Hello everyone,
I am looking for a provider in SoCal to get my filler and botox injections. I am located in San Diego, however I am always in LA and Orange County, so I am eyeing injectors in all of these areas. So far, in my search I have found a couple injectors that seem to do good work. Has anyone ever gone to these people? - Anusha at Skinspecifics, Nicola at N2 Aesthetics, Pawnta at Motykie, Vanessa at TheThingsWeDo, Naomi(The Injection Artist).
If not, does anyone have recommendations for providers in Los Angeles, Orange County or San Diego? Thanks 😊

Remember to check our NSFW AI Generator: CandyAI
List of Subreddits:
nsfwaigenerator
realgirls
porn
Hentai
cumsluts
rule34
legalteens
collegesluts
nsfw_gif
girlsfinishingthejob
AsiansGoneWild
pussy
onlyfansgirls101
BreedingMaterial
nsfwhardcore
BustyPetite
milf
petitegonewild
TittyDrop
ass
boobs
adorableporn
Nudes
latinas
tiktokporn
celebnsfw
Blowjobs
holdthemoan
BiggerThanYouThought
porninfifteenseconds
GodPussy
anal
xsmallgirls
asianhotties
barelylegalteens
bigasses
curvy
dadwouldbeproud
gothsluts
pornID
squirting
JizzedToThis
chubby
Gonewild18
tiktokthots
freeuse
deepthroat
cumfetish
Cuckold
Gonewildaudio
Hotwife
Amateur
dirtyr4r
grool
fuckdoll
asstastic
creampies
nsfwcosplay
FemBoys
thick
SexInFrontOfOthers
publicflashing
Upskirt
workgonewild
naturaltitties
dirtysmall
thickwhitegirls
traps
WatchItForThePlot
HappyEmbarrassedGirls
FitNakedGirls
amateurcumsluts
slutsofsnapchat
hugedicktinychick
BlowJob
naughtywives
gonewild30plus
altgonewild
worldpolitics
blackchickswhitedicks
Womenbendingover
AnalGW
realhomeporn
tinytits
rapefantasies
nsfw411
younggirlsgonewild
Ebony
girlsmasturbating
SmallCutie
HotMoms
threesome
redheads
hugeboobs
Miakhalifa
booty
Homemadexxx
cumshots
bodyperfection
holdmyfeedingtube
NSFWverifiedamateurs
camsluts
ButtsAndBareFeet
Pussy_Perfection
DaughterTraining
Girlswithglasses
PublicSexPorn
rearpussy
slimthick
wifesharing
couplesgonewild
gwpublic
IndiansGoneWild
obsf
amihot
homemadensfw
Hotchickswithtattoos
GWCouples
facefuck
massivetitsnass
spreadem
iwanttobeher
porn_gifs
adorablenudes
brownhotties
Nipples
amateur_milfs
girlswhoride
tits
snapleaks
BubbleButts
BlowjobGirls
facedownassup
MassiveCock
cheatingwives
tanlines
SchoolgirlsXXX
BDSMGW
Cosplaybabes
twerking
2000sGirls
mombod
2busty2hide
pornvids
doggystyle_nsfw
transporn
hungrybutts
quiver
buttplug
Sissies
perfectbody
Overwatch_Porn
slutwife
RileyReid
innie
thighhighs
ratemypussy
shavedpussies
step_fantasy_gifs
LabiaGW
amateurporn
Swingersgw
underweargw
assholebehindthong
ghostnipples
creampie
girlsthatlovesex
burstingout
bimbofetish
homegrowntits
outdoorrecreation
asiangirlsforwhitemen
normalnudes
monsterdicks
bigtitsinbikinis
titsonastick
DarkAngels
NSFWGirl
damngoodinterracial
ginger
gonewildtrans
naughtychicks
SexyTummies
dirtysnapchat
O_faces
lesbian_gifs
pronebone
PantiesToTheSide
gonewildcolor
sextrophies
horny
Hairypussy
GodAsshole
GaybrosGoneWild
gonewildcurvy
YogaPants
bigareolas
girlskissing
milfie
JizzedToThiss
stripgirls
tgirls
homesex
prettylittlecumsluts
OnlyIfShesPackin
feetpics
Bbcparadise
whooties
extramile
throatpies
sexsells
traphentai
assinthong
Lingerie
aa_cups
PreggoPorn
jerkofftoceleb
punkgirls
milfs
Bondage
emogirls
pussyrating
Humongousaurustits
phatasswhitegirls
CentaurGirls
Onlyfansasstastic
thethiccness
skinnytail
WomenOfColor
ebonycuties
girlsgw
rape_hentai
voyeurflash
vagina
camgirls
emogirlsfuck
Fingering
Nsfw_Amateurs
StreetsIsWatchin
BabesNSFW
gwcumsluts
jilling
petitetits
MomSonIncest
fortyfivefiftyfive
largemilkers
gifsgonewild
realahegao
GroupOfNudeGirls
ediblebuttholes
SloppyBlowjob
MonsterGirl
prettyaltgirls
whitecheeks
exxxtras
gwnerdy
ebonyamateurs
theratio
cartoonporn
darkjokes
hotclub
SexyButNotPorn
changingrooms
RandomActsOfBlowJob
Shemales
squirtinggonewild
Pornhub
gayporn
blacktittyworld
ahegaogirls
EngorgedVeinyBreasts
sex_comics
seethru
bestporningalaxy
girlsontop
couplesporn
hentaibondage
suicidegirls
B_Cups
boobsandtities
amazingcurves
twentyplus
tiktoksweets
frogbutt
biggerthanherhead
WhyEvenWearAnything
shemalesparadise
PawgLove
ThickChixxx
rule34_comics
tscum
violetmyers
ratemynudebody
Pegging
cleavage
Oilporn
sexstories
Tikthots
cameltoe
thickloads
titfuck
sluts
Naruto_Hentai
ratemyboobs
womenarethings
transgonewild
the_best_nsfw_gifs
greatview
totalbabes
hugedildos
FemboyHentai
blondegirlsfucking
hotwifeswingers
animemilfs
Swingersr4r
Nofans
ArabPorn
Sexy
dildo
straighttosissy
Gonewildgbuk
wildpartygirls
analinsertions
groupsex
shorthairchicks
gymgirls
sexyfrex
LatinaCuties
Blonde
LatinasGW
FantasticBreasts
Bisexualfantasy
titties
RealCute
pokies
yiff
holewreckers
bangmybully
sissy_humiliation
boypussy
Teachersgonewild
thongs
handjobs
babes
MommyMilkersNSFW
TwinGirls
forcedcreampie
HotStuffNSFW
AvaAddams
Penis
Girlsdoingstuffnaked
Facials
fishnets
collegensfw
TheOnesYouLustOver
AreolasGW
Voluptuous
buttsthatgrip
EraserNipples
Saggy
BillieEilishGW
sexygirls
shinyporn
babygirl
cutemodeslutmode
GoneWildScrubs
cumonclothes
realmomsgonewild
analgonewild
OnlyFansPetite
Break_Yo_Dick_Thick
LegalCollegeGirls
CumDumpsters
legs
BikiniBodies
gonewildplus
bigbootygothiccgf
sissycaptions
upherbutt
oralcreampie
IncestClub
pawgriding
Welding
Sexy_Asians
shemale_big_cock
pornheat
toobig
BlackWorldOrder
daresgonewild
lightskinbeauties
18f
Ladybonersgw
blacked
orgasmiccontractions
MisogynisticLife
lesbianOral
Mommy_tits
NSFW_HTML5
onlynudechicks
joi
Workoutgonewild
backview
MiaMelano
adorable_girls
HipHopGoneWild
BreastEnvy
alldayfucknsfw
asiancuties
nsfwcostumes
momsgonewild
Tentai
degradethiscunt
Thickdick
lewdgames
gape
cosplaylewd
cheatingcaptions
MirrorSelfie
ForcedFeminization
straightturnedgay
Swingersgonewild
Gentlefemdom
Roughsex
cameltoeoriginals
RiskyPorn
Nootropics
amateurhalloffame
HelplessHentai
uncensoredasian
peegonewild
gonewildcd
bigboobsgonewild
Morgpie
stupidslutsclub
SunDressesGoneWild
dickgirls
justhotwomen
hentaifemdom
bootypetite
hugeboobsandtits
NudeNonNude
just18
influencernsfw
puffies
creampie_porn
ElsaJean
orgasmcontrol
handjob
PussyMound
raceplay
bustyqueens
redheadgifs
BDSMpersonals
xxxcaptions
RuinedOrgasms
SluttyMaterial
SoloMasturbation
GirlsHumpingThings
BreedMeDaddy
tattooedgirls
OnOffCelebs
ExhibitionistSex
pregnantporn
bigboobsclub
bigclit
18y
javdreams
Ohlympics
hairy
Ddlg_porn
BBW_Chubby
Facial
cunnilingus
AsianAmericanPorn
FertileGirls
JapanUncensored
footjobs
frombelowview
hugenaturals
casualnudity
CumFromAnal
piercednipples
hentaimemes
HornyAmateurGirls
CreampieMaterial
SkylarVox
GirlsWhoEnjoySex
AsianBlowjobs
latina_porn
blondes
instagramhotties
Publicsex
latinchickswhitedicks
LanaRhoades2
gonewildchubby
pulsatingcumshots
LittleCaprice
nhentai
EllieLeen
nsfw_china
redditorcum
bodyshots
TSonFM
WeddingRingsShowing
IndianCelebScenes
tiktokxxx
FurryPornSubreddit
RemyLaCroix
roughporn
wife
sneakyporn
TessaFowler
thong
slutgirldream
onlyfanschicks
edging
lingeriegw
DemonSlayer34
squirting_gifs
nsfw_hardbodies
NSFWgaming
EbonyGirls
FootFetish
feedingoncum
FemdomHumiliation
broslikeus
BreakingTheSeal
squirtingvideos
Dadsandboys
Psychedelics
FatPussyInPanties
OWYM
RandomActsOfMuffDive
Throatbarrier
IncestSnaps
PussyWedgie
ClothedTitfuck
cosplaynsfw
tomboyNSFW
MoundofVenus
doggystyle
publicfucktube
DrunkDrunkenPorn
geekygirls
18_22
GoneWildHairy
Hentaicaptions
onlyfans_wild
eliteblowjob
nsfw_caption
Goonettehub
LegalTeens_
fuckmywife
sensualcurves
Cfnm
classysexy
perkychubby
TallGoneWild
nsfw2
NintendoWaifus
WtSSTaDaMiT
milfbody
BoltedOnBooty
SweNsfw
phatpussy
webcamgirlsnsfw
chastity
promoteonlyfans
bois
cutegirlsgw
dadsgonewild
loosepussyland
BokuNoEroAcademia
ChineseGoneWild
amateur_threesomes
Bulges
hotwivescuckold
SexWorkers
hipcleavage
naturalcurves
cuminsideme
MonsterFacials
teencocks
armpitfetish
rimjob
queenofspades
mompussy
omgbeckylookathiscock
youngbabes
BrownChicksWhiteDicks
heteroflexible
Ladyboys
OldYoungTabooPorn
Splitview
TexansGoneWild
leahgotti
Spitfetish
WhiteAndThick
treesgonewild
girlswholovedicks
malesmasturbating
sissyinspiration
gaycumsluts
Perfectsexwithgirls
mummytummies
thighs
draculabiscuits
spanking
BlackedMILFs
EnhancedFucktoys
bimbocumsluts
flatchested
SydneySweeneyGW
bikini
awesomeass
Ratemyass_
Kendra_Sunderland
mmgirls
gameovergirls
valentinanappi
blacktowhite
monstercocks
realmilf
yinyleon
celebsnaked
Erotica
perfecttits
bralessforever
PiperPerri
Sissychastity
breastsucking
lingeriewomen
Blackedpawgs
dildoride
dillion_harper
japanese_adult_video
BlakeBlossom
gaymersgonewild
pickoneceleb
NataLee
tbulges
YoungGuysGoneWild
hairywomenaresexy
schoolgirlsgonewild
momnsfw
stepsisterx
slutzys
KendraLust
corychase
bigtitsmallnip
LoveBBWs
PhatAssWhiteGirl
bimbofication
3DPorncraft
bigtitsheaven
Guysfrombehind
povpornvids
hairyassgirls
fatwomenlove
swordswallowers
fat_fetish
TwerkingPorn
gonewildmetal
nopanties
beautifulbaldpussy
Petplay
PillowHumping
microbikini
sissyplace
tittyfuck
titstouchingtits
fbb_nsfw
Alasjuicy
foreskin
kissandfuck
trapsgonewild
nsfwnextdoorgirls
NerdyGoneWild
HotGirlNextDoor
builtforbbc
hotwifetexts
BlackOwnedSissies
50plusGW
bwc
uncommonposes
TransTease
gaystoriesgonewild
jacking
Hololewd
AnalGape
toysgw
Femaleorgasmdenial
dressedandundressed
barebackgayporn
fuckinglikecrazy
AshleyAlban
deutschensfw
AlinaLopez
ratemyass
BallsDeepThroat
Saggytit
Hentai__videos
thickchicksgw
JessicaNigri
MilkyMILFs
hentai_irl
futanari_Comics
CumCannonAddicts
Premium_Pornography
ftmporn
bbcjustice
mycleavage
GymGirlsNSFW
happycuckold
PublicHentai
girlsinlacefishnets
cumflation
InterracialBbcSluts
YourEverydayHouseWife
HypnoHentai
booty_lovers
TinyNymphs
bigassaltgirls
rearcock
Wifebutt
complexionexcellence
bonersinpublic
thicksloppycreamy
FanslyFriends
twinsNSFW
clothedforprejacs
slutmouth
50and60plusGW
nsfwcelebs
HotBlackChicks
womenofcolour
cumoverdose
cosplaynation
3DHentai
Sloppyseconds
puffynipples
nylonfetish
fapdeciders
analsquirt
HentaiAnal
GirlfriendsNSFW
theunderbun
mfm
spitroast
baberotica
SmolTiddyGothGF
sexy_angels
SnapchatSextXXX
buttsex
nothingunder
Supercutsnsfw
1819gw
healthyporn
bleach_hentai
thefullbush
exxxchange
topless
RugsOnly
LaBeauteFeminine
Dominated
beefylabia
thai_xxx
faptodesiactress
jerkbudsHentai
ChurchWife
gaygifs
Hentai_Interracial
bicuckold
Gushinggirls
onlyfansblonde
damnass
whitegirlsnsfw
CoffeeGoneWild
fupaluv
Tspetite
YourDadsOldPorn
gaysnapchatimages
IWantToBeHerHentai
cumcoveredsluts
valorantrule34
cumwalk
cuckhumiliation
araara
bigareolalover
mouthwideopen
SauceforNSFWads
cutegirlsinpanties
plugged
jigglybutts
NTR
DeepThroatEnthusiast
dommes
samespecies
slutsandcumdumps
sissydressing
pakisgonewild
FaceofPain
petiteandtiny
RWBYNSFW
FetishLife
yourpornaddiction
nsfw_outdoors
LilyKawaii
bodyswap
Tori_Black
MeatyVaginas
OldAndYoungLesbians
couplesamateurporn
desidesire
MaleSuperiority
NZGirlsGW
ssbbw
NakedYoga
girlsinleggings
BushLovers
masturbationhentai
cougars
girlswearingstrapons
cat_girls
passionategirls
hornymilfnextdoor
BlowjobGradeA
hairycurvy
inniepenetration
PornAttack
cutelittletits
JessaRhodes
cigars
CelebsGW
FutanariHentai
girlsjoy
melaninvixens
bongbeauty
ChainsawMan34
rapeandsexfantasies
hotwifechallenges
MagicMouth
barebody
AIpornhub
bbwvideos
handbra
theblackeddominion
putaria
wife_gone_wild
gwaustralia
Smalltitsbiglips
muscleworship
hugefutanari
pornrelapsed
BabeCock
Pegging_Only
Clits
a_cups
SubmissiveAsianSluts
Peeandsquirtgifs
Rule34RainbowSix
GoneMildPlus
gagged
SwingerCouplesGW
dragonballnsfw
gwblackgirls
diligentblowjob
18adult_comics
Paizuri
maturemompics
KindaLooksLike
couplekissing
sources4porn
cutcocks
HotWifeLifestyle
MarvelNSFW
cockheadlovers
Socalgonewild
GrabHerTitties
babesdirectory
Bbwgw
SummertimeGirls
seductivemombod
NakedOnStage
thelostwoods
fantasticblowjob
thickmom
underbutt
pets_and_ownwers
Bigblackcocks
TightsAndTightClothes
faceandcock
AthleticGirls
Hotwifecaption
3somesAndMore
eightteen
QOS
countrygirls
NatashaNice
FutanariGifs
shemalefuckingmale
bodysuit
upshorts
Artistic_Hentai
publicplug
realhomemade
Feet_Queens
tittyfucking
GirlsinSchoolUniforms
animebodysuits
AssCracked
shakingboobs
thatbounce
Emily_Lynne
penetration_gifs
HDLesbianGifs
StuckHentai
bignipples
CharliDamelioMommy
cagedandfucked
Softsuck
averagepenis
cumpies
sissiesinaction
breastexpansion
gonewildeu
LimpClittySissy
DumpsterSluts
Limitlessrp
dvansfw
victoriasecretgw
gonewildaudible
KatyaClover
betawomen
Socalswingers
freeonlyfanspromotion
ribcage
GirlsWatchingPorn
bigbelliesandhangers
fansly
bendygirls
BondageBlowjobs
FaithOrdway
CockOutline
nsfwanimegifs
FakeCum
AbsoluteWeapons
bimbo
CedehsHentai
monstermen
boyshorts
pinkishpussy
gettingshredded
thinblackgirls
mhahentai
SaraJay
cuteonlyfans
BlowjobMasters
JapaneseKissing
FemdomCreampie
CumExtractor
cumpliment
Secretary
smilers
bignaturaltitties
CelebrityMommy
AlbumBabes
BrilliantPussy
officelady
slutslastrefuge
animeplot
GirlsRimGuys
dirtyredditchat
scenegirls
Familygame
CumShowers
pillowtalkaudio
onlyfans101brandnew
NudeCosplay
areolas
Grooltasting
FreckledRedheads
tomboy_hentai
SlimeGirls
EnbyLewds
Hotwiferequests
pornstarvspornstar
FunnyJAV
HentaiSchoolGirls
mikeadriano
RoseMonroe
catgirls
CumAward
AnalEcstasy
SexyFlightAttendants_
HomemadePornTube
hairymuffs
transanal
manass
FantasyGirls
nsfw_japanese
wifeporn
JumpyTitsGifs
hornymomsnextdoor
AssInPanty
femyiff
ProneBoneAnal
CumMining
ropes
Twinklove
FuckedUpPornCaptions
MilfPawg
doggystylepov
Sissycaptionstories
sideboob
pissingpeeingporn
azgonewild
OnePieceVixens
Pornism
FayeReagan
SiriPornstar
afrodeviant
TheRareOnes
RavenNSFW
BadDragonGirls
lesbianfantasy
SexyGirlsInBoots
BigButtAmateurs
cowgirlriders
cum_catchers
ForcedCreampies
Tonguetastic
hotgirls
bigtitsandmilkers
LuxuryGirl
analporngif
femdomcommunity
JuicyTitsGifs
SunnyLeone
needypussy
blowjoblovers
HairyArmpits
blackcock
BigAnimeTiddies
Happy_nsfw
creampiesurprise
JynxMaze
nudists
Random_Acts_Of_Pizza
hardcorehentaibondage
hubaderangpinay
tights
Mooning
sggonewild
yummyboobs
girlfriendporn
xxx
KarmaRx
miniskirt
bowsette
nsfwunlocked
onlyfanspromotion
PixelArtNSFW
Chubbytummies
AssPillow
StuckPorn
Afrobull
bestblowjob
AltGirls
indiansgetlaid
qualityblowjob
gaysexconfessions
nzgonewild
RippedLowerGarments
averagegirls
nude1819
exposesissies
bigdickwhitedudes
tgirlscum
gaggingwhores
oralhentai
Femcock
KrissyLynn
StripchatOfficial
fantasydildo
facialcumshots
thotsdailyx
pissing
IloveBimboWhores
backdimples
datbuttfromthefront
thigh
HazelMoorexxx
lactationstation
JuliaJAV
plasttv2
DirtyPantiesGW
trapgifs
medical
lonestarallstars
SnapchatDirtySext
VirginiaGoneWild
amateurgayporn
FTVgirls
KahoShibuya
PussyFocus
impregnation
GaySnapchatShare
twunks
CuckqueanCommunity
SSBBW_FANS
VintageSmut
MaleUnderwear
GarterBelts
GermanCelebs
mengonewild
onlyfansgirls
sissyheaven
Cumonass
hungfemboys
hellopussy
InRealLifeGirls
LacyLennon
boobsmotel
doubleanal
VelmaNSFW
maturehotwomen
bigdickgothgirls
solesandholes
massageforwomen
tsperfection
Yogansfw
Safe4trans
JosephineJackson
bushfrombehind
bfatIRL
cumbonus
fnafpornrp
EmbarrassedHentai
LucyLi
DarkSidePlayground
Precum
CherieDeVille
ElfHentai
lingerieplus
ClopClop
xart
gonewildcanada
AssUsed
adorableporntoo
RiaeSuicide
NoFansCouples
massivefacial_epiccum
bigonemild
analstretching
Amateurwifesonly
topsandbottoms
Affairs
naughtyfromneglect
Ahegaos
Random_Acts_Of_Sex
BritneyAmber
ladyboyporn
sexyover50
malepubes
hentaiai
Ashe_Maree
suckingherownnipples
aussieporn
footjobcum
RetailFlashing
oralpleasure
JaydenJaymes
gaymenfuck
gayteenporn
asiansgonemild
tsCantHoldHerCum
slingbikini
hotguyswithtattoos
femdompersonals
BigTitsRiding
lesbiansmate
SheObeys
waist
WhipItOut
sportsbrasgw
brownandbumpy
SnakeButt
Baddragonfun
dildothreesomes
oliviarodrigonsfw
russianbabes
manyvids
succubus
JuliaAnn
CelebsNL
BoobsInYourFace
FlatChestHentai
HungryForCock
whitegirlgoneblack
omgass
FemdomHandjob
HentaiCumsluts
ballsdeepandcumming2
sissyology
tgirlsluts
PerkyButts
dominantwomen
real_wives_of_reddit
AirTight
gettingbigger
veteransgw
Bustyfit
GentleDungeon
Nsfw_roleplay
girlsshapedlikemewtwo
yologirlsnetwork
femdom_gifs
findom
Zeldass
nekane
onlyfansshmilfs
tennesseegonewild
musclebarbies
homewreckersonlyfans
teasing
chickwithdick
shaidenrogue_
trashyboner
MenWithToys
sexypineapples
bicuriousguyschatnew
AsianPussyAss
blackballed
onlyfansaddict
cuckoldcommunity
nakedtwerking
Realinceststories
extremelyhairywomen
cumonherpanties
fapthots
CNC_Connect
FireForceHentai
PussyParadise_
BigCocksCumming
fortnitensfw
BracesPorn
hymenaltagsgw
shemaleselffacials
TGirl_Feet
helgalovekaty
SolaZola
MalluBabes
StreetFighter_R34
AriellaFerrera
bbwbutthole
StellaCox
Nippleclamp
VlinesAbsAndDick
amazingebonywomen
TgirlsNSFW
selfiesinthenude
GatasBR
wmaf_cucking_am
Scatporn2
Bra
AccidentalCumInMouth
Uncut_cock
whaletails
floridar4r
SizeDiffrence
youboobers
FeralPokePorn
girlsnude
hypnoboobies
xxxhdvideos
chesthairporn
corsetsnsfw
gaycocksuckers
StevenUniverseNSFW
CosplayGirlsNSFW
F4M1
MomNTR
Cutelesbians
soccermomsgw
fuzzypeeks
nudecutegirls
FullFrontalMaleNudity
BestBoobsGifs
saynotowhiteboys
gayporn_nsfw
AbcdTits
Nancy_A
asianfeet
TitfuckBlowjob
HonkaiStarRail34
gonewildgermangirls
bigtiddygothgirls
boobseclipse
IndicaFlower
coloradosluts
flatties
womenSupportsMisogyny
Squattinggirls
fantastictits
fappedtothiss
SideStripeShorts
TitsandAssLovers
BonnieRotten
nsfw_pregnant
SybilA
SubmissiveMaleHentai
NSFWart
texastittys
Flatchested18
AdriaRae
SummertimeSaga
missionary
jaidenanimationr34
FurryFemboy
asians_nude
africanwetpussy
transdeepthroat
GWASapphic
longthicknipples
pussygripping
BoobsPussyAss
smallasians
EliteTranContent
onepiecesuits
POVTranny
Sukebei
bbccheatingcuckolding
mouthwateringpussy
SensualJane
bbcaddicts
Plowcam_NSFW
CelebWouldYouRather
ssbbwbutt
OnlyFansCollabs
KnockoutBoobs
CuckoldCumsWatching
smalldickhumiliation
TrafficTits
dadbod
freshfromtheshower
titsoverdose
hornywivesnextdoor
Bratlife
classy_asses
NSFWTalking
NsfwGifsMonster
boobsglory
largenaturaltits
foottalk
pinkpaws
newyorkninewild
HandsFreeTrans
surprisinglytrappy
nsfwmassive
fresh_teendick
Naturalgirls
latexcosplay
NaomiWoods
Selfsuck
swimmerporn
ballbusting
palg
Holly_Peers
skylanovea
scalieporn
sluttyconfessionsdesi
boobstitsclub
bnwobsessed
ThickHotties_
Onlyfansgirls102
Throatfucked
NeatBush
EbonyPussyOnly
girlcum
Ponytails
cockmilking
maturewoman
titsasteroids
BigBellies
boobsbar
egirlspetite
HotAnal
onlinesugar
rule34uncensored
jockstraps
femaleinferioritycap
pegginghentai
smokingfetish
kurwasuka
GayPornClub
best_tgirls
Chubbypretzels
assvegas
skinnyfaketits
japanesehotties
oiledporn
askdrugs
BoobsWorld
dollylittle
pussygape
Megturney
Slutoon
ChubbyWomen
facesittinghub
amateurbrits
nudetwerk
myheroacademiahentai2
homewreckergirls
ShemaleAddict
pussyviewfrombelow
redgifs
wetfetish
pale_girls
CumSauce
LandingStripNSFW
sexynormalgirl
Arknuts
freejizz
tinycuteteen
grower
WetAndMessy
GirlsWithiPhones
cassie0pia
expansionhentai
pregnantonlyfans
2for1
NSFWskyrim
dross
nakedbutnotafraid
fagsandalphas
transporners
ella_hollywood
hairyonlyfans
PerfectPussy
uniformedmen
cuckoldstories2
jillingcumsluts
IncestCreampies
loona_nsfw
Triplepenetration
yurigif
monstergirlsirl
GayChubs
MilfPanties
shemaleaddiction
MikasaHentai
ABDL
menslockerroom
creampiepanties
AfroQueens
cfnf
altboobworld
HairyGoneWild
VietnameseNSFW
ts_domination
porncomics
sissyfitness
TalentedBlowjob
prostatepleasure
vipfeet
ladiesofcosplay
DutchGoneWild
hofbooty
StandingAsshole
desinsfwsubs
oppai_gif
chastitycuckolding
ShowerBeerGoneWild
onlyeliteasses
Innies
TransFemboysOfColor
shaveddicks
Animations_NSFW
BrooklynChase
cfnmfetish
buttstuffwhilefucking
swimsuitsex
topdownthong
asianpornstars
stockingsgw
hiddenstrapon
nutbank
SensualMFM
SnapchatSextFriends
SheBussy
Love_my_bush
BodyPaintNSFW
SheFem
satxgonewild
bestgirlsgonewild
passionatefuck
Daddypics
Nsfw_realporn
shemaledongs
onlyfans101asstastic
pussyaddicts
Hesquats
striptease
AsianTeensGW
ffnbps
oddlyweird
pornpage
Hairymanass
AnyaOlsen
frenchmaid
NSFWBraids
bbwanal
Violet_Starr
pptts
onlyfans101bustybabes
slimthicc
ts_porn
gooncaves
bostonr4r
sluttyaf
letsseethemboobs
SportsHentai
OnlyFansFootLovers
prematurefetish
ananals
amateurs
TransExplicit
fanslyhoes
freeballing
armpitvoyeur
CleavageAppreciated
FictionalBabes
needyass
michiganswingers
KendraLustNew
clowngirls
playboy_playmates
GirlsWhoFuckFans
blowjobsallday
eldenrule34
german_influ
FootFetishExperiences
GayGroupSex
Esperanza_Gomez
DumpNsfw
lovelyasses
ColouredHairWomenPorn
Femdomdenial
CEI
nymphohentai
darkasshole
AzerothPorn
desigonewild
mexicanagirls
gayholdthemoan
NylonSoles
milfasses
strapondommes
skinnydudes
NotVanilla
Iwanttofuckherhentai
Titstosterone
bbwselfies
stillstraightcaptions
HoldingIt
Mean_Captions
PornHailstorm
bbwsoftworld
redheadsporn
gaycock
MistyNSFW
Blonde_Bombshells
amateurfeets
TransAngel
bbwboobsandbellies
Shinobuhentai
iamatease
Dilfs
californiansgonewild
couples_gw
bbworship
breedmywife
Tatsumaki
OnlyFansBestEver
YuShinoda
bwcbigwhitecocks
predicamentbondage
naturalbabes
QuintupletsHentai
Coloradoswingers
NashvilleGW
assupfacedown
lowhangers
Gaycountryboys
Xchangepill
needyboobs
awesomeshemales
blondepawg
girlswhocheat
lemmeseeyourbulge
Moms_in_thongs
Thick_Ladies
tittyjobs
FuckingFascists
HouseOfBNWO
Hornyhardcoresex
schoolgirlminiskirts
straponpov
monstertits
hornymoms
SmallAsian
Metroid34
chaturbatecam
insanelyhairymen
Whitetoes
PredicamentHentai
PeggingCaptions
redlingerie
SonicPorn
gingerdudes
AmyAnderssen
AZHotWife
notgayporn
MonsterNipples
ncwives
NewZealandGirls
teenblow
AustralianNSFW
droolFetish
freethenipplepics
rippedanimelegwear
Soaking_panties
thickncurvy
OnePunchManR34
VRPornix
MoreSexyASMRGirls
vrchaterp
HouseplantWhores
bbwfication
MoriahMillsOF
Indiansissies
r4rindia
BDSM_Smiles
RealTelariLove
BathtimeGW
TgirlsPorn
TastefullyRevealing
femaleparadise
bbwthongs
UnrealGirls
pornolegends
gaytwitter
fetishbabess
stockingsandhighheels
Feral_Yiff
GayNSFWFunny
Incase
Transdiy
blowjobaddict
hotofficegirls
Cuffed
SissyLink
nudemusclewoman
celebeconomy
PublicBlowjobs
LadiesOfDisneyChannel
DeniedGirls
ShemalesFuck
onlyfanshairy
giantess
utgw
fullyhilted
bikini_milfs
altfeet
nyr4r
shemalethirst
bodypaint
pornwha
titposting
pumping
WoodNymphs
ohdaddy
ShemaleGoneWilder
priyarai
bbwbigasses
menshowering
BimboLovers
AuroraXoxo
gaygermany
Warhammer_Smut
florida_gw
ApsaraBazaar
fleshlight
HairyAssWomen
ShemaleUtopia
daughterswap_com
thongtanlines
handsfree
onlyfanschubbybbw
FilthyBrunettes
stockingfetish
bbwass
YaeMikoNSFW
publichalloffame
feetupcowgirl
coloradosex
MenintroubleJAV
hairygothgirls
CaliSissies
EkaterinaShiryaeva
Sissyforpleasure
NippleSuction
older_moms
kneesupfeetdown
BringingSexyBacks
GeekyChan
PEDs
hugelabialove
dark_nipples
bigtitsbigareolas
albertagirlsgonewild
MaleArmpits
naturalpenis
LasVegasSwingers
r4rtoronto
nympho
pussylipsonly
R34danganronpa
tattooed_redheads
StraponPegging
nativeamericanbabes
LactationPorn
flashpussy
milkingtableporn
cellulite_gw
K9Beast
bigfaketits
literotica
interracialhardcore
girlsgropinggirls
OklahomaGoneWild
RateMyBootyPlease
sacramentogonewild
militarymen
AnyTimeSex
sissyguide
fuckedandfilledasses
CreampieCleanUp
FearMe
fakeboobs
frontviewpanties
SabuArt
Musk4Musk
asssophat
pacificislandgirls
UmaJolie
SunStripes
Dildo_masturbating
mumbaiGWild
suckingontits
MomsMilfsMaturesGilfs
Pokemonporncomics
DirtyGirls2
blondesinblue
BellyExpansion
OnHerBack
ButtholeSpokes
nomakeupxxx
gonemildover30
Gayuklads
hangingboobsonly
CamGirls_all
AIhentai
eFukt
SensualFemdom
Saynototrimming
beachwifesharing
plussizedhotwives2
finnishwhores
adultvrgames
AnkhaNSFW
onlypornnsfw
ontariogonewild
hugecockclub
Manhandled
marriedbidownlow
Ladyboy_Porn
danmarknsfw
digitalnymphs
chastityorgasms
latinawifeys
behindthatthong
Hotgirlswithtattoos
peggingandfemdom
NorthCarolinaGW
calgarygonewildagain
highheelsfetish
BralessSelfies
NicoleDoshi
SexFantasies
hawaiinsfw
Yolobutts
sitonyourface
perfectasses
AdultCamPromo
Sharktits
Incestcuckcaptions
selfpix
curvedcock
Pantiesdown
phonesex
slomoboobs
fivefapsatfreddys
Ebonycumfaces
BoobSandwich
sexyviralbabes
gstringqueens
weirdboobs
AlyxStar
YVRGoneWild
EulaNSFW
BackdoorBeauties
AhegaoHentai
ladiesofdarkness
milflove
GonewildAustralia
forearmporn
solesandface
cholansfw
ShemalesCock
onlythicc
indianahookup
FishnetsGW
cumshotshd
HypnoHookup
foreheadcum
bigbootyaltgirls
KendraSunderlandWorld
brokenlatinawhores
TitTats
Blacktwinks
riding_queens
MomBodNextdoor
HotBabesFromThePast
BlouselessSaree
YorForgerNSFW
sphbetas
Jenniferwhite
mw4
HuggingHentai
cockrings
tamilgw
AnalPorn
PennsylvaniaNSA
VtuberR34
TheArtOfTheTease
tummysquish
fingeredfrombehind
adorable_porn_videos
vicats
YuaMikami
WillowRyderX
baddiewithafatty
JapaneseGokkun
indiansexporn
keyholder
hentaireal
Cali_Carter
losangelespersonals
tidybush
EgirlFeet
NatureNudes
HaileeSteinfeldBooty
BoobsAndBooze
gonewildatwork
Only_porn2
bigboobsmenu
GuysOnGuys
tinychicksbigdicks
up_nsfw
moaning_fetish
shemales_porn
Weddingringshowing
DarkChocolateBabes
ChristmasCake
Adultcontentcreators
asseffect
ELPUNISHERCLUB
HairypussyGw
watchitforthecock
gwinpublic
Kissa_Sins
femdomsph
atlantar4r
njr4r
Brisbanensfw
BookNymphs
confesiones_intimas
BetweenThemTitties
crossdresser_Closet
Humiliatedhoes
girlspoopandfart
hairymilfs
BDSM_Artwork
Gumdrops
furrybooty
creamycocks
EroticHorrorArt
selfsquirting
njhotwife
GoneWildBlondes
esterexposito
atxbangbros
lactatingmoms
shebooty
GharKeKalesh
HugeBoobsDeepThroats
indian_desi_bdsm
AskAnEscort
BroSisPOV
AdorableBoobs
BeastRoleplayers
TitsDrome
TrueHeteroFlexible
sissiesbeingused
HololiveHentai
srilankansgonewild
gaysex
feederism
MartaGromova
blackmale
EdgerunnersR34
girlcocksupremecy
softmaledom
StarFireNSFW
malemoans
femmesdefrance
quiversquirt
interracial_erotica
cartoonporncomics
Dakini
yugioh_nsfw
Feelingsexy
cbtbdsm
pahookups
plastic_girls
GoblinSlayerNSFW
standingnudewomen
biosuits
ActualYuri
YoloGirls
AsianIncestPorn
berpl
hentailactation
hoegram
petitelightskin
tightskirts
tickling
KatanaKombat
MoniqueAlexander
stlouisgw
adorablebdsm
bdsmmemes
azswingers
katerina
bhmgonewild
redgifstrans
IvyWolfe
GirlsOfToronto
vch_piercing
Quebecoise
WaterNymphs
OntarioSwingers
onlyfans101fitgirls
AssSpreadVids
MichiganGW2
groupsexhentai
scifigirls
ratemyassnsfw
mommydomporn
gothiccumshot
pissinghentai
TheBWeroticgallery
cutelegsup
washingtongw
gayfacials
DailyBra_and_Panties
youngsissys
vanessacage
NudeHiking
thaixxx
TSNymphs
ohioamateurs
hentaicameltoe
belgiumgonewild
trimmedshavedbush
BaltimoreAndDCr4r
SuicideGirlsAssholes
tightywhities
beardporn
DoggystyleXXX
gay_teen_paradise
SissyHentaiBDSM
tbutt
Bootyqueens
onlynatural
AnalOnlyLifestyle
chooseapornstar
beautifulandnaked
Whaletailfans
trapsack
NibbleMyNipples
SuperHotTeens
HentaiBondageTales
CruiseShipGW
MensSwimsuitChallenge
amwfporn
Yiffbondage
Condomsgonewild
cumglazed
hentaiforniphilia
furryfutasecondwind
CumCoveredDeepthroat
strikeaposegw
CedehsGifs2
GodBody
getcuck
masturbating4u
AsiansDaily
facebookdrama
FemaleOrgasmPorn
masserect
adultdiffusion
SquatWearingHeels
girlsratecocks
femalebuttsniffers
bellarolland
gay_rape_
hardnipple
blackanal
ToplessInJeansPlus
shittyama
whitegirlsblackdick
bronlyfans
baddragontrainers
BottomlessVixens
uniformfetish
indianroleplay
TransBreastTimelines
gayforpay
ProjectQT
raceplayhentai
BBWFeet
RealisticFutanari
strainedbuttons
redgifsvertical
hotgirlsinyogapants
GayFisting
AInsfw
PornstarTop5
skindentation
KikRoleplay
Tinypanties
pleasuredpixels
cuckoldwifeclub
bicurious_sucking
satinpanties
GayGloryHole
Politicsplay
SpankingPictures
bigassproblems
naturalboobspornstars
fullporncomics
gingerbeauties
NinaElle
FanslyHairy
catgirlsinheat
marylandadultparty
femaleedging
hentairiding
CumFilledPanties
love4ass
BambiSleep
pussystacking
shemalesatisfactions
Youngjusticensfw
PremiumBraBusters
goddesshumiliation
inked_babes
oklahomahotwives
gayconfessions
DragonsFuckingDragons
cdstoriesgonewild
GirlsWithHeadTowels
selectedteens
Everyonelovesporn
Juicycurve_GW
thegaylibrary
igotmypregnancyboobs
cmnf
Lamia
NakedUK
sissyuk
PenisSleeve
clitsandtits
slippery
FatherCuck
boxershorts
OnlySluts
fluid_squishy_boobies
tomboysnsfw
SadakoNSFW
sissycrush
nadinejansen
gapedassholes
HarleyQuinn_Rule34
tattooedgonewild
boobsqueens
amateurwivesgonewild
ArchedBacks
r4rsydneyxxx
ericacampbell
motiontrackedboobs
hairypie
Biglatindicks
ILovePAWGs
PASwingers
OnOffDudes
cagedandplugged
ChurchOfBBC
KpopSexy
club_milf
showmeyourholebro
bussybabes
cogonewild
bichubbyguys
MarylandGoneWild
ThePantyDrawer
Total_Hentai
catboys
themaletaint
anafoxxx
fanslypetitegirls
mensundies
AmiaMiley
countryboycock
the34archives
nsfwasianbeauties
AmberMooreX
upskirtthong
MuslimWifeyX
CelebsOver40nsfw
Chicagohotwives
nakedhot
guysthighsgw
gaymuscleworship
prettyladiesnsfw
Technical_DP
lickingass
FairyTail_R34
asianwebcamgirls
fluffybabes
cutepetite
pussy_delicious
Male_Feet
FanslyChicks
chastityhentai
dignity4attention
dicksinbetweenchicks
Amateur_pov
RealGymBunnies
uncut
Leggings_NSFW
tallgirlshortguy
AnalMom
futarp
queef
ukcuckoldcommunity
GayGoneWilder
bigtoysinbigholes
WalkingBraless
aussiemilfs
animelegwear
Tanya_Bahtina
handjobsluts
full_blowjobs
ArmpitMix
CensoredForFeet
hairycunts
BigBootiesGoneWild
Cervix
desiexhibitionistgw
coupleswatcheachother
Titty_pics
Sexedporn
ASMRStripped
ballstretching
TwinkPits
GumballPorn
futaroleplaypalace
onlytrans
HairySweatyWomen
theseam
FemdomMatriarchy
MashaYangTeamOfficial
AsianGoodGirl
PussyPerfectionX
lesbiangirlsporn
shegifs
HairBrushDildo
FanslyAltGirls
hot_chavs
dmvfreaks
Gspot_squirt
ABDLPersonals
sissy_bbc_dreams
LilyLabeau
perth_get_naughty
pixiechick
japan_nsfw
ShemalesNew
pittsburghgonewild
ClothesOnHentai
Cglpersonals
pulsatingcreampies
SanDiegoAdultsOnly
morefabshemales
AsianCumDumpsters
publicmasturbate
KirikoNSFW
cosplayHQ
FrontViewfuck
fishnetsnsfw
undercocks
dcnsfw
wifethongs
americandadnsfw
theadamfriedlandshow
ZeldaPorn
blackdildos
flexiblensfw
chubbygoddesses
totalmilf
blackswingers
areolaworld
IsThatCUM
asshole_closeup
Dragunball
adorable_nudes
ASOIAFporn
pornpen
DeniedCucks
NudeCelebrityArchive
awesometransgirls
ssbbwfupa
gaythong
gaymencock
newanimecumtributes
onlyfans_asians
ai_uehara
chubby_hentai
Ebonyadmirer
ThePussyPop
shawties2
Hollow_Knight_R34
mirrorfeet
sandiegopersonals
EbonyBDSM
SparrowXXX
hungcutcoccfittwinks
yolostuds
PantyNectar
OnlyFansPaidPromos
Ranked_Girls
EbonyPee
AnimalsKillingPeople
seductiveboyish
resistyourorgasm
PlayboyOnReddit
HyderabadGW2
GWScotland
NakedTeenPrincesse
singlets
theGoodHentai
ShylaStylez
onlyfans101babydolls
ainudes
Hotgirlshotsex
GWMelbourne
IndianOwnedWomen
onlyfansfashionistas
AnnaDeVille
goneinsane
BigButtsHub
GaySmalldicks
SexPositionsNSFW
maconha
gainers
Alyssa_Arce
Coercedbi
OHIOCuckoldPersonals
cubancigars
breeding_creampie
abnormaltits
Michigandate
onoff_hentai
macromastiairl
smallboobstightshirts
milfstars
twinkcockandfeet
learnHentaiDrawing
CuteTummies
armpits_alpha
MixedRaceGirls_NSFW
indiansgone_wild
CruelCheatingStories
girthgods
hungandhanging
bbw_chubby_heaven
Asian_Angels
NaughtyConfessions
Remember to check our Ai Generator: CandyAI

