Free math worksheets for dr suess's birthday
Super Teacher Worksheets' Subreddit
2014.10.14 17:47 superteacherwks Super Teacher Worksheets' Subreddit
A subreddit for Super Teacher Worksheets news, recommendations, comments, and questions. All conversation related to elementary education topics are welcome.
2017.07.03 01:19 matheasysolutions MES 9/11 Truth
After getting banned from 911Truth for promoting the brilliant work of Dr. Judy Wood in her book "Where Did The Towers Go?", I was trolled at an unbelievable level and then finally banned from that subreddit. Thus I a created this thread that people can discuss all things 9/11 while I remove the spam bots and paid trolls from making people look away from the overwhelming evidence that the towers turned to dust in mid-air. #FreeEnergy
2015.11.20 08:26 baronofbitcoin We have moved to /r/hydrino
Discussion of all things related to Brilliant Light Power including the SunCell, classical physics, hydrinos, the fifth force, etc. Keep comments clean and intellectual. Profanity is not allowed on this site. This is an unofficial page.
2024.05.29 03:54 TaylorSwiftDanceLike I despise this
I’m 16F, and started having issues when I was 13 I remember the first time something happened is when on my BIRTHDAY I had buffalo chicken Mac and Cheese and cake, a few hours later I was crying on my bed with severe painful bloating and stomachache. Now whenever I eat anything that isn’t dry chicken and low carb bread I double in size and get bad pains. This sucks because I used to dream about being a chef and now I just can’t eat anything that actually tastes good without it messing up my systems. Now carbs, dairy, spicy food, fruit, many vegetable and even WATER makes me bloat. I took my stomach for granted my whole life. I’ve missed important things because of flare ups for semingly no reasons. Nobody in my family has issues and they have the mentality of “suck it up” whenever I complain. They are also very food pushy and I always leave their house with bad pain. 8th grade, anual school memorial day assembly, 400+people in attendance. I had woke up early that morning with some mild pain and bloating. I brushed it off and headed off to school, forgetting to take my anxiety medicine. Though the day, I got more and more nervous because I was doing the majority of the presentation. Anxiety really ramps up my stomach issues. By the time we were doing my final rehearsal, I had a huge stomachache and my tummy was making a weird gurgling sound. Presentation comes, I go on a spiel about the American flag, history of Memorial Day, and white table ceremony. Killed it, the final thing I needed to do was lead us in the minute of silence. I put the microphone pressed on my side. About 10 seconds in, I started having really bad pain in my lower belly. 20 seconds in my stomach made the loudest sound ever, AND THE MICROPHONE PICKED IT UP!!! The room erupted in very quiet laughter. The minute ended and the principal took forever for closing remarks. At this point my stomach hurted sooooooooooooo bad and I really needed to use the restroom. The principal wanted to take a photo with us and the veterans in attendance. I pushed through it and then one of the retired marines came up to me and started talking for like five minutes before my math teacher made me leave. He finally let me use the restroom and I was in their fo like 10 minutes crying from embarrassment . This happens all the fricken time no. I haven’t tried a single otc meditation that helped at all. sometimes I go eight days without crapping sometimes I crap eight times a day. I never sleep with this. Please leave any suggestions in the comments. I don’t know how to deal with this. i’ve tried low Fodmap, gluten-free, Paleo, and even vegetarian, and nothing has helped.
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2024.05.29 03:14 redlight886 February 1998 PLAYBOY Interview with Conan O'Brien [additional content]
PLAYBOY Interview With Conan O'Brien Interview by Kevin Cook For Playboy Magazine February 1998
A candid conversation with the preppie prince of "Late Night" about his rocky start, his show's secret one-day cancellation and how David Letterman saved the day.
He was polite. He was funny. He gave us a communicable disease.
At 34 Conan O'Brien is hotter than the fever he was running when we met in his private domain above the "Late Night" sound stage. A gangly freckle-faced ex-high school geek he is "one of TV's hottest properties" according to "People" magazine. The host of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" has become his generation's king of comedy.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Congested too, but O'Brien has far more to worry about than his head cold. A perfectionist who broods over one bad minute in an otherwise perfect hour of TV, he worries he might be anhedonic, "I have trouble with success," he says, "I was raised to believe that if something good happens something bad is coming." Sure things look good now "Rolling Stone" calls "Late Night" "the hottest comedy show on TV." Ratings are better than ever, particularly among 18- to 34-year-olds, the viewers advertisers crave.
But O'Brien only works harder. Despite his illness he taped two shows in 26 hours on three hours' sleep. He smoothly interviewed Elton John then burst into coughing fits during commercials. Later in his crammed corner office overlooking Manhattan traffic Conan the Cool gulped Dayquil gel caps. He coughed spewing microbes.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. Of course O'Brien can't complain. He came seriously close to falling to being banished behind the scenes as just another failed talk show host.
At his first "Late Night" press conference he corrected a reporter who called him a relative unknown, "Sir I am a complete unknown," he said. That line got a laugh, but soon O'Brien looked doomed. His September 13, 1993 debut began with O'Brien in his dressing room preparing to hang himself only to be interrupted by the start of his show. Before long his career was hanging by a thread. Ratings were terrible. Critics hated the show. Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" called it as "lifeless and messy as roadkill." Shales said O'Brien should quit.
Network officials held urgent meetings discussing the Conan O'Brien debacle. Should they fire him? How should they explain their mistake?
In the end of course he turned it around. The network hung with him long enough for the ratings to improve and the host of the cooler-than-ever "Late Night" now defines comedy's cutting edge just as Letterman did ten years ago.
Even Shales loves "Late Night" these days. He calls O'Brien's turnaround "one of the most amazing transformations in television history."
O'Brien was born on April 18, 1963 in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, a doctor, is a professor at Harvard Medical School. His mother, a lawyer, is a partner at an elite Boston Law firm. Conan, the third of six children became a lector at church and a misfit at school. Tall and goofy, bedeviled with acne, he tried to impress girls with jokes. That plan usually bombed, but O'Brien eventually found his niche at Harvard where he won the presidency of the "Harvard Lampoon" in 1983 and again in 1984 - the first two-time "Lampoon" president since humorist Robert Benchley held the honor 85 years ago.
After graduating magna cum laude with a double major in literature and American history he turned pro. Writing for HBO's "Not Necessarily The News." O'Brien was earning $100,000 a year before his 24th birthday. But writing was never enough.
He honed his performance skills with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improv group. There he worked with his onetime girlfriend Lisa Kudrow, now starring on "Friends." But Conan was not such a standout. In 1988 he landed a job at "Saturday Night Live" - but as a writer, not as on-air talent. In almost four years on the show O'Brien made only fleeting appearances, usually as a crowd member or security guard. His writing was more memorable. He wrote (or co-wrote) Tom hanks' "Mr Short-Term Memory" skits as well as the "pump you up" infosatire of Hanz and Franz and the nude beach sketch in which Matthew Broderick and "SNL" members played nudists admiring one another's penises. With dozens of mentions of the word that hit was the most penis-heavy moment in TV history. It helped O'Brien win an Emmy for comedy writing.
In 1991 he quit "SNL" and moved on to "The Simpsons" where he worked for two years. His urge to perform came out in wall-bouncing antics in writers' meetings. "Conan makes you fall out of your chair" said "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. O'Brien's yen to act out was so strong that he spurned Fox's reported seven-figure offer to continue as a writer. He was driving for the spotlight.
By then David Letterman had announced he was turning shin - leaving NBC taking his ton-rated act to CBS. Suddenly NBC was up a creek without a host. The network turned to Lorne Michaels, O'Brien's "Saturday Night Live" boss. Michaels enlisted Conan's help in the host search planning to use him in a behind-the-scenes job. But when Garry Shandling, Dana Carvey and almost every other star turned down the chore of following Letterman, Michaels finally listened to Conan's crazy suggestion, "Let me do it!" Michaels persuaded the network to entrust it's 12:30 slot which Letterman had turned into a gold mine to an untested wiseass from Harvard.
O'Brien was working on one of his last "Simpsons" episodes when he got the news. He turned "paler than usual," Groening recalled. The Conan moseyed back to where the other writers were working, "I'll come back with the Homer Simspon joke later. I have to go replace Letterman," he said.
NBC executives now get credit for their foresight during those dark days of 1993 and 1994. They snared the axe and now reap the multimillion-dollar spoils of that decision. In fact, the story is not so simple. We sent Contributing Editor Kevin Cook to unravel the tale of O'Brien's survival, which he tells here for the first time. Cook reports:
"His office is chock-full of significa. There's a three-foot plastic pickle the Letterman staff left behind in 1993 - perhaps to suggest what a predicament he was in. There's a copy of Jack Paar's 'I Kid You Not' and a coffee-table book called 'Saturday Night Live: The First 20 Years.' His bulletin board features letters from fans such as John Watters and Bob Dole and an 8" x 10" glossy of Andy Richter with the inscription: "To Conan - Your bitter jealousy warms my black heart. Love and Kisses Andy."
"Of course it's all for show. From the photos of kitch icons Adam West and Robert Stack to the framed Stan Laurel autograph, from the deathbed painting of Abraham Lincoln, to the ironic star taped to Conan's door - they're all clever signals that tell a visitor how to view the star. Lincoln was his collegiate preoccupation: stardom is his occupation. Somewhere between the two I hoped to find the real O'Brien.
"As a Playboy reader he wanted to give me a better-than-average interview. I wanted something more - a definitive look at the guy who may end up being the Johnny Carson of his generation."
"Here's hoping we succeeded. If not I carried his germs 3000 miles and infected dozens of Californians for no good reason.
O'Brien: Yes, this is how to do a Playboy Interview -- completely tanked on cold medicine. I'll pick it up and read, "Yes, I'm gay."
Playboy: We could talk another time. O'Brien: (coughing) No, it's OK. I memorized Dennis Rodman's answers. Can I use them?
Playboy: You sound really sick. Do you ever take a day off? O'Brien: No. The age of talk show hosts taking days off is over. Johnny Carson could go to Africa when he was the only game in town -- "See you in two weeks!" But nobody does that now. I will give you a million dollars on the first day Jay takes off for illness.
Playboy: Do you ever slow down and enjoy your success? O'Brien: If anything, the pace is picking up. Restaurateurs insist on giving me a table even if I'm only passing by, so I'm eating nine meals a night. Women stop me on the street and hand me their phone numbers.
Playboy: So you have groupies? O'Brien: Oh yes. And other fans. Drifters. Prisoners. Insomniacs. Cab Drivers, who must watch a lot of late night TV, seem to love me lately. They keep saying, "You will not pay, you will not pay, you make me happy!"
Playboy: How happy did your new contract make you? O'Brien: Terrified. The network said, "We're all set for five years." I said, "Shut up, shut up! I can't think that far ahead." Tonight, for instance, I do my jokes, then interview Elton John and Tim Meadows. We finished taping about 6:30. By 6:45 my memory was erased and my only thought was, Tomorrow: John Tesh. And I started to obsess about John Tesh. Sad, don't you think?
Playboy: Not too sad. You got off to a rocky start but now you're so hot that People magazine recently said, "that was then, this is wow." O'Brien: I try not to pay much attention. Since I ignored the critics who said I should shoot myself in the head with a German Luger, it would be cheating to tear out nice reviews now and rub them all over my body, giggling. Though I have thought about it.
Playboy: Tell us about your trademark gag. You interview a photo of Bill Clinton or some other celeb, and a pair of superimposed lips provide outrageous answers. O'Brien: We call it the Clutch Cargo bit, after that terrible old cartoon series. They saved money on animation by superimposing real lips on the cartoons. I wanted to do topical jokes in a cartoony way -- not just Conan doing quips at a desk. TV is visual; I want things to look funny. But we're not Saturday Night Live; we couldn't spend $100,000 on it. Hence, the cheap, cheesy lips, You'd be surprised how many people we fool.
Playboy: Viewers believe that's really the president yelling, "Yee-haw! Who's got a joint?" O'Brien: It's strange. You may know intellectually that Clinton doesn't talk like Foghorn Leghorn. Ninety-eight percent of your brain knows the president wouldn't say, "Whoa Conan get a load of that girl!" But there are a few brain cells that aren't sure. When Bob Dole was running for president we had him doing a past-life regression: "My cave, get away." And then back further, "Must form flippers to crawl on to rocky soil," he says. There may be people out there who believe that Bob Dole was the first amphibian.
Playboy: Do you ever go too far? O'Brien: The fun is in going too far. It's a nice device because you get Bill Clinton to do the nastiest Bill Clinton jokes. We'll have Clinton making fart noises while I say "Sir! Please!"
Playboy: Are you enjoying your job now, with your new success? O'Brien: Well, there are surprises. I hate surprises. Like most comics, I'm a control freak. But I am learning that the show works best when things are out of control. Tonight I ask Elton John if he likes being neighbors with Joan Collins. He says he isn't neighbors with Joan Collins. He lives next door to Tina Turner. So I panic -- huge mistake! But Elton saves the day. "Joan Collins, Tina Turner, it doesn't matter. Either way I could borrow a wig," he says. Huge laugh, all because I fucked up. Later he surprised me by blurting out that he's hung like a horse. The camera cuts to me shaking my head: That crazy Elton. What can I do? Of course, I'm delighted that he went too far.
Playboy: That "What can I do?" look resembles a classic take of Jack Benny's. O'Brien: There's an old saying in literature: "Good poets borrow; great poets steal." I think T.S. Eliot stole it from Ezra Pound. Comics steal, too. Constantly. When I watched Johnny Carson, I noticed that he got a few takes from Benny and Bob Hope. When a comedy writer told me how much Woody Allen had borrowed from Hope, I thought, What? They're nothing alike. Then I went back and watched Son of Paleface, and there's Hope, the nervous city guy backing up on his heels, wringing his hands and saying, "Sorry, I'll just be moving along." Now look at early Woody Allen. You see big authority figures and Woody nervously saying, "Look, I'll just be on my way." Of course Woody made it his own, but he must have watched and loved Bob Hope.
Playboy: Who are your role models? O'Brien: Carson. Woody Allen. SCTV. Peter Sellers. When Peter Sellers died I felt such a loss, thinking, There won't be anymore of that. There's some Steve Martin in my false bravado with female guests: "Why, hel-lo there!" And I won't deny having some Letterman in my bones.
Playboy: You were surprise as Letterman's successor. At first you seemed like the wrong choice. O'Brien: I didn't get ratings. That doesn't mean I didn't get laughs. Yes, I had a giant pompadour and I looked like a rockabilly freak. I was too excited, pushed too hard, and people said, "That guy isn't a polished performer." Fine! But it isn't my goal to be Joe Handsomehead cool, smooth talk show host. Late Night with Conan O'Brien is supposed to be a work in progress, and now that we've had some success there's a danger of our getting too polished and morphing into something smoothly professional. Which would suck.
Do you know why I wanted this show? Because Late Night with David Letterman played with the rules and it looked like fun. Here was a place where people did risky comedy every night for millions of people. We had to keep this thing alive. There should be a place on a big network where people are still messing around.
Playboy: How bad were your early days on the show? O'Brien: Bad. Dave left here under a cloud: his fans and the media were angry with NBC. Then NBC picks a guy with crazy hair and a weird name. And the world says, "Harvard? Those guys are assholes." I sincerely hope that the winter of December 1993, our first winter, was the worst time I will ever have. I'd go out to do the warm up and the back two rows of seats would be empty. That's hard to look at. I would tell a joke and then hear someone whisper, "Who's he? Where's Dave?"
Playboy: You had trouble getting guests. O'Brien: Bob Denver canceled on us. We shot a test show with Al Lewis of The Munsters. We did the clutch cargo thing with a photo of Herman Munster. Unfortunately, Fred Gwynne, who played Herman, had recently died, and Al Lewis kept pointing at the screen, saying, "You're dead! I was at your funeral!"
Playboy: For months you got worried notes from network executives. What did they say? O'Brien: They were worried. The fact that Lorne Michaels was involved bought me some time. But Lorne had turned to me at the start and said, "OK, Conan. What do you want to do?" Now television critics were after me and the network was starting to realize what a risk I was. Suggestions came fast and furious. I kept the note that said, "Why don't you just die?"
Playboy: Did they suggest ways to be funnier? O'Brien: They were more specific and tactical. The network gets very specific data. Say there was a drop in ratings between 12:44 and 12:48 when I was talking to Jon Bon Jovi. I'll be told, "Don't ever talk to him again" Or they'll want me to tease viewers into staying with us: "You should tease that -- say, 'We'll have nudity coming up next!'"
Playboy: You did come close to being cancelled. O'Brien: We were cancelled.
Playboy: Really? You have never admitted that. O'Brien: This is the first time I've talked about it. When I had been on for about a year, there was a meeting at the network. They decided to cancel my show. They said, "It's cancelled." Next day they realized they had nothing to put in the 12:30 slot, so we got a reprieve.
Playboy: Were you worried sick? O'Brien: I went into denial. I tried hard not to think, Yes, I'm bad on the air and my show has none of the things a TV show needs to survive. We had no ratings. No critics in our corner. Advertisers didn't like us. Affiliates wanted to drop us. Sometimes I'd meet a programming director from a local station where we had no rating at all. The guy would show me a printout with no number for Late Night's rating, just a hash mark or pound sign. I didn't dare think about that when I went out to do the show.
Playboy: Are you defending denial? O'Brien: How else does anyone get through a terrible experience? The odds were against me. Rationally, I didn't have much chance. Denial was my only friend. When I look back on the first year, it's like a scene from an old war movie: Ordinary guy gets thrown into combat, somehow beats impossible odds, staggers to safety. His buddy say, "You could have been killed!" The guy stops and thinks. "Could have been killed?" he says. His eyes cross and he faints.
Playboy: How did you dodge the bullet? O'Brien: There were people at NBC who stood up for me. I will always be indebted to Don Ohlmeyer, who stuck to his guns. Don said, "We chose this guy. We should stick with him unless we get a better plan." He was brutally honest. He came to me and said, "Give me about a 15 percent bump in the ratings and you'll stay on the air. If not, we're going to move on."
Playboy: Ohlmeyer started his career in the sports division. O'Brien: Exactly, his take was, "You're on our team." Of course, it wasn't exactly rational of Don to hope I'd be 15 percent funnier. It was like telling a farmer, "It better rain this week or we'll take your farm away."
Playboy: What did you say to Ohlmeyer? O'Brien: There wasn't time. I had to go out and do a monologue. But I will always be indebted to Don because he told me the truth. Wait a minute -- you have tricked me into talking lovingly about an NBC executive. Let me say that there were others who were beneath contempt -- executives who wouldn't know a good show if it swam up their asses and lit a campfire.
Playboy: Finally the ratings went your way. Hard work rewarded? O'Brien: Well, I also paid off the Nielsen people. That was $140,000 well spent.
Playboy: Ohlmeyer plus bribery saved you? O'Brien: There was something else. Just when everyone was kicking the crap out of the show, Letterman defended me.
Playboy: Letterman had signed off on NBC saying, "I don't really know Conan O'Brien, but I heard he killed someone." O'Brien: Then I pick up the paper and he's saying he thinks I am going to make it. "They do some interesting, innovative stuff over there," he says. "I think Conan will prevail." And then he came on as a guest. Remember, this was when we were at our nadir. There was no Machiavellian reason for David Letterman, who at the time was the biggest thing in show business, to be on my show.
Playboy: Why did he do it? O'Brien: I'm still not sure. Maybe out of a sense of honor. Fair play. And it woke me up. It made me think. Hey, we have a real fucking television show here.
Of six or seven pivotal points in my short history here, that was the first and maybe the biggest. I wouldn't be sitting here -- I probably wouldn't even exist today -- if he hadn't done our show.
Playboy: The Late Night wars were hardly noted for friendly gestures. O'Brien: How little you understand. Jay, Dave and I pal around all the time. We often ride a bicycle built for three up to the country. "Nice job with Fran Drescher!" "Thanks, pal. You weren't so bad with John Tesh." We sleep in triple-decker bunk beds and snore in unison like the Three Stooges.
Playboy: You talk more about Letterman than your NBC teammate Leno. O'Brien: I hate the "Leno or Letterman, who's better?" question. I can tell you that Jay has been great to me. He calls me occasionally.
Playboy: To say what? O'Brien: (Doing Leno's voice) "Hey, liked that bit you did last night." Or he'll say he saw we got a good rating. I call him at work, too. It can be a strange conversation because we're so different. Jay, for instance, really loves cars. He's got antique cars with kerosene lanterns, cars that run on peat moss. He'll be telling me about some classic car he has, made entirely of brass and leather, and I'll say, "Yeah, man, I got the Taurus with the vinyl." One thing we have in common is bad guests. There are certain actors, celebrities with nothing to say, who move through the talk show world wreaking havoc. They lay waste to Dave's town and Jay's town, then head my way.
Playboy: You must be getting some good guests. Your ratings have shown a marked improvement. O'Brien: Remember, when you're on at 12:30 the Nielsens are based on 80 people. My ratings drop if one person has a head cold and goes to bed early.
Playboy: Actually, you're seen by about 3 million people a night. Your ratings would be even higher if college dorms weren't excluded from the Nielsens. How many points does that cost you? O'Brien: I told you I'm an idiot. Now I have to do math too?
Playboy: Do you still get suggestions from NBC executives? O'Brien: Not as many. The number of notes you get is inversely proportional to your ratings.
Playboy: What keeps you motivated? O'Brien: Superstition. We have a stagehand, Bobby Bowman, who holds up the curtain when I run out for the monologue. He is the last person I see before the show starts, and I have to make him laugh before I go out. It started with mild jabs: "Bobby, you're drunk again." Bobby laughs, "Heehee."" Then it was, "Still having trouble with the wife, Bobby?" But after hundreds of shows, you find yourself running out of lines. It's gotten to where I do crass things at the last second. I'll put his hand on my ass and yell, "You fucking pervert!" Or drop to my knees and say, "Come on, Bobby, I'll give you a blow job!"
"Ha-ha. Conan, you're crazy," he says. But even that stuff wears off. Soon, I'll be making the writers work late to give me new jokes for Bobby.
Playboy: Did you plan to be a talk show host or did you fall into the job? O'Brien: I was an Irish Catholic kid from St. Ignatius parish in Brookline, outside of Boston. And that meant: Don't call attention to yourself. Don't ask for too much when the pie comes around. Don't get a girl pregnant and fuck up your life.
Playboy: Were you an alter boy? O'Brien: I wanted to be an alter boy, but the priest at St. Ignatius said, "No, no. You're good on your feet, kid," and made me a lector. A scripture reader at Mass. He was the one who spotted my talent.
Playboy: What did you think of sex in those days? O'Brien: I was sexually repressed. At 16 I still thought human reproduction was by mitosis.
Playboy: How did you get over your sexual repression? O'Brien: Who says I got over it? My leg has been jiggling this whole time.
Playboy: What were you like in high school? O'Brien: Like a crane galumphing down the hall. A crane with weird hair, bad skin and Clearasil. Big enough for basketball but lousy at it. My older brothers were better. I would compensate by running around the court doing comedy, saying, "Look out, this player has a drug addiction. He's incredibly egotistical."
I was an asshole at home, too. My little brother Justin loved playing cops and robbers, but I kept tying him up with bureaucratic bullshit. When he'd catch me, I'd say, "I get to call my lawyer." Then it was, "OK, Justin, we're at trial and you've been charged with illegal arrest. Fill out these forms in triplicate." Justin was eight; he hated all the lawsuits and countersuits. He just cried.
Playboy: Were you a class clown? O'Brien: Never. I was never someone who walked into a room full of strangers and started telling jokes. You had to get to know me before I could make you laugh. The same thing happened with Late Night. I needed to get the right rhythm with Andy and Max and the audience.
Playboy: So how did you finally learn about sex? O'Brien: My parents gave me a book, but it was useless. At the crucial moment, all it showed was a man and a woman with the bed covers pulled up to their chins. I tried to find out more from friends, but it didn't help. One childhood friend told me it was like parking a car in a garage. I kept worrying about poisonous fumes. What if the fumes build up? Should you shut off the engine?
Playboy: For all your talk about being repressed, you can be rowdy on the air. O'Brien: The show is my escape valve. When I tear off my shirt and gyrate my pelvis like Robert Plant, feigning orgasm into the microphone, that shows how repressed I am -- a guy who wants to push his sex at the lens but can only do it as a joke.
Playboy: Aren't you tempted to live it up? O'Brien: I always imagined that if I were a TV star I would live the way I pictured Johnny Carson living. Carousing, stepping out of a limo wearing a velvet ascot with a model on my arm. Now that I have the TV show, I drive up to Connecticut on the weekends and tool around in my car. I could probably join a free-sex cult, smoke crack between orgies and drive sports cars into swimming pools, and my Catholic guilt would still be there, throbbing like a toothache. Be careful. If something good happens, something bad is on the way.
Playboy: Yet you don't mind licking the supermodels. O'Brien: At one point a few of them lived in my building, women who are so beautiful they almost look weird, like aliens. To me, a woman who has a certain approachable amount of beauty becomes almost funny. It's the same with male supermodels. They look like big puppets. So while I admire their beauty I probably won't be "romantically linked" with a model. I'd catch my reflection in a ballroom mirror and break up laughing.
Playboy: The horny Roy Orbison growl you use on gorgeous guests sounds real enough -- O'Brien: Oh, I've been doing that shit since high school. It just never worked before.
Playboy: Your father is a doctor, your mother an attorney. What do they think of their son the comedian? O'Brien: My dad was the one who told me denial was a virtue. "Denial is how people get through horrible things," he said. He also cut out a newspaper article in which I said I was making money off something for which I should probably be treated. So true, he thought. But when I got an Emmy for helping write Saturday Night Live, my parents put it on the mantel next to the crucifix. Here's Jesus looking over, saying, "Wow, I saved mankind from sin, but I wish I had an Emmy."
Playboy: Ever been in therapy? O'Brien: Yes. I don't trust it. I have told therapists that I don't particularly want to feel good. "Repression and fear, that's my fuel." But the therapists said that I had nothing to worry about. "Don't worry Conan you will always be plenty fucked up."
Playboy: When a female guest comes out, how do you know whether to shake her hand or kiss her? Is that rehearsed O'Brien: No, and it's awkward. If you go to shake her hand and her head starts coming right at you, you have to change strategy fast. I have thought about using the show to make women kiss me, but that would probably creep out the people at home. I decided not to kiss Elton John.
Playboy: Do you get all fired up if Cindy Crawford or Rebecca Romijn does the show? O'Brien: I like making women laugh. Always have, ever since I discovered you can get girls' attention by acting like an ass. That's one of the joys of the show -- I'm working my eyebrows and going grrr and she's laughing, the audience is laughing. It's all a big put-on and I'm thinking. This is great. Here is a beautiful woman who has no choice but to put up with this shit.
But it's not always put on. Sometimes they flirt back. Sometimes there's a bit of chemistry. That happened with Jennifer Connelly of The Rocketeer.
Playboy: One guest, Jill Hennessy, took off her pants for you. Then you removed yours. Even Penn and Teller took off their pants. O'Brien: Something comes over me. It happened with Rebecca Romijn -- I was practically climbing her. Those are the times when Andy and the audience seem to disappear and it's just me and this lovely woman sitting there flirting. I keep expecting a waiter to say, "More wine, Monsieur?"
Playboy: Would you lick the wine bottle? O'Brien: It's true, there's a lot of licking on the show. I have licked guests. I have licked Andy. Comedy professionals will read this and say, "Great work, Conan. Impressive." But I have learned that if you lick a guest, people laugh. If I pick this shoe off the floor, examine it, Hmmm, and then lick it, people laugh. I learned this lesson on The Simpsons, where I was the writer who was forever trying to entertain the other writers. I still try desperately to make our writers laugh, which is probably a sign of sickness since they work for me now. Licking is one of those things that look funny.
Playboy: Johnny Carson never licked Ed McMahon. O'Brien: We are much more physical and more stupid than the old Tonight Show. Even in our offices before the show there's always some writer acting out a scene crashing his head through my door. A behind-the-scenes look at our show might frighten people.
Playboy: One night you showed a doctored photo of Craig T. Nelson having sex with Jerry Van Dyke. Did they complain about it? O'Brien: I haven't heard from them. Of course I'm blessed not to be a part of the celebrity pond. I have a television show in New York, an NBC outpost. I don't run with or even run into many Hollywood people.
Playboy: You also announced that Tori Spelling has a penis. O'Brien: I did not. Polly the Peacock said that.
Playboy: Another character you use to say the outrageous stuff. O'Brien: Polly is not popular with the network.
Playboy: You mock Fabio, too. O'Brien: If he sues me, it'll be the best thing that ever happened. A publicity bonanza: Courtroom sketches of Fabio with his man-boobs quivering, shaking his fist, and me shouting at him across the courtroom. I'm not afraid of Fabio. He knows where to find me. I'm saying it right here for the record: Fabio, let's get it on.
Playboy: Ever have a run-in with an angry celeb? O'Brien: I did a Kelsey Grammar joke a few years ago, something about his interesting lifestyle, then heard through the network that he was upset. He had appeared on my show and expected some support. At this point my intellect says, "Kelsey Grammar is a public figure. I was in the right." Then I saw him in an airport. Kelsey didn't see me at first: I could have kept walking. But there he was, eating a cruller in the airport lounge. I thought I should go over. I said hello and then said, "Kelsey, I'm sorry if I upset you." And he was glad. He looked relieved. He said, "Oh, that's OK." We both felt better.
....See my other post with the last third of the interview
submitted by redlight886 to conan [link] [comments]
A candid conversation with the preppie prince of "Late Night" about his rocky start, his show's secret one-day cancellation and how David Letterman saved the day.
He was polite. He was funny. He gave us a communicable disease.
At 34 Conan O'Brien is hotter than the fever he was running when we met in his private domain above the "Late Night" sound stage. A gangly freckle-faced ex-high school geek he is "one of TV's hottest properties" according to "People" magazine. The host of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" has become his generation's king of comedy.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Congested too, but O'Brien has far more to worry about than his head cold. A perfectionist who broods over one bad minute in an otherwise perfect hour of TV, he worries he might be anhedonic, "I have trouble with success," he says, "I was raised to believe that if something good happens something bad is coming." Sure things look good now "Rolling Stone" calls "Late Night" "the hottest comedy show on TV." Ratings are better than ever, particularly among 18- to 34-year-olds, the viewers advertisers crave.
But O'Brien only works harder. Despite his illness he taped two shows in 26 hours on three hours' sleep. He smoothly interviewed Elton John then burst into coughing fits during commercials. Later in his crammed corner office overlooking Manhattan traffic Conan the Cool gulped Dayquil gel caps. He coughed spewing microbes.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. Of course O'Brien can't complain. He came seriously close to falling to being banished behind the scenes as just another failed talk show host.
At his first "Late Night" press conference he corrected a reporter who called him a relative unknown, "Sir I am a complete unknown," he said. That line got a laugh, but soon O'Brien looked doomed. His September 13, 1993 debut began with O'Brien in his dressing room preparing to hang himself only to be interrupted by the start of his show. Before long his career was hanging by a thread. Ratings were terrible. Critics hated the show. Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" called it as "lifeless and messy as roadkill." Shales said O'Brien should quit.
Network officials held urgent meetings discussing the Conan O'Brien debacle. Should they fire him? How should they explain their mistake?
In the end of course he turned it around. The network hung with him long enough for the ratings to improve and the host of the cooler-than-ever "Late Night" now defines comedy's cutting edge just as Letterman did ten years ago.
Even Shales loves "Late Night" these days. He calls O'Brien's turnaround "one of the most amazing transformations in television history."
O'Brien was born on April 18, 1963 in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, a doctor, is a professor at Harvard Medical School. His mother, a lawyer, is a partner at an elite Boston Law firm. Conan, the third of six children became a lector at church and a misfit at school. Tall and goofy, bedeviled with acne, he tried to impress girls with jokes. That plan usually bombed, but O'Brien eventually found his niche at Harvard where he won the presidency of the "Harvard Lampoon" in 1983 and again in 1984 - the first two-time "Lampoon" president since humorist Robert Benchley held the honor 85 years ago.
After graduating magna cum laude with a double major in literature and American history he turned pro. Writing for HBO's "Not Necessarily The News." O'Brien was earning $100,000 a year before his 24th birthday. But writing was never enough.
He honed his performance skills with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improv group. There he worked with his onetime girlfriend Lisa Kudrow, now starring on "Friends." But Conan was not such a standout. In 1988 he landed a job at "Saturday Night Live" - but as a writer, not as on-air talent. In almost four years on the show O'Brien made only fleeting appearances, usually as a crowd member or security guard. His writing was more memorable. He wrote (or co-wrote) Tom hanks' "Mr Short-Term Memory" skits as well as the "pump you up" infosatire of Hanz and Franz and the nude beach sketch in which Matthew Broderick and "SNL" members played nudists admiring one another's penises. With dozens of mentions of the word that hit was the most penis-heavy moment in TV history. It helped O'Brien win an Emmy for comedy writing.
In 1991 he quit "SNL" and moved on to "The Simpsons" where he worked for two years. His urge to perform came out in wall-bouncing antics in writers' meetings. "Conan makes you fall out of your chair" said "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. O'Brien's yen to act out was so strong that he spurned Fox's reported seven-figure offer to continue as a writer. He was driving for the spotlight.
By then David Letterman had announced he was turning shin - leaving NBC taking his ton-rated act to CBS. Suddenly NBC was up a creek without a host. The network turned to Lorne Michaels, O'Brien's "Saturday Night Live" boss. Michaels enlisted Conan's help in the host search planning to use him in a behind-the-scenes job. But when Garry Shandling, Dana Carvey and almost every other star turned down the chore of following Letterman, Michaels finally listened to Conan's crazy suggestion, "Let me do it!" Michaels persuaded the network to entrust it's 12:30 slot which Letterman had turned into a gold mine to an untested wiseass from Harvard.
O'Brien was working on one of his last "Simpsons" episodes when he got the news. He turned "paler than usual," Groening recalled. The Conan moseyed back to where the other writers were working, "I'll come back with the Homer Simspon joke later. I have to go replace Letterman," he said.
NBC executives now get credit for their foresight during those dark days of 1993 and 1994. They snared the axe and now reap the multimillion-dollar spoils of that decision. In fact, the story is not so simple. We sent Contributing Editor Kevin Cook to unravel the tale of O'Brien's survival, which he tells here for the first time. Cook reports:
"His office is chock-full of significa. There's a three-foot plastic pickle the Letterman staff left behind in 1993 - perhaps to suggest what a predicament he was in. There's a copy of Jack Paar's 'I Kid You Not' and a coffee-table book called 'Saturday Night Live: The First 20 Years.' His bulletin board features letters from fans such as John Watters and Bob Dole and an 8" x 10" glossy of Andy Richter with the inscription: "To Conan - Your bitter jealousy warms my black heart. Love and Kisses Andy."
"Of course it's all for show. From the photos of kitch icons Adam West and Robert Stack to the framed Stan Laurel autograph, from the deathbed painting of Abraham Lincoln, to the ironic star taped to Conan's door - they're all clever signals that tell a visitor how to view the star. Lincoln was his collegiate preoccupation: stardom is his occupation. Somewhere between the two I hoped to find the real O'Brien.
"As a Playboy reader he wanted to give me a better-than-average interview. I wanted something more - a definitive look at the guy who may end up being the Johnny Carson of his generation."
"Here's hoping we succeeded. If not I carried his germs 3000 miles and infected dozens of Californians for no good reason.
O'Brien: Yes, this is how to do a Playboy Interview -- completely tanked on cold medicine. I'll pick it up and read, "Yes, I'm gay."
Playboy: We could talk another time. O'Brien: (coughing) No, it's OK. I memorized Dennis Rodman's answers. Can I use them?
Playboy: You sound really sick. Do you ever take a day off? O'Brien: No. The age of talk show hosts taking days off is over. Johnny Carson could go to Africa when he was the only game in town -- "See you in two weeks!" But nobody does that now. I will give you a million dollars on the first day Jay takes off for illness.
Playboy: Do you ever slow down and enjoy your success? O'Brien: If anything, the pace is picking up. Restaurateurs insist on giving me a table even if I'm only passing by, so I'm eating nine meals a night. Women stop me on the street and hand me their phone numbers.
Playboy: So you have groupies? O'Brien: Oh yes. And other fans. Drifters. Prisoners. Insomniacs. Cab Drivers, who must watch a lot of late night TV, seem to love me lately. They keep saying, "You will not pay, you will not pay, you make me happy!"
Playboy: How happy did your new contract make you? O'Brien: Terrified. The network said, "We're all set for five years." I said, "Shut up, shut up! I can't think that far ahead." Tonight, for instance, I do my jokes, then interview Elton John and Tim Meadows. We finished taping about 6:30. By 6:45 my memory was erased and my only thought was, Tomorrow: John Tesh. And I started to obsess about John Tesh. Sad, don't you think?
Playboy: Not too sad. You got off to a rocky start but now you're so hot that People magazine recently said, "that was then, this is wow." O'Brien: I try not to pay much attention. Since I ignored the critics who said I should shoot myself in the head with a German Luger, it would be cheating to tear out nice reviews now and rub them all over my body, giggling. Though I have thought about it.
Playboy: Tell us about your trademark gag. You interview a photo of Bill Clinton or some other celeb, and a pair of superimposed lips provide outrageous answers. O'Brien: We call it the Clutch Cargo bit, after that terrible old cartoon series. They saved money on animation by superimposing real lips on the cartoons. I wanted to do topical jokes in a cartoony way -- not just Conan doing quips at a desk. TV is visual; I want things to look funny. But we're not Saturday Night Live; we couldn't spend $100,000 on it. Hence, the cheap, cheesy lips, You'd be surprised how many people we fool.
Playboy: Viewers believe that's really the president yelling, "Yee-haw! Who's got a joint?" O'Brien: It's strange. You may know intellectually that Clinton doesn't talk like Foghorn Leghorn. Ninety-eight percent of your brain knows the president wouldn't say, "Whoa Conan get a load of that girl!" But there are a few brain cells that aren't sure. When Bob Dole was running for president we had him doing a past-life regression: "My cave, get away." And then back further, "Must form flippers to crawl on to rocky soil," he says. There may be people out there who believe that Bob Dole was the first amphibian.
Playboy: Do you ever go too far? O'Brien: The fun is in going too far. It's a nice device because you get Bill Clinton to do the nastiest Bill Clinton jokes. We'll have Clinton making fart noises while I say "Sir! Please!"
Playboy: Are you enjoying your job now, with your new success? O'Brien: Well, there are surprises. I hate surprises. Like most comics, I'm a control freak. But I am learning that the show works best when things are out of control. Tonight I ask Elton John if he likes being neighbors with Joan Collins. He says he isn't neighbors with Joan Collins. He lives next door to Tina Turner. So I panic -- huge mistake! But Elton saves the day. "Joan Collins, Tina Turner, it doesn't matter. Either way I could borrow a wig," he says. Huge laugh, all because I fucked up. Later he surprised me by blurting out that he's hung like a horse. The camera cuts to me shaking my head: That crazy Elton. What can I do? Of course, I'm delighted that he went too far.
