🪞 “It's much easier to get in that it is to get out,” Emilie Autumn used to say. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.1 - Part 4.2
She was not wrong. Welcome back to the Asylum write-up!
In this installment, we're finally getting down to the nitty-gritty of the enmity between EA and her fans.
It's time for war. It's time for blood. It's time... for tea. 🎵

THE PRESENT DAY: “ASK ME ANYTHING (WELL, NOT QUITE)”

​

"Ask me anything" titles are catchy, and that’s why I’m using one. But, obviously, don’t ask me anything, by which I mean that, if you think I wouldn’t answer it, you’re probably right. Ask me something really good. I’d love to answer you. I’d love to have comments on these posts, in fact, so that I could answer questions there regularly and ask you things as well, but insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, or so Einstein is supposed to have said, and attempting to create yet another interactive online venue after every previous attempt has ended in heartbreak—forums, facebook groups, social media accounts—it would indeed be insanity to think that this time would be any different. So there are no comments. This too is heartbreaking in the sense that, and you may not realize this, but I desperately want to connect more completely with you—to be able to intelligently converse and share and exchange. We can do that in person, of course, because the wrong people never show up in person. Isn’t that funny… So, perhaps we’ll have to arrange that;). I’ll start you off with an example question I’d want to know if I were you (I can almost guarantee that you do not want to know this). Q. Hey EA, how do you keep your wireless bodypack transmitter secure when you are leaping about in skimpy costumes and doing frequent costume changes? Also, dye your roots. A. Fantastic question, EA, and I just dyed my roots thank you very much. ... (Deleted blog post followed by a year of radio silence, 2022 📝)

Sooo. For the past five-ish years, the vibe in the Asylum has been that of a protracted Christmas dinner where everyone is tensely moving their food around in their plate, bracing themselves for whatever will trigger the screaming match. Wondering what it's going to be this time. Weary old-timers make small talk about the food because no other topic feels safe. Every glance, every forced smile, is fraught with eons-old grudges and unspoken regrets; every nervous pleasantry sounds like a thinly-veiled accusation. Aunt Emilie always insists on hosting, but not-so-secretly hates having people over. Sooner or later, she finds a way to get all of these assholes out of her house. Most of the adult children are daydreaming about going no-contact.
Everyone ready for some dysfunctional family history?
CW for discussion of bullying, online harassment, mental illness stigma.

YE OLDEN DAYS: CUCKOOS OF A FEATHER NEST TOGETHER

In the beginning, it was beautiful.
EA had the excellent instinct to start banking on her online presence📝 long before MySpace was even a thing. She had a website, several online stores, an active LiveJournal and a ProBoards forum right from the turn of the millennium.
In 2004, she attached an official forum to her website; the earliest archive shows 74 registered users. By the time Opheliac came out in 2006, that number had grown tenfold. And it was, by most accounts, a pretty dope place to be! (I should specify that this write-up focuses on the anglophone side of the fandom: there were also thriving fan-run communities in at least German, French, and Spanish. Because EA doesn't speak any of those languages, the lucky bastards were mostly left alone.)
Forum users enjoyed interacting with some of EA's closest IRL friends and associates – and with the mistress of the house herself (user flair: PsychoFiddler), when she occasionally responded to comments under her own posts. But that wasn't even the main appeal for many. For a long time, on top of all EA-related topics, the official forum had very active “Off-Topic” subforums, with lively and friendly conversation on a variety of subjects. (There was even a “Filthy Libertines (18+)” sub for a while, which was closed due to preemptive concerns about minors.) Swear words (not slurs) were allowed and encouraged, and moderation was overall pretty loose beyond basic enforcement of civility. There was a lot of mutual support, creativity, and solid banter going around.

It wasn't just about Emilie on the forums. People could chat about almost anything with near free reign, making connections and lifelong friends. ... This community mattered SO MUCH to people. They felt included, accepted, and understood within the walls of the Asylum. People invested their time and creative energy into keeping the forums a vibrant, active community, and made sure that carried over into the real world. ... I've never seen anything like it in a fan space. I doubt I ever will again. (@Asylum_Oracle - “Fandom History” Instagram highlight 🔍📝, which contains most of the sources for this segment.)

And it did, indeed, carry over into the real world. There were numerous meet-ups – a few organized by EA, many more spontaneous. People who didn't know any other EA fans in real life, or were just excited to add new Plague Rats to their friend group, would regularly connect with other forum users from their area to meet up and hang out before EA shows. “Who else is dressing up??”
In 2008, for instance, EA held an afternoon meet-up at Lincoln Park in Chicago. 📺 The event was free to attend; it featured live acoustic music and a reading from EA's upcoming book, the intriguingly-titled Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls.
On the appointed day, EA rolled up in a fabulously tousled red wig, bedazzled white corset and steampunk-altered wedding dress. She had brought friends alongs. Sporting blue hair and a pink bustle and corset was her Chicago bestie, the main forum admin. Rocking a guitar and a top hat was EA's sound engineer, the soft-spoken wizard behind the Victoriandustrial sound, who was also a forum mod. The photographer from the original Opheliac cover art was there as well; he was formally introduced by EA and got his own round of applause.

People who would never normally be involved in an artist's fanbase were in EA's world. And not only were they known – they were respected and incredibly active with the fanbase. These people who managed an online message board were willing to engage in real-world meet-ups (with no security??) because of how tight-knit the community they had built was. People turned out to this event. People traveled to go to this event. It was a short reading of a book that hadn't been released yet, and wouldn't be for some time. Why? Because not only was it a chance to meet Emilie and listen to parts of the new book, but it was also a chance to hang out with their friends from the Asylum. ... The fandom really was a family for a lot of people. (@Asylum_Oracle)

“SERIOUSLY, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE.”

It all started with The End.
The End Records, that is! Quick refresher: in 2009, after three years or so with Trisol, EA split from the label over allegations that the owner was embezzling money from ticket sales. A few months later, she signed with The End Records. Understandably, EA still wanted to sell the album that had made her famous, and to which she had smartly retained the rights – which meant a brand new, “Deluxe” release of Opheliac. (Remember, from part 3? The one you could pre-order as a bundle with the book? Some projects are just cursed, I guess.)
At that point, Opheliac had been released three times already, as recently as the year before, with only slight variations in format and tracklist. (Yes, that is a theme in this story.) The End Records version would feature new cover art and a handful of new tracks, but overall, it was... you know... the same album.
(The following paragraphs are largely sourced from this excellent recap 🔍📝, which also provides potato screenshots for all quotes.)
One fateful day of August 2009, a user started a thread entitled “Opheliac US edition deluxe re-release??” in the “EA News” subforum. In the thread, some people were kind of balking at the re-do, pondering whether to buy the “new” Opheliac or sit this one out. Some expressed that after three years, they were jonesing for a new album. Others shared what B-sides or dream covers they would have liked to see included on the bonus disc. Just... fans being fans, in a fan discussion space.
And then EA jumped out from behind the curtains.

Fan: Okay. Before I start, I just want you to know that I think it's very good that EA is getting more popularity, and that she can release lots of albums, but - are 5 editions of the same album really needed? You may say now “ah, it's not the same, it has 2 bonus tracks” or whatever, but I mean: it's not new material. Now don't get me wrong. I'm happy for it, maybe I'll even buy it, but I'm just wondering if she shouldn't keep herself busy with other (maybe more important) stuff? * hides * EA: Nobody's forcing you to buy it. Thanks.

Record scratch.

Fan 1: is this Opheliac release version number 4? lol If she's recording NEW tracks, then surely they deserve to be sold by themselves, otherwise people are going to have to buy an album that they may have already bought twice (like me!). But... alas, I am a fool and adore everything this woman does... im buying it lol Fan 2: exactly – if it was just reissuing the last version of Opheliac to tap into new markets that would be fine (...) but if they start adding extra bits of material to albums people already have then the true muffins are going to feel obliged to buy new copies (...) EA: How exactly are you obliged to buy anything? Nobody is forcing you to spend a fucking penny, my dears. I suppose it would make more sense to you to simply not have my records available any more as the old label I just escaped from will no longer be distributing them? Forgive me for adding extra tracks. No obligation necessary.

...Okay, so I'm pretty sure that we can see both sides of the argument here. Fans are annoyed at the idea of spending money on barely-anything-new, because they love EA and buy every single CD she releases. EA is exasperated by fans acting like she's twisting their arm and somehow resenting the inclusion of new material, when she was just ensuring that her album would remain available for purchase and trying to keep things interesting.
But maybe we can also agree that those replies should have been screamed into a pillow rather than typed out on a keyboard.
EA was getting increasingly (and, I'll just say it: disproportionately) sarcastic and defensive in her replies. Enter poor FantineDormouse.
FantineDormouse meant well, I think. Maybe she thought, she's spiraling. Maybe she thought, friends don't let friends go down that road. Granted, FantineDormouse probably should have known better than to phrase it the way she did. Or to assume that EA perceived her as a friend.
Either way, at some point, FantineDormouse jumped in and posted the comment that finally made EA lose it. THE comment which, overnight, ended the honeymoon period of the Asylum, triggering a doomsday domino effect from which the fandom would never truly recover. Are you comfortably seated?

FantineDormouse: Uhm, Emilie, love, I don't mean to sound rude or anything... but maybe you should have a cup of tea and relax a little.

...
* sound of archduke getting shot *

EA: Excuse me? You can throw this onslaught of absolute cruel bullshit at me and those I work with in my own space that I own, and I can't say anything back? How fucking patronizing. Relax? Are you fucking kidding me? Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? FD: I'm not trying to piss you off even more, Emilie. And trust me, I have to deal with it myself, and as much as I would really love to punch the cunts I have to deal with in the face, I don't. You're pissed off, I get it. You're bipolar, which makes it 10x worse, I get that. I'm just not the person to stand around and do nothing when a fight where I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of regret is going on.

Famous last words. Literally! Immediately after EA delivered her irate closing statement – which includes one of my all-time favorite EA zingers, bolded...

EA: I cannot believe this... You just don't stop, do you? So just because I've shared the personal information with you all that I happen to be bipolar, I can't get pissed off at all of you being perfectly awful in the very space that I pay fuckloads a month to have up (has it ever occurred to you all that I pay dearly for this space you play around in?) Why not just tell me that I must be upset because it's my time of the month? Seriously, get the fuck out of my house. You are unbelievable, and your level of patronization is almost criminal. Don't make me write another book. With muffins like you, who needs enemies? Nothing I say or feel is legitimate, not ever ever ever because I'm bipolar... discredited before I begin... unbelievable...

...FantineDormouse got permabanned.
Jaws dropped. After days of infighting between white knights, detractors, and crossfire negotiators, several mod resignations, and general mayhem surrounding the ban, EA made a post entitled “In Which: I Invite You to Make a Fucking Choice.” 📝 For brevity's sake (cue laugh track), I can't reproduce it in all of its righteous splendor, but it's quite a read. It runs the gamut from fair and articulate points about how mental illness shouldn't be used to discredit someone's legitimate anger... to histrionic commands that “deserters to the cause” should “turn in their weapons” if they can't handle her way of doing things.

To those of you who appear not to understand why said posts, most especially those of the banned party, were offensive to me, I give you the option to either educate yourselves on your own time and in your own space (because please never forget that this is my space that I share with all of you at my own expense, and in which I generally give you all the freedom I would wish for myself), or to resign your posts in the Asylum Army – this is not the place for you, and I humbly suggest that you turn your attention and support towards other artists of a more placid, non-controversial, and less opinionated nature; there are more than enough of them out there, and I’m sure they all have forums of their own.

Some fans did leave. Most stuck around, whiplashed. Soon, the storm quieted down, and business as usual resumed on the forum. But something had been damaged beyond repair. The FantineDormouse fiasco had erected walls and drawn lines in the sand, both around EA and among her fans; its sad specter would haunt every Asylum crisis that spiked up forever after. “Fucking Patronizing Fucking” or “FPF” 🔍 became memetic shorthand in the fandom for overreaction and self-righteousness. 🐀
...And now you understand why, in the following years, some fans were so delicate and diplomatic in voicing their very legitimate complaints about messed-up orders, unsigned books, and puzzling lies... while unofficial platforms like Tumblr flourished with pent-up resentment and snark. 🦠

A NOTE ON HARASSMENT: “MAD GIRL, CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO YOU?”

Wouldn't they stop When you asked them to leave you alone? (“Mad Girl”, 2008 🎵)

Now, let's be clear, because it should not be minimized: EA has also been the target of genuine online harassment. Based on the simple fact that she is a woman with a public presence on the internet, I have zero doubt that EA has received (and perhaps continues to receive) more than her share of truly vile, bigoted, creepy and threatening messages – and, knowing what I know about the darker recesses of the Asylum, a terrifying amount of emotional blackmail and obsessive projection from people who hold her to punitively high standards. I'm also inclined to believe that it started way before she ever did anything that warranted any backlash. And that fucking sucks. It's repulsive and inexcusable, and the people who harass her should crawl into a hole and live among the worms.
Notwithstanding. In my decade-plus of following EA drama, the public comments on EA's own platforms (where people knew she was likely to be reading) have been, for the most part... civil and nuanced, and relatively mindful of the human? Even very confrontational comments (some clearly written from a place of anger and desire to shame) rarely resorted to outright name-calling or cruelty. When abusive or bigoted language did crop up, it was often promptly shut down by other fans as gross and uncalled for. In short: I have, with mine own two eyes, in real time, read some of the comment sections that EA described as cesspools of blind rage and odious attacks, and... I just couldn't see it.
If anything, for a long time, a lot of the angry comments directed at EA during any given controversy read more like break-up letters to an ex-best friend: harsh, curt and targeted in a way that cuts deep.... but also kind of screams how much love you still have for this person, against your better judgement.
Not that it wouldn't mess a person up to get hundred of those in a matter of hours, even if they don't individually qualify as “abusive”.
It's worth noting that prior to becoming semi-famous and regretting it, EA was also (by her own account and among other forms of abuse) a victim of intense childhood bullying. It feels like the two situations are closely connected in her mind when her focus seamlessly transitions from one to the other. 📺 I don't think that tremor in her voice is put on.
Based on her writings, I get the feeling that over the years, EA has developed a very black-and-white view of two monolithic groups of people. There's (an idealized vision of) her “real audience”, well-dressed, well-read, kind-hearted, and Asylum-savvy, who she fully trusts to “get it” – and buy it, and love it, unquestioningly, whatever “it” may be at any given time – because that is the true measure of love and loyalty. These are the people she makes art and merch for, the people she writes heart-emoji-filled newsletters to, and desperately longs to see in person again.
And then there's the lynch mob, those who really don't “get it”: the trolls, the faceless creeps, the basement-dwelling mouthbreathers, the ones who stalk her every move obsessively, waiting for any chance to spam her with vicious abuse and slander and obscenities. The latter only exist online (they are manifested into arbitrary existence by the internet itself, not by anything EA said or did), and there is zero overlap between the two sets of people. That seems to be the official narrative.

The "public eye" isn't an [enviable] place to be, and the closer I've come to it, the more horrified I've been. Because, for starters, who is "the public?" Is "the public" my audience? Hell no. My audience is special. They are not the general public. If they were the general public I would be a lot wealthier. The "public eye" means getting stalked, harassed, viscously judged, and put in danger. If I do things in the future that gain notoriety, I will do them in spite of fame, not because of it. I am out for world domination, but not fame. (Interview for The Moaning Times, 2014 📝)

In real life (well, mostly online, but I mean: on this shared plane of existence), things play out slightly differently. The Venn diagram of “true blue fans” and “people who criticize EA" and "people who know way too much about EA” is a circle. The call is 100% coming from inside the Asylum, and I think EA rationally knows that. But here's the thing: no matter how many shows and meet-and-greets you've dressed up for, how many loving and supportive comments you've left, or how many family heirlooms you once pawned to purchase a copy of the not-for-sale 2003 DJ pressing of Enchant... the instant EA feels attacked, everyone is a saboteur and a bully until proven otherwise, and suspected treason is dealt with on the spot. One strike, you're out. Unfortunately for everyone involved, her threshold for bullying seems to be “any remotely thoughtless opinion from any stranger on the internet”.
It makes for outstanding human-interest entertainment... but it also sounds an awful lot like the unhealthy patterns of a person suffering from all sorts of PTSD. 🔍 So, please bear that in mind as you read through this write-up. It's easy to make EA out to be the sole villain, a paranoid and delusional drama queen, based on her extreme reactions to things that often “weren't that bad”. Anything can, in fact, be “that bad” when you're thrown back into the very worst moments of your existence every time your brain decides that the situation is even remotely similar.
PTSD takes over your rational mind and actively distorts your perception of reality. That can be how a person ends up impulse-reacting to “a few people expressing an unfavorable opinion” as if the entire internet had just ganged up on them with knives. Which makes their audience feel unjustly accused, which makes them hostile, which gives the person actual good reason to feel attacked... and so the cycle of hurt continues.

You know the games I play And the words I say When I want my own way You know the lies I tell When you've gone through hell And I say I can't stay You know how hard it can be To keep believing in me When everything and everyone Becomes my enemy, and when There's nothing more you can do I'm gonna blame it on you – It's not the way I wanna be I only hope that in the end You will see: It's the Opheliac in me... (“Opheliac”, 2006 🎵)

And YES, it is extremely regrettable to have this as a trigger, when you're a public figure and you're bound to receive more negative feedback than the average citizen. “It's what she signed up for”, “it comes with the territory” and all that jazz. I really don't think EA was unaware of that fact when she decided to become a musician, share her personal life, and form an intense parasocial bond with her audience. But maybe she underestimated how hard it would be to process and recover from.
Just because you expect something unpleasant to happen, doesn't mean your psyche will be ready to handle it when it does – or that you'll pick the best and most effective strategy to deal with it.

A MADHOUSE UNDER MARTIAL LAW: MARCHING INTO THE FORUM WARS

There are two sides to every story... except for this one! (“If I Burn”, 2012 🎵)

You may have noted the military imagery in EA's “Make a Fucking Choice” response post – “resign your post in the Asylum Army”! What do psychiatry and the military have in common? They're both institutions of top-down social control. 🔍 EA's mixed metaphor may be a bit clunky, but it did foreshadow the evolution of the Asylum – in terms of aesthetics and power dynamics – in the years that followed the FantineDormouse incident and the release of The Book.
EA's next big release after the Asylum book came in 2012. It was a new album, an outline of the soon-to-be Asylum musical, called Fight Like a Girl (FLAG for short). As the name suggests, the main mood was bellicose. Incidentally, in the interim years, EA's communication style generally became noticeably more combative, incendiary, and (within her own spaces) controlling.📝 You remember those quirky word filters on the forum, that would change “fan” to “muffin” and “bra” to “teacup holder”? They kind of took on a Nineteen-Eighty-Four-burlesque flavor when you realized that one filter automatically changed “Fischkopf” to “Liddell” - and that circumventing the rule to address her totally real last name would get you banned, as would any discussion of her family. (“Wikipedia, random internet sites and heresay are not credible sources.” - Mod reminder of forum rules, 2010.)
Also, you try sustaining a serious, grown-up conversation among concerned fans about how Emilie Autumn should “take ratsponsibility for her mistakes out of ratspect for her muffins”. Thus, the official Asylum forum kept a tight grip on overt criticism of EA's claims and actions.