Hi Everyone!
This is my first write-up of any kind of unresolved mystery, on any platform, so I apologize for any formatting errors and my storytelling ability. Today I would like to hear your thoughts on the very mysterious death of Noah Presgrove, a 19 year old from Comanche Oklahoma. I have tried to be as thorough as possible with the details, but there is a great deal of conflicting information in the news reports, so I primarily used facts stated by Noah's family in interviews. With that said, let's begin...
Noah Presgrove was a handsome, athletic 19 year old from Comanche Oklahoma, which is located just south of Oklahoma City in the middle of the state. Noah had recently graduated high school in the spring of 2023 and was waiting for his cousin to do the same the following year so they both could enlist in the Marine Corp together and serve our country. By all accounts Noah was a ladies man, standing at 6'2" with an athletic build, in high school he was a 4-sport athlete with American Football and Wrestling among them. His family also says he was adventurous, kind and very much a jokester who would happily play pranks on his family. Last Labor Day weekend, the first weekend of September 2023, Noah was deciding between attending Rocklahoma, an annual 3-day hard rock and metal festival held in Pryor, Oklahoma, with family members or attending a 4-day Labor Day weekend bash/22nd birthday party of a friend. Noah considered going to Rocklahoma, but changed his mind when the family members he'd be attending with said they didn't think it was a good idea for Noah's 16 year old friend to join them there, since they didn't know this friend's family and Rocklahoma is big for consuming alcohol. With that, everyone went their own way to celebrate the holiday weekend.
The Labor Day/Birthday party was for a female friend of Noah's who was turning 22. It had been advertised on Snapchat, even containing the address, so quite a few people were expected to attend. Noah drove himself to the party on Saturday and by all accounts enjoyed himself. He did text his family member who was at Rocklahoma and express regret at not going with them, but it doesn't appear that this put too much of a damper on his attitude at the house party. After spending Saturday at the birthday girl's house, Noah returned home Sunday, probably to freshen up and take care of any outstanding errands or just check in with his grandmother, with whom he lived. Also, Noah's car was leaking from the oil pan, so it sounds like part of the reason to return home was to leave it there so he wouldn't have to worry about it. There are two stories about what happened next: The first is that one of Noah's friends picked him up from his house on Sunday, but took him to a truck stop so he could grab some food from the Sonic there. Oddly, the friend who took him there says he left him there and Noah was then given a ride to the party by the birthday girl, who had to come pick him up. The other story is that his best friend picked him up from his house and took him directly to the party, leaving him in the driveway. Either way, Noah was back at the party on Sunday and according to those present, was very much enjoying himself. There were videos from the party showing Noah and his friends doing "guy things" like the Slap Game, where two people try to slap each other across the face as hard as they can. Just "macho" drunken teenage guy things. There was also video from the party of the guests playing "classic" party games such as beer pong.
With all the drinking going on, some issues were bound to arise. A confrontation happened between Noah and his best friend. Noah had been in a corner with his best friend's girlfriend and apparently they had their backs to everyone else while talking. The best friend took exception to this and an argument ensued. Luckily, it did not become physical and they made up shortly after, but this event with the best friend and his girlfriend is important for later. A second confrontation occurred between Noah and a 16 year old guest that did become physical. The 16 year old accused Noah of hiding his phone, although the reasons why he thought Noah did it have not been stated. During the argument the kid "fishhooked" Noah and Noah returned the favor by biting his finger. It seems like the other people there were able to diffuse the situation and the kid's phone was found underneath another guest who was sleeping on a couch. As the day went on, things continued to become crazier as the people at the party drank more and more. At one point girls at the party started signing their names on Noah's torso and buttocks, writing things such as "Noah's hot!" and drawing a cartoon penis on his rear-end. Noah and the best friend he had the argument with even drove a John Deere "Gator" UTV "Side by Side" around the property, but stopped when Noah scrapped his hand almost flipping it over. Some people even say that Noah was tossed from the UTV, but he was checked out by a nurse at the party and she said he had nothing to worry about. Another event worth mentioning is that the birthday girl seemed to have a crush on Noah. Noah realized this, or was told this, and while talking to her about it called her a "fat, nasty b*tch". I assume that they were close friends and this is just a drunken teen being a drunken teen. An odd thing to mention is that this girl's mother, who also lives in the home, had told Noah's family that she believed Noah wanted her sexually. Whether this is true or not, I have no clue, but it seems a very weird thing to say to the family of a 19 year old your daughter is friends with.
So here's where the mystery comes in. Early Monday morning (September 4th, 2023), after 2:00am, the guests say that Noah was upset about something and that it might have had to do with sleeping in either the birthday girl's or her mother's bed. One of them either heard, or saw, Noah attempting to sleep in their bed and demanded that he go on the floor. This apparently upset Noah so much that he said he needed to go out for a walk, completely drunk, very early in the morning. The guests say Noah was wearing his best friend's shorts (we'll get to his clothes later) and could only find one of his shoes, so he grabbed another shoe lying around the house and took off out the front door. The house had a 1/2 mile long driveway that then went out to US-81, a major North-South highway that runs for 1,200+ miles through the central US. At 3:41am, a friend of Noah's posted a weird Snapchat: a photo of a girl at the party smiling, with the caption "well, Noah's missing". This was the last Snapchat posted by any of the partygoers after days of constant videos and pics. Around 5:00am, a semi-truck driving along US-81 saw something he believed to be a body lying on the shoulder of the road. After driving past, he became concerned and turned around to confirm what he saw. By the time he got back, two other vehicles had stopped in front of the lifeless body of Noah on the shoulder. He was completely naked wearing only 2 mismatched shoes and curled up in a fetal position. He appeared to have blunt force trauma to the back of his head. He had small scrapes on his left shoulder and left hip and his fingertips on both hands were reported as being "shredded", down to the bone. Noah's front top and bottom teeth had also been knocked out and they were found scattered at the scene. There was no blood found at the scene, other than a small amount around Noah's injuries. Very concerning was the fact that there was no writing on his body anywhere. Not on his torso and not on his buttocks. The shorts Noah was wearing were found folded up next him. The people at the party said "They must've been knocked off when he was hit.", which obviously does not make sense.
Around 6:00am, with the police already notified by the people who found Noah, all Snapchat's/social media from people at the party was deleted. His friends and acquaintances at the party say they have no idea what led up to his death and they were unaware of it. The police did not search the house because they said: "Noah wasn't found there.". They did eventually conduct a "mass" interview with all the partygoers. During this interview, Noah's best friend's girlfriend, the one that led to his first confrontation, told police she had never met Noah. She had wiped her phone so completely that even her boyfriend's number had been deleted. When the guests were asked about Noah being naked, the girls said they gave Noah a "shower", but Noah's mental state at the time, whether mildly drunk or completely inebriated, has been an area of dispute among the guests. Some say he was joking around and being himself while being showered, other accounts state that he was barely conscious. Noah's clothing he wore to the party that night has never been located. Police were told that after Noah showered his clothes were dirty, so he wore his friend's shorts. There is a rumor that his best friend's father found Noah's shirt from the party, which was then cut-up and distributed to the party attendees as a "memento". In addition to this event with his shirt, there is also information that his best friend's father had some of Noah's teeth in his pocket. He stated he "accidentally" picked them up from the crime scene. It's worth stating that this particular individual has been on Noah's family's Facebook memorial page for months, arguing with others on there. Just very odd behavior from an adult father who's son's best friend died mysteriously. But, on this same topic, NONE of the partygoers or their families have ever visited Noah's family to express their condolences. Never once.
Since Noah's friends and others at the party said they didn't know what happened, the police had their work cut out for them. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol obtained a "geofence" warrant covering a 1-1/2 mile radius around the party house. What they found was a bit disturbing. Around the time it is believed Noah died, 2 phones were traced as having left the house, heading to the location of his body. After briefly staying there, the two phones returned to the house. People at the party told a private investigator hired by Noah's family that they went out looking for Noah in the UTV/Gator that Noah and his friend had been on earlier. If they had really done this, they would have found him since the phones were at the spot Noah was found. It has not been released who exactly this was. Also revealed when police searched phones was a video of the birthday girl and her sister on their front porch, screaming at each other about Noah leaving the party. It is believed that this could be relevant. The Texas Rangers also became involved, due to the fact that two men at the party were from Texas. It is not known if these men are persons of interest. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol also quietly issued a warrant for a "black pick-up truck" believed to have been used to dump his body, but it is unknown why they are looking for this particular vehicle. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has unequivocally stated that this was 100% NOT a hit-and-run. They have now also said that this is NOT a murder investigation. The Medical Examiner's report released on Monday, May 13th 2024 stated that Noah died from "Multiple Blunt Force injuries", but list the manner in which this happened as "unknown". His report also detailed extensive injuries to the teen's upper body, including 10 broken ribs, serious skull, neck, and spine fractures, internal bleeding, brain and organ damage, and cuts and grazes all over his body. The autopsy also revealed air in both his cranial cavity and spinal cord, extremely rare conditions only caused by massive head trauma. The family has heard rumors that a golf club from the set in his best friend's truck may have been involved, but nothing else has come of this.
The family has engaged with a private investigator, who did uncover previously unknown information, and gave that to the police. They have also said that there is much more which has not been publicly released and that the search of the phones did uncover good information. Also according to the family, some evidence has been covered-up or lost and that the day after the party, the birthday girl's house and property reeked of bleach. Despite this, his family says good things are going on behind the scenes.
So, with all of the above information, it doesn't seem to be a stretch to say that someone from the party knows something. It is my personal belief that this case will be resolved, but I think three things will have to happen: Time, Pressure and Guilt. At some point in the future, someone from the party will feel guilty, or media pressure will get to them and they will talk. Unfortunately, it may take some time unless the police uncover new evidence sooner. Thank you very much for reading this, but please let me know your thoughts on this case and feel free to ask questions.
Sources:
Podcast (Interview w/ Noah's family): https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jimny-carpenteepisodes/The-Suspicious-Murder-Of-Noah-Presgrove-Part-1-e2dchac
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13421341/Oklahoma-teen-Noah-Presgrove-beaten-death-gang-doctor-claims.html
https://kfor.com/news/local/m-e-releases-more-details-in-19-year-olds-death/
https://www.foxnews.com/us/oklahoma-teen-military-hopefuls-family-cant-imagine-was-murdered-offers-theory-about-last-hours

Hey guys,
My agency exclusively serves dental offices. One of the many services we provided to our clients is creating weekly general interest dental posts for Instagram, Facebook, and GMB so that they all have at least some recent activity and don't look like a dead office. We still encourage them to post their own personal updates as well but most are just happy with our weekly posts.
The process is someone on our team creates an image and a caption, for example "Did you know that plaque leads to cavities?" or "Happy Children's Dental Health Month". Stuff like that. It's not tailored for each practice; every client gets the same exact image and post every week. Since none of our clients compete with each other, it doesn't really seem to have a negative downside and they all seem happy about it.
We've been doing this for years with SocialPilot. Our "legacy" plan right now is $20/month and allows us to connect 200 profiles. We have created a few categories for each type of dentist. For example an orthodontist (braces dentist) will get certain posts (usually for kids/teens) while an implant surgeon will get another type of post (usually for middle age and older).
We're about to bump into this 200 limit, and I see they've significantly raised their pricing over the years since we signed up so it is now $200/month to connect 50 profiles. That would come out to $9,600/year just to even be at the same number of profiles we have now. A 4,000% increase in cost is a hard pill to swallow.
There seem to be so many platforms with so many wildly varying prices, features, and reviews on how reliably well they work. We don't need any kind of advanced analytics, forecasting, AI wizardry, client approval, teams, collaboration. We just need to submit an image and captions to 200 profiles.
What is our best option for doing this? Should we stick with SocialPilot or is there some better tool more tailored to what I'm doing? I seriously appreciate any advice on this issue as it is giving me anxiety. Thank you!!!

So this was removed from nosleep due to an "incomplete story" but I really like it the way I wrote it originally so here it is. Currently working on editing it to fit nosleep properly but we'll see.
*** “She left me.” Muffled sobs dampen my shoulder as I hold my best friend close. “I’ll never see her again.”
I’m sorry, sweetie,” I try to soothe, but she’s inconsolable. It’s a pity, too…her last girlfriend was such a nice girl. I hate to think of where she is now.
“Dani, will you stay with me?” I can’t say no to those wide, pleading eyes, the crystalline tears streaming down her cheeks. I can never say no to her.
Lila and I (both mid-20s F) have been best friends for as long as I can remember. My first memories as a child include her, and according to my parents we’ve been inseparable from day one. I don’t really remember her parents, though, but she’s always been an independent girl. An independent girl who depends on others for validation, which is something she refuses to admit. But I know that. I know her.
I’ve been in love with her since we were teens, and that was also when she started dating around, falling in love with girl after girl. I resigned myself to the best friend role, telling myself that someday I would be the one to take center stage, but I was content with being the shoulder to cry on, the comforting voice accompanied by back rubs.
She would inevitably break up with her girlfriends, or they would break up with her, which was more surprising considering how starstruck each one would look. Each one was smitten with her, so why would they simply leave her? And why, after every single break up, would they leave the state and basically drop off the grid? I didn’t know why until very recently.
And now I no longer want to confess. I don’t know if I even want to remain friends, but I’m more afraid of running away from her without a word. And it’s hard to pretend I don’t still have feelings for her, regardless.
Even now, as Lila clings onto me for comfort, I can’t deny that I’m happy to be there for her.
“I want to be in love again.” Lila stares off into the distance with a wistful expression, tear tracks still smeared over her cheeks. “I want to feel that passion, that spark that turns into a fire…until it consumes us in flames.”
She looks to me, desperate for understanding that only I can give her. And I do, smiling sympathetically, squeezing her hands. No one can understand her like I do, even if we can’t be a couple. Even if I hold my breath every time I’m around her, afraid to so much as breathe wrong.
After a while, she calms down, gratefully accepting tissues to wipe away her tears. She sniffles a little, dabbing at bloodshot eyes, as I put on a movie for some background noise. I know her place like the back of my hand, so I know where everything is. Unfortunately that means I also know some things I really shouldn’t.
Settling back down on the couch, I pull her into my side, letting her snuggle up to me like always.
“I wish I could just date a girl like you,” Lila sighs. “Maybe I should just start dating you.”
I force myself to crack a smile. “Nah, you wouldn’t like dating me. Besides, I like having you as a friend and not a girlfriend.”
She giggles. “Me too, Dani, me too.”
I don’t tell her about how once I’d come over to her house randomly, just to surprise her, and didn’t realize she was out. I don’t say a word about how I found a photo album she’d never shown me before–odd, because doesn’t she show me everything?–and couldn’t resist opening it.
I don’t mention my stunned horror upon seeing picture after picture of past girlfriends, bodies broken and mangled beyond recognition, but always with their faces intact. One of them still had her hands, and another girl still had her collarbone. Those pictures were labeled “Saving the best for last <3” and that caption nearly made me drop the album. But I kept looking. So many pictures of the bodies littered with inhuman teeth marks next to handwritten declarations of love for each girl. All their lovely qualities accompanied by how wonderful their flesh tasted.
I don’t tell her about how I slammed the album shut and placed back where it was. I don’t tell her that when she got home that day and saw me chilling on her couch as usual, I was actually steeling my resolve to never confess my love to her. Ever.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very much in love with her. “But you saw all those pictures,” you might say…well, yes. But there’s something about that angelic face and perfect skin drenched with blood that just does it for me. And she’s still so beautiful, both inside and out. Can I help being drawn to her like a moth to a tantalizing flame? Looking at those pictures made me realize–there’s no way a normal human could have torn into flesh like that with their bare hands. I won’t bring that up, though.
What I will bring up is that there’s a girl at work that I think Lila would absolutely adore. She’s pretty but deep down, so ugly. Ugly enough to try and sabotage me at work, badmouthing me to other coworkers and even taking a promotion from me. Surely Lila would just love her, and love to love her, and love to have her.
But still…am I wrong for keeping my feelings to myself?