Playboy: That "What can I do?" look resembles a classic take of Jack Benny's. O'Brien: There's an old saying in literature: "Good poets borrow; great poets steal." I think T.S. Eliot stole it from Ezra Pound. Comics steal, too. Constantly. When I watched Johnny Carson, I noticed that he got a few takes from Benny and Bob Hope. When a comedy writer told me how much Woody Allen had borrowed from Hope, I thought, What? They're nothing alike. Then I went back and watched Son of Paleface, and there's Hope, the nervous city guy backing up on his heels, wringing his hands and saying, "Sorry, I'll just be moving along." Now look at early Woody Allen. You see big authority figures and Woody nervously saying, "Look, I'll just be on my way." Of course Woody made it his own, but he must have watched and loved Bob Hope.
Playboy: Who are your role models? O'Brien: Carson. Woody Allen. SCTV. Peter Sellers. When Peter Sellers died I felt such a loss, thinking, There won't be anymore of that. There's some Steve Martin in my false bravado with female guests: "Why, hel-lo there!" And I won't deny having some Letterman in my bones.
Playboy: You were surprise as Letterman's successor. At first you seemed like the wrong choice. O'Brien: I didn't get ratings. That doesn't mean I didn't get laughs. Yes, I had a giant pompadour and I looked like a rockabilly freak. I was too excited, pushed too hard, and people said, "That guy isn't a polished performer." Fine! But it isn't my goal to be Joe Handsomehead cool, smooth talk show host. Late Night with Conan O'Brien is supposed to be a work in progress, and now that we've had some success there's a danger of our getting too polished and morphing into something smoothly professional. Which would suck.
Do you know why I wanted this show? Because Late Night with David Letterman played with the rules and it looked like fun. Here was a place where people did risky comedy every night for millions of people. We had to keep this thing alive. There should be a place on a big network where people are still messing around.
Playboy: How bad were your early days on the show? O'Brien: Bad. Dave left here under a cloud: his fans and the media were angry with NBC. Then NBC picks a guy with crazy hair and a weird name. And the world says, "Harvard? Those guys are assholes." I sincerely hope that the winter of December 1993, our first winter, was the worst time I will ever have. I'd go out to do the warm up and the back two rows of seats would be empty. That's hard to look at. I would tell a joke and then hear someone whisper, "Who's he? Where's Dave?"
Playboy: You had trouble getting guests. O'Brien: Bob Denver canceled on us. We shot a test show with Al Lewis of The Munsters. We did the clutch cargo thing with a photo of Herman Munster. Unfortunately, Fred Gwynne, who played Herman, had recently died, and Al Lewis kept pointing at the screen, saying, "You're dead! I was at your funeral!"
Playboy: For months you got worried notes from network executives. What did they say? O'Brien: They were worried. The fact that Lorne Michaels was involved bought me some time. But Lorne had turned to me at the start and said, "OK, Conan. What do you want to do?" Now television critics were after me and the network was starting to realize what a risk I was. Suggestions came fast and furious. I kept the note that said, "Why don't you just die?"
Playboy: Did they suggest ways to be funnier? O'Brien: They were more specific and tactical. The network gets very specific data. Say there was a drop in ratings between 12:44 and 12:48 when I was talking to Jon Bon Jovi. I'll be told, "Don't ever talk to him again" Or they'll want me to tease viewers into staying with us: "You should tease that -- say, 'We'll have nudity coming up next!'"
Playboy: You did come close to being cancelled. O'Brien: We were cancelled.
Playboy: Really? You have never admitted that. O'Brien: This is the first time I've talked about it. When I had been on for about a year, there was a meeting at the network. They decided to cancel my show. They said, "It's cancelled." Next day they realized they had nothing to put in the 12:30 slot, so we got a reprieve.
Playboy: Were you worried sick? O'Brien: I went into denial. I tried hard not to think, Yes, I'm bad on the air and my show has none of the things a TV show needs to survive. We had no ratings. No critics in our corner. Advertisers didn't like us. Affiliates wanted to drop us. Sometimes I'd meet a programming director from a local station where we had no rating at all. The guy would show me a printout with no number for Late Night's rating, just a hash mark or pound sign. I didn't dare think about that when I went out to do the show.
Playboy: Are you defending denial? O'Brien: How else does anyone get through a terrible experience? The odds were against me. Rationally, I didn't have much chance. Denial was my only friend. When I look back on the first year, it's like a scene from an old war movie: Ordinary guy gets thrown into combat, somehow beats impossible odds, staggers to safety. His buddy say, "You could have been killed!" The guy stops and thinks. "Could have been killed?" he says. His eyes cross and he faints.
Playboy: How did you dodge the bullet? O'Brien: There were people at NBC who stood up for me. I will always be indebted to Don Ohlmeyer, who stuck to his guns. Don said, "We chose this guy. We should stick with him unless we get a better plan." He was brutally honest. He came to me and said, "Give me about a 15 percent bump in the ratings and you'll stay on the air. If not, we're going to move on."
Playboy: Ohlmeyer started his career in the sports division. O'Brien: Exactly, his take was, "You're on our team." Of course, it wasn't exactly rational of Don to hope I'd be 15 percent funnier. It was like telling a farmer, "It better rain this week or we'll take your farm away."
Playboy: What did you say to Ohlmeyer? O'Brien: There wasn't time. I had to go out and do a monologue. But I will always be indebted to Don because he told me the truth. Wait a minute -- you have tricked me into talking lovingly about an NBC executive. Let me say that there were others who were beneath contempt -- executives who wouldn't know a good show if it swam up their asses and lit a campfire.
Playboy: Finally the ratings went your way. Hard work rewarded? O'Brien: Well, I also paid off the Nielsen people. That was $140,000 well spent.
Playboy: Ohlmeyer plus bribery saved you? O'Brien: There was something else. Just when everyone was kicking the crap out of the show, Letterman defended me.
Playboy: Letterman had signed off on NBC saying, "I don't really know Conan O'Brien, but I heard he killed someone." O'Brien: Then I pick up the paper and he's saying he thinks I am going to make it. "They do some interesting, innovative stuff over there," he says. "I think Conan will prevail." And then he came on as a guest. Remember, this was when we were at our nadir. There was no Machiavellian reason for David Letterman, who at the time was the biggest thing in show business, to be on my show.
Playboy: Why did he do it? O'Brien: I'm still not sure. Maybe out of a sense of honor. Fair play. And it woke me up. It made me think. Hey, we have a real fucking television show here.
Of six or seven pivotal points in my short history here, that was the first and maybe the biggest. I wouldn't be sitting here -- I probably wouldn't even exist today -- if he hadn't done our show.
Playboy: The Late Night wars were hardly noted for friendly gestures. O'Brien: How little you understand. Jay, Dave and I pal around all the time. We often ride a bicycle built for three up to the country. "Nice job with Fran Drescher!" "Thanks, pal. You weren't so bad with John Tesh." We sleep in triple-decker bunk beds and snore in unison like the Three Stooges.
Playboy: You talk more about Letterman than your NBC teammate Leno. O'Brien: I hate the "Leno or Letterman, who's better?" question. I can tell you that Jay has been great to me. He calls me occasionally.
Playboy: To say what? O'Brien: (Doing Leno's voice) "Hey, liked that bit you did last night." Or he'll say he saw we got a good rating. I call him at work, too. It can be a strange conversation because we're so different. Jay, for instance, really loves cars. He's got antique cars with kerosene lanterns, cars that run on peat moss. He'll be telling me about some classic car he has, made entirely of brass and leather, and I'll say, "Yeah, man, I got the Taurus with the vinyl." One thing we have in common is bad guests. There are certain actors, celebrities with nothing to say, who move through the talk show world wreaking havoc. They lay waste to Dave's town and Jay's town, then head my way.
Playboy: You must be getting some good guests. Your ratings have shown a marked improvement. O'Brien: Remember, when you're on at 12:30 the Nielsens are based on 80 people. My ratings drop if one person has a head cold and goes to bed early.
Playboy: Actually, you're seen by about 3 million people a night. Your ratings would be even higher if college dorms weren't excluded from the Nielsens. How many points does that cost you? O'Brien: I told you I'm an idiot. Now I have to do math too?
Playboy: Do you still get suggestions from NBC executives? O'Brien: Not as many. The number of notes you get is inversely proportional to your ratings.
Playboy: What keeps you motivated? O'Brien: Superstition. We have a stagehand, Bobby Bowman, who holds up the curtain when I run out for the monologue. He is the last person I see before the show starts, and I have to make him laugh before I go out. It started with mild jabs: "Bobby, you're drunk again." Bobby laughs, "Heehee."" Then it was, "Still having trouble with the wife, Bobby?" But after hundreds of shows, you find yourself running out of lines. It's gotten to where I do crass things at the last second. I'll put his hand on my ass and yell, "You fucking pervert!" Or drop to my knees and say, "Come on, Bobby, I'll give you a blow job!"
"Ha-ha. Conan, you're crazy," he says. But even that stuff wears off. Soon, I'll be making the writers work late to give me new jokes for Bobby.
Playboy: Did you plan to be a talk show host or did you fall into the job? O'Brien: I was an Irish Catholic kid from St. Ignatius parish in Brookline, outside of Boston. And that meant: Don't call attention to yourself. Don't ask for too much when the pie comes around. Don't get a girl pregnant and fuck up your life.
Playboy: Were you an alter boy? O'Brien: I wanted to be an alter boy, but the priest at St. Ignatius said, "No, no. You're good on your feet, kid," and made me a lector. A scripture reader at Mass. He was the one who spotted my talent.
Playboy: What did you think of sex in those days? O'Brien: I was sexually repressed. At 16 I still thought human reproduction was by mitosis.
Playboy: How did you get over your sexual repression? O'Brien: Who says I got over it? My leg has been jiggling this whole time.
Playboy: What were you like in high school? O'Brien: Like a crane galumphing down the hall. A crane with weird hair, bad skin and Clearasil. Big enough for basketball but lousy at it. My older brothers were better. I would compensate by running around the court doing comedy, saying, "Look out, this player has a drug addiction. He's incredibly egotistical."
I was an asshole at home, too. My little brother Justin loved playing cops and robbers, but I kept tying him up with bureaucratic bullshit. When he'd catch me, I'd say, "I get to call my lawyer." Then it was, "OK, Justin, we're at trial and you've been charged with illegal arrest. Fill out these forms in triplicate." Justin was eight; he hated all the lawsuits and countersuits. He just cried.
Playboy: Were you a class clown? O'Brien: Never. I was never someone who walked into a room full of strangers and started telling jokes. You had to get to know me before I could make you laugh. The same thing happened with Late Night. I needed to get the right rhythm with Andy and Max and the audience.
Playboy: So how did you finally learn about sex? O'Brien: My parents gave me a book, but it was useless. At the crucial moment, all it showed was a man and a woman with the bed covers pulled up to their chins. I tried to find out more from friends, but it didn't help. One childhood friend told me it was like parking a car in a garage. I kept worrying about poisonous fumes. What if the fumes build up? Should you shut off the engine?
Playboy: For all your talk about being repressed, you can be rowdy on the air. O'Brien: The show is my escape valve. When I tear off my shirt and gyrate my pelvis like Robert Plant, feigning orgasm into the microphone, that shows how repressed I am -- a guy who wants to push his sex at the lens but can only do it as a joke.
Playboy: Aren't you tempted to live it up? O'Brien: I always imagined that if I were a TV star I would live the way I pictured Johnny Carson living. Carousing, stepping out of a limo wearing a velvet ascot with a model on my arm. Now that I have the TV show, I drive up to Connecticut on the weekends and tool around in my car. I could probably join a free-sex cult, smoke crack between orgies and drive sports cars into swimming pools, and my Catholic guilt would still be there, throbbing like a toothache. Be careful. If something good happens, something bad is on the way.
Playboy: Yet you don't mind licking the supermodels. O'Brien: At one point a few of them lived in my building, women who are so beautiful they almost look weird, like aliens. To me, a woman who has a certain approachable amount of beauty becomes almost funny. It's the same with male supermodels. They look like big puppets. So while I admire their beauty I probably won't be "romantically linked" with a model. I'd catch my reflection in a ballroom mirror and break up laughing.
Playboy: The horny Roy Orbison growl you use on gorgeous guests sounds real enough -- O'Brien: Oh, I've been doing that shit since high school. It just never worked before.
Playboy: Your father is a doctor, your mother an attorney. What do they think of their son the comedian? O'Brien: My dad was the one who told me denial was a virtue. "Denial is how people get through horrible things," he said. He also cut out a newspaper article in which I said I was making money off something for which I should probably be treated. So true, he thought. But when I got an Emmy for helping write Saturday Night Live, my parents put it on the mantel next to the crucifix. Here's Jesus looking over, saying, "Wow, I saved mankind from sin, but I wish I had an Emmy."
Playboy: Ever been in therapy? O'Brien: Yes. I don't trust it. I have told therapists that I don't particularly want to feel good. "Repression and fear, that's my fuel." But the therapists said that I had nothing to worry about. "Don't worry Conan you will always be plenty fucked up."
Playboy: When a female guest comes out, how do you know whether to shake her hand or kiss her? Is that rehearsed O'Brien: No, and it's awkward. If you go to shake her hand and her head starts coming right at you, you have to change strategy fast. I have thought about using the show to make women kiss me, but that would probably creep out the people at home. I decided not to kiss Elton John.
Playboy: Do you get all fired up if Cindy Crawford or Rebecca Romijn does the show? O'Brien: I like making women laugh. Always have, ever since I discovered you can get girls' attention by acting like an ass. That's one of the joys of the show -- I'm working my eyebrows and going grrr and she's laughing, the audience is laughing. It's all a big put-on and I'm thinking. This is great. Here is a beautiful woman who has no choice but to put up with this shit.
But it's not always put on. Sometimes they flirt back. Sometimes there's a bit of chemistry. That happened with Jennifer Connelly of The Rocketeer.
Playboy: One guest, Jill Hennessy, took off her pants for you. Then you removed yours. Even Penn and Teller took off their pants. O'Brien: Something comes over me. It happened with Rebecca Romijn -- I was practically climbing her. Those are the times when Andy and the audience seem to disappear and it's just me and this lovely woman sitting there flirting. I keep expecting a waiter to say, "More wine, Monsieur?"
Playboy: Would you lick the wine bottle? O'Brien: It's true, there's a lot of licking on the show. I have licked guests. I have licked Andy. Comedy professionals will read this and say, "Great work, Conan. Impressive." But I have learned that if you lick a guest, people laugh. If I pick this shoe off the floor, examine it, Hmmm, and then lick it, people laugh. I learned this lesson on The Simpsons, where I was the writer who was forever trying to entertain the other writers. I still try desperately to make our writers laugh, which is probably a sign of sickness since they work for me now. Licking is one of those things that look funny.
Playboy: Johnny Carson never licked Ed McMahon. O'Brien: We are much more physical and more stupid than the old Tonight Show. Even in our offices before the show there's always some writer acting out a scene crashing his head through my door. A behind-the-scenes look at our show might frighten people.
Playboy: One night you showed a doctored photo of Craig T. Nelson having sex with Jerry Van Dyke. Did they complain about it? O'Brien: I haven't heard from them. Of course I'm blessed not to be a part of the celebrity pond. I have a television show in New York, an NBC outpost. I don't run with or even run into many Hollywood people.
Playboy: You also announced that Tori Spelling has a penis. O'Brien: I did not. Polly the Peacock said that.
Playboy: Another character you use to say the outrageous stuff. O'Brien: Polly is not popular with the network.
Playboy: You mock Fabio, too. O'Brien: If he sues me, it'll be the best thing that ever happened. A publicity bonanza: Courtroom sketches of Fabio with his man-boobs quivering, shaking his fist, and me shouting at him across the courtroom. I'm not afraid of Fabio. He knows where to find me. I'm saying it right here for the record: Fabio, let's get it on.
Playboy: Ever have a run-in with an angry celeb? O'Brien: I did a Kelsey Grammar joke a few years ago, something about his interesting lifestyle, then heard through the network that he was upset. He had appeared on my show and expected some support. At this point my intellect says, "Kelsey Grammar is a public figure. I was in the right." Then I saw him in an airport. Kelsey didn't see me at first: I could have kept walking. But there he was, eating a cruller in the airport lounge. I thought I should go over. I said hello and then said, "Kelsey, I'm sorry if I upset you." And he was glad. He looked relieved. He said, "Oh, that's OK." We both felt better.
....See my other post with the last third of the interview
2024.05.29 03:13 zpfgot Union Update and an idea of dues
 | Union Update submitted by zpfgot to tutordotcom [link] [comments] Hello everyone! It's been a couple weeks since my last update, so I thought it's time to summarize some of the discussions the union folk have had since then. I hope you've read and enjoyed the articles we've published on this subreddit about the reasoning for unionization and the demands we've stated. We have ideas for more articles in the coming weeks. so be on the lookout there. We've been recruiting new members who would like to be involved to some degree with the inner workings of the union. As per usual, if you are interested in joining us and having direct input in the union committee, feel free to send a message to me (or anyone else in the union organizing committee). If you want a minimal degree of involvement by staying up to date and helping us brainstorm ideas, that's great! If you want a greater degree of involvement, including but not limited to, messaging tutors at some point in the future about the union, well, that's even better! Just let me know! A couple members are going to reach out again to union organizations now that we have achieved the first step in the process - having a sufficient number of people in an organizing committee. This will be our main focus for this week. We're also having casual conversations to get to know one another a bit better. There was a nice pet discussion last week. We've been very friendly with one another, and the camaraderie has been wonderful. Union Dues The one topic which hasn't been previously mentioned in any of my posts is the idea of union dues - i.e. your personal cost for the union. I have been intentionally avoiding this topic, as it is not relevant until we actually are unionized. There are going to be costs associated with unionization. For instance, when we get to the eventual bargaining process, I believe it would be necessary to hire a lawyer or law firm to help us with that process. While we are all volunteering now, once we are a recognized union, it will be, at a minimum, a part time job for the people in the leadership roles. There may also be travel costs associated in dealing directly with TDC (though, I'd hope as much can be done remotely as possible). I'll link a short article on the costs of a union, and you're free to do further research as well. https://guide.unitworkers.com/union-dues-explained/#:~:text=What%20are%20typical%20union%20dues,%241%20for%20every%20%24100%20earned This article and others I've read over the past couple weeks have pegged union dues to be mostly in the 1-2% of your salary range. Some organizations have union dues which are higher, but I am hypothesizing that ours will be on the low end. I think the costs will be low since we're not seeking anything that would be particularly complex like a healthcare plan, retirement plan, or dental plan (Lisa needs braces!). Our work is remote, so we won't need office space. Our general goals have been on the simpler side - more money directly in our pockets and more autonomy over how we do our jobs. Some unions create a strike fund for the workers so that when a strike occurs, this fund can be tapped to provide an income to the workers while on strike. I'm not sure a strike fund will be necessary on our end, but that's a topic for future discussion. With all of that, let's assume our costs are on the low end. I think it would be helpful to show two examples of how a union can be financially beneficial for the tutors even with union dues of 1% (to keep the math simpler). We start with the control - where we are now. We need to make some assumptions to create a baseline. Let's say that Anthony is a Master Tutor of Algebra 1 and Geometry in a low minimum wage IC state. He makes $15 per hour while in session, $7.25 per hour for waiting, and has an 80%-20% split between in session and wait time, respectfully. Anthony has a decent primary job, and tutors a couple hours a night, five days a week for some side income. With these parameters, Anthony earns about $578.35 in an average month during the school year ( ($15*8+$7.25*2)*4.3). Since Anthony is an IC, he will eventually need pay about $128.31 in total federal taxes (in the 12% marginal tax bracket, plus Self-Employment Taxes, and allowing 15% to be deducted) on that income, plus about $24.58 (5% after deductions) in state income taxes for a spendable amount of $425.47. For our first exercise, let's say we are able to unionize, but the negotiations don't go quite as well as we hope. I'm going to call this the "bad case". We are only able to get a 5% raise for in-session time and we ensure that everyone is an employee. In this case, Anthony's new in-session rate is $15.75. Under the same workload, the monthly income increases to $604.15. Since Anthony is now considered an employee, he is subject to FICA taxes instead of Self-Employment taxes. Adding the FICA and income taxes, the federal tax burden will be around $118.72. We can include a state income tax of $30.21 and union dues of $6.04. After taxes, Anthony would have around $449.18 in extra spending money. In a second exercise, let's say we're able to unionize, and all of our demands are met - i.e. the "good case". Anthony's wait time is increased to $15 per hour, and in session time is $22 per hour with the employee designation. Once again, Anthony works the same hours distribution. Under these parameters, Anthony's monthly pre-tax income would be about $885.80. After federal taxes($174.06), state taxes($44.29), and the 1% in union dues($8.86), Anthony would have $658.59 in extra spending money. While Anthony is in a lower wage state, we should also consider a higher wage state. For this example, Beverly is also a Master tutor of Algebra 1 and Geometry, but lives in Washington state. She makes $18.28 per hour in session and $16.28 per hour while waiting. She works in a way that is essentially identical to Anthony. Her current monthly income would be approximately $768.84. After the federal tax deduction of $151.08 (WA has no state income tax), Beverly would have $617.76 of spendable money. In the "bad case" scenario above, the only change would be an increase for the in-session rate to $19.19 per hour. Her monthly income would increase $800.14. After federal taxes and the 1% in union dues, her spendable income would be $634.91 per month. In the "good case" scenario, the in-session rates increase to $22, while there would be no wait time increase, as it is already higher than $15 per hour. Her monthly pre-tax income would be roughly $896.81, and a post tax income of $711.62 To summarize and TL;DR the information in a table: Summary of after tax income changes due to unionization We see that in any case, we do better by unionizing, even with the union dues. My thought experiment is simple, but they should illustrate the point. I would imagine that someone could find a case where someone does worse with unionization. For instance, I couldn't find it at the 10 hr a week level, but my hypothesis is that there is a workload high enough where if the vast majority of your time is wait time, a 1% fee would make you slightly worse off from a direct financial standpoint in a "bad case" scenario. Keep in mind that this is an example with a single raise. It's highly likely that with unionization, we can ensure annual raises. Considering that we currently seem to get small raises every other presidential term, imagine what annual raises would do to these numbers in year 4 or 5. Now that we've had qualitative and quantitative articles on the benefits of unionization, are you ready to join us? Let me know! Do you have any questions? Again, let me know! Note - For my federal taxes calculations, I'm using methods and assumptions similar to my post from a few months ago when I looked at the quantitative differences between IC and PTE income for what I believe is a typical person working for TDC. https://www.reddit.com/tutordotcom/comments/18x4s2t/update_12_ic_vs_pte_quantitative/ Poll (US Only, please!) How many hours per week do you work during the regular school year? View Poll |
2024.05.29 03:11 rohan_spibo Update: Bloons TD 6 v43.0 - Update Notes!
Update: Bloons TD 6 v43.0 - Update Notes!
Available now for most platforms please restart your storefront or be patient if it does not appear for you, these updates can take some time to be rolled out to every region due to how the storefronts are set up.
Update Video: https://youtu.be/97SrSDiSNfk
While we have been working to increase this niche with many new maps, Juggernaut’s functions sub-optimally for the majority of current maps in the game as the knockback doesn’t scale well without good rebound opportunities; to help with this we’re increasing their knockback force slightly with even more emphasis on the less-favored crosspath. We are slightly reducing the cost of Super Monkey Fan Club to overall improve the value of taking multiple to maintain higher uptime
Boomerang base price is being slightly reduced, already a decent start in many cases though this seemed enough to make slight game start changes and price it differently to other towers. The main attack for MOAB Domination has been scaled up as overall it is a good upgrade but the pierce on this main attack was previously unchanged from the T3. Glaive Lord’s main thrown attacks will now be able to bounce back again and hit the same target multiple times, this can be a very powerful effect so there is a cooldown on how frequently any single Bloon can be re-targeted.
Bloon Crush does its job locking down all movement in an area, but we feel it could see more damage to reduce the stall time without the balance really changing much. Bomb Blitz was recently refitted to a cheaper price range while proportionally keeping a similar power level for the cost, however seeing it now in this spot we feel keeping higher damage will give it the edge it needs to feel more impactful than spamming Recursives.
Tack is a very powerful base tower technically, but it is unable to achieve high uptime of that potential power in many early rounds, so some base cost is moving into the cheaper xx1 and xx2 upgrades to make it easier for other towers to start alongside the tack. Additionally, while we’ve held out on this change as there are strong use cases in prior upgrades, Blade Maelstrom lacks the single target punch to last late in Modern Bloons. While it is designed as a high pierce cleanup of low tier Bloons we want to try shifting some pierce to single target damage to feel good for longer.
Increased duration has limited use on upgrades that completely destroy targets anyway, so a better crosspath benefit is being added onto 401 glue puddles. Bloon Solver’s pierce is being reduced as it is over-overkill for how many Bloons you realistically see at once, but this reduction should not be noticed for most players. Glue Splatter stands out as weirdly expensive for T2, and is rarely even needed so we’re significantly cutting its price to bring it down to a more affordable range with less pierce, we hope this should make it more worth considering for splatter coverage over piercing. Now that Glue Storm is extremely good for damage type & debuff support we’re removing the bonus speed reduction that should otherwise require xx2 crosspath and lowering the duration of the Glue Storm. New Relentless Glue finally offers something quite powerful so cost is slightly increasing.
Lower tier Shrapnel crosspathing balance doesn’t feel great currently, so the damage crosspath benefits at T1 & T2 are improving. Even with the high damage per shot, Cripple MOAB still has low value outside of debuff capability, we feel that these shots pack enough of a punch now that they should do a little collateral damage - so lets do it! (we’ve also increased shrapnel pierce at this tier to not tip crosspath balance too far to one side).
Bloontonium Reactor’s unsubmerged damage is increasing to encourage unsubmerged possibilities. The bonus to Lead on Reactor currently doesn't apply to T5, so this bonus is being carried up and improved along with a small price reduction to Energizer as strategies using it have fallen somewhat in viability. Nautic Siege Core’s hero buff is being improved as currently this is an under-utilized part of the tower.
While buccaneer is technically already a very good starter tower for maps that happen to have ideal spots allowing it to attack in both directions we feel this situation isn’t common enough that the tower should be priced around that expectation - this reduced cost is added back to top and bottom T3 upgrades as they do not need the buff. As the paragon has exceptionally powerful scaling mechanics as well as being a paragon that continues to produce cash the XP Unlock requirement is increasing, this increase will not affect players who have already unlocked it.
Minor catchup changes to some parts have fallen out of line slightly due to balance changes for other parts of the Ace.
A lot of stats shuffled around here; this should keep the power level roughly similar overall but with proportionally more of that power coming from the seeking attacks, and less from micro aiming the faster firing frontal gun.
Overall Comanche cleanup and stats shuffle; with the goal of improving baseline non-buffed performance and making it less demanding of Geraldo’s Pickle for high damage.
Artillery Battery use has really exploded (!) and over the past few updates it has been sitting fairly steady in a great spot, the current power level feels good but we don’t want to create too big of a gap from the T3 yet so only a very slight cost increase. Blooncineration’s 025 crosspath currently works so much better with external buffs so we're tweaking the 205 crosspath to feel better in some situations.
Wizard has a weaker base tower so the base cost is going down in exchange for a small price increase to the cost to value ratio for the effective Arcane Mastery. As Fireball becomes very forgotten at higher tiers and is hard to even see at Dragon’s Breath, we’re improving the crosspath and adding even more projectiles at T3 for wider explosive coverage. As Shimmer is the slowest de-camo in the game it is important that it not miss when it does trigger, so pierce is greatly increased. Wizard Lord Phoenix’s Wall of Fire hasn’t had any meaningful upgrade progression, so its damage is being increased. Magus is one of the more in-depth Paragons to use effectively so having it as one of the cheapest to unlock didn't feel right, the unlock XP requirements for this and Ninja are being swapped around.
Super Monkey projectiles already travel most the map length so that total distance is being reduced and adding back via the range-focused middle crosspath. The recent Robo/Tech Terror nerfs had a larger impact on the Anti-Bloon, so it is seeing a larger compensatory price reduction. Legend of the Night’s special passive ability is being failsafe limited to 2 activations per round, per tower.
While a great early game option, Ninja generally struggles with dominant crosspathing choices and also has relatively poor base tower value. Without going into every single change, T3s onward remain relatively unchanged with a lot of prices below T3 being moved around from less favorable crosspaths into bettehigher tier upgrades. Ninja Paragon is very simple to use so unlock XP requirements for this and Wizard Paragon are swapping around so Ninja is the faster unlock. This increase will not affect players who have already unlocked it.
Passive life generation is being removed in favor of the active ability being the only source of life generation, this allows druid-focus strategies to no longer ‘accidentally’ heal their Vengeance buffs away. Heart of Vengeance itself has been allowed to remain overpowered for a long time since life loss is not always an option in different challenges/modes, but with newer competitive modes being added over time that do allow for this mechanic to be, overindulged, shall we say, it feels due for substantial rebalance.
Monkey Wall Street’s cost is being increased, but in return its special bonuses have been improved with more life generation and much more range for Banana collection.
Spike Storm is now exceptionally strong so the ability cooldown is increasing a small amount along with the T5 cost. This comes along with a crosspath rebalance granting more 042 lifespan. Long Life Spikes can start creating a nice buildup of spikes in advance but most of the time feels fairly meh as a stepping stone into Deadly Spikes, a little price here is being shifted up to improve standalone upgrade value.
Primary Expertise’s own attack is unreliable due partly to low bounce distance, so this is being increased. Base level Monkeyopolis continues to over perform, so the baseline cash generation is reducing.
While better than many options, base Engineer still takes a lot of available starting cash so the cost is reduced slightly and being moved back up into Cleansing Foam & Bloontrap; also with a reduction to Double Gun’s price to reflect the lower value of the base tower. Sentry placements are slightly changing to improve their reliability, and will now spawn closer to the track depending on how much range the sentry has. Sentry Champion, while strong with them, is lacking without high buff support so we’re trying out an increase to the sentry damage on it.
In going over our large list of price changes for Beast Handler’s lower tiers in 42 this change was received very positively, however we did not realize that in making this change we killed off all chance of dual-beast handlers being used as a round 1 starting option for under $650 in hard modes – So we gotta do that math all over again and convert it for difficulty, painful 😀 All T1 beast prices changed to allow 110 & 101 beast handler combos to be placed for under $650 in hard mode, all T2 & T3 prices shifted around to keep these same cost ratios.
Quincy’s Rapid Shot starts with an extremely short duration that slowly increases over levels, the difference between min and max is huge but it doesn’t feel too impactfully increased at any point through the leveling up process, so we are increasing the base duration and instead moving the buff up to max duration all into his Lv13 which currently doesn’t do much.
Gwendolin’s Heat it Up was recently reworked to allow for much more frequent triggering from attacks, however the 4.5s internal cooldown still limits it from being scaled up far so that internal cooldown is now also being reduced. Additionally, Heat it Up’s bonus buff to damage against Lead targets has been improved slightly so we can get more out of that niche.
Obyn isn’t necessarily the best support for every type of Druid to reach its highest DPS, but with his more easy reliable design it feels appropriate for him to solve Druid’s biggest weaknesses in a more laid back approach with:
Benjamin’s Cyber Security and Skimming levels have been swapped around so that the early game skimming cash snowball doesn’t come quite so soon, and Cyber Security can come in earlier where it will make a bigger impact proportionally to the lives being lost.
We’ll probably regret this, but the nerf made people very sad, and that is not a life goal 😢
Etienne's drones are prone to missing due to very low projectile speed, this speed is increasing a fair amount to help with this as drones already have an inability to directionally aim well.
Purple Popping is underwhelming with how late it comes online, so this is swapping around with level 11’s slightly faster pop speed.
Geraldo has been far too powerful for a while and all-round nerfs are coming to many outstanding aspects, however in return a little quality of life is coming with some more forgiving stock capacities and much more flexible Fertilizer; with the % benefit being reduced in return for improved replenish rate, maximum stock and the ability to now work on all Banana Farm types.
As Corvus’s power is still considerably top-heavy the mid game performance is being improved with buffs to underused spells, but also top-end power of his 2 most powerful level 20 spells is being reduced to lessen the pressure to ‘need’ to get this far.
Minor tweaks to Heartless which feels it has no competitive edge over most other Relics & Monkey Boost which overperforms on all available tiles.
Bloonarius
This is really just for fun, bringing increased variety of Bleed Bloons from higher tier Bloonarius
Rock Bloons in the higher tiers of Normal Dreadbloon are very outscaled, and so their health values are being increased.
In Elite mode Phayze’s speed bonus while shielded is being reduced by 5% across the board as it felt just a little too quick.
submitted by rohan_spibo to btd6 [link] [comments]
Available now for most platforms please restart your storefront or be patient if it does not appear for you, these updates can take some time to be rolled out to every region due to how the storefronts are set up.
Update Video: https://youtu.be/97SrSDiSNfk
Key New Features
- New Event, Boss Rush!
- We are so psyched to release this event! We have heard the many requests for more Team activities, and after testing some functionality in Quests, we are so happy to release a very different way to play as a Team. Thank you for your feedback and patience, and we truly hope you enjoy!
- Band together with allies to defend against the powerful Boss Rush threatening your Team. With multiple Boss threats looming on the horizon, you and your Team must work together to defend nearby islands from a variety of invaders!
- To assist in pushing back the threat players are outfitted with Relic Knowledge to leverage and a number of Revive Shields that will recover you from 0 lives! But be careful, Revives are limited and each time one is triggered the Boss will rush closer to the exit.
- These Bosses cannot be destroyed alone, so when defending any island your goal is to deal as much damage as you possibly can before they make it past. When your Team reaches enough combined total damage the island is successfully defended and you can progress to the next island, with a new Boss to defend against!
- Between islands some monkey types must stay behind to defend, but additional Relic Knowledge will be acquired to assist in the next challenge.
- Defend 5 islands, each with a fast paced Boss challenge against different Bosses out of the initial 3 available: Bloonarius, Dreadbloon & Phayze. (Vortex & Lych to be coming at a later date!).
- Immediately after defending an island, all Team members can claim the island rewards!
- For launch we are releasing with a pure Team focus without competitive leaderboards. This allows us to review balance and get feedback from players before making changes in future updates. Boss Rush has evolved to be much bigger than the minigame-like concept it was initially planned to be and we look forward to seeing all of your Teams defend their islands together!
- The Event Timer shows when the next Boss Rush will start - less than a day after launch.
- New Code Redemption System
- This new system will allow us to create gift packs that can be redeemed by anyone with the code for free in-game rewards, so keep an eye out for any codes we may share (or hide…) in future!
- Due to privacy requirements, certain platforms won’t be able to enter the codes directly in the game. Instead, you will need to visit a Ninja Kiwi website where you can log in to your LiNK account and redeem the code.
New Awesome
- New Hero Rosalia! (responds to Lia for short!)
- Jetpack Monkey joins the team! Try out Rosalia right away in her new trial quest! Rosalia is built to be a strong ‘set and forget’ hero who also happens to work well with a techbot. The ability to swap weapon to handle her own weaknesses exists for people who wish to play her as their sole DPS, but the power of both her weapons is balanced to scale up together at a fair rate so there's no reason not to pick a preferred weapon forever, and build the rest of your towers to cover any weakness left.
- Rosalia freely jumps around her large workshop area, attacking faster the more Bloons are nearby while swapping between a powerful single target laser & bouncing cluster grenades to deal with different threats!
- Enhanced special attacks for the 10th shot fired on either weapon, showering Bloons in a fog of explosions, or Shocking and pushing them back with powerful Plasma blasts
- Reduce all upgrade costs for Monkey Ace & Heli Pilot, plus one other friend!
- Lv3 Scatter Missile ability, to clean up Bloons with a barrage of powerful stuns
- Lv7 Hover ANYWHERE and gain the Flight Boost ability to temporarily pursue Bloons everywhere around the track and temporarily boost the flight speed of Aces & Helis
- Lv10 Kinetic Charge ability, which sticks MOAB-class Bloons with a charge that explodes after a short duration and amplifies this explosion based on the amount of damage that hits the target before the charge explodes. Focus fire!
- You could try this code: ROSALIAROCKS
- New Beginner Map Tinkerton
- Explore Rosalia’s workshop and help defend it against Bloon incursion! Who knew orange juice had so many uses?
- New Quests
- Tinkerer’s Tutorial: discover Rosalia’s strengths and weaknesses
- A Strange Bloonomaly: Dr. Monkey wants your help investigating some unusual Bloons
- New Trophy Store Items
- Heroes: Obyn Wolf Dance placement animation for Standard Obyn
- Monkeys: Boomer ‘Roo pet for the Boomerang Monkey
- Bloons: BAD Scarab skin
- Game & UI: Boomer and ‘Roo profile banner, Distinguished Gentlemonkey avatar
- Limited Time Trophy Store Item
- Druid of the Rainbow avatar
- New CT Team Store items
- Icons: Battle Monkey Icon
- Frames: Boss Rush Clouds Frame
Game Changes / Additions
- Map Editor Beach items
- It may be getting colder in New Zealand, but we know it’s getting back to beach weather for most of you!
- Beach water path x1
- Areas x2
- Stamps x3
- Props x22
- Map Editor ‘full path’ settings to modify how entire paths work
- Set paths to be alternating, sequential, or a specific pattern
- Map Editor ‘path node’ settings to modify small sections within a path
- Invulnerable MOABs: MOABs will not be targetable until the next node
- Invulnerable Bloons: Bloons will not be targetable until the next node
- All Bloon Speed: Speed modified by a set multiplier until the next node
- Scale Bloon: Bloons will increase in visual size until the next node
- Scale MOAB: MOABs will increase in visual size until the next node
- FPS is no longer capped by default, instead a 60 FPS limit can be enabled from the screen resolution menu
Bug Fixes & General Changes
- Endurance Roundset used in the Phayze One quest has been extended from 100 to 205 rounds, and now has naturally spawning Camo Bloons added
- David Vs Goliath achievement now works in Boss Challenge
- Resolved a crash that could occur when logging out
- Resolved a crash that could occur when exiting out of the received accolades menu too quickly after entering
- Resolved a case in which ‘login required’ could incorrectly display on arcade builds
- Unlocking a new hero should always select that new hero
- Resolved some UI overlap issues within Map Editor
- Resolved some minor visual issues with quests forcing hero level ups
- Map Editor vfx should no longer sometimes become locked to the player’s selection and block interaction / clicking on other items
- Resolved an issue that could sometimes fail to load the ‘My Teams’ button
- Resolved an issue where tower outlines would incorrectly misalign from the tower
- Improved resolution of the default App icon
- Restarting a game in the Content Browser should no longer render that run invalid for the ‘first winner’ slot
- The ‘messages’ page is now loaded by default when interacting with the My Team button
- Income modifiers used in challenge rules should correctly apply to all sources of income
Event bug fixes
- Team island props should once again animate when interacted with
- Game should no longer crash when in the Odyssey scene as the event ends
Map Specific Fixes
- Protect the Yacht quest map’s Boss Spawn Point art has been corrected
- Protect the Yacht quest map should no longer use the #ouch odyssey statue
Tower Specific Fixes
Tack Shooter- 5xx Inferno Ring’s fire aura is now visually disabled when VFX slider is set to 0%
- x3x Arctic Wind ice aura is now visually disabled when VFX slider is set to 0%
- x4x Glue Gunner can no longer debuff Dreadbloon in Primary Immune phase
- x5x Pre-Emptive Strike now works on Castle’s Revenge
- Resolved a crash that could occur when building a sub paragon as Vortex spawns.