The Emilie Autumn forum is a dystopian hell. Truth be told, when I decided to leave you could not do anything but gush about Emilie. Otherwise all of her extremist arse kissing fans will be down your throat, ripping you apart in seconds, if you so much as questioned her behaviour. So much for freedom of opinion, let alone the idea of creating a harmonious community for ‘outcasts’. Hahaha. (2014 🐀)

The word filter thing really wasn't a big deal – I'm just pointing it out as one goofy expression of EA's need to control the narrative and rhetoric, which became especially noticeable in those post-book, pre-FLAG years. By that point, EA's fuse had been shortened by near on half a decade of non-stop touring / recording / writing / promoting / adjusting to the pressure and demands of an ever-growing fanbase, while also dealing with a horrorshow of personal turmoil and health issues behind the scenes. In other words: she was done taking any shit, in any form, or humoring anyone's ridiculous feedback regarding anything.
To be fair, it was never her forte to begin with. Will it come as a shock if I tell you that EA doesn't have the greatest track record for successful collaborative work? Let's do a quick-cut montage!
EA's very first corporate sponsor was her mother's “Enchant Clothing & Costume” online store 🔍; she went on to claim that her mother was dead. She sessioned for Billy Corgan, that went super well. 🎵 She liked Courtney Love for a minute, but that didn't work out because she felt that Courtney only valued her for her pee. 📝 (It probably didn't help that in early 2006, while EA was recording her post-break-up-tell-all album about Corgan, C-Love was recording her post-rehab-redemption album with Corgan. 🔍 Either way, EA didn't seem to like Courtney anymore after that. Courtney likes her, though! 📝) The one artist EA has ever approached for a duet (and by approached, I mean she recorded a demo and threw the CD on stage when he played Chicago in 2004) was, of all people, Morrissey. That never came to pass, thank mercy 🔍 – this fandom has suffered enough. In 2005, EA recorded some haunting vocals and violins for a potential collab with the frontman of Attrition. When, three years later, they were used on one track 🎵 of Attrition's All Mine Enemies Whisper, she alleged 📝 that the recordings had been obtained from her under the false pretense of a different project, then hideously altered to sound “out of tune”, and used without her permission. She enlisted her fans to boycott the album and the band, and threatened legal action. Meanwhile, on LiveJournal and Attrition's message boards, band associates were appalled: according to them, EA had been aware of the project's nature from the start... and had been completely unreachable, even through her label, during the months of its development. (Besides, Attrition is a semi-obscure English darkwave band from the 80s, whose micro-distributed albums don't even have their own Wikipedia pages... so I wonder what EA was hoping to get out of that theoretical lawsuit. These people own nothing but vintage gain pedals!) The song “Cold Hard Cash” 🎤 by Angelspit (who contributed a remix to one of her EPs in 2008) may or may not be an EA diss track. 🐀 Back when indie jewelry brand RockLove (which now has licensing deals with Disney, Marvel, and DC) was still someone's bedroom project, their first drop was an EA-inspired collection 🔍, which appears in many early Opheliac photoshoots. The partnership was terminated on bad terms, for unclear reasons; the RockLove owner shared in a statement that EA had “drunk the cool-aid” of Trisol Guy's shady business practices, and that the two of them had been spamming her with “crazed angry message[s]” for days.
Why am I talking about this? Because it was precisely one such ill-fated business partnership that triggered the Great Asylum Secession.
One fine day of spring 2010, the owner of vegan make-up brand Aromaleigh popped onto the Asylum forum to announce that they were cutting ties with EA, with damning receipts of copy-pasted emails (lost to time). Basically, the brand had been sponsoring her for half a decade, and while Aromaleigh had been actively promoting her music and tours, EA hadn't exactly been returning the favor. (Indeed, the extent of EA's sponcon seemed to have been a banner link to their website on her front page, and a single “random drunken endorsement” LiveJournal post that kind of reads like satire📝, from 2005.)
EA responded by banning the owner's account, deleting the thread, and posting this flippant statement a few days later:

Dearest Plague Rats, To be honest, I have no idea of what the hell happened with Aromaleigh, and I don't care to find out – the whole drama is a complete mystery to me, as I've been away for months touring and have not been in contact with anyone. All I know is that I've been promoting the company for ages and have not asked them for anything in years. (...) Please focus on more interesting things. I am. (“Save the Drama...” forum post, March 2010)

Posts questioning her good faith in the conflict were deleted from the forum. Shortly thereafter, citing how prolific and labor-intensive the Asylum forum had grown, EA shut down all non-EA related subforums – which, among many other topics, included a pretty active thread about Aromaleigh products.
So one Plague Rat decided to create a separate, members-only forum 📝, where users could recreate some of the now-defunct off-topic threads... and also freely voice their critical opinions of EA's behavior without fear of backlash from mods or rabid stans. Thus, “The Reform” was born. (Reform [n]: amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved.)
For a few weeks, the two-state solution seemed to work fine. And then word spread among forum mods and other diehard fans that there was this horrid other forum, where obsessive haters gathered to spew disgusting lies and vitriol about EA... and soon enough, it was bedlam in the Asylum.
Any explicit mention of the Reform was forbidden on the Asylum forum. Suspicion of participation in the Reform would get you banned. The party line was that The Reform was the enemy 🐀 – even though a number of people were active on both forums, because they liked freedom of expression almost as much as they liked EA. Double agents would lurk on the forum and report back with snark material; sycophants would infiltrate the Reform to identify traitors – much to the amusement of the “haters”, who mocked them and their ilk for “licking EA's pink sparkly boots”. There was no containing the seething, or the sass, among Asylum ranks.
Pretty soon, the insubordination spread to Tumblr. There was the “Ask the Reform” Q&A blog, where questioning fans could interact with “Rebel Rats”, get more details on past drama, and make up their own minds about the people EA called bullies.
And then, there were the “confession blogs”, which published anonymous submissions about EA, positive, negative or neutral, with little censorship. Finally, you didn't even have to pick a throw-away username on a private forum to voice your hottest / strangest / most controversial EA takes. Fans could vent, rant, lament, wonder, shitpost to their heart's content, anonymously. Obviously, given the context of frustration and censorship in the fandom, a lot of the first waves of confessions were EXTREMELY negative.
EA's acolyte Veronica managed to get the first one shut down. If memory serves, she misunderstood the confession blog format, and may have believed that all the posts on “Emilie Autumn Confessions” came from one or a small group of individuals. She was genuinely devastated, and wrote the blog admin to let them know that they were a terrible person who said terrible things. The admin was mortified, apologized profusely and deleted the blog of their own initiative. (Which goes to show that the concept did not come from cruel and malicious anti-fans, as detractors often claimed.)
But a new blog sprung up almost immediately, with a different mod team, and did not surrender. And much like in EA's own book, once the Plague Rats found out that they possessed the gift of speech... well, they really took to it.
Established in 2011 and passed on through generation after generation of mod teams to the present day, Wayward Victorian Confessions would turn out to be the longest-lived institution in the EA fandom. For over a decade now, through all the bleakest nights and dankest debacles of the Asylum, and despite its initial reputation as a troll den, WVC has acted as a kind of neutral ground and vox populi for the active fanbase and anti-fanbase. (The last nominally-active EA fansite to date, She Fights Like a Girl, is actually an offshoot of WVC: one of the old admins created it as a database to answer “frequently asked questions” about EA.)
Wayward Victorian Confessions has now outlived every other EA platform, official and unofficial. Were it not for the continued existence of the “troll den”, what little fan community survives in 2024 would be non-existent, plain and simple. To quote from late 20th century Canadian philosophy: isn't it ironic?

I feel like [WVC] is the only place I feel any of that old Asylum community kind of feeling I felt before EA got so focused on the book. It sucks that it’s so full of unhappiness, and I wish she hadn’t poisoned the sanctuary she claimed to have built. It’s just kind of fallen apart, like a crumbling building. (🐀 2016)

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

I was a good thing going with occasional gigs and some songwriting awards, back from 2010-2013. I put out an album at the end of 2010 and I sold enough copies that it was certified cardboard.
Then ... I had a kid, and focused on that and my day job. I started writing again last year, and I am putting out a new album (been saving up).
I have no following anymore - maybe a few folks will come back. When I put out my last record, CDs were pretty much dead but I printed a bunch anyway (still got many hundreds hanging around). This is how long ago it was - Myspace was still (barely) a thing. I'm not a young guy, and I don't have delusions of grandeur. I'd just like to see if anybody likes my music, I guess.
I'm going to re-release my record using CDBaby, and I've put it up on Youtube. But man, I don't know how to do this now. Used to be I could play a few open mikes and I'd pick up a gig from those, and then from word of mouth. But there aren't that many venues for folk/country near me, and open mikes are even fewer.
I'm thinking about just doing a bunch of live songs on Youtube and seeing if that gets me anywhere. Obviously I need to revamp my website, but ... what else do I need to be doing?
(No links or anything unless you want them - I'll put that shit in the promotion thread. calibuildr, you tell me if I need to delete this and put elsewhere).

So I don't know about y'all, but I didn't believe in original ideas. If three different people can all discoveinvent (?) non-Euclidean geometry at\ the same time with zero information exchanged, then clearly "it steam-engines when it's steam engine time" and the entire concept of an entrepreneurial endeavor is a joke. Whatever idea I have has already been done, almost certainly by someone with more startup capital, and the only difference between a successful business and a failure is which one had better financing. Right?
Well, clearly we don't all think that or we wouldn't be here, but I couldn't find any flaw in my (admittedly pessimistic) logic. Even The Torah says, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." (Kohelet 1:9) (No, I'm not Jewish... but citing the bible on Reddit draws the wrong sort of attention for a girl like me.) My excuse is that I'm a software developer. The great thing about living at this specific moment in history with my specific skills is that you don't need an original idea. You just need to re-implement an existing idea in a way that is faster, better or more.
That's what I thought when I was younger, at least. I just had my 23rd birthday last August though (admittedly, not for the first time, although pretty sure this was true for that one as well), so I don't believe in fairy tales anymore. I saw friendster come and go, I saw myspace come and go, I saw facebook come and... hmm wait a minute...? Why isn't Facebook going the way of the others? Well, it turns out that every market niche has a critical mass. The internet finally had enough users that the dominant social network could become entrenched, because the startup capital to beat it is so great that no one will ever want to spend it.
Ah but before you give up and go to bed early tonight, let me tell you the dirty little secret that nobody in our rock'n'roll society wanted to tell us: "Cynicism sucks."
I imagine a lot of people had a different answer they wanted to see there. I'm pretty sure I heard u/I_like_learning_ coughing in the back, trying to get someone else to say "market disruptors." Exactly the sort of answer that someone whose Reddit avatar has perfect hair would say, but perfect hair doesn't make him incorrect. The fact is that the rate of technological change is increasing, and the rate of the increase is increasing, and ad infinitum. Right now, it seems like a technology comes around about every 10 years to change the world in a meaningful way. In my line of work, it's not too hard to pin down a progression that looks like "Personal Computer -> Laptop -> Internet -> Smartphones -> Social Networks -> ..." Of course, the trick isn't to see where we've been... it's to see where we're going.
I imagine that everyone in this group could nail the next market disruptor, although many would have been hard-pressed to do so last August when I lost my job. As with so many other breaks I've had, this one just happened to fall lucky (through no device of my own, I can assure you) and leave me interested in the right thing at the right time. I've been out of work for nine months now, but that's given me plenty of time to learn more than most people will ever want to know about AI technology as it is currently being implemented. I've thought of two or three ideas which might be marketable but are probably being done already... and one original idea, which is probably unique but not something I can develop alone quickly enough to support myself.
I wonder though... Maybe somebody with an entrepreneurial streak has a great concept for how to use the technology in an interesting way. Or maybe several entrepreneurs are working on their own ideas and just need minor modifications and customizations made to existing technology so it is specified to their purposes. Maybe somebody just needs an expert to check in on their website once a month. Or maybe you just want to bounce ideas around? It's cool, I'm down for any of it.
This has already gone on quite a bit longer than I'd intended, as with almost everything I write. Unedited Stephen King, eat your heart out. Regardless, I'd love to hear your ideas, thoughts, feelings and dreams, either in the comments or in chat. Let's see if we can put our heads together and change the world...
[Note: The editorial staff of Amanda's Brain apologize in advance for the inconsistent tone, uncertain thesis and under-developed conclusion of this piece. In retrospect, we feel it is likely that the "anonymous" manuscript submitted to the Pre-Frontal Cortex in the dead of night is directly related to the unexpected dissapearance of all neurons responsible for "toilet humor" and "quoting Kafka" that same night, and possibly connected to a series of deaths in and around PreOptic Hypothalamus which is being investigated by regions of the Fronto-Parietal. The AB staff will continue to monitor these stories and pledge to keep you informed. -The Editors]

The discourse surrounding TTPD has been really interesting and I've noticed a lot of commentary regarding lyrics that feel "unpolished", emotions that seem "immature", and the age-old refrains from people who have a problem with her making art out of her relationships. I just wanted to take a moment to talk about all of this and see if other people here feel the same.
Personally, I fully believe that people recognize authenticity, even if it's subconscious. So many people ask why Taylor has the strong following that she does and it's because she's an incredibly talented and hard working artist....it's also because we can feel what she's feeling through her work, and those feelings are often things we have experienced ourselves. My heart literally broke for her, and for my former self while listening to this album. This is the power of art. Taylor gives voice and clarity to our own emotions, she's the publicly appointed poet laureate of modern love.
It was one thing to write diaristic, autobiographical songs about her love life when she was younger and less famous but here she is, still doing it despite being one of the most famous people in the world. Despite knowing that millions of people will pick apart every single line and hold it up to a microscope. Despite it being decidedly unflattering this time around. That takes a great deal of courage. She didn't have to tell us about him, she could have chosen to let the narrative lie but instead she gave us an Anthology documenting the whole messy thing and you know what?
I've been there. Have you?
How many people have found themselves in her position? Did her stories make you feel less alone? Less guilty, maybe? Did they help you process something in your own life? Not only is TTPD full of raw, real, human experiences, it's her most vulnerable writing to date. It's almost a celebration of vulnerability. She even told US how she felt about the wildly hyperbolic backlash surrounding MH and I can't imagine how that must have felt in the moment, given that she's expressed fear regarding this subject before.
I have no doubt that she also writes all of this for herself. In her IG post she said: "This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page" and I have always felt the same. There is something incredibly cathartic about getting it all out on to the page and then sending it out into the ether - I think every Millennial knows this (thank you MySpace and FB circa the early 2000s). The only thing more powerful is when you send it out into the universe...and the universe shouts back "girl, saaaame!"
All of this is to say....our most beloved artists throughout history made art this way. Taylor has always called to mind a modern-day Virginia Woolf for me. If Taylor were a man, people would praise her for maintaining her relatability. They would say "wow, such an act of bravery to be so vulnerable in front of the whole world." They would recognize her sly humor, her sincerity, and call her a genius for all of her intricately woven themes and motifs. You want to see this paradigm in action? Go look at how people talk about the 1975's music and Matty Healy's writing. Taylor is a much better writer than he is and I could find other examples but it feels extra poignant to use him to make this point.
But here we are....actual news outlets are writing stories about how she's "too" honest, and "too vulnerable" on this record. Fans are complaining similarly.
I, for one, hope she continues to tell us her stories as long as it serves her. They have helped me through a lot, and I hope that writing them has helped her through it all as well.
This was a really long post, thanks for reading and please share your thoughts.

Hello all! This is the start continuation of our AMA series and I honestly don't know how it will go but lets try.
Welcome LT, not only the head of a record label you are probably familiar with but also the creator of probably a bunch of projects you were unaware were related. LT will be will be here all weekend between working on gnome things to answer your questions.
I will find more times I wrote about one of the projects from LT but this is a good time to post an article and interview I did with them a few years ago.

I started Dungeons Deep as a way to promote my own project at the time, Forgotten Land. I would have been about 21 years old. I used to chat with a small circle of other musicians at the time via Myspace and email. Soon after, I began offering their music for sale as CD-Rs in DVD cases which was a pretty popular format at the time for underground labels. Myspace used to be a wealth of new music promotion, much like Bandcamp. I’d argue that countless releases have forever been forgotten due to Myspace going defunct. One artist I worked with but never officially released was Morgan the Bard who was a great musician that sadly has since passed away. Morgan The Bard can still be found on Youtube. I don’t think a lot of the old music on the label would appeal to many modern DS fans today as it is all very minimal and amatuer (keep in mind bedroom digital production techniques were fairly new in the mid 2000’s). As far as I remember this was always an online scene and most people I had contact with were from Canada. Forgotten Land and Dungeons Deep Records was entirely anonymous for a long time and I went by the pseudonym “Lord Tetrarch.” It was only in recent years did I attach myself personally to both entities. - Dark Stone Corridors

The rest of the article is just LT telling their DS story and me removing my questions since I thought it would be a weird way to write an article.
Also for a comfy synth article I mentioned Grandma's Cottage which historically is a comfy synth pioneer.

In December of 2019, a series of debut records were released all with the same focus on sentimentality. Grandma’s Cottage by Grandma’s Cottage, Little Ones Journey by Tiny Mouse, Sleep Well by The Friendly Moon, and Childhood Memories by Childhood Memories all felt like they came from the same universe but were all seemingly unrelated and unconnected. This period, which spanned from December 6th to December 21st 2019, coincided with the holiday season and would prove to be the point of inception for comfy synth. Grandma’s Cottage would be posted on the Dungeon Synth Archives Channel on Christmas day and, as of this writing, has over forty thousand views. Comfy synth would soon enter into the largest year of production, which is directly contrasted with a year of lockdowns, anxiety, and isolation for most of the world. While it would be easy to imagine the music from a period of global pandemic to be grim and haunting, many fantasy ambient artists decided to stay indoors and make music about those adorable tea drinking mice. -Naive Magic #9

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.

Well, Skychi isn't here so I guess I'll give it a try...
1.) Shoving MTX down our throats

There will never be a time where the RuneScape community will be excited about MTX related updates. Posting them in a manner as if we are going to love it will never be received well (As learned with the Hero Pass). If you think the community is overreacting then go drop that stuff in OSRS and see how well that goes. The outcome would make the Falador massacre look like a picnic.

2.) BONUS XP EVERYWHERE

Everywhere I look I'm getting lamps, Keys, Proteans, Dummies, Stars, Etc. The only popular place in RuneScape 3 are the banks because that's where you get the fastest xp. How sad is that? Every person you see killing a dummy or skilling with a dummy is someone who would be out in the big world of RuneScape killing something, Interacting with actual content is now spending their day at a bank for FASTER XP. It's making the worlds look empty and hurting the game.

3.) DXP WEEKENDS 4x A YEAR?

I don't have to add much here. Lets simmer it down please. 2x a year was enough.

4.) NOT ENOUGH SKILLING BOSSES

OSRS has some of the coolest skilling bosses. Why can't RS3? We have better graphics, We have more skills we could turn into bosses. Cro was a huge success and loved by many, Why not continue that? A 2007 version of this game shouldn't be doing it better.

5.) WHERE ARE THE MINIGAMES?

Back in the day I remember minigames being some of the mains reasons I was playing all day. Why did we give up on them? Why haven't we done POLLS with content ideas to revive some of the ones we have? Maybe minigames would help players relax from grinding XP at BANKS to do something fun and enjoy the game again.

6.) WHERE ARE THE POLLS?!

Why can't we vote on content? Why can't we vote on what "Game Jam" project we want? If people are voting most of us aren't aware of it. I shouldn't have to join discords, Reddits, Twitter (X), Facebook, Myspace (lolol) to figure out what's going on. Add Poll booths and let the players vote. A 2007 version of this game shouldn't be doing it better.

7.) MORE FASHIONSCAPE CHOICES PLEASE

The community is not against getting more FashionScape choices. We are against HOW we have to get them. Let us earn them. Add another currency similar too Loyalty Points but instead of membership based let it be playtime based. Hourly, Daily, Etc. That we can purchase cosmetics by playing the game, This will help everyone not look the same. Do NOT turn this into an MTX thing or this whole idea will be ruined.

8.) MOBILE NEEDS UPDATES

I personally play only on Desktop but I meet a TON of players who play on mobile. I asked them what issues they have an have been told Crashing seems pretty common on mobile. I was told occasional freezing on mobile. Mobile also needs love as a lot of people play on it! don't forget about our mobile players!

9.) Climbing enrages

This feels like a mechanic meant to waste your time. We want normal easy to understand drop rates back like OSRS has. The enrage climbing increments feel so tiny and it doesn't feel fun at all. I feel like when I'm killing Arch Glacor for reaper If I'm not at 50+ streak I'm wasting my time. This is an annoying grind that is not fun. I feel like I'm gambling.

10.) ABILITY UI, BUFFS & DEBUFFS UI IS CLUNKY

I feel like when I have a ton of buffs and debuffs active it takes up a huge chunk of my screen. The ability bars, Buffs & Debuffs looks clunky and confusing. I feel like If I was a new player I would be very overwhelmed. I feel like my screens looks more and more like WoW.

11.) BETTER COMBAT & ABILITY TUTORIALS

I feel like unless you're The RS Guy understanding what abilities to use. When to use them or How to use them is something that will take you years to understand. It also feels like a chore.

12.) COMBAT/SKILLING ACHIEVEMENTS

I've asked a ton of people about "Things wrong with RuneScape" and this one was mentioned a ton of times. Players love achievements. They love chasing goals. I think OSRS has done this very well (Seems to be a common theme). Maybe add more in-game rewards for completing a tier system of achievements. A cool cape with useful perks? A cool reward to add to our houses? (MAKE POH'S GREAT AGAIN!). A new tool, Outfit An Attachment to weapons? Gear?, The ideas are endless. You could even add a new pet tied to these achievements. Help us create goals!

13.) QUEST

I personally love quest. (It was my first ever 99 style cape) We need harder, more memorable quest. Bring Grandmaster Quest back. Some of my best memories from years ago are when I completed "Mourning's End Part II". This quest literally took me TWO week's back in the day. I remember the first time I ever completed "One Small Favour" and hated whomever named it "One Small Favour". The correct name would of been "100 Small Favours". I still enjoyed it for the memories it left me.

"While Guthix Sleeps" is another amazing quest. It released a fairly tough new mob but with amazing rewards. "Rocking Out" was another really fun quest. I remember the first time I fought "Nomad" in "Nomad's Requiem" and he beat the living Guthix (RIP Guthix) out of me.
"Monkey Madness", "Recipe For Disaster", "Fairy Tale I,II,III", "Dragon Slayer", "The Fremennik Isles & Trials" all of these plus many more have changed the game as we know it. The Myreque quest series had the coolest looking areas to me back in the day. I love the vampire theme quest (I know most people didn't lmao).
14.) Customer Service

This has been an issue since day 1 of RuneScape. How this hasn't gotten better is unacceptable. Customer Service only exist to Big streamers/Youtubers & everyone knows it. Jagex needs to be more transparent. More open with its players. (This is also an issue in OSRS) which means this is a company wide issue and not a specific game issue.

