances both flip on Johnny and seeing the writing on the wall, Ariel does too. Johnny is evicted with only 2 votes to save him.
Week 6: The cave howls as a back door reveals a tunnel to the jury house on Dolce Island. They have reached jury phase! In the underwater paint competition, Splaatz is kicked up by accident by Day and paints beautiful colors, only missing one. Naomi ends up beating him at the last second. Realizing one of her allies voted Johnny out, Naomi breaks up the alliance. She is most suspicious of Scout so she puts him up next to poor Yves. Lulu wins the veto and goes to Yves to offer it to her. Scout tries to tell Yves this isn’t real but Yves believes her only to get her heart crushed when Lulu doesn’t use it again. Seeing Naomi not wanting to work with her anymore, Ariel switches gears and buddies up to the Good Vibes alliance, getting closer to Robin and even closer to Day. With everyone fighting each other now, La;Day and Splaatz take the week off. At the eviction ceremony, Scout makes his case for the negative energy in the house and how he needs to break it. But Yves claims he is a huge reason it exists and he is evicted unanimously. A whirlpool pulls him down the tunnel to the jury house.
Week 7: The next HOH is an endurance competition on Clawitzers. Splaazts is thrown around into an awkward position where he can’t get thrown off. After Lulu is eliminated, her Clawitzer bumps his, knocking him loose and giving Yves the win. Lulu goes to apologize to Splaatz who is chilling with La’Day in order to rile him up. He is chilling and doesn’t even realize what happened. Ariel and Day walk in to see La’Day and Lulu covers herself up by proposing a five-person alliance. Everyone kind of shrugs and agrees. Yves puts up Naomi for being generally mean next to La’Day who she still has beef with. Day comes in clutch to win the veto and uses it to save her new friend La’Day, who is actually pretty chill. Yves puts Robin up next to Naomi because he is a nice guy and Naomi is certain to leave next to him. Splaatz drifts out of the cave and La’Day gets very emotional because of it. Naomi has a huge meltdown and is only stopped when Splaatz drifts into her. She thanks him for calming her down. Lulu covers her tracks by getting personal with Ariel. Through gritted teeth she calls Ariel beautiful. Ariel isn’t buying her lies and is suspicious of her suddenly chipper behavior. At the eviction ceremony, Naomi graciously accepts her position in the game and is flushed down the whirlpool to the jury house.
Week 8: The pressure cooker returns as the next HOH competition! All of the fish without arms do really well! Splaatz accidentally falls asleep on his button but this time, La’Day drops before him and he wins HOH! Ariel and Day decide they need to plan for the endgame and go to the HOH room to tell Splaatz their suspicions about Lulu. Day proposes a trio and Ariel agrees. They leave a confused Splaatz. He puts up Yves and Robin because they don’t spend a lot of time with him and he knows Yves is too good at this game. Lulu goes on to win the veto and Yves immediately chastises her for teasing them before Lulu even started the teasing. Lulu rubs it in both of their faces that one of them is going home and doesn’t use the veto. Back in her corner, La’Day starts a checkers tournament with almost everyone and Day actually comes out on top. Yves passive aggressively tells her she finally won something and the two get in a big fight. Having been closer to her in the past and wanting to use her to go further, Ariel pushes for Yves to stay. Despite this, at the eviction ceremony she is too much of a game threat and is evicted 3 to 1.
Week 9: It comes out at the eviction ceremony that Day and Ariel are working with Splaatz but he genuinely is confused about when that trio started. Lulu is incensed that they are working without her. She powers through and wins the HOH. She puts up Day next to Robin hoping that anyone but Ariel wins veto. Stupidly, this bites her in the butt when Ariel wins veto and takes down Day. La’Day goes up in her place. La’Day retreats to her corner and is approached by Robin to cheer her up. Day calls him out for trying to play the good guy and gain sympathy when La’Day is clearly hurting. He doesn’t know how to respond and simply leaves. Ariel tries to tell Day that this is a good chance to get out La’Day before she gets too much momentum but Day doesn’t want to turn on her. At the eviction ceremony, Ariel is frustrated when Robin ends up leaving in a 2 to 1 vote.
Week 10: This shaky 5-person alliance has made it all the way to the top 5. The HOH is close between Day and La’Day in the Qwilfish disco. However, Splaatz ended up in another weird position. Without Lulu there to knock him loose, he ends up lasting the longest and wins again. Splaatz goes to La’Day and decides its time to get out Lulu finally. He puts her up next to Day. La’Day suggests they try Ariel as a backup target but he doesn’t agree. At the veto, she forces his hand…er…fin by winning and taking Day off the block. Day realizes what almost happened to her and goes to confront Splaatz. Splaatz plays coy and pretends not to know what is happening. Frustrated, Day leaves. Knowing she can’t convince Day to vote against Ariel, she works on trying to get Splaatz to break the tie. He counters that Ariel may be smart but she isn’t a threat to him. She keeps pushing that she is hiding her capabilities. At the eviction ceremony, the vote comes down to a tie. Splaatz decides to stick to his convictions and casts the sole vote to evict Lulu.
Week 11: At the final four HOH, La’Day sees herself going up against a strong duo. Ariel proves her thoughts right by winning. However, due to Splaatz saving her, she decides to put up La’Day next to Day. The veto is tough but Day pulls out the win next to La’Day. Ariel sadly puts Splaatz up next to La’Day. The two go to La’Day’s corner, which now takes up half the cave, and she confides in him that she didn’t think she would make such a close friend in the house. He says the same to her and how he honestly never had any close friends. At the eviction ceremony, Day is given the choice to evict either one of the two and claims that one of the two is a strong competitor with a good social head while the other kind of just floats through the house doing nothing. She chooses to evict the stronger threat in her eyes, La’Day.
The Final 3: >! Ariel, the Inner Beauty, has swam gracefully through the tumultuous tides of this game. She escaped the sinking ship of her former alliance and always swam above the rest of the pack to strategically navigate every situation the game gave her. Dayley-Jane, the Roaring Tide, played a loud and proud game. Seemingly showing everyone her cards, she allowed people to think they knew her before revealing that she was the one pushing the tides in competitions. Splaatz, the Leftovers, the definition of failing to the top. Splaatz fell up stairs over and over again somehow being at the right place at the right time. Honestly, we don’t even know how he got here.!<
The Final HOH: Though Day and Ariel are close, Day is uncertain how close Ariel truly is. The duo competes very tough against each other but forget that Splaatz is there and he wins part 1 by default. They compete again for real in part 2 where Ariel comes out on top. At the quiz comp in the final part, Splaatz knows the answers but accidentally guesses the wrong answer every single time. Ariel comes out the final HOH. Ariel says her choice might seem easy as her best friend is in the top 3 with her. But she claims that she can’t let tough competition sit next to her and evicts Day, shocking everyone, especially Splaatz.
The Jury Questioning: Ariel and Splaatz face the jury. Ariel is very clear and concise with her words. She confidently claims her game as one where she knew where the current was going to take her. She talks about having to let go of her Deep-Sea alliance when it was clear it was a sinking ship and how she expertly pivoted to working with Day and Splaatz. She says she hid her competitive threat until the end and then won it out to claim her spot at the end. Splaatz is floundering, kind of shocked to be here at all. He says he doesn’t know what to say at all. He is hurt that even at the end, the people he thought of as friends kept him in the game only because he was a failure to them who they could easily beat. He says his only strength was continually being underestimated and carried really far but he made so many more friends in the game and is thankful for all of that.
The Jury Votes: Day votes for the person who showed kindness and who she realized too late just how strong their threat was. La’Day votes for someone she could be calm around even when she was being too strategic. Lulu voted for the threat she didn’t see coming until it bit her. Robin votes for someone who had the superpower of invisibility. Yves votes for someone who played a lot better socially and inspired some new dances. Naomi votes for a surprisingly refreshing fish in the house. Scout votes for someone who deserves for their voice to be heard more. The votes come in and the winner is…
Winner: Splaatz!!
Runner-Up:>! Ariel!<
Fan Favorite: Yves
My Favorites: Ariel, La’Day, Splaatz
Potential All Stars: Ariel, Day, La’Day, Yves
My Thoughts: Well that was wild! Its great to someone with a storyline like Splaatz come out on top. He really fumbled his way upwards and I loved to see it. The house dynamics between three different alliances eventually coming down to one collaboration was really neat. I loved building La’Day’s corner and watching her redeem herself from somewhat of a mean character to one of the hearts of the season. Ariel was an amazing strategic player and I think if she had taken Day, she would have won. She just fell for the trap everyone else did by underestimating Splaatz. Overall I think this season was one of my favorites to type up because of all of the dynamics.
What’s next? More themed seasons! Im thinking theres one that’s been bugging *hint* me that I really want to do. My life has been crazy busy so it’ll be a bit longer to get some good seasons out but I want good quality over just rushing them. Anyways, thanks guys! See you next time!

I am not The OOP's, OOP's are:
The husband: u/ThrowRAwifeandfriend
The Wife: u/dreamingdegas
My wife [F32] recently had wine spilled on her by my best friend [F31] during our wedding. Now she is demanding that I [M33] cut ties
Originally posted to relationship_advice
Thanks to u/czechtheboxes and u/queenlegolas for suggesting this BoRU
Thanks to u/soayherder for finding the new update
Previous BoRU 1
Previous BoRU 2
TRIGGER WARNING: harassment, verbal abuse, possible emotional infidelity, obsessive behavior and sexual harassment
Original Post rareddit Jan 23, 2024
Me and Ailie met through a mutual friend in 2012 during a pub quiz at university. I was quite attracted to her and actually told her so at the end of the evening, but she told me she had a boyfriend even though she was flattered all the same.
Fast forward three years later. I meet Eliza at the Edinburgh Fringe and we just clicked immediately. Politics, music, cinema - whatever the subject approached, there was a spark that I’d never felt with anyone else. Like she just made sense with me. Her personality was just vivid. It’s hard to describe but I’ll try - on first impression, she was so knowledgable and enthusiastic, I was taken aback by her intensity. From that point onwards we were inseparable and I was dead certain of our future together long before we got engaged.
Enter Ailie again. I start a new job at an advertising firm with a position in web design and she was one of the only people I knew. At first it was a little awkward given our “history”, especially considering that she was now married to the boyfriend she was dating back then. But there was no one else I knew at the firm and we both had partners at this point, so it couldn’t hurt to be friends right? And to be honest I’m glad because I feel like our chemistry as friends superseded any potential we might have had as a couple. She’s clever and has a bit of a cheeky personality. I’m quite dry and sarcastic myself so I reckon we have a pretty fun dynamic.
Eliza doesn’t seem to feel that way, though. Sometimes when it’s been the three of us she has expressed a feeling of being left out or that Ailie has been making fun of her. I don’t see it - it’s just our dynamic, but there have been a couple of nights where Eliza’s been in tears because of something that Ailie has said. One time Eliza got out of her seat and Ailie sat down where she was sitting to show me a video on youtube. When Eliza came back in she saw Ailie leaning next to me and was upset for the rest of the night. Sometimes there have been times when Ailie has said something that Eliza has read as a come on. Like when I said I missed swimming because I felt out of shape Ailie said “the two of us should go together” with a playful punch. Eliza didn’t say anything at the time but her discomfort was visible.
Things really came to a head though on our wedding and I think the stress of it really got to Eliza. During the reception Ailie bumped into her and red wine spilled all over her dress. She was bawling the entire evening. We’re now on our honeymoon and Eliza has said she hopes for a fresh start but she feels like Ailie might have spilled her wine on purpose. She’s suggesting that I cut ties with her and if I’m honest I’m not so sure I want to. Where do I go from here?
tl;dr wife is getting increasingly insecure about my best friend to the point where she wants us to cut contact. Says that it feels like she’s treating her poorly. I’m at a loss what to do.
RELEVANT COMMENTS/ADDITIONAL INFO
noyeahthanks

The number of times I’ve bumped into someone and spilt my drink on them is exactly once in my entire life and I was a shit faced teenager.
You are either astoundingly naive or Allie is somehow the unluckiest woman in the world to accidentally spill her red wine on the bride on her wedding day. I think you know which one is more likely. Your wife won’t be staying your wife for much longer unless you start actually listening to her and stop dismissing all of her fears as baseless insecurities.

OOP

Ailie was getting a drink from the bar, Eliza had taken off part of her gown for dining and dancing purposes and was leaving our bedroom to return to our table - they bumped into each other and Eliza had a huge red stain over her dress. Ailie made an offhand joke and fled, and Eliza ran up to me in bits and pieces.
It sounded really bad when Eliza told me, and she was in bits about the wine spilling all over her dress, and I went to Ailie and asked her what the hell she was up to. Ailie was so mortified and told me she wanted to sink into a hole, she’s dyspraxic and has struggled with falling at impromptu moments. I’ve actually witnessed it happening before, there was a meeting at work and she gets our colleagues coffee - the moment she came in she tripped and fell, coffee flying everywhere

Rip_Dirtbag

Allie bumped into your wife in her wedding dress, spilling wine all over it, and made an offhand joke before fleeing? What kind of response is that?

OOP

She’s a really awkward person and doesn’t know how to interact with people sometimes. There have been times I have been upset with her because of how glib she’s been about personal issues

~
starvaliant

So someone who has a habit of 'accidentally' saying or doing things that make your wife cry 'accidentally' also managed to spill red wine over her white dress on the biggest day of her life, and you don't think that's at all suspicious?
If you knew - and imagine here that you somehow knew for certain - that she'd done it on purpose, what would your reaction be? Would it change how you thought about her? Give it some thought.

OOP

I would be really hurt if Ailie was doing it on purpose. I love Eliza and want us to be happy and I can see that I’ve really fucked up here, multiple times. Ailie is a good friend but if she’s deliberately being a wind-up merchant and harming my marriage then I’ll have to cut the cord and stop chumming up to her so much
Eliza sometimes says to me that she can intuit people’s opinions and feelings within minutes of meeting them. I’ve never been like that, my folks have always said that I’m terrible with picking up on basic things. I was at an aunt’s house when I was a kid, talking her ear off and she said “oh it’s getting late” multiple times, it was only until my mum dragged me out that I picked up that she wanted me to leave

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SymblePharon

It really sounds like you're putting your friend first. No wonder your wife is unhappy. She comes back in tears from hanging out, and you still invite Ailie to the wedding? What was that conversation like?