- 3xx+ Monkey Sub aura no longer shrinks with the VFX slider, but is disabled at 0%
- 4xx Aircraft Carrier planes now have camo restored when Polyphemus Eye is opened
- xx4 Favored Trades no longer increases the sell value of towers in CHIMPS above $0
- Swapping to Lock in Place while moving should no longer visually jam the rotation
- Resolved a hypersonic automatic blink teleport attacks issue that never happened in a live build but is kinda fun to talk about, and honestly less hype than i’m making it out to sound anyway.
Hero Specific Fixes
Gwendolin- Lv4 Gwendolin's Heat It Up buff no longer fails to apply if the attack runs out of pierce
- Resolved a buggy visual that could occur when Heat It Up attacks too fast
- Etienne should no longer consume the ‘Box of Monkey’ Relic Knowledge
- Resolved a rare crash that could occur when using hotkeys
- Resolved an issue where Geraldo’s skin displayed the wrong portrait when viewing the full upgrades page
- Resolved a crash that could occur when sold at Lv2
- [Vision Pro] Gentlemonkey Geraldo skin should now show on the Monkey Tray
The combination of towers you are able to pass round 1 with can change quite a lot in any overall strategy, especially for more restrictive game modes, so for this update we have made an effort to open up new starter combinations with improvements to a number of initial placement towers.
Tower Balance
Dart MonkeyWhile we have been working to increase this niche with many new maps, Juggernaut’s functions sub-optimally for the majority of current maps in the game as the knockback doesn’t scale well without good rebound opportunities; to help with this we’re increasing their knockback force slightly with even more emphasis on the less-favored crosspath. We are slightly reducing the cost of Super Monkey Fan Club to overall improve the value of taking multiple to maintain higher uptime
- 4xx Juggernaut Knockback duration increased 0.1s > 0.15
- 402 Juggernaut Knockback to heavy targets 1.5 > 2.25
- 402 Juggernaut Knockback to light targets 3 > 4.5
- x4x Super Monkey Fan Club price reduced $8000 > 7500
Boomerang base price is being slightly reduced, already a decent start in many cases though this seemed enough to make slight game start changes and price it differently to other towers. The main attack for MOAB Domination has been scaled up as overall it is a good upgrade but the pierce on this main attack was previously unchanged from the T3. Glaive Lord’s main thrown attacks will now be able to bounce back again and hit the same target multiple times, this can be a very powerful effect so there is a cooldown on how frequently any single Bloon can be re-targeted.
- Boomerang Monkey price reduced $325 > 315
- xx5 Moab Domination Main projectile pierce increased 18 > 54
- 205 Moab Domination Main projectile pierce increased 27 > 81
- 5xx Glaive Lord main attack can bounce back to the same target: cooldown 0.6s
Bloon Crush does its job locking down all movement in an area, but we feel it could see more damage to reduce the stall time without the balance really changing much. Bomb Blitz was recently refitted to a cheaper price range while proportionally keeping a similar power level for the cost, however seeing it now in this spot we feel keeping higher damage will give it the edge it needs to feel more impactful than spamming Recursives.
- 5xx Bloon Crush damage increased 12 > 24
- 502 Bloon Crush Frags damage increased 12 > 24
- 502 Bloon Crush Frags bonus damage to ceramic 12 > 0
- xx5 Bomb Blitz damage increased 3 > 5
Tack is a very powerful base tower technically, but it is unable to achieve high uptime of that potential power in many early rounds, so some base cost is moving into the cheaper xx1 and xx2 upgrades to make it easier for other towers to start alongside the tack. Additionally, while we’ve held out on this change as there are strong use cases in prior upgrades, Blade Maelstrom lacks the single target punch to last late in Modern Bloons. While it is designed as a high pierce cleanup of low tier Bloons we want to try shifting some pierce to single target damage to feel good for longer.
- Tack shooter price reduced $280 > 260
- xx1 More Tacks price increased $100 > 110
- xx2 Even More Tacks price increased $100 > 110
- x4x Blade Maelstrom damage increased 1 > 2
- x4x Blade Maelstrom pierce reduced from 200 > 100
- x5x Super Maelstrom damage unchanged
- x5x Super Maelstrom pierce reduced 500 > 300
Increased duration has limited use on upgrades that completely destroy targets anyway, so a better crosspath benefit is being added onto 401 glue puddles. Bloon Solver’s pierce is being reduced as it is over-overkill for how many Bloons you realistically see at once, but this reduction should not be noticed for most players. Glue Splatter stands out as weirdly expensive for T2, and is rarely even needed so we’re significantly cutting its price to bring it down to a more affordable range with less pierce, we hope this should make it more worth considering for splatter coverage over piercing. Now that Glue Storm is extremely good for damage type & debuff support we’re removing the bonus speed reduction that should otherwise require xx2 crosspath and lowering the duration of the Glue Storm. New Relentless Glue finally offers something quite powerful so cost is slightly increasing.
- 401 Stickier Glue allows track puddles to last +1 round
- 5xx The Bloon Solver pierce reduced 5 > 4
- x2x Glue Splatter price reduced $1450 > 970
- x2x Glue Splatter pierce buff reduced 3 > 2
- x5x Glue Storm ability ‘storm’ duration reduced 20s > 15
- x5x Glue Storm ability glue slow 75% > 50%
- 052 Glue Storm ability glue slow 90% > 75%
- xx4 Relentless Glue price increased 3000 > 3400
Lower tier Shrapnel crosspathing balance doesn’t feel great currently, so the damage crosspath benefits at T1 & T2 are improving. Even with the high damage per shot, Cripple MOAB still has low value outside of debuff capability, we feel that these shots pack enough of a punch now that they should do a little collateral damage - so lets do it! (we’ve also increased shrapnel pierce at this tier to not tip crosspath balance too far to one side).
- 120 Shrapnel Shot damage increased from 1 > 2
- 220 Shrapnel Shot damage increased from 2 > 3
- 320 Shrapnel Shot damage unchanged (4)
- 520 Cripple MOAB’s Shrapnel Shot pierce increased from 2 > 3
- 5xx Cripple MOAB now damages Bloons around the main target
- Radius 8
- Pierce 10
- Damage 28
Bloontonium Reactor’s unsubmerged damage is increasing to encourage unsubmerged possibilities. The bonus to Lead on Reactor currently doesn't apply to T5, so this bonus is being carried up and improved along with a small price reduction to Energizer as strategies using it have fallen somewhat in viability. Nautic Siege Core’s hero buff is being improved as currently this is an under-utilized part of the tower.
- 4xx Bloontonium Reactor dart & airburst damage 1 > 2
- 520 Energizer gains bonus damage to Lead +5 when submerged
- 502 Energizer price reduced $32,000 > 31,000
- Paragon Hero attack cooldown increase reduced 1.5x > 1.3
- Paragon Hero damage multiplier increased 4x > 5x
While buccaneer is technically already a very good starter tower for maps that happen to have ideal spots allowing it to attack in both directions we feel this situation isn’t common enough that the tower should be priced around that expectation - this reduced cost is added back to top and bottom T3 upgrades as they do not need the buff. As the paragon has exceptionally powerful scaling mechanics as well as being a paragon that continues to produce cash the XP Unlock requirement is increasing, this increase will not affect players who have already unlocked it.
- Buccaneer price reduced $500 > 400
- 300 Destroyer price increased 2950 > 3050
- 003 Merchantman price increased 2300 > 2400
- Navarch unlock XP increased 500,000 > 750,000
Minor catchup changes to some parts have fallen out of line slightly due to balance changes for other parts of the Ace.
- x1x Exploding Pineapple attack cooldown reduced 1.7s > 1.6s
- xx5 Flying Fortress radial dart damage increased from 3 > 6
A lot of stats shuffled around here; this should keep the power level roughly similar overall but with proportionally more of that power coming from the seeking attacks, and less from micro aiming the faster firing frontal gun.
- Seeking Radials projectile count increased 4 > 8
- Seeking Radials damage increased 200 > 300
- Seeking Radials boss bonus increased 200 > 300
- Non-seeking Radials projectile count reduced 16 > 12
- Non-seeking Radials damage increased 200 > 300
- Non-seeking Radials boss bonus increased 200 > 300
- Frontal Gun damage reduced 300 > 150
- Frontal Gun boss bonus reduced 300 > 150
Overall Comanche cleanup and stats shuffle; with the goal of improving baseline non-buffed performance and making it less demanding of Geraldo’s Pickle for high damage.
- x5x Special Poperations Marine can now be sold in CHIMPS
- xx4 Comanche Defense mini's attack rate 0.151848 > 0.228
- xx5 Comanche Commander mini heli dart damage increased 2 > 3
- xx4 Comanche Defense mini's missile damage 1 > 4
- xx4 Comanche Defense mini's missile pierce 80 > 60
- xx4 Comanche Defense mini's missile ceramic bonus increased 1 > 2
- xx4 Comanche Defense mini's missile moab bonus removed 2 > 0
- xx5 Comanche Commander mini's missile ceramic bonus increased 1 > 10
- xx5 Comanche Commander mini's missile moab bonus removed 8 > 0
Artillery Battery use has really exploded (!) and over the past few updates it has been sitting fairly steady in a great spot, the current power level feels good but we don’t want to create too big of a gap from the T3 yet so only a very slight cost increase. Blooncineration’s 025 crosspath currently works so much better with external buffs so we're tweaking the 205 crosspath to feel better in some situations.
- x4x Artillery Battery price increased $5500 > 5900
- 105 Blooncineration walls of fire pierce increased 25 > 36
- 205 Blooncineration walls of fire damage increased 2 > 3
Wizard has a weaker base tower so the base cost is going down in exchange for a small price increase to the cost to value ratio for the effective Arcane Mastery. As Fireball becomes very forgotten at higher tiers and is hard to even see at Dragon’s Breath, we’re improving the crosspath and adding even more projectiles at T3 for wider explosive coverage. As Shimmer is the slowest de-camo in the game it is important that it not miss when it does trigger, so pierce is greatly increased. Wizard Lord Phoenix’s Wall of Fire hasn’t had any meaningful upgrade progression, so its damage is being increased. Magus is one of the more in-depth Paragons to use effectively so having it as one of the cheapest to unlock didn't feel right, the unlock XP requirements for this and Ninja are being swapped around.
- Wizard price reduced $375 > 325
- 3xx Arcane Mastery price increased $1300 > 1400
- xx3 Shimmer pierce increased 200 > 500
- 210 Fireball crosspathed damage increased 1 > 2
- x3x Dragon's Breath fireball projectile count increased 1 > 3
- x3x Dragon's Breath fireball damage reduced 9 > 3
- x3x Dragon's Breath pierce reduced 4 > 3
- x5x Wizard Lord Phoenix wall of fire attack damage 3 > 5
- x5x Dragon's Breath fireball damage reduced from 27 > 9
- Wizard Paragon unlock cost increased from 500,000 > 1,000,000
Super Monkey projectiles already travel most the map length so that total distance is being reduced and adding back via the range-focused middle crosspath. The recent Robo/Tech Terror nerfs had a larger impact on the Anti-Bloon, so it is seeing a larger compensatory price reduction. Legend of the Night’s special passive ability is being failsafe limited to 2 activations per round, per tower.
- Supermonkey projectile speed reduced 280 > 200
- x2x Epic Range projectile speed bonus 25% > 75% (remains 350)
- x5x The Anti-Bloon upgrade cost reduced from $80,000 > 70,000
- xx5 Legend of the Night ability max uses per round: 2
While a great early game option, Ninja generally struggles with dominant crosspathing choices and also has relatively poor base tower value. Without going into every single change, T3s onward remain relatively unchanged with a lot of prices below T3 being moved around from less favorable crosspaths into bettehigher tier upgrades. Ninja Paragon is very simple to use so unlock XP requirements for this and Wizard Paragon are swapping around so Ninja is the faster unlock. This increase will not affect players who have already unlocked it.
- Ninja Monkey price reduced $500 > 400
- Ninja Monkey attack cooldown reduced from 0.7 > 0.62
- 1xx Ninja Monkey attack cooldown reduced 38% > 30 (all attacks)
- xx2 Caltrops attack cooldown reduced 4.4 > 3.9
- xx4 Sticky Bomb attack cooldown reduced 5 > 4.5
- 1xx Ninja Discipline price increased $300 > 350
- 3xx Double Shot price increased $850 > 900
- x1x Distraction price reduced $350 > 250
- x2x Counter Espionage price reduced $500 > 400
- x3x Shinobi Tactics price increased $900 > 1200
- xx1 Seeking Shuriken price increased $250 > 300
- xx2 Caltrops price increased $400 > 450
- Ninja Paragon unlock cost reduced 1,000,000 > 500,000
Passive life generation is being removed in favor of the active ability being the only source of life generation, this allows druid-focus strategies to no longer ‘accidentally’ heal their Vengeance buffs away. Heart of Vengeance itself has been allowed to remain overpowered for a long time since life loss is not always an option in different challenges/modes, but with newer competitive modes being added over time that do allow for this mechanic to be, overindulged, shall we say, it feels due for substantial rebalance.
- x4x Jungle's Bounty now generates 1 life per ability cast
- x4x Jungle's Bounty no longer passively generates 1 life per round
- x5x Spirit of the Forest no longer passively generates lives per round
- xx2 Heart of Vengeance lost lives maximum rate bonus reduced 100% > 50
Monkey Wall Street’s cost is being increased, but in return its special bonuses have been improved with more life generation and much more range for Banana collection.
- xx5 Monkey Wall Street price increased $60,000 > 70,000
- xx5 Monkey Wall Street range increased 60 > 75
- xx5 Monkey Wall Street lives per round increased 10 > 15
Spike Storm is now exceptionally strong so the ability cooldown is increasing a small amount along with the T5 cost. This comes along with a crosspath rebalance granting more 042 lifespan. Long Life Spikes can start creating a nice buildup of spikes in advance but most of the time feels fairly meh as a stepping stone into Deadly Spikes, a little price here is being shifted up to improve standalone upgrade value.
- x4x Spike Storm cooldown increased 45s > 50
- x4x Spike Storm ability spikes minimum duration reduced 10s > 9
- x4x Spike Storm ability spikes maximum duration reduced 13s > 11
- 041 Spike Storm duration bonus for ability spikes increased 50% > 100%
- x5x Spike Storm ability spikes duration remains at 18-22s
- x5x Carpet of Spikes price increased $40,000 > 42,000
- xx3 Long Life Spikes price reduced $1400 > 1300
- xx4 Deadly Spikes price increased $3500 > 3600
Primary Expertise’s own attack is unreliable due partly to low bounce distance, so this is being increased. Base level Monkeyopolis continues to over perform, so the baseline cash generation is reducing.
- 5xx Primary Expertise bounce distance increased 50 > 90
- xx5 Monkeyopolis base cash amount reduced $1250 > 1000
While better than many options, base Engineer still takes a lot of available starting cash so the cost is reduced slightly and being moved back up into Cleansing Foam & Bloontrap; also with a reduction to Double Gun’s price to reflect the lower value of the base tower. Sentry placements are slightly changing to improve their reliability, and will now spawn closer to the track depending on how much range the sentry has. Sentry Champion, while strong with them, is lacking without high buff support so we’re trying out an increase to the sentry damage on it.
- Engineer price reduced $400 > 350
- 1xx Sentries now spawn within 20% of their range to the track
- 5xx Sentry Champagne damage increased from 2 > 3
- x3x Cleansing Foam price increased $850 > 900
- x4x Overclock foam pierce 10 > 15
- xx3 Double Gun price reduced $500 > 450
- xx4 Bloontrap price increased $3500 > 3600
In going over our large list of price changes for Beast Handler’s lower tiers in 42 this change was received very positively, however we did not realize that in making this change we killed off all chance of dual-beast handlers being used as a round 1 starting option for under $650 in hard modes – So we gotta do that math all over again and convert it for difficulty, painful 😀 All T1 beast prices changed to allow 110 & 101 beast handler combos to be placed for under $650 in hard mode, all T2 & T3 prices shifted around to keep these same cost ratios.
- 1xx Piranha price reduced 170 > 160
- 2xx Barracutie price reduced 850 > 810
- 3xx Great White price reduced 2075 > 2010
- x1x Microraptor price reduced 195 > 175
- x2x Adasaurus price reduced 890 > 830
- x3x Velociraptor price reduced 2170 > 2065
- xx1 Gyrfalcon price reduced 210 > 190
- xx2 Horned Owl price reduced 940 > 860
- xx3 Golden Eagle price reduced 3150 > 2120
- 3xx Great White damage increased from 8 > 12
- 3xx Great White damage range increased from 16 > 24
- 1xx Piranha now spawn within 20% of their range to the track
- x1x Microraptor now spawn within 30% of their range to the track
- xx3 Golden Eagle pierce increased from 15 > 30
- xx3 Golden Eagle pierce range increased from 30 > 60
- xx3 Golden Eagle MOAB pierce penalty increased from 44 > 1089
- xx3 Golden Eagle attack cooldown range from 0.28679625 > 0.28
- xx4 Condor Unchanged by any above changes
- xx4 Giant Condor ceramic penalty reduced from 1 > 0
- xx4 Giant Condor BFB penalty reduced from 44 > 29
- Beast Handler move cooldown reduced from 3s > 2
Hero Balance
QuincyQuincy’s Rapid Shot starts with an extremely short duration that slowly increases over levels, the difference between min and max is huge but it doesn’t feel too impactfully increased at any point through the leveling up process, so we are increasing the base duration and instead moving the buff up to max duration all into his Lv13 which currently doesn’t do much.
- Quincy no longer gains 0.5s Rapid Shot duration per level
- Lv3 Rapid Shot duration increased 3.5s > 8
- Lv13 now also increases Rapid Shot duration 8.5s > 12
Gwendolin’s Heat it Up was recently reworked to allow for much more frequent triggering from attacks, however the 4.5s internal cooldown still limits it from being scaled up far so that internal cooldown is now also being reduced. Additionally, Heat it Up’s bonus buff to damage against Lead targets has been improved slightly so we can get more out of that niche.
- Lv4 Heat it Up minimum delay reduced from 4.5s > 1.5s
- Lv17 Heat it Up buff to Lead type increased from +1 > 2
Obyn isn’t necessarily the best support for every type of Druid to reach its highest DPS, but with his more easy reliable design it feels appropriate for him to solve Druid’s biggest weaknesses in a more laid back approach with:
- Lv8 ‘Nature’s Wrath’ additionally grants camo detection to Druids in radius
Benjamin’s Cyber Security and Skimming levels have been swapped around so that the early game skimming cash snowball doesn’t come quite so soon, and Cyber Security can come in earlier where it will make a bigger impact proportionally to the lives being lost.
- Swap the levels for Lv6 Cyber Security and Lv4 skimming
We’ll probably regret this, but the nerf made people very sad, and that is not a life goal 😢
- Lv18 Mega Mine cooldown 45s > 40
Etienne's drones are prone to missing due to very low projectile speed, this speed is increasing a fair amount to help with this as drones already have an inability to directionally aim well.
- Lv1 Faster projectile speed for all drones 150 > 250
Purple Popping is underwhelming with how late it comes online, so this is swapping around with level 11’s slightly faster pop speed.
- Lv11 (Faster Popping) & Lv13 (Purple Popping) swapped
Geraldo has been far too powerful for a while and all-round nerfs are coming to many outstanding aspects, however in return a little quality of life is coming with some more forgiving stock capacities and much more flexible Fertilizer; with the % benefit being reduced in return for improved replenish rate, maximum stock and the ability to now work on all Banana Farm types.
- Lv2 Action Figure price reduced $700 > 650
- Lv6 Worn Cape restock rate reduced 5 > 7
- Lv6 Worn Cape cape max stock increased 2 > 3
- Lv7 Blade Trap max stock increased 3 > 4
- Lv9 Fertilizer cash bonus reduced 25% > 20
- Lv9 Fertilizer max stock increased 2 > 4
- Lv9 Fertilizer rounds to replenish reduced 5 > 3
- Lv9 Fertilizer will now work on all Banana Farms
- Lv13 Shooty Turret v2 damage reduced 7 > 6
- Lv8 Gerry’s Fire duration reduced 10r > 5
- Lv16 Gerry’s Fire v2 duration remains 10r
- Lv11 Jar of Pickles bonus to fortified removed 1 > 0
- Lv16 Jar of Pickles bonus to fortified reduced 2 > 1
As Corvus’s power is still considerably top-heavy the mid game performance is being improved with buffs to underused spells, but also top-end power of his 2 most powerful level 20 spells is being reduced to lessen the pressure to ‘need’ to get this far.
- Lv1 Spear pierce increased from 3 > 4
- Lv3 Soul harvest cooldown 35s > 40s
- Lv5 Aggression initial mana cost 80 > 50
- Lv7 Malevolence tick rate 0.5s > 0.3s
- Lv14 Malevolence damage 3 > 5
- Lv20 Might damage 400 > 300
- Lv20 Overload damage 4000 > 3000
Minor tweaks to Heartless which feels it has no competitive edge over most other Relics & Monkey Boost which overperforms on all available tiles.
- Heartless now ‘disables’ Regrow Bloons: Regrow rate increased 150% > 10,050%
- Monkey Boost granted uses of the Monkey Boost power reduced 3 > 2
- Going the Distance now also provides Lifespan +30%
- Durable Shots no longer grants increased lifespan
- Durable Shots now grants towers increased pierce +25%
- Deep Heat now also allows all attacks to pop 'Frozen'
- Deep Heat now also grants Freezes longer duration +10%
- Deep Heat now also allows Freezes to last extra layers +1
Bloonarius
This is really just for fun, bringing increased variety of Bleed Bloons from higher tier Bloonarius
- Elite Tier 4: Bleed Bloons from 12 MOABs > 8 MOABs + 2 BFBs
- Elite Tier 5: Bleed Bloons from 8 DDTs > 6 DDTs + 2 fort ZOMGs
Rock Bloons in the higher tiers of Normal Dreadbloon are very outscaled, and so their health values are being increased.
- Normal Tier 4: Rock Bloon HP increased 5000 > 9000
- Normal Tier 5: Rock Bloon HP increased 12000 > 22500
In Elite mode Phayze’s speed bonus while shielded is being reduced by 5% across the board as it felt just a little too quick.
- Elite Tier 1 shielded speed bonus reduced from 50% > 45%
- Elite Tier 2 shielded speed bonus reduced from 55% > 50%
- Elite Tier 3 shielded speed bonus reduced from 60% > 55%
- Elite Tier 4 shielded speed bonus reduced from 65% > 60%
- Elite Tier 5 shielded speed bonus reduced from 70% > 65%
2024.05.29 02:11 Known-Trip-6474 A Cult of The Lamb Creepy-pasta I made based on a true event
(I tagged it as a spoiler due to it containing spoilers for Sins Of The Flesh. I made this because I thought Sozo hacked my switch because my nickname is Mimi and one of the thoughts sozo can have mentions someone named that. I’ve never written horror before so forgive me if it’s a bit cringe.)
Ever since I had gotten Cult of the Lamb for my birthday last year, I played it nonstop. It cheered me up, even after my brother went missing in the woods with his pet ant Mark. I would play from when I got home to when I went to bed. I considered it my favorite game until the incident. I was playing and trying to get every single achievement. One of the ones I needed was “Regenerate”. I placed the Seed Of Sozo in my farm plot. When Sozo popped out from the ground, he said his usual dialogue and I thought nothing of it until I read his mind. Usually there would be some thoughts for when sozo popped up from the ground, but the only thought that was present read as follows,”Sozo needs, Where are….Mimi?” I was creeped out because ever since middle school, people called me by that name. I suppose Miriam is a bit of a hard name to spell. But Sozo acted normally, so I thought nothing of it. However, Sozo came up to me with a quest asking for a follower from Anura. I brought the follower back home, and it looked like the mushroomos in spore grotto. I always had an OC I made when I was in kindergarten named David. He was a mushroom with two legs and he was green. I decided to name this Mushroomo after them. Sozo then thanked me and said he would “take care of him.” I went to do a sermon and David was not there. I took Sozo into confession and what I saw horrified me. Bits of David were sprawled around his mouth and there was blood dripping from the bits as well. The creepiest part was that after the confession he went over to me again. He asked for more mushroomos, but I declined him. He then started to dissent so I put them in prison. After I re educated him, the mushroom popped off his head and he looked around, dazed. He said his usual dialogue, but after he gave me his follower form, he said,” I also can’t help but feel I did something wrong. Like something in my gut is telling me I did the wrong thing. But I’m sure it’s nothing.” After that, Dr. Sozo would not work and the only job he would do was being a drinktender at the bar. I decided to get another follower and I made another mushroomo named David . I did a drum circle with Sozo, and Sozo was filled with sin. However, instead of rising up like normal, he ran over to David and dragged him over as he kicked and screamed. And these weren’t the normal follower cries. These sounded real. Sozo then ate David , until all that was left was a carcass. My followers started to panic, most of them running away. The lamb then absolved them of sin and Dr. Sozo looked at what he did and spoke through the game, saying, ”what have I done?” The game then crashed, showing me the crash screen. I was creeped out by it but decided to boot the game back up. It didn’t show the title screen, but instead a carcass of a young boy bleeding out. Text then appeared, saying,” This is what happens when you eat our kind, Mark.” The ant carcass then got up. He then turned to face me and started speaking. The ant sounded like my brother. He said,” Why did you bring him here. All I wanted was to be free without him. Why did you take that away?” I realized he was talking to me and I said,” What are you talking about?” He then said,” Big sis, why did you let him eat me?” The game then crashed again. When I loaded my save, Sozo was stuck in prison like I left him. I re educated him again and he said the same thing as before. I decided for the better to kill him, so I sacrificed Sozo to Midas, and it was all back to normal since. I still don’t know who that was speaking to me, but it wasn’t sozo. It was someone I knew. I think….
it was my brother.
submitted by Known-Trip-6474 to CultOfTheLamb [link] [comments]
Ever since I had gotten Cult of the Lamb for my birthday last year, I played it nonstop. It cheered me up, even after my brother went missing in the woods with his pet ant Mark. I would play from when I got home to when I went to bed. I considered it my favorite game until the incident. I was playing and trying to get every single achievement. One of the ones I needed was “Regenerate”. I placed the Seed Of Sozo in my farm plot. When Sozo popped out from the ground, he said his usual dialogue and I thought nothing of it until I read his mind. Usually there would be some thoughts for when sozo popped up from the ground, but the only thought that was present read as follows,”Sozo needs, Where are….Mimi?” I was creeped out because ever since middle school, people called me by that name. I suppose Miriam is a bit of a hard name to spell. But Sozo acted normally, so I thought nothing of it. However, Sozo came up to me with a quest asking for a follower from Anura. I brought the follower back home, and it looked like the mushroomos in spore grotto. I always had an OC I made when I was in kindergarten named David. He was a mushroom with two legs and he was green. I decided to name this Mushroomo after them. Sozo then thanked me and said he would “take care of him.” I went to do a sermon and David was not there. I took Sozo into confession and what I saw horrified me. Bits of David were sprawled around his mouth and there was blood dripping from the bits as well. The creepiest part was that after the confession he went over to me again. He asked for more mushroomos, but I declined him. He then started to dissent so I put them in prison. After I re educated him, the mushroom popped off his head and he looked around, dazed. He said his usual dialogue, but after he gave me his follower form, he said,” I also can’t help but feel I did something wrong. Like something in my gut is telling me I did the wrong thing. But I’m sure it’s nothing.” After that, Dr. Sozo would not work and the only job he would do was being a drinktender at the bar. I decided to get another follower and I made another mushroomo named David . I did a drum circle with Sozo, and Sozo was filled with sin. However, instead of rising up like normal, he ran over to David and dragged him over as he kicked and screamed. And these weren’t the normal follower cries. These sounded real. Sozo then ate David , until all that was left was a carcass. My followers started to panic, most of them running away. The lamb then absolved them of sin and Dr. Sozo looked at what he did and spoke through the game, saying, ”what have I done?” The game then crashed, showing me the crash screen. I was creeped out by it but decided to boot the game back up. It didn’t show the title screen, but instead a carcass of a young boy bleeding out. Text then appeared, saying,” This is what happens when you eat our kind, Mark.” The ant carcass then got up. He then turned to face me and started speaking. The ant sounded like my brother. He said,” Why did you bring him here. All I wanted was to be free without him. Why did you take that away?” I realized he was talking to me and I said,” What are you talking about?” He then said,” Big sis, why did you let him eat me?” The game then crashed again. When I loaded my save, Sozo was stuck in prison like I left him. I re educated him again and he said the same thing as before. I decided for the better to kill him, so I sacrificed Sozo to Midas, and it was all back to normal since. I still don’t know who that was speaking to me, but it wasn’t sozo. It was someone I knew. I think….
it was my brother.
2024.05.28 21:47 BeSerial Success story (?)
Hi all (and who knows/I hope dr K),
Prepare to read!! But if you don't want to, get the TLDR at the bottom; I am very uncommon with Reddit so forgive me any mistakes!
I've been strugglin' along in life for a while now (am 26 years old) and even though I've been doubling down on dr K's videos last 6 months or so, it's been 10 years I've been working very hard on myself (sometimes really really obsessively). As following is how great my life is going;
I just got hired for a new job (System Engineer in IT), got a good base (got a small but nice apartment with garden, money, stuff, a cute cat) and I am very healthy and strong (I put alot of time in my health) and maybe I got some on the lucky side with appearance thanks to my parents (no model but u know, just fine). + I've joined group therapy on 18 yrs old for one and a half year, been in cognitive therapy since my 21st and still going sometimes and have been reading about philosophy, psychology for years and thought alot about a mentality of 'overcoming' and practicing this alot too in for example Boxing. As more medicine for the mind I sometimes make poems, play guitar and sing or make raps (been a while tbh), meditate, work out more, have a healthy routine and habits, try to do enough new things and take risks (as in Love and also career or vacations alone etc).. I feel like I understand myself and my world alot better than before and that I could do something really cool with these insights.
To understand my question but honestly also because I am weirdly eager to share my story, here's a small part of my history; My parents got divorced at age 5 or 6 because my mother joined a sect (like Amish but modernized) and the church said she had to, against my fathers' wishes. It was a horrible divorce, where suddenly my dad was gone, they regularly got in screaming fights with my mom wishing him dead etc, slamming doors (my dad broke into the house at least once) arguing over the relationship and us, while we didn't really understood why and cried ofcourse. Later on when things sort of settled down I saw my dad weekend on weekend off and until shortly I told myself everything was fine from that time on; it would be too much to tell, but I am now sure (beside every period also has some good things ofc) I have been emotionally neglected, traumatically manipulated by my mom (examples: literally years later when I felt sad my dad was gone while looking at old pictures where she cut him out, she said things like it was the demon in my room making me feel that way and she literally commanded/screamed it back to hell, I was frightened to death and my little sister cried once; my mother also observed and controlled us sometimes obsessively checking our stuff in search of where the devil could hide & would throw it away, and manipulate choices, what is not allowed to do or even think.. everything) and I lived an extremely sad, depressing, insecure and self-blaming youth. If I'd understood what really was going on with my mom and my family, I probably would have killed myself. Lucky me I guess she forced me to become a bit better at lying, and so too to myself. Hahah you thought that was all didn't yah? Hell no, here comes part two; at 15 yrs old I got kicked out of (that side of) the family which meant losing my mother, my siblings I grew up with, my best friend cousin and a whole network of friends because I had to move to my father in another city too far away. I had to walk away from home (my mom) because I felt very unsafe apparently, I wasn't welcome anymore after that. She also didn't respond to my texts, or said I could come and then cancel, and send not even a message from the first birthday since on. Later on I tried again but she keeps putting expectations on me and plays with my love for her. haven't seen her for 6 years now I think. But I also left the one good thing; my mothers' beliefs. I am grateful for my father to take me in, but I think now he was too traumatized by the happenings' in his life that he wasn't able to really connect with me when I moved in, we never discussed emotional parts or had a good talk the first year or more. Maybe we had later on but still, he always felt distant from me, as today I am afraid. Like he is half a ghost; He lives, but always seems unaware of half of what happens.. doing his routine over and over. You can talk but he forgets. Never said he loved me or anything, just he living his life and I mine besides his. I know he loves me, but sad it is.
So you can see I've been through some shit and still leaving out alot because it would be too long to read. I want to get to the point myself as like;
I am feeling okay lately and really are keeping my balance, feeling overall good and livin' prosperous as I actually always do. The only thing I really long still is having a connection with people. I don't know if it's me, them, or both.. I moved alot so it was hard to remain friendships, but I also think I find it hard to make friends because I feel like a strange ducky; I fear my past has changed me so much that I understand depth that my peers do not. It could be arrogance, but it must at least have some truth in it. It takes alot of energy to be around new people and since a year I have become alot more solitary, because I don't want to drink really, use drugs or stay up at night. I live a peaceful life reading, working out, pursue a nice career and sum good meditation (and tea) sessions. And try to keep a few good friendships going, which are going very well. But I haven't been in a relationship for 6 years and now I feel like I am ready (a healthy one this time I promise), only the women around me I feel like they are not (ghosting, are most interested in themselves, looking for checking their grocerylist, communicate intensely vague). I've had quite some experience with women and don't struggle to get dates, but I really find it hard to find real connection/understanding. I got on a new datingapp where you go on date when you match without chatting, sounds great not? Only with the first 3 matches they postponed the date already 6 times, two doubles, mostly same day/few hours before. And with horrible reason and effort after really. I also find the girls I have approached in real life and dated seem occupied, and some of those things i just listed. Generally very cold women here in Holland, is my experience (but there are always exceptions on ones' rules ofcourse);
''Has this world changed its' moral value, or is it I?''
.. So I wonder; do I need to change myself, or my environment? Do I maybe have a lack of connection what makes me feel like I lack connection, or am I still missing something internally? Or both? And do I need to be more patient while feeling a little righteous lack-of?
If you want to ask, share or give your worldview of anything please do so! I am here to learn, not to know it better.
Huge propz to dr K, thanks for the ton of knowledge I already learned from you for free and thanks for this reddit page!
thanks for reading!
side question: It could be obvious but is my history a normal one? or is it a bit different from the usual? I wouldn't know really, I like to see myself as normal
TL;DR: Life is going great, Life wás hell & felt like sharing, question; is there a chance for real love?
submitted by BeSerial to Healthygamergg [link] [comments]
Prepare to read!! But if you don't want to, get the TLDR at the bottom; I am very uncommon with Reddit so forgive me any mistakes!
I've been strugglin' along in life for a while now (am 26 years old) and even though I've been doubling down on dr K's videos last 6 months or so, it's been 10 years I've been working very hard on myself (sometimes really really obsessively). As following is how great my life is going;
I just got hired for a new job (System Engineer in IT), got a good base (got a small but nice apartment with garden, money, stuff, a cute cat) and I am very healthy and strong (I put alot of time in my health) and maybe I got some on the lucky side with appearance thanks to my parents (no model but u know, just fine). + I've joined group therapy on 18 yrs old for one and a half year, been in cognitive therapy since my 21st and still going sometimes and have been reading about philosophy, psychology for years and thought alot about a mentality of 'overcoming' and practicing this alot too in for example Boxing. As more medicine for the mind I sometimes make poems, play guitar and sing or make raps (been a while tbh), meditate, work out more, have a healthy routine and habits, try to do enough new things and take risks (as in Love and also career or vacations alone etc).. I feel like I understand myself and my world alot better than before and that I could do something really cool with these insights.
To understand my question but honestly also because I am weirdly eager to share my story, here's a small part of my history; My parents got divorced at age 5 or 6 because my mother joined a sect (like Amish but modernized) and the church said she had to, against my fathers' wishes. It was a horrible divorce, where suddenly my dad was gone, they regularly got in screaming fights with my mom wishing him dead etc, slamming doors (my dad broke into the house at least once) arguing over the relationship and us, while we didn't really understood why and cried ofcourse. Later on when things sort of settled down I saw my dad weekend on weekend off and until shortly I told myself everything was fine from that time on; it would be too much to tell, but I am now sure (beside every period also has some good things ofc) I have been emotionally neglected, traumatically manipulated by my mom (examples: literally years later when I felt sad my dad was gone while looking at old pictures where she cut him out, she said things like it was the demon in my room making me feel that way and she literally commanded/screamed it back to hell, I was frightened to death and my little sister cried once; my mother also observed and controlled us sometimes obsessively checking our stuff in search of where the devil could hide & would throw it away, and manipulate choices, what is not allowed to do or even think.. everything) and I lived an extremely sad, depressing, insecure and self-blaming youth. If I'd understood what really was going on with my mom and my family, I probably would have killed myself. Lucky me I guess she forced me to become a bit better at lying, and so too to myself. Hahah you thought that was all didn't yah? Hell no, here comes part two; at 15 yrs old I got kicked out of (that side of) the family which meant losing my mother, my siblings I grew up with, my best friend cousin and a whole network of friends because I had to move to my father in another city too far away. I had to walk away from home (my mom) because I felt very unsafe apparently, I wasn't welcome anymore after that. She also didn't respond to my texts, or said I could come and then cancel, and send not even a message from the first birthday since on. Later on I tried again but she keeps putting expectations on me and plays with my love for her. haven't seen her for 6 years now I think. But I also left the one good thing; my mothers' beliefs. I am grateful for my father to take me in, but I think now he was too traumatized by the happenings' in his life that he wasn't able to really connect with me when I moved in, we never discussed emotional parts or had a good talk the first year or more. Maybe we had later on but still, he always felt distant from me, as today I am afraid. Like he is half a ghost; He lives, but always seems unaware of half of what happens.. doing his routine over and over. You can talk but he forgets. Never said he loved me or anything, just he living his life and I mine besides his. I know he loves me, but sad it is.
So you can see I've been through some shit and still leaving out alot because it would be too long to read. I want to get to the point myself as like;
I am feeling okay lately and really are keeping my balance, feeling overall good and livin' prosperous as I actually always do. The only thing I really long still is having a connection with people. I don't know if it's me, them, or both.. I moved alot so it was hard to remain friendships, but I also think I find it hard to make friends because I feel like a strange ducky; I fear my past has changed me so much that I understand depth that my peers do not. It could be arrogance, but it must at least have some truth in it. It takes alot of energy to be around new people and since a year I have become alot more solitary, because I don't want to drink really, use drugs or stay up at night. I live a peaceful life reading, working out, pursue a nice career and sum good meditation (and tea) sessions. And try to keep a few good friendships going, which are going very well. But I haven't been in a relationship for 6 years and now I feel like I am ready (a healthy one this time I promise), only the women around me I feel like they are not (ghosting, are most interested in themselves, looking for checking their grocerylist, communicate intensely vague). I've had quite some experience with women and don't struggle to get dates, but I really find it hard to find real connection/understanding. I got on a new datingapp where you go on date when you match without chatting, sounds great not? Only with the first 3 matches they postponed the date already 6 times, two doubles, mostly same day/few hours before. And with horrible reason and effort after really. I also find the girls I have approached in real life and dated seem occupied, and some of those things i just listed. Generally very cold women here in Holland, is my experience (but there are always exceptions on ones' rules ofcourse);
''Has this world changed its' moral value, or is it I?''