15.) More Q&A's

I could add this to a few above but I think it deserves it's own spot. Players know what's wrong with RuneScape. Players have fantastic ideas about what they want and some of them have even taken the liberty to sort of create examples of it (I.E The RS Guy making an combat achievement system idea). I've been in the Q&A's before and the ideas players pitched were amazing for the most part. Some quality of life updates, New ideas. ETC. This brings back the needing Polls issue that OSRS uses that seems to be doing very well.

**MORE FEEDBACK!

Please post anything else you feel is wrong with RuneScape below. Let's help shine a light on things we want improved on. This thread was created to create discussion in the community to help better our game that we all love and enjoy. Remember to be kind.

**THANK YOU >Developers, Artist, Writers, ALL who work at Jagex*.* We thank you for your continued hard word, Dedication, Your endless talent spent on a game we all love and enjoy. Thank you to all the Streamers/Youtubers who continue to shine light on this game (Both versions) helping it grow and helping shine lights on issue players have.
**FROM Ezle >Depending how well this does (or doesn't do) we could potentially create a part II of "Things wrong with RuneScape". I asked clanmates, People in W2, W84, Wars Retreat, Banks, Etc. That's how this list was created.
P.S: I apologize for any spelling errors, Incorrect punctuation, Run on sentences as I'm writing this while grinding Trimmed Comp reqs and have half lost my mind XD

April 8th, 2008
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Which are you supposed to "want" more: someone you dated ending up with a guy you think is more awesome than you, or less awesome?
In a vacuum, I would think less awesome, because then you could be like, "she traded down." But that means she has bad taste. Or that she, herself, sucks. And you loved her. And that’s bad.
I guess the ideal, and the thing that happens to me more often than not, is my ex ends up with someone that is a similar physical and/or personality type to me. And it’s weird that THAT’S better. There doesn’t seem to be any logic to these feelings. But I feel most comfortable, I think, breaking up with a girl, and then hearing that she’s dating Dan Harmon 2, or, as I call him, Ewan McGregor. Just kidding. Fred Belford. Okay Patton Oswalt.
Maybe the thing that’s comfortable about that is the continued security that you DID know this partner intimately. You were "with" them, and that’s them over there now that they’re not with you, and you’re you, and she loved you, and you loved her, and it didn’t work, and she’s doing something you understand. She wasn’t crazy and she wasn’t hiding or suppressing some vital piece of information about what it is that they really wanted.
And I guess for that reason, it’s ALSO comfortable to break up with someone, and then hear that they’re with douchey/fratty/banker guy, because first of all, those guys are always good for an honest handshake and a "right on, bra, nice to meet my girl’s ex," and second of all, you can just write them off as generic or even idealized men, and your girl ending up with one doesn’t surprise you. It doesn’t catch you off guard and raise all kinds of alarming and embarrassing questions. It just means she finished eating a plate of spaghetti and now she’s having a corn dog, or vice versa. It is what it is.
I have had exes that have ended up with my friends, I have had exes that have ended up with my enemies, I have had exes that have ended up with people I have to look at on TV, I have had exes that have turned out to be lesbians, I have had exes that have ended up with guys that have made me think, "oh, jesus, she really peaked with me," and I have had exes that have ended up with guys that have made me think, "yikes, she was really slumming it with me."
I have had exes that have ended up with guys that have made me think:
"poor thing, I bet she misses laughing out loud.", "hey, I think that guy’s cooler than me", "awww, she finally found the right guy", "she deserves better", "I should have treated her better", etc.
I even had an ex that killed herself, which is like breaking up with someone and then hearing that they’re sleeping with God.
And all of these things, in their own way, seemed natural. Accessible. Something I could file.
I’ve only had one girlfriend who broke up with me, and then started dating a guy that made me feel:
"?"
I think that is the most difficult scenario because it’s called being insecure. Feeling vulnerable, confused, unsure, about yourself.
This girl is someone you shared your mind and body with. Their choices, previous and subsequent, in some way, relate to you. They don’t have to make predictable Sesame Street sense, but there should be some kind of cosmic internal logic. Your girlfriend shouldn’t tip her hat to you, turn to walk away, then become a pterodactyl or an ear of corn. In a puff of smoke.
And if she does, what does it mean about me, I’m the important one here. The thing I fear it means about me is that I’m capable of falling in love with anyone
It’s a horrible phrase to include in your blog, but it’s time to say it. "Maybe I’ve never been in love before." It’s either that or I’ve been in love 800 times and it’s about as hard to come and go as styrofoam peanuts.
"Hard to come and go?" Making up a new language. I’ve been awake for 2 days straight- chasing a sitcom deadline, using performance enhancing drugs. The myspace letters are actually waving like they’re underwater, no exaggeration, that’s how long my eyes have been open.
I need to sleep and I need to get up in time to finish the latest draft of this thing. There’s residual speed (adderall) left in my brain from this push, and it’s a weird kind of tired: if I lay down, I’ll be out like a light, but as long as I think "stay awake," I can.
I wonder how long this blog entry is going to be. I wonder how long I could make one. This job has been going on forever, I’ve never worked on anything day after day after day like this. It’s almost done. I think it’s pretty good but I’m beyond delirious right now.
My head is bobbing and my focus is going in and out but I’m afraid to leave the keyboard. I’ve been here for days, weeks, and that’s as far as my memory goes back so it seems like I’ve always been here.
It was a mistake to stay up this long. I should have gone to bed at 7pm and slept til midnight or 3am, so I could make a final push and deliver by 6pm. Then again, what am I talking about, I could sleep for 12 hours and I’d still have six to wrap it up. But I want to take longer than that. I want to sand her little arcs and polish her little act seams.
There are weird locii in scripts that receive disproportionate treatment and it has nothing to do with how important they are, and most often, those locii just become threadbare spots, and finally holes, before whatever they’re on disappears, BUT also, sometimes, on the journey from fabric to hole, there’s a unique shape....I ...hole on..
Okay, I’m definitely starting to not know what I’m doing at all.
What was I just talking about? I’m really going out of my mind. I swear to god I don’t know where I was going with that. I want to share a few lines from my sitcom script that will probably never be in the final version. Let’s see here.
EMMA Your father was a mentor to me. That’s why I called him to get his advice on how to deal with you. He had an interesting suggestion. CJ You’re going to get drunk and throw my birthday cake at my mother?
That’s one of my favorites because when I turned 12, my Dad got drunk and threw my birthday cake at my mother. I remember not even knowing they were fighting. I remember the family therapist saying I was in a "bubble." Maybe that’s why I shut down with the ladies.
I’m going to die pretty soon. I don’t want to live much longer than 45. I don’t want to have children anymore, I think I’m just going to try to get something on the air that will generate some real revenue and hopefully retire by 40 and kill myself around 45. Not ritualistically, if I turn 45 and everything’s great physically, like I don’t have any chronic pain or bags or tubes or anything, I’ll go as long as I can go.
Who knows, maybe that’s what everybody thinks in their heads and then one day you get a colostomy bag and you think, "didn’t I promise myself I would commit suicide before this happened?" And then you think, "well, Jesus, what the fuck’s worse than plunging into infinite darkness, certainly not shitting in a bag." I don’t know how I would do it.
I should change my default photo if I’m going to talk like that. I wouldn’t use a gun anyway. But how the fuck do you kill yourself? You know what would be easy enough to TEST a little, would be hanging. Not hanging like gallows snap your neck, but like prison cell shoelace. I wonder if that hurts. You could easily sort of half hang yourself with some means of bailing out to see if it was going to work for you. I’m assuming. I wonder if BEFORE it sucks, you just black out. That might be the ticket right there. You just put yourself in a sleeper hold with a belt and there’s barely anything for your friends to clean up.
What was I doing. Oh favorite lines from my FOX sitcom with the most complicated premise in the history of television. I’m not judging it. I didn’t say convoluted, I said complicated.
That was one of the big lessons I had to learn from the sitcom world. My first draft made use of this therapist character and various other devices to gradually walk the audience into the deep end, one complication at a time. And, essentially, the studio’s note was, "drop the audience into the deep end on page four." Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense. I’m not being sarcastic. If your show is successful, only 20 percent of your audience is ever going to SEE your pilot, and only eight percent of them are going to see the whole thing. I’m making these numbers up, but for all we know, they’re smaller. I’ve tuned into Frasier for 8 minutes a dozen times throughout my life, and never once did I start shrieking at the TV and saying "WHY DOES HE LIVE WITH HIS DAD?!"
It’s a sitcom. My sitcom is "about" this or that and is set up in this or that way, but what it IS is a bunch of cops in a house. Which can either be well written or poorly written. And I don’t know which I’m doing on this next draft. But I think the first draft was there. And then they threw that in the garbage. Which means that this next one will be better or worse or the same, and why am I pretending to work in an office.
I guess first I should go through the first draft that went to the studio, because they threw that in the garbage and asked me to write a completely different one, which means that if I share some material from it, I won’t be spoiling anything you’ll see on TV when my show gets shot and aired by FOX which is 100% guaranteed to happen because 1) God loves joy 2) it never doesn’t happen 3) the studio’s response to the first draft was "write a completely different show." which is always a good sign where I come from.
Can’t fit it no more...starting to sleep with eyes open. Can’t re-read ...

TLDR at bottom
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Copying over my steam review so this doesnt get lost forever, the people must know the truth
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Please do not buy this game, especially not at its current price of 30 USD. What exists here is a hellscape of continual grinding mixed with maybe the worst UI/UX combo I've ever seen. You are Moses and the "gameplay" loop is your desert. It would have been fine, honestly, because desert's can be fun if you're allowed to do what you want in them.
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This game lies to you. If you do not engage with the battle of the bands system early on, if you do not invest solely in stage presence and playing, if you do not do anything the game tells you to do, you will not get anywhere. The game starts in 2006, but god forbid the game has a myspace mechanic. the game acts like the internet doesn't even exist. Every single mechanic this game has exists only to inconvenience the player, masking artificial gameplay lengetheners under the guise of "realism"
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Want to record a home demo? F*** you, going to a studio is your only option. You *could* make shitty home demos for free, especially considering band members HAVE A PRODUCER STAT THAT YOU CAN INCREASE, but that would be too convenient.
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Want to go like a week without one of your caveman band members destroying some part of their equipment? F*** you, go buy more guitar strings.
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Want to go a week without one of your caveman-turned-criminal band members getting into a run in with the law? F*** you, your only options are paying over a thousand bucks OR HAVING YOUR BAND MEMBER PERMANENTLY QUIT THE BAND. What did your band mate do that results in life in prison?
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Want to have an easy way to check studio prices, manager prices, or how much a side job is offering? F*** you, go drive around the entire map and pray that you'll find something (which, in the case of low-level managers, might not have spawned in your city).
​
Ok fine, I'll drive around the city, can I at least have good driving controls? No! The car reverses insanely slowly so your only option is tokyo drifting at intersections so that it doesn't take three hours to get anywhere. Make sure not to crash, though, otherwise your already slow van will get even slower!! Once you get a manager you're given the "privilege" of fast travelling to gigs for 100 bucks, but you still can't use it because of how money starved this game attempts to keep you, for no reason other than "muh realism". Nepo baby playthroughs are impossible because of how little wiggle room is given, but whatever that's neither here nor there.
​
Everything, every single thing this game does, it does to waste your time. I cannot stress this enough. It takes what could be a 15-20 hour experience and stretches it to mind-numbing lengths. And this doesn't even take into account the song writing process, which oh my god might actually make me cry.
​
Imagine, for a moment if you will, that you have been given a box of lego. "Oh, this is exciting", you think to yourself. But you are quickly met with the reality of the situation.
​
It's not a baggie of lego, it's not even a box of lego. no, it is an entire mountain; and it is you and you alone that must go through it. "Well at least I can make what I want!" No! You fool! You buffoon! You will make the exact lego structures the game wants you to make, and once you make it the game takes it away so you have to make it again, and again, and again until the game ends, you die, or the heat universe of the death occurs. whichever happens first. "Well at least I can sort the lego so that I can easily find the lego I need when I make each song!" No! There will be hundreds of lego that you constantly have to recombine (which, the salvage mechanic is slapping a band-aid on a bullet wound), oh also all the lego you combine have to be the same size, and this would be fine if the lego sizes varied by a few feet, but they instead vary in size by nanometers. Tell grandpa he can't play this game because his eyes are too garbage. Oh, you also can't look at the other lego blocks you made for the song, you're just going to have to hope you remember the right sizes, otherwise it's waiting an in game day so that you can combine some more lego. And as a final f*** you, the lego pieces are randomly generated. You aren't making songs, you are solving increasingly tedious puzzles. Which, also, would be fine if it was the only tedious aspect of this game, but every aspect is tedious! There isn't a single moment where this game lets up.
​
There is a hierarchy to whats important in the song. lyrics are first, as in, whatever topic is popular in your state is what you have to make. make anything else and you will be punished severely. Again, this game doesn't believe in the internet. I don't understand why this game doesn't start in the early 80's, because at least then having no internet could be somewhat justified, but in any capacity it still only isn't in the game because otherwise it might become 5% less grind-ey. The song difficulty also does not matter in any noticeable way, so that's fun.
​
This game is the essence of the sunken cost fallacy. It's a one-man passion project that's built on a shoddy foundation, but for some reason it was pushed out the door with a full release despite this not even feeling like a finished product. I'm sure the dev didn't intentionally make a game that's sole purpose is to waste your time, but that's what happened. I can only assume that the very positive rating is due to a form of players gas lighting themselves into liking this because it's realistically the only modern music sim on the market.
​
I desperately want to like this game, but there isn't a single game mechanic that doesn't annoy me in one way or another. There is a difference between realism and tediousness. Nothing about this game feels rewarding. It's like being edged for fifty hours by a 95 year old. You don't even get the satisfaction of enjoying the experience because the person in control of said experience is butt-f**** ugly.
​
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TLDR; play literally anything else.

I feel this needs a bit of background. Some 25 years ago a friend in high school asked me to write her a story about a princess. I tried and tried for a year and just couldn't. The only thing she would ever say to me after asking for it was ,"Where's my story Sean?" We graduate and move on. I found her maybe a year later on one f the yearbook websites in the early days of the web and still, "Where's my story Sean?", I let it go and stopped talking to her. Maybe 4 years after that (2006-2007) I found her on Myspace. Again the same question. Finally, it was almost time for our 20 year reunion and I at last had an idea and I fully planned on tossing the story at her and walking away...but COVID. we never had the reunion but I at least finally had a story. So, here it is.
​
The girl walked into the tavern and shook off the rain. After she ordered a drink she surveyed the patrons. Off in the corner, she spotted the bard, laughing to himself. She got a second drink and seated herself across from him. “Seghan you owe me a story. I paid for it and you passed out in your beer.”
“And yet you've brought me another. Yer a good egg there Marsha.”
Marsha slammed the mug of beer down in front of him. “I'll keep you in drink if you just tell me the damned story.”
“Fine, fine.” He drinks the beer in one gulp, laughs and begins.
“A long long time ago there was a....(hic).” He looked up at her, and his eyes briefly crossed. “I’m sorry what did I say this was about?”
She sighed out of anger and frustration. “I paid you for a story about a princess. This is the third time we’ve tried this and you keep passing out halfway through. Get started if you want another drink.”
“Aye okay okay. So once there was this princess. And she lived in one of those things…the stone with the towers…” he trailed off.
“A castle? Did you forget the word for castle?”
“Yeah yeah that. And she lived there with her da who was the leader….ruler…man.”
She sighed again and said, “King?”
“Aye. The king. She hated her father, the er, King for he was trying to marry her off to a prince. He sat her down, he did and said ‘Look yer a princess so you need to marry.’
She tells him , ‘I don’t want to so I wont.’
So the king, he says ,’Okay I just want ye to be happy.’ And she was the end. Now can I have meh beer?”
Marsha struggled to contain her anger and frustration. “I’ve waited all this time and THAT’S the story you give me? Where’s the conflict? Where the adventure? Where is the prince?”
“I’ll tell ya where you can find them if’n you don’t give me tha beer.”
She stared at him for a minute, perhaps to intimidate him, or see if he would flinch, but he, drunk as he was, did not back down.
“Fine, Another beer, And more to the story.”
“Whatever ye say, you trifling wench.”
She returned with another beer for each of them.
“No more bullshit. You owe me. Do it right or I'll skin you.”
He burped loudly, giggled and started again.
“So ye want some drama? I can do tha. This princess…oh shit wha was her name…Sally…she”
“That’s not a name a princess would have.”
“Would you let me tell tha story ya wretched cow? Wha does it matter her name? So this Princess Sally she tell her da to piss off coz she weren’t marrying anyone.”
“Are you always this bad? Why do people pay for you for your storytelling? That’s not how a princess acts.”
“I do believe I’m starting ta remember why I never bothered with ye in the first place. You’re a right thorn in me arse. People pay me for the, ah, entertaining way I tells a story.”
“Well get back to it. And for the last time, tell it right.”
“Then stop interrupting me you god damn trollop. So this princess gets herself locked away in the tallest tower so her da can find her a husband. That night she jumps out tha window.”
“Wasn’t it a tall tower? You’re mixing up your stories.”
He just glares at her, his eyes starting to glaze over. “I’m a gunna pass out if’n ya keep bothering me, and I don’t want ye coming back. So shut yer dick scabbard and let me talk.”
Marsha frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but the look on his face made her think better of it. Instead she waved her hand, letting him know to continue.
“So this princess, she found some bed clothes or whatever and tied them together to climb down tha tower. Then she ran off into the night. Tha next day when her da went to get her he was stunned by tha empty room. As it happens tha king had invited some princes and knights to meet his daughter. So he sent them out to look for her. The end. If’n ya want more my glass is empty.”
Marsha, clearly annoyed, stood with a slight grumble and got another drink for him. She slammed it down in front of him. He smiled, closed his eyes and began to topple over. At the last second he caught himself and shook his head. “Now where was I?”
“The King was sending…”
“I know where I was. Didn’t I tell ya not to interrupt me.” He said laughing.
Marsha pulled her hand back as if to strike him but calmed herself.
“That’s wha I thought. Now if’n I may continue. So tha King he tells these knights and princes tha first one to find his daughter gets her hand. So tha knights, they agree to team up. Their names were ah Bill and Frank.” Seghan paused, expecting Marsha to voice some disgust but appeared she knew better. He belched loudly and continued, “So tha two knights went off but were quickly killed by some bandits coz they wer shit knights.”
Marsha shook her head, her lips thinning. “You’re not going to let me enjoy this are you?”
“Yer na having fun ya jezebel? Ima having a -hic- blast.”
“Just tell me about the princes and which one saves the princess.”
“Aye I think you’ll love this. So the Princes, Charles and William…”
Marsha clapped her hands together and smiled. “Finally! Those are some royal names!”
His eyes glimmered “So yer royal princes spent tha first day trying ta follow the princess’s tracks. Tha trouble was tha rain that had covered her tracks. They had ta spend tha night in a cave. That night, as a deep cold came in they had ta curl up close to each other. Now both of these knights had been trying to find themselves a princess for a number of years. Both of them never found someone who suited them, much to their parent’s chagrin. Well this night the two princes realized why they couldn’t find a woman to love; they wanted a man. They spent that night in the cave exploring each other and their new love.”
“I’ve put up with a lot of stuff but that is ridiculous! I paid you…”
“Ya haven’t paid me shite! You buy me a couple of beers, an keep demanding things from me. Ya come in here acting high and mighty and treat me like a dancing monkey. Tell me a story monkey! Perform on cue! I told ya I would do this outta tha kindness of me heart and you keep demanding stuff. It aint easy thinking of words and making a story. Least you can do is show me some respect. I aint got nothing but my stories you keep shitting on them. Nothing is ever good enough for you. Ima just trying to be rid of ya fer good. I know if I don’t finish something for ya, I'll never hear tha end of it. So sit there and let me tell it.”
“I’m sorry. I was only…”
“I know what ya was trying to do. You’d think tha way I speak to ya would give ya a hint. We aint friends no more. I promised ya this and I'm gonna tell it so I never has ta see ya again. Can I continue now?”
Marsha, a sad look in her eye, only nodded.
“So tha two princes, hand in hand exit the cave several days later and who do they see coming down tha path? Tha missing princess herself, wearing tha knight’s armor. At first when she sees them she starts ta run; but when she sees them holding hands she instead offers ta marry them. As a royal she could do tha sort of thing. And she knew it would piss off her da something fierce. She just makes them promise her one thing. And they agree. Tha night she tells them wha she had been up to tha last few days.”
Marsha’s eyes lit up, but she said nothing.
“After tha princess left the castle, she wasn’t sure where ta go, so she hid in tha forest. That night she saw tha two idiot knights get killed. She took ones armor, as he was close to her size, and headed off into tha woods. Tha supplies she had with her were quickly running out, so she started looking fer an animal to hunt. Wha her da dinna know, she liked to sneak out and train with a sword. She had been getting pretty good, coz she knew she might have ta run one day. So our princess, she sees a cave, largest cave you ever did see, and she went in hoping ta find some sleeping animals. Instead she found a dragon, sleeping in the center of a small pile of gold. Now being a princess, she had little need for gold, but she did get an idea how to escape her da and forced marriage. As she slowly moved towards tha dragon, its eyes flew open and…”
He stopped talking and just starred forward. “A…a dragon? And what? What happened? I’m sorry I was so vile you have to tell me!”
“Aye Ill continue. I need to see a man about a horse. I'll be right back.”
“A horse? I don’t…”
“Ima going to tha john! Get me another beer yeah?”
Finally smiling, she went and got him another beer. I suppose, she thought to herself, I should have cut him a little slack. This isn’t half bad, in the end. She sat back down and saw him exit the john. He was walking perfectly fine until he caught her looking; then he began to stumble.
“Now where was I? Ah tha dragon. So this dragon, it sees tha princess, hefting a sword over her head and it laughs. You ever hear a dragon laugh? It’s quite a thing. Tha princess, with determination in her face began to charge, when tha dragon bellowed, ‘Now lass, don’t be trying anything. I wouldn’t want ya to end up like those men.’ Tha dragon said, gesturing to tha corner of tha cave. The princess looked over and saw bodies and bodies piled up, armor cast aside. She looked back at the dragon, and put the sword down, but kept it at tha ready.
“’Now why are ye out here trying ta kill me? Shouldn’t ya be at home?’”
“’My da wants me to marry for his own benefit. I’m not ready ta marry. I just want ta be my own women. Not sold to some man. I ran away and stumbled upon your cave.’”
“’And you were just gonna kill me? In ma sleep? That’s incredibly rude lass. Weren’t ya raised better’n tha?’”
The princess, she looked ashamed and dropped the sword. “’I didn’t mean any disrespect, I had an idea on how I could escape me da and his plans. Now tha I think about it, I might be able to help you too, if’n your willing ta help me.’' She laid out her plan ta the dragon, and again, it laughed.
“’Aye princess, I'll help ya. I'll give ya some of my scales and a tooth. Good luck and remember our deal.’”
So the princess took what tha dragon had offered and started heading back. She hadn’t planned on meeting the princes, but now tha she had, her plan would come together.
Together they all headed back to tha castle.
The prince and a knight in full armor with his face covered, walked in to see tha king.
“’You have returned!’” the king said, clasping his hands together. “’But where is ma daughter?’”
“’My lord,’' tha uncovered prince said, “’She has retired to her room to clean up. A dragon had taken her hostage. But we have dealt with it.’' He tossed the scales and the dragon tooth to the king. “’There may be more, so I suggest you and your people avoid tha cave. But this one has been dealt with.’”
“That is wonderful news! What of the other knight and prince?”
The prince looked at the knight, and lowered his head. “’They didnae make it my lord.’”
“’A tragedy. But I am happy to have my daughter back. Now. Which one of you will take her hand?’”
The prince looked at the knight and said, “’My friend here shall have the honor. I have taken riches from the dragon and will be off to my homeland.’”
“’Why doesn’t the knight speak for himself?’”
“Before he speaks, he asks that you swear, in front of all these witnesses, he shall have your daughter’s hand, and tharight to it, no matter what transpires.”
“’Yes. Yes of course. May it be known throughout tha kingdom that this knight shall have ownership over my daughter’s hand. As King, I make it law. Good sir knight, what is thy name?’”
“As the knight takes off the helmet, the room is filled with gasps. Fer under the helmet was…”
“HOLY SHIT IT WAS SALLY!” Marsha exclaimed, interrupting.
“Aye yeah it was. Ye bothered me fer this story and ya go and ruin the ending?”
“I’m…I’m sorry it was just so…” she stammered.
“So wha? Good? I told ye I can write a story if’n ya give me tha damn time. Now can I wrap this up? I’m bloody tired.”
“I’m…I’m sorry go ahead.”
“Now the King, he was right pissed off but he could nae g back on his word. So the princess was able to decide for herself what her life brought. She made sure the dragon was left alone, and even sent word to it so the princes could have some gold to start over somewhere. When she became Queen the land prospered, and, in her own time, she found love and married. When she was ready. The end. Now can ya piss off? I need ta sleep.”
“I’m sorry I treated you so badly. But that was the best story I could have gotten. I was worried there but you pulled through. Thank you!”
“Yeah yeah now bugger off and leave me be. Don’t ask me fer nothing again.”