“This story is beyond terrible. But please fuck off with this ‘bear > men’ trash. I could just as easily cherry-pick examples of horrible women and caption it ‘this why your playstation > women.’ It’s not helpful, literally not true, and only makes enemies of people who were previously not enemies.”
I posted this comment in a thread titled ‘Why the Bear is Chosen.’ OP linked an article about a teen girl who was raped (and killed?) by 10 teenage boys.
I am so sick to death of that of that discourse and have no interest in bringing it here. But simply, was I wrong? And did this comment warrant a ban?

SOURCE
I'm going to do something a bit different and take a close look at two major works from the DC Universe: Darwyn Cooke's The New Frontier, and James Robinson and Paul Smith's The Golden Age. If you're playing along at home, the texts I'm using are The Absolute New Frontier from 2006 and The Golden Age trade paperback from 1995.
First a bit of personal context: I didn't enjoy The New Frontier when it first came out, serialized in six quite expensive installments. I loved Cooke's art, I loved the use of some of the more obscure DC war characters, and I loved the characterization of the Martian Manhunter, but the narrative didn't work for me when read in small monthly doses back in 2004. I had read all of the full-length work Cooke had done up until 2004, and none of it had disappointed me at all. But The New Frontier seemed to read more like a tour through the 1950s and 1960s than an actual story. It wasn't until the final issue that I really understood what Cooke was leading up to, but then it was over, and I didn't have the time or the inclination to dig out the back issues and read the whole thing in one sitting. Even when I got the two-volume trade paperback collection a couple of years ago (in an eBay lot of trade paperbacks I bought off of none other than comic book scholar George Khoury), I still didn't bother to read it. To paraphrase Hemingway's Frederic Henry, we don't do the things we want to do.
So I never actually read the entire text of The New Frontier until this past winter, when I was able to sit down with the luxurious Absolute edition and dive into Cooke's illustrated world. I enjoyed it immensely, enough that I wanted to reread it again this summer, which is what I have just done, and now I want to talk about it. But I don't want to talk about it in isolation, and I'm interested in the connection between texts, so I'll also talk about its logical precursor: The Golden Age.
Like The New Frontier, Robinson and Smith's The Golden Age deals with the era between the 1940s and the 1960s. The era in which the comic book Golden Age grew into the comic book Silver Age. The era in which America was undergoing its own transformation, moving from threats abroad to suspicion at home. And just as I had difficulty enjoying The New Frontier as a serialized comic, I couldn't appreciate The Golden Age in that manner either. I only bought the first two issues, actually, back in the early 1990s, and then I lost interest, vaguely thinking that I might buy it as a collected edition some day (even though collections were not guaranteed the way they are today). I did buy it when the trade paperback was released, and because I had never finished it originally, I read the collection immediately. And I liked it. But I thought it was deeply flawed.
I reread The Golden Age yesterday, after thinking about it in regards to The New Frontier. It's not a surprising connection, after all. Cooke himself claims The Golden Age as an inspiration for his own work. But my memory of The Golden Age was a bit hazy, and I recalled it being a much more cynical view of the territory than what Cooke achieved in The New Frontier. My recall was pretty accurate--Robinson and Smith present a quite cynical view of the late Golden Age America.
Now that I've read both works back-to-back, I'm interested in exploring what each says about super-heroes, what each says about America, and how each achieves its (very different) effects. These are the kinds of things I'll be looking at over the next few days.
James Robinson's use of History in The Golden Age
One of the things that strikes me about both The New Frontier and The Golden Age is the way the creators weave American history into their stories. On the surface, such a technique might not be surprising, especially considering that both tales take place in the past. And while it may be true that a so-called "historical novel" or "period film" would be amiss to neglect the details of history which fit its setting, the same isn't always true for comics.
In comics, stories set in the past tend to take place in some vague memory of the past, without any apparent intent in locking the stories into a particular date or era. Take the typical origin stories, or "Year One" stories which DC Comics' creators have retold again and again. In such a story, whether it be Miller and Mazzuchelli's take on Batman, or Waid, Augustyn, and Kitson's take on the Justice League, the setting lacks a distinct time stamp. The characters are younger, true, but the setting lacks specific period detail. The reason for this isn't at all surprising, because locking the characters' past into a specific date would require some major explanations about their ages in the present. Had Miller time-stamped the date on Batman: Year One, and included captions saying "May 3rd, 1980," or whatever, then that might have worked for a few years, but even if we assume that Batman was only 23 when he took inspiration from that window-smashing flying rodent, according to that temporal continuity, he'd be 50 years old in the current stories. And he's clearly not.
So we expect stories set in the past to avoid any kind of specific references to contemporary history, at least in comics. A recent jarring exception to that can be found in Diggle and Jock's newly released Green Arrow: Year One, in which a young Oliver Queen references the "Kevin Costner" Robin Hood. That means Queen must have become Green Arrow sometime in the mid-1990s, which might explain his age today (if he was 22 in 1992, he'd be 37 today, which might be right), but it also implies that his son Connor must only be a teenager today, and he's clearly older than that. Perhaps the reference will work better 10 years from now when the Kevin Costner reference will become part of the vague historical past, but right now it seems too current to make sense.
Anyway, the other MAJOR exception to the rule of not using historical references in comics is the case of stories set during World War II. Even comic books written at the time of WWII regularly included time-stamp references in a way that later comics tended to avoid. Yes, since then, Superman has met Kennedy, and you might see analogues of Bill Clinton or George W. in a story or two, but in the 1940s heroes came face to face with major historical figures (contemporaries to them) on an almost daily basis. Here's FDR! Here's Superman grabbing Hitler on a cover! Here's Tojo! Here's Hawkman enlisting in the army to fight overseas! Etc. Such close ties between "comic book reality" and real-life events never matched the heights of the WWII comics.
And that's why later writers, Roy Thomas MOST prominently among them (he practically invented the whole idea of historical nostalgia super-hero comics), felt compelled to weave actual historical events into the retelling of stories from the WWII era. Thomas's Invaders for Marvel and his All-Star Squadron for DC playfully fit the timeline of actual US history into the fictional timeline of the past super-heroes. In his letter columns, Thomas would often explain (or justify, for the more contentious fans) how the chronology worked.
But, other than WWII era-stories, most comic book stories that take place in the past (unless they are time travel stories, which have their own rules) DO NOT USE SPECIFIC HISTORICAL REFERENCES. It's weird to imagine novels or films avoiding such references—they would surely be criticized for it—but in comics, it's commonplace.
So, in the case of both The New Frontier and The Golden Age, you have two rather significant violations of that standard "rule." And both of which seem deeply indebted to the type of approach Roy Thomas favored so much.
Let's take The Golden Age first, since it was published a decade before Cooke's work. The Golden Age seems like a logical off-shoot of Thomas's All-Star Squadron. It features many of the same characters, and Johnny Quick, a relatively obscure DC character from the past, would certainly not have been a suitable narrator for the story without the characterization Thomas provided in years of All-Star Squadron stories. James Robinson is clearly building on the foundation Thomas created. So, it's not surprising that he would, like Thomas, blend US history into his story. Yet Robinson's approach differs in two distinct ways: (1) He doesn't seem interested in the exact historical details and how they fit into his timeline—he seems more interested in the general sense of historical forces of the time, and (2) Unlike Thomas, who was writing out of a Golden and Silver Age optimism and a belief in the American Dream, Robinson was writing from a post-Watchmen perspective, as a foreign-born writer, who could play with the cynical expectations of the time.
Thus, Robinson gives us coke-sniffing "super-heroes," corruption, brutality, and sex in a tale which features the "pure" heroes of the DC Golden Age of comics. Robinson's approach is not to use specific elements of McCarthyism or the Red Scare (even though those ideas are referenced at least once), but to use the general sense of paranoia and panic, the cynical manipulation of the public for personal gain, and the looming threat of the bomb.
Ultimately, however, Robinson uses all of this as a backdrop for a traditional super-hero romp. The coke-sniffing "super-hero" turns out to be Hitler in disguise!!! (Well, actually the brain of Hitler in the body of a former kid sidekick—talk about a symbol of corruption!) And the hero-turned-power-hungry-politician in the form of the patriotic Mr. America turns out to be old JSA villain the Ultra-Humanite, who knows a thing or two about brain transplants. So, in the end, it's just a classic Golden Age story about punching Hitler and defeating an evil genius.
But it's Robinson's historical subtext which makes the story resonate. It's his use of those undercurrents of paranoia and despair which make these formerly perfect heroes of the past seem flawed and human. His story starts dark and becomes darker but, by the end, Robinson's veil of cynicism falls away, and he reveals himself to be a humanist, if not an optimist. His reverence for these Golden Age characters would not let them be truly corrupted—it had to be evil masterminds and Hitler all along.
And that, perhaps, is one of the failures of The Golden Age. The shock of the initial chapters is just a ruse, and as low as these characters seem to sink, everything can be explained by pseudo-science and comic book logic.
It's just another Justice Society of America story, ultimately, but it's a good one. And Robinson's use of the undercurrents from that era of history make it work, even if it never transcends its roots.
The New Frontier and Camelot
While The Golden Age used the historical subtext to evoke currents of paranoia and doom in a super-hero story, The New Frontier approaches history with a different agenda. As Ultimate Matt pointed out in response to yesterday's post, The Golden Age is labeled an "Elseworlds" title, which not only grants it an exemption from DC continuity, but it allows more freedom for the creators to take the characters and setting in a fresh direction.
The New Frontier, however, is not labeled as an "Elseworlds." And yet, it strays far more from the currently accepted version of continuity than The Golden Age does. The key word there is "accepted." Darwyn Cooke, in his annotations, states that he approached The New Frontier with a set of rules:

1. The timeline is real and covers 1945 to 1960. Silver Age characters appear at the time DC started publishing them.
   
2. Retcons haven't happened yet.
   
3. No New Frontier retcons could contradict original continuity—they had to complement existing continuity or show a fresh point of view.
   
4. When the story ended, everything had to be as it was when the JLA debuted in Brave and the Bold #28.
   
5. Snapper Carr does not exist.
   

In other words, you should be able to pull out your original comics from that era (or the Archive editions) and read them concurrently with The New Frontier and nothing Cooke does should contradict what happens in those old comics.
The problem with the continuity is that the comics from that era didn't have any continuity. It was never explained how a character could be on the moon in one issue of his own comic, and under the ocean in the same month in his Justice League adventure. All Golden and Silver Age DC continuity is a retcon. So what Cooke did was create his own continuity—he made his own sense out of the various adventures as they were originally published, although the bulk of the book deals with the time between major events. Just like The Golden Age, The New Frontier is about filling in the gaps.
While James Robinson filled the pre-Silver Age gap with an almost allegorical tale of Cold War paranoia and corruption, Darwyn Cooke fills the gap with a sense of wonder and idealism, and he uses his attitude toward history to solidify that tone.
Cooke's approach takes three strands: (1) The Right Stuff-inspired history of that era, embodied by the test pilots and early astronauts, (2) The early promise of the Kennedy administration, and (3) The strange DC comics history as seen in the stories published during that time. Cooke uses the first two strands to illuminate the latter. He puts the Silver Age ascension into perspective as part of a generation of hope and achievement. He shows that the formation of the Justice League was not a random incident, but part of a larger historical movement which led (in our reality) to things like the Peace Corps and Apollo 11.
Cooke ties together such disparate elements as The War that Time Forgot, The Challengers of the Unknown, Dr. Seuss, and all of the characters who would join the initial incarnation of the JLA into a single narrative. And although it takes quite a while before the villain emerges and the heroes band together, the narrative is structured around the real historical forces that would have shaped the creation of these characters. John Broome doesn't wax poetically about the symbolism of Hal Jordan's career as a test pilot in the original Green Lantern run from the Silver Age, but Cooke takes the fact that he was a test pilot and places him in the actual context of such a man. He even includes a scene where the young Jordan meets Chuck Yeager.
That's quite a different approach to history than we saw in The Golden Age, which covers a very similar time frame.
Although Cooke didn't intend (according to his "rules") to change any of the original stories, his interpretation of "fresh point of view" allows him to add things which would have been more historically true even if they weren't addressed in the comics of the time. For example, he not only changes Wonder Woman into an almost plump, hawkish, zestful character (to signify her Greek origins and Amazon heritage), but he creates an entirely new character to illuminate the civil rights struggle of the time. Since he had no black DC characters to draw upon, he created a Silver Age analogue to Steel, the black Superman ally. The Silver Age Steel, unlike his modern equivalent, isn't a technological marvel. Instead, this earlier incarnation of John Henry suffers at the hands of the KKK before taking vengeance, and ultimately dying when he's betrayed by an uncaring white America (symbolized by a blonde little girl, who points out his location to his pursuers). John Henry never meets the Justice League or teams up with any heroes. His death doesn't affect them at all, really, since they didn't know him. But Cooke includes a scene where Edward R. Murrow mourns the fallen hero and laments the state of the country, bringing an actual historical personage into the DC story.
The civil rights subplot, although powerful, is overwhelmed by the exceeding optimism of the other plot threads. Cooke's America, as full of conflict as it might have been, is one of scientific progress and movement toward a brighter future. His villain, ultimately revealed to be Dinosaur Island itself (a sentient being who has unleashed monster after monster), is even more absurd than the Hitler-brain-transplant nemesis in The Golden Age, but because Cooke accentuates the fun and spectacle of the super-heroes (and, to be clear, his emphasis is on the men and women in the costumes, and the risks they take for their heroism), the absurdity of the villain doesn't detract from the story.
Both The Golden Age and The New Frontier end with similar images (the first appearance of the Justice League banded together) and similar sentiments (hope for the future), but where James Robinson built that hope out of the wreckage of the 1940s, Darwyn Cooke builds it out of the dreams of the men and women who sacrificed for the promise of tomorrow.
Both books end with optimism for comic books and optimism for our country, but they took starkly different approaches to get there.
The Unstoppable Force of Progress: Characterization in The New Frontier
Since both The New Frontier and The Golden Age re imagine comic book chronology through one part actual US history, one part comic book history, and one part imagination, it's not surprising to find both Cooke and Robinson taking liberties with the characterization of these pre-Silver Age heroes. Both creators ask the question asked by any creator attempting to retell stories from the past: Okay, this is how they were portrayed, but what were the characters who did these things REALLY like?
I'll start by looking at The New Frontier. Cooke doesn't focus his story on one dominant point of view the way Robinson does (with Johnny Quick), but he tells his story through a few central characters:
Rick Flagg: Leader of the WWII-era Suicide Squad (and presumably the father, or grandfather, of the Ostrander-penned incarnation). Cooke presents him as a tough guy cliché. He's a Hemingway hero—he does what needs to be done and doesn't whine about it or waver in his determination. In Act III of the narrative, his position in the story is replaced by the similarly-characterized King Faraday, who also does what needs to be done, although he seems to have more internal conflict than Flagg. Faraday is a spy, after all, not a soldier. But both characters represent a government which has the best interests of the country in mind. If they hurt a few individuals along the way, that's a necessary sacrifice for the good of the many.
Hal Jordan: The man who would be Green Lantern is NOT portrayed as a cocky rocket jock, as he usually is in contemporary interpretations. Cooke turns his lack of fear into a self-destructive streak stemming from his face-to-face act of self-defense in Korea. In Cooke's universe, Jordan doesn't immediately become a hero just because an alien handed him a ring. It takes time for Jordan to learn that he deserves to be a hero, and that's a large part of what The New Frontier is about. He doesn't reveal himself in Green Lantern costume until AFTER he risks his life to save the world working as a pilot. The two-page "hero shot" of the characters walking towards camera (a la The Right Stuff) shows some costumed heroes, but Jordan is wearing a flight suit. Cooke seems to be showing that he needed to prove himself TO himself before he could accept his new identity, but his reluctance to use the power of the ring leads to Nathaniel Adam's death. (Adam is later reborn as Captain Atom in the comics, but that doesn't happen in this story, and as far as Jordan should be concerned, Adam is dead.) Cooke doesn't provide Jordan with any time for remorse, though, since he needs to use his ring to kick alien butt. The ring, by the way, is also shown as a symbol of destructive energy. When Jordan first uses it, he cannot control it, and it causes great damage. Cooke, then, seems to indicate that the ring might symbolize nuclear energy, and the subtext would be that Jordan's hesitance to use it led to another hero's death. Ultimately, Jordan is Cooke's symbol of the Kennedy era: conflicted, yet determined to bring forth a positive future—harnessing great powers for the good of the nation (and the world).
John Jones, the Manhunter from Mars: Jones says, "...this is a world where good and evil struggle in all levels of existence. I want to be a force for good." That's a simplistic view of humanity, but it's one seemingly shared by Cooke throughout this work. Good and evil may not be easily discernible on the surface, and Cooke gives us the threatening-looking John Henry (with a hangman's hood) as a hero and a little blonde girl as a villain, but the line between good and evil is absolute (and, in fact, John Jones assumes the role of a film-noirish detective so he can find the evil beneath the surface appearance of the world). Jones defines this ethical stance for the reader, and it represents the code of Golden and Silver Age comic books, which lacked anything but absolutes. Even though Cooke might try to provide some not-so-subtle shades of gray (Jordan as a murderer, Wonder Woman as feminist avenger, an undercurrent of xenophobia), his view of history seems to echo the simplicity of the comic book stories of the era. Individuals may not have always done the right things at all times, but it was an era of progress, and good triumphed over evil. The subtext could also indicate that governmental order triumphed over chaotic nature, with the unified heroes, under the leadership of the US government, destroying a threat that wasn't so much malicious as it was animalistic.
Even though Cooke's characterization of some of these characters, Hal Jordan in particular, might not match traditional representations of these individuals, I think it works in the context of the story. The characters serve the story and add a few layers to the text, but it's primarily a historical action spectacle, a celebration of progress over stagnation, and Cooke's characterization unifies the text. I don't think his characters have many hidden depths, but I think their lack of depth matches a story which is primarily about the grand force of history.
As one final observation: Cooke is actually better at small character moments with the minor characters than he is at developing convincing lead characters. The death of Johnny Cloud, Jimmy Olsen's eagerness, the sassiness of Carol Ferris, and several other character bits show Cooke's facility on the small scale, even if his epic narrative doesn't provide the opportunity for subtle nuances with the major characters.
Characterization in The Golden Age: Dragging Heroes to Earth
While Cooke ignores anyone else's retroactive continuity to graft archetypal personalities onto the early Silver Age heroes in The New Frontier, Robinson takes characters straight out of Roy Thomas's All-Star Squadron (like Johnny Quick on the left here) and Young All-Stars and sends them on a dark journey into the 1950s. Robinson does not re imagine these characters drastically, although he seems to do so with Mr. America (but that's part of his narrative ruse). Instead, he takes their established characterization and expands upon it by adding seeds of self-doubt, paranoia, and despair as the characters face a world in which the villains are not as easily identified as they once were. Robinson misdirects the reader at first by pretending to adopt a simplified Watchmen approach, pretending that he's showing what these characters would have been like without costumed villains to fight or gangsters to punch, when, in truth, he's simply changed the nature of the evil to something more covert and less easy to spot. (Which might seem Watchmen-esque as well, except Alan Moore showed us that the heroes were the villains in that story, and here, Robinson ultimately reveals that secret villains with brain-transplant powers were behind the whole thing from the beginning.)
Here's a quick rundown of the central characters in The Golden Age:
Johnny Chambers, a.k.a Johnny Quick: Johnny not only provides the book-ends to the story but, as a documentary filmmaker, he provides the exposition which sets up the story context. One of the things Robinson does NOT do well here, by the way, is clearly distinguish between narrative voice (provided through white, rectangular caption boxes), and newsreel voice over (also provided by white, rectangular caption boxes), although perhaps the colorist was supposed to use different color cues for each and didn't. The CHARACTERS who narrate, like Johnny Chambers, each have their own style of caption—Johnny's are rounded and blue, as you can see in the image. Actually, it's not that it's so difficult to identify the narrative voice, it's just that there is an omniscient narrator who pops up every once in a while for no good reason, and tells us things about the story sometimes, while other times he sounds like he's trying to give us character thoughts but not really: the highly subjective "fingers...fumbling...focusing...trying to..." immediately follows the objective "a photographer lurks among the rubble." The photographer is the one who's fingers are supposedly fumbling as he tries to snap the photo, so why does the caption sound like a bad Batman internal monologue? This really has nothing to do with Johnny Chambers, but I just wanted to point out this major flaw in the narration throughout. With so many characters (Johnny being one) actually providing narration through captions, why does Robinson add an omniscient narrator also? It's jarring and ineffective. It's like he took the strategies of Watchmen with the multiple points of view, and then spliced the conventional narrator on top of it. It just doesn't work.
But a few more things about Johnny: He smokes, and he wears glasses. He still has his powers, but even though they would help him in his day job, he doesn't use them. And he's incredibly suspicious, which is the characteristic that makes him the character the reader most identifies with. He's also lost the woman he loves because he works too hard, although he gets her back in the end. In short, he's a slightly older (although he actually seems to get younger as the story progresses, perhaps symbolizing his return to heroic stature), slightly more sullen, slightly more flawed version of the character we saw in the comics produced in the 1980s (even though those stories were set in the 1940s). He refers to his costumed self as "That Jerk!" at the beginning of the story, but ends on a hopeful note as he describes a "new age...fresh and clear and bright...as sterling silver!" He's never really a cynic, but his pessimism and self-loathing turns to optimism in the end (even quickly dismissing the threat of McCarthyism to look ahead to the glowing future of super-heroics).
Paul Kirk, a.k.a Manhunter: If we play out the James-Robinson-is-trying-to-do-Watchmen-but-not-as-well game a bit more, we could say that if Johnny Chambers is the Dan Dreiberg analogue (the low-self-esteem voice of reason and calm) then Paul Kirk is clearly the Rorschach character. He's the crazy one who will surely upset the apple cart, yet isn't that what has to happen in order to get to the truth? That's his role, anyway. Unlike Rorschach (in his insane way), Kirk doesn't have a methodical approach to uncovering the truth. In fact, he's tormented by the truth, which lies buried beneath mind implants, exploding into awareness only through a series of horrible dreams. He seems deeply disturbed because of the War, but he's actually deeply disturbed because of the secrets he knows. He's another character, like Johnny, who seems to become more youthful and vibrant in the final Act, when he is able to unleash his demons through old-fashioned fisticuffs. Unlike Johnny, though, he visibly suffers for a long time before he reaches the point of action. Here's a sample of his internal monologue from one of his many tortured dreams: "Save the eagle. Save it. Save—n...no...nooooohhhh!!" Then he wakes up and thinks, "Still afraid." That's about the extent of his characterization. He's tormented, fearful, and knows he should be better than that. And, "save the eagle?" Geez, I wonder what in the world that could possibly mean in a book about corruption within the American government. Clearly, even though this book is directed at an older audience than the original Golden Age tales, Robinson keeps his symbolism quite simplistic.
Tex Thompson, a.k.a. Mr. America, and Daniel Dunbar, a.k.a. Dan the Dyna-Mite: These are the two characters most radically changed from their Golden Age counterparts. Mr. America was a whip-wielding patriotic hero and Dan was a kid sidekick who later, under Roy Thomas's writerly guidance, became one of the lead characters in Young All-Stars. In Robinson's story, Mr. America becomes a corrupt politician who seeks power by any means necessary, and Dan the Dyna-Mite becomes America's beloved Dynaman, the only active costumed crime fighter of the time. And he snorts coke. And he's evil.
Neither of these two characters have internal monologues via captions for the reader, because that would give away the twist. Tex Thompson is not really who he seems, for he has the brain of the evil Ultra-Humanite (who has in previous stories adopted the forms of a gigantic white gorilla and a hot ex-starlet, among others). And Daniel Dunbar, who has fallen so far from grace in our eyes (a former teen sidekick with a drug problem whoring around) actually has the BRAIN OF ADOLF HITLER!
So there's not much to say about the characterization here, since these are two evil characters in the most simplistic way. What is interesting, though, is that (a) Robinson chooses one character, Thompson, who seems vaguely sleazy to modern readers anyway, what with that whip and the mustache, and when he's shown to be corrupt, we can buy into it, falling into Robinson's trap of thinking that it's just a regular dude becoming corrupted by power; and (b) Robinson's use of the pure and innocent Dunbar is also a good choice, because it is not only shocking to see him corrupted so extremely (before the truth of the brain-swap is revealed), but it's a nod to cultural expectations about former child stars, who, by the 1990s, were expected to grow up and become criminals or drug addicts or worse, at least by our tabloid-fascinated society.
Like a director who makes his film better through excellent casting, Robinson uses the right two ex-heroes in the apparent role of the villains. His bait-and-switch works, although I was personally disappointed that the threat turned out to be external (evil villains) and not the corruption of these characters from within.
Robinson uses other characters to show the corruption of innocence and loss of the heroic dream. Robotman, so noble in Roy Thomas's All-Star Squadron, has lost any humanity by the time of this story—he's pure machine, while Alan Scott, Green Lantern is conflicted about his duty as a business leader and law-abiding citizen and his passion for ring-slinging and butt-kicking. Hourman is shown to be addicted to his Miraclo pills, while the man once known as the Tarantula is an egoist with writer's block. Ted Knight, Starman, who Robinson would go on to write with great depth and sensitivity in the ongoing series about Jack Knight, is a mad genius who is trying to put the pieces of this shattered world together through science.
I should add here that Robinson, unlike Cooke, isn't drawing from the original sources as the basis for his story. He's adapting his characterizations from the work done during contemporary comics, as Roy Thomas provided retroactive characterization (and explanations) for the WWII-era heroes. Robinson is building on the layers which Roy Thomas built upon the layers which Gardner Fox (among others) built.
Overall, Robinson does provide a sense of disillusionment in his characterizations in this story, even if his narrative technique is sometimes sloppy or inconsistent. Cooke tried to add a bit of humanity to iconic characters in his work, but he was mostly interested in the icons of the era. Robinson drags his characters down into the muck and then builds them back up again, hoping to show how their inner humanity wins out (with all of its flaws) in the face of systematic adversity. Cooke's characters inhabit the skies, the stars. Robinson's characters live on the ground.
So, the final verdict, after looking at The Golden Age and The New Frontier for a week: Not much different than my initial assessment after reading them both last weekend. The Golden Age is flawed because of its inconsistent narrative point of view and it's cheap, brain-swapping revelations. Robinson and Smith capture the disillusionment and paranoia of the time quite well, but it all amounts to nothing except a superhero slug fest in the end. It's 80% of a great work, and 20% of stuff that doesn't quite fit (including the optimistic ending, which seems unearned). As part of a larger, genre-wide trend to make super-heroes more "realistic," violent, and depressing, I'm not a huge fan of its influence.
The New Frontier is flawed, but it's a flawed masterpiece, and I can imagine revisiting the story many times in the future (and I can't say the same about The Golden Age). Cooke tries to include too much in the narrative, and the main threat of Monster Island isn't presented as well as it needs to be, but the book contains dozens of amazing sequences, and it features sharp, engaging characters who flash in and out of the story. The speed of the narrative demands that the book be read quickly, and it works best when read this way, not because it allows the reader to gloss over the weak parts of the story, but because The New Frontier is an overture, and can be best appreciated when all of its notes are heard in rapid sequence. I didn't love it when it first came out, in the completely inappropriate floppy installments, but I loved it after reading the Absolute version a week ago, and I love it just as much after studying it closely all week.
As one final thought: Both The Golden Age and The New Frontier tap so deeply into comic book lore, and I am so deeply embedded in it myself, that I wonder if either of these works has any merit for a "civilian" reader. And I wonder if, perhaps, the darker, more "realistic" tone would be appealing to a non-comics fan, more so, perhaps, than the wide-eyed optimism (tinged with bits of darkness) seen in Cooke's work. Or would the non-comics fan find both stories completely useless and without merit? Are both works examples of the snake swallowing its own tail? I've already been swallowed by the snake of comic book geekery, so I can't answer that one.

I’m totally open to being wrong on this one but I want to pose this question to see if anyone else agrees or has insight.
I’m not suggesting that we make DCI non-competitive. I think competitions help give a purpose to creating the best art that can come out of the medium. Plus I don’t even think taking competition away would work to resolve the issues I’m talking about (proof: the 2021 season).
My point being, I think the current model of drum corps is unsustainable simply because we let it be. We’re taking ourselves too seriously. We want to climb the ranks and be in the best corps imaginable, which requires corps to raise prices to continue to provide the world class education necessary to be the best, which in turn drives members away due to finances or other reasons. Corps tend to ask members to sacrifice a lot of their personal lives and goals to the corps in order to MAYBE medal in a given year. Which then drives people away due to financials or other opportunity costs. Which then causes corps to raise prices due to rising costs and less people auditioning…so on so forth. And I don’t think making drum corps non-competitive would work because people would still try to one up each other and charge high prices for the best members to create the best show. Yes, 2021 was non-competitive. That doesn’t mean people weren’t talking about which corps was better or which caption was better. There was still this undercurrent of “what’s this other corps doing” and “how can we do better” that detracted from simply letting the corps exist and focus on members experience and lessons
If we focused on a more regional approach with the goal of fostering community and culture within a corps, and de-emphasized the need to win a championship every year while still providing a competitive atmosphere, we might be able to grow the activity back to what it was. That’s what the “good ‘ol’ days” were about anyway right? Providing a competitive outlet to a bunch of local junior corps of teens and young adults who wanted a group to belong in. If we stopped taking ourselves too seriously…would we actually end up growing the activity by knocking down the barriers that have kept so many members from marching to begin with? It’s not that there isn’t a demand for people to march corps, it’s that we take ourselves so seriously within the competitive scene that we drive people away for a multitude of factors.