.. So I wonder; do I need to change myself, or my environment? Do I maybe have a lack of connection what makes me feel like I lack connection, or am I still missing something internally? Or both? And do I need to be more patient while feeling a little righteous lack-of?
If you want to ask, share or give your worldview of anything please do so! I am here to learn, not to know it better.
Huge propz to dr K, thanks for the ton of knowledge I already learned from you for free and thanks for this reddit page!
thanks for reading!
side question: It could be obvious but is my history a normal one? or is it a bit different from the usual? I wouldn't know really, I like to see myself as normal
TL;DR: Life is going great, Life wás hell & felt like sharing, question; is there a chance for real love?
2024.05.28 21:46 BeSerial Success story (?)
Hi all (and who knows/I hope dr K),
Prepare to read!! But if you don't want to, get the TLDR at the bottom; I am very uncommon with Reddit so forgive me any mistakes!
I've been strugglin' along in life for a while now (am 26 years old) and even though I've been doubling down on dr K's videos last 6 months or so, it's been 10 years I've been working very hard on myself (sometimes really really obsessively). As following is how great my life is going;
I just got hired for a new job (System Engineer in IT), got a good base (got a small but nice apartment with garden, money, stuff, a cute cat) and I am very healthy and strong (I put alot of time in my health) and maybe I got some on the lucky side with appearance thanks to my parents (no model but u know, just fine). + I've joined group therapy on 18 yrs old for one and a half year, been in cognitive therapy since my 21st and still going sometimes and have been reading about philosophy, psychology for years and thought alot about a mentality of 'overcoming' and practicing this alot too in for example Boxing. As more medicine for the mind I sometimes make poems, play guitar and sing or make raps (been a while tbh), meditate, work out more, have a healthy routine and habits, try to do enough new things and take risks (as in Love and also career or vacations alone etc).. I feel like I understand myself and my world alot better than before and that I could do something really cool with these insights.
To understand my question but honestly also because I am weirdly eager to share my story, here's a small part of my history; My parents got divorced at age 5 or 6 because my mother joined a sect (like Amish but modernized) and the church said she had to, against my fathers' wishes. It was a horrible divorce, where suddenly my dad was gone, they regularly got in screaming fights with my mom wishing him dead etc, slamming doors (my dad broke into the house at least once) arguing over the relationship and us, while we didn't really understood why and cried ofcourse. Later on when things sort of settled down I saw my dad weekend on weekend off and until shortly I told myself everything was fine from that time on; it would be too much to tell, but I am now sure (beside every period also has some good things ofc) I have been emotionally neglected, traumatically manipulated by my mom (examples: literally years later when I felt sad my dad was gone while looking at old pictures where she cut him out, she said things like it was the demon in my room making me feel that way and she literally commanded/screamed it back to hell, I was frightened to death and my little sister cried once; my mother also observed and controlled us sometimes obsessively checking our stuff in search of where the devil could hide & would throw it away, and manipulate choices, what is not allowed to do or even think.. everything) and I lived an extremely sad, depressing, insecure and self-blaming youth. If I'd understood what really was going on with my mom and my family, I probably would have killed myself. Lucky me I guess she forced me to become a bit better at lying, and so too to myself. Hahah you thought that was all didn't yah? Hell no, here comes part two; at 15 yrs old I got kicked out of (that side of) the family which meant losing my mother, my siblings I grew up with, my best friend cousin and a whole network of friends because I had to move to my father in another city too far away. I had to walk away from home (my mom) because I felt very unsafe apparently, I wasn't welcome anymore after that. She also didn't respond to my texts, or said I could come and then cancel, and send not even a message from the first birthday since on. Later on I tried again but she keeps putting expectations on me and plays with my love for her. haven't seen her for 6 years now I think. But I also left the one good thing; my mothers' beliefs. I am grateful for my father to take me in, but I think now he was too traumatized by the happenings' in his life that he wasn't able to really connect with me when I moved in, we never discussed emotional parts or had a good talk the first year or more. Maybe we had later on but still, he always felt distant from me, as today I am afraid. Like he is half a ghost; He lives, but always seems unaware of half of what happens.. doing his routine over and over. You can talk but he forgets. Never said he loved me or anything, just he living his life and I mine besides his. I know he loves me, but sad it is.
So you can see I've been through some shit and still leaving out alot because it would be too long to read. I want to get to the point myself as like;
I am feeling okay lately and really are keeping my balance, feeling overall good and livin' prosperous as I actually always do. The only thing I really long still is having a connection with people. I don't know if it's me, them, or both.. I moved alot so it was hard to remain friendships, but I also think I find it hard to make friends because I feel like a strange ducky; I fear my past has changed me so much that I understand depth that my peers do not. It could be arrogance, but it must at least have some truth in it. It takes alot of energy to be around new people and since a year I have become alot more solitary, because I don't want to drink really, use drugs or stay up at night. I live a peaceful life reading, working out, pursue a nice career and sum good meditation (and tea) sessions. And try to keep a few good friendships going, which are going very well. But I haven't been in a relationship for 6 years and now I feel like I am ready (a healthy one this time I promise), only the women around me I feel like they are not (ghosting, are most interested in themselves, looking for checking their grocerylist, communicate intensely vague). I've had quite some experience with women and don't struggle to get dates, but I really find it hard to find real connection/understanding. I got on a new datingapp where you go on date when you match without chatting, sounds great not? Only with the first 3 matches they postponed the date already 6 times, two doubles, mostly same day/few hours before. And with horrible reason and effort after really. I also find the girls I have approached in real life and dated seem occupied, and some of those things i just listed. Generally very cold women here in Holland, is my experience (but there are always exceptions on ones' rules ofcourse);
''Has this world changed its' moral value, or is it I?''
.. So I wonder; do I need to change myself, or my environment? Do I maybe have a lack of connection what makes me feel like I lack connection, or am I still missing something internally? Or both? And do I need to be more patient while feeling a little righteous lack-of?
If you want to ask, share or give your worldview of anything please do so! I am here to learn, not to know it better.
Huge propz to dr K, thanks for the ton of knowledge I already learned from you for free and thanks for this reddit page!
thanks for reading!
side question: It could be obvious but is my history a normal one? or is it a bit different from the usual? I wouldn't know really, I like to see myself as normal
TL;DR: Life is going great, Life wás hell & felt like sharing, question; is there a chance for real love?
submitted by BeSerial to roadtrip [link] [comments]
Prepare to read!! But if you don't want to, get the TLDR at the bottom; I am very uncommon with Reddit so forgive me any mistakes!
I've been strugglin' along in life for a while now (am 26 years old) and even though I've been doubling down on dr K's videos last 6 months or so, it's been 10 years I've been working very hard on myself (sometimes really really obsessively). As following is how great my life is going;
I just got hired for a new job (System Engineer in IT), got a good base (got a small but nice apartment with garden, money, stuff, a cute cat) and I am very healthy and strong (I put alot of time in my health) and maybe I got some on the lucky side with appearance thanks to my parents (no model but u know, just fine). + I've joined group therapy on 18 yrs old for one and a half year, been in cognitive therapy since my 21st and still going sometimes and have been reading about philosophy, psychology for years and thought alot about a mentality of 'overcoming' and practicing this alot too in for example Boxing. As more medicine for the mind I sometimes make poems, play guitar and sing or make raps (been a while tbh), meditate, work out more, have a healthy routine and habits, try to do enough new things and take risks (as in Love and also career or vacations alone etc).. I feel like I understand myself and my world alot better than before and that I could do something really cool with these insights.
To understand my question but honestly also because I am weirdly eager to share my story, here's a small part of my history; My parents got divorced at age 5 or 6 because my mother joined a sect (like Amish but modernized) and the church said she had to, against my fathers' wishes. It was a horrible divorce, where suddenly my dad was gone, they regularly got in screaming fights with my mom wishing him dead etc, slamming doors (my dad broke into the house at least once) arguing over the relationship and us, while we didn't really understood why and cried ofcourse. Later on when things sort of settled down I saw my dad weekend on weekend off and until shortly I told myself everything was fine from that time on; it would be too much to tell, but I am now sure (beside every period also has some good things ofc) I have been emotionally neglected, traumatically manipulated by my mom (examples: literally years later when I felt sad my dad was gone while looking at old pictures where she cut him out, she said things like it was the demon in my room making me feel that way and she literally commanded/screamed it back to hell, I was frightened to death and my little sister cried once; my mother also observed and controlled us sometimes obsessively checking our stuff in search of where the devil could hide & would throw it away, and manipulate choices, what is not allowed to do or even think.. everything) and I lived an extremely sad, depressing, insecure and self-blaming youth. If I'd understood what really was going on with my mom and my family, I probably would have killed myself. Lucky me I guess she forced me to become a bit better at lying, and so too to myself. Hahah you thought that was all didn't yah? Hell no, here comes part two; at 15 yrs old I got kicked out of (that side of) the family which meant losing my mother, my siblings I grew up with, my best friend cousin and a whole network of friends because I had to move to my father in another city too far away. I had to walk away from home (my mom) because I felt very unsafe apparently, I wasn't welcome anymore after that. She also didn't respond to my texts, or said I could come and then cancel, and send not even a message from the first birthday since on. Later on I tried again but she keeps putting expectations on me and plays with my love for her. haven't seen her for 6 years now I think. But I also left the one good thing; my mothers' beliefs. I am grateful for my father to take me in, but I think now he was too traumatized by the happenings' in his life that he wasn't able to really connect with me when I moved in, we never discussed emotional parts or had a good talk the first year or more. Maybe we had later on but still, he always felt distant from me, as today I am afraid. Like he is half a ghost; He lives, but always seems unaware of half of what happens.. doing his routine over and over. You can talk but he forgets. Never said he loved me or anything, just he living his life and I mine besides his. I know he loves me, but sad it is.
So you can see I've been through some shit and still leaving out alot because it would be too long to read. I want to get to the point myself as like;
I am feeling okay lately and really are keeping my balance, feeling overall good and livin' prosperous as I actually always do. The only thing I really long still is having a connection with people. I don't know if it's me, them, or both.. I moved alot so it was hard to remain friendships, but I also think I find it hard to make friends because I feel like a strange ducky; I fear my past has changed me so much that I understand depth that my peers do not. It could be arrogance, but it must at least have some truth in it. It takes alot of energy to be around new people and since a year I have become alot more solitary, because I don't want to drink really, use drugs or stay up at night. I live a peaceful life reading, working out, pursue a nice career and sum good meditation (and tea) sessions. And try to keep a few good friendships going, which are going very well. But I haven't been in a relationship for 6 years and now I feel like I am ready (a healthy one this time I promise), only the women around me I feel like they are not (ghosting, are most interested in themselves, looking for checking their grocerylist, communicate intensely vague). I've had quite some experience with women and don't struggle to get dates, but I really find it hard to find real connection/understanding. I got on a new datingapp where you go on date when you match without chatting, sounds great not? Only with the first 3 matches they postponed the date already 6 times, two doubles, mostly same day/few hours before. And with horrible reason and effort after really. I also find the girls I have approached in real life and dated seem occupied, and some of those things i just listed. Generally very cold women here in Holland, is my experience (but there are always exceptions on ones' rules ofcourse);
''Has this world changed its' moral value, or is it I?''
.. So I wonder; do I need to change myself, or my environment? Do I maybe have a lack of connection what makes me feel like I lack connection, or am I still missing something internally? Or both? And do I need to be more patient while feeling a little righteous lack-of?
If you want to ask, share or give your worldview of anything please do so! I am here to learn, not to know it better.
Huge propz to dr K, thanks for the ton of knowledge I already learned from you for free and thanks for this reddit page!
thanks for reading!
side question: It could be obvious but is my history a normal one? or is it a bit different from the usual? I wouldn't know really, I like to see myself as normal
TL;DR: Life is going great, Life wás hell & felt like sharing, question; is there a chance for real love?
2024.05.28 19:05 JRE47 A Comprehensive PvP Analysis on the GBL Season 19 (Shared Skies) Move Rebalance
New season, new shakeup! As per usual, we get new moves added to new recipients, and some existing moves get tweaked. Unlike usual, we don't get any all-new moves, but on the plus side, we got all this teased over a week ahead of time, making ol' JRE quite happy. No last minute scramble to get through it all!
But even with a relatively simple move rabalance like this one, there's still plenty to cover. Nowhere will you find analysis that goes to these depths, covering the big names and some others you likely haven't even considered.
Let's do this, people!
"JRE, you're crazy, man. Ice types are a dime a dozen. What makes Cetitan so special?"
Well judging by my initial PvP review on Cetitan when it was released, not much. I noted it had decent overall bulk and was at least better than Avalugg (with the same Body Slam and Avalanche charge moves, but Cetitan having the better fast move with Ice Shard as opposed to Lugg's Ice Fang), and perhaps had some promise in Master League where Ice types have a lot of advantages anyway, particularly Premier where Legendary Ice types are left on the outside looking in. And now? Enter an even much better fast move than Ice Shard: Powder Snow, which beats all the same ML core meta stuff as Ice Shard plus Origin Giratina, Lugia, and Snorlax in 0shield, Altered Giratina, Swampert, and Gyarados in 1shield, Mewtwo and Reshiram in 2shield, and Xerneas and Zacian in both 1 and 2shield. And again, NO new losses... this is a straight upgrade, folks. In the rankings, Cetitan leapfrogs Avalugg, Walrein, Baxcalibur, and even lomg-time staple Mamoswine in the ratings (and in performance) to trail only Kyurem and Hisuian Avalugg among Ice types, and Cetitan can still do things not even those two can like beating Mewtwo, Excadrill, and Reshiram!
Cetitan does move into the upper ranks of Ice types in other Leagues as well, but there is just a lot of established and versatile competition to contend with like Walrein, Dewgong, Abomasnow, Alolan Sandslash, Arctibax, Aurorus, Froslass, Alolan Ninetales, and even old friends like Lapras. Those mostly all fall away in Master League, leaving the new and improved Cetitan to shoot up the charts more decisively. You'll start to see it all over now, particularly in Cups, but I do think Master League is where it will likely make its biggest mark for those with the means to build it up. It can even beat three out of four Necrozmas! (The Steely Dusk Mane fusion being the only exception, for rather obvious reasons.)
One other League to consider is Little Leaue, and CETODDLE, who gets the same moveset update and does good things with it. Stupid trash can lid Bronzor is still a huge issue, of course, as well as obvious Fires and Fighters and such. But this is easily now one of the best Ice types in Little League and should be a fixture of most Little formats from here on out.
Do I think these two are going to suddenly take over their respective Leagues? Probably not. But do they deserve a heck of a lot more usage, even in Open? Absolutely. There's a reason I chose to lead off with these two!
And honestly, that mostly remains Thunder Punch's role for the things now recieving it:
Anyway, long-terrible Normal charge move Swift is finally getting a buff. I think so, at least. Niantic is actually lowing its power from 60 damage to 55, but they are also lowering its cost. How much? That's the part we don't know yet, but PvPoke has speculated it will drop from 55 energy all the way down to 40, and while that's probably the best case scenario, we're gonna roll with it for the purposes of this analysis. If that holds true, the resulting 55 damage/40 every should look quite familiar... it's the same stats as Thunder Punch. And as we talked about earlier, that's usually better for baiting than anything, but it's passable and certainly FAR better than the 60 damage/55 energy it was previously.
Does anything that now gets it (or already has it) actually want to use it, though?
Okay, sorry sorry. NAGANADEL gets Dragon Claw now. Yay? Sadly this does very, very little for it in PvP, picking up just a single win over Yveltal, of all things, in 1v1 shielding, and no real changes elsewhere. At least this section is easy on me (musical lyric joke counter: 2) and we can move on to the next now.
...get off my lawn.
Anyway, Counter remains the best fast overall move in the game, so any time something new gets it, that is reason enough to sit up and notice. Even when that recipient is a current Pokémona non grata like LOKIX.
Look, it's very glassy and will likely never be more than spice. This is unlikely to really shake up any meta in a major way. But yes, Lokix is significantly better than before now that it has Counter. It does unfortunately drop Cresselia, but can now outslug stuff like Lickitung, Dewgong, Guzzlord, Vigoroth, Galarian Stunfisk, and even Skarmory and Bastiodon despite how scary those two normally are for Bugs. It sees similar improvement in Ultra League, dropping Fighting-resistent Venusaur and Golisopod but gaining Registeel, Steelix, Alolan Sandslash, Swampert, Walrein, and Greedent, but uh... it has to be leveled up to at least Level 46, and is still a poor option overall. Not worth it, IMO. But keep an eye on it, as the addtion of another impactful charge move could elevate it further. Counter users are ALWAYS worth at least some consideration.
Now Trevor gets a boost again, with the cost remaining the same but the damage creeping up to 65 now, elevating it from a clone of Wrap (and a slew of stat-altering moves like Icy Wind, Mystical Fire, Lunge, the Forces Of Nature unique Storm moves, and others... but Seed Bomb of course HAS no stat altering and was thus far worse) to a clone of Discharge. Not amazing — a reduction in cost to what it once way would REALLY make a difference — but certainly more palpable.
In the end, it's a small buff to Trevenant — with only a couple new wins like Shadow Dragonair in 1shield and Azumarill in 2shield in Great League, and Feraligatr and Greninja in 1shield and Tentacruel in 2shield in Ultra League — but we'll take it! Those UL wins especially are pretty nice.
Not many other notable Seed Bomb users, but here's what I see: WHIMSICOTT (with Fairy Wind) can now beat Galarian Stunfisk and Azumarill with shields down (in Great League), so that's a small but welcome improvement. Aaaaaaand that's about it. No big changes I see with Little League COTTONEE or BULBASAUR or Little or Great League DARTRIX, and then you're into things like CELEBI. Yeah, this is first and almost entirely centered on Trevenant.
But how bad is it? Overall, it's not TOO significant. Lanturn now loses to Registeel in 1v1 shielding (and not surprisingly gets a bit less dominant versus other things like Azumarill and Mandibuzz), Medicham and Charjabug in 0shield, and Altaria and Annihilape in 2shield. Those ARE some big names, but where you primarily wanted it before, it still works, albeit sometimes with a little less left in the tank at the end. Farming things down obviously gets harder! It drops from formerly ranking #12 in Great League 20 spots to now #32 (at the time of this writing), but still... a Top 30ish option is still a really good PvP Pokémon.
...oh, but uh, there's a caveat: it's now ranked at #32 with Water Gun, while Spark Lanturn has dropped all the way down to #66. That may be a little harsh, but does make sense. Ironically, the rating with Water Gun goes UP from #35 to now #32. I don't knwo that I'm quite ready to say that Water Gun Lanturn is now the clear favorite over Spark Lanturn, but they're now both moving into "sidegrade" territory for sure, with Spark still being best for things like Mandibuzz, Poliwrath, and Sableye, but Water Gun carving out wins against Galarian Stunfisk, Shadow Gilgar, Carbink... and the Registeel that Spark now loses to. Water Gun is also far better now [with shields down], beating things that Spark cannot like G-Fisk, Shadow Gligar, and Carbink again, along with Charjabug and Shadow A-Slash, while the only unique win Spark holds onto is Dewgong. Interestingly, Water Gun Lanturn can also now win the head to head with Spark Lanturn in 2v2 shielding. Spark and Water Gun now deal the same damage per turn, so Water Gun's shorter cooldown wins the day.
Again, I do not think Lanturn is going to suddenly disappear from Open formats or even PvP in-person tournaments. But I DO think its use is going to go down as it slips back a tier or two in the meta. I mean, it almost HAS to. And yes, I do think Water Gun variants are going to be far more common now. Again, you almost HAVE to move that direction now, at least for certain team compositions. We'll see how bad it gets soon enough.
I DO think this may convince me to give up my Bubble LUDICOLO I've been running in GL of late, though. Scald triggering was the difference between life and death against some things like Gilgar. And other slightly-less-meta things like TENTACRUEL may suffer a little bit as well, but again, the change isn't all that bad. (Tentacthulhu, for example, usually counts on Acid Spray for debuffing hijinks anyway and saves Scald as a closer... it's less reliant on the debuffing it can sometimes provide.)
By way of quick summary of the above (here's your TL;DR, folks!):
The biggest winners I see in this update are (in rough order) CETITAN (maybe CETODDLE?) with Powder Snow, TYPHLOSION with Thunder Punch, UXIE with Swift, SWOOBAT with Fly, SCRAFTY with Thunder Punch, LOKIX with Counter, TREVENANT with buffed Seed Bomb, and then maybe SALAMENCE (Fly) and WHIMSICOTT (Seed Bomb). Other than Cetitan and Typhlosion, I don't know that any of them move drastically up the ranks, but they're all better with this update and bear watching as spice options at the very least.
Alrighty, that's it for now. Back to analysis on the Necrozma Fusions (already in progress) and beyond! Until then, you can always find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck as we move into the new season, and catch you next time!
submitted by JRE47 to TheSilphRoad [link] [comments]
But even with a relatively simple move rabalance like this one, there's still plenty to cover. Nowhere will you find analysis that goes to these depths, covering the big names and some others you likely haven't even considered.
Let's do this, people!
(NEW) ATTACK ON TITAN 🌨️
There are several attack changes people are already talking about excitedly with this update, so naturally I'm going to start with... CETITAN? Hear me out, because I think this is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) move addition in this whole rebalance."JRE, you're crazy, man. Ice types are a dime a dozen. What makes Cetitan so special?"
Well judging by my initial PvP review on Cetitan when it was released, not much. I noted it had decent overall bulk and was at least better than Avalugg (with the same Body Slam and Avalanche charge moves, but Cetitan having the better fast move with Ice Shard as opposed to Lugg's Ice Fang), and perhaps had some promise in Master League where Ice types have a lot of advantages anyway, particularly Premier where Legendary Ice types are left on the outside looking in. And now? Enter an even much better fast move than Ice Shard: Powder Snow, which beats all the same ML core meta stuff as Ice Shard plus Origin Giratina, Lugia, and Snorlax in 0shield, Altered Giratina, Swampert, and Gyarados in 1shield, Mewtwo and Reshiram in 2shield, and Xerneas and Zacian in both 1 and 2shield. And again, NO new losses... this is a straight upgrade, folks. In the rankings, Cetitan leapfrogs Avalugg, Walrein, Baxcalibur, and even lomg-time staple Mamoswine in the ratings (and in performance) to trail only Kyurem and Hisuian Avalugg among Ice types, and Cetitan can still do things not even those two can like beating Mewtwo, Excadrill, and Reshiram!
Cetitan does move into the upper ranks of Ice types in other Leagues as well, but there is just a lot of established and versatile competition to contend with like Walrein, Dewgong, Abomasnow, Alolan Sandslash, Arctibax, Aurorus, Froslass, Alolan Ninetales, and even old friends like Lapras. Those mostly all fall away in Master League, leaving the new and improved Cetitan to shoot up the charts more decisively. You'll start to see it all over now, particularly in Cups, but I do think Master League is where it will likely make its biggest mark for those with the means to build it up. It can even beat three out of four Necrozmas! (The Steely Dusk Mane fusion being the only exception, for rather obvious reasons.)
One other League to consider is Little Leaue, and CETODDLE, who gets the same moveset update and does good things with it. Stupid trash can lid Bronzor is still a huge issue, of course, as well as obvious Fires and Fighters and such. But this is easily now one of the best Ice types in Little League and should be a fixture of most Little formats from here on out.
Do I think these two are going to suddenly take over their respective Leagues? Probably not. But do they deserve a heck of a lot more usage, even in Open? Absolutely. There's a reason I chose to lead off with these two!
PUNCHING LIGHTS OUT ⚡
Thunder Punch is not exactly an electrifying move in PvP. Like the other Elemental Punches (Fire, Ice, Thunder), as well as other move clones (Aerial Ace and Stomp), it costs only 40 energy, but deals only 55 damage for a passable but unexciting 1.37 Damage Per Energy. Most things that use it (and there are several, such as Ampharos, Muk, Hypno, Pachirisu, and the Super Raichu Bros.) do so as a bait move, though as with any elemental move, the coverage alone can be nice too (for things like Muk and Hypno, at least). Still, often if it goes through unshielded, that's a loss for the user, as they typically want to bait a shield with it leading up to a big closer like Dark Pulse (Muk), Shadow Ball (Hypno), or Wild Charge (Raichus).And honestly, that mostly remains Thunder Punch's role for the things now recieving it:
- The Pawmot family all get it now. I suppose PAWMO may appreciate it the most as its first move under 45 energy, but it remains a poor overall option. Big bro PAWMOT can use it, I suppose, alongside Close Combat or Wild Charge rather than running both as it typically does now, giving it not only better bait potential but also moves it away from TWO big self-debuffing moves at once. Indeed, it would seem Thunder Punch/Close Combat is a fine sidegrade or even upgrade to Close Combat/Wild Charge, dropping Azumarill but picking up things like Mantine, Talonflame, and Carbink, which are all quite nice. However, it remains far south of a 50% winrate and thus on the fringe even in most Limited/Cup metas. This addition is appreciated, but doesn't really change much. And keep in mind that their fast move, Spark, is getting a nerf... but more on that later.
- CHESNAUGHT is an odd one here. Obviously it already has Waters covered with its Grass moves, so the most obvious thing Thunder Punch does is give it a little more teeth against Flyers. As with Pawmot, Chesnaught tends to run with a self-debuffing Fighting move for coverage, in this case Superpower. And honestly, I think that's what it will usually prefer to keep on doing, though Thunder Punch IS a decent overall sidegrade on paper in Great League, dropping stuff like Guzzlord and Shadow Dragonair to instead gain Annihilape and Pelipper. Hmmm... that's actually not too shabby. 🤔 I think I can confidentally say to stick with Superpower in Ultra League, though... without it, you drop stuff like Registeel, Alolan Sandslash, Cobalion, and Guzzlord, which is no beuno.
- Another Fighter that gets some anti-air coverage wth Thunder Punch now is LUCARIO. The last elemental move Niantic gave it was Blaze Kick, which has popped up here and there (and given it some new potential wins like Venusaur), but generally it seems to usually still run best with Power-Up Punch (and typically Shadow Ball) instead. Usually. I do see a bit more potential this time around. In Great League, Fire Punch generally performs worse than PuP, but Thunder Punch seems like more of a straight sidegrade, trading away Cresselia to instead pretty reliably take out Carbink. And in Ultra League, Thunder Punch (running alongside Shadow Ball) does still generally lose to Trevenant in a foot race (PuP's lower cost is critical there), but gains Mandibuzz and Tentacruel in exchange, as well as scaring Flyers into potentially burning more shields too. Luc's Counter damage is already beating up Steels that you'd want Fire for, leaving Thunder Punch and Counter with less overlap. PuP Lucario isn't going anywhere, but I DO like Thunder a bit more as an alternative than Fire. We'll see if that ends up truly mattering.
- Third time's the charm? Our third and final Fighter getting Thunder Punch now is the most intriguing. SCRAFTY, like Lucario, has long run effectively with Power-Up Punch leading to an eventual Foul Play to close things out. That's been at least Cup-worthy in Great League, and at least borderline meta in Ultra League especially. In Great League, Thunder Punch is at least a decent sidegrade to PuP, sometimes dropping the Shadow versions of Dragonair and Victreebel, but gaining Mandibuzz and Pelipper, two pretty impactful pickups. But it is in Ultra League where Thunder Punch becomes more impactful, bringing in new wins like Golisopod, Alolan Muk, and Gyarados, as opposed to the single new loss to Cobalion that you can get with PuP instead. And Thunder Punch is more of a straight upgrade in other even shield matchups, gaining Tentacruel in 2v2 shielding and Poliwrath, Mandibuzz, and Gyarados with shields down, all with NO PuP wins slipping away. I think this just makes Scrafty better in Ultra and will be the favored move alongside Foul Play moving forward. Neat!
- But I think the single biggest winner of the Thunder Punch sweepstakes has to be TYPHLOSION. There are a couple reasons for this that make perfect sense even without looking at sims. First off, Typhlosion's biggest issue since the beginning has been having no charge moves costing less than 50 energy. This means that three Incinerates (or at least seven Shadow Claws) have always been required before Typhlosion could even threaten shields. Thunder Punch changes that math significantly, as only two Incinerates (or five Shadow Claws) are required to hit exactly the 40 energy Thunder Punch requires. That is significant! But the coverage is also fanatastic to hit back at Water types, which Typhlosion always kinda wanted to do with Solar Beam, though that costs FOUR Incinerates to charge up, making it a Hail Mary at best. The end result? Thunder Punch is nearly a straight upgrade. Without any shields in play, Solar Beam CAN manage to shock and awe its way to wins over things like Azumarill and Lickitung in Great League, and Jellicent in Ultra League. But otherwise everything comes up in Thunder Punch's favor, with its own 0shield wins like Charizard in UL and Talonflame, Mantine, Pelipper, and Shadow A-Slash in GL. And Thunder Punch is strictly better in 1v1 shielding by adding Mandibuzz and Mantine in GL and Gyarados and Talonflame in UL, and a TON of new wins in 2v2 shielding like Feraligatr, Mantine, Talonflame, Lickitung, Sableye, Cresselia, and sometimes even Galarian Stunfisk in GL, and Charizard, Toxicroak, Obstagoon, Alolan Muk, Jellicent, Annihilape, Golisopod, Gyarados, Tentacruel, Walrein, Mandibuzz and more in UL! Big big BIG improvements in the horizon for Typhlosion that elevates it to the same tier as Talonflame, Chairzard, and Skeledirge in both Great and Ultra Leagues moving forward. And that's not to even mention the potential of Shadow Typhlosion.... 😱
🎼 COME FLY WITH ME, LET'S FLY AWAY! 🦅
Fly is one of the best moves in the entire game: 45 energy for 80 damage, with no drawbacks at all. That's what Sky Attack was from 2018 to 2021, back when it was terrifying in PvP, before dropping to 75 power and eventually going to 50 energy too last year. (What did Sky Attack ever do to you, Hanke?! 😢) But now, in keeping with the seeming skyward theme of the season, old school Sky Attack is being handed out to several new recipients that... uh... could use some help. Is it enough?- Oh, how long I've wanted FEAROW to work in PvP. Its had its chances, with Drill Run and Steel Wing only getting better over time, and even the nerfs to Sky Attack being mitigated by the long overdue buff to Aerial Ace. And now it gets old-school Sky Attack with the addition of Fly... and it STILL can't break out. Come on, Niantic.. just give it Wing Attack already, will ya? Or at least Quick Attack, maybe? Set my drill running bird free!
- SWANNA remains the ugly duckling of Flying Water types. While Mantine and Pelipper and even Gyarados lord over their respective Leagues, and even Swanna's pre-evolution Ducklett remains a tippy top option in Little League, poor Swanna remains consistently ranked outside the top 400, ranked below even Mantyke in Great League... even after getting Fly! It remains trapped behind lackluster fast moves, and until that changes, it remains irrelevant. Let Swanna really soar, Niantic!
- The one everyone is talking about is SALAMENCE, particularly in Master League where it has always seemed right on the cusp of potential greatness, with pretty good overall stats and decent enough Dragon moves (Dragon Tail, Draco Meteor, and Outrage as a Legacy move), but no good second charge move. Now it gets Fly, and while it IS much improved, I just don't think it's enough. Not nearly. Not even in Premier. Just too many other Dragons with better tricks up their sleeves. If you're doggedly insistent, I guess you can try again with it now, but I don't see Sal finding sudden success after this, sorry. Give it Dragon Claw or something and THEN we can talk.
- So surprisingly, it is humble SWOOBAT that we're left talking about as perhaps the most impactful new Fly user. Though obviously we're not talking Master League anymore, no no. This is a Great League 'mon, and one that's already a little spicy since first getting Psychic Fangs and then the eventual buff to Aerial Ace. But it was left without reasonably priced closing power, with Psychic (the move) just not being worth it as the attempts to nerf Medicham drug Psychic (the move!) into the depths, and Future Sight is just way too expensive with Confusion's average energy gains. So now here comes Fly, and you know what? I like the result! This is no sudden new Open play revelation or anything, but potential spice in the right Cup? I can absolutely see it. Fly grants new wins against GOOD names like Altaria and Gligar in 1shield, and Pelipper, Vigoroth, and the Shadow versions of Gligar, Swampert, and CharmTales in 0shield. There's some real potential here now, more than ever before. Not every improvement has to rock PvP... just some nice new twists like this can be plenty fun. Now we just need Gust for the lulz.
NIFTY OR... SWIFTIE? 💨
Apologies to the fans of the future Mrs. Travis Kelce (if you know, you know)....Anyway, long-terrible Normal charge move Swift is finally getting a buff. I think so, at least. Niantic is actually lowing its power from 60 damage to 55, but they are also lowering its cost. How much? That's the part we don't know yet, but PvPoke has speculated it will drop from 55 energy all the way down to 40, and while that's probably the best case scenario, we're gonna roll with it for the purposes of this analysis. If that holds true, the resulting 55 damage/40 every should look quite familiar... it's the same stats as Thunder Punch. And as we talked about earlier, that's usually better for baiting than anything, but it's passable and certainly FAR better than the 60 damage/55 energy it was previously.
Does anything that now gets it (or already has it) actually want to use it, though?
- The first new recipients worth mentioning are the WIGGLYTUFF family, as they are all part Normal-type and thus get STAB damage with Swift too. Eh, maybe? These sims will likely break when the new season goes live, but what the heck, I'll show them anyway. I think out of the two charge moves Wiggly uses now — Icy Wind and Disarming Voice — it is Voice that is the one to potentially drop, as Charm already deals plenty of Fairy-type damage, and Icy Wind not only provides coverage but also obviously extends Wiggly's life by debuffing the opponent's Attack. So assuming you run Icy Wind/Swift, we'll call that a sidegrade to Wind/Voice. "But JRE, it got worse!" Yes, in 1shield it seems to, dropping Dewgong, but you actually win if you go with Icy Wind first, and then closing it out with Swift, just as you can win going Icy Wind and then DIsarming Voice after. Similarly, there are no big differences in 2v2 shielding, but in 0v0 shield, we have a true sidegrade situation, with Swift outracing Pelipper and Shadow CharmTales, and Disarming Voice instead overpowering Gligar and forcing at least a tie a tie with enemy Wigglytuffs. So pure sidegrade, basically. Not a GREAT sign considering that, again, this is the only Charmer that gets STAB with Swift. And while JIGGLYPUFF* and especially IGGLYBUFF have some play in Little League, they are still worlds better with (Legacy) Body Slam rather than Swift. Moving on....
- CLEFABLE has a few edge cases where Swift can help, but overall just trust me when I tell you that (at least when running Fairy Wind as the fast move), Meteor Mash and Moonblast are just much. much better. Most all of the advantages for Swift show up in 2v2 shielding, and only in Great League...things like Swampert, Pelipper, and Gligar. But exisiting moves are just better otherwise, including up and down Ultra League. There's really no reason to linger here, so... next!
- The only other new recipients are the TEDDIURSA/URSARING/URSALUNA family. I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think Ursaluna wants it at all. Ice Punch has the same stats as what we're guessing Swift will, and the coverage it provides is massive, especially in Master League were it sees the most play today (with wins over things like Garchomp, Yveltal, and perhaps most critically, Zygarde Complete). Teddiursa seems interesting until you remember that it already has Cross Chop and Crunch, which have more impact than super-effective-versus-nothing Swift... STAB alone isn't really enough. The one that MAY want it is Ursaring. You likely would want to run it alongside Close Combat (in place of PLay Rough), which can then add on Dewgong and Guzzlord in Great League, at the cost of giving up Lanturn and Sableye. In Ultra League, it can add on Guzzlord and Swampert and gives up only Alolan Muk. But honestly, Ursaring remains just bad in both Leagues. And again, this is with likely best-case-scenario Swift. Blech.
- Pokémon that already have Swift (and any real potential in PvP) are basically just a list of two. HISUIAN ELECTRODE may actually want it, as it obviously wants to always run Wild Charge (45 energy) but awkwardly has to often try to bait a shield first with MORE expensive Energy Ball (55 energy). Swift COULD fix that by greatly speeding things up, as it costs less than Wild Charge at only 40 energy. But I still think that will be better in theory (and perhaps in Electric Cup, should that return) than in actual practice. Energy Ball is still quite useful for coverage and non-Wild Charge closing power, needing it to beat things like Whiscash and Swampert across various shileding scenarios. Swift does have some advantages in 2v2 shielding for rather obvious reasons, but that's about it.
- MUCH more interesting is UXIE. By far the bulkiest of the Lake Trio Legendaries — and in fact, the second bulkiest Confusion user in the game, behind only Cresselia — its problem has always been that all of its charge moves costed 55 energy or more... and with Swift being so bad before, it still usually ran with 60 energy (Thunder) and 65-energy (Future Sight) charge moves. And despite on-paper great potential... well, it was certainly no Cresselia! (And that goes for Ultra League too.) But now it gets the inexpensive move it's been waiting for, with new and improved Swift elevating its performance significantly in Great League (new wins include Altaria, Gligar, Swampert, Whiscash, Alolan Ninetales, Shadow Dragonair) and in Ultra League (new wins like DDeoxys, Pidgeot, Swampert, Venusaur, Charizard, Ampharos, Shadow Dragonite, AND Shadow CharmTales). Not sure that this will lead to a sudden breakout in PvP, but at the very least, it's suddenly spicy.
NO GO ADELE 🐉
Sticking with the theme of famous singers... Hello from the other side! 🙃Okay, sorry sorry. NAGANADEL gets Dragon Claw now. Yay? Sadly this does very, very little for it in PvP, picking up just a single win over Yveltal, of all things, in 1v1 shielding, and no real changes elsewhere. At least this section is easy on me (musical lyric joke counter: 2) and we can move on to the next now.
PATIENCE, YOUNG GRASSHOPPER 🦗
If you don't get the reference, it's from a famous show from the 70s (yes, the 1970s, you youngins) called "Kung Fu". It's a famous show and a famous phrase that you should know. No, I don't just know it because I'm old, it's famous!...get off my lawn.
Anyway, Counter remains the best fast overall move in the game, so any time something new gets it, that is reason enough to sit up and notice. Even when that recipient is a current Pokémona non grata like LOKIX.