OOP

She got really upset one time during banter because me and Ailie like to roast each other regularly and Ailie roasted her a little too hard I guess. We were singling out things to insult each other on and the subject went to Eliza and Eliza mentioned that she had webbed feet. Since then Ailie’s called her leapfrog.
When I say it Eliza takes it in good stride but when Ailie says it it’s this massive problem. I don’t get it. Eliza has suggested that Ailie’s being serious when she says it as opposed to when I do, but she roasts me the same way too. She said I looked like a Juggalo’s poodle that day because I was wearing baggy “metal” clothes and hadn’t styled my hair so it was frizzing all over the place.

~
secretbeans1367

Why haven’t you stuck up for your wife all those times ailie has hurt her?

OOP

I guess because I didn’t know that I needed to? It seems like it’s a perspective thing. Eliza is a passionate person who cries at Deluxe puppy adverts and the intensity is great for a partner but it can cause problems with friendships. She reads a lot into things her friends do thinking it’s intentional and when she talks to them about what they did, they will be completely shocked and unaware that they hurt her. Ailie is a very sarcastic person in general who rolls with the punches and to me it reads like they struggle to gel rather than intentional cruelty on Ailie’s part but for what it’s worth Ailie has told me that she’s really keen on Eliza and thinks she’s a top girl.

Update Jan 25, 2024
Posting this here bc it keeps getting deleted on relationship_advice
You know I posted here recently looking for guidance on how to deal with my wife’s anxiety and hurt revolving around my friend and eh seems like I got read the riot act, probably rightly so. I have been completely inconsiderate of Eliza’s feelings and how she feels about these roastings and you alerted me to the possibility that Ailie is doing this just to be a little shit.
I sat down with Eliza and we had an in-depth conversation about the wedding incident. I got her to describe the event step by step in her own words:
“I was leaving the lobby into the dining venue and Ailie was a little tipsy at this point and already stumbling from the bar. She was initially walking slower but seemed to speed up when she saw me. We collided into each other and she pulled an ashamed face and made a joke about me looking like Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl before scurrying away. She seemed embarrassed in the moment but she didn’t apologise to me.
I heard from other people that she was appalled about what happened but I never heard anything from her directly. It just paints a picture of habitual micro aggressions from her that has festered into this ugly anxiety whenever she’s around. I pretty much predict whenever I’m in her vicinity, there will be weird behaviour or uncomfortable comments and I don’t want to continue being in a situation where my husband brings someone into my home, who resents me simply for existing.”
That was a real gut punch to me. For me I always felt like it was just insecurity about me fancying Ailie for 10 minutes yonks ago but Eliza is really torn up about this. She’s said that the honeymoon has been miserable because the memory has been swirling around in her mind and she feels like I’m going to downplay or dismiss it. No one should feel like they can’t just be themselves, especially not at home. I didn’t realise what a shithead I’d been and I apologised profusely to Eliza and decided to phone up Ailie to confront her about the wedding incident.
So I did and it … it didn’t go well. Basically I told her that Eliza was really hurt by the wedding dress incident, that she had been hurt by her behaviour for a long time and that if she can’t bring herself to apologise to Eliza’s face at least she should pay towards getting the stain removed - and if she couldn’t bring herself to even do that then our friendship had to stop. To say that Ailie was taken aback would be an understatement.
She was completely blindsided, asking what was wrong with their interactions that made me want to go to such extremes. I mentioned the leapfrog comment and she went “but even you call her that,” stating that Eliza called her Garfield cause of her weight and bright orange hair. When I mentioned that she ran towards Eliza and didn’t apologise for spilling wine on her, she got really upset and started shouting that she wasn’t running at her to hurl wine at her dress, she was running from her because she didn’t want to talk at that moment because she feels like Eliza hates her and she doesn’t know how to go about it.
She started pointing out times when Eliza had been funny towards her and I basically said “right but this isn’t about when Eliza has hurt you, this is about when you’ve hurt Eliza and it’s got so bad that it needs to be talked about” and she started laughing, it was really uncomfortable. I know she does this when she’s anxious about something. Eliza asked me if things were okay from the other room and Ailie demanded if this was set up and when I tried to explain myself, she hung up.
Her husband even phoned me, insisting that he would pay for the damage if it is less stressful for me. I told Ewan (husband) that I appreciated that but I needed to know where Ailie stood regarding what I just said. Ewan told me that Ailie makes jokes whenever she’s anxious or uncomfortable and that they’ve rowed about it in the past but the wedding dress incident is a major issue and that he wants to smooth things over as much as I do. So him and Ailie will pay towards dry-cleaning, whilst a condolences hamper is sent to Eliza.
Eliza was relieved that Ewan was so understanding, but she wasn’t thrilled about Ailie’s reaction. Basically said that the Garfield comment was always about her hair and never about her weight and that she was deliberately trying to make it seem like the bad behaviour went both ways. I don’t think it’s went both ways either, cause I’ve never noticed Eliza roasting Ailie in any real way. Eliza has suggested we try marriage counselling - I was a bit shocked at first because we’ve only been married a month lol! But I decided maybe that’s the way forward because if Eliza reckons that we need counselling for it, then it’s clearly a problem.
So yeah, me and Eliza are going to try marriage counselling and my future with Ailie is uncertain.
Update 2 Feb 3, 2024
So after the rightly deserved bollocking you gave me in the last post, you’ll be happy to learn that Ailie and me aren’t talking anymore, and it’s probably for the best.
Eliza and me received the condolences hamper in the post and it was primarily … soaps. Not in the sense of fragrant body lotions or luxury packages, or even organic bars … just regular, run-of-the-mill soaps. There were two dispensers that were faintly rose scented but it was so mild you had to really look for it. There were several white soap bars that didn’t smell of anything, really, it was so confusing. The only items that suggested it was a proper gift basket were a £6 bottle of Chardonnay and a box of Roses chocolates that looked a fair deal more effort than the cleaning equipment at the nearest pub.
The weirdest item though? A pair of women’s underpants. Not lingerie, not anything lacy or risqué, like - just a plain pair of white pants. They were actually kind of grubby, there was a faint orange lining on them. It just didn’t make sense to me because if they were meant to be for Eliza, they were at least six sizes too big. And if Ailie really WAS making a move on me, they were again around six sizes too big - also, why would she choose such disgusting pants to try and “seduce” me?
It weirded me out so much I rang up Ailie, asking why I had soap and grubby knickers in our condolences hamper. She kept making dry remarks to her husband about there being a strange noise on the other end of the phone. I didn’t get anywhere with her and insisted that Ewan should talk to me instead because getting anywhere with her was like pulling teeth at this rate. After some disgruntled remarks, she passed the phone over. Ewan asked what was up and I explained the whole situation.
He was momentarily surprised when I described the hamper as looking like the luggage of a janitor that lived under a bridge. He said that it was a small package, but there should have been several luxury gifts that weren’t simply sanitary items. Apparently there was a bottle of Chardonnay, a bottle of Shiraz, one box of Rose chocolates, a Lindt bar, a selection of crackers and some assorted cheeses. Somehow that got replaced with leftover soaps bought in bulk and his Y-fronts that Ailie found ever so hilarious and apparently found ever so hilarious to send to my wife. He was hugely apologetic and embarrassed, stating that he’d pay us the cost towards the lost items.
I was raging at this point but I tried to be collected and said “right, let me talk to Ailie again please” and he got her on the line. I told her that she had the chance to make it right and she blew it, and she groaned and told me that Eliza’s jealousy has crippled our friendship and she was sick of having to flatter her insecurities. I said no, you ARE Eliza’s insecurities and we rowed for a bit. Eventually it ended with me saying that this had been building up for a while and that her attitude had been giving Eliza grief for years. Ailie said “none of this would be happening if Eliza knew how to take a joke” and I just told her that a joke isn’t ruining her wedding dress and then sending her your husband’s stinky Y-fronts. She said I sold out my principles for a girl who’s threatened by other women.
After the phone call Eliza was not so much hurt as she was confused at first, because she was wondering if there was a mix-up until I explained to her the “joke”. She seemed pretty much resigned to the idea that Ailie would always be a shit, and I told her the likelihood of that happening was very slim considering she’s cut me off for standing up for her. I think the counselling has made us stronger and in a weird way I’m glad this happened. Because if your friendship falls apart the moment you try to protect your loved ones, then they probably weren’t that strong friendships at all. Shame I won’t be speaking to Ewan from now on, he’s a top lad.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Material_Cellist

I just hope that you finally feel stupid and YOU APOLOGIZE AND MAKE IT UP TO YOUR WIFE.
How the fuck didn’t you know your friend was bullying your wife is beyond me.

OOP

I have apologised to Eliza, multiple times. I should have been more assertive with Ailie and told her to cut her shit out then. I’m aware that this is entirely on me for being permissive towards someone who was really just being a bully towards my wife. Am trying to do better.

~
mixedmeat

Im glad youre seeing the light, but WHY were you permissive before? why was it only now did you finally believe her and confront Ailie? Did you like the attention? Was it easier to dismiss your wife's concerns as being petty over a crush than to critically consider her feelings and the situation? Also, don't you still work with Ailie?

OOP

I think it was because I saw it as “lost in translation” - like it was something that worked with me and Ailie but didn’t with her, and assumed that she would figure that it was the sort of banter we encouraged and join in at some point.
Eliza’s from a very sincere, straightforward family that say what they mean and don’t necessarily make jokes like I do. The whole idea would be lost on them and they would be really confused and upset thinking that we were actually insulting each other. Eliza’s brother nearly jumped me once just because I said “that’s plenty” when she was rambling on a little (that’s a Still Game reference for the transatlantic pals across the world). I like it when she rambles, I think it’s cute and it’s a running joke between us. But he found it so personally offensive though, like he thought that I was just telling her to put a sock in it and started ranting at me for disrespecting his sister like that. Eliza started hiding her face in shame, it was that extreme a reaction.
I think I should have been paying more attention though. Eliza told me that when she’s tried to chat to her Ailie’s just been like “I don’t do small talk” and they’ve sat in complete silence. Apparently when she tried to chat at another time she was totally noncommittal and yawned so loud that it woke up our dog. I only found this out recently because Eliza didn’t want to inconvenience me and I feel so ashamed of my behaviour. I felt like there was just crossed wires but Ailie really was bullying Eliza and finding creative ways to essentially make her uncomfortable and squeeze her out of our dynamic. I don’t know why or how she thought any of that was appropriate but it’s irrelevant as my wife should never be scared of telling me how she really feels.
Yeah I work with Ailie. That is a complication that I hadn’t considered. I wouldn’t worry about her causing drama in the workplace because she values her job greatly but I wouldn’t be surprised about some passive aggressive attitude being thrown my way. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens but I’m uninterested in any form of reconciliation if she’s going to be that disrespectful.

ADDITIONAL INFO FROM OOP

The reason that Ailie is out my life is because I raised the point in the first place. That’s more to do with her than me or my passivity. And yeah I’m aware it was a problem, you’re damn right it was a problem, but it feels like even when I’m trying to right the wrong I’m getting a finger wagging really. I don’t mind criticism but at this point it feels a bit like I’m getting blows for new reasons.
I didn’t pick up on Ailie’s shitty behaviour before, I felt like it was crossed wires at first but the reason why she isn’t talking to me is because I told her off for treating Eliza like shit to begin with. I should have done it long ago, I acknowledge that, but let’s not start fantasising about a future where I’ll just welcome her back in with open arms for treating my wife like that. It’s not going to happen because I want a future with Eliza much more than I want a pal to have lunch with. I’ve messed up, I know I have and I want to change it. Let’s just be moving forward.

OOP when asked if the underwear was his

I didn’t. I stopped fancying Ailie in 2012 after she said she was taken. I didn’t sleep with her and I don’t really care for that kind of speculation, it’s just untrue and adds more fuel to the fire. People come across this stuff irl and it just exacerbates problems.
Eliza came across one of the videos about my post on YouTube or TikTok and it stirred up a lot of painful feelings, especially reading about your reactions. She was shocked that I sought online advice, because I usually try to handle things by myself. She was more shocked by the comments, that were overwhelmingly on her side. It helped her acknowledge how shitty and awful everything done to her had been and we had a long talk about it.
I’ve agreed not to talk to Ailie, as she is clearly only interested in causing trouble for a cheap laugh. I mentioned the situation to HR (even the stinky underpants) and they said they’d speak to her and keep an eye on any potential developments but so far no trouble. As far as I know Ailie’s been having lunch with another colleague and I now go down to a neighbouring cafe to grab a baked potato. Whenever I’ve been in her vicinity she’s just mumbled “alright” so I’m guessing there were some words (between her and HR I mean).