I really need someone to just vent this out to and maybe get advice on what I could do because right no I feel so trapped and it feels like theres only one way out. I cant afford a therapist even tho I really wish I could see one.
When I was younger around 8ish my parents split and my dads job had him moving all over the US from New York, to Arkansas, to Texas, to South Carolina, etc. Because of all the moving I rarely got to be put into public school, and was forced into homeschooling for most of my prior years. Instead of actually properly engaging with me tho, I just got handed a text book and had to solve it myself while my father worked or played his MMO Warcraft. I got my first laptop at around the age of 8-10 maybe and because I had nothing else to do I guess I just started getting really big into gaming and being online.
Then when I was about 15 we settled down in a ghost town in Texas. Some stupid college town with literally nothing to do. We have 1 street with fast food chains, an empty abandoned mall, and 1 or 2 bars, 1 of which recently shut down. I had a kind of hard time fitting in at school since it was my first time in an actual public school and it was my Freshman year in college. My father forced me and my brother to play football and while I was athletic, I couldnt catch for shit but my father was so proud anytime I was on the field so I just stopped fighting it and forced myself to get through it. Im about 5'6-5'7 range of height and that made it much harder as well.
Anyway, about in my sophomore year or so, maybe a bit earlier I started getting in trouble. Like a lot of trouble, running away, fights, tresppassing, breaking into cars and stealing, destruction of property. Thinking back on it, a lot of it was just me acting out for attention because it seemed like the only time my father or really anyone would pay attention was when I forced them to. My father was on his 5th new girlfriend who I hated and I had 2 awful step siblings that got the golden treatment while me and my 2 younger brothers were treated much worse. Around this time I also sort of came to terms with the my mother not caring about us. She would visit every summer or so or we'd go down once a year to visit thanksgiving with her side of the family and for the most part that was always fun.
But my mom was a major hippie. Like a real junkie. Every year or 2 it was a new abusive horrible boyfriend that would treat me and my brothers like shit and my mom and him were always shifting between being super lovey and cute with eachother when they were drunk or high out of their minds, to the inveitable fighting and yelling at eachother about how he treats her and us kids, or how she is always yelling at him over little things whenever their high or buzz eventually wore off. I could never really understand it. Why she couldnt come see us more often as she only lived a little over an hour and a half away. She would use the excuse that she didnt have that kind of money to take us down and feed us and what not or had no one to watch us. But I saw and I knew how much she spent on weed and alcohol and it must have been at least 250 a month bare minimum. It always felt like she didnt *want* to see us.
And my father, Ive already eluded to how he was very dismissive of me and my brothers but he also had anger issues. He wasnt necessarily abusive but he would yell and he would scream about how fucking stupid I was for doing x and x or how I need to treat his girlfriends better. And Id yell back. His mother, my grandma has extremely bad mental health disorder (I dont know what specifically) but it causes her to go manic when shes off her medication and seeing as my grandpa didnt believe in that (the 1900s am I right) and seeing as they were both extreme christians she often would not take them and this caused her to lash out and abuse my father by both yelling and screaming but also by beating him with a belt or a pan or her hands.
I think this is why my father is the way he is, why hes so emotionally stunted and closed off.
When I was 17 my life was actually at its peak, I was finally starting to do better in school, I had a solid group of friends with and just a lot of really healthy relationships. But then I met this girl, and she sort of clung to me, presumably because she had a crush on me (duh). And would pester me all the time. This really got to me because for the first time in my life there was someone prying for MY attention instead of the other way around. She was extremely forward, texting me all the time, holding onto my arm while we walked down the halls, waiting for me at lunch, after school, after class, etc. I was starting to fall for her hard.
At this time I actually had a best friend who I really liked because despite all my flaws she seemed to genuinely care about me. I liked her at the time but I wasnt sure if she liked me back and I was too scared to ask. And so, when I met this new girl who seemed to be very clearly into me I folded and sooner than later we were officially dating. This is where everything went down hill. My friends stopped hanging out with me as much because they thought she was "very sexual" for a lack of better wrods or whatever and didnt approve, and Id push them away when I argued that she wasnt and that she was misunderstood and abused.
This relationship would end up being extremely toxic. She made me block friends, If my friend was a woman, I had to cut ties with them. (which was a lot of my friends that I had left). And then things started getting really bad. She was very obsessive and abusive, if I looked at a girl the wrong way, if I was too nice to a waiter, or she thought they were too nice to me, it was somehow my fault and she'd start acting distant. Replying with small answers, leaving me on open, until eventually I apologized and then BOOM she was all over me again. And this continued anytime I did something she didnt like she'd withhold any affection, refused to talk it out, would scream and throw things, lock herself in rooms, threaten to hurt herself. She also pulled me into smoking weed which became a constant thing for us.
Around this time I should also mention, my father had disenrolled me from school early into my Junior year due to skipping classes and fighting, and also my girlfriend had gotten in a huge fight with her parents and she got kicked out and came to live with us.
She was VERY intimate, and would often hurt me at my most vulnerable. When I would break down about things in my past or because of a really shitty day she would waste no time using that in later conversations. And during sex she would often scratch or bite or keep going even when I told her to stop because it hurt or I was uncomfortable or not in the mood and when I finally would get physical and push her off she would just throw something at me or hit me and say something like "Fucking p**sy, Youre such a loser" and then would spend the next few hours acting like Im the bad guy saying things like "You think Im ugly" "You dont wanna fuck me anymore" etc etc. And she was pretty much with me 24/7 as she lived with me at this point, eveyr morning, every night.
Things continued like this for about a year and right when I was gonna break up with her, and I think she could tell because I was starting to be more standoffish, I had finally reconnected with some friends. She got pregnant. I was too fucking naive and horny I guess and so extremely dumb hat I just believed her when she told me she was on birth control. I mean we'd had sex many many times before hand without a condom and there was never any issue.
Anyway, this was the real downfall. I couldnt make her get an abortion, and I didnt wanna be forced to pay 40% child support for the rest of my young life. So I stuck with her, and I got a job working about 50hrs a week at a chicken factory. I made pretty good money but I came home miserable. On the bright side I finally kicked my weed addiction for both my sake but more importantly my sons. I wasnt gonna be the same as my mother or father. But once our attentions wernt on eachother anymore, it became all about the kid.
We had an agreement, that since Im on my feet and using my back and hands all day Id usually come home with very swollen hands and feet and I just wanted 30m to an hour to myself to just relax and calm down after work but this only lasted for maybe a month or 2 before she started pawning our son off on me the moment I was home. I came home to dishes all over the room, clothes sitting in the bin for weeks without being washed, overflowing trash. It was horrible.
Things pressed on like that while the relationship just deteriorated further and further and before I knew it, 3 years had passed. Now Im 21, and we basically dont talk to eachother at this point and just share a space and a kid together. But one day I wake up and my ex is gone, and so is my son. She had left in the middle of the night and all I had was a text from one of her friends saying she breaks up with me and shes leaving with my son. I try to contact her but Im blocked on literally everything with no way of knowing where they went. I didnt care that she was gone, but not knowing where my son was killed me. I spent 3 long months hiring a lawyer and tracking her down and eventually found her staying in a womens shelter claiming I was abusive.
Eventually our day in court came even tho I paid 9k for a lawyer with a really high success rate, and I had an actual home, and a good system of connections for the kids, and a family that Im actually in contact with, and a job and a car. I had photos, videos of her breakdowns, screenshots of her message threatening myself and herself. I had witnesses, and even court documents about her being sent to a mental hospital for her issues and her parents both having gone to jail for possession of drugs and YET even despite all of this, she was able to walk in with no legal support, coming from a shelter with no home and no body to reach out to and yet somehow she still fucking won custody of our son. I promise you Im not being biased in this explination, she somehow won and I blame it on the fact that we lived in good ol sexist Texas where the mother always get the kid no matter what and because they wanted me to pay child support. I cant explain it in any way that makes sense.
Anyway, I wallowed in defeat drunk for about 3 months after that until I got a message from my ex saying that she's being evicted from the shelter and she has nowhere left to go but her uncles house. Thing is, our court doc had a special restriction to being within 30m of eachother, and though she absolutely could have found a way around it I was somehow able to convince her to sign custody over to me since she has no other options as she was gonna be kicked from the shelter and would be breaking the border restriction if she left. And it actually worked and for the first time in months I had my kid back.
Now flashforward a year and a half, Im 22 now and turning 23 in a about 6 months. But my life feels so empty. I live with my parents because I cant afford childcare, and also work and pay off a home and a car at the same time. I have no friends and no girlfriend and its so fucking lonely. And anytime I try to talk to people I just fuck it all up because I dont use social media, Im not familiar with the current trends, I dont have time to hang out or go drinking or smoking, or just go on trips because I have to stay home and watch my son. I have a group of friends Ive known for about 4 years online and some of us from the group finally met up in Chicago for a 4 day weekend trip Fri-Mon last weekend and while I felt a little akward because it was my first time out in years where I could actually enjoy myself and it was my first time really in a big city.
I really did have the best time of my life in years and I really really enjoyed it for the most part, it was my first taste of real freedom and fun in as long as I can remember. But then when we got home and we called the next day and shared stories and photos, it was all just talking about how akward I was or how it felt like I hated the trip and that Id just wander off or just seemed anti-social. These wernt just jokes either, they were actively being outwardly mean for what seemed like no reason. Saying they were happy the trip was over and saying they could never go on a trip with us again. All very mean spirited jokes and jabs, and then came the videos and photos where they took of me just kinda sitting akwardly or when I was drunk. And it would just go back to them making a "Yikes" face.
A little bit of context- so there are 5 of us in the GC that have known eachother and called almost every other day for about 4 years. 3 out of 5 of us went on the trip, It was a girl and her boyfriend and then there was another man that we had added to the GC maybe a few months prior. The entire trip, it seemed like the 2 in a couple were sort of othering us, they were doing there thing and we were along for the ride. They would take photos of themselves only, they would whisper and just talk to eachother mostly the entire time, and anytime we would say something it was usually just 1 note response before they would go back to talking to eachother. All of this combined with me just gawking at the fact that I was ACTUALLY there and I would just kinda of zone out sometimes and admire the city and foot traffic and just appreciate the fact I was there. (These were the moments they would capture on camera and say that I was being awkward or anti-social) but they didnt capture all the moments we were actively talking and walking or any of the other good moments like back in the hotel room when we were all just chilling and laughing it up.
When I got home and they just broke out all the insults and were being super mean out of nowhere for literally no reason it just got to me. I wanna be mad at them but Im not Im just super depressed. It was such a fun trip and they basically just ruined it saying the entire time they felt weirded out or they felt like I was sad or unhappy the entire trip. To be fair, Im really stoic, in the sense that I dont show a lot of emotion, seemingly getting that from my father, and I do have a resting frown. So when theyre sitting there talking about the latest Kendrick Lamar vs Drake drama or some tiktok trend or something I didnt understand I would just be kinda left sitting there without knowing what was going on.
The other guy we added to the GC, he was actually really cool to be around, he could hold a convo, and we talked a lot about morals, and shows, and politics, and video games, and things I could relate to and when I asked him about the Drama or Tiktok trend he would actually go out of his way to fill me in and explain it and answer my questions where as the other 2 would just kinda respond with a simple answer and act annoyed when I was like "Ah that makes sense" or "Oh ok I get it". I deleted snapchat awhile back because my son kept posting photos on my story. But when I redownloaded it yesterday I was able to watch all the snaps from the moment our planes landed and we met, to the moment we said goodbye at the airport and all my feelings were validated. The entire time they were sneaking bad photos and recordings of me, and captioning it with things about how they think Im upset or that Im being awkward and sending it to the snap GC.
And my whole world kinda crumbled as I just went through 30 minutes of photos and videos of all of them just talking about me that way behind my back the entire time and seeing how they really felt. During the trip I kept apologizing and telling them Im not upset and that its all just very new to me and I dont get out often and I already felt terrible because my feet were extremely blistered and bruised from all the walking and I felt like I was ruining their fun on the trip and they just kept saying "No its fine!" "Dw about it" "No seriously we're ok, just tried".
Anyway in our call I kind of called them out saying I dont get why theyre acting this way even tho on the trip we seemed to be having a good time and they just got mad at me like "oh my god relax, its not that big of a deal" and yea.
It feels like Im trapped in this cycle where my depression and isolation causes me to act awkward or have a hard time conversing and connecting to people and that makes it hard to make friends or find a girlfriend, but also the loneliness and isolation is whats causing my depression and Ive tried looking up all the advice on how to be more confident or talk to people or whatever but I just cant do it. When Im talkative I come off as "too much" or annoying and yappy but when I dont try as hard Im too quiet. I cant get out of this hole that I spent my entire life digging and now it feels like I might never get out.
I wanna go to college, I want the life that I see everyone my age living, active on social media, travelling, participating in trends, going out to clubs and just enjoying their 20-30s. The worst part is, is that even tho I love my son with every ounce of my being, Im often negligent towards him. He brings toys to me and asks me to play with him and I just tell him not right now while I watch my latest yt video or show, or play games with friends online, and I just feel myself becoming my father and repeating his mistakes. I dont make sure my sons is well clothed and showered, I wear the same clothes multiple days in a row sometimes, and I can already see my son lashing out for attention the same way I did in my teens. Hes 4, some attitude is to be expected, but I know this an attention thing because he acts so good with my aunt or my step mother.
I feel horrible because I wanna do better, I wanna be better but idk how. Ive been considering that it may be in my sons best interest if I give him back to my ex. She has a good life right now with a good car, job, and home and shes finally been clean for awhile. Both of her parents are dead and she has no connection to immediate family but when she sees him she treats him so well and hes always begging to see her again. She genuinely shows him the kind of love and attention he needs. But a part of my feels like if I give him up, Im just like my mother. Abandoning my kid for my own selfish reasons. I could move to the big city with my saved up cash or even camp out of my car as Ive always dreamed of that kind of life. Maybe stay in a dorm or get a roomate while I study in college with a part time job. So Im not left behind in the world
Ive tried justifying it by saying that its better for both of us, and that at this rate Ill be a nobody and he'll grow up just as fucked up as I am. But maybe if I can get out and change the course of my life, I could actually be successful and pay for his college when hes ready, and take him on trips around the world and buy him things. And he'd have a loving mother, and I could still come visit more often than my mother did. Im just so scared. I dont wanna be my father but I dont wanna be my mother either and I cant imagine coming to terms that maybe she wasnt horrible after all. And then I get worried about the logistic, what could go wrong if I give him up. What if my ex decides randomly that she wants child support even tho we agreed no child support was needed. And then my life is fucked all over again but I also lose my son.
I tried researching and In Texas, the judge can decide its "not in the childs best interest" for me not to pay child support or for me to terminate my parental rights even if BOTH me and my ex agree to the terms. So I could be forced into having my life ruined even if we both agree that I dont need to.
I feel alone, and isolated and I have no one to talk to about this and I have no help. No matter how I look at it, my life feels like its over before it even got started and all I can think about is ending it all because it feels like whats the point. Please help me know what to do

I really need someone to just vent this out to and maybe get advice on what I could do because right no I feel so trapped and it feels like theres only one way out. I cant afford a therapist even tho I really wish I could see one.
When I was younger around 8ish my parents split and my dads job had him moving all over the US from New York, to Arkansas, to Texas, to South Carolina, etc. Because of all the moving I rarely got to be put into public school, and was forced into homeschooling for most of my prior years. Instead of actually properly engaging with me tho, I just got handed a text book and had to solve it myself while my father worked or played his MMO Warcraft. I got my first laptop at around the age of 8-10 maybe and because I had nothing else to do I guess I just started getting really big into gaming and being online.
Then when I was about 15 we settled down in a ghost town in Texas. Some stupid college town with literally nothing to do. We have 1 street with fast food chains, an empty abandoned mall, and 1 or 2 bars, 1 of which recently shut down. I had a kind of hard time fitting in at school since it was my first time in an actual public school and it was my Freshman year in college. My father forced me and my brother to play football and while I was athletic, I couldnt catch for shit but my father was so proud anytime I was on the field so I just stopped fighting it and forced myself to get through it. Im about 5'6-5'7 range of height and that made it much harder as well.
Anyway, about in my sophomore year or so, maybe a bit earlier I started getting in trouble. Like a lot of trouble, running away, fights, tresppassing, breaking into cars and stealing, destruction of property. Thinking back on it, a lot of it was just me acting out for attention because it seemed like the only time my father or really anyone would pay attention was when I forced them to. My father was on his 5th new girlfriend who I hated and I had 2 awful step siblings that got the golden treatment while me and my 2 younger brothers were treated much worse. Around this time I also sort of came to terms with the my mother not caring about us. She would visit every summer or so or we'd go down once a year to visit thanksgiving with her side of the family and for the most part that was always fun.
But my mom was a major hippie. Like a real junkie. Every year or 2 it was a new abusive horrible boyfriend that would treat me and my brothers like shit and my mom and him were always shifting between being super lovey and cute with eachother when they were drunk or high out of their minds, to the inveitable fighting and yelling at eachother about how he treats her and us kids, or how she is always yelling at him over little things whenever their high or buzz eventually wore off. I could never really understand it. Why she couldnt come see us more often as she only lived a little over an hour and a half away. She would use the excuse that she didnt have that kind of money to take us down and feed us and what not or had no one to watch us. But I saw and I knew how much she spent on weed and alcohol and it must have been at least 250 a month bare minimum. It always felt like she didnt *want* to see us.
And my father, Ive already eluded to how he was very dismissive of me and my brothers but he also had anger issues. He wasnt necessarily abusive but he would yell and he would scream about how fucking stupid I was for doing x and x or how I need to treat his girlfriends better. And Id yell back. His mother, my grandma has extremely bad mental health disorder (I dont know what specifically) but it causes her to go manic when shes off her medication and seeing as my grandpa didnt believe in that (the 1900s am I right) and seeing as they were both extreme christians she often would not take them and this caused her to lash out and abuse my father by both yelling and screaming but also by beating him with a belt or a pan or her hands.
I think this is why my father is the way he is, why hes so emotionally stunted and closed off.
When I was 17 my life was actually at its peak, I was finally starting to do better in school, I had a solid group of friends with and just a lot of really healthy relationships. But then I met this girl, and she sort of clung to me, presumably because she had a crush on me (duh). And would pester me all the time. This really got to me because for the first time in my life there was someone prying for MY attention instead of the other way around. She was extremely forward, texting me all the time, holding onto my arm while we walked down the halls, waiting for me at lunch, after school, after class, etc. I was starting to fall for her hard.
At this time I actually had a best friend who I really liked because despite all my flaws she seemed to genuinely care about me. I liked her at the time but I wasnt sure if she liked me back and I was too scared to ask. And so, when I met this new girl who seemed to be very clearly into me I folded and sooner than later we were officially dating. This is where everything went down hill. My friends stopped hanging out with me as much because they thought she was "very sexual" for a lack of better wrods or whatever and didnt approve, and Id push them away when I argued that she wasnt and that she was misunderstood and abused.
This relationship would end up being extremely toxic. She made me block friends, If my friend was a woman, I had to cut ties with them. (which was a lot of my friends that I had left). And then things started getting really bad. She was very obsessive and abusive, if I looked at a girl the wrong way, if I was too nice to a waiter, or she thought they were too nice to me, it was somehow my fault and she'd start acting distant. Replying with small answers, leaving me on open, until eventually I apologized and then BOOM she was all over me again. And this continued anytime I did something she didnt like she'd withhold any affection, refused to talk it out, would scream and throw things, lock herself in rooms, threaten to hurt herself. She also pulled me into smoking weed which became a constant thing for us.
Around this time I should also mention, my father had disenrolled me from school early into my Junior year due to skipping classes and fighting, and also my girlfriend had gotten in a huge fight with her parents and she got kicked out and came to live with us.
She was VERY intimate, and would often hurt me at my most vulnerable. When I would break down about things in my past or because of a really shitty day she would waste no time using that in later conversations. And during sex she would often scratch or bite or keep going even when I told her to stop because it hurt or I was uncomfortable or not in the mood and when I finally would get physical and push her off she would just throw something at me or hit me and say something like "Fucking Vagina ( She obv used the P-word instead), Youre such a loser" and then would spend the next few hours acting like Im the bad guy saying things like "You think Im ugly" "You dont wanna fuck me anymore" etc etc. And she was pretty much with me 24/7 as she lived with me at this point, eveyr morning, every night.
Things continued like this for about a year and right when I was gonna break up with her, and I think she could tell because I was starting to be more standoffish, I had finally reconnected with some friends. She got pregnant. I was too fucking naive and horny I guess and so extremely dumb hat I just believed her when she told me she was on birth control. I mean we'd had sex many many times before hand without a condom and there was never any issue.
Anyway, this was the real downfall. I couldnt make her get an abortion, and I didnt wanna be forced to pay 40% child support for the rest of my young life. So I stuck with her, and I got a job working about 50hrs a week at a chicken factory. I made pretty good money but I came home miserable. On the bright side I finally kicked my weed addiction for both my sake but more importantly my sons. I wasnt gonna be the same as my mother or father. But once our attentions wernt on eachother anymore, it became all about the kid.
We had an agreement, that since Im on my feet and using my back and hands all day Id usually come home with very swollen hands and feet and I just wanted 30m to an hour to myself to just relax and calm down after work but this only lasted for maybe a month or 2 before she started pawning our son off on me the moment I was home. I came home to dishes all over the room, clothes sitting in the bin for weeks without being washed, overflowing trash. It was horrible.
Things pressed on like that while the relationship just deteriorated further and further and before I knew it, 3 years had passed. Now Im 21, and we basically dont talk to eachother at this point and just share a space and a kid together. But one day I wake up and my ex is gone, and so is my son. She had left in the middle of the night and all I had was a text from one of her friends saying she breaks up with me and shes leaving with my son. I try to contact her but Im blocked on literally everything with no way of knowing where they went. I didnt care that she was gone, but not knowing where my son was killed me. I spent 3 long months hiring a lawyer and tracking her down and eventually found her staying in a womens shelter claiming I was abusive.
Eventually our day in court came even tho I paid 9k for a lawyer with a really high success rate, and I had an actual home, and a good system of connections for the kids, and a family that Im actually in contact with, and a job and a car. I had photos, videos of her breakdowns, screenshots of her message threatening myself and herself. I had witnesses, and even court documents about her being sent to a mental hospital for her issues and her parents both having gone to jail for possession of drugs and YET even despite all of this, she was able to walk in with no legal support, coming from a shelter with no home and no body to reach out to and yet somehow she still fucking won custody of our son. I promise you Im not being biased in this explination, she somehow won and I blame it on the fact that we lived in good ol sexist Texas where the mother always get the kid no matter what and because they wanted me to pay child support. I cant explain it in any way that makes sense.
Anyway, I wallowed in defeat drunk for about 3 months after that until I got a message from my ex saying that she's being evicted from the shelter and she has nowhere left to go but her uncles house. Thing is, our court doc had a special restriction to being within 30m of eachother, and though she absolutely could have found a way around it I was somehow able to convince her to sign custody over to me since she has no other options as she was gonna be kicked from the shelter and would be breaking the border restriction if she left. And it actually worked and for the first time in months I had my kid back.
Now flashforward a year and a half, Im 22 now and turning 23 in a about 6 months. But my life feels so empty. I live with my parents because I cant afford childcare, and also work and pay off a home and a car at the same time. I have no friends and no girlfriend and its so fucking lonely. And anytime I try to talk to people I just fuck it all up because I dont use social media, Im not familiar with the current trends, I dont have time to hang out or go drinking or smoking, or just go on trips because I have to stay home and watch my son. I have a group of friends Ive known for about 4 years online and some of us from the group finally met up in Chicago for a 4 day weekend trip Fri-Mon last weekend and while I felt a little akward because it was my first time out in years where I could actually enjoy myself and it was my first time really in a big city.
I really did have the best time of my life in years and I really really enjoyed it for the most part, it was my first taste of real freedom and fun in as long as I can remember. But then when we got home and we called the next day and shared stories and photos, it was all just talking about how akward I was or how it felt like I hated the trip and that Id just wander off or just seemed anti-social. These wernt just jokes either, they were actively being outwardly mean for what seemed like no reason. Saying they were happy the trip was over and saying they could never go on a trip with us again. All very mean spirited jokes and jabs, and then came the videos and photos where they took of me just kinda sitting akwardly or when I was drunk. And it would just go back to them making a "Yikes" face.
A little bit of context- so there are 5 of us in the GC that have known eachother and called almost every other day for about 4 years. 3 out of 5 of us went on the trip, It was a girl and her boyfriend and then there was another man that we had added to the GC maybe a few months prior. The entire trip, it seemed like the 2 in a couple were sort of othering us, they were doing there thing and we were along for the ride. They would take photos of themselves only, they would whisper and just talk to eachother mostly the entire time, and anytime we would say something it was usually just 1 note response before they would go back to talking to eachother. All of this combined with me just gawking at the fact that I was ACTUALLY there and I would just kinda of zone out sometimes and admire the city and foot traffic and just appreciate the fact I was there. (These were the moments they would capture on camera and say that I was being awkward or anti-social) but they didnt capture all the moments we were actively talking and walking or any of the other good moments like back in the hotel room when we were all just chilling and laughing it up.
When I got home and they just broke out all the insults and were being super mean out of nowhere for literally no reason it just got to me. I wanna be mad at them but Im not Im just super depressed. It was such a fun trip and they basically just ruined it saying the entire time they felt weirded out or they felt like I was sad or unhappy the entire trip. To be fair, Im really stoic, in the sense that I dont show a lot of emotion, seemingly getting that from my father, and I do have a resting frown. So when theyre sitting there talking about the latest Kendrick Lamar vs Drake drama or some tiktok trend or something I didnt understand I would just be kinda left sitting there without knowing what was going on.
The other guy we added to the GC, he was actually really cool to be around, he could hold a convo, and we talked a lot about morals, and shows, and politics, and video games, and things I could relate to and when I asked him about the Drama or Tiktok trend he would actually go out of his way to fill me in and explain it and answer my questions where as the other 2 would just kinda respond with a simple answer and act annoyed when I was like "Ah that makes sense" or "Oh ok I get it". I deleted snapchat awhile back because my son kept posting photos on my story. But when I redownloaded it yesterday I was able to watch all the snaps from the moment our planes landed and we met, to the moment we said goodbye at the airport and all my feelings were validated. The entire time they were sneaking bad photos and recordings of me, and captioning it with things about how they think Im upset or that Im being awkward and sending it to the snap GC.
And my whole world kinda crumbled as I just went through 30 minutes of photos and videos of all of them just talking about me that way behind my back the entire time and seeing how they really felt. During the trip I kept apologizing and telling them Im not upset and that its all just very new to me and I dont get out often and I already felt terrible because my feet were extremely blistered and bruised from all the walking and I felt like I was ruining their fun on the trip and they just kept saying "No its fine!" "Dw about it" "No seriously we're ok, just tried".
Anyway in our call I kind of called them out saying I dont get why theyre acting this way even tho on the trip we seemed to be having a good time and they just got mad at me like "oh my god relax, its not that big of a deal" and yea.
It feels like Im trapped in this cycle where my depression and isolation causes me to act awkward or have a hard time conversing and connecting to people and that makes it hard to make friends or find a girlfriend, but also the loneliness and isolation is whats causing my depression and Ive tried looking up all the advice on how to be more confident or talk to people or whatever but I just cant do it. When Im talkative I come off as "too much" or annoying and yappy but when I dont try as hard Im too quiet. I cant get out of this hole that I spent my entire life digging and now it feels like I might never get out.
I wanna go to college, I want the life that I see everyone my age living, active on social media, travelling, participating in trends, going out to clubs and just enjoying their 20-30s. The worst part is, is that even tho I love my son with every ounce of my being, Im often negligent towards him. He brings toys to me and asks me to play with him and I just tell him not right now while I watch my latest yt video or show, or play games with friends online, and I just feel myself becoming my father and repeating his mistakes. I dont make sure my sons is well clothed and showered, I wear the same clothes multiple days in a row sometimes, and I can already see my son lashing out for attention the same way I did in my teens. Hes 4, some attitude is to be expected, but I know this an attention thing because he acts so good with my aunt or my step mother.
I feel horrible because I wanna do better, I wanna be better but idk how. Ive been considering that it may be in my sons best interest if I give him back to my ex. She has a good life right now with a good car, job, and home and shes finally been clean for awhile. Both of her parents are dead and she has no connection to immediate family but when she sees him she treats him so well and hes always begging to see her again. She genuinely shows him the kind of love and attention he needs. But a part of my feels like if I give him up, Im just like my mother. Abandoning my kid for my own selfish reasons. I could move to the big city with my saved up cash or even camp out of my car as Ive always dreamed of that kind of life. Maybe stay in a dorm or get a roomate while I study in college with a part time job. So Im not left behind in the world
Ive tried justifying it by saying that its better for both of us, and that at this rate Ill be a nobody and he'll grow up just as fucked up as I am. But maybe if I can get out and change the course of my life, I could actually be successful and pay for his college when hes ready, and take him on trips around the world and buy him things. And he'd have a loving mother, and I could still come visit more often than my mother did. Im just so scared. I dont wanna be my father but I dont wanna be my mother either and I cant imagine coming to terms that maybe she wasnt horrible after all. And then I get worried about the logistic, what could go wrong if I give him up. What if my ex decides randomly that she wants child support even tho we agreed no child support was needed. And then my life is fucked all over again but I also lose my son.
I tried researching and In Texas, the judge can decide its "not in the childs best interest" for me not to pay child support or for me to terminate my parental rights even if BOTH me and my ex agree to the terms. So I could be forced into having my life ruined even if we both agree that I dont need to.
I feel alone, and isolated and I have no one to talk to about this and I have no help. No matter how I look at it, my life feels like its over before it even got started and all I can think about is ending it all because it feels like whats the point. Please help me know what to do