Look, it's very glassy and will likely never be more than spice. This is unlikely to really shake up any meta in a major way. But yes, Lokix is significantly better than before now that it has Counter. It does unfortunately drop Cresselia, but can now outslug stuff like Lickitung, Dewgong, Guzzlord, Vigoroth, Galarian Stunfisk, and even Skarmory and Bastiodon despite how scary those two normally are for Bugs. It sees similar improvement in Ultra League, dropping Fighting-resistent Venusaur and Golisopod but gaining Registeel, Steelix, Alolan Sandslash, Swampert, Walrein, and Greedent, but uh... it has to be leveled up to at least Level 46, and is still a poor option overall. Not worth it, IMO. But keep an eye on it, as the addtion of another impactful charge move could elevate it further. Counter users are ALWAYS worth at least some consideration.
(RE-) PLANTING A SEED 🌱
We all know why Seed Bomb was nerfed from its original 40 to 45 energy: it was felt that something had to be done about TREVENANT, by far the most impactful Seed Bomb user. Yes yes, it got a small damage bump as well (from 55 to 60 damage), but the (completely intended) damage was done, and Trevenant usage dropped quite a bit. The hit wasn't TOO bad, but it was enough.Now Trevor gets a boost again, with the cost remaining the same but the damage creeping up to 65 now, elevating it from a clone of Wrap (and a slew of stat-altering moves like Icy Wind, Mystical Fire, Lunge, the Forces Of Nature unique Storm moves, and others... but Seed Bomb of course HAS no stat altering and was thus far worse) to a clone of Discharge. Not amazing — a reduction in cost to what it once way would REALLY make a difference — but certainly more palpable.
In the end, it's a small buff to Trevenant — with only a couple new wins like Shadow Dragonair in 1shield and Azumarill in 2shield in Great League, and Feraligatr and Greninja in 1shield and Tentacruel in 2shield in Ultra League — but we'll take it! Those UL wins especially are pretty nice.
Not many other notable Seed Bomb users, but here's what I see: WHIMSICOTT (with Fairy Wind) can now beat Galarian Stunfisk and Azumarill with shields down (in Great League), so that's a small but welcome improvement. Aaaaaaand that's about it. No big changes I see with Little League COTTONEE or BULBASAUR or Little or Great League DARTRIX, and then you're into things like CELEBI. Yeah, this is first and almost entirely centered on Trevenant.
SNUFFING OUT SPARK 🔌
Just as Seed Bomb changes are directly intended to affect one meta Pokémon, so too is the story with the nerf to Spark dropping from 6 damage to 5: this is directly intended to nerf LANTURN. There used to be other meta things that ran Spark because they had to, but they've all gotten other tricks since then that are now preferred (Volt Switch for Magnezone and family, Volt Switch for Charjabug, etc.). Yes, some others like LUXRAY and PROBOPASS remain as collateral damage, but those are just occasional spice considerations. No, the only truly meta change here is to Lanturn, as intended.But how bad is it? Overall, it's not TOO significant. Lanturn now loses to Registeel in 1v1 shielding (and not surprisingly gets a bit less dominant versus other things like Azumarill and Mandibuzz), Medicham and Charjabug in 0shield, and Altaria and Annihilape in 2shield. Those ARE some big names, but where you primarily wanted it before, it still works, albeit sometimes with a little less left in the tank at the end. Farming things down obviously gets harder! It drops from formerly ranking #12 in Great League 20 spots to now #32 (at the time of this writing), but still... a Top 30ish option is still a really good PvP Pokémon.
...oh, but uh, there's a caveat: it's now ranked at #32 with Water Gun, while Spark Lanturn has dropped all the way down to #66. That may be a little harsh, but does make sense. Ironically, the rating with Water Gun goes UP from #35 to now #32. I don't knwo that I'm quite ready to say that Water Gun Lanturn is now the clear favorite over Spark Lanturn, but they're now both moving into "sidegrade" territory for sure, with Spark still being best for things like Mandibuzz, Poliwrath, and Sableye, but Water Gun carving out wins against Galarian Stunfisk, Shadow Gilgar, Carbink... and the Registeel that Spark now loses to. Water Gun is also far better now [with shields down], beating things that Spark cannot like G-Fisk, Shadow Gligar, and Carbink again, along with Charjabug and Shadow A-Slash, while the only unique win Spark holds onto is Dewgong. Interestingly, Water Gun Lanturn can also now win the head to head with Spark Lanturn in 2v2 shielding. Spark and Water Gun now deal the same damage per turn, so Water Gun's shorter cooldown wins the day.
Again, I do not think Lanturn is going to suddenly disappear from Open formats or even PvP in-person tournaments. But I DO think its use is going to go down as it slips back a tier or two in the meta. I mean, it almost HAS to. And yes, I do think Water Gun variants are going to be far more common now. Again, you almost HAVE to move that direction now, at least for certain team compositions. We'll see how bad it gets soon enough.
A SEARING REVIEW
Speaking of getting bad, a brief mention for the other notable nerf with this update: Scald. It retains its nice cost to damage ratio of 1.7 Damage Per Energy (50 energy for 85 damage), but the chance for it to lower the target's Attack is going to drop. We don't know how much, but considering it currently sits at 50%, something like 30% seems a resonable expectation, and that's what PvPoke has put up speculatively as well. I'm NOT going to turn to simulations here, as moves with a percentage change of triggers are notoriously difficult to portray that way, to the point of almost being deceptive to even try. But I hardly think this marks the death of intended targets like WHISCASH or POLIWRATH unless, perhaps, the percentage change completely craters at like 20% or below. It's still good damage output and still a great STAB move for each of them. The rankings show Shadow Whiscash only dropping from #23 to #27 (though non-Shadow does take more of a hit, from a former #27 to now #42) and Poliwrath sees only a very small dip as well (#31 → #34 for Shadow and #46 → #48 for non-Shadow in Great League, and basically no change in Ultra League {non-Shadow drops only spot from #5 to #6, and Shadow actually rises from #10 to #9 thanks to other meta shifts}). Yes, this will hurt those who have fallen in love with those two, and surely there will be a slight dip in tournament play. But I don't think this is nearly the death knell some are making it out to be.I DO think this may convince me to give up my Bubble LUDICOLO I've been running in GL of late, though. Scald triggering was the difference between life and death against some things like Gilgar. And other slightly-less-meta things like TENTACRUEL may suffer a little bit as well, but again, the change isn't all that bad. (Tentacthulhu, for example, usually counts on Acid Spray for debuffing hijinks anyway and saves Scald as a closer... it's less reliant on the debuffing it can sometimes provide.)
IN SUMMATION
And that's it! Barring any last minute surprises by Niantic (ALWAYS a possibility), there's your review of all changes coming with the Shared Skies Season. As a quick reminder so people don't panic, keep in mind that while the new season starts on the 1st as per usual, the move updates will not go live until June 3rd, as a nice gesture to not disrupt the planned PJCS and Bologna tournaments that weekend.By way of quick summary of the above (here's your TL;DR, folks!):
The biggest winners I see in this update are (in rough order) CETITAN (maybe CETODDLE?) with Powder Snow, TYPHLOSION with Thunder Punch, UXIE with Swift, SWOOBAT with Fly, SCRAFTY with Thunder Punch, LOKIX with Counter, TREVENANT with buffed Seed Bomb, and then maybe SALAMENCE (Fly) and WHIMSICOTT (Seed Bomb). Other than Cetitan and Typhlosion, I don't know that any of them move drastically up the ranks, but they're all better with this update and bear watching as spice options at the very least.
Alrighty, that's it for now. Back to analysis on the Necrozma Fusions (already in progress) and beyond! Until then, you can always find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck as we move into the new season, and catch you next time!
2024.05.28 19:04 JRE47 GBL Season 19 Move Rebalance: A JRE Analysis
New season, new shakeup! As per usual, we get new moves added to new recipients, and some existing moves get tweaked. Unlike usual, we don't get any all-new moves, but on the plus side, we got all this teased over a week ahead of time, making ol' JRE quite happy. No last minute scramble to get through it all!
But even with a relatively simple move rabalance like this one, there's still plenty to cover. Nowhere will you find analysis that goes to these depths, covering the big names and some others you likely haven't even considered.
Let's do this, people!
"JRE, you're crazy, man. Ice types are a dime a dozen. What makes Cetitan so special?"
Well judging by my initial PvP review on Cetitan when it was released, not much. I noted it had decent overall bulk and was at least better than Avalugg (with the same Body Slam and Avalanche charge moves, but Cetitan having the better fast move with Ice Shard as opposed to Lugg's Ice Fang), and perhaps had some promise in Master League where Ice types have a lot of advantages anyway, particularly Premier where Legendary Ice types are left on the outside looking in. And now? Enter an even much better fast move than Ice Shard: Powder Snow, which beats all the same ML core meta stuff as Ice Shard plus Origin Giratina, Lugia, and Snorlax in 0shield, Altered Giratina, Swampert, and Gyarados in 1shield, Mewtwo and Reshiram in 2shield, and Xerneas and Zacian in both 1 and 2shield. And again, NO new losses... this is a straight upgrade, folks. In the rankings, Cetitan leapfrogs Avalugg, Walrein, Baxcalibur, and even lomg-time staple Mamoswine in the ratings (and in performance) to trail only Kyurem and Hisuian Avalugg among Ice types, and Cetitan can still do things not even those two can like beating Mewtwo, Excadrill, and Reshiram!
Cetitan does move into the upper ranks of Ice types in other Leagues as well, but there is just a lot of established and versatile competition to contend with like Walrein, Dewgong, Abomasnow, Alolan Sandslash, Arctibax, Aurorus, Froslass, Alolan Ninetales, and even old friends like Lapras. Those mostly all fall away in Master League, leaving the new and improved Cetitan to shoot up the charts more decisively. You'll start to see it all over now, particularly in Cups, but I do think Master League is where it will likely make its biggest mark for those with the means to build it up. It can even beat three out of four Necrozmas! (The Steely Dusk Mane fusion being the only exception, for rather obvious reasons.)
One other League to consider is Little Leaue, and CETODDLE, who gets the same moveset update and does good things with it. Stupid trash can lid Bronzor is still a huge issue, of course, as well as obvious Fires and Fighters and such. But this is easily now one of the best Ice types in Little League and should be a fixture of most Little formats from here on out.
Do I think these two are going to suddenly take over their respective Leagues? Probably not. But do they deserve a heck of a lot more usage, even in Open? Absolutely. There's a reason I chose to lead off with these two!
And honestly, that mostly remains Thunder Punch's role for the things now recieving it:
Anyway, long-terrible Normal charge move Swift is finally getting a buff. I think so, at least. Niantic is actually lowing its power from 60 damage to 55, but they are also lowering its cost. How much? That's the part we don't know yet, but PvPoke has speculated it will drop from 55 energy all the way down to 40, and while that's probably the best case scenario, we're gonna roll with it for the purposes of this analysis. If that holds true, the resulting 55 damage/40 every should look quite familiar... it's the same stats as Thunder Punch. And as we talked about earlier, that's usually better for baiting than anything, but it's passable and certainly FAR better than the 60 damage/55 energy it was previously.
Does anything that now gets it (or already has it) actually want to use it, though?
Okay, sorry sorry. NAGANADEL gets Dragon Claw now. Yay? Sadly this does very, very little for it in PvP, picking up just a single win over Yveltal, of all things, in 1v1 shielding, and no real changes elsewhere. At least this section is easy on me (musical lyric joke counter: 2) and we can move on to the next now.
...get off my lawn.
Anyway, Counter remains the best fast overall move in the game, so any time something new gets it, that is reason enough to sit up and notice. Even when that recipient is a current Pokémona non grata like LOKIX.
Look, it's very glassy and will likely never be more than spice. This is unlikely to really shake up any meta in a major way. But yes, Lokix is significantly better than before now that it has Counter. It does unfortunately drop Cresselia, but can now outslug stuff like Lickitung, Dewgong, Guzzlord, Vigoroth, Galarian Stunfisk, and even Skarmory and Bastiodon despite how scary those two normally are for Bugs. It sees similar improvement in Ultra League, dropping Fighting-resistent Venusaur and Golisopod but gaining Registeel, Steelix, Alolan Sandslash, Swampert, Walrein, and Greedent, but uh... it has to be leveled up to at least Level 46, and is still a poor option overall. Not worth it, IMO. But keep an eye on it, as the addtion of another impactful charge move could elevate it further. Counter users are ALWAYS worth at least some consideration.
Now Trevor gets a boost again, with the cost remaining the same but the damage creeping up to 65 now, elevating it from a clone of Wrap (and a slew of stat-altering moves like Icy Wind, Mystical Fire, Lunge, the Forces Of Nature unique Storm moves, and others... but Seed Bomb of course HAS no stat altering and was thus far worse) to a clone of Discharge. Not amazing — a reduction in cost to what it once way would REALLY make a difference — but certainly more palpable.
In the end, it's a small buff to Trevenant — with only a couple new wins like Shadow Dragonair in 1shield and Azumarill in 2shield in Great League, and Feraligatr and Greninja in 1shield and Tentacruel in 2shield in Ultra League — but we'll take it! Those UL wins especially are pretty nice.
Not many other notable Seed Bomb users, but here's what I see: WHIMSICOTT (with Fairy Wind) can now beat Galarian Stunfisk and Azumarill with shields down (in Great League), so that's a small but welcome improvement. Aaaaaaand that's about it. No big changes I see with Little League COTTONEE or BULBASAUR or Little or Great League DARTRIX, and then you're into things like CELEBI. Yeah, this is first and almost entirely centered on Trevenant.
But how bad is it? Overall, it's not TOO significant. Lanturn now loses to Registeel in 1v1 shielding (and not surprisingly gets a bit less dominant versus other things like Azumarill and Mandibuzz), Medicham and Charjabug in 0shield, and Altaria and Annihilape in 2shield. Those ARE some big names, but where you primarily wanted it before, it still works, albeit sometimes with a little less left in the tank at the end. Farming things down obviously gets harder! It drops from formerly ranking #12 in Great League 20 spots to now #32 (at the time of this writing), but still... a Top 30ish option is still a really good PvP Pokémon.
...oh, but uh, there's a caveat: it's now ranked at #32 with Water Gun, while Spark Lanturn has dropped all the way down to #66. That may be a little harsh, but does make sense. Ironically, the rating with Water Gun goes UP from #35 to now #32. I don't knwo that I'm quite ready to say that Water Gun Lanturn is now the clear favorite over Spark Lanturn, but they're now both moving into "sidegrade" territory for sure, with Spark still being best for things like Mandibuzz, Poliwrath, and Sableye, but Water Gun carving out wins against Galarian Stunfisk, Shadow Gilgar, Carbink... and the Registeel that Spark now loses to. Water Gun is also far better now [with shields down], beating things that Spark cannot like G-Fisk, Shadow Gligar, and Carbink again, along with Charjabug and Shadow A-Slash, while the only unique win Spark holds onto is Dewgong. Interestingly, Water Gun Lanturn can also now win the head to head with Spark Lanturn in 2v2 shielding. Spark and Water Gun now deal the same damage per turn, so Water Gun's shorter cooldown wins the day.
Again, I do not think Lanturn is going to suddenly disappear from Open formats or even PvP in-person tournaments. But I DO think its use is going to go down as it slips back a tier or two in the meta. I mean, it almost HAS to. And yes, I do think Water Gun variants are going to be far more common now. Again, you almost HAVE to move that direction now, at least for certain team compositions. We'll see how bad it gets soon enough.
I DO think this may convince me to give up my Bubble LUDICOLO I've been running in GL of late, though. Scald triggering was the difference between life and death against some things like Gilgar. And other slightly-less-meta things like TENTACRUEL may suffer a little bit as well, but again, the change isn't all that bad. (Tentacthulhu, for example, usually counts on Acid Spray for debuffing hijinks anyway and saves Scald as a closer... it's less reliant on the debuffing it can sometimes provide.)
By way of quick summary of the above (here's your TL;DR, folks!):
The biggest winners I see in this update are (in rough order) CETITAN (maybe CETODDLE?) with Powder Snow, TYPHLOSION with Thunder Punch, UXIE with Swift, SWOOBAT with Fly, SCRAFTY with Thunder Punch, LOKIX with Counter, TREVENANT with buffed Seed Bomb, and then maybe SALAMENCE (Fly) and WHIMSICOTT (Seed Bomb). Other than Cetitan and Typhlosion, I don't know that any of them move drastically up the ranks, but they're all better with this update and bear watching as spice options at the very least.
Alrighty, that's it for now. Back to analysis on the Necrozma Fusions (already in progress) and beyond! Until then, you can always find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck as we move into the new season, and catch you next time!
submitted by JRE47 to PokemonGOBattleLeague [link] [comments]
But even with a relatively simple move rabalance like this one, there's still plenty to cover. Nowhere will you find analysis that goes to these depths, covering the big names and some others you likely haven't even considered.
Let's do this, people!
(NEW) ATTACK ON TITAN 🌨️
There are several attack changes people are already talking about excitedly with this update, so naturally I'm going to start with... CETITAN? Hear me out, because I think this is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) move addition in this whole rebalance."JRE, you're crazy, man. Ice types are a dime a dozen. What makes Cetitan so special?"
Well judging by my initial PvP review on Cetitan when it was released, not much. I noted it had decent overall bulk and was at least better than Avalugg (with the same Body Slam and Avalanche charge moves, but Cetitan having the better fast move with Ice Shard as opposed to Lugg's Ice Fang), and perhaps had some promise in Master League where Ice types have a lot of advantages anyway, particularly Premier where Legendary Ice types are left on the outside looking in. And now? Enter an even much better fast move than Ice Shard: Powder Snow, which beats all the same ML core meta stuff as Ice Shard plus Origin Giratina, Lugia, and Snorlax in 0shield, Altered Giratina, Swampert, and Gyarados in 1shield, Mewtwo and Reshiram in 2shield, and Xerneas and Zacian in both 1 and 2shield. And again, NO new losses... this is a straight upgrade, folks. In the rankings, Cetitan leapfrogs Avalugg, Walrein, Baxcalibur, and even lomg-time staple Mamoswine in the ratings (and in performance) to trail only Kyurem and Hisuian Avalugg among Ice types, and Cetitan can still do things not even those two can like beating Mewtwo, Excadrill, and Reshiram!
Cetitan does move into the upper ranks of Ice types in other Leagues as well, but there is just a lot of established and versatile competition to contend with like Walrein, Dewgong, Abomasnow, Alolan Sandslash, Arctibax, Aurorus, Froslass, Alolan Ninetales, and even old friends like Lapras. Those mostly all fall away in Master League, leaving the new and improved Cetitan to shoot up the charts more decisively. You'll start to see it all over now, particularly in Cups, but I do think Master League is where it will likely make its biggest mark for those with the means to build it up. It can even beat three out of four Necrozmas! (The Steely Dusk Mane fusion being the only exception, for rather obvious reasons.)
One other League to consider is Little Leaue, and CETODDLE, who gets the same moveset update and does good things with it. Stupid trash can lid Bronzor is still a huge issue, of course, as well as obvious Fires and Fighters and such. But this is easily now one of the best Ice types in Little League and should be a fixture of most Little formats from here on out.
Do I think these two are going to suddenly take over their respective Leagues? Probably not. But do they deserve a heck of a lot more usage, even in Open? Absolutely. There's a reason I chose to lead off with these two!
PUNCHING LIGHTS OUT ⚡
Thunder Punch is not exactly an electrifying move in PvP. Like the other Elemental Punches (Fire, Ice, Thunder), as well as other move clones (Aerial Ace and Stomp), it costs only 40 energy, but deals only 55 damage for a passable but unexciting 1.37 Damage Per Energy. Most things that use it (and there are several, such as Ampharos, Muk, Hypno, Pachirisu, and the Super Raichu Bros.) do so as a bait move, though as with any elemental move, the coverage alone can be nice too (for things like Muk and Hypno, at least). Still, often if it goes through unshielded, that's a loss for the user, as they typically want to bait a shield with it leading up to a big closer like Dark Pulse (Muk), Shadow Ball (Hypno), or Wild Charge (Raichus).And honestly, that mostly remains Thunder Punch's role for the things now recieving it:
- The Pawmot family all get it now. I suppose PAWMO may appreciate it the most as its first move under 45 energy, but it remains a poor overall option. Big bro PAWMOT can use it, I suppose, alongside Close Combat or Wild Charge rather than running both as it typically does now, giving it not only better bait potential but also moves it away from TWO big self-debuffing moves at once. Indeed, it would seem Thunder Punch/Close Combat is a fine sidegrade or even upgrade to Close Combat/Wild Charge, dropping Azumarill but picking up things like Mantine, Talonflame, and Carbink, which are all quite nice. However, it remains far south of a 50% winrate and thus on the fringe even in most Limited/Cup metas. This addition is appreciated, but doesn't really change much. And keep in mind that their fast move, Spark, is getting a nerf... but more on that later.
- CHESNAUGHT is an odd one here. Obviously it already has Waters covered with its Grass moves, so the most obvious thing Thunder Punch does is give it a little more teeth against Flyers. As with Pawmot, Chesnaught tends to run with a self-debuffing Fighting move for coverage, in this case Superpower. And honestly, I think that's what it will usually prefer to keep on doing, though Thunder Punch IS a decent overall sidegrade on paper in Great League, dropping stuff like Guzzlord and Shadow Dragonair to instead gain Annihilape and Pelipper. Hmmm... that's actually not too shabby. 🤔 I think I can confidentally say to stick with Superpower in Ultra League, though... without it, you drop stuff like Registeel, Alolan Sandslash, Cobalion, and Guzzlord, which is no beuno.
- Another Fighter that gets some anti-air coverage wth Thunder Punch now is LUCARIO. The last elemental move Niantic gave it was Blaze Kick, which has popped up here and there (and given it some new potential wins like Venusaur), but generally it seems to usually still run best with Power-Up Punch (and typically Shadow Ball) instead. Usually. I do see a bit more potential this time around. In Great League, Fire Punch generally performs worse than PuP, but Thunder Punch seems like more of a straight sidegrade, trading away Cresselia to instead pretty reliably take out Carbink. And in Ultra League, Thunder Punch (running alongside Shadow Ball) does still generally lose to Trevenant in a foot race (PuP's lower cost is critical there), but gains Mandibuzz and Tentacruel in exchange, as well as scaring Flyers into potentially burning more shields too. Luc's Counter damage is already beating up Steels that you'd want Fire for, leaving Thunder Punch and Counter with less overlap. PuP Lucario isn't going anywhere, but I DO like Thunder a bit more as an alternative than Fire. We'll see if that ends up truly mattering.
- Third time's the charm? Our third and final Fighter getting Thunder Punch now is the most intriguing. SCRAFTY, like Lucario, has long run effectively with Power-Up Punch leading to an eventual Foul Play to close things out. That's been at least Cup-worthy in Great League, and at least borderline meta in Ultra League especially. In Great League, Thunder Punch is at least a decent sidegrade to PuP, sometimes dropping the Shadow versions of Dragonair and Victreebel, but gaining Mandibuzz and Pelipper, two pretty impactful pickups. But it is in Ultra League where Thunder Punch becomes more impactful, bringing in new wins like Golisopod, Alolan Muk, and Gyarados, as opposed to the single new loss to Cobalion that you can get with PuP instead. And Thunder Punch is more of a straight upgrade in other even shield matchups, gaining Tentacruel in 2v2 shielding and Poliwrath, Mandibuzz, and Gyarados with shields down, all with NO PuP wins slipping away. I think this just makes Scrafty better in Ultra and will be the favored move alongside Foul Play moving forward. Neat!
- But I think the single biggest winner of the Thunder Punch sweepstakes has to be TYPHLOSION. There are a couple reasons for this that make perfect sense even without looking at sims. First off, Typhlosion's biggest issue since the beginning has been having no charge moves costing less than 50 energy. This means that three Incinerates (or at least seven Shadow Claws) have always been required before Typhlosion could even threaten shields. Thunder Punch changes that math significantly, as only two Incinerates (or five Shadow Claws) are required to hit exactly the 40 energy Thunder Punch requires. That is significant! But the coverage is also fanatastic to hit back at Water types, which Typhlosion always kinda wanted to do with Solar Beam, though that costs FOUR Incinerates to charge up, making it a Hail Mary at best. The end result? Thunder Punch is nearly a straight upgrade. Without any shields in play, Solar Beam CAN manage to shock and awe its way to wins over things like Azumarill and Lickitung in Great League, and Jellicent in Ultra League. But otherwise everything comes up in Thunder Punch's favor, with its own 0shield wins like Charizard in UL and Talonflame, Mantine, Pelipper, and Shadow A-Slash in GL. And Thunder Punch is strictly better in 1v1 shielding by adding Mandibuzz and Mantine in GL and Gyarados and Talonflame in UL, and a TON of new wins in 2v2 shielding like Feraligatr, Mantine, Talonflame, Lickitung, Sableye, Cresselia, and sometimes even Galarian Stunfisk in GL, and Charizard, Toxicroak, Obstagoon, Alolan Muk, Jellicent, Annihilape, Golisopod, Gyarados, Tentacruel, Walrein, Mandibuzz and more in UL! Big big BIG improvements in the horizon for Typhlosion that elevates it to the same tier as Talonflame, Chairzard, and Skeledirge in both Great and Ultra Leagues moving forward. And that's not to even mention the potential of Shadow Typhlosion.... 😱
🎼 COME FLY WITH ME, LET'S FLY AWAY! 🦅
Fly is one of the best moves in the entire game: 45 energy for 80 damage, with no drawbacks at all. That's what Sky Attack was from 2018 to 2021, back when it was terrifying in PvP, before dropping to 75 power and eventually going to 50 energy too last year. (What did Sky Attack ever do to you, Hanke?! 😢) But now, in keeping with the seeming skyward theme of the season, old school Sky Attack is being handed out to several new recipients that... uh... could use some help. Is it enough?- Oh, how long I've wanted FEAROW to work in PvP. Its had its chances, with Drill Run and Steel Wing only getting better over time, and even the nerfs to Sky Attack being mitigated by the long overdue buff to Aerial Ace. And now it gets old-school Sky Attack with the addition of Fly... and it STILL can't break out. Come on, Niantic.. just give it Wing Attack already, will ya? Or at least Quick Attack, maybe? Set my drill running bird free!
- SWANNA remains the ugly duckling of Flying Water types. While Mantine and Pelipper and even Gyarados lord over their respective Leagues, and even Swanna's pre-evolution Ducklett remains a tippy top option in Little League, poor Swanna remains consistently ranked outside the top 400, ranked below even Mantyke in Great League... even after getting Fly! It remains trapped behind lackluster fast moves, and until that changes, it remains irrelevant. Let Swanna really soar, Niantic!
- The one everyone is talking about is SALAMENCE, particularly in Master League where it has always seemed right on the cusp of potential greatness, with pretty good overall stats and decent enough Dragon moves (Dragon Tail, Draco Meteor, and Outrage as a Legacy move), but no good second charge move. Now it gets Fly, and while it IS much improved, I just don't think it's enough. Not nearly. Not even in Premier. Just too many other Dragons with better tricks up their sleeves. If you're doggedly insistent, I guess you can try again with it now, but I don't see Sal finding sudden success after this, sorry. Give it Dragon Claw or something and THEN we can talk.
- So surprisingly, it is humble SWOOBAT that we're left talking about as perhaps the most impactful new Fly user. Though obviously we're not talking Master League anymore, no no. This is a Great League 'mon, and one that's already a little spicy since first getting Psychic Fangs and then the eventual buff to Aerial Ace. But it was left without reasonably priced closing power, with Psychic (the move) just not being worth it as the attempts to nerf Medicham drug Psychic (the move!) into the depths, and Future Sight is just way too expensive with Confusion's average energy gains. So now here comes Fly, and you know what? I like the result! This is no sudden new Open play revelation or anything, but potential spice in the right Cup? I can absolutely see it. Fly grants new wins against GOOD names like Altaria and Gligar in 1shield, and Pelipper, Vigoroth, and the Shadow versions of Gligar, Swampert, and CharmTales in 0shield. There's some real potential here now, more than ever before. Not every improvement has to rock PvP... just some nice new twists like this can be plenty fun. Now we just need Gust for the lulz.
NIFTY OR... SWIFTIE? 💨
Apologies to the fans of the future Mrs. Travis Kelce (if you know, you know)....Anyway, long-terrible Normal charge move Swift is finally getting a buff. I think so, at least. Niantic is actually lowing its power from 60 damage to 55, but they are also lowering its cost. How much? That's the part we don't know yet, but PvPoke has speculated it will drop from 55 energy all the way down to 40, and while that's probably the best case scenario, we're gonna roll with it for the purposes of this analysis. If that holds true, the resulting 55 damage/40 every should look quite familiar... it's the same stats as Thunder Punch. And as we talked about earlier, that's usually better for baiting than anything, but it's passable and certainly FAR better than the 60 damage/55 energy it was previously.
Does anything that now gets it (or already has it) actually want to use it, though?
- The first new recipients worth mentioning are the WIGGLYTUFF family, as they are all part Normal-type and thus get STAB damage with Swift too. Eh, maybe? These sims will likely break when the new season goes live, but what the heck, I'll show them anyway. I think out of the two charge moves Wiggly uses now — Icy Wind and Disarming Voice — it is Voice that is the one to potentially drop, as Charm already deals plenty of Fairy-type damage, and Icy Wind not only provides coverage but also obviously extends Wiggly's life by debuffing the opponent's Attack. So assuming you run Icy Wind/Swift, we'll call that a sidegrade to Wind/Voice. "But JRE, it got worse!" Yes, in 1shield it seems to, dropping Dewgong, but you actually win if you go with Icy Wind first, and then closing it out with Swift, just as you can win going Icy Wind and then DIsarming Voice after. Similarly, there are no big differences in 2v2 shielding, but in 0v0 shield, we have a true sidegrade situation, with Swift outracing Pelipper and Shadow CharmTales, and Disarming Voice instead overpowering Gligar and forcing at least a tie a tie with enemy Wigglytuffs. So pure sidegrade, basically. Not a GREAT sign considering that, again, this is the only Charmer that gets STAB with Swift. And while JIGGLYPUFF* and especially IGGLYBUFF have some play in Little League, they are still worlds better with (Legacy) Body Slam rather than Swift. Moving on....
- CLEFABLE has a few edge cases where Swift can help, but overall just trust me when I tell you that (at least when running Fairy Wind as the fast move), Meteor Mash and Moonblast are just much. much better. Most all of the advantages for Swift show up in 2v2 shielding, and only in Great League...things like Swampert, Pelipper, and Gligar. But exisiting moves are just better otherwise, including up and down Ultra League. There's really no reason to linger here, so... next!
- The only other new recipients are the TEDDIURSA/URSARING/URSALUNA family. I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think Ursaluna wants it at all. Ice Punch has the same stats as what we're guessing Swift will, and the coverage it provides is massive, especially in Master League were it sees the most play today (with wins over things like Garchomp, Yveltal, and perhaps most critically, Zygarde Complete). Teddiursa seems interesting until you remember that it already has Cross Chop and Crunch, which have more impact than super-effective-versus-nothing Swift... STAB alone isn't really enough. The one that MAY want it is Ursaring. You likely would want to run it alongside Close Combat (in place of PLay Rough), which can then add on Dewgong and Guzzlord in Great League, at the cost of giving up Lanturn and Sableye. In Ultra League, it can add on Guzzlord and Swampert and gives up only Alolan Muk. But honestly, Ursaring remains just bad in both Leagues. And again, this is with likely best-case-scenario Swift. Blech.
- Pokémon that already have Swift (and any real potential in PvP) are basically just a list of two. HISUIAN ELECTRODE may actually want it, as it obviously wants to always run Wild Charge (45 energy) but awkwardly has to often try to bait a shield first with MORE expensive Energy Ball (55 energy). Swift COULD fix that by greatly speeding things up, as it costs less than Wild Charge at only 40 energy. But I still think that will be better in theory (and perhaps in Electric Cup, should that return) than in actual practice. Energy Ball is still quite useful for coverage and non-Wild Charge closing power, needing it to beat things like Whiscash and Swampert across various shileding scenarios. Swift does have some advantages in 2v2 shielding for rather obvious reasons, but that's about it.
- MUCH more interesting is UXIE. By far the bulkiest of the Lake Trio Legendaries — and in fact, the second bulkiest Confusion user in the game, behind only Cresselia — its problem has always been that all of its charge moves costed 55 energy or more... and with Swift being so bad before, it still usually ran with 60 energy (Thunder) and 65-energy (Future Sight) charge moves. And despite on-paper great potential... well, it was certainly no Cresselia! (And that goes for Ultra League too.) But now it gets the inexpensive move it's been waiting for, with new and improved Swift elevating its performance significantly in Great League (new wins include Altaria, Gligar, Swampert, Whiscash, Alolan Ninetales, Shadow Dragonair) and in Ultra League (new wins like DDeoxys, Pidgeot, Swampert, Venusaur, Charizard, Ampharos, Shadow Dragonite, AND Shadow CharmTales). Not sure that this will lead to a sudden breakout in PvP, but at the very least, it's suddenly spicy.
NO GO ADELE 🐉
Sticking with the theme of famous singers... Hello from the other side! 🙃Okay, sorry sorry. NAGANADEL gets Dragon Claw now. Yay? Sadly this does very, very little for it in PvP, picking up just a single win over Yveltal, of all things, in 1v1 shielding, and no real changes elsewhere. At least this section is easy on me (musical lyric joke counter: 2) and we can move on to the next now.
PATIENCE, YOUNG GRASSHOPPER 🦗
If you don't get the reference, it's from a famous show from the 70s (yes, the 1970s, you youngins) called "Kung Fu". It's a famous show and a famous phrase that you should know. No, I don't just know it because I'm old, it's famous!...get off my lawn.
Anyway, Counter remains the best fast overall move in the game, so any time something new gets it, that is reason enough to sit up and notice. Even when that recipient is a current Pokémona non grata like LOKIX.
Look, it's very glassy and will likely never be more than spice. This is unlikely to really shake up any meta in a major way. But yes, Lokix is significantly better than before now that it has Counter. It does unfortunately drop Cresselia, but can now outslug stuff like Lickitung, Dewgong, Guzzlord, Vigoroth, Galarian Stunfisk, and even Skarmory and Bastiodon despite how scary those two normally are for Bugs. It sees similar improvement in Ultra League, dropping Fighting-resistent Venusaur and Golisopod but gaining Registeel, Steelix, Alolan Sandslash, Swampert, Walrein, and Greedent, but uh... it has to be leveled up to at least Level 46, and is still a poor option overall. Not worth it, IMO. But keep an eye on it, as the addtion of another impactful charge move could elevate it further. Counter users are ALWAYS worth at least some consideration.
(RE-) PLANTING A SEED 🌱
We all know why Seed Bomb was nerfed from its original 40 to 45 energy: it was felt that something had to be done about TREVENANT, by far the most impactful Seed Bomb user. Yes yes, it got a small damage bump as well (from 55 to 60 damage), but the (completely intended) damage was done, and Trevenant usage dropped quite a bit. The hit wasn't TOO bad, but it was enough.Now Trevor gets a boost again, with the cost remaining the same but the damage creeping up to 65 now, elevating it from a clone of Wrap (and a slew of stat-altering moves like Icy Wind, Mystical Fire, Lunge, the Forces Of Nature unique Storm moves, and others... but Seed Bomb of course HAS no stat altering and was thus far worse) to a clone of Discharge. Not amazing — a reduction in cost to what it once way would REALLY make a difference — but certainly more palpable.
In the end, it's a small buff to Trevenant — with only a couple new wins like Shadow Dragonair in 1shield and Azumarill in 2shield in Great League, and Feraligatr and Greninja in 1shield and Tentacruel in 2shield in Ultra League — but we'll take it! Those UL wins especially are pretty nice.
Not many other notable Seed Bomb users, but here's what I see: WHIMSICOTT (with Fairy Wind) can now beat Galarian Stunfisk and Azumarill with shields down (in Great League), so that's a small but welcome improvement. Aaaaaaand that's about it. No big changes I see with Little League COTTONEE or BULBASAUR or Little or Great League DARTRIX, and then you're into things like CELEBI. Yeah, this is first and almost entirely centered on Trevenant.
SNUFFING OUT SPARK 🔌
Just as Seed Bomb changes are directly intended to affect one meta Pokémon, so too is the story with the nerf to Spark dropping from 6 damage to 5: this is directly intended to nerf LANTURN. There used to be other meta things that ran Spark because they had to, but they've all gotten other tricks since then that are now preferred (Volt Switch for Magnezone and family, Volt Switch for Charjabug, etc.). Yes, some others like LUXRAY and PROBOPASS remain as collateral damage, but those are just occasional spice considerations. No, the only truly meta change here is to Lanturn, as intended.But how bad is it? Overall, it's not TOO significant. Lanturn now loses to Registeel in 1v1 shielding (and not surprisingly gets a bit less dominant versus other things like Azumarill and Mandibuzz), Medicham and Charjabug in 0shield, and Altaria and Annihilape in 2shield. Those ARE some big names, but where you primarily wanted it before, it still works, albeit sometimes with a little less left in the tank at the end. Farming things down obviously gets harder! It drops from formerly ranking #12 in Great League 20 spots to now #32 (at the time of this writing), but still... a Top 30ish option is still a really good PvP Pokémon.
...oh, but uh, there's a caveat: it's now ranked at #32 with Water Gun, while Spark Lanturn has dropped all the way down to #66. That may be a little harsh, but does make sense. Ironically, the rating with Water Gun goes UP from #35 to now #32. I don't knwo that I'm quite ready to say that Water Gun Lanturn is now the clear favorite over Spark Lanturn, but they're now both moving into "sidegrade" territory for sure, with Spark still being best for things like Mandibuzz, Poliwrath, and Sableye, but Water Gun carving out wins against Galarian Stunfisk, Shadow Gilgar, Carbink... and the Registeel that Spark now loses to. Water Gun is also far better now [with shields down], beating things that Spark cannot like G-Fisk, Shadow Gligar, and Carbink again, along with Charjabug and Shadow A-Slash, while the only unique win Spark holds onto is Dewgong. Interestingly, Water Gun Lanturn can also now win the head to head with Spark Lanturn in 2v2 shielding. Spark and Water Gun now deal the same damage per turn, so Water Gun's shorter cooldown wins the day.
Again, I do not think Lanturn is going to suddenly disappear from Open formats or even PvP in-person tournaments. But I DO think its use is going to go down as it slips back a tier or two in the meta. I mean, it almost HAS to. And yes, I do think Water Gun variants are going to be far more common now. Again, you almost HAVE to move that direction now, at least for certain team compositions. We'll see how bad it gets soon enough.