OOP on how his wife is doing

She’s doing well. So far, so good. We had a really successful couple’s counselling session and it opened my eyes towards so much of my behaviour, and how I was essentially permitting bad behaviour for so long. I realised that it was because investing in something emotionally heavy or even just a problem makes me really anxious, so I try to distance myself from conflict. It used to be whenever my relatives fought, they would sort of figuratively pull at me like a ragdoll into taking their side, and that behaviour upset me so much that any sort of conflict was offputting to me.
But I realised that when I essentially do that, I leave problems completely unsolved and cause my loved ones pain due to my own anxieties. So if someone is mistreating someone I love, I’m not in their corner like I should be. A big part of these counselling sessions is figuring out how to manage accountability and not just being like “oh it’s my childhood, blah blah blah” and stepping up the mantle into making things right. Me and Eliza now do daily check ins, like how are you feeling today, how are you managing that, is there anything you’re not happy about and what can be done to help you. So far it’s been really helpful, as She seems in much better spirits and we’ve been having date nights again, which is great. Asides from the occasional disagreement, things genuinely have improved.
As for Ailie, well things haven’t changed much, but luckily the work situation has been tolerable. I’m surprised how much I like eating outside work, tbh. Can’t stand the canteens, the food is shite

NEW UPDATE FROM THE WIFE

Posted by u/dreamingdegas
Is it cruel to flirt with another man in front of my husband purposefully? March 23, 2024 (month and a half later)
Tom and I have been together for 8 years, married for 2 months. He is handsome, funny, quirky and a wonderful conversationalist, just perfect for me really. We go dancing, jogging, visit galleries and cook together. He is so sensual and loving, it’s astounding and there’s never a dull moment with him. I’m fond of his mum and he has welcomed my folks as his own family too. We rarely argue most of the time … except on one topic.
Tom had a close friend who on multiple occasions he’s described as his best friend, let’s call her Julia. Originally Tom tried to ask her out years ago (before he met me), but she turned him down. They bonded over work. They had back and forth that seemed impenetrable, as whenever I tried to join in, Julia would give me these droll, blank stares. She was somewhat flirtatious with Tom, stroking his bicep when he flexed it, suggesting they should work out together. She also made somewhat insensitive comments that have really upset me.
Whenever I tried to bring this up Tom hand-waved it as “banter” that I was overthinking, insisting that it was in good faith but I was never so sure. I tried to chat to Julia one day when Tom left the room and she just muttered “I hate small talk” and started scrolling on her phone. Another time I was talking to her, she just muttered “mmhmm” throughout the entire conversation in a very bored tone and demonstratively yawned. The final straw was when she escalated her behaviour from immature jabs to a “prank” that was primarily done to humiliate me. It didn’t physically hurt, but it was emotionally devastating in a way that caused so much hassle that me and Tom had to go to marriage counselling for it. He also more or less stopped talking to Julia because of it.
At first he was really defensive and kept claiming Julia’s behaviour is primarily just edginess that I’m misconstruing as having more sinister intentions, but the marriage counsellor has pointed out that his repeated invalidation has weighed on our marriage and its impact will take a while to be lifted - and that the primary way to heave that weight will be to trust my impressions if I believe that something is up.
After a particularly heated counselling session, he was agreeing with a lot of the talking points our counsellor was making, but he was still insistent that Julia had no feelings for him. I said that given her past behaviour, it’s very likely she holds some sort of torch for him regardless of whether she admits to it or not. He told me that I was reading too much into it and I was absolutely livid, it was as though he learned nothing from our sessions. To put it across to him more aggressively, I waved over a stranger in fitness gear, complimenting his muscles. I asked him where he worked out and when he answered, I told him we could meet up and work out together one day with a wink.
When he left, Tom was enraged and demanding that I explain myself but I told him that the explanation was right there in my behaviour. He was furious, understandably so, but it was the only way he could understand the severity of my pain - to experience it himself. He then shouted that what I did was specifically done to flirt whereas Julia was likely not intending that at all. I called bullshit, stating that it’s the exact same thing, regardless of intention - if I’m perfectly honest, it frustrates me that even to this point he’s still defending her months down the line.
Am I being the asshole here?
RELEVANT COMMENTS/ADDITIONAL INFO FROM OOP
On Tom and Julia's relationship right now

There’s no affair now as Tom doesn’t talk to Julia at all anymore.
They weren’t having an affair when they were friends but she can be rather flirtatious with her friends in general. She casually flirts with both men and women in general, in my eyes, that’s how I perceive it - but Tom just thinks she has a raunchy sense of humour. As far as I know she has not cheated on her partner or anything but I found her behaviour really hurtful and inappropriate and hated it when Tom humoured it.
He has come to many meaningful conclusions about how his invalidation has hurt me and has made many leaps and bounds with it, but one huge roadblock seems to be how Julia’s behaviour was - or could even be - interpreted as a come on.

OOP retelling the dress incident

She damaged a dress of mine apparently on accident, and was too ashamed or embarrassed to apologise. When she was given the chance, she sent a disgusting “present” that made it finally sink in for Tom that she was treating me like sneaker residue. Afterwards Tom has been firmly no contact with her.

On the gym date

I know it wasn’t the best way to go about it, but outside of our daily talks and our counselling, how would have Tom picked up? It’s not something that I would want to engage in on a regular basis - he needed to see things through my eyes for a moment so he could understand my past heartache. After that we could continue as usual. Do you have any ideas? I would like to know - sincerely. I am not being sarcastic just so you know.
Tom feels the same way about Julia’s behaviour that you do - like she was just a friend extending an invitation - but given her cruelty towards me, I’m inclined to wonder whether she’s either marking her territory as the main woman in his life or has some unresolved feelings of her own …

OOP on her husband repeating the same mistakes with Julia or someone else

That’s what I am concerned about - not Julia coming back, but a similar situation happening with someone else. So I wanted to give Tom an example of how that would feel.
Yeah Julia is very immature. She’s a gamer which isn’t really a problem to me but sometimes she acts like a teenager and sulks when things aren’t going her way. She acts a little like Garfield, hating Mondays and all … that was an excuse she made one time for not having to engage in pleasantries with me 🙃

OOP on how her husband sees things differently concerning Julia and the situation

Tom is pretty bad at gaining perspective. He asked around his friends what to do and they basically stated that I was being jealous and irrational. They’re all close to Julia so that definitely plays into it, which isn’t a great compass. He asked his mother and she just said flowers and chocolates would make up for anything, if not that then a “boot up the arse” 😬
There’s also an aspect of his childhood that plays into it - his family used to involve him in fights growing up and he would be treated like a dishrag if he chose the “wrong” position so he tries to avoid drama whenever he can. But this my experience we are talking about here - he can’t refute that, and is coming to terms with the fact that he needs to put his foot down sometimes, even if it annoys or upsets people he loves. If they love him, they won’t flounce at the first sign of conflict

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/ThrowRAwifeandfriend posting in relationship_advice
Likely Ongoing as per OOP
Thanks to u/Separate_Kick3186 for suggesting this BoRU
2 updates - Medium
Original - 23rd January 2024
Update1 - 25th January 2024
Update2 - 3rd February 2024
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1 New Update
Thanks to u/lamppostdoor and u/ThatGuyOver9001 for finding the wife's post
​
OOP is u/dreamingdegas posting in AITAH
​
Update from the wife - 23rd March 2024
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My wife [F32] recently had wine spilled on her by my best friend [F31] during our wedding. Now she is demanding that I [M33] cut ties
​
Me and Ailie met through a mutual friend in 2012 during a pub quiz at university. I was quite attracted to her and actually told her so at the end of the evening, but she told me she had a boyfriend even though she was flattered all the same.
Fast forward three years later. I meet Eliza at the Edinburgh Fringe and we just clicked immediately. Politics, music, cinema - whatever the subject approached, there was a spark that I’d never felt with anyone else. Like she just made sense with me. Her personality was just vivid. It’s hard to describe but I’ll try - on first impression, she was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic, I was taken aback by her intensity. From that point onwards we were inseparable and I was dead certain of our future together long before we got engaged.
Enter Ailie again. I start a new job at an advertising firm with a position in web design and she was one of the only people I knew. At first it was a little awkward given our “history”, especially considering that she was now married to the boyfriend she was dating back then. But there was no one else I knew at the firm and we both had partners at this point, so it couldn’t hurt to be friends right? And to be honest I’m glad because I feel like our chemistry as friends superseded any potential we might have had as a couple. She’s clever and has a bit of a cheeky personality. I’m quite dry and sarcastic myself so I reckon we have a pretty fun dynamic.
Eliza doesn’t seem to feel that way, though. Sometimes when it’s been the three of us she has expressed a feeling of being left out or that Ailie has been making fun of her. I don’t see it - it’s just our dynamic, but there have been a couple of nights where Eliza’s been in tears because of something that Ailie has said. One time Eliza got out of her seat and Ailie sat down where she was sitting to show me a video on youtube. When Eliza came back in she saw Ailie leaning next to me and was upset for the rest of the night. Sometimes there have been times when Ailie has said something that Eliza has read as a come on. Like when I said I missed swimming because I felt out of shape Ailie said “the two of us should go together” with a playful punch. Eliza didn’t say anything at the time but her discomfort was visible.
Things really came to a head though on our wedding and I think the stress of it really got to Eliza. During the reception Ailie bumped into her and red wine spilled all over her dress. She was bawling the entire evening. We’re now on our honeymoon and Eliza has said she hopes for a fresh start but she feels like Ailie might have spilled her wine on purpose. She’s suggesting that I cut ties with her and if I’m honest I’m not so sure I want to. Where do I go from here?
tl;dr wife is getting increasingly insecure about my best friend to the point where she wants us to cut contact. Says that it feels like she’s treating her poorly. I’m at a loss what to do.
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Comments
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starvaliant
So someone who has a habit of 'accidentally' saying or doing things that make your wife cry 'accidentally' also managed to spill red wine over her white dress on the biggest day of her life, and you don't think that's at all suspicious?
If you knew - and imagine here that you somehow knew for certain - that she'd done it on purpose, what would your reaction be? Would it change how you thought about her? Give it some thought.
Algernon96
I have a feeling this won’t be the biggest day in his (eventual ex-)wife’s life when all is said and done.
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Update - 2 days later
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You know I posted here recently looking for guidance on how to deal with my wife’s anxiety and hurt revolving around my friend and eh seems like I got read the riot act, probably rightly so. I have been completely inconsiderate of Eliza’s feelings and how she feels about these roastings and you alerted me to the possibility that Ailie is doing this just to be a little shit.
I sat down with Eliza and we had an in-depth conversation about the wedding incident. I got her to describe the event step by step in her own words:
“I was leaving the lobby into the dining venue and Ailie was a little tipsy at this point and already stumbling from the bar. She was initially walking slower but seemed to speed up when she saw me. We collided into each other and she pulled an ashamed face and made a joke about me looking like Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl before scurrying away. She seemed embarrassed in the moment but she didn’t apologise to me.
I heard from other people that she was appalled about what happened but I never heard anything from her directly. It just paints a picture of habitual micro aggressions from her that has festered into this ugly anxiety whenever she’s around. I pretty much predict whenever I’m in her vicinity, there will be weird behaviour or uncomfortable comments and I don’t want to continue being in a situation where my husband brings someone into my home, who resents me simply for existing.”
That was a real gut punch to me. For me I always felt like it was just insecurity about me fancying Ailie for 10 minutes yonks ago but Eliza is really torn up about this. She’s said that the honeymoon has been miserable because the memory has been swirling around in her mind and she feels like I’m going to downplay or dismiss it. No one should feel like they can’t just be themselves, especially not at home. I didn’t realise what a shithead I’d been and I apologised profusely to Eliza and decided to phone up Ailie to confront her about the wedding incident.
So I did and it … it didn’t go well. Basically I told her that Eliza was really hurt by the wedding dress incident, that she had been hurt by her behaviour for a long time and that if she can’t bring herself to apologise to Eliza’s face at least she should pay towards getting the stain removed - and if she couldn’t bring herself to even do that then our friendship had to stop. To say that Ailie was taken aback would be an understatement.
She was completely blindsided, asking what was wrong with their interactions that made me want to go to such extremes. I mentioned the leapfrog comment and she went “but even you call her that,” stating that Eliza called her Garfield cause of her weight and bright orange hair. When I mentioned that she ran towards Eliza and didn’t apologise for spilling wine on her, she got really upset and started shouting that she wasn’t running at her to hurl wine at her dress, she was running from her because she didn’t want to talk at that moment because she feels like Eliza hates her and she doesn’t know how to go about it.
She started pointing out times when Eliza had been funny towards her and I basically said “right but this isn’t about when Eliza has hurt you, this is about when you’ve hurt Eliza and it’s got so bad that it needs to be talked about” and she started laughing, it was really uncomfortable. I know she does this when she’s anxious about something. Eliza asked me if things were okay from the other room and Ailie demanded if this was set up and when I tried to explain myself, she hung up.
Her husband even phoned me, insisting that he would pay for the damage if it is less stressful for me. I told Ewan (husband) that I appreciated that but I needed to know where Ailie stood regarding what I just said. Ewan told me that Ailie makes jokes whenever she’s anxious or uncomfortable and that they’ve rowed about it in the past but the wedding dress incident is a major issue and that he wants to smooth things over as much as I do.
So him and Ailie will pay towards dry-cleaning, whilst a condolences hamper is sent to Eliza. Eliza was relieved that Ewan was so understanding, but she wasn’t thrilled about Ailie’s reaction. Basically said that the Garfield comment was always about her hair and never about her weight and that she was deliberately trying to make it seem like the bad behaviour went both ways. I don’t think it’s went both ways either, cause I’ve never noticed Eliza roasting Ailie in any real way.
Eliza has suggested we try marriage counselling - I was a bit shocked at first because we’ve only been married a month lol! But I decided maybe that’s the way forward because if Eliza reckons that we need counselling for it, then it’s clearly a problem.
So yeah, me and Eliza are going to try marriage counselling and my future with Ailie is uncertain.
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Comments
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realitytvesquire
“Hey, you need to apologize for spilling wine on my wife’s wedding dress and/or pay for the repairs or we can’t be friends”
Correct response: “OF COURSE I will apologize AND pay for the stain! I am mortified that happened and I feel terrible it upset Eliza on her wedding day!”
Incorrect response: “why are you being so mean to me!?!”
Asking someone to apologize isn’t extreme. Cutting out a friend who REFUSES to apologize for an alleged accident that hurt your spouse on her wedding day isn’t extreme.
The fact she only thought about herself and was unwilling to see how she hurt her alleged BEST FRIEND’S WIFE makes her a dick. Being defensive about a request to apologize (WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE SANS REQUEST) for RUINING her alleged best friend’s wife’s WEDDING DRESS AT THE WEDDING makes her unworthy of your friendship.
Sounds like Ewan wants to smooth things over so his wife still leaves him TF alone when she goes to your house to harass your wife instead of him.
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Valkyr13Vex
Question for you: Is this really the type of friend you want to risk your marriage over? Would you think twice about ditching Allie if she were a bloke and not a girl you once fancied? You called her up a)she didn't even acknowledge the lack of apology b) she blamed all her behavior on Eliza and c) hung up on you when you tried to explain. Everyone here has said you need to ditch this friend, and yet you consider the future with her "uncertain"? You're "shocked" your wife wants marriage counseling? Allie's shown you who she really is now, why not believe her?
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Update - 9 days later
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So after the rightly deserved bollocking you gave me in the last post, you’ll be happy to learn that Ailie and me aren’t talking anymore, and it’s probably for the best.
Eliza and me received the condolences hamper in the post and it was primarily … soaps. Not in the sense of fragrant body lotions or luxury packages, or even organic bars … just regular, run-of-the-mill soaps. There were two dispensers that were faintly rose scented but it was so mild you had to really look for it. There were several white soap bars that didn’t smell of anything, really, it was so confusing. The only items that suggested it was a proper gift basket were a £6 bottle of Chardonnay and a box of Roses chocolates that looked a fair deal more effort than the cleaning equipment at the nearest pub.
The weirdest item though? A pair of women’s underpants. Not lingerie, not anything lacy or risqué, like - just a plain pair of white pants. They were actually kind of grubby, there was a faint orange lining on them. It just didn’t make sense to me because if they were meant to be for Eliza, they were at least six sizes too big. And if Ailie really WAS making a move on me, they were again around six sizes too big - also, why would she choose such disgusting pants to try and “seduce” me?
It weirded me out so much I rang up Ailie, asking why I had soap and grubby knickers in our condolences hamper. She kept making dry remarks to her husband about there being a strange noise on the other end of the phone. I didn’t get anywhere with her and insisted that Ewan should talk to me instead because getting anywhere with her was like pulling teeth at this rate. After some disgruntled remarks, she passed the phone over. Ewan asked what was up and I explained the whole situation.
He was momentarily surprised when I described the hamper as looking like the luggage of a janitor that lived under a bridge. He said that it was a small package, but there should have been several luxury gifts that weren’t simply sanitary items. Apparently there was a bottle of Chardonnay, a bottle of Shiraz, one box of Rose chocolates, a Lindt bar, a selection of crackers and some assorted cheeses.
Somehow that got replaced with leftover soaps bought in bulk and his Y-fronts that Ailie found ever so hilarious and apparently found ever so hilarious to send to my wife. He was hugely apologetic and embarrassed, stating that he’d pay us the cost towards the lost items.
I was raging at this point but I tried to be collected and said “right, let me talk to Ailie again please” and he got her on the line. I told her that she had the chance to make it right and she blew it, and she groaned and told me that Eliza’s jealousy has crippled our friendship and she was sick of having to flatter her insecurities. I said no, you ARE Eliza’s insecurities and we rowed for a bit.
Eventually it ended with me saying that this had been building up for a while and that her attitude had been giving Eliza grief for years. Ailie said “none of this would be happening if Eliza knew how to take a joke” and I just told her that a joke isn’t ruining her wedding dress and then sending her your husband’s stinky Y-fronts. She said I sold out my principles for a girl who’s threatened by other women.
After the phone call Eliza was not so much hurt as she was confused at first, because she was wondering if there was a mix-up until I explained to her the “joke”. She seemed pretty much resigned to the idea that Ailie would always be a shit, and I told her the likelihood of that happening was very slim considering she’s cut me off for standing up for her.
I think the counselling has made us stronger and in a weird way I’m glad this happened. Because if your friendship falls apart the moment you try to protect your loved ones, then they probably weren’t that strong friendships at all. Shame I won’t be speaking to Ewan from now on, he’s a top lad.
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Comments
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Material_Cellist4133
I just hope that you finally feel stupid and YOU APOLOGIZE AND MAKE IT UP TO YOUR WIFE. How the fuck didn’t you know your friend was bullying your wife is beyond me.