I really need someone to just vent this out to and maybe get advice on what I could do because right no I feel so trapped and it feels like theres only one way out. I cant afford a therapist even tho I really wish I could see one.
When I was younger around 8ish my parents split and my dads job had him moving all over the US from New York, to Arkansas, to Texas, to South Carolina, etc. Because of all the moving I rarely got to be put into public school, and was forced into homeschooling for most of my prior years. Instead of actually properly engaging with me tho, I just got handed a text book and had to solve it myself while my father worked or played his MMO Warcraft. I got my first laptop at around the age of 8-10 maybe and because I had nothing else to do I guess I just started getting really big into gaming and being online.
Then when I was about 15 we settled down in a ghost town in Texas. Some stupid college town with literally nothing to do. We have 1 street with fast food chains, an empty abandoned mall, and 1 or 2 bars, 1 of which recently shut down. I had a kind of hard time fitting in at school since it was my first time in an actual public school and it was my Freshman year in college. My father forced me and my brother to play football and while I was athletic, I couldnt catch for shit but my father was so proud anytime I was on the field so I just stopped fighting it and forced myself to get through it. Im about 5'6-5'7 range of height and that made it much harder as well.
Anyway, about in my sophomore year or so, maybe a bit earlier I started getting in trouble. Like a lot of trouble, running away, fights, tresppassing, breaking into cars and stealing, destruction of property. Thinking back on it, a lot of it was just me acting out for attention because it seemed like the only time my father or really anyone would pay attention was when I forced them to. My father was on his 5th new girlfriend who I hated and I had 2 awful step siblings that got the golden treatment while me and my 2 younger brothers were treated much worse. Around this time I also sort of came to terms with the my mother not caring about us. She would visit every summer or so or we'd go down once a year to visit thanksgiving with her side of the family and for the most part that was always fun.
But my mom was a major hippie. Like a real junkie. Every year or 2 it was a new abusive horrible boyfriend that would treat me and my brothers like shit and my mom and him were always shifting between being super lovey and cute with eachother when they were drunk or high out of their minds, to the inveitable fighting and yelling at eachother about how he treats her and us kids, or how she is always yelling at him over little things whenever their high or buzz eventually wore off. I could never really understand it. Why she couldnt come see us more often as she only lived a little over an hour and a half away. She would use the excuse that she didnt have that kind of money to take us down and feed us and what not or had no one to watch us. But I saw and I knew how much she spent on weed and alcohol and it must have been at least 250 a month bare minimum. It always felt like she didnt *want* to see us.
And my father, Ive already eluded to how he was very dismissive of me and my brothers but he also had anger issues. He wasnt necessarily abusive but he would yell and he would scream about how fucking stupid I was for doing x and x or how I need to treat his girlfriends better. And Id yell back. His mother, my grandma has extremely bad mental health disorder (I dont know what specifically) but it causes her to go manic when shes off her medication and seeing as my grandpa didnt believe in that (the 1900s am I right) and seeing as they were both extreme christians she often would not take them and this caused her to lash out and abuse my father by both yelling and screaming but also by beating him with a belt or a pan or her hands.
I think this is why my father is the way he is, why hes so emotionally stunted and closed off.
When I was 17 my life was actually at its peak, I was finally starting to do better in school, I had a solid group of friends with and just a lot of really healthy relationships. But then I met this girl, and she sort of clung to me, presumably because she had a crush on me (duh). And would pester me all the time. This really got to me because for the first time in my life there was someone prying for MY attention instead of the other way around. She was extremely forward, texting me all the time, holding onto my arm while we walked down the halls, waiting for me at lunch, after school, after class, etc. I was starting to fall for her hard.
At this time I actually had a best friend who I really liked because despite all my flaws she seemed to genuinely care about me. I liked her at the time but I wasnt sure if she liked me back and I was too scared to ask. And so, when I met this new girl who seemed to be very clearly into me I folded and sooner than later we were officially dating. This is where everything went down hill. My friends stopped hanging out with me as much because they thought she was "very sexual" for a lack of better wrods or whatever and didnt approve, and Id push them away when I argued that she wasnt and that she was misunderstood and abused.
This relationship would end up being extremely toxic. She made me block friends, If my friend was a woman, I had to cut ties with them. (which was a lot of my friends that I had left). And then things started getting really bad. She was very obsessive and abusive, if I looked at a girl the wrong way, if I was too nice to a waiter, or she thought they were too nice to me, it was somehow my fault and she'd start acting distant. Replying with small answers, leaving me on open, until eventually I apologized and then BOOM she was all over me again. And this continued anytime I did something she didnt like she'd withhold any affection, refused to talk it out, would scream and throw things, lock herself in rooms, threaten to hurt herself. She also pulled me into smoking weed which became a constant thing for us.
Around this time I should also mention, my father had disenrolled me from school early into my Junior year due to skipping classes and fighting, and also my girlfriend had gotten in a huge fight with her parents and she got kicked out and came to live with us.
She was VERY intimate, and would often hurt me at my most vulnerable. When I would break down about things in my past or because of a really shitty day she would waste no time using that in later conversations. And during sex she would often scratch or bite or keep going even when I told her to stop because it hurt or I was uncomfortable or not in the mood and when I finally would get physical and push her off she would just throw something at me or hit me and say something like "Fucking p**sy, Youre such a loser" and then would spend the next few hours acting like Im the bad guy saying things like "You think Im ugly" "You dont wanna fuck me anymore" etc etc. And she was pretty much with me 24/7 as she lived with me at this point, eveyr morning, every night.
Things continued like this for about a year and right when I was gonna break up with her, and I think she could tell because I was starting to be more standoffish, I had finally reconnected with some friends. She got pregnant. I was too fucking naive and horny I guess and so extremely dumb hat I just believed her when she told me she was on birth control. I mean we'd had sex many many times before hand without a condom and there was never any issue.
Anyway, this was the real downfall. I couldnt make her get an abortion, and I didnt wanna be forced to pay 40% child support for the rest of my young life. So I stuck with her, and I got a job working about 50hrs a week at a chicken factory. I made pretty good money but I came home miserable. On the bright side I finally kicked my weed addiction for both my sake but more importantly my sons. I wasnt gonna be the same as my mother or father. But once our attentions wernt on eachother anymore, it became all about the kid.
We had an agreement, that since Im on my feet and using my back and hands all day Id usually come home with very swollen hands and feet and I just wanted 30m to an hour to myself to just relax and calm down after work but this only lasted for maybe a month or 2 before she started pawning our son off on me the moment I was home. I came home to dishes all over the room, clothes sitting in the bin for weeks without being washed, overflowing trash. It was horrible.
Things pressed on like that while the relationship just deteriorated further and further and before I knew it, 3 years had passed. Now Im 21, and we basically dont talk to eachother at this point and just share a space and a kid together. But one day I wake up and my ex is gone, and so is my son. She had left in the middle of the night and all I had was a text from one of her friends saying she breaks up with me and shes leaving with my son. I try to contact her but Im blocked on literally everything with no way of knowing where they went. I didnt care that she was gone, but not knowing where my son was killed me. I spent 3 long months hiring a lawyer and tracking her down and eventually found her staying in a womens shelter claiming I was abusive.
Eventually our day in court came even tho I paid 9k for a lawyer with a really high success rate, and I had an actual home, and a good system of connections for the kids, and a family that Im actually in contact with, and a job and a car. I had photos, videos of her breakdowns, screenshots of her message threatening myself and herself. I had witnesses, and even court documents about her being sent to a mental hospital for her issues and her parents both having gone to jail for possession of drugs and YET even despite all of this, she was able to walk in with no legal support, coming from a shelter with no home and no body to reach out to and yet somehow she still fucking won custody of our son. I promise you Im not being biased in this explination, she somehow won and I blame it on the fact that we lived in good ol sexist Texas where the mother always get the kid no matter what and because they wanted me to pay child support. I cant explain it in any way that makes sense.
Anyway, I wallowed in defeat drunk for about 3 months after that until I got a message from my ex saying that she's being evicted from the shelter and she has nowhere left to go but her uncles house. Thing is, our court doc had a special restriction to being within 30m of eachother, and though she absolutely could have found a way around it I was somehow able to convince her to sign custody over to me since she has no other options as she was gonna be kicked from the shelter and would be breaking the border restriction if she left. And it actually worked and for the first time in months I had my kid back.
Now flashforward a year and a half, Im 22 now and turning 23 in a about 6 months. But my life feels so empty. I live with my parents because I cant afford childcare, and also work and pay off a home and a car at the same time. I have no friends and no girlfriend and its so fucking lonely. And anytime I try to talk to people I just fuck it all up because I dont use social media, Im not familiar with the current trends, I dont have time to hang out or go drinking or smoking, or just go on trips because I have to stay home and watch my son. I have a group of friends Ive known for about 4 years online and some of us from the group finally met up in Chicago for a 4 day weekend trip Fri-Mon last weekend and while I felt a little akward because it was my first time out in years where I could actually enjoy myself and it was my first time really in a big city.
I really did have the best time of my life in years and I really really enjoyed it for the most part, it was my first taste of real freedom and fun in as long as I can remember. But then when we got home and we called the next day and shared stories and photos, it was all just talking about how akward I was or how it felt like I hated the trip and that Id just wander off or just seemed anti-social. These wernt just jokes either, they were actively being outwardly mean for what seemed like no reason. Saying they were happy the trip was over and saying they could never go on a trip with us again. All very mean spirited jokes and jabs, and then came the videos and photos where they took of me just kinda sitting akwardly or when I was drunk. And it would just go back to them making a "Yikes" face.
A little bit of context- so there are 5 of us in the GC that have known eachother and called almost every other day for about 4 years. 3 out of 5 of us went on the trip, It was a girl and her boyfriend and then there was another man that we had added to the GC maybe a few months prior. The entire trip, it seemed like the 2 in a couple were sort of othering us, they were doing there thing and we were along for the ride. They would take photos of themselves only, they would whisper and just talk to eachother mostly the entire time, and anytime we would say something it was usually just 1 note response before they would go back to talking to eachother. All of this combined with me just gawking at the fact that I was ACTUALLY there and I would just kinda of zone out sometimes and admire the city and foot traffic and just appreciate the fact I was there. (These were the moments they would capture on camera and say that I was being awkward or anti-social) but they didnt capture all the moments we were actively talking and walking or any of the other good moments like back in the hotel room when we were all just chilling and laughing it up.
When I got home and they just broke out all the insults and were being super mean out of nowhere for literally no reason it just got to me. I wanna be mad at them but Im not Im just super depressed. It was such a fun trip and they basically just ruined it saying the entire time they felt weirded out or they felt like I was sad or unhappy the entire trip. To be fair, Im really stoic, in the sense that I dont show a lot of emotion, seemingly getting that from my father, and I do have a resting frown. So when theyre sitting there talking about the latest Kendrick Lamar vs Drake drama or some tiktok trend or something I didnt understand I would just be kinda left sitting there without knowing what was going on.
The other guy we added to the GC, he was actually really cool to be around, he could hold a convo, and we talked a lot about morals, and shows, and politics, and video games, and things I could relate to and when I asked him about the Drama or Tiktok trend he would actually go out of his way to fill me in and explain it and answer my questions where as the other 2 would just kinda respond with a simple answer and act annoyed when I was like "Ah that makes sense" or "Oh ok I get it". I deleted snapchat awhile back because my son kept posting photos on my story. But when I redownloaded it yesterday I was able to watch all the snaps from the moment our planes landed and we met, to the moment we said goodbye at the airport and all my feelings were validated. The entire time they were sneaking bad photos and recordings of me, and captioning it with things about how they think Im upset or that Im being awkward and sending it to the snap GC.
And my whole world kinda crumbled as I just went through 30 minutes of photos and videos of all of them just talking about me that way behind my back the entire time and seeing how they really felt. During the trip I kept apologizing and telling them Im not upset and that its all just very new to me and I dont get out often and I already felt terrible because my feet were extremely blistered and bruised from all the walking and I felt like I was ruining their fun on the trip and they just kept saying "No its fine!" "Dw about it" "No seriously we're ok, just tried".
Anyway in our call I kind of called them out saying I dont get why theyre acting this way even tho on the trip we seemed to be having a good time and they just got mad at me like "oh my god relax, its not that big of a deal" and yea.
It feels like Im trapped in this cycle where my depression and isolation causes me to act awkward or have a hard time conversing and connecting to people and that makes it hard to make friends or find a girlfriend, but also the loneliness and isolation is whats causing my depression and Ive tried looking up all the advice on how to be more confident or talk to people or whatever but I just cant do it. When Im talkative I come off as "too much" or annoying and yappy but when I dont try as hard Im too quiet. I cant get out of this hole that I spent my entire life digging and now it feels like I might never get out.
I wanna go to college, I want the life that I see everyone my age living, active on social media, travelling, participating in trends, going out to clubs and just enjoying their 20-30s. The worst part is, is that even tho I love my son with every ounce of my being, Im often negligent towards him. He brings toys to me and asks me to play with him and I just tell him not right now while I watch my latest yt video or show, or play games with friends online, and I just feel myself becoming my father and repeating his mistakes. I dont make sure my sons is well clothed and showered, I wear the same clothes multiple days in a row sometimes, and I can already see my son lashing out for attention the same way I did in my teens. Hes 4, some attitude is to be expected, but I know this an attention thing because he acts so good with my aunt or my step mother.
I feel horrible because I wanna do better, I wanna be better but idk how. Ive been considering that it may be in my sons best interest if I give him back to my ex. She has a good life right now with a good car, job, and home and shes finally been clean for awhile. Both of her parents are dead and she has no connection to immediate family but when she sees him she treats him so well and hes always begging to see her again. She genuinely shows him the kind of love and attention he needs. But a part of my feels like if I give him up, Im just like my mother. Abandoning my kid for my own selfish reasons. I could move to the big city with my saved up cash or even camp out of my car as Ive always dreamed of that kind of life. Maybe stay in a dorm or get a roomate while I study in college with a part time job. So Im not left behind in the world
Ive tried justifying it by saying that its better for both of us, and that at this rate Ill be a nobody and he'll grow up just as fucked up as I am. But maybe if I can get out and change the course of my life, I could actually be successful and pay for his college when hes ready, and take him on trips around the world and buy him things. And he'd have a loving mother, and I could still come visit more often than my mother did. Im just so scared. I dont wanna be my father but I dont wanna be my mother either and I cant imagine coming to terms that maybe she wasnt horrible after all. And then I get worried about the logistic, what could go wrong if I give him up. What if my ex decides randomly that she wants child support even tho we agreed no child support was needed. And then my life is fucked all over again but I also lose my son.
I tried researching and In Texas, the judge can decide its "not in the childs best interest" for me not to pay child support or for me to terminate my parental rights even if BOTH me and my ex agree to the terms. So I could be forced into having my life ruined even if we both agree that I dont need to.
I feel alone, and isolated and I have no one to talk to about this and I have no help. No matter how I look at it, my life feels like its over before it even got started and all I can think about is ending it all because it feels like whats the point. Please help me know what to do

I really need someone to just vent this out to and maybe get advice on what I could do because right no I feel so trapped and it feels like theres only one way out. I cant afford a therapist even tho I really wish I could see one.
When I was younger around 8ish my parents split and my dads job had him moving all over the US from New York, to Arkansas, to Texas, to South Carolina, etc. Because of all the moving I rarely got to be put into public school, and was forced into homeschooling for most of my prior years. Instead of actually properly engaging with me tho, I just got handed a text book and had to solve it myself while my father worked or played his MMO Warcraft. I got my first laptop at around the age of 8-10 maybe and because I had nothing else to do I guess I just started getting really big into gaming and being online.
Then when I was about 15 we settled down in a ghost town in Texas. Some stupid college town with literally nothing to do. We have 1 street with fast food chains, an empty abandoned mall, and 1 or 2 bars, 1 of which recently shut down. I had a kind of hard time fitting in at school since it was my first time in an actual public school and it was my Freshman year in college. My father forced me and my brother to play football and while I was athletic, I couldnt catch for shit but my father was so proud anytime I was on the field so I just stopped fighting it and forced myself to get through it. Im about 5'6-5'7 range of height and that made it much harder as well.
Anyway, about in my sophomore year or so, maybe a bit earlier I started getting in trouble. Like a lot of trouble, running away, fights, tresppassing, breaking into cars and stealing, destruction of property. Thinking back on it, a lot of it was just me acting out for attention because it seemed like the only time my father or really anyone would pay attention was when I forced them to. My father was on his 5th new girlfriend who I hated and I had 2 awful step siblings that got the golden treatment while me and my 2 younger brothers were treated much worse. Around this time I also sort of came to terms with the my mother not caring about us. She would visit every summer or so or we'd go down once a year to visit thanksgiving with her side of the family and for the most part that was always fun.
But my mom was a major hippie. Like a real junkie. Every year or 2 it was a new abusive horrible boyfriend that would treat me and my brothers like shit and my mom and him were always shifting between being super lovey and cute with eachother when they were drunk or high out of their minds, to the inveitable fighting and yelling at eachother about how he treats her and us kids, or how she is always yelling at him over little things whenever their high or buzz eventually wore off. I could never really understand it. Why she couldnt come see us more often as she only lived a little over an hour and a half away. She would use the excuse that she didnt have that kind of money to take us down and feed us and what not or had no one to watch us. But I saw and I knew how much she spent on weed and alcohol and it must have been at least 250 a month bare minimum. It always felt like she didnt *want* to see us.
And my father, Ive already eluded to how he was very dismissive of me and my brothers but he also had anger issues. He wasnt necessarily abusive but he would yell and he would scream about how fucking stupid I was for doing x and x or how I need to treat his girlfriends better. And Id yell back. His mother, my grandma has extremely bad mental health disorder (I dont know what specifically) but it causes her to go manic when shes off her medication and seeing as my grandpa didnt believe in that (the 1900s am I right) and seeing as they were both extreme christians she often would not take them and this caused her to lash out and abuse my father by both yelling and screaming but also by beating him with a belt or a pan or her hands.
I think this is why my father is the way he is, why hes so emotionally stunted and closed off.
When I was 17 my life was actually at its peak, I was finally starting to do better in school, I had a solid group of friends with and just a lot of really healthy relationships. But then I met this girl, and she sort of clung to me, presumably because she had a crush on me (duh). And would pester me all the time. This really got to me because for the first time in my life there was someone prying for MY attention instead of the other way around. She was extremely forward, texting me all the time, holding onto my arm while we walked down the halls, waiting for me at lunch, after school, after class, etc. I was starting to fall for her hard.
At this time I actually had a best friend who I really liked because despite all my flaws she seemed to genuinely care about me. I liked her at the time but I wasnt sure if she liked me back and I was too scared to ask. And so, when I met this new girl who seemed to be very clearly into me I folded and sooner than later we were officially dating. This is where everything went down hill. My friends stopped hanging out with me as much because they thought she was a slut or whore or whatever and didnt approve, and Id push them away when I argued that she wasnt and that she was misunderstood and abused.
This relationship would end up being extremely toxic. She made me block friends, If my friend was a woman, I had to cut ties with them. (which was a lot of my friends that I had left). And then things started getting really bad. She was very obsessive and abusive, if I looked at a girl the wrong way, if I was too nice to a waiter, or she thought they were too nice to me, it was somehow my fault and she'd start acting distant. Replying with small answers, leaving me on open, until eventually I apologized and then BOOM she was all over me again. And this continued anytime I did something she didnt like she'd withhold any affection, refused to talk it out, would scream and throw things, lock herself in rooms, threaten to hurt herself. She also pulled me into smoking weed which became a constant thing for us.
Around this time I should also mention, my father had disenrolled me from school early into my Junior year due to skipping classes and fighting, and also my girlfriend had gotten in a huge fight with her parents and she got kicked out and came to live with us.
She was VERY intimate, and would often hurt me at my most vulnerable. When I would break down about things in my past or because of a really shitty day she would waste no time using that in later conversations. And during sex she would often scratch or bite or keep going even when I told her to stop because it hurt or I was uncomfortable or not in the mood and when I finally would get physical and push her off she would just throw something at me or hit me and say something like "Fucking pussy, Youre such a loser" and then would spend the next few hours acting like Im the bad guy saying things like "You think Im ugly" "You dont wanna fuck me anymore" etc etc. And she was pretty much with me 24/7 as she lived with me at this point, eveyr morning, every night.
Things continued like this for about a year and right when I was gonna break up with her, and I think she could tell because I was starting to be more standoffish, I had finally reconnected with some friends. She got pregnant. I was too fucking naive and horny I guess and so extremely dumb hat I just believed her when she told me she was on birth control. I mean we'd had sex many many times before hand without a condom and there was never any issue.
Anyway, this was the real downfall. I couldnt make her get an abortion, and I didnt wanna be forced to pay 40% child support for the rest of my young life. So I stuck with her, and I got a job working about 50hrs a week at a chicken factory. I made pretty good money but I came home miserable. On the bright side I finally kicked my weed addiction for both my sake but more importantly my sons. I wasnt gonna be the same as my mother or father. But once our attentions wernt on eachother anymore, it became all about the kid.
We had an agreement, that since Im on my feet and using my back and hands all day Id usually come home with very swollen hands and feet and I just wanted 30m to an hour to myself to just relax and calm down after work but this only lasted for maybe a month or 2 before she started pawning our son off on me the moment I was home. I came home to dishes all over the room, clothes sitting in the bin for weeks without being washed, overflowing trash. It was horrible.
Things pressed on like that while the relationship just deteriorated further and further and before I knew it, 3 years had passed. Now Im 21, and we basically dont talk to eachother at this point and just share a space and a kid together. But one day I wake up and my ex is gone, and so is my son. She had left in the middle of the night and all I had was a text from one of her friends saying she breaks up with me and shes leaving with my son. I try to contact her but Im blocked on literally everything with no way of knowing where they went. I didnt care that she was gone, but not knowing where my son was killed me. I spent 3 long months hiring a lawyer and tracking her down and eventually found her staying in a womens shelter claiming I was abusive.
Eventually our day in court came even tho I paid 9k for a lawyer with a really high success rate, and I had an actual home, and a good system of connections for the kids, and a family that Im actually in contact with, and a job and a car. I had photos, videos of her breakdowns, screenshots of her message threatening myself and herself. I had witnesses, and even court documents about her being sent to a mental hospital for her issues and her parents both having gone to jail for possession of drugs and YET even despite all of this, she was able to walk in with no legal support, coming from a shelter with no home and no body to reach out to and yet somehow she still fucking won custody of our son. I promise you Im not being biased in this explination, she somehow won and I blame it on the fact that we lived in good ol sexist Texas where the mother always get the kid no matter what and because they wanted me to pay child support. I cant explain it in any way that makes sense.
Anyway, I wallowed in defeat drunk for about 3 months after that until I got a message from my ex saying that she's being evicted from the shelter and she has nowhere left to go but her uncles house. Thing is, our court doc had a special restriction to being within 30m of eachother, and though she absolutely could have found a way around it I was somehow able to convince her to sign custody over to me since she has no other options as she was gonna be kicked from the shelter and would be breaking the border restriction if she left. And it actually worked and for the first time in months I had my kid back.
Now flashforward a year and a half, Im 22 now and turning 23 in a about 6 months. But my life feels so empty. I live with my parents because I cant afford childcare, and also work and pay off a home and a car at the same time. I have no friends and no girlfriend and its so fucking lonely. And anytime I try to talk to people I just fuck it all up because I dont use social media, Im not familiar with the current trends, I dont have time to hang out or go drinking or smoking, or just go on trips because I have to stay home and watch my son. I have a group of friends Ive known for about 4 years online and some of us from the group finally met up in Chicago for a 4 day weekend trip Fri-Mon last weekend and while I felt a little akward because it was my first time out in years where I could actually enjoy myself and it was my first time really in a big city.
I really did have the best time of my life in years and I really really enjoyed it for the most part, it was my first taste of real freedom and fun in as long as I can remember. But then when we got home and we called the next day and shared stories and photos, it was all just talking about how akward I was or how it felt like I hated the trip and that Id just wander off or just seemed anti-social. These wernt just jokes either, they were actively being outwardly mean for what seemed like no reason. Saying they were happy the trip was over and saying they could never go on a trip with us again. All very mean spirited jokes and jabs, and then came the videos and photos where they took of me just kinda sitting akwardly or when I was drunk. And it would just go back to them making a "Yikes" face.
A little bit of context- so there are 5 of us in the GC that have known eachother and called almost every other day for about 4 years. 3 out of 5 of us went on the trip, It was a girl and her boyfriend and then there was another man that we had added to the GC maybe a few months prior. The entire trip, it seemed like the 2 in a couple were sort of othering us, they were doing there thing and we were along for the ride. They would take photos of themselves only, they would whisper and just talk to eachother mostly the entire time, and anytime we would say something it was usually just 1 note response before they would go back to talking to eachother. All of this combined with me just gawking at the fact that I was ACTUALLY there and I would just kinda of zone out sometimes and admire the city and foot traffic and just appreciate the fact I was there. (These were the moments they would capture on camera and say that I was being awkward or anti-social) but they didnt capture all the moments we were actively talking and walking or any of the other good moments like back in the hotel room when we were all just chilling and laughing it up.
When I got home and they just broke out all the insults and were being super mean out of nowhere for literally no reason it just got to me. I wanna be mad at them but Im not Im just super depressed. It was such a fun trip and they basically just ruined it saying the entire time they felt weirded out or they felt like I was sad or unhappy the entire trip. To be fair, Im really stoic, in the sense that I dont show a lot of emotion, seemingly getting that from my father, and I do have a resting frown. So when theyre sitting there talking about the latest Kendrick Lamar vs Drake drama or some tiktok trend or something I didnt understand I would just be kinda left sitting there without knowing what was going on.
The other guy we added to the GC, he was actually really cool to be around, he could hold a convo, and we talked a lot about morals, and shows, and politics, and video games, and things I could relate to and when I asked him about the Drama or Tiktok trend he would actually go out of his way to fill me in and explain it and answer my questions where as the other 2 would just kinda respond with a simple answer and act annoyed when I was like "Ah that makes sense" or "Oh ok I get it". I deleted snapchat awhile back because my son kept posting photos on my story. But when I redownloaded it yesterday I was able to watch all the snaps from the moment our planes landed and we met, to the moment we said goodbye at the airport and all my feelings were validated. The entire time they were sneaking bad photos and recordings of me, and captioning it with things about how they think Im upset or that Im being awkward and sending it to the snap GC.
And my whole world kinda crumbled as I just went through 30 minutes of photos and videos of all of them just talking about me that way behind my back the entire time and seeing how they really felt. During the trip I kept apologzing and telling them Im not upset and that its all just very new to me and I dont get out often and I already felt terrible because my feet were extremely blistered and bruised from all the walking and I felt like I was ruining their fun on the trip and they just kept saying "No its fine!" "Dw about it" "No seriously we're ok, just tried".
Anyway in our call I kind of called them out saying I dont get why theyre acting this way even tho on the trip we seemed to be having a good time and they just got mad at me like "oh my god relax, its not that big of a deal" and yea.
It feels like Im trapped in this cycle where my depression and isolation causes me to act awkward or have a hard time conversing and connecting to people and that makes it hard to make friends or find a girlfriend, but also the loneliness and isolation is whats causing my depression and Ive tried looking up all the advice on how to be more confident or talk to people or whatever but I just cant do it. When Im talkative I come off as "too much" or annoying and yappy but when I dont try as hard Im too quiet. I cant get out of this hole that I spent my entire life digging and now it feels like I might never get out.
I wanna go to college, I want the life that I see everyone my age living, active on social media, travelling, participating in trends, going out to clubs and just enjoying their 20-30s. The worst part is, is that even tho I love my son with every ounce of my being, Im often negligent towards him. He brings toys to me and asks me to play with him and I just tell him not right now while I watch my latest yt video or show, or play games with friends online, and I just feel myself becoming my father and repeating his mistakes. I dont make sure my sons is well clothed and showered, I wear the same clothes multiple days in a row sometimes, and I can already see my son lashing out for attention the same way I did in my teens. Hes 4, some attitude is to be expected, but I know this an attention thing because he acts so good with my aunt or my step mother.
I feel horrible because I wanna do better, I wanna be better but idk how. Ive been considering that it may be in my sons best interest if I give him back to my ex. She has a good life right now with a good car, job, and home and shes finally been clean for awhile. Both of her parents are dead and she has no connection to immediate family but when she sees him she treats him so well and hes always begging to see her again. She genuinely shows him the kind of love and attention he needs. But a part of my feels like if I give him up, Im just like my mother. Abandoning my kid for my own selfish reasons. I could move to the big city with my saved up cash or even camp out of my car as Ive always dreamed of that kind of life. Maybe stay in a dorm or get a roomate while I study in college with a part time job. So Im not left behind in the world
Ive tried justifying it by saying that its better for both of us, and that at this rate Ill be a nobody and he'll grow up just as fucked up as I am. But maybe if I can get out and change the course of my life, I could actually be successful and pay for his college when hes ready, and take him on trips around the world and buy him things. And he'd have a loving mother, and I could still come visit more often than my mother did. Im just so scared. I dont wanna be my father but I dont wanna be my mother either and I cant imagine coming to terms that maybe she wasnt horrible after all. And then I get worried about the logistic, what could go wrong if I give him up. What if my ex decides randomly that she wants child support even tho we agreed no child support was needed. And then my life is fucked all over again but I also lose my son.
I tried researching and In Texas, the judge can decide its "not in the childs best inrest" for me not to pay child support or for me to terminate my parental rights even if BOTH me and my ex agree to the terms. So I could be forced into having my life ruined even if we both agree that I dont need to.
I feel alone, and isolated and I have no one to talk to about this and I have no help. No matter how I look at it, my life feels like its over before it even got started and all I can think about is ending it all because it feels like whats the point. Please help me know what to do

https://www.reddit.com/BlackWomenDivest/s/j3dRJ8KDCz
In my last article I spoke about a thumbnail in which a BW put herself and captioned it that BW are ugly.
I will continue on expanding my thoughts surrounding this topic because I am exhausted of seeing mammies being insecure and trying to pass it off as an all BW thing.
Being insecure is very dangerous, it leaves you as prey for nick nacks, desperate, sad, depressed, people can take advantage of you and indulding in covetessness by longing to be something you are not.
Due to mammy celebrities and influencers feeding off of insecurities to feel better about themselves by self degradation of themselves, self degrading jokes, doing things that degrades themselves, promoting bleeching cream , saying negative things about natural hair or choose to further destroy the image of BW at the hands of BM (mammy lyrics, promoting struggle love, look like a 2016 carciture, twerking every 5 seconds).
I do not feel sorry for them. Insecurity leads to self hatred and if that is not addressed they pass it onto the next generation by doing the same thing and saying the same disgusting insulting things that breaks the confidence down as well as subjugate herself into dealing with a DUSTY who not only affects HER BUT HER KIDS FUTURE.
I recall as a teen in the 2010s so many videos of I hate my hair, I hate being dark skin, I hate myself, I'm so undesirable and it does alot to you as a teen growing up and I realised this media is more harmful than ever to young minds.
These types of women on youtube that make this content NEED psychological help instead of venting on the internet their hurt that they have and profitting off trauma of other women by repeating the same topics/ same attitude about themselves in videos instead of healing first and not giving tips on HOW TO OVERCOME that pain to get them out of the cycle.
Social media DOESNT MATTER, what matters is more BW should seperate from the BC and people that disrespect them BM and mammies and their insecurities WILL go away if they invested that time into getting real help and taking a social media break.
Learn yourself, figure out who you are outside of a carciture and if it means moving away from the BC? Thats okay because you should not subject yourself to staying in a group of people that are allergic to self improvement.
Also I wish generalizations would stop instead of saying ALL BW , she should say it for herself. Every BW is NOT the same and have different backgrounds and ethnicities. cough Mrs. BW can't grow long natural hair cough

[Note to mods: I am SO SORRY to break the rules, but my comments are too formatting-heavy - Reddit keeps giving me error messages when I try to post them, splitting the length changes nothing, and the formatting (embedded links, etc) DOES NOT carry over when I copy-paste and try again. I've been at it for an hour. I decided to just make a separate post before I lose my mind - hope that's alright.]
(Continued from Part 4.1.(https://www.reddit.com/HobbyDrama/comments/1ckor6b/musicbook_emilie_autumns_asylum_pt_4_the_great/))

“MIXED MEDIA AND ACRYLIC PAINT ON CANVAS”

You're so easy to read But the book is boring me (“Misery Loves Company”, 2006 🎵)

It is June 2023. An alert pings on your Instagram. Butter my muffins – your problematic teenage fave just posted! What has she been up to?
It's been almost a full year since EA's last communiqué. She was going to do an AMA on her new blog, Stark Raving Sane. Fans would submit their burning questions, and she would select twenty of them to answer in her next post. You could fill out a form with your name and email and question. Clearly, she didn't like some of the questions.
(Since then, the one interesting that's happened in the Asylum was when EA was listed as the opening act for one single Maroon 5 show in the Netherlands 📝, but that turned out to be – most likely – a Spotify glitch.)
You tap the notification to check out EA's comeback post. The caption reads:

Introducing 'My Heart Is A Weapon Of War,' and I painted her and I love her. Medium: Mixed media - digital (Procreate, Maya 3D Sculpting) and acrylic paint on canvas.” 🪞📝

The art style is yassified-oil-portrait-realistic, unlike anything EA has ever drawn or painted before.🪞 It's a pastel-colored portrait of a button-nosed, elven-faced woman shaped like a Rococo centerpiece. She's got an ethereal smile, a sheer pink heart on her cheek, flowers in her towering hair, and rockin' anime titties. The gold lamé of her skin-tight top blends with her actual skin at the neck, and her arms are non-existent.
You rub your eyes. This surely isn't... no. She can't possibly be serious.People in the comments are trying to be diplomatic:

EA, I've always loved and defended you, but this is clearly AI.