Done a post regarding this in the past. Figured I’d ditch doing a tier list and just say straight out what I hate from MSI and what’s dope.
WORST ———— Hard to say because a lot of their material is super consistent, but a few stick out.
Get It Up - Complete mess, annoying instrumental and gross lyrics from a mf who was 40 when writing them. Probably their most irritatingly annoying song ever.
Anonymous - Aged horribly and sounds cringeworthy on a otherwise great album.
Jack You Up - Their sex songs on their later shit really sucked, huh? Very annoying and out of place before Ass Backwards. The hook absolutely fucking sucks.
Mastermind - “I am the mastermind… just like Columbine” that was really your A game?!
OVERHATED —————— Songs I like which I see a lot of people shit on
Kill You All in a Hip Hop Rage - Yeah, some of the lyrics are fucking stupid but Jimmy knows what he’s talking about when it comes to 80’s/90’s rap. (He mentions Eazy-E alongside Tupac and Biggie as the greatest, absolute fucking W)
Whipstickagostop - I like how fast and aggressive the instrumental is. Steve’s singing is goofy but it’s a pretty funny fuck you closer to the album.
I’m Your Problem Now - If you don’t listen and think it’s fucking hilarious that’s your fault.
Boomin’ - I don’t see why people say the lyrics aged poorly with the allegations (if anything Clarissa aged worse, for fucks sakes “in love with a teenage bitch” but I never see anything for that song).
Prom - It’s like Get It Up but not painful to sit through, also pretty funny.
BEST SONGS ————— Easier said than done really.
You’ll Rebel to Anything (As Long As It Isn’t Challenging) - Brutal, biting, fast, loud, quotable and punchy. Like all good MSI songs. It has a perfect balance of everything they’re good with. The best song off YRTA.
Witness - IT FUCKING KICKS ASS!! Insanely memorable, sounds like Imagine Dragons if they were good.
Backmask - “We! Suck! We! Suck! Dick!” If you don’t know what MSI are about before pressing play you fuckin are after. An insane first listen for anyone. Imagine buying it for $30 and hearing “motherfucker go kill yourself” as soon as you pop it in. Amazing intro.
Bed of Roses - Is it weird to say that PINK has some of their all time best songs easily? It’s a toss up between this or Do Unto Others but this edges that song out slightly. Very nice melancholic sound, reminds me of SB2H.
Planet of The Apes - Crazy fucking melody, quotable chorus. Love how fast it is.
Mark David Chapman - Probably one of their only songs where Jimmy talks about a point without theatrics. A great continuation lyrically of You’ll Rebel with the myspace era production of If. One of the best songs off there (If has some of their worst songs in juxtaposition).
Never Wanted to Dance - What would I do without mentioning this? Their best easily.

Hey everyone,
This is my first ever post on Reddit. It'll be lengthy, but according to what I've seen, it's probably not even near as lengthy as some of you prefer.. many things in this will be very generalized, and names will not be included as I'm pretty sure my S/O has reddit also, and is MUCH more active on social media than I've ever been.. So let's begin and thank you in advance.
I (29M) have been with my s/o (27F) for going on 3 years now. Our relationship started out very well. We met on a dating app, got along really well, had some similar interests and seemed like we could carry on conversations for a good while. When we met we were living in different state at the time, and were a fair distance apart in that state. We visited each other almost every weekend. Most of the time she would come to me because I actually had a place of my own, and she was still living with her parents. We clicked very quickly. Our relationship seemed like it was going in the right direction. We were taking it very slow and didn't have any major sexual advances until our 3rd date together. (A little off topic with this next paragraph, but i believe it adds in some situational context) I am a gamer. I grew up gaming. Most importantly, I am a PC gamer. I also have an android. And primarily use Google. At the time I had a laptop in the bedroom that was primarily used for video streaming services. Didn't have a smart TV at the time. Well, anyone here who is also a avid Google consumer, knows that Google stretches across all of your devices, as long as you allow it. [Here's where it starts to tie together] About a month or so into our relationship, I was at work on night shift and she came over on a Friday night. Pretty standard weekend routine at this point. She went to go type something into Google search bar, and Google naturally showed some of the search recommendations. Of those searches, were porn. I had been single for a few months before meeting heer.. so my search history was pretty full. Personally though, I saw no harm. But this was a HUGE deal to her, and almost ended our relationship within the first month or two. Ever since this occurred, she has stated that the trust she once had will never be there and that I was cheating on her by looking at porn. We talked through the issue, took a short break and continued on with our relationship.
Now, according to her, this is where the major disconnects in our current relationship began. Since this has happened, I felt like I was completely powerless I'm the situation, as I was made out to believe I was wrong. So I was doing everything in my power to rectify the situation. I deleted Instagram completely. (Still had a profile just went dorment and Uninstalled the app) I had to delete every woman off of my snapchat. That's fine, I understand, snapchat is kinda iffy with that kinda stuff so no biggie. I had to basically filter out all of my Facebook friends. Now, mind you, many of these friends on Facebook were friends that I've known since I was in middle school, mostly high school, and some ever before that. So most of my relationships with those women were strictly platonic, and a large percentage of them, I don't even talk to and hadn't talked to since high school. No history, just an acquaintance that maybe we had English class together and added each other on fb cause it was the new cool thing around, given MySpace was being flushed out by FB in the early 20teens.
I just went with it. I knew at the time I just wanted to be happy, and I felt she made me happy and just wanted to get back on track. It didn't. Obviously. But we just rolled with it. It just was and basically has been a Rollercoaster since. [I'm going to now jump some time lines, as I could probably write a small novel that would encompass the 3 years of this relationship]
So, I've got a pretty decent job. I'm very happy with it and it's in an industry I very much believe in. I work for a major corporation. This company gave me the opportunity to move from the state she and I met, and allowed me to move to a state where I am much more comfortable. So she and I had that talk, and she wanted to be part of the process. Yes, this is great news at the time. The company then sends me out to the state so I can get familiar with my work environment, the people, and the area as well as begin looking for a place to live. So I was in the state alone, and she was back home. This drove her off the wall. I was only able to make it a whole week alone before she took a flight out to come visit. No biggie. But she only made it month before she basically told me that if I don't figure out how to get her out there, there is going to be issues.
We were living in a hotel for a while, because contracts and the job offer need to clear within the company before I can find and establish permanent residence. So we just lived our of a hotel. And it was miserable. After I was so adamant about just letting her stay in my place in the other state. She didn't have to pay for anything. No bills, no rent, just live there and she just had to basically just live and make her money. But nope, now we're living in the other state together at this time. She didn't have a plan, other than, "I want to be there" well, now that she was there, she had no plan. No job lined up, nothing. We were just living.
This is where things really started to turn, and I think my feelings for her started to dwindle after she showed up. I wanted to just get everything figured out and bring her out when the time was right. But my hand felt forced.
Over the course of our relationship, her insecurities have always been prevalent. Everywhere we go, she thinks I'm staring at other women. Every noise my phone makes, she asks, "who's that?" if I get into an online match and she hears another voice, she runs over to my computer, mutes my mic and asks, "who is that? Are you playing with a girl?" If my dad or family member texts me, she thinks that we are just talking shit about her. She's constantly thinking that I'm cheating (which I haven't done, mind you.) But I will say, that especially as of lately, the thought has crossed my mind. And ONLY because I can't keep arguing and defending myself against something I'm not doing. So it's almost like, maybe I should so I can actually feel like I have something to defend myself on.. (obviously not going to do that. It's just a thought process)
Lately, I feel so unmotivated to do anything. I'm depressed, I'm sad, I can't interact with my friends because she gets upset, I can't even go hang out with them anymore. And even if shes with me to hang with them, shes never having a good time and everyone there can tell. I can't even go to the store by myself, cause she feels the need that she has to be right there with me. I can't go and visit my dad, because any attention I'm not giving her is just not acceptable. I've lost all personal space, the only personal space I get is when I'm at work, and I work around 100+ people..
It's becoming too much. And now, present day, our relationship basically just feels like I do what I can just to avoid conflict and confrontation. I say and do usually whatever is asked, if it's not too far outside of financial limitations. And just kinda roll with the flow at this point. I'm not happy. And tbh I don't even think I want to be in the relationship anymore. But I'm stuck. You see, she has nothing and no one where we live now. So if we break up.. I will stay in the house (it's "my house", she's not on the deed) and she goes.. where? Cause she can't afford to go home.. She has told me several times over the past few years when our relationship has gotten down low, that basically if I leave, shes going to unalive herself. Which is just a childish manipulation tactic, that sadly works. Because how do you call a bluff like that?
Anyways, there's SOOOO much more detail.. that I'm uhavent included.. but this is kinda where I'm at. I'm disgruntled, depressed, unmotivated and just.. kinda existing with this person at the moment. I'm stuck. So that's why I'm here. I'm curious to know what yall think and would do, and I'll try my best to respond as honestly and as frequent as I can.. but be aware that in the evening I will not have any access basically to my phone at all.. I just avoid my phone all together when I'm at home.. it's easier that way.
Thank you again, if you've made it this far. I'm sorry it was so much to read. But I hope you enjoyed getting a very tiny glimpse into my life at the moment.it

Hello everyone. My name is Tomás and I'm a photographer / journalist from Argentina.
I recently had the chance to exchange a few mails with Brian regarding their upcoming South American tour. I expected some short answers but to my surprise, he gave me some long amazing ones, regarding their experience with the stolen gear, what to expect in 2025 and more.
I thought I'd share it with you, before being published in a few websites next month. Enjoy!

• 1) After many (many!) years of waiting, your visit to our country is finally happening! What are your expectations for the upcoming shows, and what do you know about the Argentine audience and its energy?

We are so excited for this tour! Coming to South America has been a dream of ours for a long time and it's hard to believe it's actually happening. I honestly don't know what to expect from these shows. I've heard that there is amazing energy from the audiences in Argentina but I don't really know if that means it's going to be utter jubilant chaos like a Minor Threat show in DC back in 1982 or if it just means a kind of palpable radiant joy in the air. I have a friend who saw Meshuggah in Buenos Aires years ago and he said it was a lively but well-behaved crowd. Either way, I'm very excited to experience it.

• 2) Back in 2021 you suffered a terrible experience when the majority of your equipment was robbed during a tour in California. As you updated on Instagram a few days back, it was through the amazing fans and musical community who shared the news and actual stolen gear for sale, that you were able to recover some of your personalized guitars. How did you guys overcome those moments of uncertainty, kept pushing through and kept playing with borrowed equipment, even made an amazing new record, until you finally realised (2 years later!) that hope was not completely lost and you actually managed to recover those unique instruments again? What were the emotions that went through your minds in the last couple of years?

That initial discovery that we'd been robbed was a pretty crushing moment. It's hard not to feel completely devastated by such a major loss. It was such an immense financial blow, but even beyond that, the guitars were extremely personal to us and almost impossible to replace. But the almost immediate outpour of support and sympathy from friends and fans really helped us get through it. We were extremely fortunate that we had people willing to help us out, whether it was fans donating money or people at musical instrument companies helping replace some of the gear. We played one pretty disastrous show immediately after we were robbed where we had to play on borrowed gear, and then the tour was canceled and rebooked several months later because someone in the headlining band contracted COVID. It was unfortunate because a canceled tour added more financial burdens on us, but it also meant that we were able to finish the tour later once we were able to cobble together a backline that was actually suitable for our music. Long story short: it was a tough time but we experienced so much love and support in response to the robbery that I can't really look back on it with any sense of defeat.
The thing about the guitars specifically was that they were either vintage or custom designs, which meant they'd be easily recognizable if they ever showed up on the market. There was a lot of press about the theft, which meant a lot of visibility. So on the one hand, I felt fairly confident that those instruments would show up eventually. On the other hand, the amount of visibility surrounding the theft meant that the thieves might get really apprehensive about trying to sell the guitars. Maybe they'd get nervous and just bury them in the desert somewhere and we'd never see them again. After two years, I was pretty sure the latter scenario had happened. But in a weird twist of fate, there had been a car chase somewhere in California and a few of our sound engineer's microphones were found in the card. That led the police to some drug den where two of the guitars were recovered. And then last summer someone tried to sell my stolen bass to a guitar shop in California. The guys at the shop recognized it and got in touch with us. They were able to set up a sting operation and we got the bass back. Even then, the instruments had to sit in the police evidence office for awhile. It took months for us to actually recover them. I was trying not to get my hopes up because it just felt like there was so much red-tape to everything. But eventually they made their way back into our hands.

• 3) This year marks the 20th anniversary of your first official release: Russian Circles EP. How does it feel looking back all of these hard working years, touring around the world, composing 8 full LP's? How did your priorities change in those 20 years, from young musicians to full grown up adults with families and more day to day responsibilities?

Well, I wasn't there from the beginning... I came on board for our second album Station. But I think at that stage in all our lives, we were on a similar page with regards to music. It's the central thing in our lives, but the idea of being in a dark instrumental band and having any sort of career with it seemed like an unrealistic fantasy. The hope was that you could garner enough attention to go on tour, maybe pay a couple months of rent when you get home, and have that adventure that comes with being on the road. Of course, the longer you're in a band and the more you tour, the less appealing the adventure side of things becomes. You want the shows to go well. You want to get a good night's sleep. You want your body to hold up. You want a little more stability and a lot less uncertainty. You want enough money in the bank that you don't have to worry about the financial ramifications if the van breaks down. I guess that's all to say that the preferred balance of freedom versus security might change a little bit over time. But the music? I don't think the motivation has changed at all in that department. We don't try to write hits. We don't try to cater to any preconceived notions of what our fans might want to hear. We make music that we'd want to listen to and that's it.

• 4) With the evolution of technology came social media, bringing with them new ways to share your art. The Audiotree specials, in particular, have been significant channels for attracting new fans who may not have been familiar with the band or post-rock in general. What are your thoughts on the Internet as a means to promote your music? Are you active consumers of social media yourselves?

Without social media and the internet, I'm sure we'd never be touring South America. There are a ton of places we've toured that were only available to us because word of our music circulated online. So in that regard, social media has been amazing. But as with all technology, there are plenty of problems that come with the new territories. There are obviously a lot of toxic things about social media. You can look all the way back to the era of Myspace and see how it skewed the priorities of a lot of artists and musicians. Suddenly artists were expected to spend a certain amount of time engaging with strangers on the internet. Artists were expected to sacrifice their privacy and reveal more about themselves online. As someone that came up in the DIY hardcore scene, I was used to doing a fair amount of the promotion for our tours and shows... making fliers and stuff like that. But with social media, that became a much bigger part of your day. It was almost more important to figure out how to continuously market yourself than it was to actually make the art. Hell, there are a lot of artists out there who seem to spend more time having their picture taken than making music. It's a weird world. We're all on social media but I think we all have varying degrees of apprehension around it. It's a useful tool, but it can consume people.

• 5) After your debut tour in Latin America this month, you are expected to be touring for a whole two months in Europe starting in October. That leaves you almost 6 months in between tours. Can we expect new material from Russian Circles to be composed in that period of time? What are your plans for 2025 regarding music and touring?

Well, we all live in different parts of the country so it's difficult for us to write together in person. And we've settled into a pattern where we write a bunch of music, then spend a couple of years touring on it, then begin writing the next record once we've cleared our calendars. It just gets frustrating to get in a creative headspace then have it interrupted by rehearsing old songs and being on the road for a month. But we're coming to the end of our touring cycle on Gnosis, which means we'll likely begin writing a new album fairly soon. That said, we have no plans for 2025 at present.