OOP: I have apologised to Eliza, multiple times. I should have been more assertive with Ailie and told her to cut her shit out then. I’m aware that this is entirely on me for being permissive towards someone who was really just being a bully towards my wife. Am trying to do better.

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minxedmeat
I'm glad you're seeing the light, but WHY were you permissive before? why was it only now did you finally believe her and confront Ailie? Did you like the attention? Was it easier to dismiss your wife's concerns as being petty over a crush than to critically consider her feelings and the situation? Also, don't you still work with Ailie?

OOP: I think it was because I saw it as “lost in translation” - like it was something that worked with me and Ailie but didn’t with her, and assumed that she would figure that it was the sort of banter we encouraged and join in at some point.
Eliza’s from a very sincere, straightforward family that say what they mean and don’t necessarily make jokes like I do. The whole idea would be lost on them and they would be really confused and upset thinking that we were actually insulting each other. Eliza’s brother nearly jumped me once just because I said “that’s plenty” when she was rambling on a little (that’s a Still Game reference for the transatlantic pals across the world). I like it when she rambles, I think it’s cute and it’s a running joke between us. But he found it so personally offensive though, like he thought that I was just telling her to put a sock in it and started ranting at me for disrespecting his sister like that. Eliza started hiding her face in shame, it was that extreme a reaction.
I think I should have been paying more attention though. Eliza told me that when she’s tried to chat to her Ailie’s just been like “I don’t do small talk” and they’ve sat in complete silence. Apparently when she tried to chat at another time she was totally noncommittal and yawned so loud that it woke up our dog. I only found this out recently because Eliza didn’t want to inconvenience me and I feel so ashamed of my behaviour. I felt like there was just crossed wires but Ailie really was bullying Eliza and finding creative ways to essentially make her uncomfortable and squeeze her out of our dynamic. I don’t know why or how she thought any of that was appropriate but it’s irrelevant as my wife should never be scared of telling me how she really feels.
Yeah I work with Ailie. That is a complication that I hadn’t considered. I wouldn’t worry about her causing drama in the workplace because she values her job greatly but I wouldn’t be surprised about some passive aggressive attitude being thrown my way. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens but I’m uninterested in any form of reconciliation if she’s going to be that disrespectful.

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Etiacruelworld
See, you just don’t get it you shouldn’t be interested in any form of reconciliation no matter what. It shouldn’t matter if she’s going to continue being disrespectful she already has been disrespectful. You need to cut the cord dude.

OOP: I know she’s already been disrespectful and that’s what I’m realising. That’s why I’m not interested, because she’s been treating my wife terribly for the longest time

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New Update from the wife - 6 weeks later
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Is it cruel to flirt with another man in front of my husband purposefully? - 6 weeks later
Tom and I have been together for 8 years, married for 2 months. He is handsome, funny, quirky and a wonderful conversationalist, just perfect for me really. We go dancing, jogging, visit galleries and cook together. He is so sensual and loving, it’s astounding and there’s never a dull moment with him. I’m fond of his mum and he has welcomed my folks as his own family too. We rarely argue most of the time … except on one topic.
Tom had a close friend who on multiple occasions he’s described as his best friend, let’s call her Julia. Originally Tom tried to ask her out years ago (before he met me), but she turned him down. They bonded over work. They had back and forth that seemed impenetrable, as whenever I tried to join in, Julia would give me these droll, blank stares. She was somewhat flirtatious with Tom, stroking his bicep when he flexed it, suggesting they should work out together. She also made somewhat insensitive comments that have really upset me.
Whenever I tried to bring this up Tom hand-waved it as “banter” that I was overthinking, insisting that it was in good faith but I was never so sure. I tried to chat to Julia one day when Tom left the room and she just muttered “I hate small talk” and started scrolling on her phone. Another time I was talking to her, she just muttered “mmhmm” throughout the entire conversation in a very bored tone and demonstratively yawned. The final straw was when she escalated her behaviour from immature jabs to a “prank” that was primarily done to humiliate me. It didn’t physically hurt, but it was emotionally devastating in a way that caused so much hassle that me and Tom had to go to marriage counselling for it. He also more or less stopped talking to Julia because of it.
At first he was really defensive and kept claiming Julia’s behaviour is primarily just edginess that I’m misconstruing as having more sinister intentions, but the marriage counsellor has pointed out that his repeated invalidation has weighed on our marriage and its impact will take a while to be lifted - and that the primary way to heave that weight will be to trust my impressions if I believe that something is up.
After a particularly heated counselling session, he was agreeing with a lot of the talking points our counsellor was making, but he was still insistent that Julia had no feelings for him. I said that given her past behaviour, it’s very likely she holds some sort of torch for him regardless of whether she admits to it or not. He told me that I was reading too much into it and I was absolutely livid, it was as though he learned nothing from our sessions. To put it across to him more aggressively, I waved over a stranger in fitness gear, complimenting his muscles. I asked him where he worked out and when he answered, I told him we could meet up and work out together one day with a wink.
When he left, Tom was enraged and demanding that I explain myself but I told him that the explanation was right there in my behaviour. He was furious, understandably so, but it was the only way he could understand the severity of my pain - to experience it himself. He then shouted that what I did was specifically done to flirt whereas Julia was likely not intending that at all. I called bullshit, stating that it’s the exact same thing, regardless of intention - if I’m perfectly honest, it frustrates me that even to this point he’s still defending her months down the line.
Am I being the asshole here?
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Comments
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mpan2501
NTA what is wrong with these girl best friends antagonizing the girlfriend and the guy remains “oblivious” and defending behaviors like this? Are men really this dense? And even if they are indeed so emotionally immature they cannot recognize it, how is it OK to dismiss and not recognize their supposed person telling them about their hurting and just doing nothing about it until shit hits the fan? Why?? I’m curious what the prank was that broke the camel’s back for you, only bc i cannot fathom after all this disrespect she showed you what else could she do that was even more aweful??? Good luck friend!

OOP(Wife): She damaged a dress of mine apparently on accident, and was too ashamed or embarrassed to apologise. When she was given the chance, she sent a disgusting “present” that made it finally sink in for Tom that she was treating me like sneaker residue. Afterwards Tom has been firmly no contact with her.

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isaseli
OMG are you the wedding dress lady? If you are I saw you husband post a while ago

OOP(Wife): I tried to omit details that post was famous for, so I could receive advice uninfluenced by people’s feelings on Tom but yeah … people came up to me and spoke about it in person for a while. It was kind of uncomfortable …

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Meganoes
With that context we are all going to vote for you to throw in the towel. Your husband is as dense as they come.
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HarveySnake
NTA Your husband is being intentionally and willfully blind to Julia’s behavior and effectively encouraged it. You gave him a taste of how that feels and looks after trying so many other methods.
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Aggleclack
Well yeah if he admits the truth, he no longer gets to enjoy the “innocent” side piece he’s pulling all of the sweet sweet ego validation from
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JJQuantum
NTA. I actually don’t think Julia has a romantic thing for your husband at all. I just think she likes being the number one woman in his life, though not a romantic partner. To that end she is willing to try and squeeze you out at every opportunity and/or show you who’s boss. The only answer to this is not for you to show her who’s boss. It’s for your husband to show her, hard. He really needs to shut her down. The way she is treating you is unacceptable.

OOP(Wife): That’s exactly it! She’s quite flirty in general, I’ve been at events where we’ve been in big groups of people and she’s made suggestive comments to both men and women. I’m less bothered by the flirting if it doesn’t feel so personal. but there’s a line when she’s being affectionate towards my husband and presenting me with a reception as icy as Antartica

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I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.