EA does not respond to the diplomatic people in the comments. Instead, she posts another portrait of a diaphanous woman with a cheek-heart and a weirdly levitating necklace. In another post:

Oh, if anyone is curious about my general process, I'm happy to share, as I'd love to see other artists try it. It is thus: I start in Procreate with an Apple pencil, move over to Maya/Zbrush and do some 3D sculpting and lighting to flesh things out and create otherworldly elements in incredible detail, go back to Procreate and... 📝

Commenters are now having mostly civilized back-and-forths over the ethical implications of AI. Many hope EA is reading, wondering if she is aware of those issues. Many say everything would probably be fine if EA would just admit to using AI.
EA admits to nothing and apologizes to no one. No: EA posts more art, in a slightly different, less generic style, that still looks nothing like her own. “Digital painting”, she maintains. Many are imploring EA to please end this charade and stop insulting her fans' intelligence. But then again, some fans are defending her (“She literally just explained that it was digital painting!”), so maybe she's right to do it...?
EA posts a picture of a “buried treasure” that she just randomly chanced upon – a pencil drawing from her teens, once posted on her website in the early 2000s. (It's the one I linked to earlier – the one with the “EAF” signature, and the false age, and the fire reference. Yes, this is the context in which she was posting that.) She's posting it, à propos nothing, because she literally just noticed that she still draws eyebrows the exact same way to this day! In fact, you can clearly, definitely, unmistakably see a very similar eyebrow shape in her most recent art! See?
People are gobsmacked, and dragging her to filth. Desperate loyalists are gently pressing EA to please just post a Procreate timelapse of one of her new “digital paintings”, so that people will stop calling her a fraud.
EA is happy to oblige, and posts a mini-timelapse 📺📝 of what looks like color splotches and blurs being removed from the top layer of a finished piece with the eraser tool.

I'm shriveling with second-hand embarrassment on her behalf. How is she not mortified...? 🐀

EA keeps posting. More generic AI girlies with pale skin and sad eyes, more abstract sploshes that she calls her “morning pages”, but also more Asylum member-berries (“...the original Unlaced violin part... someone please learn this!” 📝) – and more of the massive, medical-themed mixed-media sculptures that she started making the year before, even presenting a few pieces at Art Basel 2022. The difference in style is obvious to everyone but her.
She ignores the peasants screeching about AI, won't even deign address the existence of such a thing; it's all EA, OK? OK. She makes it look easy, because it is to her:

4 hours start to finish in Procreate only with Apple pencil. Did you know that [the art for a card deck she released in 2019] was the first thing I drew on an iPad, because I was recovering from a disastrous TMJ jaw surgery and my face was bandaged and I couldn't get out of bed? I didn't either until just now. 📝

...Because... because you just made it up...??
People are going full tinfoil hat now – she has to be doing this on purpose, right? She just has to.

I can’t help but find it extremely suspicious that she came back after a year of inactivity just to drop the very obviously AI-generated art pieces, refuse to forwardly acknowledge the controversy, and then immediately move on to posting a bunch of artwork that is very clearly hers. A part of me is genuinely convinced that this is some sort of publicity stunt... 🐀

What other explanation could there be to this madness?
Not everyone loves the modern art sculptures, but those are definitely her work. Some of them really have The Vibe. About a piece entitled “Manic Phase” 📺📝:

This is (...) a blueprint of brain activity during a very... interesting period. Just one of many over several years, until a very particular combination of chemicals conspired to bury them just below the surface (...) Every single day, right now, I am afraid of going back there.

Hoop, there it is. Girl... you just spent days covering every inch of a canvas the size of a patio table with spirals of text from your decade-old journals written in minuscule all-caps, after a disastrous three-week bender of trying to pass off obvious AI art as your own. Is it perhaps possible that you may be “there” already...?
The more art EA posts, the angrier people get, and the harder she doubles down. Some AI pieces are accompanied by lengthy blog posts where she elaborates on their meanings. Mostly old Asylum talking points and metaphysical ramblings (that, in some cases, only seem loosely related to the art), but also some concerning news... and another spoonful of denial for the road:

Biscuits has no tits and neither do I at present. I’ve lost them, along with my arse, and most of my muscle mass, because that’s what happens when you’ve got an auto-immune issue and it hurts to eat because your body is attacking itself. (I never say auto-immune “disease” because it’s an ugly brown and I don’t like the way the “s” that is really a “z” feels in my mouth, and it also sounds unnecessarily dramatic and that embarrasses me). I prefer not to talk about this. With anyone. I will fix it. I am fixing it. And I will be able to sing and dance. And that is all.” (“Biscuits” - Blog entry 📝)

...Well shit.
Despite her track record and the context of this disclosure, not many fans accuse EA of malingering (well, okay, some are really pissed and they do 🐀). An auto-immune disease does line up with things she has mentioned in passing for years (bad blood-works, diet restrictions, hospital visits...) – and she did look so thin in those Art Basel pictures that some people accused her covertly creating thinspo.
In light of this, some fans choose to cut EA some slack, or at least temper their disappointment with earnest sympathy and concern, as she is clearly struggling in more ways than one, and has been for some time. Others are less forgiving, pointing out that it's pretty manipulative of her to pull out the chronic illness card in the midst of the ongoing AI controversy. Everyone, everywhere, is shaking their head in sadness and disbelief.
And by everyone, I do mean a few dozen people tops. It's pretty echo-y in the Asylum halls these days.
This goes on for two months, into August 2023. The AI art drops eventually stop, but the controversy does not. EA soon restricts the comments on her Instagram. For two weeks, she shares more artworks made from old lyrics 📝 and partially melted medical supplies. Using a syringe, she glues a bazillion crystals onto a pink hospital gown. Then, one day, mid-project, she stops posting.
And as of this writing, that was the last we heard of singer-songwriter, author, actor, visual artist, and world-class violinist Emilie Autumn.

AFTERMATH

Other than broken hearts, bad health, and dwindling career prospects...?
I mean, what usually happens when a semi-obscure solo artist tells tall(ish) tales about... mainly their age and name? It took me three write-ups to explain why EA's absurd but ultimately harmless lies are relevant to anyone on Earth at all. TMZ is not interested.
Because most of EA's fabrications were so self-contained and irrelevant to anyone but her fans, most of the “consequences” remained strictly internal to the fandom. They never (as far as I'm aware) affected her interactions with the press, for instance.
In fact, there was a weird overlap between 2011 and 2014 when she still got a fair amount of new and positive media coverage, but it had become common and accepted knowledge within the active fanbase that she made stuff up. And no one beyond the walls of the Asylum cared, because why would they? Overall, EA is great at interviews: she's charming, funny, and gives amazing soundbites. Sympathetic outsiders were happy to print whatever wondrous things the dazzling lady had to say – about her connection to Alice Liddell, her artistic process, her larger-than-life projects, whatever – without much critical distance. She wasn't famous enough to fact-check or call out, and her creative license with truth made for exciting interviews. It was a frustrating time to be a grumpy EA fan!
Since the press was in on it, and the Asylum forum was strictly under EA's thumb, bitter Plague Rats took their whistleblowing elsewhere. Unofficial forums opened in the name of free speech; anonymous confessions, receipts, and snarky meme blogs started blowing up on Tumblr. But that wasn't public enough for some fans, who felt that EA should be shamed and exposed, lest anyone else “fall for her lies” like they had. So eventually, among other things, they took to Goodreads.
During the never-ending delay of the Asylum audiobook (okay, it was two years; but it felt really long) there was a noticeable influx of one-star reviews, some of which barely addressed the book at all, but went into great detail about the lies and crimes (and personal info) of its dastardly author. I don't have solid receipts for these, there aren't any screenshots – possibly because most of those reviews, while they were ad hominem attacks more than book critiques, weren't quite abusive enough 🐀 to go against Goodreads TOS. But things did escalate enough that Anne Rice felt the need to step in.
In 2015, the author of “Interview with a Vampire” – who takes cyber-bullying against novelists rather seriously... no matter what kind of novels they write 🔍 – shared someone's Facebook post 📝 about the “conspicuous, blatant personal attacks” targeted at author Emilie Autumn, along with a direct link to one such egregious review.
And that, my friends, is how EA's Goodreads page was durably purged of the really pissed-off comments, and TAFWVG's rating stabilized at a cozy 4-star-something. A bunch of indignant Anne Rice fans (or should I say, fangs? (no)) swooped in to mass-report the Asylum's most virulent escapees 🐀, while loyal Plague Rats flocked in with the 5-star reviews. Truly a bizarre week in the greater goth community.
As far as her fabrications go, that's about as intense as “open” fan retaliation against EA ever got. But it is sadly clear that ten years of successive call-out waves from her own supporters (and the mental gymnastics it must have taken to shut them out and not admit to anything, ever) have taken a toll on her general well-being, to a point where she no longer feels safe online... and seemingly can't engage with her audience, at all, in a healthy and honest way.

Slander and dissension They're parlor games to me Papers overrun with lies too mad to mention You say they never hurt you? No consequence, I'm happy We're much too far above it all – But oh no, that's not true! These wicked pastimes take their toll These tyrant vices break your soul Deliver me from all I am And all I never want to be I love you, doubt me not Re-write this plot for all to see (“Willow”, 2004 🎵)

As you can surely guess, it takes more than a handful of unsavory book reviews and anonymous call-out blogs to kill a fandom (and an artist's fighting spirit). In truth, I don't think that many people turned their backs on EA solely for her fabrications; a lot of fans were just low-key annoyed by them for years, and then it was something else that finally broke the camel's back.
There were so many something-else's to choose from.See, while EA's phony stories were an unending source of frustration, they were a mere backdrop to the years of actual, hands-on, ever-evolving drama that eventually brought the Asylum down.
And that's where we're headed in our final installments. Hope to see you there.

🫖 Welcome back to the Asylum write-up. This is where you live now. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
In this installment, we finally take a closer look at how Emilie Autumn's hyper-loyal fanbase gradually started losing faith in her as, among other things, it became more and more apparent that she... wasn't exactly a reliable narrator – in her semi-autobiographical book, or in general.

HOW IT STARTED: A WOMAN OF MYSTERY

Willow, weep for me Don't think I don't see This life I'm living in two But still it's something I must do I'm not unique in this Nor am I special, sweet, or kind I court a thousand smiles Yet I keep my own to hide behind (“Willow”, 2004 🎵)

I've previously referred to EA as an “expert vagueposter”, and this is relevant here.
For an artist who built her brand on a pledge of raw, rats-and-all honesty, EA has always been quite guarded about the specifics of her personal life. (Until her current partner, for instance, she always danced around calling anyone a boyfriend, even when the nature of the relationship was pretty obvious.) Her whole angle is telling “the truth”, but through whimsical fantasy. As early as the fairy-themed Enchant era, she had her own world, her own vernacular; she spoke in metaphors, in-jokes, and quirky anachronisms. Taxis were carriages, her electric keyboard was a harpsichord, she always capitalized Time and Art like Shakespeare does. On the Asylum forum, automatic word filters would change “fan” to “muffin”, “fairy” to “faerie”, “bra” to “teacup holder”, and “responsibility” to “ratsponsibility”.
She's a chatterbox who loves to share memories and funny anecdotes, but she usually keeps them short and sweet, Snapple-facts style. 📝 She's great at painting by touches in her storytelling, revealing just enough to let your imagination auto-complete the rest. 🔍 Even the most banal tidbits are very artfully told, very “on brand”, often dense with symbolism and foreshadowing – but also very abstracted.
She is especially elusive when it comes to her background and formative years. See the way she catches herself in this interview 📺📝 while describing her “favorite scar”, which is from an eel bite: “My – well, someone I knew... [gasp-laugh] had it as a pet, and...” (She was about to say “my sister”.)
In short, the way EA talks about her life is often very personal, but not all that candid – and sounds more like it's meant to provide a curated, coherent backstory for Emilie Autumn the character, rather than Emilie Autumn the person.

I'll tell the truth, all my songs Are pretty much the fucking same I'm not a fairy but I need More than this life, so I became This creature representing more to you Than just another girl... (“Swallow”, 2006 🎵)

In the beginning, this guardedness naturally contributed to the mystique. It made it all the more special when, once in a while, she would briefly drop the theatrics to share something earnest and relatively unfiltered. Like this composed, but vulnerable post from 2004 📝 about her father losing his battle to cancer, and her attempts at closure over their tense relationship. Or this 2012 anti-bullying campaign thing 📺 in which she opens up about being a target of intense physical bullying in elementary school, to a point that contributed to her being homeschooled at 9.
Fans in the early years were curious about her backstory, of course – but not too prodding or invasive, to my knowledge. I think there was an understanding that EA, like many performers, wanted to come across as human and approachable, while still cultivating an “aura” and retaining some privacy. But obviously, when she announced that she was writing a Tell-All Memoir in 2007, everyone was dying to read it. TEA TIME!

HOW IT'S GOING: A WOMAN OF... MALARKEY???

LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! (“Liar”, 2006 🎵)

As we've learned, the original 2009 release of EA's book was highly anticipated, but somewhat tainted by a bunch of shipping delays and unfulfilled promises. From the start of her career, EA had always cultivated a close parasocial involvement with her audience; many fans had as deep an attachment to her, personally, as they did to her art. So, for instance, when EA tweeted about all the personal dedications she was lovingly writing in overdue books, only for the books to arrive many months later and unsigned with no tangible explanation, it wasn't simply frustrating: it was betrayal amongst kin!
Really, it wasn't so much about fans not getting what they paid for – it was about the lack of clear communication or genuine accountability. This is pure speculation on my part, but the poppycock that EA tweeted about signing the books strikes me as the panic-lie of someone who hadn't realized just how many heartfelt, personalized dedications she would actually have to write when she came home from tour. And then she just couldn't do it, because she was overworked, paralyzed, distracted, depressed, procrastinating, whatever. Which... you know... is unfortunate, but probably not unforgivable. Especially for a touring performer who is open and vocal about their mental health issues.
I'm confident that most fans would have been happy to tell her that her well-being meant more to them than an autograph, or something along those lines. Instead, EA's cagey and avoidant demeanor around this issue left fans very salty – and newly suspicious of their favorite artist's word.
Which was regrettable timing for EA, because they had just received their copies of her memoir.
Here's a cursory look at some key biographical points that didn't hold up to scrutiny when more and more vexed fans, over the years, started looking into them.
Content warning until end of post: family estrangement, death by fire, worsening physical health issues, mention of disordered eating / weight loss / thinspiration, and LIES! LIES! LIIIIIES!

“EMILIE AUTUMN LIDDELL (BORN SEPTEMBER 22, 1979) IS AN AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER...” (Wikipedia)

Every fandom has its Holy Grail. Because a number of EA's early releases were limited pressings put out through now-defunct record labels, the EA fandom in its heyday was a collector's wonderland. 📝🦠 At the height of her popularity, the original Enchant jewelcase (the one with the puzzle-poster) could easily fetch around $500 dollars on eBay, unsigned. The handwritten lyrics of an Opheliac B-side went for $940 in 2009. Don't even ask me about the hard copies of her two poetry books: those never even popped up over the five or six years that I had various alerts set up for all EA-related listings.
But the true crown jewel of EA rarities is the untitled promo version of her (also virtually unfindable) 2001 instrumental debut On a Day... No one knows how many copies exist. The darn thing is so rare that it's not even listed on Discogs. For a while, the only picture of the elusive “Violin” promo CD that was circulated online was this one.🪞 Go ahead, click the link. Notice anything odd? That black box where one composer's birth year should be?
I'm not sure why the notorious hyper-fan who originally shared this picture on the forum in the early 2010s took it upon himself to censor it before posting. I wasn't able to pinpoint when or why people started questioning EA's age, but clearly, something had already transpired to let him know that not redacting said birth year might, uh... cause an upset. In any case: at some point, people started digging – and eventually, the unredacted version of the “Violin” tracklist (as well as public records and literal receipts from eBay auctions) would be brandished as one more piece of damning evidence that EA was indeed (gasp!) two years older than she claimed to be.
“Okay, and?” you shrug. “What's the big deal?” I'm shrugging too! What can I say? People don't like realizing they've been fooled, even about something stupid. I will note that EA's fall equinox birthday (hence her middle name “Autumn”, yes) had been somewhat significant in the fandom. Over the years, EA's birthdays had been marked by online release parties, Q&A's, community events, special merch sales... A number of fans liked donning her trademark cheek heart on September 22. It felt a bit uncanny to realize that she had been announcing a false age on those occasions. It wasn't “a big deal” so much as it was incredibly odd.
Other than being appalled that Self-Proclaimed Staunch Feminist EA would give in to the cult of youth and not cop up to her real age, many fans were just plain bewildered: who would commit so stubbornly to such an inconsequential lie? What was even the point of lying by two years only? Why did she think anyone would care that she was 28 rather than 26 when Opheliac came out? What was she possibly getting out of this...??
My completely speculative theory is that, whether it was her idea or her then-manager's, the lie originated as a marketing strategy early on in her career. The “Violin” demo was recorded in 1997, when EA was 19-going-on-20. Per the liner notes of On a Day... 📝, which came out when she was 22, the demo's purpose was to be “a sort of calling card in the classical music industry”. Evidently, that didn't work out; EA claims, in the same paragraph, to have walked out on a classical recording deal at 18 because they wouldn't give her enough creative control.
Talented and unique as she was, she was trying to break out in a notoriously elitist and innovation-resistant milieu – and unlike her, most of the 22-year-old classical violinists she was in competition with had actually graduated from their prestigious music schools. But you know what sells better than an ambitious college dropout in her early twenties? Tweaking the truth just so to market yourself as an unconventional wunderkind, barely out of her teens! Any rendition of a complex, learnèd musical piece sounds more intriguing and impressive if you think it was played by an especially young (and beautiful) person. 20 was plausible, close enough to her real age, barely a lie at all, and such a nice, round number for a debut album.
Notice how much of the On a Day... liner notes, linked above, center on her precociousness, her uniqueness, and her savant-like dedication to her craft – a focus that seems absent from the promo version (from what I can decipher in those potato-quality pictures, anyway). These talking points would provide the basis for a lot of her early self-promotion and budding stage persona in the Enchant years. Even though the EP failed to make EA a household name in the classical world, the wunderkind narrative was her “in” to grab the attention and heart of a broader audience.
And I guess she's been running with it ever since.

“MY ANCESTRY IS POSITIVELY LITTERED WITH LUNATICS AND GIRLS WHO FALL DOWN RABBIT HOLES ... MY NAME IS EMILIE AUTUMN LIDDELL. YES, THAT LIDDELL.”

Oh, come on. Much as a fan may want to believe, isn't that a little on the nose? The anglophile with an obsession for tea, clocks, and madness... is literally related to Alice in Wonderland? 🔍 Curiouser and curiouser indeed.
EA came out as Emilie Autumn Liddell in The Book – of course – in a passage where she describes an interaction with a nurse. 📝 Note how she stresses the authenticity of her name, and how not-chosen it is (and the Alice connection, which just comes up organically) by disclosing it in a scene where she's filling out paperwork.
I'm pointing this out, because it would be tempting to allow room for creative license (and the slightest cringe) in a work of creative fiction based on personal experience. Buuut... TAFWG was not marketed as fiction. The main narrative in TAFWG, according to EA, is an actual fac-simile of the journals she kept during a harrowing stay at a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt. This is something that EA has stressed from the inception of the book (and throughout all subsequents re-issues, even as the main narrative was altered and reworked), even claiming that a legal team had advised her to redact some names to avoid potential lawsuits. So, no, she's not doing a bit there.
When, after it made the rounds a few times, it became apparent that the claim didn't really make sense 📝🔍, reactions were mixed. Some older, diplomatic fans downplayed it as a somewhat embarrassing, but harmless self-mythologizing – similar in nature to her insistence on calling her electric keyboard a “harpsichord”. Devout EA apologists (commonly referred to as “bootlickers” in an increasingly polarized fandom – oh, don't worry, we're getting to that!) invoked the “life as performance art” defense: when she said it was literally her first name, she meant it metaphorically, duh! And either way, she probably had her reasons.
But others took offense at the boldness of the lie, or simply became curious. Was Liddell even her name at all?
If you've checked the link just above, you already know the answer. Per the public California birth log (a somewhat demented invasion of privacy that could well have been avoided by... not repeatedly drawing attention to a name that someone in the book calls “right out of a movie”?) : yes, no, kind of.
EA was born Emily Autumn Fischkopf* on September 22, 1977. The name came from her father, a first-generation immigrant from Germany. Her maternal grandmother's maiden name was Liddell (but no, not that Liddell, or so remotely that it doesn't matter). EA may have had it legally changed at some point in the last decade, but as of 2012, based on the public log of foreign visitors to Brazil (where she toured that year), her passport still bore the name “Emily Autumn Fischkopf”.
*No, EA's birth name is not literally “Fischkopf”. It's a non-silly German name that begins with an F. I know that it's ridiculous to clutch my pearls about EA's peace of mind now, but triggering new and disquieting Google alerts for a name she clearly wants nothing to do with (and that you don't care about) just feels... distasteful? I don't know. That info has been floating around long enough, the point has been made; this write-up is not about EA's last name, but about the fiends we made along the way! So Fischkopf it is.
Let's track the evolution here! It appears that she went by “Autumn Fischkopf” for at least part of her formative years, if we are to believe the credits from Mark Ruffalo's middling film debut 📺 (she was the child actor's violin-playing body double) and this random article about a Nigel Kennedy performance in 1997. 🔍 (That last link – possibly her first ever mention in the press? – is a niche favorite of mine. Violin superstar Nigel Kennedy calls her a “talented fiddler”, which suggests that she did have some cred and promise in the classical milieu at a young age, and that there is at least some truth to her claims of being a wunderkind. It also cracks me up that, out of all the things she's reiterated over the years, “I was born in '79” was a lie, but “I was attacked by a pet eel” was fact-checked by Nigel Kennedy.)
At some point in her late teens, she dropped the Teutonic surname and adopted the French ending of her given name (she made it a “LIE”! how poetic) to form the moniker “Emilie Autumn”. I assume that's also when she started privately going by Emilie / EA for short.
So there you have it. The damning evidence. A performing artist... changed her name. To her grandmother's name. Riveting stuff!
And to think that her fans could have carried on naively believing “Autumn” was her last name, or assuming it was a romantic nom de scène she picked during her Ren Fair phase. Or perhaps, even, not thinking much about her name at all, like normal people.
But nooo, she just had to poke the hornet's nest by making a whole thing out of it.

“MY ENTIRE FAMILY DIED IN A FIRE.”

If you've never encountered a method-acting con artist or a person who struggles with pathological lying (I'll let you decide for yourself which of these, if either, applies to EA), you probably believe that you'd spot them a mile away. And in my experience, that's exactly why you wouldn't! Whether it's compulsion or calculated strategy, successful fibbers rely on people's natural social cues (like their assumption of good faith, their confirmation bias, their empathy, their desire for validation, their fear of awkwardness, ...) to subtly direct the flow and tone of the conversation. This allows them to short-circuit potential questioning of their claims.
One such strategy, for instance, I call the “I-will-not-further-speak-about-the-incident maneuver”. Out of the blue, you drop a graphic and incisive one-liner about something horrific that happened to you, in a curt or flippant tone that throws the listener off and usually shuts them up – thus sparing you from having to back up your claim with any convincing specifics. I'm not saying that every person who does this is a liar. Horrific stuff does happen to people, and I'm not here to police how they're supposed to disclose it. I'm just saying that if you wanted to fabricate an obvious Tragic Backstory™ and smuggle it past otherwise rational, discerning and reasonably intelligent people, that would be one way to do it. Full disclosure: it does work better in person than it does over the internet, especially when you've kept a blog.
When EA curtly dropped this bomb on Twitter (in response to an innocuous fan question that mentioned her parents – the receipt has sadly been X'd out of existence), and every subsequent time a new fan found out about her family's tragic demise (“I had no idea!”), the response was typically one of shock and sadness – and, in a few heartbreaking cases, commiseration from other survivors of family-annihilating events.
Many fans already had a hunch that something was up with her family, of course. She hinted at neglect and possible abuse in her book and lyrics. A number of her fans also came from dysfunctional households, so her not wishing to elaborate on the topic would probably have been a non-issue. But now she's saying they're dead? All of them? In a FIRE?! Holy macaroni! And you know it must have been awful, because EA – the same woman who got a dozen bangers out of a three-month-long toxic relationship, and based over a decade of her work on one bad hospital stay – had never, not once, felt called to share a song or poem about how it might affect a person to... lose all of their entire immediate family to a fire. Hmm. Meanwhile, the handful of older fans who had been following her since Enchant and remembered her dad passing in 2004 gritted their teeth and rolled their eyes. “Do your research. That's all I can say.” (We'll get into the culture of censorship free speech regulation on the Asylum forum in due time.)
Before more and more embittered ex-fans started compiling and circulating the receipts in the early-mid-2010s, investigating the whole “dead family” thing was a lonely journey – a coming-of-age expedition for the critical-minded Plague Rat, trawling through free background check websites and old Wayback Machine archives, until you went “Welp, there it is, I guess” and suddenly felt older, stupider, and a little bit hollow inside.
Although I don't remember how I personally made my way to The Truth (lol) back in the day, I still have a vivid memory of the moment I found the Facebook profile of EA's Very Much Non-Deceased Mother. It was mostly posts about her costume design work. A few candid pictures with EA's siblings and their kids. Christmas, birthdays, a wedding. Just... aggressively normal stuff. It was bizarre, looking in on this family of cheerful strangers with familiar cheekbones. Knowing that, somewhere out there, was an estranged eldest daughter, who had run off years ago to become a fiddle-wielding rockstar – and was now passing them off as having all died a gruesome death, while her fans secretly stalked their family photos. (Because I know you'll be asking in the comments: yes, EA's family is aware. Her mother once posted a picture of young EA and her siblings on Pinterest, sarcastically captioned “After most of us were killed in the fire.” 📝)
Again, it's tempting to discount EA's remark as a metaphor for family estrangement, taken too literally by neurodivergent minors who just didn't understand performance art. Well. First of all, even as a metaphor... let's admit, once again, that that 2000s edginess has aged like fine milk. It's a little crass to make a “metaphor” out of a plausible, life-shattering trauma that other people actually have to live with. (Veronica lost a beloved house to a literal fire 🔍 during her tenure as a Crumpet, for instance; no one died, but that alone seemed pretty rough.)
But, more to the point, evidence suggests that EA also told this to real people in her real, off-stage life – such as her Trisol manager, who backed the claim on the official Asylum Forum in 2007. 📝 When questioned about this post on a renegade forum in 2013, he had this to say:

I was the fool in this case. EA made that up of course. It’s just one thing on a long list of things she made up. Let’s agree she’s very creative with facts if she wants people to believe a story. (...) I once had a short chat with [EA's mom] and I got the strong impression she wasn’t dead at the time. Haha.