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF ANYTHING IS FALSE!! IF SO, PLS DONT CANCEL ME😭!!
ICONIC: Partially Found. Iconic is the confirmed 1st track of the album. It was produced by Donatachi. It was confirmed to have been recorded in a motel We have snippet of the first 1 minutes and the second verse. We are getting the full version for H4U 2024, so it will be “leaked” soon.
WE CAN DO IT!: Partially Found. We Can Do It!, is the confirmed 2nd track off the album. It was confirmed to have a rap verse in the 2018 version. The has gone under 4 versions. The “Do It Like” being the 2017 remix for the Playtime Soundtrack and for dancer: Danica Anna Uskert-Quinn. “Do It” was the demo version for the album and ”We Can Do It!” being the final version with the difference having a rap verse. It will be reworked for the 2024 version.
VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL: Found. Vacation Bible School is the confirmed 3rd track off the album. It was produced by Cacaface.. It was confirmed to be one of Ayesha’s favorite songs and is dedcated to someone named Carlos. It is unknown if it will be on the reworked 2024 version, as it was not in the most updates tracklist that she gave.
ANNA NICOLE: SORT OF.. Anna Nicole is the confirmed 4th track off the album. Not much is known about the track. It was never recorded and only written over a YouTube beat. Many speculate that it uses the instrumental to Slayyyter’s track, Candy. Others say that the track was Tiffany Trump’s song: “Like A Bird” changing whenever that word is mentioned, it’s changed to Anna Nicole. One last speculation is that the instrumental “pop girlie 4” was the instrumental as the album was pop and it is the 4th track.
TACO BELL: PARTIALLY FOUND. Taco Bell is the confirmed 5th track off the album. Ayesha teased the song by sharing the first part of the song. The song has only the final instrumental as it was sold and the snippet on Instagram snippet. After her retirement in 2018, she gave the song to That Kid. One of her best friends. After her retirement, she was asked multiple times if it was on the rework of the album. She does not want to include songs that have been sold.
ALL AROUND THE WORLD (LA LA LA LA LA): SNIPPET SHARED. All Around The World (La La La La La), is the confirmed 6th track off the album. This song is a cover of the band, A Touch Of Class. Ayesha teased the track on her Instagram back in 2018. After her retirement, she then confirmed the release of a rework and for the album. She then gave another snippet.
COME C MY TITS: PARTIALLY FOUND. Come C My Tits is the confirmed 7th track off the album. Ayesha posted the demo instrumental on her SoundCloud account “this is fergie here”. The instrumental was later sold to Slayyyter, having the final instrumental. It is unknown if there are vocals and is confirmed to be on the rework of the album but with a new instrumental.
HELLO KITTY: FULLY FOUND. Hello Kitty is the confirmed 8th track off the album. The song was teased by Ayesha on Instagram, as an accapella. The song‘s producer: Boy Sim, was creating a remix for the song TikTok by Ke$ha. The final instrumental was then given to Ayesha, but then scrapped due to her retirement at the time. The song was later sold to her friend, Slayyyter. In around 2021, the instrumental for Ayesha’s demo and final was leaked. Later, in December 2023, the producer of the song believed that the track was already leaked but then he leaked it on accident then, the song‘s demo was posted as a wav. on file sharing platform “DBree” and is confirmed to be the most finalized version of the song. As the song was sold, she will not have the song on the 2024 version of the album.
THE 6 UNKNOWN PLACEMENT TRACKS. These 6 tracks were confirmed to be on the album in the beginning of the albums sessions, but then were taken away by Ayesha in an instagram story. This was later realized by fans early this year and over time, songs have been recovered and found.
CONTROL: FOUND. Control is a track off the album that has no known placement. The song was originally for Ayesha’s debut album, BIG JUICY. Ayesha posted the demo in 2015 labeled as a rough demo. She then released the song in 2016 but later deleted it, according to older fans. The song was confirmed to have a final but was then lost and never recovered. She then remade the song for the album. She shared a snippet. Due to her retirement, she never released the song. Later in 2024, the song was leaked. The 2016 Final is yet to leak. The song will be on her rework of the album.
TAYLOR TRIBUTE: LOST. This song, which its name is to be found is a tribute to Ayesha Erotica‘s friend, Taylor Crenshaw a.k.a., Nicole Milfie. Ayesha has dedicated a song to her titled “Hit ‘Em (The Recipe) and has made another one for the album. She confirmed the song along with another cacaface collab. Someone then Ayesha asked if it would be on the albuml but although it was on the original album, the song will not be featured on the rework of the album as the song was “too touchy and sad” words described by Ayesha. People speculate the track was Lil Bimbo, as the lyrics of the song point out to stuff that are somewhat similar. Another reason why is because tracks like Delicious and Come On! (2 Tracks that are confirmed) were sold to DJPlaysGames and Lil Bimbo was another track sold to him.
CACAFACE COLLAB: LOST?… This song, which its name is to be found is a collaboration between Ayesha and Cacaface. Ayesha confirmed that Anal Queen, another song produced by him, will be on the reworked album, but I’m not very sure if this is the collaboration.
CONTROL THE FINALE: PARTIALLY FOUND. Control The Finale is another track off the album. Control The Finale is the sequel to Control. Ayesha, this year confirmed to be on the album as it was supposed to be as similar as the original track list, also adding the track, so it can also be assumed it was on the album as well. In 2018, she also stated the album was “20% vintage big juicy“ as the vintage tracks are Control, Superpuss and Control: The Finale. It is unknown if Ayesha would’ve used this version or a reworked version for the album.
COME ON!: PARTIALLY FOUND. Come On! is another track off the album. The song was used as an outro for YouTuber, DJPlaysGames, who also has the full version of Delicious and final for Lil Bimbo (speculated to be the Taylor Tribute). Come On! was recorded in 2018 and Ayesha said she wanted to re-record it for h4u 2024, so we can assume it was on the 2018 version of the album. The song will possibly be reworked for the new rework.
H.4U: LOST. H.4u is the title track for the album. It was confirmed to be on the album by Ayesha during a live stream. Nothing else is known is about this track’s 2018 version as we just found out about it. The song will be on the reworked album (with a feature too!!)
THE MYSPACE XXXTRA DELUXE: (ORDER UNKOWN) (USING THE WAY IT WAS PLACED IN THE TWEET)..
DELICIOUS: PARTIALLY FOUND. Delicious is one of the tracks of the Myspace deluxe. It was originally for Fresh Meat. Ayesha shared the demo and the track titled “Alone” before a break in between Fresh Meat And H.4U. The song was later announced to be on the album. The album was then scrapped but later in 2019, she teased a snippet of the 2nd verse of the final version. After that, nothing else was known. Later, the final instrumental was found in one of the videos of YouTuber, DJPlaysGames (Who also has Lil Bimbo and Come On!). The song will be featured in the reworked version of the album.
ALONE: PARTIALLY FOUND. Alone is one of the tracks of the MySpace deluxe. It was speculated to be featured on her album, “Fresh Meat” but was scrapped. The track was inspired by boy band *NSYNC, Willa Ford and Britney Spears. The track was then teased on Ayesha’s Instagram with a snippet of the demo alongside Delicious. She then announced that the track would be featured on the album but then, the album was scrapped. The song was later sold to Slayyyter. Ayesha’s version is yet to leak and will not be on the reworked album due to it being sold to another artist.
ALICE: LOST. Alice is one of the tracks of the MySpace deluxe. It is a cover of Raven Symonés song for her album “This Is My Time”. The track had no snippets or leaks so the track remains lost. In 2023-2024, she talked about the Alice cover multiple times saying she may do it and that she does not know why she chose the song. She also said the song would not be for the rework but she then switched up and decided to rework it.
HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD?: LOST. How Great Is Our God? is one of the Myspace deluxe. It is a cover of Chris Tomlinson song for his album with the same name. She never said much about the song but on Instagram, she states that she may put it on the album. Later, she then does confirm that the track is going to be reworked.
SUPERPUSS: LOST. Superpuss is one of the MySpace deluxe. The song was originalply for her debut album, BIG JUICY but then was scrapped. She then announced it would be on the album in 2018 but, the album was scrapped. In 2023-2024, she talked about the track. She then first said that she does not remember any lyrics off the song but she does remember writing it, but not recording it. She then announced it would be on the album. In March of this year, she shared 2 snippets of the 2024 version and then released it on March 9th, 2024.
OMG THIS TOOK SO LONG!!
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Okey dokie my little snarky gnocchis, let’s get to the McBeardsley review of Mic Dropped!: A Memoir wherein Jilly Nose Ring, Countess Gagula aired her dirty laundry concerning Sperm. Our favorite prolific vlogger also goes over what she and Nostrils believe as far as IBLP and facial hair. They use the Field footage showing the Sneeze of Nostrils frolicking in beige across a field at sunset. Episode 1 Season 2 Premiere This does follow a Q&A format which can get tedious but I’ll zshush it up best I can.
The McBeardlseys have set up around a campfire for this Q&A, and have taken advantage of their fellow campers, as seen in Episode 4, to baby sit while this vlog is shot. But before we get to that, they show us a montage of footage of them interacting with their children. Austina holds a net while OfNostrils explains something about fishing with a net I assume, and Nostrils, compete with snazzy fishing vest, helps Giddy-Up with a brightly colored kid’s fishing pole.
Next, we see all of them sitting in front of a campfire, OfNostrils holds A.G. while Nostrils holds Giddy-Up in his lap. Austina sits in her own chair as OfNostrils holds a microphone to her and asks questions. What either of them say is for an expert lip reader because they have some bland track playing over the spoken audio. One more scene of the Sneeze sitting along a brick wall eating ice cream. The exception is A.G. who is gumming his mother’s arm. That ends the intro and they get into the Q&A portion.
Austina and Giddy-Up vanish, presumably to be watched by the fellow Nostrils’ family members. A.G. reclines on his mother’s lap as she simultaneously holds a phone and comically small microphones. Nostrils uses both hands to hold the dainty recording device as OfNostrils explains that the questions were posted and there is a link in their stories. It’s really cute she thinks we care about the questions she randomly rejected. Nostrils tells her to only pick the good ones, and she tells him that “you don’t get to pick, I get to pick”. She then gives the instructions for word association or a Rorschach test instead of a Q&A when she tells him to say whatever comes to mind. Even Nostrils is self-aware enough to state that this is a dangerous idea. OfNostrils ignores this and plows on, scrolling rapidly to the bottom of her list of questions because there are a lot. So many that she says there are “literally so many”. She comes to the first question she will deign to answer which is “What type of Christianity do you follow?” What is fundamental Christianity? Oh, wait, this isn’t J’eopardy. Nostrils does do the Spelling Bee classic of thinking for a couple of beats and then repeating the question. If he asks for a definition I’m going to be over here laughing my ass off. Either way, Austina has been randomly zooming in and out of the background on her way to spend a little time off-camera. Nostrils thinks and finally says that since they follow the Bible, they are “Bible Believing Christians”. Insert obligatory Does Anybody Here Beeeelieeeve It. OfNostrils says they follow Jesus alone, and Nostrils adds “we don’t follow a man”. Hate to break it to ya Slick, but Jesus was a man, and Jesus was never alone because he was simultaneously One with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Well, at least that’s true if you believe what the Bible says. Then Nostrils goes on to say that they attend a Baptist church because it’s the closest doctrine to theirs. Headships gonna headship at the First Church of Doctrinal Winging It. As OfNostrils picks the next question, Nostrils states he needs a little clip to clip the mic to his beard. He better not let Austina hear that, she will probably go get him one. OfNostrils nixes this idea and moves on to the next question.
The next question is asking if Nostrils is still flipping houses. If they had tuned into the previous episode, Episode 2 What Does The Nostril DO?, they would know that he just builds them now but he sticks to an extremely vague, yet run-on answer of “no, not as a business, not to get paid, I help family and friends.” OfNostrils goes on to state the next question of “How many children do they want?” OfNostrils says she feels like she answers this every Q&A session and that’s because you were raised in and are still associated with a fertility cult that is doctrinally closest to Baptist. Anywhoo, she goes on to say it’s always the same answer. This surprises Nostrils and he asks what her answer is. Does he think he’s cute when he plays dumb? They’ve discussed this before. They always say 4. OfNostrils says “ I don’t know, I don’t feel done. We’ve always said 4 or 5” she then says that “always” was a lie because with each kid they lower the number. It would seem that she is realizing why she existed in a house with sister-moms. She begins to wax poetic about who they admire as parents and more importantly the parent’s relationship with God, le sigh, they will "have a peace and feel done”. Which is how they explain knowing it’s time to leave on The Good Place. That appears to be the whole of their plan, unlike her parents who conceived and birthed a hoard of J’Locusts on the planet and if they ever felt any peace about being done, never said it out loud. Nostrils says that they are both open to another one because A.G. has been the best baby. OfNostrils thinks that the first year is the easiest part of having a kid. She adds on that they get older and “the daily raising, being consistent, all the things”. She’s done with this topic and moving on with handing off A.G. to Nostrils since he is more in the shade than she is. OfNostrils comments that A.G. is tired but continues to film her vlogisode. Fuck this kid and his nap, she has questions to answer. Or not, OfNostrils says they have a video of how they met somewhere so they shouldn’t answer it now. I’m pretty sure it’s TLC footage. Next question finally gets okayed and it is “have you considered moving out of Arkansas?”. OfNostrils is left hanging as Nostrils decides he would actually rather get the kid to sleep than answer a bunch of inane, repetitive questions. OfNostrils pointedly says “this is for both of us, I guess.” Nostrils finally says they’ve thought about it “but not…” before OfNostrils jumps in and says that she wouldn’t is because although their families and friends are there, the main reason is their church. I guess it must have read Nostril’s mind and gotten 99% of their doctrine if they’re that attached to a church they don’t really subscribe to. Nostrils jumps in and says that it’s also the fact that he has an established business in Arkansas. Just remember, he isn’t renovating or flipping anymore. Unless you’re friends or family. OfNostrils mentions he can do construction anywhere, and if God says they’re moving, they will. Other than that, she hasn’t lived anywhere else and fair point. But she wants to go through the hypothetical and says that if they were going to choose, it would have to be “Texas, no?”. “No, probably out west”, Nostrils comments before turning his attention to A.G.
A clumsy cut seems like a great place to start a new paragraph. OfNostrils sits with her phone and mic as Nostrils lays A.G. with sun on the back of the sleeping baby’s head. Three people get chosen to have their question of whether or not they are IBLP shown on screen. “We never were”, answers Nostrils. They both go on to clarify they mean after their marriage they weren’t IBLP. They “distanced themselves” by saying that they weren’t going to use functions or literature. They both say “voila” and that they have their own relationship with the Lord. That just sounds like Lutheranism with extra steps. Next question is if they are choosing to name all of their boys “G” names. Nostrils says no, and OfNostrils said that when A.G. was born they had two names and she was determined to name him Bowman James, which…okay, at least that name is a noun and not a verb…as Nostrils says they should have named him “Grunter” as he makes hungry fussy baby sounds. OfNostrils loudly continues on to say that they didn’t even realize they had the same initial until after they had “already wrote his name down on the birth certificate. Nostrils has handed the fussing A.G. back to OfNostrils who decides she can take a break to feed the baby. A cut to a nursing cover appearing on OfNostrils as Nostrils takes over reading the questions. Nostrils asks if his wife is going to read Mic Dropped: A Memoir. OfNostrils remembers yeeting the Bible the day her real mother announced that Isruhl was on the way and excitedly says she will. I wonder if she is going to audiobook it instead of read it but she still says she will. She read Jingle’s book, she will read Jilly Nose Ring’s. Nostrils breaks the 4th wall, looks into the camera and asks “if someone wrote a book about your family would you read it? Duh, yeah”. Mmm, 90’s called bro, they didn’t authorize you to remove that antique from the archives. Nostrils drags out his best MySpace Confucius meme to say “The answer is in the question”. OfNostrils pops back into the conversation and says she wants to know what her sister has to say. Nostrils relishes his spot as Question asker, and finds one that he also would like his wife to answer. Tbh, I’m no better than her in this respect, I don’t know where I would want to go on a dream vacation either. Apparently this is because Nostrils wants to go on a big vacation for their 10th anniversary, and is jumping the gun according to OfNostrils since they have only just passed their 6th anniversary. Nostrils soon finds himself defending his question as OfNostrils powers over him to say that he was going to say “Babe I’m so frustrated you didn’t tell me what you wanted to do for our 10th”. Her math skills come into play as she defends her position of “it’s 5 years away” to which Nostrils corrects her it is 4 years away. OfNostrils says she still doesn’t know and this is where I am better than her because I would take the opportunity to edit this part out. Nostrils counters with it’s 3 and a half years and I’m going to laugh so hard if they can’t go on a big trip because they “don’t feel done” having kids. Either way OfNostrils demands time to think about it because that’s a big deal. 10 years is so special in fact, that she still doesn’t know. She decides to ponder it out on screen. She would like a cruise, maybe and Alaskan cruise. Or just Alaska, she liked that trip last year. She realizes as they were making this vlog that it was a year to the day that they left for the Alaska trip where Nostrils shot a bear. She says it was phenomenal. Easy there Calamity Jane. She says they were in Juneau area and she would love to go back to the northern and “enterior” portions of the state. Nostrils doesn’t write down her answer when she says that’s probably what she wants to do for their 10th. Nostrils goes on to say that he has a good question and proceeds to ask “what does it mean to put God first in your home?” As OfNostrils reiterates that it is a good question, I have to wonder if he chose it because it gave him a way to expand on “their doctrine”, and where the Deer God fits in. After hemming and hawing about who would use what words, she finally settles on “purposing to make my home a place that’s pleasing to the Lord” which is just God-honoring word salad. She adds in some sanctified croutons and bacon bits as she says that a place where she can raise her kids to learn about the Lord. She finishes it off with saying that it’s not what they do, it’s their relationship with the Lord and their heart towards him that matters, and consistency inside and outside of the home is important. As she blathers on about how she’s the same at church and home and the gas station and when she is stirring the mac and cheese, Nostrils jumps in and says it’s keeping God in “the forefront” and making conscious decisions to do more Godly things. He lists off going to church (that is the closest they can find to their doctrine, remember?), doing outreach (aka mission /ministry trips) and that God is not an afterthought. OfNostrils jumps in to add that they get inconsistent in different seasons of their life and they need to work on that. Did their pastor submit that one? OfNostrils realizes she interrupted Nostrils and instead of asking him what he was going to say, she continues on about how she appreciates Nostrils’ consistency. Before anyone can ask, not that we were, OfNostrils gives an example of Giddy-Up getting hurt when he was 3 and Nostrils’ first instinct was “why don’t we pray and ask God that he’ll kill heal this”. The captions take some liberties but OfNostrils says that she can’t really remember what the issue was. Apparently, this was a “little way God cares” about their kids and that they can’t take God for granted. She slaps the word salad spinner one more time to get a repeat of how they asked God to heal it. The moral of the story is that by the next morning, Giddy-Up felt fine and said that “God answered my prayers”. OfNostrils thinks it’s good that Giddy-Up is “noticing and realizing God cares about us”. Well, I mean you gaslit the kid into thinking that God was his body healing itself from something so minor, his mother can’t even remember what the injury was. This answer comes to a blathering end as Nostrils gets to the real questions of if she likes his beard. She said she does love his beard but “do I love it for 2 years? Not really” as Nostrils jumps in with a “waittaminute-stop right there” and repeats her first sentence where she loves it. He thinks there is nothing to add or take away (subtract, you’re looking for subtract) from that statement. Anyone wanna bet he does things like this when they’re picking what to believe or not believe in their own doctrine? As OfNostrils tries to state what she doesn’t like about The Beard, Nostrils continues on to the next question, ironically or fittingly the question is “what is y’all’s key to a successful marriage”. Obviously, the basis of their relationship is The Beard. OfNostrils lets loose with an “oh my word!” to try and have her piece said. OfNostrils finally gets to say that “I like you to change things up just like you like me to change things up”…whatever the everliving fuck that means. OfNostrils takes advantage of Nostrils scrolling for a new question and says that there was a deal he could have the beard for one year and it has been two. She goes on to say that she has threatened to shave it while he is sleeping but that she hasn’t because he said he will shave her eyebrows off while she is sleeping and she believes him. OfNostrils doesn’t miss a beat as she asks “what did you say about marriage?”. Y’all. This shit writes itself some days. Nostrils leaves OfNostrils hanging as he takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to answer his wife with “what is y’all’s key to a successful marriage. Since it’s not the beard, and it’s not mutually assured destruction via nocturnal buzz clippers, I actually do kinda wanna see what bullshit they pull out of their ass this time. They have lit a fire and smoke flies at the screen like it’s That 70s Show and they’re in the smoking circle. The McBeardsleys would never be that cool though and OfNostrils proves she is strangely wise when she says they are not the ones to ask because they are so young. She also says it's about “choosing” as Nostrils interrupts about a podcast. OfNostrils says every other word with her husband, and adds in a “shhh” at one of the kids as Nostrils tries to remember the names Jason and Tori Benham. OfNostrils remembers the facts and Nostrils remembers that it was really good. OfNostrils agrees and puts her stamp of approval on his assessment. Nostrils goes on to say that it was “challenging”, that you can’t let life and kids and everything else get in the way of your focusing on your marriage. As if to underline his words, a child cries and another one babbles off screen. OfNostrils adds in to his “fight, fight fight for your marriage” that they fight face to face, not shoulder to shoulder or back to back like Roman centurions or some shit. This is exactly what the enemy wants them to do, like someone’s just always ready to attack their marriage and rip them apart? Either way, OfNostrils says that she appreciates how quickly Nostrils apologizes, which surprises people and that she loves how he is specific in his apologies. The humility is hot to her as is admitting when you’re wrong. She hastily adds in “it’s giving grace to each other too b/c Jeezus saved sinners”.
We have wrangled up all the children, Giddy-Up is on Nostrils’ lap, A.G. is on OfNostrils lap and Austina is on her own chair. Giddy-Up gets the first question. It is “do you like swimming lessons?” He rapidly responds yes, and is given a follow-up of “what did you learn at swimming lessons?”. He waits and says he learned how to swim. OfNostrils repeats his answer and proceeds with “can you swim in a straight line…” as Giddy-Up gets the mic held up for him by his father to reply “yes”. OfNostrils directs Nostrils to straighten up so Giddy-Up is more upright. She then yells Austina’s name and asks what her favorite song is. Austina replies “Blippi” but demurs when asked to sing it. She changes her answer to Cocomelon, and gives an indiscernible answer as Nostrils suggests the “Hello New Friend” and Austina replies “yeah, that one.” OfNostrils demands Austina sing the song and she does, using A.G. as the New Friend’s name. OfNostrils deems it a fun song as the questions turn back to Giddy-Up and what he has been learning at Bible Time. Giddy-Up slides down and around until he is lounging sideways but doesn’t have the answer. Austina stage whispers “Hiram”, earning her mother’s attention as OfNostrils says “King Hiram”. OfNostrils says no, what king?” This leads Austina to whisper guess both “David” and “King Solomon”, the latter of which is right. OfNostrils asks Austina what King Solomon was building, and she replies “temples”, so OfNostrils thinks of another question. Austina’s going to be taking over SOTBEOTKI curriculum because she’s bored and her educator is not educated. Nostrils jumps in to ask what King Solomon’s wives told him. Austina answers assuredly “take him away!”, a statement which gets a laugh from her father and a “well, no” from her mother. Since her brothers don’t laugh either I’m going to say “tough room, kid.” OfNostrils plows on with “did they say there was one God?” “No, a lot of gods” says Austina. She keeps her right answer streak alive when she says there is only 1 God. We get it, you’re monotheists who believe the Bible is literal. Giddy-Up gets his last question of “what is your favorite joke?” Giddy-Up says “VBS” and I am on the floor howling because I bet their VBS was a joke. OfNostrils leaves it at that with a brisk ”okay” before she tries again and asks if he knows any jokes. Giddy-Up replies “Sir laugh a lot”. OfNostrils says “oh he told jokes” and that he still has one more question. Stop moving the damn goalposts on the kid, damn. Austina’s final question is what she wants to be when she gets older and the answer is “umm a princess?”. When her parents tell her she already is, she says she isn’t and they clarify that she can only be a princess when she is bigger. OfNostrils calls a merciful end to this session by having Austina say a thank you for the questions and she jumps up and smacks the camera as her mother tells her to say “hi” and “five”, she takes another whack before the screen cuts to black and we are reminded to Like & Subscribe which, nope. Nice try.
That puts a bow on this episode of The Nostrils McBeardsley Power Hour everyone. I know the Q&A ones are tedious but I can’t do much with them. There’s not much spare material to work with when crafting the snark but it’s another one crossed off the back vlog. Have a great day and a better tomorrow, Snarkers!