A SEARING REVIEW
Speaking of getting bad, a brief mention for the other notable nerf with this update: Scald. It retains its nice cost to damage ratio of 1.7 Damage Per Energy (50 energy for 85 damage), but the chance for it to lower the target's Attack is going to drop. We don't know how much, but considering it currently sits at 50%, something like 30% seems a resonable expectation, and that's what PvPoke has put up speculatively as well. I'm NOT going to turn to simulations here, as moves with a percentage change of triggers are notoriously difficult to portray that way, to the point of almost being deceptive to even try. But I hardly think this marks the death of intended targets like WHISCASH or POLIWRATH unless, perhaps, the percentage change completely craters at like 20% or below. It's still good damage output and still a great STAB move for each of them. The rankings show Shadow Whiscash only dropping from #23 to #27 (though non-Shadow does take more of a hit, from a former #27 to now #42) and Poliwrath sees only a very small dip as well (#31 → #34 for Shadow and #46 → #48 for non-Shadow in Great League, and basically no change in Ultra League {non-Shadow drops only spot from #5 to #6, and Shadow actually rises from #10 to #9 thanks to other meta shifts}). Yes, this will hurt those who have fallen in love with those two, and surely there will be a slight dip in tournament play. But I don't think this is nearly the death knell some are making it out to be.I DO think this may convince me to give up my Bubble LUDICOLO I've been running in GL of late, though. Scald triggering was the difference between life and death against some things like Gilgar. And other slightly-less-meta things like TENTACRUEL may suffer a little bit as well, but again, the change isn't all that bad. (Tentacthulhu, for example, usually counts on Acid Spray for debuffing hijinks anyway and saves Scald as a closer... it's less reliant on the debuffing it can sometimes provide.)
IN SUMMATION
And that's it! Barring any last minute surprises by Niantic (ALWAYS a possibility), there's your review of all changes coming with the Shared Skies Season. As a quick reminder so people don't panic, keep in mind that while the new season starts on the 1st as per usual, the move updates will not go live until June 3rd, as a nice gesture to not disrupt the planned PJCS and Bologna tournaments that weekend.By way of quick summary of the above (here's your TL;DR, folks!):
The biggest winners I see in this update are (in rough order) CETITAN (maybe CETODDLE?) with Powder Snow, TYPHLOSION with Thunder Punch, UXIE with Swift, SWOOBAT with Fly, SCRAFTY with Thunder Punch, LOKIX with Counter, TREVENANT with buffed Seed Bomb, and then maybe SALAMENCE (Fly) and WHIMSICOTT (Seed Bomb). Other than Cetitan and Typhlosion, I don't know that any of them move drastically up the ranks, but they're all better with this update and bear watching as spice options at the very least.
Alrighty, that's it for now. Back to analysis on the Necrozma Fusions (already in progress) and beyond! Until then, you can always find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck as we move into the new season, and catch you next time!
2024.05.28 19:03 JRE47 A PvP Analysis on the GBL Season 19 Move Rebalance
New season, new shakeup! As per usual, we get new moves added to new recipients, and some existing moves get tweaked. Unlike usual, we don't get any all-new moves, but on the plus side, we got all this teased over a week ahead of time, making ol' JRE quite happy. No last minute scramble to get through it all!
But even with a relatively simple move rabalance like this one, there's still plenty to cover. Nowhere will you find analysis that goes to these depths, covering the big names and some others you likely haven't even considered.
Let's do this, people!
"JRE, you're crazy, man. Ice types are a dime a dozen. What makes Cetitan so special?"
Well judging by my initial PvP review on Cetitan when it was released, not much. I noted it had decent overall bulk and was at least better than Avalugg (with the same Body Slam and Avalanche charge moves, but Cetitan having the better fast move with Ice Shard as opposed to Lugg's Ice Fang), and perhaps had some promise in Master League where Ice types have a lot of advantages anyway, particularly Premier where Legendary Ice types are left on the outside looking in. And now? Enter an even much better fast move than Ice Shard: Powder Snow, which beats all the same ML core meta stuff as Ice Shard plus Origin Giratina, Lugia, and Snorlax in 0shield, Altered Giratina, Swampert, and Gyarados in 1shield, Mewtwo and Reshiram in 2shield, and Xerneas and Zacian in both 1 and 2shield. And again, NO new losses... this is a straight upgrade, folks. In the rankings, Cetitan leapfrogs Avalugg, Walrein, Baxcalibur, and even lomg-time staple Mamoswine in the ratings (and in performance) to trail only Kyurem and Hisuian Avalugg among Ice types, and Cetitan can still do things not even those two can like beating Mewtwo, Excadrill, and Reshiram!
Cetitan does move into the upper ranks of Ice types in other Leagues as well, but there is just a lot of established and versatile competition to contend with like Walrein, Dewgong, Abomasnow, Alolan Sandslash, Arctibax, Aurorus, Froslass, Alolan Ninetales, and even old friends like Lapras. Those mostly all fall away in Master League, leaving the new and improved Cetitan to shoot up the charts more decisively. You'll start to see it all over now, particularly in Cups, but I do think Master League is where it will likely make its biggest mark for those with the means to build it up. It can even beat three out of four Necrozmas! (The Steely Dusk Mane fusion being the only exception, for rather obvious reasons.)
One other League to consider is Little Leaue, and CETODDLE, who gets the same moveset update and does good things with it. Stupid trash can lid Bronzor is still a huge issue, of course, as well as obvious Fires and Fighters and such. But this is easily now one of the best Ice types in Little League and should be a fixture of most Little formats from here on out.
Do I think these two are going to suddenly take over their respective Leagues? Probably not. But do they deserve a heck of a lot more usage, even in Open? Absolutely. There's a reason I chose to lead off with these two!
And honestly, that mostly remains Thunder Punch's role for the things now recieving it:
Anyway, long-terrible Normal charge move Swift is finally getting a buff. I think so, at least. Niantic is actually lowing its power from 60 damage to 55, but they are also lowering its cost. How much? That's the part we don't know yet, but PvPoke has speculated it will drop from 55 energy all the way down to 40, and while that's probably the best case scenario, we're gonna roll with it for the purposes of this analysis. If that holds true, the resulting 55 damage/40 every should look quite familiar... it's the same stats as Thunder Punch. And as we talked about earlier, that's usually better for baiting than anything, but it's passable and certainly FAR better than the 60 damage/55 energy it was previously.
Does anything that now gets it (or already has it) actually want to use it, though?
Okay, sorry sorry. NAGANADEL gets Dragon Claw now. Yay? Sadly this does very, very little for it in PvP, picking up just a single win over Yveltal, of all things, in 1v1 shielding, and no real changes elsewhere. At least this section is easy on me (musical lyric joke counter: 2) and we can move on to the next now.
...get off my lawn.
Anyway, Counter remains the best fast overall move in the game, so any time something new gets it, that is reason enough to sit up and notice. Even when that recipient is a current Pokémona non grata like LOKIX.
Look, it's very glassy and will likely never be more than spice. This is unlikely to really shake up any meta in a major way. But yes, Lokix is significantly better than before now that it has Counter. It does unfortunately drop Cresselia, but can now outslug stuff like Lickitung, Dewgong, Guzzlord, Vigoroth, Galarian Stunfisk, and even Skarmory and Bastiodon despite how scary those two normally are for Bugs. It sees similar improvement in Ultra League, dropping Fighting-resistent Venusaur and Golisopod but gaining Registeel, Steelix, Alolan Sandslash, Swampert, Walrein, and Greedent, but uh... it has to be leveled up to at least Level 46, and is still a poor option overall. Not worth it, IMO. But keep an eye on it, as the addtion of another impactful charge move could elevate it further. Counter users are ALWAYS worth at least some consideration.
Now Trevor gets a boost again, with the cost remaining the same but the damage creeping up to 65 now, elevating it from a clone of Wrap (and a slew of stat-altering moves like Icy Wind, Mystical Fire, Lunge, the Forces Of Nature unique Storm moves, and others... but Seed Bomb of course HAS no stat altering and was thus far worse) to a clone of Discharge. Not amazing — a reduction in cost to what it once way would REALLY make a difference — but certainly more palpable.
In the end, it's a small buff to Trevenant — with only a couple new wins like Shadow Dragonair in 1shield and Azumarill in 2shield in Great League, and Feraligatr and Greninja in 1shield and Tentacruel in 2shield in Ultra League — but we'll take it! Those UL wins especially are pretty nice.
Not many other notable Seed Bomb users, but here's what I see: WHIMSICOTT (with Fairy Wind) can now beat Galarian Stunfisk and Azumarill with shields down (in Great League), so that's a small but welcome improvement. Aaaaaaand that's about it. No big changes I see with Little League COTTONEE or BULBASAUR or Little or Great League DARTRIX, and then you're into things like CELEBI. Yeah, this is first and almost entirely centered on Trevenant.
But how bad is it? Overall, it's not TOO significant. Lanturn now loses to Registeel in 1v1 shielding (and not surprisingly gets a bit less dominant versus other things like Azumarill and Mandibuzz), Medicham and Charjabug in 0shield, and Altaria and Annihilape in 2shield. Those ARE some big names, but where you primarily wanted it before, it still works, albeit sometimes with a little less left in the tank at the end. Farming things down obviously gets harder! It drops from formerly ranking #12 in Great League 20 spots to now #32 (at the time of this writing), but still... a Top 30ish option is still a really good PvP Pokémon.
...oh, but uh, there's a caveat: it's now ranked at #32 with Water Gun, while Spark Lanturn has dropped all the way down to #66. That may be a little harsh, but does make sense. Ironically, the rating with Water Gun goes UP from #35 to now #32. I don't knwo that I'm quite ready to say that Water Gun Lanturn is now the clear favorite over Spark Lanturn, but they're now both moving into "sidegrade" territory for sure, with Spark still being best for things like Mandibuzz, Poliwrath, and Sableye, but Water Gun carving out wins against Galarian Stunfisk, Shadow Gilgar, Carbink... and the Registeel that Spark now loses to. Water Gun is also far better now [with shields down], beating things that Spark cannot like G-Fisk, Shadow Gligar, and Carbink again, along with Charjabug and Shadow A-Slash, while the only unique win Spark holds onto is Dewgong. Interestingly, Water Gun Lanturn can also now win the head to head with Spark Lanturn in 2v2 shielding. Spark and Water Gun now deal the same damage per turn, so Water Gun's shorter cooldown wins the day.
Again, I do not think Lanturn is going to suddenly disappear from Open formats or even PvP in-person tournaments. But I DO think its use is going to go down as it slips back a tier or two in the meta. I mean, it almost HAS to. And yes, I do think Water Gun variants are going to be far more common now. Again, you almost HAVE to move that direction now, at least for certain team compositions. We'll see how bad it gets soon enough.
I DO think this may convince me to give up my Bubble LUDICOLO I've been running in GL of late, though. Scald triggering was the difference between life and death against some things like Gilgar. And other slightly-less-meta things like TENTACRUEL may suffer a little bit as well, but again, the change isn't all that bad. (Tentacthulhu, for example, usually counts on Acid Spray for debuffing hijinks anyway and saves Scald as a closer... it's less reliant on the debuffing it can sometimes provide.)
By way of quick summary of the above (here's your TL;DR, folks!):
The biggest winners I see in this update are (in rough order) CETITAN (maybe CETODDLE?) with Powder Snow, TYPHLOSION with Thunder Punch, UXIE with Swift, SWOOBAT with Fly, SCRAFTY with Thunder Punch, LOKIX with Counter, TREVENANT with buffed Seed Bomb, and then maybe SALAMENCE (Fly) and WHIMSICOTT (Seed Bomb). Other than Cetitan and Typhlosion, I don't know that any of them move drastically up the ranks, but they're all better with this update and bear watching as spice options at the very least.
Alrighty, that's it for now. Back to analysis on the Necrozma Fusions (already in progress) and beyond! Until then, you can always find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck as we move into the new season, and catch you next time!
submitted by JRE47 to TheSilphArena [link] [comments]
But even with a relatively simple move rabalance like this one, there's still plenty to cover. Nowhere will you find analysis that goes to these depths, covering the big names and some others you likely haven't even considered.
Let's do this, people!
(NEW) ATTACK ON TITAN 🌨️
There are several attack changes people are already talking about excitedly with this update, so naturally I'm going to start with... CETITAN? Hear me out, because I think this is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) move addition in this whole rebalance."JRE, you're crazy, man. Ice types are a dime a dozen. What makes Cetitan so special?"
Well judging by my initial PvP review on Cetitan when it was released, not much. I noted it had decent overall bulk and was at least better than Avalugg (with the same Body Slam and Avalanche charge moves, but Cetitan having the better fast move with Ice Shard as opposed to Lugg's Ice Fang), and perhaps had some promise in Master League where Ice types have a lot of advantages anyway, particularly Premier where Legendary Ice types are left on the outside looking in. And now? Enter an even much better fast move than Ice Shard: Powder Snow, which beats all the same ML core meta stuff as Ice Shard plus Origin Giratina, Lugia, and Snorlax in 0shield, Altered Giratina, Swampert, and Gyarados in 1shield, Mewtwo and Reshiram in 2shield, and Xerneas and Zacian in both 1 and 2shield. And again, NO new losses... this is a straight upgrade, folks. In the rankings, Cetitan leapfrogs Avalugg, Walrein, Baxcalibur, and even lomg-time staple Mamoswine in the ratings (and in performance) to trail only Kyurem and Hisuian Avalugg among Ice types, and Cetitan can still do things not even those two can like beating Mewtwo, Excadrill, and Reshiram!
Cetitan does move into the upper ranks of Ice types in other Leagues as well, but there is just a lot of established and versatile competition to contend with like Walrein, Dewgong, Abomasnow, Alolan Sandslash, Arctibax, Aurorus, Froslass, Alolan Ninetales, and even old friends like Lapras. Those mostly all fall away in Master League, leaving the new and improved Cetitan to shoot up the charts more decisively. You'll start to see it all over now, particularly in Cups, but I do think Master League is where it will likely make its biggest mark for those with the means to build it up. It can even beat three out of four Necrozmas! (The Steely Dusk Mane fusion being the only exception, for rather obvious reasons.)
One other League to consider is Little Leaue, and CETODDLE, who gets the same moveset update and does good things with it. Stupid trash can lid Bronzor is still a huge issue, of course, as well as obvious Fires and Fighters and such. But this is easily now one of the best Ice types in Little League and should be a fixture of most Little formats from here on out.
Do I think these two are going to suddenly take over their respective Leagues? Probably not. But do they deserve a heck of a lot more usage, even in Open? Absolutely. There's a reason I chose to lead off with these two!
PUNCHING LIGHTS OUT ⚡
Thunder Punch is not exactly an electrifying move in PvP. Like the other Elemental Punches (Fire, Ice, Thunder), as well as other move clones (Aerial Ace and Stomp), it costs only 40 energy, but deals only 55 damage for a passable but unexciting 1.37 Damage Per Energy. Most things that use it (and there are several, such as Ampharos, Muk, Hypno, Pachirisu, and the Super Raichu Bros.) do so as a bait move, though as with any elemental move, the coverage alone can be nice too (for things like Muk and Hypno, at least). Still, often if it goes through unshielded, that's a loss for the user, as they typically want to bait a shield with it leading up to a big closer like Dark Pulse (Muk), Shadow Ball (Hypno), or Wild Charge (Raichus).And honestly, that mostly remains Thunder Punch's role for the things now recieving it:
- The Pawmot family all get it now. I suppose PAWMO may appreciate it the most as its first move under 45 energy, but it remains a poor overall option. Big bro PAWMOT can use it, I suppose, alongside Close Combat or Wild Charge rather than running both as it typically does now, giving it not only better bait potential but also moves it away from TWO big self-debuffing moves at once. Indeed, it would seem Thunder Punch/Close Combat is a fine sidegrade or even upgrade to Close Combat/Wild Charge, dropping Azumarill but picking up things like Mantine, Talonflame, and Carbink, which are all quite nice. However, it remains far south of a 50% winrate and thus on the fringe even in most Limited/Cup metas. This addition is appreciated, but doesn't really change much. And keep in mind that their fast move, Spark, is getting a nerf... but more on that later.
- CHESNAUGHT is an odd one here. Obviously it already has Waters covered with its Grass moves, so the most obvious thing Thunder Punch does is give it a little more teeth against Flyers. As with Pawmot, Chesnaught tends to run with a self-debuffing Fighting move for coverage, in this case Superpower. And honestly, I think that's what it will usually prefer to keep on doing, though Thunder Punch IS a decent overall sidegrade on paper in Great League, dropping stuff like Guzzlord and Shadow Dragonair to instead gain Annihilape and Pelipper. Hmmm... that's actually not too shabby. 🤔 I think I can confidentally say to stick with Superpower in Ultra League, though... without it, you drop stuff like Registeel, Alolan Sandslash, Cobalion, and Guzzlord, which is no beuno.
- Another Fighter that gets some anti-air coverage wth Thunder Punch now is LUCARIO. The last elemental move Niantic gave it was Blaze Kick, which has popped up here and there (and given it some new potential wins like Venusaur), but generally it seems to usually still run best with Power-Up Punch (and typically Shadow Ball) instead. Usually. I do see a bit more potential this time around. In Great League, Fire Punch generally performs worse than PuP, but Thunder Punch seems like more of a straight sidegrade, trading away Cresselia to instead pretty reliably take out Carbink. And in Ultra League, Thunder Punch (running alongside Shadow Ball) does still generally lose to Trevenant in a foot race (PuP's lower cost is critical there), but gains Mandibuzz and Tentacruel in exchange, as well as scaring Flyers into potentially burning more shields too. Luc's Counter damage is already beating up Steels that you'd want Fire for, leaving Thunder Punch and Counter with less overlap. PuP Lucario isn't going anywhere, but I DO like Thunder a bit more as an alternative than Fire. We'll see if that ends up truly mattering.
- Third time's the charm? Our third and final Fighter getting Thunder Punch now is the most intriguing. SCRAFTY, like Lucario, has long run effectively with Power-Up Punch leading to an eventual Foul Play to close things out. That's been at least Cup-worthy in Great League, and at least borderline meta in Ultra League especially. In Great League, Thunder Punch is at least a decent sidegrade to PuP, sometimes dropping the Shadow versions of Dragonair and Victreebel, but gaining Mandibuzz and Pelipper, two pretty impactful pickups. But it is in Ultra League where Thunder Punch becomes more impactful, bringing in new wins like Golisopod, Alolan Muk, and Gyarados, as opposed to the single new loss to Cobalion that you can get with PuP instead. And Thunder Punch is more of a straight upgrade in other even shield matchups, gaining Tentacruel in 2v2 shielding and Poliwrath, Mandibuzz, and Gyarados with shields down, all with NO PuP wins slipping away. I think this just makes Scrafty better in Ultra and will be the favored move alongside Foul Play moving forward. Neat!
- But I think the single biggest winner of the Thunder Punch sweepstakes has to be TYPHLOSION. There are a couple reasons for this that make perfect sense even without looking at sims. First off, Typhlosion's biggest issue since the beginning has been having no charge moves costing less than 50 energy. This means that three Incinerates (or at least seven Shadow Claws) have always been required before Typhlosion could even threaten shields. Thunder Punch changes that math significantly, as only two Incinerates (or five Shadow Claws) are required to hit exactly the 40 energy Thunder Punch requires. That is significant! But the coverage is also fanatastic to hit back at Water types, which Typhlosion always kinda wanted to do with Solar Beam, though that costs FOUR Incinerates to charge up, making it a Hail Mary at best. The end result? Thunder Punch is nearly a straight upgrade. Without any shields in play, Solar Beam CAN manage to shock and awe its way to wins over things like Azumarill and Lickitung in Great League, and Jellicent in Ultra League. But otherwise everything comes up in Thunder Punch's favor, with its own 0shield wins like Charizard in UL and Talonflame, Mantine, Pelipper, and Shadow A-Slash in GL. And Thunder Punch is strictly better in 1v1 shielding by adding Mandibuzz and Mantine in GL and Gyarados and Talonflame in UL, and a TON of new wins in 2v2 shielding like Feraligatr, Mantine, Talonflame, Lickitung, Sableye, Cresselia, and sometimes even Galarian Stunfisk in GL, and Charizard, Toxicroak, Obstagoon, Alolan Muk, Jellicent, Annihilape, Golisopod, Gyarados, Tentacruel, Walrein, Mandibuzz and more in UL! Big big BIG improvements in the horizon for Typhlosion that elevates it to the same tier as Talonflame, Chairzard, and Skeledirge in both Great and Ultra Leagues moving forward. And that's not to even mention the potential of Shadow Typhlosion.... 😱
🎼 COME FLY WITH ME, LET'S FLY AWAY! 🦅
Fly is one of the best moves in the entire game: 45 energy for 80 damage, with no drawbacks at all. That's what Sky Attack was from 2018 to 2021, back when it was terrifying in PvP, before dropping to 75 power and eventually going to 50 energy too last year. (What did Sky Attack ever do to you, Hanke?! 😢) But now, in keeping with the seeming skyward theme of the season, old school Sky Attack is being handed out to several new recipients that... uh... could use some help. Is it enough?- Oh, how long I've wanted FEAROW to work in PvP. Its had its chances, with Drill Run and Steel Wing only getting better over time, and even the nerfs to Sky Attack being mitigated by the long overdue buff to Aerial Ace. And now it gets old-school Sky Attack with the addition of Fly... and it STILL can't break out. Come on, Niantic.. just give it Wing Attack already, will ya? Or at least Quick Attack, maybe? Set my drill running bird free!
- SWANNA remains the ugly duckling of Flying Water types. While Mantine and Pelipper and even Gyarados lord over their respective Leagues, and even Swanna's pre-evolution Ducklett remains a tippy top option in Little League, poor Swanna remains consistently ranked outside the top 400, ranked below even Mantyke in Great League... even after getting Fly! It remains trapped behind lackluster fast moves, and until that changes, it remains irrelevant. Let Swanna really soar, Niantic!
- The one everyone is talking about is SALAMENCE, particularly in Master League where it has always seemed right on the cusp of potential greatness, with pretty good overall stats and decent enough Dragon moves (Dragon Tail, Draco Meteor, and Outrage as a Legacy move), but no good second charge move. Now it gets Fly, and while it IS much improved, I just don't think it's enough. Not nearly. Not even in Premier. Just too many other Dragons with better tricks up their sleeves. If you're doggedly insistent, I guess you can try again with it now, but I don't see Sal finding sudden success after this, sorry. Give it Dragon Claw or something and THEN we can talk.
- So surprisingly, it is humble SWOOBAT that we're left talking about as perhaps the most impactful new Fly user. Though obviously we're not talking Master League anymore, no no. This is a Great League 'mon, and one that's already a little spicy since first getting Psychic Fangs and then the eventual buff to Aerial Ace. But it was left without reasonably priced closing power, with Psychic (the move) just not being worth it as the attempts to nerf Medicham drug Psychic (the move!) into the depths, and Future Sight is just way too expensive with Confusion's average energy gains. So now here comes Fly, and you know what? I like the result! This is no sudden new Open play revelation or anything, but potential spice in the right Cup? I can absolutely see it. Fly grants new wins against GOOD names like Altaria and Gligar in 1shield, and Pelipper, Vigoroth, and the Shadow versions of Gligar, Swampert, and CharmTales in 0shield. There's some real potential here now, more than ever before. Not every improvement has to rock PvP... just some nice new twists like this can be plenty fun. Now we just need Gust for the lulz.
NIFTY OR... SWIFTIE? 💨
Apologies to the fans of the future Mrs. Travis Kelce (if you know, you know)....Anyway, long-terrible Normal charge move Swift is finally getting a buff. I think so, at least. Niantic is actually lowing its power from 60 damage to 55, but they are also lowering its cost. How much? That's the part we don't know yet, but PvPoke has speculated it will drop from 55 energy all the way down to 40, and while that's probably the best case scenario, we're gonna roll with it for the purposes of this analysis. If that holds true, the resulting 55 damage/40 every should look quite familiar... it's the same stats as Thunder Punch. And as we talked about earlier, that's usually better for baiting than anything, but it's passable and certainly FAR better than the 60 damage/55 energy it was previously.
Does anything that now gets it (or already has it) actually want to use it, though?
- The first new recipients worth mentioning are the WIGGLYTUFF family, as they are all part Normal-type and thus get STAB damage with Swift too. Eh, maybe? These sims will likely break when the new season goes live, but what the heck, I'll show them anyway. I think out of the two charge moves Wiggly uses now — Icy Wind and Disarming Voice — it is Voice that is the one to potentially drop, as Charm already deals plenty of Fairy-type damage, and Icy Wind not only provides coverage but also obviously extends Wiggly's life by debuffing the opponent's Attack. So assuming you run Icy Wind/Swift, we'll call that a sidegrade to Wind/Voice. "But JRE, it got worse!" Yes, in 1shield it seems to, dropping Dewgong, but you actually win if you go with Icy Wind first, and then closing it out with Swift, just as you can win going Icy Wind and then DIsarming Voice after. Similarly, there are no big differences in 2v2 shielding, but in 0v0 shield, we have a true sidegrade situation, with Swift outracing Pelipper and Shadow CharmTales, and Disarming Voice instead overpowering Gligar and forcing at least a tie a tie with enemy Wigglytuffs. So pure sidegrade, basically. Not a GREAT sign considering that, again, this is the only Charmer that gets STAB with Swift. And while JIGGLYPUFF* and especially IGGLYBUFF have some play in Little League, they are still worlds better with (Legacy) Body Slam rather than Swift. Moving on....
- CLEFABLE has a few edge cases where Swift can help, but overall just trust me when I tell you that (at least when running Fairy Wind as the fast move), Meteor Mash and Moonblast are just much. much better. Most all of the advantages for Swift show up in 2v2 shielding, and only in Great League...things like Swampert, Pelipper, and Gligar. But exisiting moves are just better otherwise, including up and down Ultra League. There's really no reason to linger here, so... next!
- The only other new recipients are the TEDDIURSA/URSARING/URSALUNA family. I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think Ursaluna wants it at all. Ice Punch has the same stats as what we're guessing Swift will, and the coverage it provides is massive, especially in Master League were it sees the most play today (with wins over things like Garchomp, Yveltal, and perhaps most critically, Zygarde Complete). Teddiursa seems interesting until you remember that it already has Cross Chop and Crunch, which have more impact than super-effective-versus-nothing Swift... STAB alone isn't really enough. The one that MAY want it is Ursaring. You likely would want to run it alongside Close Combat (in place of PLay Rough), which can then add on Dewgong and Guzzlord in Great League, at the cost of giving up Lanturn and Sableye. In Ultra League, it can add on Guzzlord and Swampert and gives up only Alolan Muk. But honestly, Ursaring remains just bad in both Leagues. And again, this is with likely best-case-scenario Swift. Blech.
- Pokémon that already have Swift (and any real potential in PvP) are basically just a list of two. HISUIAN ELECTRODE may actually want it, as it obviously wants to always run Wild Charge (45 energy) but awkwardly has to often try to bait a shield first with MORE expensive Energy Ball (55 energy). Swift COULD fix that by greatly speeding things up, as it costs less than Wild Charge at only 40 energy. But I still think that will be better in theory (and perhaps in Electric Cup, should that return) than in actual practice. Energy Ball is still quite useful for coverage and non-Wild Charge closing power, needing it to beat things like Whiscash and Swampert across various shileding scenarios. Swift does have some advantages in 2v2 shielding for rather obvious reasons, but that's about it.
- MUCH more interesting is UXIE. By far the bulkiest of the Lake Trio Legendaries — and in fact, the second bulkiest Confusion user in the game, behind only Cresselia — its problem has always been that all of its charge moves costed 55 energy or more... and with Swift being so bad before, it still usually ran with 60 energy (Thunder) and 65-energy (Future Sight) charge moves. And despite on-paper great potential... well, it was certainly no Cresselia! (And that goes for Ultra League too.) But now it gets the inexpensive move it's been waiting for, with new and improved Swift elevating its performance significantly in Great League (new wins include Altaria, Gligar, Swampert, Whiscash, Alolan Ninetales, Shadow Dragonair) and in Ultra League (new wins like DDeoxys, Pidgeot, Swampert, Venusaur, Charizard, Ampharos, Shadow Dragonite, AND Shadow CharmTales). Not sure that this will lead to a sudden breakout in PvP, but at the very least, it's suddenly spicy.
NO GO ADELE 🐉
Sticking with the theme of famous singers... Hello from the other side! 🙃Okay, sorry sorry. NAGANADEL gets Dragon Claw now. Yay? Sadly this does very, very little for it in PvP, picking up just a single win over Yveltal, of all things, in 1v1 shielding, and no real changes elsewhere. At least this section is easy on me (musical lyric joke counter: 2) and we can move on to the next now.
PATIENCE, YOUNG GRASSHOPPER 🦗
If you don't get the reference, it's from a famous show from the 70s (yes, the 1970s, you youngins) called "Kung Fu". It's a famous show and a famous phrase that you should know. No, I don't just know it because I'm old, it's famous!...get off my lawn.
Anyway, Counter remains the best fast overall move in the game, so any time something new gets it, that is reason enough to sit up and notice. Even when that recipient is a current Pokémona non grata like LOKIX.
Look, it's very glassy and will likely never be more than spice. This is unlikely to really shake up any meta in a major way. But yes, Lokix is significantly better than before now that it has Counter. It does unfortunately drop Cresselia, but can now outslug stuff like Lickitung, Dewgong, Guzzlord, Vigoroth, Galarian Stunfisk, and even Skarmory and Bastiodon despite how scary those two normally are for Bugs. It sees similar improvement in Ultra League, dropping Fighting-resistent Venusaur and Golisopod but gaining Registeel, Steelix, Alolan Sandslash, Swampert, Walrein, and Greedent, but uh... it has to be leveled up to at least Level 46, and is still a poor option overall. Not worth it, IMO. But keep an eye on it, as the addtion of another impactful charge move could elevate it further. Counter users are ALWAYS worth at least some consideration.
(RE-) PLANTING A SEED 🌱
We all know why Seed Bomb was nerfed from its original 40 to 45 energy: it was felt that something had to be done about TREVENANT, by far the most impactful Seed Bomb user. Yes yes, it got a small damage bump as well (from 55 to 60 damage), but the (completely intended) damage was done, and Trevenant usage dropped quite a bit. The hit wasn't TOO bad, but it was enough.Now Trevor gets a boost again, with the cost remaining the same but the damage creeping up to 65 now, elevating it from a clone of Wrap (and a slew of stat-altering moves like Icy Wind, Mystical Fire, Lunge, the Forces Of Nature unique Storm moves, and others... but Seed Bomb of course HAS no stat altering and was thus far worse) to a clone of Discharge. Not amazing — a reduction in cost to what it once way would REALLY make a difference — but certainly more palpable.
In the end, it's a small buff to Trevenant — with only a couple new wins like Shadow Dragonair in 1shield and Azumarill in 2shield in Great League, and Feraligatr and Greninja in 1shield and Tentacruel in 2shield in Ultra League — but we'll take it! Those UL wins especially are pretty nice.
Not many other notable Seed Bomb users, but here's what I see: WHIMSICOTT (with Fairy Wind) can now beat Galarian Stunfisk and Azumarill with shields down (in Great League), so that's a small but welcome improvement. Aaaaaaand that's about it. No big changes I see with Little League COTTONEE or BULBASAUR or Little or Great League DARTRIX, and then you're into things like CELEBI. Yeah, this is first and almost entirely centered on Trevenant.
SNUFFING OUT SPARK 🔌
Just as Seed Bomb changes are directly intended to affect one meta Pokémon, so too is the story with the nerf to Spark dropping from 6 damage to 5: this is directly intended to nerf LANTURN. There used to be other meta things that ran Spark because they had to, but they've all gotten other tricks since then that are now preferred (Volt Switch for Magnezone and family, Volt Switch for Charjabug, etc.). Yes, some others like LUXRAY and PROBOPASS remain as collateral damage, but those are just occasional spice considerations. No, the only truly meta change here is to Lanturn, as intended.But how bad is it? Overall, it's not TOO significant. Lanturn now loses to Registeel in 1v1 shielding (and not surprisingly gets a bit less dominant versus other things like Azumarill and Mandibuzz), Medicham and Charjabug in 0shield, and Altaria and Annihilape in 2shield. Those ARE some big names, but where you primarily wanted it before, it still works, albeit sometimes with a little less left in the tank at the end. Farming things down obviously gets harder! It drops from formerly ranking #12 in Great League 20 spots to now #32 (at the time of this writing), but still... a Top 30ish option is still a really good PvP Pokémon.
...oh, but uh, there's a caveat: it's now ranked at #32 with Water Gun, while Spark Lanturn has dropped all the way down to #66. That may be a little harsh, but does make sense. Ironically, the rating with Water Gun goes UP from #35 to now #32. I don't knwo that I'm quite ready to say that Water Gun Lanturn is now the clear favorite over Spark Lanturn, but they're now both moving into "sidegrade" territory for sure, with Spark still being best for things like Mandibuzz, Poliwrath, and Sableye, but Water Gun carving out wins against Galarian Stunfisk, Shadow Gilgar, Carbink... and the Registeel that Spark now loses to. Water Gun is also far better now [with shields down], beating things that Spark cannot like G-Fisk, Shadow Gligar, and Carbink again, along with Charjabug and Shadow A-Slash, while the only unique win Spark holds onto is Dewgong. Interestingly, Water Gun Lanturn can also now win the head to head with Spark Lanturn in 2v2 shielding. Spark and Water Gun now deal the same damage per turn, so Water Gun's shorter cooldown wins the day.
Again, I do not think Lanturn is going to suddenly disappear from Open formats or even PvP in-person tournaments. But I DO think its use is going to go down as it slips back a tier or two in the meta. I mean, it almost HAS to. And yes, I do think Water Gun variants are going to be far more common now. Again, you almost HAVE to move that direction now, at least for certain team compositions. We'll see how bad it gets soon enough.
A SEARING REVIEW
Speaking of getting bad, a brief mention for the other notable nerf with this update: Scald. It retains its nice cost to damage ratio of 1.7 Damage Per Energy (50 energy for 85 damage), but the chance for it to lower the target's Attack is going to drop. We don't know how much, but considering it currently sits at 50%, something like 30% seems a resonable expectation, and that's what PvPoke has put up speculatively as well. I'm NOT going to turn to simulations here, as moves with a percentage change of triggers are notoriously difficult to portray that way, to the point of almost being deceptive to even try. But I hardly think this marks the death of intended targets like WHISCASH or POLIWRATH unless, perhaps, the percentage change completely craters at like 20% or below. It's still good damage output and still a great STAB move for each of them. The rankings show Shadow Whiscash only dropping from #23 to #27 (though non-Shadow does take more of a hit, from a former #27 to now #42) and Poliwrath sees only a very small dip as well (#31 → #34 for Shadow and #46 → #48 for non-Shadow in Great League, and basically no change in Ultra League {non-Shadow drops only spot from #5 to #6, and Shadow actually rises from #10 to #9 thanks to other meta shifts}). Yes, this will hurt those who have fallen in love with those two, and surely there will be a slight dip in tournament play. But I don't think this is nearly the death knell some are making it out to be.I DO think this may convince me to give up my Bubble LUDICOLO I've been running in GL of late, though. Scald triggering was the difference between life and death against some things like Gilgar. And other slightly-less-meta things like TENTACRUEL may suffer a little bit as well, but again, the change isn't all that bad. (Tentacthulhu, for example, usually counts on Acid Spray for debuffing hijinks anyway and saves Scald as a closer... it's less reliant on the debuffing it can sometimes provide.)
IN SUMMATION
And that's it! Barring any last minute surprises by Niantic (ALWAYS a possibility), there's your review of all changes coming with the Shared Skies Season. As a quick reminder so people don't panic, keep in mind that while the new season starts on the 1st as per usual, the move updates will not go live until June 3rd, as a nice gesture to not disrupt the planned PJCS and Bologna tournaments that weekend.By way of quick summary of the above (here's your TL;DR, folks!):
The biggest winners I see in this update are (in rough order) CETITAN (maybe CETODDLE?) with Powder Snow, TYPHLOSION with Thunder Punch, UXIE with Swift, SWOOBAT with Fly, SCRAFTY with Thunder Punch, LOKIX with Counter, TREVENANT with buffed Seed Bomb, and then maybe SALAMENCE (Fly) and WHIMSICOTT (Seed Bomb). Other than Cetitan and Typhlosion, I don't know that any of them move drastically up the ranks, but they're all better with this update and bear watching as spice options at the very least.
Alrighty, that's it for now. Back to analysis on the Necrozma Fusions (already in progress) and beyond! Until then, you can always find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck as we move into the new season, and catch you next time!
2024.05.28 18:57 DayButNot EXPERIENCED IB Tutor with flexible timings and rates
I am an M24 Graduate willing to tutor current or upcoming DP students for their examinations. But why should you choose me from 100s of other student tutors? Heres why...
I have a predicted grade of 44/45 (can show official report if needed)
I can tutor in all of the subjects that I have studied.
HL: Math AI, Economics, Business Management
SL: Computer Science, English A Lang and Lit, Hindi B
I have a ton of preparation resources, worksheets, PDFs of official books that are usually way too expensive to purchase along with access to RV, SME, Kognity etc.
I actually have proper experience tutoring for 2+ years for 10th and 11th Graders.
I have a good track record in terms of my teaching style which is really important because just cause someone's done the program doesn't mean they can teach it well. I've worked on multiple tutoring and education projects personally as well as on internships with social organisations.
I have flexible timings and can adapt to fit whatever suits you.
I also offer one 30 minute session for free to the first 10 students that reach out from this post as a diagnostic so you can understand whether this is a good fit for you or not without having to waste money.
I have comparitively much cheaper rates which are also negotiable depending on the tutoring term.
Additionally I can provide you with guidelines and support with research, IAs and EE to help you in the right direction.
You can message me directly to discuss.
submitted by DayButNot to IBO [link] [comments]
I have a predicted grade of 44/45 (can show official report if needed)
I can tutor in all of the subjects that I have studied.
HL: Math AI, Economics, Business Management
SL: Computer Science, English A Lang and Lit, Hindi B
I have a ton of preparation resources, worksheets, PDFs of official books that are usually way too expensive to purchase along with access to RV, SME, Kognity etc.
I actually have proper experience tutoring for 2+ years for 10th and 11th Graders.
I have a good track record in terms of my teaching style which is really important because just cause someone's done the program doesn't mean they can teach it well. I've worked on multiple tutoring and education projects personally as well as on internships with social organisations.
I have flexible timings and can adapt to fit whatever suits you.
I also offer one 30 minute session for free to the first 10 students that reach out from this post as a diagnostic so you can understand whether this is a good fit for you or not without having to waste money.
I have comparitively much cheaper rates which are also negotiable depending on the tutoring term.
Additionally I can provide you with guidelines and support with research, IAs and EE to help you in the right direction.
You can message me directly to discuss.
2024.05.28 18:53 DayButNot EXPERIENCED IBDP Tutor with in major subjects with flexible timing and prices
I am an M24 Graduate willing to tutor current or upcoming DP students for their examinations. But why should you choose me from 100s of other student tutors? Heres why...
I have a predicted grade of 44/45 (can show official report if needed)
I can tutor in all of the subjects that I have studied.
HL: Math AI, Economics, Business Management
SL: Computer Science, English A Lang and Lit, Hindi B
I have a ton of preparation resources, worksheets, PDFs of official books that are usually way too expensive to purchase along with access to RV, SME, Kognity etc.
I actually have proper experience tutoring for 2+ years for 10th and 11th Graders.
I have a good track record in terms of my teaching style which is really important because just cause someone's done the program doesn't mean they can teach it well. I've worked on multiple tutoring and education projects personally as well as on internships with social organisations.
I have flexible timings and can adapt to fit whatever suits you.