(OK, dude, but did you or did you not sell fake EA tickets on a scammy website in 2008? Because we never did get the skinny on that.)
Fifteens years on, EA continues to insist, unprompted, that “the fire” destroyed her childhood drawings and baby pictures. 📝 This more recent Instagram post is like a Greatest Hits of her most notorious yarns, to a degree that's either premeditated trolling or a subconscious call for help. She casually, yet pointedly mentions her age in relation to a specific year... and specifically draws attention to the signature, one that she used well into the Enchant era. In doing so, she made me notice, for the first time, that the A blends into an F. As one could expect from an artsy, Renaissance-obsessed teenager, her OG signature was a freaking monogram for Emily Autumn Fischkopf. It's like “The Tell-Tale Heart” for the digital age! AM I THE ONLY ONE SEEING THIS?? 🦠

A BIT O' THIS & THAT: MISCELLANEOUS CLAIMS

Just for fun, here are other sundry “citation needed” facts that EA has claimed over the years. All are originally from the book unless sourced otherwise. Some of them may have been jokes, some of them might even be true! Whatever that word still means!

• She suffered near-fatal leukemia at age 2, but miraculously recovered. Doctors were baffled.
• She has perfect pitch and tone-color synesthesia. 🔍
• She also had a photographic memory before Ativan ruined it. That's how she remembers what the sky looked like on the day she came out of the hospital leukemia-free.
• It is well-known and well-established, among the bipolar community, that bipolar people all over the world will regularly and inexplicably wake up at 4 in the morning. 🎵 On the dot. No one knows why, but they do. Doctors are baffled.
• She can play the violin on horseback!
• The traumatic hospital stay happened before Opheliac until it happened after. 🔍 Doctors are time lords.
• TAFWVG “has been cited in text-books used as part of the psychology curriculum at Oxford University in London.” 📝 I would have intuited Oxford University to be in Oxford, but then again, I didn't go to Oxford.

ELECTRIC VIOLIN: UNPLUGGED

You know how whenever a musician starts behaving obnoxiously, old sages will come down from Mount Wisdom to advise disgruntled fans to “simply ignore [behavior]” and “just focus on the music”? Well, in the Asylum, “just focusing on the music” won't always preserve you from EA's shenanigans. This “claim” is a little different, but I've decided to include it because it is so odd, emblematic, and ultimately tragic. I also count it as “biographical”, because it involves a key tenet of EA's character sheet: the violin.
Being a kickass fiddler is one of EA's trademarks, and has always been central to her narrative; as of 2024, “world-class violinist” is still the first claim to fame she lists in the “Story” section of her official website. Which beggars the question: why won't she play it? And why won't she acknowledge that she's not playing it?
We got our hopes up in 2020, with that one post 📝 about her iconic 1885 Gand & Bernardel getting refurbished by a luthier – a thoughtful birthday surprise from her boyfriend – but despite the promising “More to come...” at the end of the caption, that turned out to be a false alarm. In truth, it may well have been over a decade since anyone has witnessed EA draw a single note from her cherished instrument.
The fact that Lord Autumn was able to sneak it out during lockdown without the Lady noticing tends to confirm that she hadn't been playing much behind the scenes. She seems to be under the impression that e-violin manufacturer Zeta is no longer in business (they did close down in 2010 🔍, but reopened under new management in 2012), which suggests that she hasn't been keeping up with the violin scene for a while. Besides, the fingernails don't lie. 🐀
As the live shows veered more theatrical with the release of Opheliac, the extended violin features from the Enchant era were cut to two main appearances per concert: “Face the Wall”, a seven-minute-short, Hendrixesque take on Arcangelo Corelli's “La Folia” – and “Unlaced”, an arpeggio-ed frenzy that was originally paired with a stilt-walking and ballet performance by the Crumpets. These two instrumental tracks remained a fixture on four successive tours. And on four successive tours, “Unlaced” was... well... clearly dubbed. 📺 She was holding her e-violin, her hands were playing the notes, but what was coming out of the speakers was indubitably the studio version.
There were possible explanations, of course. Some sound buffs pointed out that “Unlaced” has multiple violin layers, and that a live violin solo would have sounded harsh and unbalanced over the supporting tracks 🔍 – but then, why pick an unplayable song as a staple of the show?
The violin-miming wasn't even very hush-hush, she didn't try that hard to hide it – it was just never addressed or acknowledged. On “Unlaced”, Veronica was usually summoned to “play” the keyboard – and we knew that was make-believe, they had a whole skit about it. 📺 Ditto when EA would play the intro to a song, then get up from the keyboard as she started singing, and the harpsichord track just kept going. It was part of the theatrics, the suspension of disbelief; live playing just wasn't the focus.
Still, because playing two songs should have been in her wheelhouse, EA's choice to stand on stage and mime along with her own world-class violin skills was puzzling. We knew EA was capable of playing “Unlaced”: “Face the Wall” was proof enough that she could still shred like nobody's business, and some lucky fans got to hear her nerd out about pitch standards and rock some Bach at VIP showcases in 2011 (though it was always the same piece, and reportedly not always on point: “she made beginner mistakes, like weird jaw, wrist, elbow placement and tension...” 🐀). And sure, “Face the Wall” was an intense piece, but... it was one of two in the show. The same two, always. She was supposed to be classically trained...!
As EA's fabrications became more common knowledge among the fanbase, people took increasing issue with this odd staging choice – particularly after “Face the Wall” was retired partway through the 2011 tour, leaving only the pantomime, with nothing else happening on stage to distract from it. 📺 People started fixating on her constant and inexplicable tweaking of the truth. Fake name, fake age, fake promises, and now she was fake-fiddling and making a grand show of it? Was she outright mocking her audience, daring them to call her out? Milking a skill she had grown bored with, in the lowest-effort way possible, knowing that goo-goo-eyed fans would still pay to see it? Playing them the world's saddest song on the world's quietest e-violin?
The release of new album Fight Like a Girl in 2012 did little to soothe the Plague Rats' fiddle blues. The violin was much less prominent on FLAG than it had been on Opheliac and Enchant. There were almost no solos, which provided fewer opportunities for playing or miming on stage. “Unlaced” was retired from the touring setlist. One night in Texas during the 2012 tour, due to being on vocal rest, EA played the melody line of “Liar” on the violin. 📺 And that was pretty much the last time world-class violinist Emilie Autumn was heard playing her instrument, on stage or in recording – to the dismay of many fans who had loved her for it.

Can someone please grab this woman by her hand, lead her across her livingroom/bedroom/study, and point at that lonely forgotten dusty violin in a corner of hers so she remembers that she actually owns it? (🐀)

It was yet another bizarre, glaring inconsistency in EA's narrative that fans seemed expected to ignore. Another elephant in the padded room. (Personal anecdote that I don't have a receipt for: in early 2012, when I asked if there was a possibility of EA playing another baroque set for the VIP events on the upcoming tour, her then-manager responded that that wouldn't be possible because venues didn't have the proper acoustics.)
Through some her posts over the years , attentive fans pieced together the likely truth of EA's effective retirement as a violinist. It's actually quite sad, and may cast a different light on EA's artistic shift.
The 2011 tour was initially scheduled for late 2010. It was postponed because EA had been neglecting a jaw injury for years, and needed emergency surgery to avoid “serious and irreversible damage” to her one violin-holding jaw. 📝 She had the surgery early in September; in late November, she performed all over Latin America for six nights straight, and by January, she was back on tour. The same tour during which she made “beginner's mistakes” on the Bach partita, and retired “Face the Wall” for good after a few shows.
She underwent jaw surgery again in 2018, after three years of orthodontic treatment which she said had “prevented [her] from performing”. It was the first anyone was hearing of this (she said she hadn't been touring because she was writing the musical!), and it's as far as EA ever got in terms of half-addressing the obvious: that after dedicating a third of her time on Earth to her craft, after years of pushing through the pain night after night, rushing through recovery periods, and making compromises so the show could go on... she may not be physically able to play concert-level violin anymore.
Once again, something that should (and would) have elicited empathy and support from most fans turned into a point of frustration, speculation and mockery, for years – because EA continued to favor pretend-play and fantasy over the sobering, unglamorous truth. Well, at least everyone's unhappy.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

​

Vanderpump Rules is a hilarious comedy about what happens when attractive people are accidentally ensnared in Lisa Vanderpump’s tacky trap, and drown under the weight of her cast-off pink flowers. The first season was basically perfect reality tv, and after endless rounds of weird slap-fights and short-term marriages, it appeared to be down to its dying embers, until an unscheduled cheating scandal allowed the show to rise like the phoenix tattoo from Ben Affleck’s back.
“Look, I had a problem with alcohol,” Ben wishes we’d quit reminding him.
With the scandal a hot headline, Bravo scrambled to grab their cameras while everyone was still bleeding in the street, and when it came time to edit, they knew this season wouldn’t be rage-bait unless they anchored it in misogyny.
“I thought we were going to be like the Spice Girls,” Ariana frets. “I was hoping I’d get to zigga-zig-ah.”
“Ha! Turning women against each other is why I wake up in the morning,” Andy Cohen pauses eating a baby long enough to sip from a glass of drunk housewife tears.
April kicks off with Ariana still adjusting to the opportunity and income upgrades birthed from total life upheaval, while the vultures in her network circle the sky for scraps and squawk their way into the narrative. Her ex Sandoval shuffles in platform shoes to embrace his Charlie Brown remorseless redemption arc. This is tricky to sell, since he can’t even perform giving a shit, so he comes off more sociopathic than a serial monogamist who can’t exit a relationship without a lady-in-waiting.
“I feel like I should mention Burning Man again,” Sandoval sighs, promising this isn’t a ten-year midlife crisis, and you don’t need to see his driver’s license to check his age.
Sandoval’s hoping Schaena’s obsessive jealousy over Ariana’s turn on Dancing with the Stars will be enough to derail whatever flimsy loyalty she previously assigned to their friendship, which is a safe bet, since there’s no woman Schaena won’t assign a burning bear suit for a tendril of male approval. So begins her full transformation into Gretchen from Mean Girls, storing everyone’s tea in the location tracker on her phone, and reading off receipts whenever the attention-fairy fails to flap under her chin until she sniffs out the chorus for her next chart-missing autotune monstrosity. This is how she makes fetch happen, and tattoos it onto her arm.
“It’s all happening. It is. IT IS!” Schaena gestures violently at her pop culture initiation ink.
In the past Sandoval recommended that the cheating partner in a relationshit be the one to exit the household, but now that he’s in the village stocks that policy needs a rewrite, and like his last romantic implosion, he refuses to be the one to leave.
“This is why I tell people I wasn’t crazy, I was REACTING!” Kristin reminds everyone this is her Monica Lewinsky year.
So Ariana and Sandoval still occupy the same address, with personal assistant Ann tasked with playing a boring game of telephone. Ann’s duties include tidying the floor’s wayward hair extensions, stuffing laundry into biohazard bags, and marveling at the contents of the litterbox while Tom tracks his reflection during slow treadmill meditations on nailpolish and facial hair. Ariana has been very busy while Sandoval has just been very, so when Ariana asks Ann if she knows anyone looking for assistant work, the person Ann recommends is…herself.
“I’d really really really really like to work for someone who does stuff!” Ann squees.
“Well I’m probably going to get depressed soon, since everyone’s disparaging me for my success, and my best friends kinda aren’t…” Ariana tries to get Ann to calm down.
“I really want to work for you. Really.” Ann can’t be calmed. “I just put an enema bag in the trash. Help me.”
The next day Ann shows up in business casual attire, and quickly checks in on Tom to make sure he hasn’t lost his balance during mandatory mirror-flexing. She tells him Ariana is eager to tap her assistant network, without noting it’s a network of one, and makes haste for the kitchen. With nothing better to do than linger in the doorway of Ariana’s advancement, Sandoval learns THE TRUTH about Ann’s ambitions.
“I won’t fire her exactly, but I’ll humiliate her, and start seeing another assistant on the side,” Tom has one solution for all things.
Once Ann is crying in the kitchen, Sandoval takes his woe-is-me tour outside of the house, for more conversations about how unreasonable Ariana is for stealing the assistant that helps him wrangle the tasks of buying batteries and neglecting animals.
“Those aren’t my pets and I shouldn’t have to take care of them,” Sandoval self-awares. “Still, Ariana shouldn’t say they’re hers just because she adopted them, pays their expenses, and feeds them.”
“You locked my dog in my room for three hours, and it ate my garbage monument,” Ariana scowls.
Tom swears he shoved the litterbox full of feces in the room first, so the dog had a variety of things to snack on. That’s right, we’re given not one but two litterbox reveals, when zero would have been just fine, and it’s hard to believe the presented trough is the product of a single cat’s anal efforts, even over the stretch of a week.
“Grandma, I don’t think a cat would poop on top of poop like that, grandma,” Pogue Bun-Bun can’t believe his pink toes and nose. “I would just stand in front of it and say ‘Grandma’ over and over again while tapping the wall with my beans. Don’t they listen, Grandma?”
“Apparently not, Pogue Pierogi,” Fractalfay says, getting back to the business of doing whatever her toxoplasmosis directs.
All the same, the ASPCA needs to do a wellness check on all animals affiliated with this cast, including the frequently-biting dog working out a name-change, the cat who poops like a 41 year-old narcissist, the post-operative dog recovering from skewer-eating, and anything Schaena’s glued to her eyes.
“It’s mink!” Schaena snaps, reminding us about the time Tom saved her from financial ruin. “That’s just like a weasel or something, it’s not like it was doing anything.”
“Why are you looking at me?” Brock looks up, excited to be included.
Schaena reports she’s wrestling OCD brought on by post-baby hormones and the man-baby she shares a house with. Brock thinks the solution to this anxiety is more nannies, so there’s always someone on hand to pat makeup onto a toddler’s face while he’s busy shopping for budgie smugglers.
“I don’t see why we should parent when we don’t have to parent,” Brock’s done this before.
“I feel like this is your second chance at being a dad though,” Schaena fries.
“Doesn’t everyone get three chances?” Brock checks his notes, but all he’s written down is BECOME SANDOVAL STEP ONE: SHOES.
Schaena needs a hobby to distract herself, so she reveals she’s tracking dozens of people on her phone and knows who hooked up with who. Schaena’s big scoop is that Katie slept with Max, her former stalking victim/one-sided relationshit, and apparently Schwartz’s best friend this season. No one gives a shit in the slightest, despite Lala’s efforts to mountain-up this molehill, so the cast gets back to what they do best: chasing Ariana from scene to scene, asking if she’s gotten over her ten year relationship’s implosion yet. Now? How bout now? Now? How bout now?
This fails to trigger Ariana’s get-over-it reflex, and instead she finds herself at a beach picnic with last season’s trash and only Katie to trade side-eyes with.
“Basically I’m right professionally,” Katie reads. “On Bravo, this guarantees a villain edit.”
Schaena sits by gamely while Brock scrambles for screen time by reminding Ariana of the recent relationship crimes that lubricated her star ascension, before Schaena pivots to the once-upon-a-time everyone on the planet flirted with her even if no one else remembers.
“Tell me I’m pretty,” Schaena, always. “No, again! Tell me again!”
Only 10 of those admirers got a restraining order to halt proceedings, and since two of those were John Mayer, it technically only counts as one.
“It’s two,” John Mayer interrupts. “I had to make sure she couldn’t reach me by land or sea.”
“That still leaves air!” Schaena shouts, quickly scrawling down the name of her next song.
Sandoval and Schwartz disappear to discuss the injustice of consequences for actions, while Ariana tries to explain for the hundredth time that the manipulation window has been closed, and if her ex wants to keep smashing into it like a lost bird, that’s on him.
“Stop shoving him on me,” Ariana snaps.
“We’re leaving,” Katie calls Schwartz to let him know he should get his stuff.
“Could you just grab it?” Schwartz asks, assuming Katie is still his mommy replacement.
“Bye!” Katie is retired.
Katie and Schwartz then attempt to have a conversation about Katie’s mattress snacks with lost cast member Max, and for the first time Schwartz looks damaged.
“Maybe we could get dinner sometime,” Schwartz is not over it.
“I don’t want to get dinner sometime,” Katie is over it.
If Schwartz is going to pursue Katie all over again he’s going to need to slough off roommate and sometimes-girlfriend Jo first, which is going to be a challenge since she describes him as her “favorite person ever” thanks to a shared love of robot-noises and rubberface expressions. Jo’s not equipped to deal with the cast’s level of toxicity without a juice cleanse, so she opts for sabotage and bleaches the high holy fuck out of Schwartz’s hair instead.
“Joseph!” Schwartz always has a dumb nickname at the ready.
“Ha!” Jo’s revenge-do succeeds in failing.
This look carries him into some kind of speed-dating swingers’ party, where he courts multiple women while Jo hates herself in the bathroom. The cast’s kryptonite is direct confrontation, but Jo chooses it anyway, and asks WTF is up with dating her for months, living with her, and professing love before going lady-shopping.
“Have you seen Seeking Sister Wife?” Schwartz asks. “How about From Couple to Throuple? That one is on Peacock, so…”
Jo tabulates that she’s been played by someone who speaks in moop-moop voice when he doesn’t want to be the bad guy, then feigns ignorance when the tears start falling. Schwartz stays in character, while she retreats to privately process her failed romance with someone who seemed so perfect when they were chicken-clucking gesturing and bleeping together over burritos.
With Jo on the ropes production is desperate for more awkward Katie and Schwartz time, so we’re asked to believe they’re pursuing the same romantic lede, which is so contrived it’s not worth acknowledging beyond this. Where Katie truly shines is when she’s forced to engage with Sandoval’s scripted faux-apology tour.
“I just wanted to say I’m really sorry—“
“Let me stop you right there,” Katie retorts, every single time.
What’s Lala up to? Nothing, but she has imported her entire extended family for an assist, while proceeding to plan a second child via sperm donation, so it can be “hers” exclusively. Since this isn’t gross enough, she invites all the ladies to weigh in on the potential donor at a party at Lisa’s pink palace, where everything tacky happens, and women instantly become girls.
“Who cares!” Lala toasts with sparkling water, which is like, her thing now that she needs a thing.
“We choose Kyle!” Ariana shouts, and somewhere on Love in Paradise Kyle pauses mid-crunch.
Meanwhile, James is thriving, after giving up drinking, getting a house with Ally, and celebrating a happy reunion with long-lost dog Graham aka Hippie. He’s booking big arenas and major dates with his DJ work, but on VPR his steady gigs still happen at SUR, and he’s forced to entertain opening for Sandoval’s karaoke cover band. Sandoval starts going off on a tangent about his heartbreak over Raquel’s false imprisonment at some deprogramming camp for troubled teens, but James shuts it down with reminders that for years he claimed to be fully in-love with Ariana, and his heartbreak should be assigned to the disintegration of that union — not the side piece.
“Go push buttons on a laptop,” Sandoval whines.
“In Vegas?” James is not going to suffer a self-esteem drop from a worm with a mustache.
Ally tries to sell herself as a reformed Swiftie and an aspiring astrologer, which is more believable than Rachel’s pageant lines about helping children, so go off. She smartly keeps her distance from Lala and Schaena, who spiral further down the jealousy toilet with each passing episode, as they scramble for reasons to welcome Sandoval back to the fray and gloss over their own historic hypocrisy.
Schaena and Lala bond over their lack of understanding about real estate law, and Ariana’s unwillingness to accept a low-ball buyout offer from someone who used her good credit to fund a bar and second mortgage. Sandoval insists he will buy her out, so Ariana’s lawyers say that’s fine, and true to form, Sandoval has none of the money for this, since he already squandered his mother’s retirement.
This is still somehow branded as Ariana being unreasonable, while LVP tut-tuts about a supposed mental health crisis Sandoval experienced while he was mocking other people’s mental health.
“I think it should be obvious I’m team misogyny by now,” LVP clucks, adrift without someone to infantilize.
If that wasn’t convincing enough, LVP shows up at the shell of a sandwich shop, and is disappointed that her forced relationship between Ariana and Katie and her grifter friend Penny isn’t working.
“Here’s all the delays we haven’t enjoyed while working with your recommended COO,” Katie isn’t dumb.
“We have her contract with our lawyers,” Ariana adds, because she’s really come to appreciate the role legal experts play in her life.
“But if you have lawyers, how will you trust someone else to profit from promoting your likeness?” LVP thinks it should be clear why she picked the Toms by now.
Contracts stipulate that Kyle Chan has to perpetually resurface on this series like herpes, and a planned store opening in San Francisco means it’s time to dust off the 25th version of “Good as Gold” for whoever wants to hear it. Sandoval is tapped to manage the logistics of this opening, which he’s eager to do, and volunteers the services of his sound guy.
“I’ve never done a sound check ever,” Schaena doesn’t have to say this, but does anyway.
This also creates another opening for Schaena to fully forget that Ariana’s breakup isn’t something that happened to her.
“You’re the only person who has always had my back from day one,” Schaena actually says to the guy who called her ridiculous for ever thinking they were friends.
Lala calls while Sandoval and Schaena are playing nice-nice, to make sure Sandy knows not to come to her 33rd birthday burlesque party.
“You’re only 33?” Sandoval’s as shocked as everyone at home.
“Whatever, eternal 40,” Lala counters.
“It’s PREVENTATIVE,” Schaena snaps from the tippity top of plastic surgery mountain.
The whole team is bound for San Francisco for Kyle Chan’s opening, and Brock wants to plan a “roaring twenties” party where everyone dresses like gangsters from the 30s. Ariana’s new boyfriend Dan also plans to attend, but before they board a flight with the riff raff they go out on a cute dinner where both seem genuinely smitten with each other. Dan’s got a firm NYC vibe, and stiffens when Ariana suggests relocation to the superficial capital of the country. He’s not keen, and all I see is an opportunity for an NYC-based show and future interaction between Ariana and the Summer House crew.
“How is it possible I haven’t been engaged to him yet?” Lindsey scans her instagram followers for any possible overlap.
Meanwhile, Sandoval readies to wow no one with his band-of-sorts, and the person writing the closed captions delivers by describing his bid at trumpet playing as *plays discordant notes*. James shows up to watch the gig, and Tom’s mom is already on deck, and stares at the stage like she’s captivated by her favorite televangelist and is going to be seized by the holy spirit, as soon as the lithium wears off.
“Yike,” Vy’s go-to line really works here.
Before the show is even over the venue scrambles to take his name off the marque, and Jo and Schwartz assemble outside to revisit their separation. Jo demonstrates the moves she learned at her latest improv class, and Schwartz asks to perform his one man wishy-washy act. Jo consents, and he says he feels weird with the distance between them, but wants their status as friends to be clear, but also doesn’t want to rule out getting married in eight years.
“See? That’s what I’m talking about,” protests Jo, who has too many receipts reflecting his habit of professing undying love and then taking it back.
Dan seems to know his presence on the show will inspire speculation that he’s a screen-chaser, so he opts out of a planned group boat outing in favor of working out and getting a massage. Everyone else heads to pier 39, where Lala uses her laser-sharp people reading skills to hone in on everything she overlooks in herself. Schwartz attempts to hold Katie’s hand for the first time in 15 years, and Katie tests the battery on her taser in case she needs to use it. Brock reminds everyone that Schaena recommended warm clothes but no one paid attention, so maybe folks should go on a spending spree at local shops before they board the SS Minnow for a three hour tour.
Schwartz tells Sandoval he’s been thinking about his proposal that they live together and collectively pay a $12K a month mortgage, and his mind is telling him no, but his body is telling him yeah.
“So I’m saying yes,” Schwartz announces, and Sandoval is super relieved he’s that much closer to still not being able to buy Ariana out.
On board the boat the weather starts getting tough, and the tiny ship is tossed, which ups the opportunity for a rogue wave to knock someone’s cell phone into the sea. All that build up has no delivery, but James does find the fire for a few random swings around a pole.
“Whee! I’m fun!” James is an army of one.
After the trip Sandoval dares the sea lions to attack, but they think they’ve already had their fill of microplastics, and some tragic twist of fate leaves Ariana trapped in conversation with Brock.
“Have you considered getting over your breakup for my wife’s benefit?” Holy shit Brock.
“So she can be buddies with the guy who screamed at her last week?” Ariana hasn’t sniffed glue since high school.
“Here’s a bland statement about forgiveness…” Brock says things.
“You don’t have to forgive anyone,” Ariana with the truth. “Gray rocking and going no contact is the only way to avoid manipulation. That’s me. I’m a grey rock.”
“I am the walrus!” a sea lion with an identity crisis retorts.
“I’m Schaena’s rock,” Brock tries. “And people have always said I’ve got rocks in my head, so I get it.”
“Not really,” Ariana’s familiar with how men on this show work. “I’m retired from diapering my man-baby. There’s power in female rage. And there never seems to be any issue with male rage.”
“Male rage whaaaa…” Brock’s sniffing glue habit is active, as the editors provide a little montage of all the mantrums that have tied the show together since this season’s premiere.
Brock derps away to get a haircut from the wrong era, and everyone gets ready for the historically inaccurate theme party, and Lala knocks on the door of Ariana’s room for a chance to spot Dan in a towel.
“I’m not mad,” Lala’s eyes keep going up and down, while Dan seems to immediately identify the bullshit before him.
Dan passes on the group dinner in favor of a private dinner with one of Ariana’s best friends, but he does iron all of Ariana’s clothes and lay them out for her, so Ann should know the personal assistant competition is heating up. It’s hard to tell if Dan is defensive about the coming interrogation, if he’s yucked out about sharing airspace with Sandoval, or if he just wants nothing to do with all of this.
“He (Sandoval) hasn’t done anything to me,” Dan explains. “But I know what he’s done.”
“I need to go before my lady-boner shows,” Lala excuses herself.
James splish splashes balls-deep in the bathtub with a rubber duck, while Ally tries to puzzle out Dan’s reluctance to attend dinner.
“Have you met us?” James asks, before humming a few bars of Rubber Ducky. “He might not even be able to stand being in the room with Sandoval. And not just because of the smell. Did you hear he’s moving in with his loser best friend so they can go nowhere together? Swan dive into bubbles!”
Everyone arrives at a bar or something, with James looking Peaky Blinders, Schwartz in a brown suit with snaps down the sides, Lala playing flapper, and Brock looking like a bouncer at a Berlin sex club. Someone notes Ariana and Sandoval wear similar shoes, and Ariana seems hypnotized by her phone as a means of avoiding looking up for too long.
Wing-woman Katie is ever at the ready, so she and Ariana take in the view until Schwartz saunters over to announce they look like a duo.
“We’re the new Tom-Tom,” Katie smirks.
Schwartz admits he’s still subservient, and is eager to hit on his ex-wife.
“You like me again,” he tries.
“No I don’t,” Katie retorts.
Schwartz goes on to propose a one-night stand of binge-eating snack food and scrolling in silence, but Katie isn’t nostalgic for her mistakes. She thinks in a few years Schwartz will brand her the one who got away, and she’s going to stay away just to make sure that happens.
Schaena finds a secluded spot to go outside with Sandoval to talk logistics, while Ariana paces alone, texting Dan that she’s got leftovers for him. He responds he’s stuffed and a little drunk, and his pushing away is getting distracting. Sandoval insists to Schaena that he feels good about Dan’s presence, because that way someone is there for Ariana. Schaena tries to get him to apologize for weaponizing her mental health, and Sandy admits that he does feel bad about that, and this almost seems sincere, so they indulge in an extended hug.
“I helped Ariana clean her house too,” Schaena reminds everyone at home, just in case we were landing too hard on her being awful.
“Oh, I’m still just here to rage bait,” Lala interjects, eager to resume instigation duties once her sparkling water hangover subsides.
Thank you, Patreon supporters! The rest of the season will be recapped in May! patreon.com/fractalfay

Needing some advice on the way my (22f) brother (16m) has been acting recently.
Back in september, my brother - we'll call him Tod - told me he had a girlfriend (14f). My told me this in confidence, and he was still attending church with my parents and having girlfriend or boyfriend is not allowed. He told me as him and I have always had a good relationship, and I had stopped attending church at the end of the year previous and currently have a boyfriend, so he knew he could trust me.
I kept my promise and didn't tell our parents, however I did let him know as time went on that I had talked to two of our other siblings (27m and 19f) about it. Both not going to church, and both with a partner, and people we could trust with the situation. He was fine with that, even if he's not as close with them as I am.
I still live at home with my parents, which meant I got to see Tod often and we would chat about his relationship and how it was going, and I would try and give him advice the best I could. The advice would range from spending a healthy amount of time with your partner, how school is important (he had been skipping to go to her house during the day), and I even had the sex talk with him when he let me know that he and his girlfriend were gonna start having sex after she turned 15 in february. I did my best to emphasize how important using protection is at such a young, and how getting pregnant would not be a good outcome for them at this time.
During this time, my parents came to find out about his girlfriend and he's since stopped going to church and stopped even pretending to try in school, spending most of his days at her house with her, no matter what any of us said to him.
In March, his girlfriend (who had befriended me on snap) sent me a snap of the two of them with a negative pregnancy test and a caption saying "we're in the clear for now", or something along those lines.
I immediately texted both of them about it, asking why they thought they could be pregnant and they admitted to having had sex without protection multiple times. Through the coversation with them that ensued, they told me that they thought they were ready for a baby anyways, and how they both wanted to be parents. I conversed with my older brother and younger sister about this revelation, and we determined it was time to have a bit of an intervention with Tod.
After school one day, I brought him over to my older brothers places, where me and my siblings talked to him again about how important it is to be careful at such a young age, and how getting pregnant now would not be the easy-going life they thought, especially if they keep skipping school, and reminded Tod that he doesn't even have a job, and has no money, so he wouldn't even be able to begin providing for a baby. He seemed to understand what we were saying and we moved on.
I will admit, at this point I had thought we should tell our parents about this, and truthfully we should have, but we didn't, and our conversation seemed to make sense to him, so we went on.
Two weeks ago, Tod's girlfriend got upset at my sister and I for unadding her on snap. We had done it because her relationship with Tod was continually getting more and more unhealthy. They spent every second together, and were neglecting any responsibilities they had. During her rant she told us she was pregnant. 2-3 weeks to be exact. I immediately told my parents. This was not something we could keep from them.
Over the next few days, a lot of conversations happened and it was true. They had taken three test, all of them confirming she was pregnant. Her mom was furious, and so was ours. Tod was pleased with himself, telling her to keep the baby, offering her promises of what he could provide. Thankfully, her mom stopped letting him to their house and they haven't been allowed to see each other again since. Tod's girlfriend has gotten an abortion, against his wishes, and is no longer pregnant. I thought that was it.
During a conversation with my mom yesterday, we were talking about the situation, and she mentioned there was a recording (that I believe was taken after their negative test months ago), that she played for me. In it, Tod says "you're pregnant", to which his girlfriend replies "no I'm no, the test is negative." His response is what's solidified to me that he truly does not have any brain cells in his head. He said "yeah but we can try."
That's where the recording cut stops. After listening to it a couple more times, my mom and I begin talking about it, and she admits that he's always seemed to like babies more than the normal teen boy. Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with a boy wanting to be a dad one day, but he seems to love them more than normal, and wants to be a dad like right now.
We've gotten to a point where we don't know what to do. Every conversation with him ends with him just agreeing us, and then doing the exact opposite, but it's his obsession with being a dad, or maybe just babies I'm general, that we're the most concerned with.
If anyone had any advice on what we should do next with him, please feel free to drop it down below. If not, I hope you enjoy just a snippet of the sh!tshow that my family life is like. I also hope this makes sense, if not I'll be happy to clarify anything!