{Previous Chapter} ~ {Chapter Library}
"Are we allowed to go in here now?" I quiz Val as we rush up the med bay stairs.
"I don't care if we are or not. Morgan said Tyler was asking for us, so I think that's clearance enough."
Val hammers on the door with a fist to which we hear footsteps cross over. A dreadfully disheveled Kaphila opens the door, her lips parted slightly as her glazed eyes look us up and down.
"Oh, dear..." she drones lazily, "You two... got here faster than I expected..."
"Hi, Doctor," we barely acknowledge, peering past her into the room. It seems they must have only finished and woken him up a few hours ago. All the surgeons, including Kaphila, are still in their scrubs and cleaning the operation area. Behind them, though, lying in a hospital bed in a sectioned-off corner, we can see a tiny figure. He's mostly obscured by his brother sitting next to him holding his hand, back turned to us. Val and I begin to move in, but Kaphila stops us.
"Wait, you two..." She touches our arms before letting her hand slump back to her side, "You should give them some space... He just woke up about fifteen minutes ago."
"Oh." Val nods, realizing how overly eager we're being, "S-Sorry."
"That's all right." She smiles vacantly before her halfhearted attempt fades away. The poor woman... There's a very good chance that she hasn't slept in days.
Val seems to notice too, "Doctor, you should get some rest now that it's over. You don't look so good..."
Kaphila protests, her eyelids drooping shut for a moment while she tries to think, "I can't. I... I need to stay up and, um... monitor his vitals..."
"Can't the other doctors do that?"
"I-I'm fine. We need t-to all be available for when he... he starts to slip."
Instantly, the relief that graced me for all of ten minutes goes sour in my stomach, "W-Wait, starts to slip? What do you mean? Is he not better?"
Arti draws her gaze away before gesturing with her head for us to follow. She leads us to the far end of the room, "We... we tried, you two...We really did...We repaired all the ruptures and replaced fluids and... He was too broken, though. We got him fixed, and we got him awake, but with the condition he's in now... We don't think his body will hold on for long."
There's an extended, stoic respite where nobody can muster any words. Dr. Kaphila is clearly too tired, and Val and I are in shock. I should have known better than to let my hopes build like that. It all just felt too good to be true. Good things like that don't just happen these days without a catch.
"How... How long?" Val hesitates to ask.
Kaphila shrugs, "We aren't sure. It could be only a few hours; it could be a few days. It just depends on how his body reacts."
"The serum." I swiftly bark, throwing my past caution out the window. It seemed risky at the time, but in the face of hopelessness, it feels like the only answer, "How long would it take the city to deliver it?"
"I'm not sure, Wes. That'd be a question for them. Ultimately, though, that's not our decision..." The doctor trails off, turning her gaze to Morgan. We can't see his face, but it's obvious that he's softly crying. We can see Tyler's now, however.
His visible skin is pale, with large swatches stained black and blue all over his arms and face. God only knows what his torso and legs look like with the scars and stitches that now reside there. Despite all of this, and the immense pain he must be in, he still appears to be smiling tenderly. His eyes, though only halfway open, stare forward at Morgan unwaveringly with pure adoration for his brother, as if nothing else matters than seeing him again. The sight sends a cold, hard blade ripping through my guts, knowing what we now know.
"Did you tell him?" I ask.
Kaphila nods, "Morgan knows... We didn't want Tyler to stress, though. It could make things worse."
Out of my peripheral I can sense Val is tearing up, but she does her best to mask it. I'm lucky I don't cry anymore, or it would be a hard sight for me to see too. I know the pain Morgan is feeling all too well...
As we stand observing, I watch Tyler turn his head before finally noticing us. His low-hanging eyelids rise a bit and he struggles to grow his smile for us. Morgan notices this and turns around himself, before wiping his eyes and summoning us over.
As we reach them, Val leans over and wraps Morgan in her arms from behind, letting her hair fall over him like a veil from the sight. My eyes are only on Tyler. He looks even worse up close. The stasis pod really was preserving his body well. I wonder when his functions start to fail if we'll be able to place him back in, but promptly realize that we probably don't have enough gas left for it to even matter.
The boy swallows before offering us one of his reassuring smirks. With a raspy breath, he croaks out, "Hey, guys... Sorry I was out for so long..."
Val snickers at his casualness and struggles to hold her composure as she speaks, "We're glad to see you up, Tyler. How are you feeling?"
"Like... I almost died," He chuckles. The laughter rapidly turns into a small fit of coughs that don't sound right coming out. None of us can bear to even play along with him with how crushing the sight is. Once he's finished, he swallows, "S-Sorry... that was a bad joke." The boy adjusts in the bed and licks his dry, cracked lips, "Morgan told me everything... About what you guys did to save me... I don't know what to say..."
Val shakes her head with a warm expression. "We don't need to talk about it, Tyler. Save your energy. All that matters is you're safe."
Tyler protests by speaking some more, "You didn't have to go through all of that trouble for me... You had already done so much..."
"It wasn't enough until you were okay. It... It was all worth it now." Val lies with a straight face.
I can see Tyler's head try to bob with a nod, but the brace supporting his neck prevents him from doing so. "Well, thank you... for everything. Hopefully, I'll get better, so it won't all go to waste."
"Hey, um, Ty, that reminds me," Morgan cuts in, "I um... The creature that they killed; the city was able to make some sort of serum out of its blood. I guess they can rapidly heal themselves or something... They offered to send it out to us if we want to, um... try it, y'know? It might make you recover a lot faster. Take some of the pain away?"
Uncertainty befalls Tyler, "Is that... Safe?" His mouth turns up into a crescent again, "That wouldn't mutate me into some sort of monster... would it?"
Morgan laughs along with him this time, "No, I don't think so. I don't think they would offer if they didn't think it'd work." He's clearly as desperate as I am at this point.
Tyler stares at his brother with those same adoring eyes. I can sense they hold some sort of melancholy behind them, though. One that he's trying hard to keep hidden.
"Well, sure... it's worth a shot then. Tell them I'll do it."
Morgan's casual collected demeanor breaks wide open upon hearing him agree, "Oh, g-great. Let me um—I'll let one of the doctors know really quick."
"Okay." His little brother smiles, "That's perfect. I actually needed to talk to Wes and Val for a moment anyway."
"Oh, what about?"
"Nothing... I just wanted to thank them a little better..."
Morgan nods and pats his sibling's shin, "Alright. I'll be right back."
Tyler beams and holds the face until Morgan is entirely out of earshot. At that, his expression changes, and he turns back to us, "S-sorry, I lied... I really do want to thank you more, but there's something else."
"That's okay. What's up?" Val nervously scoots closer.
Tyler takes a deep breath in, and I can see tears well in his bloodshot eyes, "I, um... I know that I'm not going to make it..."
Val and I turn to stone.
"I can tell by the way Morgan is acting..." He confesses.
I avert my eyes, but Val tries to bluff it out, "Tyler, it's going to be alright, the doctors—"
Tyler weakly raises a hand, "I-It's okay... I'm not afraid... At least, I don't think I am... I just... I'm worried about Morgan."
"Tyler..."
"Can you guys promise me... that after I'm gone, you'll keep him safe? I know you've already done so much for us but... It scares me most of all to think about leaving him alone in this place... He's not going to have anyone left..."
Val and I don't say anything, but it isn't because we don't want to promise him. We just want to reassure him about his condition, but don't know how without lying.
"Will you please? For me? In the few minutes I've been awake... he's talked mostly about you. He thinks you both are incredible."
"Yeah." I nod to the boy, "Yeah, we can do that."
"We promise," Val adds.
I can visibly see weight lift from Tyler's chest. As if his labored breathing becomes a little easier. With our pact made, he eases back against the bed and looks forward contently.
"He was right about that serum the city has," Val offers, "It's powerful stuff from what we've seen. It really might fix you."
Tyler keeps his face held high, "That would be nice... I'll try to hold on till it gets here..."
"For now, let's just assume you're going to be okay till it does, alright?"
Tyler attempts another nod.
Morgan makes his way back over after a few moments and takes his seat again, "Okay, the doctors are going to send to the city for it. In the meantime, you just hang in there, Ty. We'll have you feeling better in no time."
"I'm looking forward to it..."
"E-Excuse me for a m-moment—" A broken yet sing-songy voice beckons from behind. I turn to see the doctor with the bob cut that I had noticed before the surgery standing behind us. I quickly clear out of the way, and she smiles as she approaches some machines hooked up to Tyler. With precision she taps at their screens, "H-Hello, there, Honey." She speaks to him, "H-H-How are you feeling? Are you comfortable?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Good. D-Don't mind me—I'll only be a moment."
I watch the doctor work, wondering about her as Morgan goes back to talking with his brother. I can hear in his voice as he speaks that every word is him trying not to break down. It's tragic watching the two banter back and forth, staying strong for one another when each doesn't know the opposite knows the truth. I can't tell if it would make it better or worse if they did...
It's hard for me to focus on what the two are saying, however. I'm more concerned with what the doctor is doing on the screen. I watch the numbers and statistics that read Tyler's vitals with no clue what it all means. Still, I hope that there's something, anything, that might tell me he'll be okay until the city sends our last resort. When the doctor finishes, she quietly turns, makes eye contact with me, smiles, then starts away.
I trail after her, "Um, excuse me..."
The woman turns to face me, "O-Oh, hello, dear. Y-Y-You must be Wes. I've heard a l-lot about you." She places a hand to her throat, "P-Please, excuse my s-s-speech. It's n-not what it used to be before my nerves got shot from all the s-stress the Vanishing brought. The lack of rest has m-made it a lot worse." She titters to herself. Her cheery look never leaves, however, "I'm Dr. Lisa Lamb. W-What can I do for you?"
"Oh, that's all right." I tell her, already starting to tune out her stutter, "I'm sorry to bother you, I know you're tired I just..." I pace with her farther away from Tyler's bed before asking, "Kaphila said that you didn't have any idea how long Tyler has. I was just wondering if anything new showed up in your checks just now?"
Dr. Lamb pouts her face and tilts her head, "I'm sorry, dear, I wish I had something to reassure you with but, unfortunately, your doctor was right. Right now, it's just routine checks every half hour to make sure that Tyler won't slip back into critical condition. Don't fret, though, the city sent me as the lead on this operation, so it's my job and sworn duty to make sure that we keep him stable as long as possible."
So, this was the doctor that Morgan was telling us about. He was right; she is a bit of an interesting character. Besides her speech impediment, she talks a little posh-like. I wonder if that's what living in the city does to one these days. Still, he was correct about her demeanor, she really does exude positivity. It's reassuring to see how determined she seems to keep Tyler alive. I honestly would have expected the city to send a bunch of operatives who were just trying to get the job over with and collect a paycheck.
"Oh, I see. What about the serum? Do we have word on when that might get here?"
"Well, typically, the city would ship such an object by drone. The package should be small enough, and they're much quieter than a vehicle delivery. Nevertheless, I'm sure they have a lot of record keeping and filing to take care of since this is a new medicine. They'll want to write up specific procedures for how to administer and log the results. I have one of my people confirming the request Morgan made now. With all that in account, I estimate that we shall see it arrive either later this night or sometime early in the morning."
Even the thought of waiting an hour while Tyler could worsen any minute feels too long. Still, I know there's no arguing with the city, and we've already stressed the doctors enough. I work up a smile and bow to the Doctor, "Okay. Thank you, Dr. Lamb. And thank you for everything you and your people did for Tyler. We're all very grateful."
"Oh, Wesly, it's no trouble. Anything to save a life. And please, you can call me Lisa." The woman hums. "I'm sorry to rush off so hastily, but it is getting rather late, and I don't want to keep my poor colleagues waiting now that we're finally allowed some rest."
"Oh, of course." I gesture her back to her people before waving and spinning around. That's when I realize that the doctor was right, it is very late. Dad will be irate.
"Shit, Val..." I call out. She pivots to face me. "My dad—I have to get home."
Val realizes the time too and turns back to Morgan, "Shoot, I should get home too and check on my mom. Will... you two be okay?"
Morgan rests a hand on her, "Of course. Go ahead. I'd like some time alone with him anyway."
Val wraps herself around him again and hovers her lips dangerously close to his cheek. Despite everything going on, the sight still causes something to twinge in my chest.
"Keep us updated, please?" she whispers.
Morgan nods into her shoulder, his mouth pressed against it.
I turn to face Tyler. He looks at me with a face full of bravery despite all the danger he's tangled up in, "We'll see you first thing tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay." Tyler tells me, "Goodbye, Wes. Val."
I don't like that he tells us goodbye in place of goodnight, but regardless, we head for the door.
The two of us leave the trailer and my stomach feels like mutilated roadkill the entire walk home; twisted and mangled. I try to shake the selfish feeling caused by Val and Morgan, as well as stave off the impending dread of Tyler and my dad. Valentine and I don't speak much to one another except for one point where Val announces out loud:
"He's going to be okay." She seems to be saying more for her own sake than mine. "I know he will."
I refrain from responding, but we stop once we reach her home. I turn to hug her, then keep my grip on her as I pull away, "Yeah." I concur, "He will."
We part ways, then I sprint around onto my property lightning-fast.
I throw open the door, already knowing that stealth won't save me, and begin taking my shoes off. Dad already sits on the couch, watching something saved on the T.V. He doesn't turn upon my entrance, which does not bode well for his current attitude.
I decide to attempt beating him to punch, "H-Hey, dad, sorry—I meant to be home a while ago but something important came up. It won't happen again."
Dad wordlessly pauses the television and then speaks plainly, "I've heard that one before. You also didn't send a text like we talked about."
"Sorry, I just—I forgot."
"Oh, you forgot. So, what was so important that you 'forgot' to let me know?"
Considering what happened the last time I lied, I feel like the truth is my best route out of this. Well, a half-truth.
"T-There were a couple of boys who were found outside the wall recently; one of them was severely injured. Val and I have gotten pretty close with his brother since he's been here, and the doctors just got him better and conscious a few hours ago. We wanted to go check on him."
"And you couldn't have texted me that?"
"I'm sorry. Like I said, I-I forgot."
Dad stands from the couch and turns to show off his massive form, "There's been a real problem with you 'forgetting' things lately, Wes. You don't have very many responsibilities around here. I expect you to at least manage the few that I give you."
"I know. Like I said, it won't happen again."
"Apparently, it will, because like I said, I've heard that one before. So, what do we have to do here to make you remember?"
It's rapidly dawning on me that Dad isn't actually that upset about me not texting. He just knows he's angry and needs to get it out somehow. He needs to justify that rage to himself.
"Dad, I... I'm sorry." I plead, trying hard to sound honest and desperate, "I didn't mean to forget, but I'm really not in a good place to do this right now."
"Do this?" Dad scoffs, "This isn't some game, Wes, this is a serious problem that we're having. There is no room out here anymore for complacency or neglecting the jobs we've been given. You would think that you, of all people would know that better than most."
That's the line that lights the fire beneath my rage. Rage that the very man before me instilled. My skin becomes warm and my hands jitter with the familiar nectar of adrenaline. The walls of the room that felt too claustrophobic for the conversation suddenly feel distant, opening into the perfect battlefield. If he wants to fight, I'll play along. I've had far too much for the last few days, and I'm at my limit.
"What's that supposed to mean, Dad?"
"I shouldn't need to explain it to you, Wesly."
"No, I want you to. What does that mean?"
Dad raises a threatening finger at me, "You better watch the way you're talking to me right now."
It doesn't scare me, "Or what? Or what, Dad? Are you going to yell at me? You going to scream until you're blue in the face?"
"Wes."
"No, you want to talk about responsibility? What about your responsibility to be my dad? When are you going to take responsibility for that? Cause I only get to see that part of you half the time."
That gets a vehement reaction. He thunders forward as he speaks, "Who do you think you're talking to right now? I am your father, and I take that responsibility every day! Everything I do and have done since all of this shit happened has been because I am your father! And after all of that, after keeping you alive this long, you're going to tell me to my face that I haven't been there for you?"
"Sure, Dad. That's what you're doing. You're going to that dam four days a week to keep me alive. It couldn't be at all because you can't stand to be in the same fucking house as me!"
"Watch your mouth!"
"So, tell me, dad. Tell me what you meant by my responsibilities. Could you have meant Leigh? Could you be implying that I didn't do my job as her older brother and now she's dead?"
"Wesly, this is your last chance."
"Well great job, Dad! Great job on being a year late to that party because I already blame myself every day of my life! Something you wouldn't know about because you ran away the second that we buried her in the ground and left me alone to deal with the grief. You didn't know how to handle it yourself, just like with Mom!"
Dad is right in my face now, looming above me. His spit slaps my cheeks as he yells, "That is enough!"
"Or what?!" I hiss back, "Are you going to throw things? Break all the furniture in the house? Or maybe you'll beat me again like old times. Pick me up by the throat and throw me across the room. Push me down the stairs again and split my skull?"
That one cuts into him, straight past his defenses, like cold, calculated steel through hot flesh. I see his expression falter for only a moment. An expression that tells me I should back off. That he knows he's wrong, and that he just a broken, shattered man that needs serious help. My pride won't let me, though, and now it's my turn to be angry for anger's sake.
"Even before all of this, you were never the dad you needed to be. To any of us."
That snaps him back into his rage. With a violent eruption, he clenches his jaw and grabs me by the shirt. I'm ready, however. Deep inside, I wanted him to do it. I don't care anymore, all that's left in me right now is pure malice. As soon as he grabs me and I can feel him shove me back, I scream and slam into him full force.
He staggers into the back of the couch, but I don't stop there. I jerk him to the side and throw my whole body downward, yanking him to the floor. He hits the ground with a grunt, and I plant myself on top of him, holding him by the shirt this time and baring my teeth like a feral dog as I lean inches from his face. For the first time in my life, I see a look on my father's face that I've never seen him wear. Fear. Confusion. Pure shock.
I breathe hard and heavy, not letting the euphoria of the out-lash end yet, "I am not a kid anymore. Not the one you get to bully around. When the transfer comes, I am leaving somewhere else without you, and you'll be lucky if you ever hear from me again."
Time used to seem to last an eternity when Dad would yell in our faces like this. The fear of having to stare the crazed beast in the eye made it feel like forever before he'd finally pull away. Being on the other side of it, the power is unreal. It still feels like forever, but forever can end when you want it to this time. You can ride the high of vented anger as long as you want, knowing that you hold the keys in your hand to make it stop. But as I sit there, staring Dad in the eyes, I realize how tight my hand is gripping his shirt. Ruining the fabric. Tearing the seams. The hot aura of my skin gradually fizzles away beneath the suffocating cold of an empty house. I see the fear in his eye, staring at this foreign stranger before him. A boy that was once his son now turned monster. All the memories of his anger and hatred that have been fueling me start to bleed dry as I see his eyes begin to well. There's regret behind them. Knowing how far he's dragged his sins but not knowing how to unlatch the chains that keep him bound. Not knowing what to say to me to change my mind.
I feel sick inside. It's not me. None of this is me.
My breathing slows, and like a shock of icy water, I release Dad and jerk away. He stays laying on the floor staring up at me while I look sorrowfully down at him. For a full minute it's like that, neither of us knowing how to traverse the new line we just crossed. I decide that maybe the best course of action is not to at all, and with slow, shaky steps, I back away before turning and running upstairs.
I slam into bed and clutch myself firmly, feeling all of my brashness slowly crumble apart like icebergs into the sea. I try to think of what Dad might do next. What was he thinking? Was he angry? Was he going to come back and 'resolve' things? The feeling in my gut from before I entered the house makes its presence known again. It unites with my new dismay to pummel me into a small panic attack. I sit there trembling for hours, while my heart strums blood past my ears and my breathing keeps rhythm. I hear Dad finally come upstairs at one point and stop at the top, but after a few moments, he heads for his room to my relief. I don't know how much more I can take. Of anything. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of this place. All I want is to run away. Take Val and Claire, then go.
Unfortunately, the night is about to get worse.
A little after 3 AM, I get a call from Valentine. It takes me a moment to pick it up and draw it to my ear. As soon as I hear her stifled crying on the other side of the line, I go numb, and her voice sounds distant.
"Um, hey, Wes... Morgan just called. It's Tyler... he... He didn't."
She never manages to struggle out the rest of the sentence, but I already know how it ends. I sit there with her on the line for about thirty minutes while neither one of us says a word. After her crying has subsided to nothing but soft static over the call, she hangs up, and I sit there for a few vacant minutes before standing and gathering up some things. Clothes, soap and toothbrush.
Muted as a mouse, I pack it away and slip downstairs out the door. I head over to the red house, go inside, then sling my stuff off, but I don't go to bed. Not yet. I go into the garage first and stare at the old gadget sitting on the workbench, bullet dent still proudly displayed just next to one of the antennae. I pick up the helmet and switch it on to ensure it's still working, then after that, I check the expedition supplies beneath the bench. Enough for a few day's journey. I ration it out, then pull out some old map books before slipping my shell on. I ask the GPS to calculate the distance to the Gladstone train station, to which it informs me it's a twenty-minute drive. 3 and a half hours by foot.
By the time I finish planning everything out, it's approaching 5 AM. A noise from the back door startles me, and I draw my knife, not imagining that Val would come over here at this time. It seems I'm mistaken.
She enters the garage and looks at me before peering around at everything I have laid out. Her eyes look tired and sore from both crying and fatigue, and her hair is in a frazzled ponytail as she stands slumped in the doorway.
"Hey," I say, spinning on my stool, slightly ashamed at what she's caught me doing. "What are you doing out this late? Or, early I guess."
She doesn't look over at me, she just answers to the air in front of her, "I went to check on Morgan."
"How is he doing?"
"About how you would expect. He finally passed out though. I don't think he'd slept in a few days."
"What about you?" I ask her.
She doesn't respond. She instead paces over to me and takes in the table. I prepare myself for her to scold me, but she surprises me instead by asking, "Did you ration me out some as well?"
I clear my throat, "Um, does that mean...?"
With closed eyes, Val nods her head.
"Okay. I'll deal you in."
"How far is it?"
"About three and a half hours."
Since nodding her head, Val hasn't opened her eyes. I lift myself from my stool and move to her, where I clutch her tightly. She rests her head against my chest and slips her hands up to my back. My spine tingles as her nails brush against the skin.
"I'm sorry, Valentine."
"I'm sorry too," Her warm breath echoes into my shirt.
I don't know the duration of our embrace, but I can feel Val growing weaker against me, her arms slipping down my back as they go limp.
"Hey," I mutter into her scalp, "Let's get some sleep. We'll set out tomorrow."
She wills herself back to wakefulness to ask, "What about your dad? Isn't tomorrow his last day before he goes to the dam?"
My fingers play with the back of her shirt, "I don't think he'll notice I'm gone this time."
Val is too tired to ask what that means. With a noise of agreement, she reaches up and yanks the band out of her hair before leaning against me again.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting sleep like you said." She mumbles into me.
"Not here," I giggle.
She sighs and moves her grip to my neck before tightening it and lifting a leg to wrap around me. I snicker with amusement, but with her head against my chest, I wonder if she can hear how fast my heart is beating. Cautiously, I slip a hand under her thigh, to which Val lifts her other leg and repeats the process. I swiftly catch it, then hoist her up into my arms. She leans her neck against my head, allowing her intoxicating scent to fill my senses. I try not to let it make me dizzy as I carry her off to the room.
She hardly lets me go as I lay her down and scoot in next to her, and I can't help but ask, "Boy, you're a little more, um... clingy than usual..." I tell her.
Already half asleep, she struggles to muster, "You're the only thing that stays..."
"What does that mean?"
All I get is a soft, "Hmm..." I think I've lost her.
I lean in and kiss the top of her head, "If we pull this off, I'll always be here, Val. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"Hmm..."
I'll take that as a yes.
~
Before setting out, Val and I have one last order of business. Military helmets hold a chip inside that can record a pretty extensive archive of footage. They removed the chips inside our helmets a long time ago to review the cause of death of their previous owners, but Val told me that the city would provide new ones if we took the job.
My head feels like a pair of shoes tumbling around in a dryer as we head for the trailers, each step, the soles banging against the metal drum. All the emotions I was too numb to feel last night have finally caught up, and they pounce hard when find me.
Tyler was dead.
What was I going to say to Morgan when I saw him? What could I say? When I lost Leigh, no words could have eased the sharpness of my shattered heart. Then again, how could I stand there and not speak a word to the boy whose brother I—
'Stop. Not today. Not about you.'
I suck in a breath and trap it in my lungs, hoping the oxygen will help me think more clearly. I try to distract myself from dwelling on the scenario I'm about to live in a few moments, but that only leaves myself open for a second ghost to come haunt me. My phone has been burning a hole in my pocket all morning, but I've refused to check it. It's largely out of fear, partially out of shame. I still haven't noticed it vibrate, though, so it's possible that Dad hasn't even bothered to contact me yet. Maybe he won't at all, and I'll finally be free from him. That's what I've always wanted, right?
'Right...?'
Val and I tap on the door, and Dr. Lamb opens it for us with a somber smile, "Good morning, you two. How are we faring today?" she asks in her mild stutter.
Val tries to match her melancholy warmth, "We're well, doctor, thank you. We just came to check on Morgan and talk with the guards if that's alright?"
"Of course. Please, come in." She tells us, stepping aside, "I believe number Eight is on her break right now, so you can talk with her. As for Morgan..."
She points to him sitting by a window near the back wall of the container. Behind the trailers, in the backyard of an abandoned house, the neighborhood built our graveyard. I assume that's what he's looking out at.
"Be gentle with him. He's already endured so much hurt, and joy is a fleeting luxury these days."
Val and I nod before thanking Lisa and moving past her.
The two of us approach Morgan tentatively and with care, myself letting Val take the lead. When we get close enough for him to notice, he scarcely even looks our way, just a slight flick of his eyes as his chin rests in the folds of his arms. Eyes that are seared crimson by water and salt. Val takes a seat beside him while I clumsily stand before them.
She lets a long time pass, just affording him our company before resting a hand on him and speaking, "When is the last time you've eaten?"
Morgan hardly responds, "I'm not hungry."
Unaggressive, she tries to reason, "I know you aren't... but your body still needs it. Just... please try to get something inside of you soon, okay?" she smiles.
He nods.
I watch Valentine study his face meticulously as she ponders over something. Finally, she faces me and whispers, "Could you go get the memory chips?"
She doesn't need to ask me twice. I get the sense that Morgan would like to be left alone, and it's probably best that I walk away on a note that doesn't seem insensitive. As I move toward the barrack doors, though, I look back at them to see what Val is going to attempt. Whatever she says to him seems to snap him from his stupor, causing him to sit up and face her.
I knock on the door at the end of the connector bridge and wait for Eight to open it.
"Just a second," she calls out groggily. After a couple of minutes, the door swings open.
"Sorry, Eight. I didn't mean to wake you."
"Don't sweat it. Wasn't doing much sleeping anyway. What's up?
"We were just stopping by to grab some storage chips? Val and I are doing the job for the city."
"Oh." She grunts with surprise, "Yeah, here."
Eight opens the door more for me to enter, and crosses over to a table in the room's corner. I follow close behind her.
"I didn't think you guys were going to take it. Thirteen said you seemed hesitant."
"Yeah, well, it's been an eventful few days. I guess we just changed our minds." Silence hangs for a few moments while she shuffles around some junk, "Is um... Six still upset with you?"
Eight snorts, "She's sort of been on autopilot lately. All business. It's how she hides her anger."
"Sorry we got you in trouble."
"It's not your fault." She says darkly before extending a hand out, "Here. You know how these work?"
"Yeah, I can figure it out. Thanks." I tell her with a nod. My eyes wander a bit behind her to the table where they notice an official-looking package, smaller with a large red sticker claiming 'PRECIOUS CARGO INSIDE'.
I swallow and point to it, "Is that... Is that the..."
Eight sighs, "Yeah. Came in this morning as they were laying the kid in the ground. Day late and a dollar fucking short, right?"
"Yeah." I mutter, "So what happens with it now?"
"Ha. You'll find this interesting. The captain said to hold on to it. She didn't tell the city the boy died."
I noticeably do a double take, "What?"
"Right? It gets crazier. She told Thirteen to make a fake report like the one they requested we do, saying that it didn't work. The city thinks we used it."
"I thought you said she was all business lately?"
"She is. But she's also been really agitated. She's just fed up with Portland's shit. With the transfer closing in, I think Six just wants some sort of insurance in case something else goes wrong before then."
"But we don't know if it even works..."
"We also don't know that it doesn't. I think it's more of a last resort type deal.
"So, they don't know we still have this?"
"No."
"What happens to her if the city finds out?"
"Who knows? Probably nothing good. Although what'll they do? Court martial her? put her in prison? We're already living in a box." She chuckles, "Just don't spread it around, okay?"
I nod with one last look at the package, "I'll let you get back to sleep, Eight. Thanks again."
"Be safe out there, Wes."
I head back to the room, where Val now seems to be having a wholly realized conversation with Morgan. I can't make out her words, but she's the one doing most of the talking while Morgan attentively listens, wearing a perplexed expression. Before I can cross back over, she turns to check the door, and seems to get a little tense when she sees I've returned. I hasten to avert my gaze to seem like I wasn't spying, then look around to find an out. She clearly doesn't want me to be involved in whatever this is. The thought hurts, but I try not to overthink it.
While I stand there uncomfortably, trying to keep my eyes busy, I notice that the divider to the living quarters has been opened, and most of the doctors are out in the bay packing their belongings up. Arti isn't anywhere to be seen, though.
I head for the curtain and peer inside to see her back by the kitchen area leaning on a counter. She watches in a trance as a coffee maker brews its dark, bitter ale. Almost as if sensing my presence, she turns to see me before perking up her expression. It's ephemeral, as it quickly dissolves back into mourning. My feet urge me forward.
I lean opposite of her and speak, "Hey, Doc..."
"Morning..."
"Did you get some rest?"
"Not much. But it was enough."
The machine before her dings, and she steps forward to unlatch the pot, "You want any?"
"I'm alright. Never been a big fan."
Kaphila chuckles, "Me either. In my line of work, you almost need it, though."
I join her amusement as she swirls black juice into a mug and raises it to her lips. It's the perfect excuse for nothing to be spoken for a spell.
Guilt starts to break me, "I'm sorry, Arti."
Kaphila lowers her cup and wipes her mouth, "What have we talked about? With you and that word?"
I deny her, "I put you through all of this; all of that work, for nothing."
"Hmm." Kaphila ponders plainly with a nod. "Nothing, huh?"
I backpedal, "Well, what you did wasn't nothing, I just meant... I don't know. I guess, just, what's the point if he ended up the same in the end as when he started?"
The doctor once again just gives a pensive nod, as if reviewing my conclusion. I feel I've just made choppy waters with the wake of my words until she finally speaks. Delicately and kind, like she always does, "I've told you what I did before all of this, right?"
"Yeah. You were an ICU doctor, right?"
She nods, "You want to talk about nothing—Every day we had people like Tyler brought in. Crumpled and battered and—" she stops herself, too caught up in the memory, "Rarely they'd make it. We would do what we could and then wait. Often with patients like that, they're unconscious after whatever accident they were in. Sometimes they'd never wake up. That was the hardest part. Watching the families get called in and told that their kid was in a wreck. Then they'd wait and wait for someone who would never come back. They never got any closure; no goodbye."
My hand instinctively draws to my arm and scrapes over the skin.
"That part of the job never got easier. You do everything to keep these people alive, only to lose them in the end. But for every patient that didn't wake up, there were always a few that would. We'd get them stable enough for their family to at least have a few hours with them." Kaphila shakes her head and allows a slight upturn of her lips, "It usually ended the same, but let me tell you the looks in those families' eyes... those few precious moments..." at the warmth in Arti's deep colored eyes, the room almost seems to glow with her, "last night, before I went to bed, I heard them talking; Morgan and Tyler. They were laughing and crying and all sorts of emotions... But they got to feel it all. By the time I left the room, both of them had fallen asleep on one another. A few hours later was when Tyler... You may think all of what you did was for nothing Wes, but if you and Val hadn't gotten those resources, Morgan never would have gotten to have that with Tyler. And I know it seems like nothing because he didn't make it, but to Morgan? Those last brief moments were everything. I'm sure Tyler would agree."
I don't really have a response for her. Not one that's worth saying, anyway. I simply nod along before breaking the news.
"Val and I are leaving again... We're taking the job for the city."
She takes a calming breath to steady herself, "I figured you would. I mean, with a reward like that... I won't try to convince you not to go, Wes. Not that I could, even if I wanted to." She scolds, stifling a small laugh behind glassy eyes, "But please, both of you, be careful out there?" A sob breaks her voice, and she sets her mug down before stepping forward and pulling me in, "Come home safe. Don't leave me with nothing."