I also offer one 30 minute session for free to the first 10 students that reach out from this post as a diagnostic so you can understand whether this is a good fit for you or not without having to waste money.
I have comparitively much cheaper rates which are also negotiable depending on the tutoring term.
Additionally I can provide you with guidelines and support with research, IAs and EE to help you in the right direction.
You can message me directly to discuss.
submitted by DayButNot to ibtutors [link] [comments]
I have a predicted grade of 44/45 (can show official report if needed)
I can tutor in all of the subjects that I have studied.
HL: Math AI, Economics, Business Management
SL: Computer Science, English A Lang and Lit, Hindi B
I have a ton of preparation resources, worksheets, PDFs of official books that are usually way too expensive to purchase along with access to RV, SME, Kognity etc.
I actually have proper experience tutoring for 2+ years for 10th and 11th Graders.
I have a good track record in terms of my teaching style which is really important because just cause someone's done the program doesn't mean they can teach it well. I've worked on multiple tutoring and education projects personally as well as on internships with social organisations.
I have flexible timings and can adapt to fit whatever suits you.
I also offer one 30 minute session for free to the first 10 students that reach out from this post as a diagnostic so you can understand whether this is a good fit for you or not without having to waste money.
I have comparitively much cheaper rates which are also negotiable depending on the tutoring term.
Additionally I can provide you with guidelines and support with research, IAs and EE to help you in the right direction.
You can message me directly to discuss.
2024.05.28 12:33 Difficult-Exam-1636 I (28m) planned to spend my birthday weekend with friends but my girlfriend (25f) said I'm being unfair
It's my birthday next month and for the last 2 years since I have been with my partner, we have gone away for the day for my birthday. It has never been on the actual birthday since we've been at work but it's been the weekend after.
This time my birthday is the Friday and me and my gf have been looking at a nearby city to possibly go to for the day on the Saturday but nothing has actually been planned or arranged yet.
This morning a friend from university that I have not seen in a while made a group chat with a group of 5 of us from university who haven't had a chance to catch up in over a year and a half. They were talking about meeting up for the weekend next month and the only weekend that everyone was free was my birthday weekend.
Every other weekend of the month at least 3 of us couldn't make it. The plan was to go to the city on the Friday evening and stay for two nights and come back on Sunday Morning.
I mentioned to my girlfriend the possibility of us going away for the day either the weekend before or the weekend after the original weekend we looked at since both of us were also free on those weekends and I explained why.
She said I was being unfair and that I'd rather spend my birthday with friends. I pointed out that wasn't the case and it was the only weekend we could all meet up and I didn't know when I'd get the chance to see them again.
I mentioned that we weren't doing anything on my actual birthday anyway so it should be fine doing a different weekend.
She just said I was prioritising seeing friends over spending my birthday with her but I just see it as, the plans my girlfriend and I were looking at making we can do another weekend and nothing had actually been planned whereas the plans with my friends can only be done on this weekend. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this?
tl;dr Friends that I have not seen in years messaged and wanted to meet up and the weekend of my birthday was the only time we were all free. I told my partner and she said I should cancel since we were looking at doing something that weekend. I tried explaining that we could do what we wanted on the weekend before or after but she refused.
submitted by Difficult-Exam-1636 to relationships [link] [comments]
This time my birthday is the Friday and me and my gf have been looking at a nearby city to possibly go to for the day on the Saturday but nothing has actually been planned or arranged yet.
This morning a friend from university that I have not seen in a while made a group chat with a group of 5 of us from university who haven't had a chance to catch up in over a year and a half. They were talking about meeting up for the weekend next month and the only weekend that everyone was free was my birthday weekend.
Every other weekend of the month at least 3 of us couldn't make it. The plan was to go to the city on the Friday evening and stay for two nights and come back on Sunday Morning.
I mentioned to my girlfriend the possibility of us going away for the day either the weekend before or the weekend after the original weekend we looked at since both of us were also free on those weekends and I explained why.
She said I was being unfair and that I'd rather spend my birthday with friends. I pointed out that wasn't the case and it was the only weekend we could all meet up and I didn't know when I'd get the chance to see them again.
I mentioned that we weren't doing anything on my actual birthday anyway so it should be fine doing a different weekend.
She just said I was prioritising seeing friends over spending my birthday with her but I just see it as, the plans my girlfriend and I were looking at making we can do another weekend and nothing had actually been planned whereas the plans with my friends can only be done on this weekend. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this?
tl;dr Friends that I have not seen in years messaged and wanted to meet up and the weekend of my birthday was the only time we were all free. I told my partner and she said I should cancel since we were looking at doing something that weekend. I tried explaining that we could do what we wanted on the weekend before or after but she refused.
2024.05.28 02:02 Environmental_Eye970 I think I’m gonna stop playing this game
TL;dr Dumb rage quit rant
I have 600+ hrs, doing the math that’s 25 continuous days of sitting in front of my computer mashing buttons doing nothing but getting bullied by people who actually have time to play the game and are good at it. Which is crazy because that’s a lot of time, but it’s not a lot of time compared to the player base avg.
This game has done nothing but frustrate me in mass, and kinda made me sad in a way. I’m always locked out of the experiences other people get because my first reaction is to speak, rather than just LIE STEAL KILL!!!! Even when I beg for people to please just go away and let me live, no one cares. I work 3rd shift, I barely have time to work on my car or even do my hobbies, trying to play this game after all that is already fruitless, then I have to deal with literally every player I encounter being an evil greedy bastard that just wants another number on his belt. Thats all I am is a walking free kill no matter how kitted out I get and it’s so frustrating.
Idek why I’m ranting here maybe someone will understand it lol I just hate that I was attracted to this game bc it looked fun but when I play it it’s nerve racking, my palms sweat, I’m uncomfortable the whole time and I always lose… no matter the fight, no matter the weapon, no matter my advantage I give myself. I’ve never won a head on fight outside a deathmatch, I feel like I’m just wasting my life away trying to get good at this game when I could be building a drift car, working out or literally anything else that’s much more useful. From now on I think I’ll treat this game like COD and stick to the Deathmatch servers, seems like adventuring isn’t for me sadly. I’ve had my last unfriendly encounter, so to the two fellas I approached outside berezino, congrats on being my line in the sand. Hope you enjoyed my damaged clothes and one piece of food.
submitted by Environmental_Eye970 to dayz [link] [comments]
I have 600+ hrs, doing the math that’s 25 continuous days of sitting in front of my computer mashing buttons doing nothing but getting bullied by people who actually have time to play the game and are good at it. Which is crazy because that’s a lot of time, but it’s not a lot of time compared to the player base avg.
This game has done nothing but frustrate me in mass, and kinda made me sad in a way. I’m always locked out of the experiences other people get because my first reaction is to speak, rather than just LIE STEAL KILL!!!! Even when I beg for people to please just go away and let me live, no one cares. I work 3rd shift, I barely have time to work on my car or even do my hobbies, trying to play this game after all that is already fruitless, then I have to deal with literally every player I encounter being an evil greedy bastard that just wants another number on his belt. Thats all I am is a walking free kill no matter how kitted out I get and it’s so frustrating.
Idek why I’m ranting here maybe someone will understand it lol I just hate that I was attracted to this game bc it looked fun but when I play it it’s nerve racking, my palms sweat, I’m uncomfortable the whole time and I always lose… no matter the fight, no matter the weapon, no matter my advantage I give myself. I’ve never won a head on fight outside a deathmatch, I feel like I’m just wasting my life away trying to get good at this game when I could be building a drift car, working out or literally anything else that’s much more useful. From now on I think I’ll treat this game like COD and stick to the Deathmatch servers, seems like adventuring isn’t for me sadly. I’ve had my last unfriendly encounter, so to the two fellas I approached outside berezino, congrats on being my line in the sand. Hope you enjoyed my damaged clothes and one piece of food.
2024.05.28 01:01 Conscious-Cod-6908 Don and Friends
I'm rewatching Season 6 and just got through the premiere. I can't shake the feeling that I'm pissed at Matthew Weiner for allowing us so few views into Don's ability to make and keep friends. The reveal of Don and Sylvia's affair cheapened all the amicable exchange we see him have with Dr. Rosen early on in the episode. And it makes me chafe because it seems like Don truly enjoys the camaraderie with another professional who is as quick witted as he is.
I understand the show, especially in later seasons, is all about how emotionally damaged Dick Whitman is. I understand that we as an audience are supposed to see him become more and more of an island, or even a lighthouse keeper. He loses Adam and Lane to eerily similar suicides. He loses Betty and Megan to ugly, necrotizing divorces. He loses Peggy to Ted Chaough. PFC Dinkins, to whom Don gave away the bride, lost in combat. His accountant Frank, vanishing after a genial exchange in the season 5 premiere. The only constants in his life are Roger and Peter, one of whom he tries to have shitcanned.
(Rereading my own post, for the record, I'm not downplaying his friendship with Peggy. The Suitcase will always be in my Top 5 episodes for the series. Same with their dancing to Sinatra's My Way being in my Top 5 scenes. But I'm mainly concerned here with platonic friendships.
In the same vein we only get genuine Don/Joan friendship in ONE episode, A Christmas Waltz.)
I guess the 'grievance' I'm filing here is wondering why the show creators felt a need to whisk all of these friendships away like so many tablecloths tugged free by magicians. Is it to set up Don's whole bottoming out so Freddie Rumsen can give him the whole "Do the work, Don" spiel? Did they have to make isolating him so blatant? All I'm asking for is some more "did you enjoy ze fuhrer's birthday?" scenes.
Is that asking too much?
submitted by Conscious-Cod-6908 to madmen [link] [comments]
I understand the show, especially in later seasons, is all about how emotionally damaged Dick Whitman is. I understand that we as an audience are supposed to see him become more and more of an island, or even a lighthouse keeper. He loses Adam and Lane to eerily similar suicides. He loses Betty and Megan to ugly, necrotizing divorces. He loses Peggy to Ted Chaough. PFC Dinkins, to whom Don gave away the bride, lost in combat. His accountant Frank, vanishing after a genial exchange in the season 5 premiere. The only constants in his life are Roger and Peter, one of whom he tries to have shitcanned.
(Rereading my own post, for the record, I'm not downplaying his friendship with Peggy. The Suitcase will always be in my Top 5 episodes for the series. Same with their dancing to Sinatra's My Way being in my Top 5 scenes. But I'm mainly concerned here with platonic friendships.
In the same vein we only get genuine Don/Joan friendship in ONE episode, A Christmas Waltz.)
I guess the 'grievance' I'm filing here is wondering why the show creators felt a need to whisk all of these friendships away like so many tablecloths tugged free by magicians. Is it to set up Don's whole bottoming out so Freddie Rumsen can give him the whole "Do the work, Don" spiel? Did they have to make isolating him so blatant? All I'm asking for is some more "did you enjoy ze fuhrer's birthday?" scenes.
Is that asking too much?
2024.05.27 23:18 AC_the_Panther_007 On the list, which Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games in North America are your favorites in each year (1985-1994)?
1985-1986 (Oct. 18, 1985 to Dec. 31, 1986):
submitted by AC_the_Panther_007 to retrogaming [link] [comments]
- Duck Hunt (Launch Title)
- Excitebike (Launch Title)
- Pinball (Launch Title)
- Stack-Up (Launch Title)
- Super Mario Bros. (Launch Title)
- Tennis (Launch Title)
- 10-Yard Fight
- Baseball
- Clu Clu Land
- Donkey Kong Jr. Math
- Golf
- Gyromite
- Hogan's Alley
- Ice Climber
- Kung Fu
- Mach Rider
- Wild Gunman
- Wrecking Crew
- Gumshoe
- Balloon Fight
- Donkey Kong
- Donkey Kong 3
- Donkey Kong Jr.
- Mario Bros.
- Popeye
- Urban Champion
- Ninja Kid
- Chubby Cherub
- Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E.
- Tag Team Wrestling
- 1942
- Commando
- Ghosts 'n Goblins
- Karate Champ
- Gradius
- Trojan
- Pro Wrestling
- Volleyball
- Rush'n Attack
- Track & Field
- BurgerTime
- Castlevania
- Ikari Warriors
- Athletic World
- Kid Icarus
- Mighty Bomb Jack
- Rygar
- Section-Z
- Solomon's Key
- Metroid
- The Legend of Zelda
- Arkanoid
- Athena
- Elevator Action
- Slalom
- The Legend of Kage
- 3-D WorldRunner
- Deadly Towers
- Double Dribble
- Lode Runner
- Raid on Bungeling Bay
- Ring King
- Sky Kid
- Spelunker
- Spy Hunter
- Sqoon
- Stadium Events / World Class Track Meet
- Star Voyager
- Stinger
- Tiger-Heli
- Winter Games
- Alpha Mission
- Lunar Pool
- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
- Rad Racer
- Zanac
- Side Pocket
- BreakThru
- Gotcha! The Sport!
- Jaws
- Kid Niki: Radical Ninja
- Star Force
- Super Pitfall
- The Goonies II
- The Karate Kid
- Top Gun
- Mega Man
- Wizards & Warriors
- Karnov
- Renegade
- Contra
- Gun.Smoke
- R.C. Pro-Am
- Town & Country Surf Designs: Wood & Water Rage
- Dragon Power
- Ice Hockey
- Freedom Force
- Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road
- Major League Baseball
- City Connection
- Rambo
- Double Dragon
- Metal Gear
- R.B.I. Baseball
- Bases Loaded
- Defender II
- Gauntlet
- Iron Tank: The Invasion of Normandy
- Legendary Wings
- Life Force
- Adventure Island
- Galaga: Demons of Death
- Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode
- Jackal
- Jeopardy!
- Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf
- Milon's Secret Castle
- Wheel of Fortune
- Xevious
- 1943: The Battle of Midway
- Ghostbusters
- Joust
- MagMax
- Mickey Mousecapade
- Millipede
- Pac-Man (Tengen)
- Racket Attack
- Seicross
- Spy vs. Spy
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Anticipation
- Blaster Master
- Bubble Bobble
- Cobra Command
- Dr. Chaos
- Super Team Games
- Bionic Commando
- Blades of Steel
- Bump 'n' Jump
- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- Othello
- Paperboy
- Platoon
- Rampage
- Robowarrior
- Skate or Die
- Superman
- Xenophobe
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
- Bomberman
- Sesame Street: 123
- Star Soldier
- Tecmo Baseball
- WWF WrestleMania
- Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach
- Friday the 13th
- Gyruss
- Q*bert
- Tecmo Bowl
- Ultima: Exodus
- Dance Aerobics
- John Elway's Quarterback
- Kung-Fu Heroes
- Marble Madness
- Ninja Gaiden
- World Games
- Adventures of Lolo
- Amagon
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Fist of the North Star
- Legacy of the Wizard
- Mappy-Land
- Mystery Quest
- Predator
- Taboo: The Sixth Sense
- The Guardian Legend
- Operation Wolf
- Tetris (Unlicensed; Tengen 1989)
- Airwolf
- California Games
- Desert Commander
- Guerrilla War
- Hoops
- Hydlide
- Mega Man 2
- Monster Party
- Nobunaga's Ambition
- Shooting Range
- Street Cop
- Super Dodge Ball
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- The Adventures of Bayou Billy
- Track & Field II
- Baseball Stars
- Cobra Triangle
- Defender of the Crown
- Strider
- Super Sprint (Unlicensed)
- Thundercade
- Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Dragon Warrior
- Faxanadu
- Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll
- Jordan vs. Bird: One on One
- The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle
- Adventures of Dino Riki
- Air Fortress
- Back to the Future
- Bad Street Brawler
- Castlequest
- Disney's DuckTales
- Fester's Quest
- Hollywood Squares
- King's Knight
- NFL
- P.O.W.: Prisoners of War
- Sesame Street: ABC
- Sky Shark
- The Black Bass USA
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Casino Kid
- Goal!
- Godzilla: Monster of Monsters!
- Jeopardy! Junior Edition
- Rolling Thunder (Unlicensed)
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms
- Stealth ATF
- The Three Stooges
- Twin Eagle
- Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition
- 720°
- Road Runner (Unlicensed)
- Tetris (Nintendo; 1989)
- Vindicators (Unlicensed)
- After Burner (Unlicensed)
- Alien Syndrome (Unlicensed)
- All-Pro Basketball
- Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine
- Dig Dug II: Trouble in Paradise
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II
- Kings of the Beach
- Knight Rider
- RoboCop
- Robodemons (Unlicensed)
- Shadowgate
- Shinobi (Unlicensed)
- Short Order + Eggsplode!
- Silent Service
- The Battle of Olympus
- The Uncanny X-Men
- Toobin' (Unlicensed)
- Willow
- The Adventures of Captain Comic (Unlicensed)
- Baby Boomer (Unlicensed)
- Crystal Mines (Unlicensed)
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Unlicensed)
- Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu (Unlicensed)
- Metal Fighter (Unlicensed)
- Raid 2020 (Unlicensed)
- Tagin' Dragon (Unlicensed)
- The Magic of Scheherazade
- 8 Eyes
- A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia
- Archon
- Bases Loaded II: Second Season
- Clash at Demonhead
- Demon Sword
- Double Dragon II: The Revenge
- Genghis Khan
- Infiltrator
- Rescue: The Embassy Mission
- River City Ransom
- RoadBlasters
- Rock 'n Ball
- The Chessmaster
- Top Gun: The Second Mission
- Top Players' Tennis
- Twin Cobra
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Batman: The Video Game
- Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum
- Destination Earthstar
- Rollerball
- Super Spike V'Ball
- Abadox: The Deadly Inner War
- Adventures of Lolo 2
- Al Unser Jr.'s Turbo Racing
- Astyanax
- Baseball Simulator 1.000
- Burai Fighter
- Championship Bowling
- Code Name: Viper
- Conflict
- Fisher-Price: I Can Remember
- Fisher-Price: Perfect Fit
- Heavy Barrel
- Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf
- Kid Kool and the Quest for the Seven Wonder Herbs
- Magic Johnson's Fast Break
- Target: Renegade
- Terra Cresta
- Vegas Dream
- Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition
- Win, Lose or Draw
- Double Dare
- Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus
- Ghostbusters II
- Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road
- Phantom Fighter
- Pinbot
- Snake's Revenge
- Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular!
- Super C
- Tecmo World Wrestling
- To the Earth
- WCW World Championship Wrestling
- Wrath of the Black Manta
- Xexyz
- Final Fantasy
- Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
- Remote Control
- Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
- [219]
- Arkista's Ring
- Bad News Baseball
- Boulder Dash
- Cabal
- Captain Skyhawk
- Castle of Dragon
- Disney's Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
- Dragon Spirit: The New Legend
- Heavy Shreddin'
- Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary Edition
- Mechanized Attack
- Michael Andretti's World Grand Prix
- Pinball Quest
- Puss 'n Boots: Pero's Great Adventure
- Rad Racer II
- Rocket Ranger
- Shingen the Ruler
- Silkworm
- Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos
- Starship Hector
- The Last Starfighter
- The Mafat Conspiracy
- Wall Street Kid
- Bad Dudes
- Battle Chess
- Bigfoot
- Circus Caper
- Crystalis
- Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements
- Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball
- Image Fight
- Klax (Unlicensed)
- Little League Baseball: Championship Series
- Mad Max
- Pictionary
- Snake Rattle 'n' Roll
- The Adventures of Gilligan's Island
- Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
- Barker Bill's Trick Shooting
- Dick Tracy
- NARC
- Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream
- Swords and Serpents
- Total Recall
- Back to the Future II & III
- Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
- Classic Concentration
- Destiny of an Emperor
- Dragon Warrior II
- Garry Kitchen's Battletank
- Gauntlet II
- Journey to Silius
- Kickle Cubicle
- Little Nemo: The Dream Master
- Low G Man: The Low Gravity Man
- M.U.L.E.
- Maniac Mansion
- Mission: Impossible
- NES Play Action Football
- Pipe Dream
- Rally Bike
- RollerGames
- Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble
- Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship
- Spot: The Video Game
- Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight
- The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout
- Thunderbirds
- Time Lord
- Ultimate Basketball
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- Caveman Games
- Days of Thunder
- Dr. Mario
- Gremlins 2: The New Batch
- Loopz
- Mendel Palace
- Orb-3D
- Sesame Street: Big Bird's Hide & Speak
- Super Glove Ball
- Arch Rivals: A Basket Brawl!
- Conquest of the Crystal Palace
- Formula One: Built to Win
- Mega Man 3
- Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival
- Palamedes
- Puzznic
- Silver Surfer
- The Immortal
- The Punisher
- Werewolf: The Last Warrior
- WWF WrestleMania Challenge
- Yo! Noid
- Bandit Kings of Ancient China
- Déjà Vu
- Digger T. Rock: The Legend of the Lost City
- Dirty Harry
- Dragon's Lair
- Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu
- Little Ninja Brothers
- Ninja Crusaders
- Nintendo World Cup
- North & South
- Shadow of the Ninja
- StarTropics
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
- The Adventures of Rad Gravity
- Thunder & Lightning
- Ultima: Quest of the Avatar
- Bible Adventures (Unlicensed)
- Blades of Steel
- Castle of Deceit (Unlicensed)
- Challenge of the Dragon (Unlicensed)
- Chiller (Unlicensed)
- Deathbots (Unlicensed)
- Double Strike (Unlicensed)
- Dudes With Attitude (Unlicensed)
- Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land (Unlicensed)
- F-15 City War (Unlicensed)
- Fantasy Zone (Unlicensed)
- Galactic Crusader (Unlicensed)
- Impossible Mission II (Unlicensed)
- King Neptune's Adventure (Unlicensed)
- Krazy Kreatures (Unlicensed)
- Menace Beach (Unlicensed)
- Mission Cobra (Unlicensed)
- Moon Ranger (Unlicensed)
- Ms. Pac-Man (Unlicensed; Tengen 1990)
- P'radikus Conflict (Unlicensed)
- Pesterminator: The Western Exterminator (Unlicensed)
- Puzzle (Unlicensed)
- R.B.I. Baseball 2 (Unlicensed)
- ShockWave (Unlicensed)
- Silent Assault (Unlicensed)
- Skull & Crossbones (Unlicensed)
- The Miracle Piano Teaching System
- The Ultimate Stuntman (Unlicensed)
- Tiles of Fate (Unlicensed)
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance
- Fun House
- G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero
- Kabuki: Quantum Fighter
- Peter Pan and the Pirates: The Revenge of Captain Hook
- Qix
- The Hunt for Red October
- The Krion Conquest
- The Untouchables
- Wayne Gretzky Hockey
- Adventure Island II
- Conan: The Mysteries of Time
- Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones
- Flying Warriors
- Galaxy 5000: Racing in the 51st Century
- Ikari III: The Rescue
- Isolated Warrior
- Magician
- Metal Storm
- Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom
- Ski or Die
- Super Cars
- The Last Ninja
- The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants
- Touchdown Fever
- Harlem Globetrotters
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Kiwi Kraze
- Metal Mech: Man & Machine
- Power Blade
- Totally Rad
- Whomp 'Em
- Bill Elliott's NASCAR Challenge
- Nobunaga's Ambition II
- RoboCop 2
- World Champ
- Beetlejuice
- Family Feud
- Flight of the Intruder
- Monopoly
- The Rocketeer
- Times of Lore
- Battletoads
- Castelian
- Cyber Stadium Series: Base Wars
- Faria: A World of Mystery and Danger!
- Laser Invasion
- Rainbow Islands
- S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Team
- Tombs & Treasure
- Uninvited
- Videomation
- Frankenstein: The Monster Returns
- High Speed
- KlashBall
- Disney's The Little Mermaid
- Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure
- Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
- The Lone Ranger
- Adventures of Lolo 3
- Bases Loaded 3
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers
- Gun-Nac
- James Bond Jr.
- Magic Darts
- Monster Truck Rally
- NES Open Tournament Golf
- Rockin' Kats
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms II
- Smash TV
- Super Jeopardy!
- Where's Waldo?
- Zombie Nation
- American Gladiators
- Bo Jackson Baseball
- Darkman
- Home Alone
- Pirates!
- Roger Clemens' MVP Baseball
- Trog!
- Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?
- Wolverine
- Eliminator Boat Duel
- L'Empereur
- Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
- Sesame Street: ABC & 123
- Snow Brothers
- Space Shuttle Project
- Star Wars
- The Bard's Tale
- Uncharted Waters
- Vice: Project Doom
- Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth
- Barbie
- Batman: Return of the Joker
- Captain America and the Avengers
- Golf Grand Slam
- Shatterhand
- Disney's TaleSpin
- Tecmo Super Bowl
- The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy
- The Simpsons: Bart vs. the World
- Tiny Toon Adventures
- Toki
- Tom and Jerry: The Ultimate Game of Cat and Mouse!
- Treasure Master
- Action 52 (Unlicensed)
- Big Nose the Caveman (Unlicensed)
- Death Race (Unlicensed)
- Firehawk (Unlicensed)
- Bubble Bath Babes (Unlicensed)
- Micro Machines (Unlicensed)
- Pac-Mania (Unlicensed)
- Peek-A-Boo Poker (Unlicensed)
- Quattro Adventure (Unlicensed)
- Quattro Sports (Unlicensed)
- R.B.I. Baseball 3 (Unlicensed)
- Rad Racket: Deluxe Tennis II (Unlicensed)
- Secret Scout in the Temple of Demise (Unlicensed)
- The King of Kings: The Early Years (Unlicensed)
- Venice Beach Volleyball (Unlicensed)
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
- Bucky O'Hare
- Cowboy Kid
- Die Hard
- Dragon Fighter
- KickMaster
- Legends of the Diamond
- Mega Man 4
- Monster in My Pocket
- Motor City Patrol
- Nightshade
- Rampart
- Sword Master
- The Addams Family
- Wheel of Fortune: Featuring Vanna White
- Hook
- F-15 Strike Eagle
- Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters
- Hudson Hawk
- M.C. Kids
- Sesame Street: Countdown
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary
- Super Spy Hunter
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day
- Dragon Warrior III
- Fisher-Price: Firehouse Rescue
- G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor
- Gemfire
- Ghoul School
- Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
- Town & Country Surf Designs: Thrilla's Surfari
- Wizards & Warriors III: Kuros: Visions of Power
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance
- Hatris
- Paperboy 2
- The Mutant Virus: Crisis in a Computer World
- Toxic Crusaders
- Ultimate Air Combat
- Wizardry: Knight of Diamonds - The Second Scenario
- Alex DeMeo's Race America
- Roundball: 2 on 2 Challenge
- Wacky Races
- Disney's Darkwing Duck
- Day Dreamin' Davey
- Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge
- King's Quest V
- Power Punch II
- Yoshi
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: DragonStrike
- Baseball Stars II
- Defenders of Dynatron City
- Greg Norman's Golf Power
- The Blue Marlin
- Capcom's Gold Medal Challenge '92
- Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat
- Might & Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum
- RoboCop 3
- Adventure Island 3
- Contra Force
- Krusty's Fun House
- Tecmo Cup Soccer Game
- The Blues Brothers
- WWF WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge
- Crash 'n' the Boys: Street Challenge
- Dragon Warrior IV
- Felix the Cat
- Gargoyle's Quest II
- Ghost Lion
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
- Panic Restaurant
- Power Blade 2
- Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
- Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston
- Goal! Two
- Lemmings
- Little Samson
- Prince of Persia
- Tecmo NBA Basketball
- Widget
- Best of the Best: Championship Karate
- Caesars Palace
- F-117A Stealth Fighter
- George Foreman's KO Boxing
- Joe & Mac
- Mega Man 5
- R.C. Pro-Am II
- Swamp Thing
- The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends
- The Great Waldo Search
- The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper
- The Simpsons: Bartman Meets Radioactive Man
- The Terminator
- The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Cartoon Workshop
- 6 in 1 (Unlicensed)
- Bee 52 (Unlicensed)
- Big Nose Freaks Out (Unlicensed)
- Blackjack (Unlicensed)
- Cyberball
- Joshua & the Battle of Jericho (Unlicensed)
- Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade (Unlicensed)
- Maxi 15 (Unlicensed)
- MiG-29: Soviet Fighter (Unlicensed)
- Operation: Secret Storm (Unlicensed)
- Pyramid (Unlicensed)
- Quattro Arcade (Unlicensed)
- Solitaire (Unlicensed)
- Spiritual Warfare (Unlicensed)
- Stunt Kids (Unlicensed)
- Ultimate League Soccer (Unlicensed)
- Wally Bear and the NO! Gang (Unlicensed)
- Batman Returns
- Break Time: The National Pool Tour
- Overlord
- Ultima: Warriors of Destiny
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Hillsfar
- Bomberman II
- Rollerblade Racer
- Alien³
- Fire 'n Ice
- Mickey's Safari in Letterland
- Zen: Intergalactic Ninja
- Bases Loaded 4
- Casino Kid II
- Kid Klown in Night Mayor World
- Lethal Weapon
- Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland
- Yoshi's Cookie
- Kirby's Adventure
- Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team
- Cool World
- Disney's DuckTales 2
- Jurassic Park
- Color a Dinosaur
- Mario is Missing!
- Mighty Final Fight
- Bubble Bobble Part 2
- The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt
- Battleship
- Bram Stoker's Dracula
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Championship Pool
- Last Action Hero
- Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing
- Tetris 2
- Cliffhanger
- Jimmy Connors Tennis
- Ms. Pac-Man (Namco; 1993)
- Pac-Man (Namco; 1993)
- Pro Sport Hockey
- The Ren & Stimpy Show: Buckaroo$!
- Wayne's World
- WWF King of the Ring
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Bible Buffet (Unlicensed)
- Dizzy the Adventurer (Unlicensed)
- The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy (Unlicensed)
- Bonk's Adventure
- Disney's Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
- Alfred Chicken
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
- Mega Man 6
- Mickey's Adventure in Numberland
- Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II
- Mario's Time Machine
- Disney's The Jungle Book
- The Flintstones: The Surprise at Dinosaur Peak!
- The Incredible Crash Dummies
- Wario's Woods
- Trolls on Treasure Island (Unlicensed)
- Sunday Funday: The Ride (Unlicensed)
2024.05.27 22:41 Kittyisaboo Organic marketing to get more leads/clients
Hi all,
TL;DR - here are some organic (non-paid) ways to get more leads.
You might have seen my AMAs for photographers and photobooth owners (they're still open btw, and I'm still here!). I helped around 80 people across the posts, messages and Zooms with marketing issues (most common issues: no clear CTA button above the fold on landing pages or confusing messaging about the offer). I mentioned I was writing a guide to help with your marketing issues.
Why was I giving out free advice? I was bored and belittled at work (I work FT in a marketing role) and I saw from my own wedding 6 months ago and my friends in the field just how hard you guys work, and how tough it is to market your services.
I was writing this on a Google doc when one of you reached out and asked if you could publish my article on your new site, and I said of course.
I wasn't paid for the article (although I was offered a Starbucks gift card, I don't like their drinks so I declined), I'm not being paid by Picstar (the site where my blog is published, but go check them out, they're in this sub, and there's a free trial) in any way, but I did look super busy at work while I was writing this article, which is a win enough for me! I did do a cheeky free trial cos it sounded cool (I'm not a photographer but I did have fun), but that's about as far as my affiliation goes.
So here are my top tips for marketing your biz with no paid means. My next articles in the series will be on -
This is like a third of the article, you can read the rest of it at: A Guide to Marketing Your Photo Business
(Excuse any spelling mistakes)
Here’s a quick rundown of the best platforms and the best type of content to share on them:
First thing’s first—your social media content needs to be as lively and captivating as the experiences your photo booth offers.
For example the hundreds of filters on offer with Picstar AI really grab someone's passing attention, and also showcase the sort of experience they might have with your photobooth.
Use these stunning visuals to showcase the unique themes (and even custom filters) you offer. Remember, each post is a reflection of the fun waiting to happen at your photo booth.
Platform Strategies
Not all social media platforms are created equal, and knowing the ins and outs can turn you into a marketing guru in no time.
This is a problem easily solved by Picstar AI - with over 200 filters (and custom filters available), you can easily keep creating content to show off your new filters, and even have fun while doing it!
SEO Basics
First up, let’s break down SEO. It’s all about optimizing your website so that search engines like Google love you. This means more people find you when they type in things like “best photo booth near me” or “wedding photo booth in [Your City].” SEO might sound technical, but don’t worry—it’s totally manageable with the right tips and tricks.
Keywords and Content
Keywords are the crux of SEO. They’re the phrases that people type into search engines when looking for services like yours. Start by brainstorming a list of terms related to your business, like “corporate photo booth hire,” “birthday photo booth setups,” or “custom photo booth props.” Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to refine your list based on what’s popular and relevant.
Now, let’s talk content. It’s not just about stuffing those keywords into your blog posts; it’s about creating useful, engaging content that your audience loves to read and share. Think about blog posts that answer common customer questions or showcase the fun and creativity of your events. Because you're selling a visual experience, you need to make your blog post as visual as possible. You can enrich this content with unique, eye-catching images that make people want to click and read more, but also see what kind of experience you're providing for your customers, with 200+ filters to choose from!
Local SEO Strategies
Since photo booth services are often location-based, local SEO is a game-changer. Make sure your business is listed on Google My Business, complete with your address, phone number, and services. Encourage happy customers to leave glowing reviews, and respond to their feedback—it shows you value customer interaction and boosts your local SEO credibility
The Importance of Customer Reviews
Reviews are the digital age’s word-of-mouth. They not only improve your credibility but also strengthen your SEO efforts. Encourage your customers to leave feedback on popular platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook.
Make it easy for them: send follow-up emails thanking them for their business and including direct links to review sites. Remember, the more positive reviews you have, the more trustworthy your business appears to potential customers.
Give them a chance to feel positive, by having a state-of-the-art, powerful app like Picstar that takes perfect AI pictures, and makes them easily downloadable and printable, in just a few seconds from start to finish!
(That’s right, no more long lines of people waiting,, just quick, perfect pictures that guests will love, and will probably come back for more!).
Customer Incentives for Tagging and Sharing
People love to share their fun experiences on social media, and your photo booth is a source of many of those memorable moments. Encourage your guests to tag your business and share their photos by offering small incentives. This could be a contest where the best post wins a discount on their next booking or a small gift. Create custom frames or backgrounds that include your business’s logo or hashtag, making it even more tempting for guests to post and tag.
Using Testimonials Effectively
Testimonials are powerful because they showcase real-life stories of customer satisfaction. Highlight these testimonials on your website and in your social media feeds. Create visually appealing testimonial images that combine customer quotes with vibrant, themed backgrounds that reflect the event. For instance, a glowing review from a wedding can be paired with a romantic, floral AI-generated image, enhancing the emotional appeal of the testimonial.
Read more at: A Guide to Marketing Your Photo Business
submitted by Kittyisaboo to WeddingPhotography [link] [comments]
TL;DR - here are some organic (non-paid) ways to get more leads.
You might have seen my AMAs for photographers and photobooth owners (they're still open btw, and I'm still here!). I helped around 80 people across the posts, messages and Zooms with marketing issues (most common issues: no clear CTA button above the fold on landing pages or confusing messaging about the offer). I mentioned I was writing a guide to help with your marketing issues.
Why was I giving out free advice? I was bored and belittled at work (I work FT in a marketing role) and I saw from my own wedding 6 months ago and my friends in the field just how hard you guys work, and how tough it is to market your services.
I was writing this on a Google doc when one of you reached out and asked if you could publish my article on your new site, and I said of course.
I wasn't paid for the article (although I was offered a Starbucks gift card, I don't like their drinks so I declined), I'm not being paid by Picstar (the site where my blog is published, but go check them out, they're in this sub, and there's a free trial) in any way, but I did look super busy at work while I was writing this article, which is a win enough for me! I did do a cheeky free trial cos it sounded cool (I'm not a photographer but I did have fun), but that's about as far as my affiliation goes.
So here are my top tips for marketing your biz with no paid means. My next articles in the series will be on -
- How to do Facebook ads
- How to do Instagram ads
- How to do Google ads
- How to do Instagram/Facebook organic content
- How to do TikTok organic content
- How to do Pinterest organic content
This is like a third of the article, you can read the rest of it at: A Guide to Marketing Your Photo Business
(Excuse any spelling mistakes)
1: Using Social Media to Promote Your Services
“Social media” is a bit of a loaded term. While you might be on social media, you might not be using each platform to its full potential.Here’s a quick rundown of the best platforms and the best type of content to share on them:
- Instagram: share visuals - stills and videos. Write captions that explain what’s going on in your photos and videos, and add popular hashtags.
- TikTok: short, snappy clips of activity, either to excite the viewer or entice them to see more! Add no more than 5 hashtags, and add a fun caption too.
- Facebook: stories and interesting visuals, these can either be the same or different from your Instagram, content. The Facebook clients you're likely to reach will likely be different from those on Instagram, so keep that in mind when choosing visuals for both platforms.
First thing’s first—your social media content needs to be as lively and captivating as the experiences your photo booth offers.
For example the hundreds of filters on offer with Picstar AI really grab someone's passing attention, and also showcase the sort of experience they might have with your photobooth.
Use these stunning visuals to showcase the unique themes (and even custom filters) you offer. Remember, each post is a reflection of the fun waiting to happen at your photo booth.
Platform Strategies
Not all social media platforms are created equal, and knowing the ins and outs can turn you into a marketing guru in no time.
- Instagram and Pinterest are gold mines for visual businesses like yours. Regularly update your feed with high-quality images from recent events to add that extra flair.
- For Facebook, focus on community engagement—create event pages, participate in local groups, and maybe even run a contest or two.
This is a problem easily solved by Picstar AI - with over 200 filters (and custom filters available), you can easily keep creating content to show off your new filters, and even have fun while doing it!
2: Improving Visibility with SEO
Ready to get your photo booth popping up in all the right places online? Welcome to the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)—your secret weapon for showing up when potential customers are searching. With the right SEO strategies, your business won’t just be visible; it'll shine bright at the top of search results!SEO Basics
First up, let’s break down SEO. It’s all about optimizing your website so that search engines like Google love you. This means more people find you when they type in things like “best photo booth near me” or “wedding photo booth in [Your City].” SEO might sound technical, but don’t worry—it’s totally manageable with the right tips and tricks.
Keywords and Content
Keywords are the crux of SEO. They’re the phrases that people type into search engines when looking for services like yours. Start by brainstorming a list of terms related to your business, like “corporate photo booth hire,” “birthday photo booth setups,” or “custom photo booth props.” Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to refine your list based on what’s popular and relevant.
Now, let’s talk content. It’s not just about stuffing those keywords into your blog posts; it’s about creating useful, engaging content that your audience loves to read and share. Think about blog posts that answer common customer questions or showcase the fun and creativity of your events. Because you're selling a visual experience, you need to make your blog post as visual as possible. You can enrich this content with unique, eye-catching images that make people want to click and read more, but also see what kind of experience you're providing for your customers, with 200+ filters to choose from!