I found this old thread asking a question I've asked myself often:

how you would learn web development if you could start over ?

https://www.reddit.com/Frontend/comments/12h51z1/comment/krp779z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
(and then accidentally spent like 3 hours writing out this story, which I realized needed to be in a list) (and then none of it fit in the comment...) (so, now it will live here)

In a way, I did start over part way through my career. Old thread but I feel like this might be useful to someone out there.

TL;DR / Here's what I would do -- (if I didn't choose a path like College or LauchSchool or Watch and Code or Perpetual Education)

• in general / relax. don't free out. set boundaries
• get really good at HTML and CSS by copying lots of websites you like and making them better
• get the pocket guides (even if they are a bit older now)
• read through them often and find the little things that are too hidden in MDN
• assume everything you make should work equally on every screen it could be viewed on
• learn git early on (almost feels silly to say / it's just like 'learn typing' or how to save your video game)
• make friends with a graphic designer and learn about typography and trade work / even start an agency
• learn about the dev tools and how the resources are all pulled in and how to view everything
• learn how to use a screen reader and how to make your HTML universally accessible - to start
• learn how to author SVGs and how to style them and animate them* go to all the meetups and be helpful and kind and enthusiastic
• pair up and share a screen and build things with other people often / get out of your head
• maintain your personal website at all times and keep an archive of past versions
• write about your explorations, your progress, and just everything you can
• maintain these writings on your personal website that you own
• keep a collection of all of your experiments on your website or in CodePens
• if you're excelling with the semantic/accessible HTML and CSS, your probably hirable somewhere* consider getting a job anywhere - so you can learn on the job while being paid
• learn a server-side programming language and
• use the Exercises for Programmer book as a guide of practical needs* read the documentation like a book (often)
• get another book or two to read about the language you're using and hear it explained differently
• meet with a tutor or mentor at least once a month to course-correct
• learn how to model data and relationships
• plan out a CRUD app in a UI/graphics program (consider a simple Figma prototype)
• build a CRUD app and get clear on HTTP and querystrings and routing concepts
• it's ok to watch/read tutorials or take classes - but don't ever follow along and copy
• when learning from online resources take notes.
• stop often and take the concept their teaching and build a few things that use the concepts differently
• take it beyond the trivial setup and make something out of your comfort zone with no how-to steps
• get comfortable being uncomfortable and don't search for "the answer"
• you'll learn more by exploring than from searching for a prescribed "right way"
• make it work and then talk to your tutor about ways to improve it
• learn from the situation not from the best practices and avoid premature optimization
• allow yourself to get into situations that will highlight the lesson to be learned / search for the problem
• build client site with an admin panel using WordPress to get a feel for a bigger framework ecosystem
• from there you are probably hirable in a role with more responsibility
• you would work on a PHP, Rails, Shopify, or most other codebases now
• figure out what you actually like (or at least a directly you're pretty sure you'll excel in)
• just because you heard "full stack JS" is the norm doesn't mean it's right for you* there are many many many roles and careers and things will change and evolve
• maybe you like UX or UI or graphic design or managing the project
• the design process will always be more important than code and syntax and patterns
• at this point you'll know enough about web development that you can make smart decisions
• you'll know about templates and components and the common concepts present in all stacks
• from there you are probably hirable in a role with more responsibility
• if you're down with web dev (that's what the OP question is about), then it's time to learn JavaScript
• you know 70% of it already because you already know how to program
• now it's time to learn the browser API and about some of the trickier async things
• run through the Exercises for Programmers book by progressively enhancing your server-side versions with JS
• then run through it again with plain JS
• keep meeting with your tutocoworkefriend as often as needed
• but don't let them push you into learning what they think is 'cool' (keep going with plain JS for a while)
• document all of these things and create a style guide, component library, or design system
• learn about the animation options
• build a few app prototypes with JavaScript only (use ECMAScript modules for one of them)
• with the combination of server-side concepts and client-side concepts, you can see some limitations
• from there, you are probably hirable in a role with more responsibility
• build a rest API with your server-side scripting language
• build a client with JavaScript and connect them to explore SPA and PWA
• learn about Node and the ecosystem. You should be able to rebuild that same crud app pretty quickly
• run through the Exercises for Programmers book with Vue (it'll be a more intuitive step than JSX)
• build a client with Vue (you'll need to use some build tools like Vite)
• from there, you are probably hirable in a role with more responsibility
• now you can see how JS apps lose some of the server-side rendering and other security benefits
• consider how the two can work together and concepts like island architecture
• consider the pros and cons of microservices* at this point - you're going to have built a lot of stuff
• and choosing the tools will be up to you
• get a job at a place that you can grow into
• make things that aren't horrible
• plan out the long-term and choose your jobs and projects as though you are creating a legacy
• that sounds silly, but aim high and realize that where you work now will decide where you work later
• choose to work at good companies that build interesting things that are just a little out of your comfort zone
• lift up everyone around you

Obviously, I think PE is the best way to get all of this done the fastest and with the most support. But there are other bootamps that could be inserted in here at the right time - and like I mentioned tutors and many different ways you could learn things things. You could start a business or learn them on the job somewhere.
OK now: if you want to read it - (the story I had to work through and remember to get to this list ^) (might have some ways to explain the "why" here)

I'd say the start (of my learning) went pretty well, so I'd likely do it the same.
The first thing I did was take a course on Lynda (around 2011) that was actually taught by her brother. It was all absolute positioning and background images. I'm glad I did it. It really cleared up how MySpace worked. I had learned how to hack together pretty fancy MySpace pages for bands in college, but I had no real understanding of how everything worked. So, I'm glad I found that course - but basically, the night I finished the project, I read about `@media` rules 💡 (which was new and allowed for responsive/adaptive layouts that could change and many screen sizes). So, that was amazing, and I just got really really into HTML and CSS, and I copied websites I liked and made them even better by making them responsive (when that was really new). I joined stack overflow and answered a lot of questions and learned a lot about the confusions people had with HTML and CSS. I also learned a lot about how to ask good questions.
If I were to do that today, I wouldn't have to hack everything into a custom framework with floats. I'd have Flexbox and grid and custom properties and subgrid, and everything would be 3x easier. I'd start with Flexbox until I could pretty much make anything - and then learn Grid when I got to those situations where it really proves its worth / and then probably end up using Grid much more. I'd focus on this for a long time because you can get a job if you're really good at HTML and CSS, but you can't get a job if you're just OK at everything.
I'd also get a tutor or someone to help me. At the time, none of my friends were doing web development.
I also think that instead of doing freelance for so long, I'd try and get a job at an agency / or these days a bigger company so things weren't so hectic and I'd have some stability. I learned a lot about being freelance, but it was painful. Trial by fire. I learned some WordPress from Chris Coyier's Lynda course. And that was really eye-opening. Not because it was WP but because it tied together the CMS and the dynamic nature of templates. For whatever reason, the way he explained it just really clicked with me, and I felt like I majorly leveled up (fast). I built a pretty serious WP site for a client that is still up today! So, I'd keep that part. But what I would change is that I didn't learn anything about PHP. I tried to use as little as I could get away with and I let it all be mysterious. I didn't know what an array was or an associative array or an object. And I just left it that way. I did the same for JS. I knew just enough to get a click to work but could not have explained how it worked at all. I have proof in some old StackOverflow questions.
It's amazing how there are all these full-stack devs now, and we expect so much out of ourselves, but I was doing great with just that little skill set. I got a job at a small dev shop and learned a ton about clients and teams and all that. But again - I just, for some reason, thought that PHP and JS were beyond me. I just let it be a mystery - and really, the people there weren't the type of people I would learn anything about programming from. So, in retrospect (and I consider choosing where to work as part of the learning process) I should have looked for a new job that would have some more advanced developers after a while. That could have completely changed my trajectory. If someone could see my level of understanding and kinda mentor me - or just say, "Dude. Learn programming. It's not that crazy - you can do it," then I just would have let that mystery cloud go away.
Making sure you're at a place with people who are smarter than you and more experienced than you is really important. But I had learned by myself and always felt like an outsider and that there were some other official 'programmer' people - and I wasn't one of them. So, maybe reaching out to people and trying to go to meetups earlier or getting a tutor would have cleared all that away way early on.
Besides not learning PHP or JS, the next big mistake I made was to try and learn "real web development" and jump into AngularJS (an early JS framework). People always talked about how PHP was dead and WP was lame and I guess I believed them (Even though they were very wrong). It sure worked great, but I wanted to make "apps" and so I started making things with Angular. But the problem was - I was just hacking things together and I didn't even know what a JavaScript object was. I made some cool things, but also - it took me 40x longer than it should have, and I wasn't adding anything to my foundational understanding. It was just avoiding all of the important things to know - and everything I built barely worked, and I didn't understand it at all. But I'd invested so much time! (this is like a lot of new devs who start out learning React). Then Angular 2 came out, and everything I'd scraped together was gone. So, if it's not clear - I would spend as much time as I needed to learn solid PHP and JS before any frameworks. By learning PHP - I could have had a much clearer understanding of HTTP and how forms work and sessions. That would have made everything I did after so much faster and clearer, and I would have really leveled up. And learning about JS would have been pretty easy because it's mostly the same. Everything about the browser API and jQuery would have made so much more sense. Config files would have made sense. Brunch and gulp and build tools wouldn't have been a total black-box mystery.
It's like I made everything 100x harder just because I didn't know what I didn't know. It's seriously ridiculous. What a waste.
In the same amount of time (those 3 years or so), I could have been a master of Angular. I was basically a master of HTML and CSS, but that didn't seem like enough. Again, it would have been if I had known to work at a bigger company and specialize. I could be like those people talking at the conferences on a yacht with Eric Meyer! haha. But what did I do? I decided to learn Ember.js!! Yep! I did my research, and I was sure that Angular had blown it and that Ember was going to be where I could put my energy and become "a real web developer." I did it again! I somehow thought I could skip knowing pretty much every important thing about programming, and I went about memorizing the shapes of the functions and objects and trial and error, and I made some pretty cool stuff. And it's probably hard for you to believe... but I still don't think I understood the basics of programming. It's seriously crazy to think of. And I didn't have anyone who was looking close enough to slap me and redirect me a little. So, I certainly wouldn't do that. If I'd spent 3 months learning PHP or JavaScript, I could have learned more than I learned in what seemed like 2 years of fighting through building things with Ember. It was all my fault. And luckily, I went to a bunch of Ember meetups. And I asked a lot of questions in the Ember Slack. And I got enough feedback to get it through my head that I didn't know nearly enough about what I was doing _to ask intelligent questions.
So, what did I do? I decided to learn Ruby on Rails. Why? Because all the Ember tutorials had this mysterious backend server, they just spun up like it was nothing, and everything depended on it. So, I followed "The Rails Tutorial," and I built the next Facebook and was rich. Just kidding. I finished my app and put it up on Heroku, and a week later didn't know how any of it worked because I'd followed along and there were all these little edge cases and auth setup, and it was all server-side, and I'm sure I learned some things... but not nearly as much as if I'd had a real-life empathetic human to actually take stock of what I knew, didn't, know - and how disconnected it all was.
It's just insane that we expect to learn all this complex stuff on our own.
So, at this point - I was 5 or 6 years into my web dev life. And this is where I decided to stop what I was doing. To stop all the framework stuff and all the epic (but unfinished) projects and go back to JavaScript. I think that I should have gone back to PHP actually, so that's what I'd do in this new ideal outline. But I didn't. So, let's insert: learn enough about PHP to make a CRUD app with forms, deal with the file system, really clarify HTTP, query strings, and serverside concepts, sessions, and cookies, and build a small version of a CMS-like Visual Idiot who built Anchor (an awesome dev I just remembered being really inspired by). Learn basic SQL queries and things.
It's just wild how much this would have opened up for me.
Then (and only after that), I'd sprinkle in some JS and learn how to progressively enhance things. At that point, I would have been a real developer - and I probably could have done it in a year if I'd had some other humans to talk to. I'm not shy. I just didn't know how to find anyone. I listened to shoptalk show. I read CSS tricks.
To really learn JS, I bought a few books. Eloquent JavaScript and the new The Secret of the JavaScript Ninja Second edition (and to date, how late this was in my career - it came out September 10, 2016). ElloquentJS started out OK, but wasn't a fit for me. JS Ninja was a good fit. But it still didn't help me figure out where to use it. I did all the challenges. I worked through all the code. I understood what set was. But it wasn't until somehow I'd found this book Exercises for Programmers that I actually sat down and wrote code until I really knew how to be a real programmer. The exercises were language agnostic. They had no answers. It just forced you to sit down with the tools and design a solution. It helped outline the process of breaking down the problem. And more than anything, it forced you to think about user requirements. I hadn't been learning the right programming things all those years, but I was now a Sr Product designer and front-end developer. I learned a lot about UX along the way. And if you combine HTML, CSS, and PHP or JS with clear user requirements, you will learn how to build web interfaces faster than you can imagine. That's what I did.
I learned everything I should have learned (and could have learned 5 years prior) - in a few months. Shortly after I also ran into Godon's Watch and Code and seeing his introductory course where he talks through building a todo list was a bit late - but also would have been really really helpful 5 years ago! So, it all came together. The configs all turned out to be just key:value pairs. I realized that the CSS and HTML were also key:value pairs the whole time. It's all just key:value pairs. I filled in all the gaps I had with Ember. I felt pretty dumb, but it also felt really great to finally understand it through the lens of the problems it solved and how it's more like training wheels than extra-advanced JavaScript. The Rails tutorial made sense in retrospect and acted as my connection for what I should have learned about PHP. I picked up Vue really easily and managed to avoid React and JSX because gross. And I wouldn't change anything about it - because it made me who I am. But I'd never wish it on anyone else. And so many other things happened that I'm sure I forgot - but / now, when someone askes me how I'd learns web development - I have a very clear idea about that. And I even have a few years of testing this reverse-engineered outline on real people. It works.

(I ended up going back and breaking up this massive uncoupling journey into multiple parts. They are all in the comments. It’s an insanely long read lol don’t judge me I like to write.)
I wrote those words 20 years ago. Little did I know then how much they would define my life.
This is going to be an extremely long post and mainly for I guess some type of closure or release. And maybe something I can go back to and read before I respond to a hoovering attempt. If someone can take something from it, or if someone wants to just see what happened in my longterm relationship/life involvement with someone with BPD as maybe a cautionary/tragic tale then here is that account.
This time of my life spans 17 years or almost half of my life.
This will be somewhat disjointed at the beginning as my full acceptance of her BPD didn’t come about until I found this group which I think sets this up better and explains why I’m posting this. My ex wife had announced she wanted a divorce on May 10th of last year. In an effort to cope and deal with the fall out I started researching this diagnosis of BPD she had that I regrettably never truly looked into. She is quite BPD and she keeps it concealed reasonably well, however the signs were always there and sometimes more blatant than not. I typically chalked this up to just knowing she had mental illness, but since she downplayed it throughout the entire time I’ve known her I never looked into it other than being stunned about 8 years ago in a psychology class in college when they touched on it. It honestly shook me to my core and I wish then I would have researched and looked more into it.
Anyways, I found this subreddit in that way. I have commented on many posts, but never shared my full story. I guess the catalyst for sharing it now is rather suddenly I was made aware that as of today our divorce is final. I have many mixed feelings and I think now is when I need to let the full extent of this out for my own mental health and wellbeing.
When we met I had just returned from a failed enlistment in the military. I got in trouble for leaving base and partying underage and found my way out. So, I was in an extremely vulnerable state and unsure of my future. I was optimistic for it but admittedly pretty lost. This was in 2006 and I was 19 at the time.
Back in the day there wasn’t really dating apps and instead to find people we would use MySpace or other bare bones social media that was honestly like just sharing pictures and having them rated. I found her on one of those sites actually before I had even left for the military and thought she was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. A few days after I came back, I had remembered her and had also added her on MySpace. Out of the blue I contacted her and we vibed but I only thought of her as a possible option or future cause I still had lots to figure out.
We talked for a few months somewhat sporadically. She attempted to ask about hanging out a few times, and we almost did once but the plans fell through. We both mutually made the decision to finally meet and go see a movie on 12/22/2006. I remember being insanely nervous, especially cause she looked even better in person. She was truthfully the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She really could have easily been a model if she wanted. I know this all seems superficial, but I was 19 lol.
So we went to the movie and hanging out afterwards she casually mentioned that she was already with someone else but he was away in the military and it wasn’t serious (Little did I know at the time this is exactly how she ends relationships with people because she can not handle being alone). Anyways, we ended up staying awake all night talking and I was honestly in heaven. We made out at the end of the night and I remember she didn’t text for awhile the next day but eventually she did.
5 days later we were officially dating and I guess this truly begins my involvement and the BPD elements that began to surface. I just wanted to set the stage as I was obviously in a very vulnerable state which I think just absolutely played perfectly for her.
So, I had known her father had passed away the year previously and it was still very fresh for her. That has had a profound impact on her life and made her BPD exasperated I believe. Her father had a nasty divorce with her mother (who also seems to have BPD) and I was told that he was basically an alcoholic who lost everything after the divorce and never saw her or her brothers, so obviously making her feel abandoned. The compound this, he had just started returning into their lives when he discovered he was dying from cancer. So he finally was making amends and then passed away suddenly.
She also told me during the beginning that she had been SAed by her younger brother’s friends recently after drinking with them. To make this even more problematic, when I first visited her at her mom’s house she introduced me to them and then told me this afterward. I was so upset by this and angry over what happened to her and it was just a very heavy way to find out after she seemingly introduced me to these two like nothing was amiss. She never officially reported this happened to the police, which I understand, and this was also some huge secret that she wanted to keep from her mom. She was constantly worried that I was going to confront them over what happened. I hate to ever question something like this, but just knowing her future lies and twisting of the truth I don’t even know if this actually occurred or at least how she told it.
It was also during this time that she casually mentioned she cut herself but that she didn’t anymore. She had done it in high school but had seen a therapist so she was done with it.
There was also a question of her sexuality. She had claimed to be bi-sexual, which truthfully also bothered me at the time coming from a very traditional background. I asked her if she had ever been with girls which she said no, just that she had went to a catholic all girls school and that just influenced her in that direction she felt.
She mentioned that her best friend, B, had confessed to her that she wanted to date her but that she had turned her down in high school and after that they became best friends. This is extremely relevant as B is still in her life to this day and also made her the perfect manipulation victim for someone with BPD.
She had a major habit of keeping in contact with exes and being what I thought as flirtatious which was another problem. This came to a head when she left her MySpace opened and I was her flirting with an ex boyfriend in messages. I confronted her about it and she drove all the way to my house after I got done working (we lived about 45 minutes apart) and she cried hysterically saying she was sorry. Little did I know this would be one of only two times she ever apologized or seemed to exhibit genuine regret and accountability.
We had the typical relationship drama that 19 year olds would have. Some dramatic arguments at parties and stuff. I remember feeling let down often and just much more anxious than I ever had been in a relationship. I was jealous often which all the contact from her exes and then accused of being untrusting. I remember towards the end I could sense it was near and I vividly remember starting to try to better myself in anticipation of it possibly happening. I still held out hope though. I had never felt this way ever about anyone and figured this is what love is. Really I was just being emotionally manipulated and she was beginning her devaluation of me and getting ready to discard me.
She also mentioned on various occasions that she had cut herself again but that it was nothing serious. She would say “ I did bad “ in almost a child like voice, like I was her father and she was saying she had done something wrong. She actually used a childlike voice a lot and it almost became this other personality she had.
She acted extremely weird when we went to visit her grandparents towards the end. I remember she was adamant that I drove separately and something told me it just didn’t seem right. So I made sure we road together and when we got back to her house afterward I checked her phone. I just knew things weren’t right. Sure enough, she had been talking to some other guy and was trying to coordinate hanging out with him after her grandparents house but I had ruined the plans.
I exploded and left her house. She flipped out about me going through her phone obviously. And as a sign of things to come, I still didn’t leave. I wanted to work things out. I constantly had this feeling that I knew who she could be, but I failed to accept that’s not who she was…or even is now.
I’m no saint in this either. I developed a drinking problem in the military which continued. We were young at the time so everyone partied and it was more so accepted but she definitely I think rightfully recognized I was drinking too much.
I also decided to do what she had done. I had a really good friend that was also my ex and I decided if she was hanging out with exes like it was nothing I could do the same. So I decided to take this friend and my other friends to this party while she went to her brother’s football game with her friends.
While I was getting ready that night she texted me that she couldn’t do this anymore and it was over. I remember being hugely hurt that it was done through text message. We had dated for just under a year.
That night at the party I walked in the rain for an hour on the phone with her just begging her to rethink this and to give it another chance. I remember a few days earlier we both signed this thing this together that said “ forever means forever “. I knew things were not great but things were also not awful. I also remember I asked her if she ever thought we would get back together again and basically said who knows what can happen.