I have an internet friend for like 4 years. I'm 16, and he is 15, but we are in the same grade. He basically knows all of my phases in life, which is why I wanted to keep him because he knows the person I became today. He knew me deeply during those 4 years. We really know each other deeply, but we do have boundaries and don't ask each other too many personal questions. In the last 2 years of our friendship, I've always been venting to him, and he doesn't listen or care the way I do. I always thought he would change his ways, but I realized that's just who he is, and I have to accept his flaws. I love him deeply platonically, and I believe in every other universe, we are long-distance besties, and he believes it too.
However, he doesn't love me the way I love him. In our 4 years of our friendship, he hasn't seemed to change his actions every time I vent to him. I think he's nonchalant, and that's just who he is as a person. I love him because he's like a brother to me, and as a friend, you really have to accept who your friend is as a person.
I've talked to him about his actions towards me multiple times and how they affect me mentally, but he just doesn't seem to care. I keep telling myself every year that I should leave him because my absence doesn't seem to affect him. I even tested him by waiting for 3 days to see if he would text me, but he didn't.
I even texted him last year before the day of my birthday, saying “I'm going to be my dream age tomorrow.” and he replied, “I know. I miss you.” after not talking for 3 months. I read his message but didn't reply. He greeted me happy birthday the next 2 days after my birthday, saying, “Happy birthday. Sorry I was too tired to greet you. I have other school circumstances, and my body is too tired.”
But in our 4 years of friendship, we talked about life and stuff, and we still do. He still supports me and keeps my secrets, just like I keep his. We always forgive each other in every circumstance we face. But it changed after the summer of 2023; he doesn't trust me like he used to, especially regarding his crushes. I just have to respect his boundaries.
I've noticed he has other new friends on his social media, and he tags, replies, comments, and reacts with them. But after 3 years of our friendship, he doesn't seem to care if I comment on his posts. However, if his new friends comment, he always responds. I just wish he would change back to how he was before.
This is the last time I opened up about my reactions to his actions, and it ended up badly. I feel like a horrible person because of it. His friend commented on his post with the word “MY BFF” in every sentence. And I found it cringe, so I told him that his friend was cringe. He told me I was even more cringe and called me a “people pleaser” because I always forgive him for everything he does, and I can't let go of him.
He really cares about that friend of his because she's always there for him. I didn't know he had problems, he doesn't open up to me like he did before, especially after the summer of 2023. I wish he had told me his problems so I could help him, but I think he's still building walls between us. I'm just so sad. I really wanted to help him, but he doesn't seem to need my help because he has other friends to help and talk to him.
It's true that I can't leave him because he's the only person who knows what made me the person I am today. That's why I don't want to leave him.
But I've tried leaving him every time he disrespects me. I always block him, but then I can't handle his absence, so I unblock him and add him back. I know it's a lack of self-respect, but I just can't bear to leave him because he knows the real me.
I sarcastically laughed at his message when he called me a “people pleaser,” but it also made me cry. I couldn't bear to think he would say such a word to me. it affected me mentally.
I apologize every day for calling his friend “cringe,” and I apologized that night he called me a “people pleaser.” I said, “I'm just jealous because you have new friends and are leaving me behind. I feel you don't need me anymore, and you treat me differently from your other friends. I feel replaced. I just want you to treat me the same way you treat them.” I've talked to him about the same thing multiple times, but he doesn't seem to change or care.
I told myself I would distance myself from him after that, but I need him to forgive me first. After a week, I told him I'm sorry, and he forgave me and said he misses me. After that, I started distancing myself from him but still texted him about my life and dreams. He even texted me first, which was surprising because he wasn't this type of person last year. It just surprised me how he's starting to miss my absence. It's been 2 weeks of not talking to him today.
What happened in the Summer of 2023?
In March 2023, he was always telling me about his crush. And that girl was his dream girl. I supported him the first day until the day I lost my self-respect just for my best friend. He got his dream girl and told me a bunch of one-sided stories. He told me not to text her or befriend her, and I respected his words.
But his girl texted me on HIS account, told me different stories, and started sexualizing herself. Like how she wanted him to touch her and her future plans with him.
My reaction was overreacting because I didn't even know how she trusted me that quickly after just knowing me for a week because we chatted with each other ONLY on HIS account.
We always talked about her, how he loved her, and she was his dream girl since 3rd grade.
One night, I had a good conversation with his girl about K-pop idols? (I really don't remember) or about him through HIS account. But she suddenly fell asleep, and that's why I sent a friend request to HER ACCOUNT. And screenshotted our messages and sent them to her. To continue our conversation. She replied to my message like it was nothing.
But after that, she got confused because it wasn't HER. That was my FRIEND who was pretending to be HER just to see my reactions because I wanted her to be my friend.
He told me he used me for his entertainment, because it was too funny. He told me, they broke up “because of me”. But for me, it was the consequences of his actions.
I was at school that day. He spammed me a bunch of threats and cursed words because they broke up because of me. I got confused because I did nothing wrong just to talk to her like girly talk. And I kept her secrets to me.
We were doing math at school that day, we had a quiz on math. I asked the teacher for me to go to the restroom. My hands were shaking while I tried to talk to him in a calm manner. He told me he doesn't want me to be his friend anymore because of that. I asked him what exactly happened. He told me everything.
I was flabbergasted because I felt betrayed, and he used me for his entertainment just to see my reactions. He told me he laughed so hard while reading my messages. And I didn't know why he would do such a thing, especially pretending to be his girlfriend and sexualizing her just to boost his ego/confidence.
He told me he didn't do it but his other male friend. I felt gross. I felt super gross that day. Because why would he just accept his friend doing that to her girlfriend?
What if he used another friend's reaction while his friend was sexualizing his girlfriend, and that other friend tells another friend, and that issue started and started fake rumors about a girl doing that to herself, but she is super innocent and didn't know that behind those rumors were her boyfriend and his friend.
I told my other friends about my problem and the consequences of his actions. They told me to message his girl and tell everything. His girl and I had a very deep conversation, and she told me she didn't know a thing about it. She told him he was crazy and she would never come back to him because of it. And she told me he used my name in other circumstances I didn't know. It wasn't deep, but it still affected me. I am a girls girl, and I assure her and tell her everything he and his friends did. I felt sorry for her, for us. We became good friends, but it didn't remain that close.
I felt gross because of my friend, and I cut him off the whole summer. And he tried communicating with me and apologizing to me. I forgave him after summer. And comforted him because of his loss. And just told him to change and never going to do it again. He told me he was too scared to lose a friend like me.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRAwifeandfriend
My wife [F32] recently had wine spilled on her by my best friend [F31] during our wedding. Now she is demanding that I [M33] cut ties
Originally posted to relationship_advice
Thanks to u/czechtheboxes and u/queenlegolas for suggesting this BoRU
Previous BoRU
TRIGGER WARNING: harassment, verbal abuse, possible emotional infidelity, obsessive behavior and sexual harassment
Original Post rareddit Jan 23, 2024
Me and Ailie met through a mutual friend in 2012 during a pub quiz at university. I was quite attracted to her and actually told her so at the end of the evening, but she told me she had a boyfriend even though she was flattered all the same.
Fast forward three years later. I meet Eliza at the Edinburgh Fringe and we just clicked immediately. Politics, music, cinema - whatever the subject approached, there was a spark that I’d never felt with anyone else. Like she just made sense with me. Her personality was just vivid. It’s hard to describe but I’ll try - on first impression, she was so knowledgable and enthusiastic, I was taken aback by her intensity. From that point onwards we were inseparable and I was dead certain of our future together long before we got engaged.
Enter Ailie again. I start a new job at an advertising firm with a position in web design and she was one of the only people I knew. At first it was a little awkward given our “history”, especially considering that she was now married to the boyfriend she was dating back then. But there was no one else I knew at the firm and we both had partners at this point, so it couldn’t hurt to be friends right? And to be honest I’m glad because I feel like our chemistry as friends superseded any potential we might have had as a couple. She’s clever and has a bit of a cheeky personality. I’m quite dry and sarcastic myself so I reckon we have a pretty fun dynamic.
Eliza doesn’t seem to feel that way, though. Sometimes when it’s been the three of us she has expressed a feeling of being left out or that Ailie has been making fun of her. I don’t see it - it’s just our dynamic, but there have been a couple of nights where Eliza’s been in tears because of something that Ailie has said. One time Eliza got out of her seat and Ailie sat down where she was sitting to show me a video on youtube. When Eliza came back in she saw Ailie leaning next to me and was upset for the rest of the night. Sometimes there have been times when Ailie has said something that Eliza has read as a come on. Like when I said I missed swimming because I felt out of shape Ailie said “the two of us should go together” with a playful punch. Eliza didn’t say anything at the time but her discomfort was visible.
Things really came to a head though on our wedding and I think the stress of it really got to Eliza. During the reception Ailie bumped into her and red wine spilled all over her dress. She was bawling the entire evening. We’re now on our honeymoon and Eliza has said she hopes for a fresh start but she feels like Ailie might have spilled her wine on purpose. She’s suggesting that I cut ties with her and if I’m honest I’m not so sure I want to. Where do I go from here?
tl;dr wife is getting increasingly insecure about my best friend to the point where she wants us to cut contact. Says that it feels like she’s treating her poorly. I’m at a loss what to do.
RELEVANT COMMENTS/ADDITIONAL INFO
noyeahthanks