Local SEO Strategies
Since photo booth services are often location-based, local SEO is a game-changer. Make sure your business is listed on Google My Business, complete with your address, phone number, and services. Encourage happy customers to leave glowing reviews, and respond to their feedback—it shows you value customer interaction and boosts your local SEO credibility
3: Encouraging Customer Engagement and Recommendations
Now that your photo booth is getting noticed, let’s amplify the buzz by turning your happy customers into your biggest promoters. Positive word-of-mouth and social shares can drive bookings far better than any advertisement. Ready to get your clients raving about your services? Here’s how you can encourage engagement and leverage recommendations to supercharge your marketing.The Importance of Customer Reviews
Reviews are the digital age’s word-of-mouth. They not only improve your credibility but also strengthen your SEO efforts. Encourage your customers to leave feedback on popular platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook.
Make it easy for them: send follow-up emails thanking them for their business and including direct links to review sites. Remember, the more positive reviews you have, the more trustworthy your business appears to potential customers.
Give them a chance to feel positive, by having a state-of-the-art, powerful app like Picstar that takes perfect AI pictures, and makes them easily downloadable and printable, in just a few seconds from start to finish!
(That’s right, no more long lines of people waiting,, just quick, perfect pictures that guests will love, and will probably come back for more!).
Customer Incentives for Tagging and Sharing
People love to share their fun experiences on social media, and your photo booth is a source of many of those memorable moments. Encourage your guests to tag your business and share their photos by offering small incentives. This could be a contest where the best post wins a discount on their next booking or a small gift. Create custom frames or backgrounds that include your business’s logo or hashtag, making it even more tempting for guests to post and tag.
Using Testimonials Effectively
Testimonials are powerful because they showcase real-life stories of customer satisfaction. Highlight these testimonials on your website and in your social media feeds. Create visually appealing testimonial images that combine customer quotes with vibrant, themed backgrounds that reflect the event. For instance, a glowing review from a wedding can be paired with a romantic, floral AI-generated image, enhancing the emotional appeal of the testimonial.
Read more at: A Guide to Marketing Your Photo Business
2024.05.27 18:39 Mountain_Zone4276 Update: Am I overreacting? Guest declined a week before wedding after already RSVP:ing
Original post: https://www.reddit.com/weddingdrama/s/gMjRZrq7zu
Someone asked for an update to this low-stakes wedding drama so here it is.
TL;DR: I was not, in fact, overreacting.
Thank you all for the replies, which were everything from deeply insightful & wise, to full-on fanfic about my family dynamic, personality, and inferred self-importance. All in all an interesting read.
I’ve met my aunt twice since making the previous post.
Many of the replies made me think I was overreacting and that I wasn’t considering her perspective. So my wife and I met her for coffee where I asked more about her reasons for not coming to our wedding. She confirmed that the reason was to see the people at the birthday party. What she had previously described as an urgent “crisis”, she now simply referred to as missing her friends and wanting to see them. She described it in very different (and much milder) terms than she had before the wedding. (Edited for clarity, I first described it as a depression while she did not use those words)
I have sympathy for her reasons because, as some people pointed out with varying degrees of civility, my wedding is not as important to others as it is to me (and my wife). However, it was very important to me, and caring about others is also caring about the things that are important to them. Not attending such an important event in my life in favour of seeing some people she hadn’t in a while hurt me. It was the first, and possibly the only, time I’ll hold such an event where my entire family is invited. And since some people accused me of being rude and demanding about my wedding: there were no bridal showers, bachelorettes, or anything like that beforehand. We paid for everything ourselves & took care to make attending as cheap & accessible as possible for the guests. The only gift we asked for was something that could be given for free (recipes).
Of course it’s fine to not attend someone’s wedding for any reason. But if those reasons are “I’d like to see some friends instead”, you should be prepared for the fact that it will change your relationship to the people getting married.
So. I think I’ll be keeping my distance for a while. I’m glad I met up with her because I was genuinely worried, and while it’s upsetting that she didn’t have a “better” reason, I’m also relieved that she seems to be fine.
Thank you again to the people who provided their insight, it was genuinely very helpful.
submitted by Mountain_Zone4276 to weddingdrama [link] [comments]
Someone asked for an update to this low-stakes wedding drama so here it is.
TL;DR: I was not, in fact, overreacting.
Thank you all for the replies, which were everything from deeply insightful & wise, to full-on fanfic about my family dynamic, personality, and inferred self-importance. All in all an interesting read.
I’ve met my aunt twice since making the previous post.
Many of the replies made me think I was overreacting and that I wasn’t considering her perspective. So my wife and I met her for coffee where I asked more about her reasons for not coming to our wedding. She confirmed that the reason was to see the people at the birthday party. What she had previously described as an urgent “crisis”, she now simply referred to as missing her friends and wanting to see them. She described it in very different (and much milder) terms than she had before the wedding. (Edited for clarity, I first described it as a depression while she did not use those words)
I have sympathy for her reasons because, as some people pointed out with varying degrees of civility, my wedding is not as important to others as it is to me (and my wife). However, it was very important to me, and caring about others is also caring about the things that are important to them. Not attending such an important event in my life in favour of seeing some people she hadn’t in a while hurt me. It was the first, and possibly the only, time I’ll hold such an event where my entire family is invited. And since some people accused me of being rude and demanding about my wedding: there were no bridal showers, bachelorettes, or anything like that beforehand. We paid for everything ourselves & took care to make attending as cheap & accessible as possible for the guests. The only gift we asked for was something that could be given for free (recipes).
Of course it’s fine to not attend someone’s wedding for any reason. But if those reasons are “I’d like to see some friends instead”, you should be prepared for the fact that it will change your relationship to the people getting married.
So. I think I’ll be keeping my distance for a while. I’m glad I met up with her because I was genuinely worried, and while it’s upsetting that she didn’t have a “better” reason, I’m also relieved that she seems to be fine.
Thank you again to the people who provided their insight, it was genuinely very helpful.
2024.05.27 05:52 CaduceusOphiuchus Hahaha
Hahaha
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.
submitted by CaduceusOphiuchus to toxicparents [link] [comments]
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.
2024.05.27 05:46 CaduceusOphiuchus Hahaha
Hahaha
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.
submitted by CaduceusOphiuchus to raisedbynarcissists [link] [comments]
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.
2024.05.27 05:35 CaduceusOphiuchus Hahaha
Hahaha
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.
submitted by CaduceusOphiuchus to narcissisticparents [link] [comments]
Not sure if this is the right place for anything.
I am 36 years old. The trauma began when i was a 9 year old kid in elementary school. My mom was already psychotic and enjoyed killing my goldfish and then crying and saying it was an accident then repeatedly replacing them all killing them again with bleach. It was what i thought was normal.
She didn’t know how to raise me so i had a lot of babysitters. At one babysitters house, their kid taught me it was fun to pull out pants down and play with our weiners. I didn’t like the kid, but I thought this was normal behavior.
At school in the middle of class i pulled my pants down and got in trouble. I was pulled out of school and a counselor told my mom i had ADD, and needed to go to a school for children with special needs.
My mom took me to the school, it was a normal school but it had the “Cornerstone Program” for special kids. The very first thing the program director and my mom did was coerce me into signing a piece of paper saying that explicitly stated that I, a child, was giving consent to the staff to physically assault me in the form of a “restraint” whenever they felt like i needed it done to me, “for safety.”
I refused to sign it and they both got very angry with me and told me that it’s only for bad kids. Then i asked why i was being sent to a school for bad kids. Then they said that as long as i was “good” then they wouldn’t assault me. So i promised i would be good and not misbehave and signed the paper.
On the first day of school, it was pure chaos. The other kids were antagonizing one another, and it was incredibly distracting and hilarious. One kid yelled to the other “Go suck on yo mamma’s dick!” And then the other kid got enraged and then was dragged into the back “restraining room” to be held down and forced to scream while they had an anxiety attack, until they “break” and become “calmed down” by the adults physically assaulting the minors.
Because of this chaotic environment, how was I supposed to succeed as a child sent there for one diagnosis “ADD” because i pulled my pants down once.
I didn’t do my schoolwork in class because it was impossible, and I just observed the constant fighting between the other kids instead.
One teacher got mad that I wasn’t “obeying” and he took me into the other detached classroom that served as the Cornerstone main office. He sat me down, and forced a pencil in my hands and he said “do your work. Now.” Because he was mean, i put the pencil down. He grabbed it again, and forced it in my hands, then squeezed my hands with his hands and began writing the math numbers down on the page for me.
I knew he was trying to hurt me, so i jammed him with my thumbnail back. Thats when he grabbed me and threw me onto the floor, and attacked me with a “restraint” maneuver. He gave me my first anxiety attack, i will never forget screaming for help for an hour but i was ignored by anyone who could hear me. That is when i learned that i had no safety, that i could scream for help as a child, but no one would ever come, and that they were going to physically torture me to do schoolwork if i didn’t obey them.
I had rug burn all over my face and chin from being held to the floor. When the school day was over, before i could tell my mom i was assaulted, they told her that i got my first necessary restraint, and that i obviously was a bad child who needed their program.
She wouldn’t listen to me that i was assaulted and essentially physically raped. I went back to school the next day and told to do a better job behaving.
I was trying to do my schoolwork out of fear of pain and torture, then the same guy who assaulted me, “Rob” came over to me and pretended to be my best friend. Probably out of guilt since he knew he was a child abusing sack of shit just there to suck up a paycheck and get off on being a living nightmare, a torturer of children.
He pretended to help me with my work, to show everyone that he was normal and just doing his job, that he didn’t just physically rape me the previous day. I had another anxiety attack from just his proximity to me. He quit the very next day, because he knew what he did to me.
Every day i was terrified of going to “Torture School” as i called the Cornerstone program. I was traumatized by the first attack on me, so i couldn’t concentrate on doing schoolwork. The other staff got annoyed with me because I didn’t validate them by doing my schoolwork, and since they had no idea how to handle kids with special needs, i became a target for them.
The teachers told my mom that i wasn’t doing my schoolwork because i needed ADD medication. Not because of the lack of proper education and parenting, but i needed to be given a daily chemical lobotomy. After one dr appointment, I was put on “Ridilin” for a day, and it was like having an active lobotomy. I could not think or feel emotions.
The same teachers that recommended I start taking medication got mad at me for not doing my schoolwork, were now mad at me that the medication they decided i needed to be on now made it completely impossible to do my work. So the teachers suggested that I take a different medication, so i was put on “wellbutron” which still allowed me to function but with a less intense lobotomy so they could take the credit for their recommendation that i be medicated, all for keeping up their image of being good and smart special ed teachers.
Btw in case you don’t know, it is always illegal for a teacher to suggest a child start taking medication. 🙃
Every day my mom would take out her anger at me, she was a rageaholic, and still is. She loved to have a meltdown, full on screaming and yelling and hitting me and ranting about how she has to blame me for it, then say “wow, this was because you didn’t take your medication today yet!” Every. Single. Time. I wondered what i was even taking the meds for, and began to see that the adults were the ones all fucked up mentally and needed medication. Also the program only let us watch limited kids movies, depressing ones and a long looney tunes PSA movie about how drugs are bad. But it’s ok that my mom was a heavy weed smoker, and i needed to be lobotomized through medication every day.
The school had a “point system” that rewarded kids with daily numbers on a white board for “good behavior” and points could purchase rewards, and bad behavior got points taken away. I wasn’t allowed to get points because i didn’t do my schoolwork, and they held that over my head constantly to try and give me incentive. It was all bullshit, and one day they threatened to take points from a kid and he went and erased the entire whiteboard. Boom, end of fight club, the teachers powers over us with the mysterious numbers ended. They didn’t make any back ups of the points because it was just there to scare us into good behavior 😂
Because i didn’t do my schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have points anyway, and the teachers decided to take my desk out of the classroom, and put it inside of the restraint room, so i was forced to listen to the screams of the children they tortured even louder. They used to give the other kids points for “good ignoring” when there was a child screaming in the back. Can you imagine, a pointless point system built by sadists, that reward children for ignoring the torturous screams of their peers, and then reward that as good behavior?
Eventually, the teachers decided to have a meeting with my mom about how i refused to do school work in their environment. They started joking “well, you dont even do your work in the back room, it’s like you just come to school to get restraints! Ahaha” they thought it was so funny to torture me. Another teacher added in “yeah, if you’re not obeying us, then we’re not teaching you and just restraining you all the time, what does that make us? Ahaha”
“Kid torturers” i replied. Their laughter stopped when they were called out for exactly what they were. My mom didn’t seem to understand the moment, and she said “oh yeah! And since you don’t obey me, I guess I’m resigning as your mother.” She sounded so happy to shirk all that responsibility. The Cornerstone staff tried to laugh that off too, “haha, umm, don’t you mean ‘redefining’, haha?”
“Nope,” and she went on a rant about how “when he learns to obey me and do his schoolwork, he will have the privilege of having a mother back.” And stunned the room full of people who tortured children for a living.
After that, she wouldn’t allow me to call her mom, i had to call her by her first name.
One day, on thanksgiving, we were getting ready to leave and go see family. She got upset about something, said I wasn’t obeying her, and he fat ass grabbed me and pinned me to the ground. She kept saying “look at me, im a teacher restraining you because you won’t obey!” She said as her boobs were falling out of her mumu and hitting me in the face with her weaponized titties. In the struggle, she kept leaning on me on one hand and hurting me to try in vain to get her girls back in her mumu, then her tits kept falling out, then she gave up on this futile exercise in normal parenting.
I refused to go with her, and i stayed home and ate 5 bowls of cereal and called it thanksgiving. She would also abuse me in front of family especially on Christmas and holidays, the normal routine of having an enraged meltdown and trying to blame me for it while everyone is confused what even she’s even so mad about during the holidays in the first place.
One day at school, we had a new staff member who acted like an ex con. The first time I disobeyed him, he threw me to the ground so hard I had the wind knocked out of me and i couldn’t breathe. then he got on top of me and held me down, and i still couldn’t breathe, i finally felt my lungs inflate and started screaming, but that was “bad behavior” so i had to pretend to not have a panic attack so i would be let go and allowed to breathe normally.
Of course that was written up as “my fault” for “being out of control” and “needing” to be restrained and i got in trouble for it. We had behavior report cards we had to take home every day, so i would do nothing, get told that i was disobeying their orders by not doing schoolwork, restrained/tortured, written up, behavior paper taken home to be seen by my mom, then she would use that as an excuse to take out all her anger out on me.
One day, the previous guy decided to attack me outside so at least there was one witness to the aftermath of the abuse.
The guy took me and kids to the community farm across the street, and gave us all rakes, and demanded that we clean all the chicken shit out of the chicken coops. When he tried to hand me the rake, it was gross and i was starting to develop an OCD from having things forced into my hands, so i didn’t want to touch it.
He grabbed me, and threw me to the ground once again into the pile of chicken shit, and then locked the chicken wire fence and left me in there, and said i couldn’t come out until i cleaned up all the chicken shit by myself.
I sat there stunned, and eventually a normal teacher from the normal part of the school for regular kids who didn’t get abused saw me. She said “Oh my god! What are you doing in there?” And then there was a school county investigation opened up.
I was interviewed by 2 detectives at home about the incident, and they didn’t care or know about any of the other abuse happening at Cornerstone. Just that one guy was fired, and i thought since if my mom knew the abuse was this bad, i wouldn’t have to go back to that school.
I had to go back the next day and pretend like nothing happened. The special ed teachers were upset with me that i got one of them in trouble, and they feared me. They got so afraid of me that they wouldn’t allow me to have a sharpened pencil, only allowed me to have broken ones, then got me in trouble for not doing my schoolwork. 🙄
One day, we all went to the zoo, and went to the gorilla enclosure and looked down over the railing. I had never seen animals at the zoo react to the dysfunctional kids fighting and the child torturer adults. It was as if the gorillas immediately saw the darkness in their souls they tried to hide so well. I backed away from the field trip group among the din of the gorillas, they were in a frenzy screaming at the school staff to get away from them. A teacher turned to yell at me to get back with the group, and they kept acting like the gorillas didn’t absolutely hate them. And then 😂 the gorilla grabbed a huge handful of dirt and shit, and slung a giant dry cloud of shit dust at the staff and misbehaving kids. Literally the karma they deserved, and luckily i had decided to back away from them and was the only one in the group not covered in gorilla shit. Lmao 😂
Since i refused to do schoolwork, i wasn’t allowed to have a summer break. I had to do all my schoolwork as homework from home, and i was surprised and thought that was just an option no one told me about, and it was much easier for me to to schoolwork without distractions from other kids or threats of violence from staff. I wondered why i even had to go to that school at all if i could have just done my schoolwork from home.
When i was almost done with a page of math, my mom got mad at me for doing my schoolwork, and yelled “there’s just a bunch of NUMBERS on the page!” And crumpled up the page of homework. And i yelled “Noo! That’s what math is! It’s numbers!!” And tried to smooth the paper out. I turned it in like that, the teacher laughed at me and said that I can’t turn in homework like that. I told him that my mom did it, and when he asked why, i said “Because there’s numbers on it.” Which was the honest answer, and confused them.
Eventually, i stopped taking my medication, and started flushing the pill down the toilet every day. If i hid it anywhere else, my mom would find it. So i learned that if i didn’t take my pill, i would still get blamed for things, whether or not i was medicated or not. So my mom would say as usual “Wow, i bet you didn’t take your pills today!”
But, i had not taken them in weeks, months, and eventually years.
Since i wasn’t allowed to “disobey by not doing my schoolwork” my desk was in the backroom. The door would be left open if there wasn’t a child being tortured in the back, but they remembered to specifically close it when it was storytime because i “wasn’t allowed to read like the normal kids who behaved”
Eventually, the teachers took away my privileges to have a desk in the back room, and i was forced to sit on the floor in a carpeted room, the area that they would send in “out of control” kids and abuse them. I sat in solitary confinement as a child for 2 years, just go be abused everyday and go home to more abuse. The Cornerstone staff would usually forget i was in there, and would throw in kids having their mental health crises, and then they would start attacking me. It was a normal routine of sitting on the floor in solidarity confinement, and waiting for them to send in another kid who was ready to attack and having to avoid them with minor injuries to get out of the room and remind them i was in there. I was allowed to sit at my desk in the back only when the room was occupied by a screaming child being abused by assault by “restraint.”
One day, the staff announced to the class that they decided to remove the carpeting from the restraint room, and would be replacing it with a linoleum tile floor. They then started mocking the kids that if they acted up, a cold hard floor is what they will be restrained against. Then they started joking that I was going to be the one suffering the most from that.
As i sat on the floor in solitary confinement at 10 years old, i was very resilient and tried to not let the school staff get to me. I knew what they were doing and how my mom acted and how she allowed them to abuse me daily was wrong. I bored out of my mind. There was only torture and adults blaming me for their actions. Nothing made sense.
One day i got so bored making friends with the floor, there was a tiny corner sticking up, and i began peeling the cheap linoleum off of the floor.
The staff then made my mother pay for them to re-do their nice new floor, it was kind of like their revenge for having to babysit me, the kid who didn’t obey them all day. My dad did the actual construction to save my single mom some money, and they were both pissed at me for “being a bad kid.” So my mom paid the money, and my father did the work and effort, to rework the very floor i was supposed to sit on almost day. Custom made by my parents who i brought together once again even though they hated one another, so romantic getting parents back together only briefly if only to yell at their attention starved kid.
Then i told myself to resist the urge to peel the linoleum as i sat there on the floor for months of boredom, for the undeterminable amount of time i was incarcerated as a child.
Also did i mention it was really cold and they would physically assault me to remove my hoodie from me if i refused to take it off.
One day i came into the restraint room as normal, and saw someone else had peeled off the linoleum on the floor. The staff immediately blamed me for it and told my mom and dad they had to do the floor over again. And they almost went through with it but it was more convenient for their time and money to listen to me when i said i didn’t do it.
So then the staff at Cornerstone became mad at me for “lying” and were disappointed because they were looking forward to getting a new floor out of my parents anytime they asked for one. 😂
Eventually I guess I served enough time, and I was off to yet another abusive school. This one was called Anna Kyle, and it was basically like being sent to Auschwitz every day for school.
I should mention at this point, my mom let me watch Schindler’s list and every time a Jewish person was shot she would say “thats what they should do to you if you don’t do your schoolwork.” Like, wow lady.
So anyway, the environment at this school was exactly like a concentration camp run by old witches. There was no education here, and once again, i was found to be “disobeying” and sent to a carpeted room. The rooms had graffiti carved into the walls from other kids in the past. If i had an attitude, the staff would tell my mom that i “defaced property” even though the wall of graffiti was carved there long before i got there, and they tried to get my mom to pay for a new door to the restraint room. My mom got wise to the antics of special ed school staff and refused to pay, which made them upset because they were jealous of my mom’s high paying job and wanted to extort money out of her somehow as a form of revenge for having to babysit me at school.
My schooling there was sitting on a floor and zoning out another indefinite amount of time of solitary confinement. At least this time it was a carpeted floor, and if i behaved, a staffer would come in to let me “play with colored beads” for the day. Just playing with the beads on a string made me forget the world around me. I remembered playing with the beads, and pretending that they were the different sailor scouts from Sailor Moon, and wanting the green beads to be Sailor Jupiter and wish she could protect me.
One day, I didn’t obey an order, and then 5 of these old witches grabbed me, and carried me around above their heads from one classroom’s restraint room to another. I was upset at being violated and abused like that. A teacher said “you know why you’re upset, it’s cuz you just don’t listen!” And i replied “its cuz you’re a bitch.” I didn’t use that word before but i had heard it, and knew it was a really good word to use when an adult was insulting another adult. She gave me such an insolent look, for a kid that they abuses daily to talk to her that way. She left and then i waited a very long time in the new restraint room. School ended and buses came, why was i still there?
Then a staff member said “ok someone’s here to pick you up” and let me out. I was confused, where was my schoolbus?
It was my grandma, and she picked me up and took me to her house instead of home. She was livid and gave no explanation.
Eventually my mom came and got me from her house. I demanded to know what was going on.
Well apparently, me calling the teacher a bitch made the teacher “so very concerned” about the “highly sexual” words i was saying, and she was convinced that i was being sexually abused by my mom, so she called the police and my mom was just at the police station getting interviewed all day if she has ever molested me. I was shocked, but at least now i didn’t have to go back to that school. At least “bitch” was the magic word to get me out of there 😆
Then that night i saw my mom using the newly invented internet to find more special ed schools to go to. I was like Milo in The Oblongs, “Can’t I just go to normal school?” And she realized that maybe i should.
First day of normal school, every student sat down the teacher said open your journals, every kid robotically and orderly opened their journals and wrote down the date, what was written on the board would be our lesson for today, and everyone just started doing it on their own without any prompt. I was so confused, how did everyone know what they were supposed to do? I had no idea what school was supposed to be at this point. I just sunk my head and slept through class because i literally had NO IDEA what i was supposed to be doing. The other kids were confused by my actions, but i literally didn’t understand them.
“Learning” from a “teacher”? What the hell is that? 😂
I was called into the principals office with the teacher and my mom. I was told “you are not allowed to disobey your teacher, if you don’t do your schoolwork, then everyone else will think they don’t have to do it too!” Which still didn’t translate to anything to me. They assumed i already “knew how” to do that was required of a student but was trying to “disobey” on purpose. They came up with a rule that if i sat down, i had to start school work at the same time as everyone else, or I had to get up and leave class immediately and sit in the office all day.
The next day i sat down, everyone starts writing in their journal. The teacher gives me the hand motion to leave and get out. I realized “oh, we’re writing whats on the board down, why didn’t anyone just tell me.” And i started writing down the date. The teacher yells “no! You have to leave now! You already had your chance!!” And then i never tried to appease these troglodytes again.
Eventually the janitor at the school raped a 12 year old girl and it had to shut down. But far be it from me to tell an all knowing principal how to run their school.
Its fine because i went to a different special ed school for middle school, slept every day. Slept every day through highschool too and just stayed up all night playing an online MMORPG which was new at the time. It became a focus point that my mom did everything in her power to act like keeping me from the one thing that ever made me happy was a form of parenting. So she would do stupid things like hiding my keyboard to start a fight for attention and feel like shes a mother just by being authoritative.
Eventually at 21 i knew i needed to escape her and leave home badly enough that i joined the Air Force. At first she kept telling me that i was retarded and didn’t have the mental capacity to “get yelled at” every day. Ummm what have i been trained for my entire life then, lady? 😂
After she realized i was serious and she wouldn’t have to support me anymore she became overly supportive to the point she was sabotaging me. While i focused on working out and learning the Airman’s Creed, she was looking at recruits getting yelled at. This was all stuff i was AVOIDING to keep MY WARRIOR MINDSET PURE, and she wouldn’t even allow me that. Eventually she became so obsessed with training, she started acting like she signed up for the Air Force herself 😂 “Wow, i did such a good job raising you, that you ended up joining the Air Force, because i’m such a good mom, because i put you through the Air Force, i will be busting my buttons with pride as you graduate from Basic Training. Wait a second, if you’re graduating the Air Force, because of MY good parenting…” (insert woman doing math meme) “Well, oh my god, I’M joining the Air Force? Because of you joining? Because i’m such a good parent???”
And i gave her a look of wtf are you talking about. I’m so glad to be away from this piece of work.
I went to basic, i did a month of training, unfortunately I had bad knees so i had to be sent home. Before i came home my mom then decided to have a meltdown over the phone when i told her. Instead of sympathy or even understanding the condition of having patella femoral syndrome, she said she was writing a list of rules i had to obey when i came home. Ummm im coming home anyway, its not like i had a choice.
This woman even took the time to type up some 10 page long letter that she printed out and sent me in training in a manila envelope, which made it look like i had some super important letter to receive something so big during Basic Training. It was just some fantasy where she had full control over my life. I literally read the first 2 sentences and thew the entire thing away. Then when i talked to her on the phone next she was like “what did you think of that letter? Huh huh huh?” And i said i didn’t even read it and she could go fuck herself.
When i got home from the Air Force, she was livid and hostile towards me, and told me to “Gehtahjaaaahb” every 5 seconds like that was any way shape or form helpful in the slightest way. While everyone else understood i was making a sacrifice to the service and i came home BARELY ABLE TO WALK because the cartilage in my knees wore down so much, she was harassing me nonstop.
Eventually one day she started in on me, and I threw my computer table at her and she realized she shouldn’t be fucking with someone who just underwent a month of strength training and discipline. You DO NOT disrespect anyone and raise your voice like that, and especially not someone who just responded to TIs in uniforms yelling at them for a whole month and the only answer I’m allowed to give is YES, SIR.
Eventually, she realized that she can’t just scream at me, and she saw a commercial on TV for me to go to college at a nearby game design university. So she said I need to go to it.
Long story short, i decide to go, i had no interest in art but i learned how to draw, began taking classes and i used my Airman’s training and discipline to work really hard. For the first time ever, i was enjoying school, and i was even on the dean’s list of a very famous person who is dean at the school.
I asked my mom if i could use the refundable ticket that was meant for my Air Force graduation to take a trip for my birthday. She said yes. I saw my best friend and stayed with her for a week, saw a metal show, had an amazing time with new friends who wanted to celebrate my birthday and for coming to visit them. My friends treated me like a celebrity. When it was time to go, i heard at the airport they were offering $400 dollars to someone to give up their flight on my flight. I thought of doing that and extending my stay and giving my friend the money, but i thought i should just go home because i had more friends waiting to welcome me home.
When i got home, my local hometown friends were waiting for me to come home from the airport. I just came home late, and i just texted them “woo im home!” And they replied “woo, we’re here! Let us in as soon as i got home, 😆
they had gifts and a jack in the box burger for me. I let them into my room and they just wanted to hang out for 5 minutes and say happy birthday and leave.
I went to grab a drink, and on my way back to my room, apparently i had woken up my mom. And she immediately started to get upset with me that i had people over. I said “oh, im sorry i woke you, they’re going to leave now. Lets talk in the morning.” She screams “Noooo!” And i go into my room to avoid the confrontation.
I locked the door behind me, because i had to put a lock on the door because my mom kept not listening to me when i told her to stay out of my room, and she kept coming into my room and do stupid things like fold a pile of dirty laundry and put it away, and taking my laundry i was about to fold and wash it again.
So i had locked it so wouldn’t come in cause a scene in front of my friends who were trying to leave. I tried to tell them that they had to leave, and they said sure lets go. But then my mom was on the other side of the door, screaming “Everyone leave!!!” and kicking and body slamming against the door until it broke off of the doorframe and she opened it with sheer force of her obese body weight. The ironic thing is that if she was so upset that people were over, why did she kick and body slam the door again and again to prevent them from leaving? 🧐
After this, i still had to live with this abhorrent sack of shit who’s womb I happened to be the one I escaped from, and still try to do my schoolwork too. I completely ignored her to keep my sanity. If she spoke to me, i had downloaded a nifty little AIRHORN APP that i blared from my phone at max volume if she talked to me. Of course that would make her start screaming at me, and it justified me using it every time in the first place.
I would wear my headphones around her in the kitchen to ignore her completely, and they were noise canceling headphones as well. Once she said something bitchy and angry towards me and i stared at her completely blank faced and gave her a look of icannothearyouwhyareyoustilltalkingtome and went back to making food. Then she came and grabbed my headphones off the side, and leaned into my ear and started talking to me. I reacted like a reflex to grab the headphone i thought had gotten caught on the cord and was being pulled off, and accidentally 🤭 smacked her in the face in the process. I just repositioned my headphones and went back to my business of cooking. And she was having a meltdown, running in a circle trying to start a fight with me, and i think saying that i ‘hit her’ after she made contact with me first when i was just grabbing my headphones she pulled off. 🤷🏼♂️
A few other times, i fucked with her for revenge. She hated when the porch light was turned off, and when the front door was locked. So i kept the light off and locked both the top and bottom locks. So when she couldn’t see she kept trying to ring the doorbell, as if I was going to come let her dumb ass in. And so she would start screaming at the front door to let me in. Eventually she would unlock one, and then realized the other one was locked as well, then while she was unlocking that one, i would sneak to the front door and re lock the first one. Then she would start screaming on the front porch, having a violent angry melt down in front of the other neighbors. How embarrassing for her.
I continued to ignore her every chance i got. I would make emo artwork in my work with my emo music playing in my headphones. Occasionally i would hear her trying to start a fight with me through my door, and since it was locked i would ignore her. Since she already fucked up my door, she could body slam against it to open it. She did that when i was ignoring her once, and she was laughing about the fact she could use her fat ass to open my locked door.
I told her if she ever body slammed my door again i would make her regret it.
She did it again to get my attention, and thought it was funny.
She thought it was funny to barge i to my safe space and terrorize me, to trigger my anxiety, to scream at me, to cause destruction of her own property just so she could start a fight with me, blame me for the fight to feel justified to scream at me and abuse me.
So what she didn’t know is that I had recorded her when she body slammed my door the first time. The video goes on and on for 5 minutes of her screaming and punching and body slamming, gradually breaking down the door and frame cracking, my friends terrified the entire time. And then her screaming like a maniac until she finally breaks it and then walks into my room acting like she was some sort of victim.
I posted the video on Facebook, named it “i hate you, i don’t deserve this abuse” and then tagged her in it, so our family and all of her friends, personally and professionally would see it.
When it was still unbeknownst to her, she still kept up her tough abuser façade, acting like she had reason to abuse me when I had done nothing. But then, once she found out i had exposed her abuse publicly, she then suddenly changed, and started acting like a victim again. So funny how fast her tough guy act dropped when her abuse gets exposed, and then in order to cope with being a terrible piece of shit, she suddenly started playing the victim to everyone around her.
She told her sister I was abusing her, and then said she was “going to stay with her for no reason” so she went to go play out this imaginary roleplaying story by staying the night with her over the weekend. She had to stick to the role she invented for me, just so she could act out that i was abusing her. It was pretty pathetic. Then my aunt started to treat me like i was an abuser. I eventually had to set her straight because my mom had spun the video around to make it seem like i was antagonizing her through the door, saying our nervous shudders of terror was me and my friends laughing at her through the door. Once I set her straight that I was the victim of my moms abuse, she realized that she had been tricked and felt really guilty for getting involved and thinking i was an abuser. As she should.
Since I had to constantly defend myself from abuse, I really lost all interest in school, and even became a huge jerk to my boyfriend at the time, to the point that he broke up with me. I had never been broken up with before, because usually it’s fair or mutual or i do the breaking. But this was the first time someone left me, and it was because i was so abused i started to become abusive, and he left me when he saw that change. He didn’t want to be around my mom when he was over to visit me anyway, and she had scared off a couple other of my boyfriends in the past. Imagine having several relationships that lasted for few months but then they leave you because your MOM fights with you all the time.
Eventually i met with a long time online friend, and as of now we have been together 13 years. During that time i was able to get 500 miles away from my mom and stay with my partner and his mom. I am 36 now.
During that time i rarely saw my abuser whose womb i escaped from.
The last time I saw her i told her I never wanted to see her again. She invited me to a big birthday party weekend she was having for herself and 2 of her friends, and everyone was going to come. Had a surprisingly good time with her and everyone i knew. She was nice the entire time. Then on the last day i was there visiting her, she decided to scream at the top of her lungs at me for wanting to hang out with my childhood friend who was also visiting.
I realized she was going to pretend to not be a sack of shit to everyone else and be nice to them, but she will ALWAYS have energy to scream at me.
I thought she invited me to her birthday party because of some hope that the distance had healed us, and she was nice now. But, i realized she will be nice to literally everyone else she invited, but NOT her own son who drove 500 miles out to see her.
I cried myself to sleep the night before my partner and me left. In the morning my mom was acting all smiles and wanted to visit before we left. I told her that I never wanted to see her again, locked my room, and packed while i ignored her long enough that she had to leave to go to work.
I was in a very deep depression. Friends and co workers i had would cordially ask me how was my vacation time off i took to go to my mom’s birthday party, and i told them it was horrible and change the subject.
I did not talk to her for a year. Eventually she tried reaching out and we maintained a communication. Casually in conversation she would mention how we need to have a visit, to which i would reply “Oh, but I already told you that I never wanted to see you again.” And that’s called making my boundaries known. Instead of realizing she had fucked up and perhaps she could put some effort into fixing herself and owning up to what she did wrong, she just took it as an insult because she’s a narcissist who could never comprehend she’s guilty of any wrongdoing.
2024.05.27 02:36 flatpiano [WTS] Europe: Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, and more!
Hi all,
Offering a mix of NGC/PCGS slabbed coins from a number of European countries. Many of these coins are commemorative one-year issues and have lower mintages.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/europe-slabs-5-26-HacBi5J
Terms: All orders are +$5 for shipping. I accept Venmo, PPFF and Zelle. Chat and PM are both fine. Reasonable offers are welcome, particularly if interested in multiple items.
Germany:
https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1czq8co/wts_german_states_empire_weimar_republic_slabs/
Spanish medieval, copper "pirate" cobs, and kingdom silver: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1cw2byj/wts_spanish_medieval_counterstamped_and_kingdom/
Belgium, British Isles, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, and more: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1cue801/wts_european_slabs_belgium_british_isles_norway/
Asia, Latin America, Africa and Oceania: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1ct0h2c/wts_asia_latin_america_africa_and_oceania_slabbed/
England, France, Germany and Netherlands: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1cremgm/wts_slabbed_england_france_germany_and_the/
Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Hungary, Sweden: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1cmjo9n/wts_austrian_states_brazil_denmark_hungary_sweden/
Feel free to send me a message if there's anything specific you're looking for. These posts are only a fraction of what I have available.
submitted by flatpiano to CoinSales [link] [comments]
Offering a mix of NGC/PCGS slabbed coins from a number of European countries. Many of these coins are commemorative one-year issues and have lower mintages.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/europe-slabs-5-26-HacBi5J
Terms: All orders are +$5 for shipping. I accept Venmo, PPFF and Zelle. Chat and PM are both fine. Reasonable offers are welcome, particularly if interested in multiple items.
- 1800s Belgium: Tournai jeton - ANACS MS60 Details - $20 - https://imgur.com/a/yUmykoM
- 1930 Belgium 10 francs (Independence Anniversary) - NGC AU58 - $45 - https://imgur.com/a/WGWfG6m
- 1958 Belgium 50 francs (World's Fair) - ANACS MS63 - $35 - https://imgur.com/a/txBdAHS
- 1807 Denmark 4 skilling - ANACS EF40 - $40 - https://imgur.com/a/bj46miJ
- 1906 Denmark 2 kroner (Accession of Frederick VIII) - NGC MS61 - $75 - https://imgur.com/a/LKwt5pg
- 1945 Denmark 2 kroner (75th Birthday of Christian X) - NGC AU55 - $45 - https://imgur.com/a/WoPbsh9
- 1960 Denmark 5 kroner (Wedding anniversary) - NGC MS66 - $55 - https://imgur.com/a/LCnBOHx
- 1964 Denmark 5 kroner (Wedding of Anne Marie) - NGC MS65 - $35 - https://imgur.com/a/tf2dCeN
- 1972 Denmark 10 kroner (Accession of Margrethe II) - NGC MS63 - $40 - https://imgur.com/a/lqinT1s
- 1827 France: Lille merchandise token - NGC AU Details - $35 - https://imgur.com/a/tSb2KET
- 1830-48 France King Chérebert bronze medal - NGC MS61 - $65 - https://imgur.com/a/KslNB9w
- 1861 France: Elbeuf jeton - NGC UNC Details - $55 - https://imgur.com/a/aEz2JXn
- 2006 France 1/4 euro (Benjamin Franklin) - NGC MS67 - $30 - https://imgur.com/a/1M67vb9
- 2010 France 10 euros (New Franc anniversary) - NGC PF69 UCAM - $30 - https://imgur.com/a/iQYmnXM
- 1964 Greece 30 drachmai (Royal Wedding) - NGC MS65 - $45 - https://imgur.com/a/3J2uPCZ
- 1806 Ireland 1/4 penny - NGC AU55 BN - $60 - https://imgur.com/a/v8s6Mge
- 1839 Isle of Man 1/2 penny - NGC VF35 BN - $45 - https://imgur.com/a/ktr9syX
- 1471-83 Livonia: Reval schilling (Bernd von der Borch) - NGC AU50 - $60 - https://imgur.com/a/lFlUJit
- 1936 Lithuania 5 litai (Dr. Jonas Basanavicius) - NGC UNC Details - $45 - https://imgur.com/a/F483dLc
- 1932 Latvia 5 lati - NGC UNC Details - $45 - https://imgur.com/a/WyovJeq
Germany:
https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1czq8co/wts_german_states_empire_weimar_republic_slabs/
Spanish medieval, copper "pirate" cobs, and kingdom silver: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1cw2byj/wts_spanish_medieval_counterstamped_and_kingdom/
Belgium, British Isles, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, and more: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1cue801/wts_european_slabs_belgium_british_isles_norway/
Asia, Latin America, Africa and Oceania: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1ct0h2c/wts_asia_latin_america_africa_and_oceania_slabbed/
England, France, Germany and Netherlands: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1cremgm/wts_slabbed_england_france_germany_and_the/
Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Hungary, Sweden: https://www.reddit.com/CoinSales/comments/1cmjo9n/wts_austrian_states_brazil_denmark_hungary_sweden/
Feel free to send me a message if there's anything specific you're looking for. These posts are only a fraction of what I have available.