As I started binge-watching the series I wanted to record my thoughts and questions. I deleted most of the questions resulting from the "floating timeline" like why are the kids still thirteen years old and not in high school, while time has very clearly passed by in years.. I'll be listing all the questions down below.
1.3 - The whooping crane certainly seemed to escape death well. Considering it was clobbered, put inside a closed beer cooler, partially-inserted into a drain pipe, and just placed on water where it could've drowned...
1.8 - Were there any repercussions to Cotton ranting about women at Hotel Arlen during the female trial lawyer convention?
1.9 - How did Hank not recognize that the hired cleaners and workers at their house were not friends of Bobby and Luanne? Or even the damage and repairs?
1.10 - Is the amount of cigarettes Bobby smoked the cause of his stunted growth, breathing problems, etc?
1.12 - Did Bobby actually succeed in kissing Nancy?
2.1 - Whatever happened to Bobby's skill with shooting?
2.2 - How did Hank manage to survive the tornado only by holding onto the telephone pole?
2.4 - Was the city council ban of Halloween lifted? Did Junie find out she drove over her own cat?
2.5 - Was Ray Holiday ever caught for insurance fraud (intentionally burning-down his bait shop)?
2.7 - Did Cane Skretteburg and his friends ever get a replacement amplifier?
2.12 - Was it or not divine intervention that drove Hank to the tv channel studio to save the Manager Babies?
2.15 - Were there any repercussions or followup on Hank, Dale, and Kahn crossing into America illegally? I initially was curious if the La Bomba firecracker ever exploded, but it dawned on me just now that it was fake.
2.16 - Where there any repercussions or followup on Hank/Bobby's White Nationalist jokes?
2.17 - Was Hank ever prosecuted by Arlen Police for resisting and evading arrest for his illegal dumping of the sex toys and sex products at Arlen Municipal Garbage Dump? Did Bill rent the movies in Hank's name?
2.18 - Were there any repercussions to Cotton and Dale stealing Antonio López de Santa Anna's artificial leg, even though it was returned to the Mexican DMV? Even if they traded the leg for a driver's license, Cotton still wouldn't be able to drive in the USA so what was the point?
2.19 - Does Bill ever fix his toe fungus? Did he ever get his truck back from Leanne Platter?
2.20 - Did Peggy kick Maria Montalvo after she caught her grabbing Hank's butt?
3.1 - Does everyone still believe Hank was responsible for the propane explosion at Mega Lo Mart?
3.2 - Does Hank, Dale, and Boomhauer ever find out that Bill stole the couch they made?
3.4 - Does Dale ever capture the fugitive, after their TV watching/Spaghetti-O's eating?
3.5 - After Cotton had a tantrum at Vegas - was he banned?
3.6 - Were there any repercussions or followup of Luanne turning Peggy's hair into a mess at the end, as revenge for cutting her out of the competition?
3.7 - Did Peggy ever get a lift home from Six Malls over Texas, or even any Christmas gifts for the family? How could she sleep through the entire day and not wake up?
3.9 - Were there any repercussions or followup on Bill's mental breakdown at the Hill's Christmas party, or from Hank coming out in a dress?
3.10 - Were there any repercussions or followup on Hank, Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer's destruction of the fire station, despite it being ruled as accidental by Chet Elderson's electric Alamo beer sign?
3.12 - Did Coach Whitey Sauers have a stroke? Was there any followup on his insane actions? Did the Cougars win?
3.15 - Does Hank ever find out how the magic trick was done?
3.16 - Were there any repercussions or followup after Hank committed assault and second-degree assault/rape by throwing the golfer into the dolphin tank?
3,17 - Did Tilly ever find her miniature unicorn?
3.18 - Did Bobby ever get over his gout?
3.20 - Were there any repercussions or followup from Dale's antics at the Arlen Community College tower?
3.21 - Were there any repercussions to Cotton burning down the church? Or did they really all forgive him?
3.22 - It's weird to think that the prison warden just absolved Peggy of her crimes for smuggling narcotics into the prison, just because the timer was licked clean.
3.25/4.1 - How the F did Peggy survive the fall? Soft mud? Bruh.
4.3 - This whole Bill/Ricky record thing is just lame.
4.4 - How is Peggy still accepted as a substitute teacher after publicly-embarrassing herself at the auditorium? Surely the students see and will remember her as a joke.
4.5 - Does Kahn still have a job with the company after running out during his speech?
4.6 - Did Bill get Lily and Rose pregnant?
4.7 - How is it even possible to cobble together a Brown Betty with leftover pizza crusts and condiments?
4.8 - How are Bill and Dale still alive?
4.10 - Even though she has a new computer on the way, it still seems pretty sad and wasteful to just burn the grandfather clock and other gifts.
4.11 - Wouldn't a flagpole and flag of that size require a permit? Is it even possible to have it in a suburban environment? Are there any repercussions or followup on who caused the damage to Bill's lawn and the flag?
4.14 - Why would Hank still work for Buck Strikland after he framed him for murder? Even after the mystery is solved, seems weirdly coincidental that it was accidental suicide.
4.15 - Did Kahn ever take down his fourteen-foot fence?
4.16 - Was there any followup to Cotton and Topsy's assault of Griffin?
4.17 - Was there any followup or repercussions to Bill's false claims and sales of the Metalife goods on the army base?
4.18 - So was Bobby the reincarnation of the lama, seeing as how he chose the right item?
4.19 - Did Jack quit and stop being a barber? Did Hank stop business with him since Jack intentionally bleach Hank's hair? So is Bill still a barber for Fort Blanda Army Base? Is he still getting paid?
4.20 - The whole Propaniancs plot is just weird.
4.21 - Did John Redcorn get his money/land?
4.22 - Did the city of Arlen ever find out about Hashaway's profiteering off the ban of the high-flow toilets? Or of Hank fixing their problems?
4.23 - Did Randy Travis ever come clean about stealing the lyrics or lying about his trailer? Did Kix Brooks ever find out the truth about Peggy's manure-poisoned Apple Brown Betty?
5.3 - Did Dale ever find out who really crashed his Bugabago?
5.4 - Does Joseph now know who his real father is?
5.6 - Were there any repercussions or followup to Cotton's and Topsy's rampage through downtown Arlen?
5.11 - Does Hank ever find out that Bobby and Peggy love charcoal burgers more?
5.13 - What happened to Tammi Duvall after Hank separated her from Alabaster Jones?
5.14 - What happened to Stik-Tek? Did they hire a real exterminator to confirm the cockroaches were gone and services to clean the building?
5.16 - Did Hank and Peggy ever find out that Bobby was abusing his allergy?
5.17 - Was Hank jailed and fined for theft of Boomhauer's car? Was this ever mentioned or follow-up?
5.18 - What was the point of the court trial?
5.19 - Is Hank's flat ass and implants ever mentioned later?
6.3 - Surely, the trial and mistaken abduction of Lupe are enough evidence to prove to Peggy and the school board back home that Peggy is absolute shit at speaking and understanding Spanish??!
6.4 - Was the damage to the Lubecki home fixed?
6.6 - God, Bobby is so freaking awkward.
6.9 - What happened to Bill? Did he get jail time or fined for assaulting Yakov Smirnoff?
6.10 - Was there any followup to Peggy's and the others pre-meditated theft and felony of automobile theft?
6.11 - Does Dale still have the falcon that hates Bill?
6.12 - I'm guessing the Catholic children learn the truth about their religion and Peggy's lies?
6.13 - Was there any followup on or off the Fort Landa Army Base on the stolen M1 Abrams Tank and the damage Bill caused?
6.14 - Soooo the Marfa Lights are real?
6.15 - Is the Rainey Street County Club still a thing?
6.16 - Did Alamo Beer ever find out Peggy switched the beer cans and poisoned their executives?
6.17 - So, since the Emus are still alive, obviously Buck now knows Hank deceived him? Why not fire him? If he even survives...
6.18 - So, since Dale now believes John Redcorn is gay, is this why he cannot put 2+2 together to figure out the truth about Joseph?
6.21/22 - How the heck did Hank, Peggy, and Bobby not find out that their hotel room was much bigger? Surely, they could smell the rotting fruit? Did Bobby ever mention his new friend later?
7.3 - Did Bobby ever tell Hank that he stole the propane tanks and fuel?
7.4 - Is Bobby's skills with cooking or home economics ever touched on later? Like his shooting skills earlier in the series?
7.6 - Do the Hills still have the rose bushes?
7.7 - The whole anger management/Dale asinine logic plot is silly.
7.9 - Was there any followup or mention of Trip's death and second-degree murder by Luanne and Peggy?
7.10 - Does Chuck Mangione still live at the Mega Lo Mart?
7.12 - Was there any followup or repercussions to Joseph's and Dale's attempted murder of the pandas, or even the breakin to the Zoo?
7.13 - Did Dale ever find the buried treasure?
7.14 - Was there any followup to Mrs. Chapman's after-school program cut, biology class cut, and dictionary removal?
7.15 - Seems like nothing changed from Bobby being at the academy...
7.17 - Does Buck Strickland ever change? Does Bobby ever stop being a lazy shitass?
7.20 - Does the church community ever apologize to Hank about calling him racist?
7.22 - What happens to Bill and Laoma Souphanousinphone?
7.23 - Did Ward Rackley and his coven drink the dog blood?
8.1 - Does Boomhauer ever rekindle the love with Katherine Hester?
8.4 - Hank sure lost his muscled physique pretty damn quick... does he still have low testosterone?
8.6 - Does Hank's insurance company/mold inspectoetc ever get punished for their fraud?
8.7 - Wait...you're seriously telling me that they were able to fuel the semi truck for the distance from the base of the mountain to the truck stop with just the kerosene from a few antique lamps??
8.8 - Bobby Hill's childish endeavors and immaturity know no bounds. Seriously...how much money did they spend at the mall?
8.9 - I'm continually-reminded how much of a jackass Dale is.
8.11 - I find it hard to believe Bill lasted that long in that profession and lifestyle. Also, apparently Jack is still a barber? I thought he retired/ties severed with Hank seasons ago after Jack bleached Hank's hair white.
8.12 - Did Hank get his fishing poles back?
8.13 - Did Connie get to remain being a cheerleader?
8.14 - Seems like a weird plot twist that John Force doesn't need the kidney after all....
8.15 - Was Hank's opening of the Tut Rampy Dam floodgates and subsequent flooding and destruction of South Arlen mentioned again? Or Bill's deception to the community? Or Bobby, Joseph, and Connie's meddling with the yearbook photos?
8.16 - Is DaleTech ever mentioned again?
8.19 - Did the school's academic team make it to the next Quiz Bowl? I need to know! Did they win?!!!!
8.20 - Does Hank still practice yoga even after his back pain ended?
8.21 - When did Luanne move back in with the Hills? Was this after she quit Arlen Community College? After Hottyz?
8.22 - Bobby doesn't have much character development... He's still a complete jackass that doesn't listen. Did Hank and Bobby finish rebuilding the car?
9.1 - So apparently Peggy's mother called for the first time in 20 years? And Hank's never been to Montana? But I thought she called a couple seasons ago to invite them all to Thanksgiving (where the plane was delayed and they all ate at the airport). Or when she came to visit and they all chased the pig around the house. Or when she came and surprised Bobby as his valentine. This is a weird bit of incontinuity. So Bobby Hill can now ride a horse...cool. Will he be any different next episode or later in the season? Series? We shall see.
9.2 - So did Ms. Wakefield die at the Hill home? Did Bill get that ears and nose hair trimmer that he wanted? Does the neighborhood still disapprove of Hank for calling the cops on Ms. Wakefield - despite their hypocrisy.
9.4 - What happened to Joseph's dirt bike?
9.6 - So...what was wrong with Duke? Also, how was Bill's flight back from USS Eisenhower with Buster in the jet?
9.7 - Did Enrique and Yoland reconcile or will she kick him out again? Did Bill retrieve his wallet from within Hank's driveway?
9.8 - How many times is Peggy going to read A Dinner of Onions?
9.12 - Since when did Peggy get a job at the Arlen Bystander? Is she still a substitute teacher of mediocre quality?
9.15 - So, who won the football game? Dallas Cowboys or Miami Dolphins?
10.1 - I'm surprised the boat didn't explode. Still, will Dale or Boomhauer ever find the sunken treasure?
10.4 - I know I said I wouldn't discuss the timeline, but its just weird. This episode notes we're post-class 2002. We know the millenium happened. Yet, the kids have been in middle school since 1997. Did Arlen ever build the museum, or even an exhibit to their city's origins?
10.5 - Why was John Redcorn in the neighborhood at the time of the Rainey Street Kickball Game? I thought he'd be busy with his toy arcade? Or is that not a thing anymore? Also, I thought Luanne quit Arlen Community College for Hottyzs and then Jacks? Apparently Connie is no-longer a cheerleader? Apparently at the time of this episode, Bobby is soon to be a freshman in high school. Jeez Bobby, you could've poked that kid's eye out with your pencil in his soda can.
10.6 - Did the uprising in Laos succeed?
10.7 - Was the ball game just raising funds for that season of the Tom Landry baseball team? What happens next season? Still seems shitty that Hank and everyone else see bunting as ok. Like, come on guys. You can do better than that.
10.8 - Did Joseph learn anything? Will he work at Strickland Propane? Hank is annoying sometimes - Bobby enjoyed the job and Hank had to just piss on his parade with this fake anti poop drama. Get over yourself Hank.
10.9 - Did Strickland Propane get their outdoor grilling patio?
10.10 - Seems like Hank could be charged with aiding and abetting the four owners with their price gouging. Did Lucky get his t-shirt in his size? Did Luanne get better from her food sickness?
10.11 - Lawd, Hank is so petty with his assigned seating at church and doesn't know how to say no. Peggy just doesn't know how to read a room.
10.12 - Did Peggy ever even write the reviews for the services and freebies she got?
10.13 - How did Bobby's date with Sandy go? Did Bobby continue to work? If Hank, Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer know Spongy for years, why haven't they helped him instead of just giving him money?
10.14 - Hank gets into trouble for taking Caleb's bike, resulting in the neighbors disapproving, but like, did they even ask or try to find out if it was justified? Did they apologize?
10.15 - Will Lucky reapply for his GED? Did Peggy get into trouble for removing the chalkboard from Tom Landry Middle School?
11.1 - How is the only plus-size shoe store in the area a store that's frequented by the LGTBQI community? How did Hank not recognize the Jamie's voice as Carolyn's? Feels strange that Hank, Bill, Dale, or Boomhauer didn't comment on the opened and discarded Alamo beer.
11.2 - After telling the town that Bond Measure S was fradulent and the snake removed, did the community forgive Hank and family? Did Tommy and Rollo lose their jobs for getting paid extra money from Bond Measure S?
11.3 - So...Bobby is just now learning to cook and bake, despite having already done this multiple times prior, especially in the Goodbye Normal Jeans episode? Is Larsen Pig Products still in business, despite Trip Larsen dying in Pigmalion?
11.4 - Did Lucky ever retrieve the stump? How did Hank, Bill, Boomhauer, and Dale get home?
11.5 - Weird that Hank suddenly has a cousin named Dusty. Dusty's bear grew back really fast. I think it's just disappointing that despite Dusty knowing how much The Cadillac meant to Hank, even after its touched up, its buried with the other derby cars. Like, he can't just repair it with his money and give to Hank?
11.6 - So what? Peggy is now a realtor? Is she still a substitute teacher? Did Hank figure out what the "ski mask" was for?
11.7 - Arlen Methodist's congregation and deacon board are very selfish and conceited. Can't even be happy for Stroup and Bill for being in love. Did Bill get his roof fixed?
11.8 - While the irony is hilarious, Hank playing the game and becoming addicted and just avoiding everything from work, family, yard, etc is just weird.
11.9 - Did Peggy learn anything from Metalife? So, Cozy Kitchens is going to just be ok and move on after Judy Barnes and Peggy Hill suddenly die? They won't investigate or follow-up?
11.10 - Did Khan ever meet up with Phonsawan?
11.11 - I know Bill failed his physical due to too much exercise, but like, he can still exercise after. He doesn't just have to go back to a life of no muscle or exercise after six months have passed.
11.12 - What a weird selection of character cameos... Also, apparently Luanne and Lucky moved into the same house Luanne rented while she was in college?
12.1 - Bobby acts like he's never seen or played football before. Also, Longhorns? Since when are the guys fans? Was it too much to have them go to a Cowboys game?
12.2 - Did Bobby continue going on dates with Shelly?
12.4 - Why are they going to the water park? Both Kahn and Minh and Luanne and Lucky have a pool at their homes.
12.5 - I thought Cotton resolved his anti-Japanese feelings back in Returning Japanese 2?
12.6 - This whole episode is weird. It praises organic food and shuns big store food, shows the co-op workers loving their job, but then they all just sell-out and move on, and only Hank and Appleseed fight? Hank also has chickens - where did they go when the police arrived? Did they keep their garden?
12.7 - I'm disappointed that the diversity expert wasn't fired for his epic fuckup.
12.9 - Why didn't Dale go back to Stik-Tek - or at least work there part-time?
12.10 - I thought Bobby was ok with baseball - like in the pilot episode?
12.12 - Dale is such a jackass. He won't let Bill find love and sabotages his relationship because of his inability to accept or realize that John Redcorn is Joseph's real father.
12.14 - I thought Enrique's marriage was falling apart after his kids moved out? Also, apparently Peggy is back to driving her brown car and not the convertible she just got in the previous episode?
12.15 - Dale and his keyboard subtracted enjoyment from the episode. So it's totally ok for the Hill family to just take the spot from the Dooley family? A bit hypocritical.
12.17 - So it's officially 2008-ish in the series? Did Peggy sell the fugly house? Did Bud Ferguson and Hank Hill become friends?
12.18 - Dale is so conflicting. It's like his personality just changes on a whim.
12.19 - Dale. Is. A. Jackass.
12.20 - So the vending machines are back? So Hank just keeps Cowboys memorabilia ontop of the fridge and not in his den? Did Hank get his second Blue Flame Of Valor award? The episode is very old people hate new things.
12.21 - I thought Peggy burned the grandfather clock in Hillenium?
12.22 - Oh Dale - you silly goober. Honestly, it would've been better if Hoyt's history was just ambiguous.
13.1 - So Bill gets into shape, again. I wonder if he'll go back to being a overweight and a mess again after the episode concludes.
13.2 - Buck's and Dale's logic. I'm not even surprised it turned out like it did. I'm sure there will be no repurcussions to their fraud.
13.3 - Sooo, the McMansion finished construction and wasn't inspected...at any point? Surely, the permit review board would've seen its basically crap-tier construction.
13.4 - What a weird plug for MySpace - even in late 2008. Everyone had already moved to Facebook.
13.5 - Why did Dale take his shirt off for the log flume ride?
13.6 - I thought Peggy broke their TV during the football game episode and was going to get one with less definition due to Luanne thinking the one on the wall was a window? I know its supposed to be funny, but really? Hank and Bobby couldn't figure out their new TV remote?0
13.7 - The bulk of the plot contradicts earlier episodes, specifically the one where the kids and that weird kid that later rats on Bobby Connie and Joseph when they go to the caves, all go to the lake for their Order of the Straight Arrow, Hank and Bill eat their talking sticks (slimjims), and Bobby whalops a whopping crane. They all act like this is their first experience. Heck, Bobby's personality, interests, and mindset are so random and always changing - same with Dale.
13.8 - Luanne is suddenly very pregnant, despite it being months after they got married, which happened a month or so after she got pregnant? For someone her size, the bulge should've been much sooner, right? Whataburger is now Want-A-Burger, despite the name being Whataburger in all other episodes its in. lol? Also, kinda weird that Jane is 17 and just finds out Bill is old, or calls everyone honey. Like, you couldn't figure that out either by his voice or how shitty he ate?
13.9 - Buck is a terrible boss. How Hank has put up with his antics after all these years is just beyond me. I mean, I thought it was low of Buck to frame Hank for Debbie's death. Or the weird Emu thing. Or cozing up with Luanne. Or taking Bobby to Arkansas to the illegal gambling den. Or the weird ice cream positivity thing where he kept his employees hostage to play games.
13.10 - Bobby is such a spoiled shitass. You're 13 years old. It's 2008. Figure out a way home other than calling your parents. Or just go back into the mall and get a ride home with Joseph or the other boys. Like I said before, his personality is so random. One episode he doesn't want anything to do with his parents - the next he's clingy. Hes self-reliant and independent - the next he's a clusterfuck of problems.
13.11 - Weird that this is the first time in two years of the storyline (give or take ten years) that Hank mentions one of his nostrils is bigger than the other. Also, I know it's fair game, but guys, come on. Grow up. You're better than the Mustangs who harassed you for 20 years. Also weird that most of the team lives in the same radius of Rainey Street and Hank Bill Dale and Boomhauer are like "I wonder if the guys are still around".
13.12 - Oh Hank. Can't be bothered to talk to strangers. Oh Peggy. Insecure and the need to be cool. Did Bobby start a relationship with Hun Chin Ko? Same as he did with Sandy and all the others.
13.14 - And the Hills are back to their small tv. I thought Lucky didn't follow a religion? When the heck did this rivalry between streets start and why is this episode the first mention? Also, when the heck did Bobby get a computer?
13.15 - Hank was born in a hospital? Wasn't he born in the women's bathroom at Yankee Stadium, resulting in the whole plot of Yankee Hankee where he's not a native Texan? Cotton had a French lover - that he wasn't in Japan? Does this mean that the whole plot of Returning Japanese is nullified, despite Hank's half brother being in Luanne and Lucky's wedding? I thought Cotton had made his peace with the Japanese...
13.16 - Again, I thought Bobby was okay at baseball?
13.17 - I thought Chip was woodchipped by Dale how many seasons ago and Jerry Popper was retired and convinced the maid was stealing from him...
13.18 - Canada bad? America good? The Huskins are legitimate assholes, eh? Boomhauer, my man.
13.19 - I'm uncomfortable.
13.20 - It's weird that Gary is out like that.
13.21 - Hank helping Bill under the condition of Bill never making decisions for himself isn't new - this was mentioned many times earlier, but I'm sure its just one of those incontinuities that keep happening in this series because Bill's the character we feel sorry for and NEVER EVER grows as a character.
13.22 - Wait - Joseph ate playdough spaghetti and bugs as a child? That explains a lot. Arlen has a State Psychiatric Hospital? Lori - No Means No.
13.23 - So Boomhauer admits its been seven or so years since the Souphanousinphones moved in. Its around 2008-2010. So the Souphanousinphones moved in when Connie was in middle school. And she and Bobby and Joseph are still in middle school. Yeesh.
13.24 - Hank's been waiting 13 years for Bobby to ask him to join the team...but like, he's joined many teams before. Baseball, football, cross country, and wrestling. Also, whatever happened to the outdoor furniture Hank and Peggy bought from that outdoor furniture store?