The number of times I’ve bumped into someone and spilt my drink on them is exactly once in my entire life and I was a shit faced teenager.
You are either astoundingly naive or Allie is somehow the unluckiest woman in the world to accidentally spill her red wine on the bride on her wedding day. I think you know which one is more likely. Your wife won’t be staying your wife for much longer unless you start actually listening to her and stop dismissing all of her fears as baseless insecurities.

OOP

Ailie was getting a drink from the bar, Eliza had taken off part of her gown for dining and dancing purposes and was leaving our bedroom to return to our table - they bumped into each other and Eliza had a huge red stain over her dress. Ailie made an offhand joke and fled, and Eliza ran up to me in bits and pieces.
It sounded really bad when Eliza told me, and she was in bits about the wine spilling all over her dress, and I went to Ailie and asked her what the hell she was up to. Ailie was so mortified and told me she wanted to sink into a hole, she’s dyspraxic and has struggled with falling at impromptu moments. I’ve actually witnessed it happening before, there was a meeting at work and she gets our colleagues coffee - the moment she came in she tripped and fell, coffee flying everywhere

Rip_Dirtbag

Allie bumped into your wife in her wedding dress, spilling wine all over it, and made an offhand joke before fleeing? What kind of response is that?

OOP

She’s a really awkward person and doesn’t know how to interact with people sometimes. There have been times I have been upset with her because of how glib she’s been about personal issues

~
starvaliant

So someone who has a habit of 'accidentally' saying or doing things that make your wife cry 'accidentally' also managed to spill red wine over her white dress on the biggest day of her life, and you don't think that's at all suspicious?
If you knew - and imagine here that you somehow knew for certain - that she'd done it on purpose, what would your reaction be? Would it change how you thought about her? Give it some thought.

OOP

I would be really hurt if Ailie was doing it on purpose. I love Eliza and want us to be happy and I can see that I’ve really fucked up here, multiple times. Ailie is a good friend but if she’s deliberately being a wind-up merchant and harming my marriage then I’ll have to cut the cord and stop chumming up to her so much
Eliza sometimes says to me that she can intuit people’s opinions and feelings within minutes of meeting them. I’ve never been like that, my folks have always said that I’m terrible with picking up on basic things. I was at an aunt’s house when I was a kid, talking her ear off and she said “oh it’s getting late” multiple times, it was only until my mum dragged me out that I picked up that she wanted me to leave

~
SymblePharon

It really sounds like you're putting your friend first. No wonder your wife is unhappy. She comes back in tears from hanging out, and you still invite Ailie to the wedding? What was that conversation like?