[Thumbnail🪞]
Welcome back to this write-up about a complicated artist's complicated book.
Don't be absurd, of course you have time!
Part 1 Part 2
Now that we've established what the book is about, let's take a look at The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls' rich publication and re-publication history. I promise, it's more scandalous than it sounds.

“HER SPEECH IS NOTHING, YET THE UNSHAPÈD USE OF IT DOTH MOVE THE HEARERS TO COLLECTION” (HORATIO, ACT IV SCENE 5)

As I've mentioned in the last installment, TAFWVG has been released multiple times, in multiple editions – four of them, to be precise. And I wish I was exaggerating when I say that three of those four releases have been veritable masterclasses in testing your audience's loyalty. In case you're wondering: the secret is to alter your source material in strange and unpredictable ways, while also constantly messing up on the customer service front.
Most of this installment condenses and combines these two excellent write-ups, which contain most of the receipts: TAFWVG: A History / The Bloody Crumpets: An Inconsistent History. 🔍 Anything that isn't sourced with links is in there. While there were only minor differences between the first and second pressings, the third and fourth editions came with significant alterations to the structure of the book and the story itself, notably the cast of fictional Asylum inmates... a handful of which had, in fact, been obvious avatars of EA's IRL friends and collaborators.
It turns out there are good reasons why most fiction authors don't do real-life inserts so overtly – but in EA's case, it did make sense, and was warmly embraced by fans upon release. When the book first came out, some of these people had been familiar to the fanbase for years, frequently appearing in candid pictures on EA's blog and leaving comments on the forum; some were also involved in her music and show. Recognizing that one character's name was a pun on So-and-So's username was a nice Easter egg for veteran fans, and newcomers got to learn about fandom lore; it brought the story to life and the community closer.
One side character, for instance, was named after EA's best friend from Chicago, whom many fans had had direct interactions with: she co-ran EA's online stores during the Enchant years, and acted as admin, main moderator and EA-liaison of the forum throughout its near-decade of existence.
One crazy girl who thinks she's a pirate is 100% OC... but her description and illustrations 🪞 were explicitly modeled after pictures of Bloody Crumpet Vecona (one of EA's back-up performers), who became the first stand-in pirate character 📺 in the live show. Captain Vecona was also celebrated as the “Asylum Seamstress” 🪞🔍: most of the iconic early Opheliac costumes were her design. She had a following of her own, even prior to touring with EA, for her professional costuming work and her collaborations with German photographer Angst-im-Wald. (Shitty archive link, sorry - most of those badass photoshoots seem to have been lost to time. But if you were a European goth in the mid-2000s, search your old hard drives: I promise you, you've downloaded some of those pictures.)
Inmate “Veronica”, a cabaret girl diagnosed as a nymphomaniac, was a doppelgänger of her namesake, burlesque dancer Veronica Varlow 🪞 – the ride-or-die Crumpet, whom EA often lovingly called her “husband”, saying they had been lovers in a previous lifetime. Veronica was part of every single tour post-Opheliac release and developed a solid fanbase of her own, which she maintains to this day.
Even the brave and well-mannered talking rats (oh yeah, there's talking rats in the Asylum story) were named after EA's real-life pet rodents, who had featured in glamorous photoshoots. (Slight NSFW for sideboob.)
You get the general gimmick by now: EA turns her personal life into art, which she turns into a fictional world, which she then prompts the audience to inhabit with her. The whole Asylum concept was essentially an open invitation to self-insert parasocial fanfic: “Here's this very personal world that I've created, in which I, the artist, exist as a fictional persona, alongside all these quirky inmate characters that you've seen in my stage show, and who are avatars my real-life friends. Come on in, make it your home, and populate it with your own zany Victorian alter egos.”
And it worked, to an extent: like I've said, most fans were on board before they'd even read the book, and the Asylum became “real” in that sense.
But it can get a bit disorienting to find your place in a fantasy world, when said world keeps changing based on the author's shifting feelings about her story, her target audience, and her friends... plus, you'd love to read the book, but the darn thing still hasn't shipped.

ROUNDS 1 & 2: THE HARDCOVERS

\A MINOR ADJUSTMENT\
TAFWVG was first teased in spoken-word bonus tracks 🎤 on a 2007 EP. In spring 2008, EA started reading excerpts from her upcoming book at live shows. Early excerpts from the Asylum narrative featured a character named “Jo Hee” 📺; in the story, she is a cellist from “the Orient” (love that Victorian geography) and Emily's childhood confidante.
In real life, Lady Jo Hee, Center of Happiness, was the OG Bloody Crumpet. 📺 She had been there since from the very first Opheliac show in Chicago in 2006, accompanying EA on the electric cello – the only instrumentalist ever featured in the line-up besides EA herself.
In August 2008, Alternative Magazine ran a feature about the upcoming book.🔍, teasing some of its pages. Fans were quick to spot a very sisterly picture of EA and Jo Hee 🪞, borrowed from a fan-favorite photoshoot of the two. (An aside: this specific picture also became famous in the fandom for another reason. At some point, someone made an edit replacing Jo Hee with Amy Lee from Evanescence; for a while, it kept making the rounds in alt/goth internet circuits, casual onlookers kept getting excited about it, and Plague Rats kept having to step in and disappoint them.)
Anyway. For reasons undisclosed by either party, Jo Hee quietly left the Crumpets after that tour, never to be mentioned again.
By the time the book came out in late 2009, the character of “Jo Hee” had been renamed “Sachiko”. (I guess it didn't matter whether the one non-white character in the story was meant to be Korean or Japanese.) Jo Hee's face had been edited out of the (still clearly recognizable) photograph, and eerily replaced with Nondescript_Asian_Woman_023.jpg from Shutterstock.🪞
You'd think that the switcheroo would have raised more eyebrows, or at least some awkward chuckles, among fans of an artist whose better-known lyrics include “If I Photoshop you out of every picture, I could / Go quietly, quiet - but would that do any good?”. Yet to my knowledge, it did not. Possibly because, by the time people got around to reading the book, some fans had been waiting for their copy longer than Jo Hee had been a Crumpet.
A ROCKY RELEASE
Although the book seemed just about ready for publication at the time of those 2008 readings, the initial release was delayed by technical difficulties (some data had been lost during the editing process). And then delayed some more when, a year later, EA cancelled the US leg of a tour and slammed the door on Trisol, accusing the label owner of exploitation and embezzlement (he was allegedly selling fake tickets to her shows on a phony website). In August 2009, she signed over to The End Records, and we were back in business, baby!
Not only was The Book on its way to the presses, but the long-awaited release would coincide with a “Deluxe” re-issue of Opheliac, with new cover art and bonus tracks. For $100, you could pre-order the “Ultimate Book/Album Collection”, which included the revamped album, the book, a t-shirt, a tote bag, a recipe booklet and some bonus digital downloads, to be shipped in October. Or, for a more up-close-and-personal experience, you could purchase a VIP bundle for her upcoming shows in the fall: $50 plus ticket price would get you the book, a swag bag, and a meet-and-greet. (VIP tickets were capped at 20 slots per show; from what I gather, informal interactions with fans at the merch table were becoming overwhelming on previous tours. Again: fast-growing audience.)
Alas, due to printing issues this time, the making and shipping were soon pushed back to December. VIP ticket-holders were assured, at the start of the tour, that their copies would be shipped first as soon as the books were printed, with handwritten dedications from EA. Purchasers of the “Book/Album” bundle would receive theirs shortly thereafter. This seemed like a reasonable trade-off for a minor delay, and no one was too upset. (Well, some might have been, but at that juncture in Asylum history – for reasons that will become apparent in a later installment, when we get to EA's altercations with her fans – I guess they knew better than to get mouthy about it.)
The bundles came first... and in many cases, “bundle” was a generous term, because they arrived incomplete. When the t-shirt or tote bag weren't missing, they were printed the wrong colors. Many digital download codes had to be requested via email. The book itself was beautiful, but poorly bound, typo-ridden, and missing entire pages. (This was largely fixed in the second hardcover release.)
As far as I know, everyone who complained to the distributor got their money back – and I imagine it was a nice surprise when some items showed up, inexplicably, months after they had already been refunded. But it was still a bit of a “sad trombone” moment for many loyal fans, who had to request a refund on the Ultimate Super-Cool Preorder Exclusive Bundle to purchase the book and album separately.
As for the VIP package books, those didn't start shipping until late 2010 – a whole year after the official book release, months after less invested fans had already received their non-preordered copies. Worse: none of the books were signed, much less lovingly adorned with a personalized handwritten note as EA had promised. (And had tweeted about doing during the year-long shipping delay!) After enough fans meekly expressed their intense disappointment, EA's BFF-forum-admin mailed out signed bookplates that people could stick in their book in lieu of a personalized autograph. No real explanation was given. As far as I know, this particular let-down didn't cause a mass exodus of disappointed fans – but, in the midst of other goings-on, it certainly contributed to eroding many fans' trust in EA's word.
EA TAKES ON HOLLYWOOD
The 2011 release of the largely-identical second edition was better planned and overall uneventful, which gives me time to catch you up on contemporaneous events – like the reason EA ditched the Opheliac red and went platinum blonde. 🪞
Around that time, EA got herself a supporting role and a solo number 🎵📺 in The Devil's Carnival, Darren Lynn Bousman's psychocircus-themed movie musical. (If you're scrambling to place the name: depending on what kind of deviant you are, DLB is either the guy who directed half of the Saw movies or the guy who directed Repo! The Genetic Opera.)
If you've clicked the last link: see the bad boy greaser she's dancing with at the end of the song? That's the titular “Scorpion”, played by Marc Senter, and they were totally hitting on each other while shooting this. 📝🪞 They've been an item for twelve years now, in what appears to be a loving and mutually supportive relationship, and they seem besotted with each other. That's only marginally relevant to the story, but it's nice to know that at least one nice thing worked out in all this mess.
Back to 2011. Through her friendship with DLB and the Devil's Carnival cast (a motley crew of top-shelf B-listers 🔍 that included Bill Moseley, Paul Sorvino, the chick from Spy Kids, and the clown from Slipknot), EA also made a bunch of new industry connexions. That's how she came to decide that TAFWVG was meant to be more than a book, more than a live show: it had to become... a musical. Full company, full orchestra, big names, the works. Her 2012 album, Fight Like a Girl, was written and recorded with this project in mind, with most songs narrating events from the book and EA singing as various characters – which turns love duets into finger food for Dr. Freud. 🎵
Shortly before the album release, EA announced on Twitter that the Asylum Musical was scheduled to debut in the London West End, under the direction of Bousman, in 2014. "Casting calls to be announced soon!" (They were not.)

ROUND 3: THE AUDIOBOOK

2014 came, and brought... another TAFWG re-release announcement.
But wait – this time, it was going to be an audiobook! EA had been teasing one since before the original release, so people were quite excited. (It also sounded like a more achievable goal for the calendar year than a West End debut.) In early 2014, recording was well on its way, and the 6-CD boxset was due to ship in May.
PLEASE STAND BY, YOUR ASYLUM WILL BE PROCESSED SHORTLY
First, EA discovered “a new microphone ... that, upon testing, produced a recording of far greater beauty and expressive quality”, which naturally meant the whole thing had to be re-recorded. Two month's delay. No biggie. Our girl is a perfectionist.
But our girl also had to write, coordinate and rehearse her upcoming “Asylum Experience” – an afternoon-long interactive theater event, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, which would be performed at five dates of the Vans Warped Tour in August. (It's not exactly the West End, but it's a start! 🔍) And then she had to prepare for the filming of the Devil's Carnival sequel in the fall. So, obviously, the July deadline was not met. When she finally gave an update in late 2014, the ETA was basically “we are ever so close, but the audiobook gets there when it gets there; feel free to ask for a refund if you're not along for the ride”.
And then she signed with a literary agent. TAFWVG was going to be made into a “real” book, that readers could purchase in stores for a normal price and request from their local library – big event! (More for EA, I think, than for her fans. By that point, the second edition could be purchased as a PDF, and I believe most people who pre-ordered the audiobook had already read the story.) But this involved tailoring the narrative to a more general audience, which meant portions of the book had to be re-written... which meant further delays.

...Besides, and let’s have a teacup of “honesty time” here, if the new Asylum becomes an internationally best-selling novel, not only can we enact more change for good, but the Asylum Musical takes over Broadway faster, the Asylum Movie takes over theatres faster, and YOU are all dressed up as rats/inmates in said movie, you guessed it, faster (“Asylum Audiobook Announcement from EA”📝)

Well, you know what they say in show business: if you can't make it in London, there's always New York.
As EA assured her fans, their patience would be rewarded with a brand new, professionally polished version of the story – and in due time, I guess, a role in the movie. (“Let's hope she doesn't find another new microphone!” 🐀)
From that point on, there seems to have been an ever-widening gap between EA's enthusiasm and fan expectations. When audiobook snippets 🎤.mp3) were released, many fans were unimpressed by the oddly flat, overproduced recording (turns out a microphone can be so good it's a problem! 🐀), which highlighted EA's stilted, uncanny diction and not-quite-transatlantic accent. That caught everyone off guard, because she didn't use to read like... that. Even die-hard apologists had to concede through gritted teeth that, tragically, it was giving William Shatner. (If you're curious, you can find more previews here 🎤📝, along with EA's captions.)
Fans weren't just getting irritated with the various delays and excuses: they were baffled, angry, and embarrassed. When EA clapped back “U know U can just get a refund, right? That is totally within your power to do” on social media, and it came out that requests for refunds had been getting ignored for weeks or months 🐀, seasoned fans were like “Yeah, that tracks.” The whole never-ending ordeal was just starting to feel silly.
All told, the audiobook took two years to complete, with little to no new music in the interim. Two years is a long time for a young-leaning audience! Fans who had preordered at the end of their sophomore year were graduating high school by the time it came out. Others who had been in the middle of undergrad were now looking for full-time jobs. People had gotten pregnant, given birth and potty trained, or had houses built from the ground up. Genuine ultra-fans of the book had had time to... presumably, read other books. (“I wonder how many people passed away waiting for this shitty audiobook to be finished?”)
When the audiobook came out, many long-time Plague Rats had defected, either lamenting the misguided decisions of their favorite artist, or just calling EA a money-grabbing fraud and a lying liar. And a number of patient and unbothered fans had, quite simply, grown out of their EA phase.
Your humble servant, for one, ordered the audiobook the week it went on sale, and stuck with that preorder through five address changes and two graduation ceremonies. Now, bear in mind: through all the ups and downs, even as the charm dispelled, my taste in music evolved, and my perception of EA herself changed, I never formally stopped considering myself a fan. (Mama didn't raise no quitter.) To this day, and to my profound embarrassment, I give enough of a shit that I'm taking the time to write this story at all, and that I was able to draft most of itfrom memory.(Mama didn't teach me how to prioritize.) Well, get this: I have never once listened to the audiobook. I remember unwrapping the signed boxset (minimal artwork, flimsy cardboard, no liner notes), thinking “this could have been an email”, telling myself I'd get around to it for old time's sake... and then I never did, because it was ten hours long, and I just couldn't force myself to care about that story anymore. I was not an isolated case.
In light of this, I apologize in advance for any potential errors in the following paragraphs; others listened so posers like me wouldn't have to 🔍, and I'm going off of their word. The new and improved edition was, indeed, a different book – in that a bunch of things that felt meaningful to fans had been either reworked or excised.
THE AUDIOBOOK EDITS
The hospital narrative had been shortened in favor of the asylum story, and the controversial “Drug / Suicide / Cutting” diaries had been scrapped. Part of the fanbase applauded this decision, but others were disappointed 🐀, as they had found the diaries to be the most (some said only) personal, authentic, and insightful chapters in the book.
Curse words, some abuse, and all mentions of abortion had also been purged. It made the book tamer, but not by much... because Emilie's age had been changed from 27 to 17. Apparently, the literary agent had suggested this to make the book more marketable to a Young Adult audience. No other biographical detail had been altered, so the main narrator was now a 17 year old girl with no parents but an established music career, who checks in by herself into a high-security adult ward, no questions asked. (I'm still perplexed by this one. Did they not expect YA readers to know how hospitals work...?)
The pirate captain, formally known by her “mass of tangled black hair”, was now... a blonde. According to EA, this was a purely aesthetic change: it made the three main Asylum girls a redhead, a blonde and a brunette, which would look better in the stage adaptation. Between the lines, it also distanced the character from its original dark-haired muse: Vecona, who had left the Crumpets in 2008 after a rumored falling-out with EA over unpaid costume work.
The minor characters based on EA's old Chicago friends had been discarded entirely. Which likely made sense for EA – she hadn't lived there in years, the friend group had drifted apart as friend groups do, and by that point, there no longer was an EA forum to administrate or comment on – but not so much for her readers. Some fans had grown fond of these fictional inmates (wasn't that the point?), and weren't too happy to see EA symbolically treat them as disposable. Others were saddened that EA would just scrap these remnants of her old life, and of what felt like simpler, happier times in the fandom. Either way, children, this is why you shouldn't get a neck tattoo of your first boyfriend's name, OR openly base the “good guys” in your career-defining book on friends you made in your early twenties.
To compensate for the loss of... most named inmate characters, Veronica was given a much more prominent role in the plot. Namely, instead of being best friends, Veronica and Emily were now... in love! Lovers! Lesbian lovers! Which naturally meant that Veronica had to die. 🔍 Besides, fans famously love it when you pull a gay ship out of thin air between your two main characters, and then kill one of them off so that the other suffers more.
One last one, because I find it especially goofy: a scrappy teddy bear named Suffer, given to Emily by the talking rats, was replaced with...a Very Large Spoon, which gets its very own number in the musical. 🎵 The rationale was that Emily could use the spoon as a weapon in the climactic uprising against the Asylum doctors. Which, fair enough... except that, prior to being a cute and anachronistic 🔍 MacGuffin in the fictional Asylum story, Suffer the Bear had been a beloved mascot🪞 from the early Opheliac live shows. Some still remembered when EA had raised HELL, even starting a #FREESUFFER campaign on Twitter, because she thought someone had stolen Suffer from the stage (it later turned out that he had been misplaced in a flight case). All that noise back in the day... and now Suffer didn't matter anymore? The nerve. “She made shirts and everything!” 🐀
All this to say, reception was lukewarm. EA hadn't performed live since 2014 and the Devil's Carnival sequel had failed to make a splash (despite decent reviews, the franchise and main collaboration fell apart before the end of the promotional tour 🔍). People were checking out. There was only one way to correct this. A true paradigm shift. A fresh start – a new theme?
Hell no. It's another edition of The Asylum for Revisionist Tortureporn Friendfictions!

ROUND 4: THE E-BOOK & THE QUEST FOR THE SPOON OF ROYALS

In 2017, about a year after the audiobook release, EA self-published a digital version of TAFWVG through Amazon. The literary agent hadn't worked out in the end: publishers were put off by how dark the book was, even after the audiobook edits. EA explained that she hadn't been comfortable with some of the alterations in the first place; she respected the agent's input and had tried to give it an honest shot, but in the end, she wanted to do it the way she wanted to do it, solo... and this was it.
EA had reverted a number of the audiobook cuts (including swear words, mentions of abortion, and the narrator's age), but kept most of the changes to the Asylum narrative – namely, the omission of Former Friends Characters, and the romance between Emily and Veronica. In the newsletter announcement, she mentions being in the process of “re-recording the few little bits of the audiobook to reflect the current text version”. Not sure where we're at on that front; it's never been brought up again, and I don't think anyone's checked. (I assume most fans had war flashbacks when they read the word “re-record”, and instantly repressed that part of the communiqué.)
The “Drug / Suicide / Cutting” diaries were still omitted in the first release of the e-book, but re-included as a coda soon after, by popular demand, under the title “Evidence of Insanity” – with fantastical “doctor's annotations” like“W14A seems to have disassociated her own identity, episodic, each lasting for a longer period of time. We suspect she will continue further in this – stronger medication is needed, schedule electroconvulsive therapy.”
A physical paperback edition was released a few months later; in anticipation of this, the e-book was a stripped-down, text-centric version of the story. (Honestly not a bad call, because the digital version from 2012 was a scanned, non-searchable, 1.3GB PDF behemoth – not super Kindle-friendly!) No elaborate backgrounds and color photographs in this edition, but the pages were still illustrated with inserts of rats, keys, teacups, and... hold on... ciphers??🪞
As always in the Asylum, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. In a throwback to the prelapsarian days of the Enchant Puzzle (remember? the one that no one ever managed to solve?), the e-book illustrations contained puzzles, which formed the master-key to... a scavenger hunt! And in keeping with tradition, the grand prize was an extravagant adornment hand-crafted by EA: the “Spoon of Royals”.🪞📝 Oh my!
Some of the puzzles are simple anagrams that can be solved for keywords. A clickable word within the adjacent text takes you to a password-protected link, which takes you through to an audio file – a song or an atmospheric instrumental that goes with that moment of the story. There are also more complex ciphers that decode into riddles. Each key depicted in the book has a number or letter engraved on it. The total number of rats in the book is apparently significant. One link takes you through to a blank page whose source code contains a list of coordinates from various bridges around the world.
Oh, it was a whole thing. When the book came out, you could send a picture of you doing EA's signature “rat claw” hand sign🪞 to request admission to a private Facebook group (the “Striped Stocking Society”) where people could help each other solve the clues and EA would occasionally pop in for a chat. There was also a series of mysterious newsletters in early 2018, culminating in a Los Angeles event where EA showed up in person to pass on extra puzzle-solving material to a handful of lucky fans (although said material raised more questions that it answered 📝).
Overall, it was a great idea! Although the fanbase was generally smaller and less active after four years without a new tour or album (and a fair amount of other drama, which we have yet to get into), the e-book puzzle did pique people's interest in purchasing yet another version of the same story.
Unfortunately, once again, EA overestimated either how intuitive her fans were, or how invested they would remain. After months of collaborative efforts across multiple platforms, a number of puzzles had been cracked 🔍, but it was still unclear how the individual anagrams and numbers and riddle-solutions all fit together as scavenger hunt clues.
EA kept up the hype for a while, but the few hints that she gave on social media only revealed yet more encryption factors without really helping fans connect the dots. One cipher remained unsolved on Instagram for days and days before EA caved in and hinted at which key to use. She did helpfully specify that if you didn't know how to read music, you'd better start learning. (...Was this a fun puzzle, or a prep school admission test?) The in-person LA event had also sown some confusion as to the rules and constraints of the game: would winning involve traveling to a physical location? That didn't seem very fair. EA had mentioned physically burying some items – but could you solve the puzzle from a distance? Is the Spoon of Royals literally just buried under the Shakespeare Bridge in Los Angeles, California?? 🐀
I'm just saying: if this had come up in 2008? People in corsets and platform boots would have been out there digging.
But this was 2018. As we've mentioned, the core of EA's active fanbase (a lot of whom had been teens and young adults when she was touring Opheliac) was fast aging out of the years when most folks have the spare time, dedication, or desire to essentially do super-involved homework out of love for their favorite singer. Uncovering new songs was a fun perk the first year – but after the new album came out in 2018, none of the passwords led to exclusive material anymore. It felt a bit lacklustre for something so labor-intensive.
(The new music itself wasn't a rallying point either. Behind the Musical was, quite literally, an intended vocal guide for the Asylum musical – so, basically a collection of demos. The sound was VERY Broadway Revival, somewhat Phantomish 🎵, in a way that's either good or bad depending on who's saying it. The violins, to fans' chagrin, sounded all-MIDI; no sign of actual instrumental recordings. EA sang all the parts herself, as she had on her previous album. I'm not saying there's no merit in a one-woman Andrew Lloyd Weber tribute. Many old fans enjoyed the new material well enough, some even really liked it – but most agreed that it just didn't hit like her earlier stuff used to, and that it felt rather unfinished.)
Unlike with the Enchant Puzzle, the prize itself was not much of an intrinsic motivation. While the Faerie Queen's Wings were a straightforward concept that evoked EA's own signature stage costumes, the Spoon of Royals was... a large spoon attached to a necklace, community-college-art-teacher style. It looked impractical both as a spoon and as a necklace, and more importantly, I'm not sure how many readers felt a deep emotional connection to the spoon in the story. The spoon that had usurped Suffer the Bear, no less!
In short: people gave up on the game because it was too hard, it came too late, and they had other things to do.
Thus, the Spoon of Royals remains unclaimed to this day, and I doubt I'll see anyone crack the puzzle in this lifetime. The Striped Stocking Society FB group was terminated in 2020, around the same time a bunch of fansites folded and EA closed her Instagram comments for the first time. By that point, both EA and her fans had bigger rats to skewer – but we have a ways to go before we reach that part of the story.
I would encourage you to give the puzzle a shot for the hell of it (in case you're a cryptography nerd and currently under house arrest or in a full-body cast) but... I just tried a bunch of the links, and the passwords don't work anymore. So I guess that's that. To quote old Bill by way of conclusion: “Much ado about nothing”.

ROUND TOO-MANY: I'LL SEE YOU ON BROADWAY OR I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL

So, what now? Well, not much.
By the late 2010s, what kept many fans semi-invested – if nothing else, because it clearly meant so much to EA herself – was the prospect of an upcoming stage musical adaptation. The way EA talked about it 📺, it was very much a “when”, not an “if”. Sure, ten years on, we were still collectively stuck in the Asylum, but it would at least be a new format – and a return to EA's main field of expertise, ie songwriting and performing. Not only did the core fanbase long for new music and new shows, but Fight Like a Girl and Behind the Musical had brought in small influxes of new fans who were very eager for any chance to see her live. So whether it was out of genuine enthusiasm for the project, or out of “let EA have her musical so we can maybe finally move on”, the fanbase was overall supportive.
Even though people still joked about the 2012 announcement of a “2014 West End debut” (seriously, what was she thinking?), EA had really buckled down in the intervening years, and it looked like the project was plausibly well underway. As in, we had more than just EA's word to go on: the involvement of other people, who did not reside in the Asylum, seemed to confirm that the musical was a thing.

[CONTINUED IN COMMENTS because Reddit is being ridiculous about the character count. I swear I was under 40,000!]

If you are unaware, Linda posted a picture with this caption on her story "Hiring 1-2 personal assistants to help with life in general. E-mail with experience to Lindalaeno@yahoo.com Torrance or nearby preferred"
Now this is just what I think and I may be wrong.
1) Is this a new social media manager for Nicole? Probably not. For social media/tech related you need some sort of experience so it would be better to just state that the job is tech related so the people who have the particular skill and/or knowledge can reach out.
2) Who are these "personal assistants" for? My guess is for the parents. Since Linda specified they need to be near them I'm going to assume they're going to be with them physically so they are needed to do some physical jobs that require them to live near Linda and Noel. Nicole is going to be in San Diego and Christian doesn't stay all the time at the house so the next guess is that it's for the parents.
3) Why would the parents need them? Good question and quite frankly I have no idea. In this context "personal assistants to help with life in general" seems like a fancy word for maid. Now why would the parents need 2 people to do things for them is beyond me. Linda is currently a SAHM and I'm not sure if she will be looking for a new job as she is Nicole's manager and since she wants to be as close to Nicole as she can (not only physically but mentally) she's probably holding on to every aspect that can connect her to Nicole aka her manager.
4) Why post it on her and Nicole's story? Nicole's fanbase is mostly tweens and teens, definitely, not people who have experience being a personal assistant. Why they would post it, I have no idea. Sure there are some adults who have experience and watch Nicole but I don't know if that justifies posting it on Nicole story. Also Linda posted it on her own story. I was going to look at her account to see if she had a lot of followers but I can't seem to find her account? I'm not blocked either because I tried looking with multiple accounts and it didn't show up at all.
Anyway I may be wrong and we'll see who they will hire as they probably will show up one way or another but this definitely is interesting to post because I don't think the parents really need help with anything because they work from home and Linda doesn't really have a "real job" so...