Someone on a previous post (u/cinnamontoastpuff) made a comment mentioning that her denial is a personal thing and it got me really reflecting...
I think the denial is absolutely a personal thing. I think she’s saying she’s fine because when people go to her lives and her videos and flood the comments saying she’s got an ED and needs to recover and that she’s inappropriate for younger people to view and all that, she’s able to be like, “No, I’m still okay. I’m still alive, what I’m doing to myself is fine because I’m still breathing.”
There’s no accountability because she is truly trying to convince HERSELF more than her viewers that she’s “okay and fine and everything.”
This age restriction made her have to fully face the fact that she has a problem and it’s probably been very humbling for her, even though she’s not saying so to us.
When she says she’s trying to change, even though all she’s done is cover up a bit more, she thinks that that will solve the problem of showing off her imaciated body and then she will be seen as more “appropriate” to her viewers.
What she doesn’t understand is that she has done so much in the past that a lot of us view as unforgivable BECAUSE of the lack of accountability and willingness to change and the pushback and attitude that the viewers get when they DO bring these things she’s said/done to her attention (ie. calling us “haters,” dressing or doing things that are even more provocative, etc.) is truly because she’s spiraling out of control.
As her attitude and mental health get worse, so does her weight and physical health.
As far as her friends all being on TikTok and online in general, I get it. I was a teen during the height of MySpace and as the weird, severely bullied kid, myself, I took a lot of solace in the friends that I made online - some of which I am still friends with today, almost 20 years later. I’m only a couple years older than Eugenia, so I think that her experience was probably quite similar in that aspect. She became popular online, and went from having no friends to people wanting to be her friend around the world.
As someone with a background in mental health, I’ve found that a lot of people get stunted at the age their trauma occurred. I think that Eugenia is no exception to this. Everyone keeps saying, “she’s 29 but acts like a teenager.” This is true, but I don’t think it’s for some online persona or to lure people in with specific intent. I truly think she is stuck mentally at 14-15, because that’s when she found herself taking solace on social media and finding friends.
Which brings me to my last thought: she idolizes Jeffrey Star because he has a very big, commanding personality while she, personally does not. He got his start on MySpace way back and has only gained traction since then, with his cosmetics line, big-name romantic partners, and now his social media presence is back at peak for the first time in a long time. I don’t think she’s clout chasing, I think she’s loved him for as long as she’s known about him (early 2000s when ALL us emo kids were intrigued - I have very vivid memories of his vomiting fruit loops photo on MySpace - if you haven’t seen it, I’d give it a google lol) and the fact that someone she loved for so long is showing her DIRECT attention is a dream for her.
All this to basically say, while I don’t condone her behavior or even accept her apology (because it doesn’t feel genuine), I’m trying to show her a bit of grace, because we truly don’t know how much she’s dealing with outside of the “rose colored glasses” that she shows us of her life and unfortunately, I think that we, as viewers, expect her to share every aspect of herself with us because she is such a public figure, without realizing that we honestly don’t know much about her at all and deep down, she’s just a really really sick person with a disorder that is going to kill her someday (possibly soon).
Anyway, thanks for reading. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and just spent my whole break at work writing this out, so I appreciate if you got this far, lol.

“Hi, I’m Taylor.“
Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to NYU‘s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bill Berkeley and all the trustees and members of the board, NYU’s President Andrew Hamilton, Provost Katherine Fleming, and the faculty and alumni here today who have made this day possible. I feel so proud to share this day with my fellow honorees Susan Hockfield and Felix Matos Rodriguez, who humble me with the ways they improve our world with their work. As for me, I’m…90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22’. And let me just say, I am elated to be here with you today as we celebrate and graduate New York University’s Class of 2022.
Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that. Someone read stories to you and taught you to dream and offered up some moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by. Someone tried their best to explain every concept in this insanely complex world to the child that was you, as you asked a bazillion questions like ‘how does the moon work’ and ‘why can we eat salad but not grass.’ And maybe they didn’t do it perfectly. No one ever can. Maybe they aren’t with us anymore, and in that case I hope you’ll remember them today. If they are here in this stadium, I hope you’ll find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have led us to this common destination.
I know that words are supposed to be my ‘thing’, but I will never be able to find the words to thank my mom and my dad, and my brother, Austin, for the sacrifices they made every day so that I could go from singing in coffee houses to standing up here with you all today because no words would ever be enough. To all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today who have supported these students in their pursuit of educational enrichment, let me say to you now: Welcome to New York. It’s been waiting for you.
I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.
I never got to have the normal college experience, per se. I went to public high school until tenth grade and finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals. Then I went out on the road on a radio tour, which sounds incredibly glamorous but in reality it consisted of a rental car, motels, and my mom and I pretending to have loud mother daughter fights with each other during boarding so no one would want the empty seat between us on Southwest.
As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I’d hang on the wall of my freshmen dorm. I even set the ending of my music video for my song “Love Story” at my fantasy imaginary college, where I meet a male model reading a book on the grass and with one single glance, we realize we had been in love in our past lives. Which is exactly what you guys all experienced at some point in the last 4 years, right?
But I really can’t complain about not having a normal college experience to you because you went to NYU during a global pandemic, being essentially locked into your dorms or having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that you also had to pass like a thousand COVID tests. I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get. And as I would like to say to you, you should be very proud of what you’ve done with it. Today you leave New York University and then you go out into the world searching for what’s next. And so will I.
So as a rule, I try not to give anyone unsolicited advice unless they ask for it. I’ll go into this more later. I guess I have been officially solicited in this situation, to impart whatever wisdom I might have and tell you the things that helped me in my life so far. Please bear in mind that I, in no way, feel qualified to tell you what to do. You’ve worked and struggled and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today and so, you know what you’re doing. You’ll do things differently than I did them and for different reasons.
So I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that. I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career, and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.
The first of which is…life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.
Secondly, learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’
I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to. For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun.
And while we’re talking about things that make us squirm but really shouldn’t, I’d like to say that I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things. It seems to me that there is a false stigma around eagerness in our culture of ‘unbothered ambivalence.’ This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to ‘want it.’ That people who don’t try hard are fundamentally more chic than people who do. And I wouldn’t know because I have been a lot of things but I’ve never been an expert on ‘chic.’ But I’m the one who’s up here so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.
I started writing songs when I was twelve and since then, it’s been the compass guiding my life, and in turn, my life guided my writing. Everything I do is just an extension of my writing, whether it’s directing videos or a short film, creating the visuals for a tour, or standing on stage performing. Everything is connected by my love of the craft, the thrill of working through ideas and narrowing them down and polishing it all up in the end. Editing. Waking up in the middle of the night and throwing out the old idea because you just thought of a newer, better one. A plot device that ties the whole thing together. There’s a reason they call it a hook. Sometimes a string of words just ensnares me and I can’t focus on anything until it’s been recorded or written down.
As a songwriter I’ve never been able to sit still, or stay in one creative place for too long. I’ve made and released 11 albums and in the process, I’ve switched genres from country to pop to alternative to folk. This might sound like a very songwriter-centric line of discussion but in a way, I really do think we are all writers. And most of us write in a different voice for different situations. You write differently in your Instagram stories than you do your senior thesis. You send a different type of email to your boss than you do your best friend from home. We are all literary chameleons and I think it’s fascinating. It’s just a continuation of the idea that we are so many things, all the time. And I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be, and when. Who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news: It’s totally up to you. I also have some terrifying news: It’s totally up to you.
I said to you earlier that I don’t ever offer advice unless someone asks me for it, and now I’ll tell you why. As a person who started my very public career at the age of 15, it came with a price. And that price was years of unsolicited advice. Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant that I was constantly being issued warnings from older members of the music industry, the media, interviewers, executives. This advice often presented itself as thinly veiled warnings. See, I was a teenager in the public eye at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of having perfect young female role models. It felt like every interview I did included slight barbs by the interviewer about me one day ‘running off the rails.’ That meant a different thing to everyone person said it me. So I became a young adult while being fed the message that if I didn’t make any mistakes, all the children of America would grow up to be perfect angels. However, if I did slip up, the entire earth would fall off its axis and it would be entirely my fault and I would go to pop star jail forever and ever. It was all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and ultimately, the loss of any chance at a happy or rewarding life.
This has not been my experience. My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life.
And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.
The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut…looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes.’
Not being invited to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly lonely, but because I felt alone, I would sit in my room and write the songs that would get me a ticket somewhere else. Having label executives in Nashville tell me that only 35-year-old housewives listen to country music and there was no place for a 13-year-old on their roster made me cry in the car on the way home. But then I’d post my songs on my MySpace and yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn’t have anyone singing from their perspective. Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely. Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute, ever fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.
I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things.
I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.
Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know sometimes which path to take. There will be times in life when you need to stand up for yourself. Times when the right thing is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run. Times to hold on with all you have and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won’t.
How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t.
Scary news is: You’re on your own now.
Cool news is: You’re on your own now.
I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about on the internet. Anyway…hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it.
As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.
I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re…
… the class of ’22.

Hi, I really don't want to study for my exams right now. So I'm going to overanalyze a game where most of the writing is probably there "because it's funny" and over think it. Anyways, this is way too long.
With that out of the way...

What actually happens in Class of '09?

Class of '09 has a weird situation where it has a "not-sequel" that behaves just like a sequel and an apparently planned third game. Re-up isn't a remake, because its paths and branching completely shift away from the original '09. It also doesn't seem to fit any of the endings from original '09. Despite that, OG '09 begins in 2007, and Re-up begins in 2008, suggesting time has passed and there's some kind of continuity. So I thought about it and tried to come up with a working explanation.
Here's a few takeaways:

1) Nicole is the world's most unreliable narrator.

I feel like this should be kinda inherent to the format of the game - she's an uber sarcastic teenager who hates the world generally. It does seem true that every person in her surroundings is simply terrible, but events seem to pop in and out of focus according to her mental state.
One really glaring example is the Ari route in Re-up. If you date Ari, Nicole verbally abuses her to the point of disgust by Jecka, and Ari has to gradually work up her self esteem to break up with Nicole. If you reject Ari, however, Ari works her way into socially ostracizing and manipulating Nicole into a relationship. On one end she's incredibly shy and timid; on the other she's a damn sociopath as bad as Nicole. These are incredibly different personalities, beyond the usual code switching any person would be capable of doing.
Other details continue to not add up.
Depending on the route, Nicole either learns that her mom is absolutely loaded from alimony payments, has to get a job because the alimony won't last forever, can afford an expensive lawyer because of alimony, or can't afford a good lawyer at all because her mom's actually broke. These can't all be changing just because of chaotic school interactions. They do reflect how an ignorant teen might have a childish understanding of finances, however.
Both games open with her declaring she's a sociopath, and every ending dovetails with her closing out the story in her limited perspective. I think there's a definite case that what you've seen on screen doesn't line up with what happened in the story every time.

2) There are still events that definitely happened regardless of what route you took

In every route in OG '09 (aside from ones where you die early), it's mentioned the coach was actually fired for sexually assaulting students. This remains consistent even if you never go to gym class yourself. Regardless of how your first day goes, Nicole always befriends Jecka. Nicole will never get on well with any of the boys, and the counselor is always creepy. Nicole picks up a drug habit, skips class, doesn't do well. Jecka does similar. There are elements to the story that seem to be rooted in reality, away from just Nicole's point of view. And Jecka sticks by Nicole's side in every situation (even the weird white supremacist endings)...except for the bullying ending, which just might seem like the "realest" ending to some.
What's interesting is that these points remain consistent in Re-up, aside for the Coach appearing to organize the straight club. (That path seemed to be a fever dream by itself - we'll talk about it again later)
There's also a descent in Re-up, in that Nicole's life consistently gets darker and she becomes noticeably more distant from Jecka. Several endings revolve around the two no longer being friends, out of a mixture of disgust (Crack, Ari, Emily to some extent) and abandonment (the Myspace ending). In many paths, Jecka is shown to be actually improving her grades and life, and making decisions independently of Nicole. This is a large departure from the first game, where Jecka supposedly becomes a Neo-Nazi if Nicole isn't around to talk her out of it.
Jecka begins planning for college, while Nicole still has no intentions of following through. She takes AP classes, and doesn't end up in remedial English. She even expresses concern that Nicole skips remedial class, which is completely at odds with what Nicole saw of her before. She's able to diagnose her own dangerous drug interaction of metoprolol and Vicodin off of something she learned in school.
Probably most definitive is Jecka's avoidance and intentional distance with Nicole as time progresses. She can become uncomfortable with Nicole's lack of emotion following her mother's death, shocked that Nicole bullied a girl into becoming bulimic again, etc etc... For maybe the second time, she gets fed up with Nicole.

3) Many events seem to fit a teenager's daydreams perfectly

Separately from distorted reality, an awful lot of events that play out do so according to the self centered understandings of the world that adolescents have. In one possibility, Nicole gets shot by a mall cop, then gripes about Jecka's PTSD, reasoning that it "didn't bother me, why did it bother you?" We know exactly how stupid that sounds, but to a teenager, that logic would make sense.
Many events wrap around to fulfilling a latent desire of Nicole's. She's a consistently lonely girl who doesn't want to date boys, yet practically snaps at any opportunity to ruin a happy relationship when she sees it. At the mall, she breaks up Karen and Jeffery (in the one instance when he's not a degenerate) out of spite by suggesting he cheated on Karen with her and Emily. One entire ending branch in Re-up centers around humiliating Megan by cuckolding her boyfriend. She's totally disinterested in dating people...and yet can't help but be happy to pull one over people in their own lives.
Remember Ari? In one path, she ends up being broken up with because she's abusive. In the version of that path where she never made the first move, somehow a Coach who should have been fired in the last game and who ONLY shows up in this scene organizes a crazy plot to burn down a gay girl's house...and that gay girl just so happens to NEED Nicole so badly that she socially engineers her into a relationship, even though she hates her guts. It ticks off like EVERY teenage fantasy at once:
a) "What if we never dated at all?"
b) "What if I had to be the hero to the girl I like?"
c) "What if this girl that loathes me now still liked me?"
d) "What if this girl was just as crazy as me? What if she's literally me?"
e) "What if she's still not over me?"
Sprinkle in the ample subtext of Nicole liking girls much more than guys throughout the games, and it's textbook angst. We haven't even covered bits where Nicole calls the emo kid's generic ramblings about poetry "the most thoughtful thing I've ever heard" even though Crispin exists, endings where she ends up rich from lawsuits that could never work, endings where she humiliates teachers, or (pretty somberly) endings where she leaves behind a sad body, a sad note, and sad friends. All of these are perfect examples of how teens romanticize their lives.

OK I don't wanna read all that. What does it mean?

Nicole's world that you see is largely her own imagination. Her environment sucks, her teachers are shitty (as is usually the case in real life, faculty tend to be in teaching for the wrong reasons), most of her classmates are unpleasant (again, as is usually the case in real life, teenagers are idiots), but she does have a few friends at first. Her school probably has a real pedophilia problem with the gym teachers and counselors, since that's true to life. Nicole is likely reacting to that in her overall worldview.
Nearly all of the horrifying manipulation in the first game you see is fantasizing and locker gossip between her and Jecka (ie. "Wouldn't it be really funny if like Jeffery actually had a thing for being stepped on?" "STOPPP"). In reality, she's probably a quiet kid with average grades and a drug habit, just like any other kid. That's why Re-up begins senior year quietly - none of that flashy over the top crap happened in "reality", aside from one path.
The most common path you'll get is the hostage friendships ending, where Nicole gets slutshamed over a rumor and Jecka and her have a fight. There's a reason for that, it's probably what happened. Out of all the whacky ways the story goes, this is the one where the events are relatively normal, Nicole doesn't get her revenge fulfilled, and there's nothing pretty. It's just schoolchildren being nasty and adults being unsupportive. Nicole lives to see Re-up, obviously, which is the one change from that path.
That's why Re-up opens with Nicole monologuing about how people called her situation "unrealistic", as the most contradictory endings flash by. We see her crying in the shower as well, suggesting her junior year didn't end happily, and her first lines of dialogue with Jecka are unusually tense and stilted. They're definitely growing apart.
Re-up is where Nicole's delusions start to really clash with the people around her. Jecka begins to actually focus on school and disapproves of many decisions Nicole makes. It's possible that though Nicole didn't actually humiliate Jeffery to the point of a mental break or gaslight Kylar into jumping off a roof, she still carried enough manipulative tendencies to drive a wedge between Jecka and her. The games' strength is their voice acting and line writing, and the way Jecka slowly backs out of Nicole's life is incredibly subtle but very realistic - most people break up with their best friends by slowly edging them out and losing track of them.
If I had to predict what happens next, the next game will be post graduation, where Nicole finds herself meeting her former classmates and realizing she never grew up. The girl is clearly not headed for something well, and I foresee a sad ending. There might even be a point about Jecka asking to be referred to as "Jessica" (seems like a pretty prominent Chekov's gun).
I would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on how it's all shaping up!

tl;dr: Nicole's crazy and the games are about her deteriorating relationships while her friends grow up