OOP

She got really upset one time during banter because me and Ailie like to roast each other regularly and Ailie roasted her a little too hard I guess. We were singling out things to insult each other on and the subject went to Eliza and Eliza mentioned that she had webbed feet. Since then Ailie’s called her leapfrog.
When I say it Eliza takes it in good stride but when Ailie says it it’s this massive problem. I don’t get it. Eliza has suggested that Ailie’s being serious when she says it as opposed to when I do, but she roasts me the same way too. She said I looked like a Juggalo’s poodle that day because I was wearing baggy “metal” clothes and hadn’t styled my hair so it was frizzing all over the place.

~
secretbeans1367

Why haven’t you stuck up for your wife all those times ailie has hurt her?

OOP

I guess because I didn’t know that I needed to? It seems like it’s a perspective thing. Eliza is a passionate person who cries at Deluxe puppy adverts and the intensity is great for a partner but it can cause problems with friendships. She reads a lot into things her friends do thinking it’s intentional and when she talks to them about what they did, they will be completely shocked and unaware that they hurt her. Ailie is a very sarcastic person in general who rolls with the punches and to me it reads like they struggle to gel rather than intentional cruelty on Ailie’s part but for what it’s worth Ailie has told me that she’s really keen on Eliza and thinks she’s a top girl.

Update Jan 25, 2024
Posting this here bc it keeps getting deleted on relationship_advice
You know I posted here recently looking for guidance on how to deal with my wife’s anxiety and hurt revolving around my friend and eh seems like I got read the riot act, probably rightly so. I have been completely inconsiderate of Eliza’s feelings and how she feels about these roastings and you alerted me to the possibility that Ailie is doing this just to be a little shit.
I sat down with Eliza and we had an in-depth conversation about the wedding incident. I got her to describe the event step by step in her own words:
“I was leaving the lobby into the dining venue and Ailie was a little tipsy at this point and already stumbling from the bar. She was initially walking slower but seemed to speed up when she saw me. We collided into each other and she pulled an ashamed face and made a joke about me looking like Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl before scurrying away. She seemed embarrassed in the moment but she didn’t apologise to me.
I heard from other people that she was appalled about what happened but I never heard anything from her directly. It just paints a picture of habitual micro aggressions from her that has festered into this ugly anxiety whenever she’s around. I pretty much predict whenever I’m in her vicinity, there will be weird behaviour or uncomfortable comments and I don’t want to continue being in a situation where my husband brings someone into my home, who resents me simply for existing.”
That was a real gut punch to me. For me I always felt like it was just insecurity about me fancying Ailie for 10 minutes yonks ago but Eliza is really torn up about this. She’s said that the honeymoon has been miserable because the memory has been swirling around in her mind and she feels like I’m going to downplay or dismiss it. No one should feel like they can’t just be themselves, especially not at home. I didn’t realise what a shithead I’d been and I apologised profusely to Eliza and decided to phone up Ailie to confront her about the wedding incident.
So I did and it … it didn’t go well. Basically I told her that Eliza was really hurt by the wedding dress incident, that she had been hurt by her behaviour for a long time and that if she can’t bring herself to apologise to Eliza’s face at least she should pay towards getting the stain removed - and if she couldn’t bring herself to even do that then our friendship had to stop. To say that Ailie was taken aback would be an understatement.
She was completely blindsided, asking what was wrong with their interactions that made me want to go to such extremes. I mentioned the leapfrog comment and she went “but even you call her that,” stating that Eliza called her Garfield cause of her weight and bright orange hair. When I mentioned that she ran towards Eliza and didn’t apologise for spilling wine on her, she got really upset and started shouting that she wasn’t running at her to hurl wine at her dress, she was running from her because she didn’t want to talk at that moment because she feels like Eliza hates her and she doesn’t know how to go about it.
She started pointing out times when Eliza had been funny towards her and I basically said “right but this isn’t about when Eliza has hurt you, this is about when you’ve hurt Eliza and it’s got so bad that it needs to be talked about” and she started laughing, it was really uncomfortable. I know she does this when she’s anxious about something. Eliza asked me if things were okay from the other room and Ailie demanded if this was set up and when I tried to explain myself, she hung up.
Her husband even phoned me, insisting that he would pay for the damage if it is less stressful for me. I told Ewan (husband) that I appreciated that but I needed to know where Ailie stood regarding what I just said. Ewan told me that Ailie makes jokes whenever she’s anxious or uncomfortable and that they’ve rowed about it in the past but the wedding dress incident is a major issue and that he wants to smooth things over as much as I do. So him and Ailie will pay towards dry-cleaning, whilst a condolences hamper is sent to Eliza.
Eliza was relieved that Ewan was so understanding, but she wasn’t thrilled about Ailie’s reaction. Basically said that the Garfield comment was always about her hair and never about her weight and that she was deliberately trying to make it seem like the bad behaviour went both ways. I don’t think it’s went both ways either, cause I’ve never noticed Eliza roasting Ailie in any real way. Eliza has suggested we try marriage counselling - I was a bit shocked at first because we’ve only been married a month lol! But I decided maybe that’s the way forward because if Eliza reckons that we need counselling for it, then it’s clearly a problem.
So yeah, me and Eliza are going to try marriage counselling and my future with Ailie is uncertain.

NEW UPDATE

Update 2 Feb 3, 2024
So after the rightly deserved bollocking you gave me in the last post, you’ll be happy to learn that Ailie and me aren’t talking anymore, and it’s probably for the best.
Eliza and me received the condolences hamper in the post and it was primarily … soaps. Not in the sense of fragrant body lotions or luxury packages, or even organic bars … just regular, run-of-the-mill soaps. There were two dispensers that were faintly rose scented but it was so mild you had to really look for it. There were several white soap bars that didn’t smell of anything, really, it was so confusing. The only items that suggested it was a proper gift basket were a £6 bottle of Chardonnay and a box of Roses chocolates that looked a fair deal more effort than the cleaning equipment at the nearest pub.
The weirdest item though? A pair of women’s underpants. Not lingerie, not anything lacy or risqué, like - just a plain pair of white pants. They were actually kind of grubby, there was a faint orange lining on them. It just didn’t make sense to me because if they were meant to be for Eliza, they were at least six sizes too big. And if Ailie really WAS making a move on me, they were again around six sizes too big - also, why would she choose such disgusting pants to try and “seduce” me?
It weirded me out so much I rang up Ailie, asking why I had soap and grubby knickers in our condolences hamper. She kept making dry remarks to her husband about there being a strange noise on the other end of the phone. I didn’t get anywhere with her and insisted that Ewan should talk to me instead because getting anywhere with her was like pulling teeth at this rate. After some disgruntled remarks, she passed the phone over. Ewan asked what was up and I explained the whole situation.
He was momentarily surprised when I described the hamper as looking like the luggage of a janitor that lived under a bridge. He said that it was a small package, but there should have been several luxury gifts that weren’t simply sanitary items. Apparently there was a bottle of Chardonnay, a bottle of Shiraz, one box of Rose chocolates, a Lindt bar, a selection of crackers and some assorted cheeses. Somehow that got replaced with leftover soaps bought in bulk and his Y-fronts that Ailie found ever so hilarious and apparently found ever so hilarious to send to my wife. He was hugely apologetic and embarrassed, stating that he’d pay us the cost towards the lost items.
I was raging at this point but I tried to be collected and said “right, let me talk to Ailie again please” and he got her on the line. I told her that she had the chance to make it right and she blew it, and she groaned and told me that Eliza’s jealousy has crippled our friendship and she was sick of having to flatter her insecurities. I said no, you ARE Eliza’s insecurities and we rowed for a bit. Eventually it ended with me saying that this had been building up for a while and that her attitude had been giving Eliza grief for years. Ailie said “none of this would be happening if Eliza knew how to take a joke” and I just told her that a joke isn’t ruining her wedding dress and then sending her your husband’s stinky Y-fronts. She said I sold out my principles for a girl who’s threatened by other women.
After the phone call Eliza was not so much hurt as she was confused at first, because she was wondering if there was a mix-up until I explained to her the “joke”. She seemed pretty much resigned to the idea that Ailie would always be a shit, and I told her the likelihood of that happening was very slim considering she’s cut me off for standing up for her. I think the counselling has made us stronger and in a weird way I’m glad this happened. Because if your friendship falls apart the moment you try to protect your loved ones, then they probably weren’t that strong friendships at all. Shame I won’t be speaking to Ewan from now on, he’s a top lad.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Material_Cellist

I just hope that you finally feel stupid and YOU APOLOGIZE AND MAKE IT UP TO YOUR WIFE.
How the fuck didn’t you know your friend was bullying your wife is beyond me.

OOP

I have apologised to Eliza, multiple times. I should have been more assertive with Ailie and told her to cut her shit out then. I’m aware that this is entirely on me for being permissive towards someone who was really just being a bully towards my wife. Am trying to do better.

~
mixedmeat

Im glad youre seeing the light, but WHY were you permissive before? why was it only now did you finally believe her and confront Ailie? Did you like the attention? Was it easier to dismiss your wife's concerns as being petty over a crush than to critically consider her feelings and the situation? Also, don't you still work with Ailie?

OOP

I think it was because I saw it as “lost in translation” - like it was something that worked with me and Ailie but didn’t with her, and assumed that she would figure that it was the sort of banter we encouraged and join in at some point.
Eliza’s from a very sincere, straightforward family that say what they mean and don’t necessarily make jokes like I do. The whole idea would be lost on them and they would be really confused and upset thinking that we were actually insulting each other. Eliza’s brother nearly jumped me once just because I said “that’s plenty” when she was rambling on a little (that’s a Still Game reference for the transatlantic pals across the world). I like it when she rambles, I think it’s cute and it’s a running joke between us. But he found it so personally offensive though, like he thought that I was just telling her to put a sock in it and started ranting at me for disrespecting his sister like that. Eliza started hiding her face in shame, it was that extreme a reaction.
I think I should have been paying more attention though. Eliza told me that when she’s tried to chat to her Ailie’s just been like “I don’t do small talk” and they’ve sat in complete silence. Apparently when she tried to chat at another time she was totally noncommittal and yawned so loud that it woke up our dog. I only found this out recently because Eliza didn’t want to inconvenience me and I feel so ashamed of my behaviour. I felt like there was just crossed wires but Ailie really was bullying Eliza and finding creative ways to essentially make her uncomfortable and squeeze her out of our dynamic. I don’t know why or how she thought any of that was appropriate but it’s irrelevant as my wife should never be scared of telling me how she really feels.
Yeah I work with Ailie. That is a complication that I hadn’t considered. I wouldn’t worry about her causing drama in the workplace because she values her job greatly but I wouldn’t be surprised about some passive aggressive attitude being thrown my way. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens but I’m uninterested in any form of reconciliation if she’s going to be that disrespectful.

ADDITIONAL INFO FROM OOP

The reason that Ailie is out my life is because I raised the point in the first place. That’s more to do with her than me or my passivity. And yeah I’m aware it was a problem, you’re damn right it was a problem, but it feels like even when I’m trying to right the wrong I’m getting a finger wagging really. I don’t mind criticism but at this point it feels a bit like I’m getting blows for new reasons.
I didn’t pick up on Ailie’s shitty behaviour before, I felt like it was crossed wires at first but the reason why she isn’t talking to me is because I told her off for treating Eliza like shit to begin with. I should have done it long ago, I acknowledge that, but let’s not start fantasising about a future where I’ll just welcome her back in with open arms for treating my wife like that. It’s not going to happen because I want a future with Eliza much more than I want a pal to have lunch with. I’ve messed up, I know I have and I want to change it. Let’s just be moving forward.

OOP when asked if the underwear was his

I didn’t. I stopped fancying Ailie in 2012 after she said she was taken. I didn’t sleep with her and I don’t really care for that kind of speculation, it’s just untrue and adds more fuel to the fire. People come across this stuff irl and it just exacerbates problems.
Eliza came across one of the videos about my post on YouTube or TikTok and it stirred up a lot of painful feelings, especially reading about your reactions. She was shocked that I sought online advice, because I usually try to handle things by myself. She was more shocked by the comments, that were overwhelmingly on her side. It helped her acknowledge how shitty and awful everything done to her had been and we had a long talk about it.
I’ve agreed not to talk to Ailie, as she is clearly only interested in causing trouble for a cheap laugh. I mentioned the situation to HR (even the stinky underpants) and they said they’d speak to her and keep an eye on any potential developments but so far no trouble. As far as I know Ailie’s been having lunch with another colleague and I now go down to a neighbouring cafe to grab a baked potato. Whenever I’ve been in her vicinity she’s just mumbled “alright” so I’m guessing there were some words (between her and HR I mean).

OOP on how his wife is doing

She’s doing well. So far, so good. We had a really successful couple’s counselling session and it opened my eyes towards so much of my behaviour, and how I was essentially permitting bad behaviour for so long. I realised that it was because investing in something emotionally heavy or even just a problem makes me really anxious, so I try to distance myself from conflict. It used to be whenever my relatives fought, they would sort of figuratively pull at me like a ragdoll into taking their side, and that behaviour upset me so much that any sort of conflict was offputting to me.
But I realised that when I essentially do that, I leave problems completely unsolved and cause my loved ones pain due to my own anxieties. So if someone is mistreating someone I love, I’m not in their corner like I should be. A big part of these counselling sessions is figuring out how to manage accountability and not just being like “oh it’s my childhood, blah blah blah” and stepping up the mantle into making things right. Me and Eliza now do daily check ins, like how are you feeling today, how are you managing that, is there anything you’re not happy about and what can be done to help you. So far it’s been really helpful, as She seems in much better spirits and we’ve been having date nights again, which is great. Asides from the occasional disagreement, things genuinely have improved.
As for Ailie, well things haven’t changed much, but luckily the work situation has been tolerable. I’m surprised how much I like eating outside work, tbh. Can’t stand the canteens, the food is shite

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP