Quiero leer un rato y me gustaría saber que no soy la única que le pasan cosas raras con gente extraña,estúpida o loca. Son pocas veces las que me paso,pero esto fue lo último hace unas semanas:
Estaba en un grupo de whatsapp de chicas feministas y estaban hablando de lo horrible que es la nueva canción de dillom. Me pareció graciosa la conversación,así que saqué captura de pantalla y lo subi a mi historia de instagram... una de las chicas de ese grupo me seguía en mi cuenta,me mando muchos mensajes privados re sacada con que tenia que eliminar la foto YA. No se veía su número,ni su cara así que no entendí porque se puso TAN paranoica. También me mandaba mensajes por WhatsApp,incluso me llamó! Obviamente no la atendí. Le explique que no era para tanto y que iba a eliminar la foto,pero cuando le envié el mensaje me "escracho" en el grupo de wpp. Otras chicas del grupo le dijeron que se calmara un toque y no lo hizo. La admin del grupo me mandó SMS,le explique lo que pasó y al final,me eliminaron del grupo... y todo porque una piba no se banco una captura de pantalla. No me reía de ella,ni la insulte. No sé qué le pasó en su mente para que reaccione así,pero seguro es insegura y muy dramática... es la persona más teatrera que encontré y eso que mi hermano es la persona más dramática que conozco. Ojalá esa chica consiga psiquiatra,ni me quiero imaginar lo insoportable que debe ser para su familia y amigos... lo gracioso de esto es que nisiquiera la conozco en persona. La tuve que bloquear de instagram y deje de responderle en wpp,pero aun guardo la conversación por si las dudas.
No me sorprende que aca haya gente loca por la situación actual del país,que anden todos de mal humor o haya gente amargada,pero sacarte así de onda por algo inofensivo es un montón y es obvio que la chica no esta mentalmente bien. Y antes de que digan que me ponga en su lugar: yo ni reacciono así cuando se ve mi nombre en un grupo de chat de una amiga o de la facultad.

Asking for a friend... Has anyone ever sent/shown a copy of their current husbands prior divorce transcript to the step kids? Do you know anyone who has?
Asking because if they reach adulthood and are still brainwashed by their BM, and you think they should know what exactly she did - vs. her blaming it all on the husband? It seems very unfair that so many BM's get to make up the truth and pound it into the heads of these vulnerable sk's while they are young. Then they never even give their dads a chance. This especially if the BM was a cheater who admitted cheating in court, but now denies it to her kids. Also, the sk's are suffering in that they are so tied to BM's apron strings that they can't leave home or hold a job, and she takes advantage of them financially and emotionally.
I know this is probably not worth it, even if I don't care anymore about the kids having a relationship with me. I just want them to have all the facts and if they still want to believe a lie, then so be it. I understand this might be a touchy subject - as we SM's tend to try to stay clear of the family drama - but have you ever known any SM to just say "eff it" and put it all out there. I am curious to see how it turned out. Was it a nightmare? Did it help? Did it affect your marriage?
Thanks for humoring me. I am feeling very tired of every one I love being the victim of BM's lies and misdeeds. When does the nice guy/gal get to have their moment? Tired of being stepped on and shat on while having to keep my mouth shut.

My biggest and only fear is loneliness, and as time goes by, it seems that will be my fate... And that's terrifying...
Guys, this is my first post on Reddit, so I hope you'll have patience.
I'm M(33), with a decent family and social structure. Close parents, long-standing and present friends, but there are certain moments, like this one that led me to vent to you, where I feel completely disconnected, disoriented, and feel like there's no soul in this world that understands me, which is why I'm not used to talking about my problems and/or feelings at all... And we all know how self-destructive that can be...
We can be our own worst enemy, and our brain has the ability to create flawless arguments, albeit unrealistic...
The root of my problem is related to my love life, which is almost non-existent at the moment. I suffer from a lack of affection that leads to disproportionate reactions and sensations. This, coupled with the fear of loneliness, is a recipe for the chaos that sometimes reigns around here.
Let me explain:
My last serious relationship ended almost 5 years ago (even before Covid hit), and since then, by my own choice, I decided not to actively seek any relationship because I had other goals in mind - finishing my master's degree and advancing my career. After both goals were achieved and set in motion, I decided to try to meet new people, mostly through online dating apps...
I want to emphasize that I'm not just looking for sex, as I mentioned above, I have a huge emotional need, so I can't even enjoy sex without emotional connection.
I'm fully aware that finding what I'm looking for won't happen overnight. There are many factors to consider: chemistry, physical attraction, common interests, compatible sense of humor, and the list goes on...
But...
Even though I have that awareness, even though I'm a logical thinker, I can't help but experience extreme emotions when I become infatuated with someone... And when things inevitably don't work out, I'm flooded with that feeling of loneliness and almost despair.
I'll leave you with three practical cases:
August 2023, the first girl I went out with - an extremely attractive woman, there was chemistry, mutual physical attraction (we just didn't kiss because of me), but she wasn't sure if she would stay in Portugal (I'm Portuguese!), if she would emigrate to another European country, or if she would return to Brazil... In other words, she couldn't offer what I seek, longevity and stability... Legitimate. Normal. Chin up, there are plenty of fish in the sea, right? Right... But it was enough to dive into those harmful feelings for weeks...
January 2024 - I work in a business hub where there are different companies, and we form a little group that lunches and has coffee together almost every day. In this group, there's a girl that I developed a crush on since November last year, and I imagined that she was interested in me too. Encouraged by my colleague, who also thought she was interested in me (seeking physical contact, constant exchange of jokes among other false alarms), I gathered the courage to invite her to dinner. I got rejected. Again, normal, you only miss the shots you don't take, right? Right... But a few more weeks completely depressive. I even went to a therapist, which helped, but €50 per week is an expense I can't afford.
Now the case that led me to write this text: Today of 2024 - I matched with a girl in February and since then we've been talking. The conversation was kind of lukewarm and I didn't have much time to arrange anything with her due to professional and personal reasons, until I promised her an outing once I returned from vacation. In early March, the conversation took off, until we arranged that outing. We went out two weeks ago and folks, there was chemistry, instant attraction, extremely compatible sense of humor, a feeling of familiarity even though it was the first time we were together... What was supposed to be a simple coffee in the afternoon turned into dinner, getting "lost" in the city at night, intense kisses by the river, and finally spending the night together at her place.
We couldn't resist and had to be together again two days later.
Everything was wonderful until my neediness came to the surface and may have undermined this very real possibility...
During Easter, she went to visit her family who lives 3 hours from my city. We talked daily via text messages, about trivial things, about everything and nothing at the same time. On Monday evening, she was supposed to return home. Around 5:00 PM, she told me she was getting ready to leave and that she was tired and sleepy. Folks, by this time in Portugal it gets dark around 6:30 PM and she would be driving for at least 3 straight hours. Naturally, I volunteered for her to call me if she needed company during the trip, which wasn't necessary.
Because we had been in conversation every day, I was expecting her to let me know when she got home, which didn't happen.
I got worried and asked her at 10:30 PM to send me an SMS when she got home.
She only replied the next morning (Tuesday) saying she had fallen asleep, to which I replied that she could have let me know when she arrived.
And that's where the rupture happened. I think she interpreted my message as "controlling" and not as "concern".
She replied saying that she doesn't work like that. In the midst of my naivety, I insist once again that she could have let me know.
And she stopped responding...
I asked her yesterday if I could have a word with her to try to fix things, to which she says she's not emotionally and socially available... And once again, she stopped responding...
I think the story doesn't end here for better or for worse, but once again, here I am immersed in this excessively depressive state that clouds my vision for the future and judgement.
Again, I'm ware that we only have been speaking fet a couple of months and we met personally just 2 weeks ago. That's why I believe I was just a little bit too intense.
If you have any advice, input, or a fresh perspective that broadens my horizons, I appreciate it...
Sorry for the long text, but this was therapeutic...

O meu maior é único medo é a solidão, e, à medida que o tempo passa, parece-me que será esse o desfecho... E isso é aterrorizante...
Pessoal, este é o meu primeiro post no reddit, por isso espero que tenham paciência.
Sou H(33), com uma estrutura familiar e social decente. País próximos, amigos de longa data e presentes, mas há certos momentos, como este que me levou a desabafar convosco, que me sinto completamente desconectado, desorientado e sinto que não há alma neste mundo que me compreenda, por essa razão não tenho de todo o hábito de falar sobre os meus problemas e/ou sentimentos... E todos nós sabemos o quão autodestrutivo isso pode ser...
Nós podemos ser o nosso maior inimigo e o nosso cérebro tem a capacidade de criar argumentos infalíveis, apesar de irrealistas...
A raiz do meu problema está relacionada a minha vida amorosa, que é, neste momento quase inexistente. Sofro de uma carência de afecto que leva a reações e sensações desproporcionais. Isso aliado ao medo da solidão é receita para o caos que as vezes vai por estas bandas.
Passo a explicar:
O meu último relacionamento sério terminou à quase 5 anos atrás (mesmo antes do covid bater à porta), desde então, por opção própria resolvi não procurar ativamente nenhum relacionamento porque tinha outros objetivos em mente - finalizar o mestrado e encaminhar a minha carreira profissional. Após ambos objetivos terem sido cumpridos e encaminhados decidi tentar conhecer pessoas novas, maioritariamente via apps de encontros online...
Adianto que eu não procuro apenas sexo, como mencionei acima tenho uma enorme carência afetiva, por isso nem consigo tirar prazer de sexo sem afetividade.
Tenho perfeita noção que para achar o que eu procuro não será da noite para o dia. Existem muitos fatores a considerar: química, atração física, pontos em comum, sentido de humor compatível, e a lista continua...
Mas...
Mesmo tendo essa noção, mesmo sendo uma pessoa de raciocínio lógico, não consigo evitar experiênciar sensações extremas quando fico iludido por alguém.. E quando inevitavelmente a coisa não funciona, sou inundado por o tal sentimento de solidão e quase desespero.
Deixo com vocês 3 casos práticos:
Agosto de 2023, o primeira miúda que sai - uma mulher extremamente atraente, houve química, houve atração física de parte a parte (só não rolou beijo por minha culpa), mas ela não tinha a certeza se iria continuar em Portugal (sou tuga!), se iria emigrar para outro país europeu, ou se iria voltar para o Brasil... Ou seja, não conseguia oferecer o que eu procuro, longevidade e estabilidade... Legítimo. Normal. Levanta a cabeça que há muito peixe no mar, certo? Certo... Mas foi o suficiente para mergulhar nos tais sentimentos danosos durante semanas..
Janeiro de 2024 - trabalho num núcleo empresarial onde existem diferentes empresas, e formamos um grupinho que almoça e toma café juntos praticamente todos os dias. Nesse grupo há uma rapariga que eu desenvolvi uma paixoneta desde Novembro do ano passado, e, imaginei eu, que ela estava interessada em mim também. Encorajado pelo meu colega, que também era da opinião que ela estaria interessada em mim (procura de contacto físico, constante troca de piadas entre outros falsos alarmes) ganhei coragem de lhe convidar para um jantar. Levei nega. Mais uma vez normal, só não se molha quem não anda à chuva, certo? Certo... Mas mais umas semaninhas completamente depressivas. Fui até a uma consulta de psicologia, que ajudou, mas 50€ por semana é uma despesa que eu não posso comportar.
Agora o caso que me levou a escrever este texto: Hoje de 2024 - dei um match com uma miúda em Fevereiro e desde então fomos falando. A conversa estava meio morna e não tinha grande tempo para combinar nada com ela por motivos profissionais e pessoais, até que lhe prometi uma saída assim que regressasse de férias. A inícios de Março a conversa levantou voo, até que combinamos a tal saída. Saímos à duas semanas atrás e malta, houve química, atração instantânea, sentido de humor extremamente compatível, uma sensação de familiaridade mesmo sendo a primeira vez que tivemos juntos.. O que era um simples café durante a tarde, passou para jantar, andar "perdidos" pela cidade durante a noite, beijos intensos em frente ao rio, e finalmente passar a noite juntos em casa dela.
Não resistimos e tivemos que estar juntos novamente dois dias depois.
Tudo maravilhoso, até que a minha carência veio ao de cima e poderá ter minado esta possibilidade bem real...
Durante a Páscoa ela foi visitar a família que mora a 3 horas da minha cidade. Falamos diariamente por SMS, de coisas triviais, de tudo e de nada ao mesmo tempo. Na segunda-feira ao final da tarde ela iria regressar. Por volta das 17:00 disse-me que se estava a preparar para arrancar e que estava com sono. Pessoal, por esta altura em Portugal escurece por volta das 18:30 e ela iria conduzir durante pelo menos 3 horas seguidas. Naturalmente voluntariei-me para ela me ligar caso precisasse de companhia durante a viagem, o que não foi necessário.
Pelo facto de termos mantido conversa todos os dias, eu estava a contar que quando ela chegasse a casa, que me avisasse, o que não aconteceu.
Fiquei preocupado e pedi-lhe às 22:30 que quando chegasse a casa para mandar uma SMS.
Respondeu apenas no dia a seguir de manhã (ontem) a avisar que tinha adormecido, ao qual eu respondi que poderia ter avisado da sua chegada.
E foi aqui que houve a rotura. Eu penso que ela interpretou a minha mensagem como "controladora" e não como "preocupação".
Respondeu dizendo que ela não funciona assim. No meio da minha ingenuidade volto a insistir que poderia ter avisado.
E deixou de responder...
Perguntei-lhe hoje se eu podia dar-lhe uma palavrinha para tentar emendar as coisas, ao qual ela diz que está sem grande disponibilidade emocional e social.. E uma vez mais deixou de responder...
Julgo que a história não acaba aqui para o bem ou para o mal, mas mais uma vez, cá estou eu mergulhado neste estado excessivamente depressivo que me turva a visão para o futuro...
Se tiverem algum conselho, input ou uma perspetiva que me alargue os horizontes, agradeço...
Desculpem o longo texto, mas isto foi terapêutico..

Serious post, but I'm always here to get roasted.
I've been in for more than a few years and I honestly am not optimistic about where things are headed. Things changed fast after my first contract. I know that I'm not alone in how I feel but it seems like a lot of dudes don't see the same problems or are in denial.
Leadership seems to be treating their force worse and worse as time goes on. I've seen more and more people have to fight tooth and nail to be at their own life events (births, marriages, family losses, etc.) and a lot of terrible stuff happens with impunity. I used to think that the trash that happened during COVID was a fluke caused by a bad environment, but I now think that this behavior has become the norm and not the exception. Covering up bad actions, patronizing the enlisted, and spiteful roadblocking stayed long after COVID was gone.
I understand the dismissive humor that we all have towards this, especially within combat MOS groups (me), but on a completely serious note: it's not ok, no matter how much we laugh it off. And I see a lot of dudes defending this kind of leadership. To those dudes: fine, but you'll see plenty of good SMs leave to go live their best lives.
I'm sick of hearing about our retention problems. Just look at the way people are treated and the hoops guys have to jump through just to participate in their own lives. And I won't entertain the "you signed that contract" talk because it was NOT always like this. I was here when leaders didn't act this way and we all (at least my guys) had pretty balanced lives and made it work, but something changed after 2020 and the balance tipped towards abuse and neglect with impunity.
I wouldn't be surprised if the days of the volunteer force disappeared in a few years. You (literally) can't pay guys to stay in, and I don't blame them. After watching soldiers miss births, suffer through strained marriages, and have to fight just work their civilian jobs like they're supposed to, I honestly can't bring myself to tell anyone to join.
I'm not a salty junior enlisted kid who woke up pissed. I used to love serving and enjoyed active duty time and (I can't repeat this enough) I remember when things were not this dysfunctional. It's sad, but a lot of people aren't proud to be here anymore and I resonate with that. I'm almost there with them, but it's too depressing to jump into such a pessimistic outlook with them.
I've seen the number of inexcusable experiences increase a lot recently and I can't put my finger on what's causing this or where leaders' heads are at, but it's infuriating to be asked by almost everyone way above my pay grade why the joes are jumping ship. You're either blind, out of touch, or not willing to admit the truth to yourselves, but I can't figure that one out for you.
Let it rip in the comments. Like I said, I'm here for the humor as always, but at some point it has to stop being funny and some serious reflection needs to happen because we're on the brink of a personnel crisis that will have unfortunate repercussions.

I have seen this girl once (we live in different cities), we've talked 2 times on the phone and write quite frequently. She always answers long and ambitious answers if needed. When we talk, we can do so for hours upon hours.
I just told her that I'm going away for a ski trip with my friends in about a week, when she's going on vacation aswell. I basically told her that I felt that it was the right thing to do, and tell her that she didn't need to worry because I wanted to go on our dates and not be with someone temporarily (with some humor and internal jokes aswell). Her response was; You shouldn't need to explaing yourself!! You do as you wish and what you feel is right, nothing you need to defend at all!! two happy emojis"
I now responded with: "I did what I thought was right and it brought me to send you this message. We've had pretty intense contact and wanted to be transparent with you. Hope you didn't take it the wrong way!!"
Do you guys think she didn't like the message? She responded as normal during our SMS conversation later aswell. I know for a fact those ski resorts can be quite... rough to say the least so I wanted to give her some comfort. We had plans to meet in about 2-3 weeks when we both are back from our vacations.

Good day to all!

About me!

My name is Sergey and today I want to talk about the development of the Repair This game!At the beginning of last year, I set myself a challenge - to make 12 small games in 12 months. Basically, planning to participate in a game jam is to gain a hand and experience. Looking ahead, it turned out to make only 4 small projects and 1 large one, which is just coming to completion.

Repair This! Beginning..

In February 2023, Valentin, my friend, wrote to me with an offer to make a game together. He had an idea about a phone repair simulator. It's funny that in parallel he works in the service center himself. I agreed to spend a couple of weeks creating a prototype, and I hope to add another mini-game to my portfolio.
Before that, Valentin worked in Android Studio, and I worked in Unity. As a result, our choice fell on the second option, because I was comfortable working on this engine, I understand C# programming, and my partner was ready to try something new. His girlfriend Ekaterina also joined us as an artist.
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​

Prototype development

At the very beginning, we made random characters: we took an atlas with hairstyles, clothes, eyes, etc. and put a dummy on the body. Random colors sometimes gave us just eye-popping characters, and standard dialogues got boring very quickly. It looked more like a DIY for a mobile phone, and as a fan of PC games, I couldn't get over it.In this regard, we decided to randomize only the part deliverers, and make each character manually. At this stage, my wife Anna joined us in the role of character designer - here she used the years spent in the editor of the Sims4. In addition, there is a huge help in narrative and translations into English.There were two characters in the room. Which started to create interesting situations when you're waiting for a deliveryman, and his place is taken by a second customer. They also added variations for the player when he could pay taxes or put them in a safe past the cash register, read SMS messages and view photos on refurbished phones.

Search for references

There were no disagreements in our views on popular games and what our creation should look like. Our main references for development are: "Papers, Please", "Do Not Feed the Monkeys" , "Beholder".It should be noted here that a distinctive feature of these games is the variability of endings (or stories as in Monkeys). Similarly, we already have 8 options for completing the game, however, we do not plan to stop there yet.

Festivals and promotion

July: The first place where we managed to participate was Igroprom (Russian local), which gave us a very necessary feedback and understanding that it was time to do training. It was nice to watch streams from the participants, especially when a person allocated 20 minutes to our game, but could not tear himself away and sat at it for 30-40, laughing at humor and emerging situations. This gave a huge impetus to continue what was started.In August, we started a Steam page and released the first demo version on the 29th.October: Steam's Next fest is just a huge boost for vishlists! At that moment, I was very immersed in development, we rolled out an updated demo the night before the festival. As a result, I didn't have time to prepare for the event itself and we didn't even broadcast the gameplay recording in the early days. Nevertheless, on the very first day we had about 120+ additions! That is, the players found us simply by tags.There are a dozen new streams of our game on youtube, which I watched with pleasure. Most of them are in English, but they are so cool. Many thanks to everyone who took the time to play and I send hearts to those who also recorded it!In March, we are going to Kazan, to the offline "Accelerator of game projects" - "Start the game". The plans are to go there with a ready-made game.

Publisher:

The closer the final stage of development is, the more proposals for collaboration come to us. For the first few months, we would only dream of this. But at the moment I'm skeptical about it.Yes, we need marketing - of course, as a developer, I want as many people as possible to appreciate my work. But the team does not have enough time for activity, after all, the game itself is a priority for us. The publisher, of course, will help solve many problems, but at what cost? What% of the profit will be acceptable if the game is already one step away from release? Will a less well-known publisher be able to make a decent advertisement? Would it be more profitable to make an advertisement on your own? You won't know until you try it..

Conclusion:

How strange that such a long journey can fit into a couple of paragraphs. Yes, my expectations of making the game in a couple of weeks have not been fulfilled, but the further I go, the more excited I am about this project!Yes, we have difficulties, we have to listen to different opinions in the development of the game, which do not always coincide with yours. Disagreements in the team are easily treated by compromise and attentive attitude to each other. We want to do something interesting and give players a new experience!Development of the game began in mid-February 2023 and the release is scheduled for March 2024, which is just over a year. We would be ready to make a release now, but as Gabe Newell says, "All delays are temporary, and the lame game remains like this forever" - for the next 3 months we will polish and fill our game with new stories.I am grateful to all the participants of this project for the contribution they make!

P.s.

Wow! Dear reader, you have reached the end! I'm really impressed that someone is so interested in this! Play our game - it's better to see it 1 time than I'll tell you about it 10 times! We will be glad if you add the game to the Wishlist game's Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2517200/Repair_this/

O Tiririca é o responsável por absolutamente todos os problemas atuais do Brasil
E essa é uma certeza que eu carrego comigo.
Você pode me perguntar "mas como assim? O que é que o abestado fez de errado?" e eu vou ter a resposta na ponta da língua.
É lei universal que não se pode em hipótese alguma deixar escapar em uma situação ruim a frase "não tem como piorar...". Não importa se é um desastre natural, uma briga de família ou uma dívida de 2 mil reais no Nubank. No momento em que você disser essa frase maldita acontece um tsunami, o tio bêbado puxa uma faca e o Nubank aparece com uma nova política de 150% de juros ao dia.
Tendo deixado claro esse conhecimento universal, venho aqui lembrar a todos de que há 14 anos, nas eleições de 2010, Francisco Everardo Tiririca Oliveira Silva se tornou o deputado mais votado do Brasil com o bordão "Pior do que tá não fica, vote Tiririca".
Esse monstro horrível, essa máquina de humor sádica não só proferiu a frase proibida, como também fez isso em rede nacional todos os dias durante semanas com sua campanha amaldiçoada, deixando ecoar no interior das casas de todos os brasileiros uma sentença de morte aos dias de felicidade que vivíamos. Isso sem contar as inúmeras repetições da frase em conversas descontraídas entre amigos, as reproduções no youtube, os SMS.
Depois de 2010 tudo foi ladeira a baixo. Pior do que tava ficou e muito. E eu tenho certeza de que foi culpa de Francisco, um anarquista perverso que destruiu esse país com seu bordão malévolo e ainda ganhou rios de dinheiro como deputado logo depois de fazer isso.
Espero que um dia ele pague por seus crimes.

E essa é uma certeza que eu carrego comigo.
Você pode me perguntar "mas como assim? O que é que o abestado fez de errado?" e eu vou ter a resposta na ponta da língua.
É lei universal que não se pode em hipótese alguma deixar escapar em uma situação ruim a frase "não tem como piorar...". Não importa se é um desastre natural, uma briga de família ou uma dívida de 2 mil reais no Nubank. No momento em que você disser essa frase maldita acontece um tsunami, o tio bêbado puxa uma faca e o Nubank aparece com uma nova política de 150% de juros ao dia.
Tendo deixado claro esse conhecimento universal, venho aqui lembrar a todos de que há 14 anos, nas eleições de 2010, Francisco Everardo Tiririca Oliveira Silva se tornou o deputado mais votado do Brasil com o bordão "Pior do que tá não fica, vote Tiririca".
Esse monstro horrível, essa máquina de humor sádica não só proferiu a frase proibida, como também fez isso em rede nacional todos os dias durante semanas com sua campanha amaldiçoada, deixando ecoar no interior das casas de todos os brasileiros uma sentença de morte aos dias de felicidade que vivíamos. Isso sem contar as inúmeras repetições da frase em conversas descontraídas entre amigos, as reproduções no youtube, os SMS.
Depois de 2010 tudo foi ladeira a baixo. Pior do que tava ficou e muito. E eu tenho certeza de que foi culpa de Francisco, um anarquista perverso que destruiu esse país com seu bordão malévolo e ainda ganhou rios de dinheiro como deputado logo depois de fazer isso.
Espero que um dia ele pague por seus crimes.

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/DrOogieBoogie42 posting in entitled parents.
Content warning : child abuse
Concluded as per OOP
7 updates - Long
Original - 17th March 2023
Update 1 - 22nd March 2023
Update 2 - 3rd April 2023
Update 3 - 19th April 2023
Update 4 - 3rd May 2023
Updates continued in part 2
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Entitled stepmonster got herself banned from my wedding
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My (28M) stepmother (49F) is a wannabe party planner. She has taken it upon herself to plan and host every party and holiday my dad's family has thrown since she married him. I never loved those occasions growing up (she’s controlling and gets upset if people complain about anything), but humored her for my dad’s sake. According to him, this helps her feel included.
I’m getting married to my fiancée Jane (26F) in July. We got engaged in early 2021, but Jane ended up getting pregnant a couple months after that, and we decided to postpone the wedding to focus on our son for a while. So we’ve had a long engagement.
My stepmother has tried to hijack our wedding plans from day 1 (complaining, contacting our planner, showing up unannounced to Jane’s dress appointments, etc.), and we have repeatedly asked her to stop. Dad wants us to humor her, but she’s clearly resentful of the fact that she’s not hosting the wedding or being labeled “mother of the groom” in invitations.
Besides our baby boy, we also have Luke (4M), Jane’s paternal half brother. She got custody of him a few months into our relationship, after his parents died. I ended up moving in with them during the pandemic, and have been in Luke’s life since he was a baby. He doesn’t call me “dad”, and refers to us as “his sister and his OP”, but we love him like a son.
Stepmother, though, hates Luke. She accuses Jane of “baby-trapping her way into the family” (that accusation only got worse after our son was born). My dad gets along with Jane and adores the kids, but stepmother demands him to refuse babysitting Luke, so we don’t leave the kids with them often. Instead, Jane's brother and SIL usually watch the kids for us, as their children are close to ours in age.
We had a thing last Sunday, and my BIL was out of town with his family. Jane's other siblings live in different cities, as well as my mom and sister. My dad agreed to babysit at our place, and we left.
We came back to find both kids crying, stepmother screaming, and dad weakly trying to calm everyone down. Apparently, Luke had told stepmother that both he and our son were going to be our ring bearers, and she went ballistic. She screamed that she wasn’t going to allow that because he wasn’t family. She then made me need to include the trigger warning when he started crying. His lip is still split. She'd never gotten to this point before.
We immediately banned her from our house and from our wedding. Dad is fuming and has said he’s not going without her. He’s also convinced half of his side of the family (by severely downplaying what stepmother did) to boycott the wedding as well. This includes my stepbrother, who fully agrees with his mother no matter how many times I try to tell him the truth.
Me and Jane are refusing to budge, but many of my cousins who aren’t coming anymore are asking us to reconsider. Pretty much all of Jane’s family agrees with us, but one of her aunts has suggested that maybe stepmother is acting out because she doesn’t feel welcomed by my family.
I've honestly had it with my family enabling her behavior. I love my dad, and really want him at my wedding, but I am more than willing to go NC if it means protecting my family.
EDIT: I think I accidentally deleted the paragraph where I mentioned this, but we did press charges. We took Luke to the pediatrician the next day and gathered every piece of evidence we had. Not only did we have pictures of Luke's face, but by some miraculous strike of luck, we also had nanny cam footage. Some commenters were right to assume that my SM hadn't been invited to our house, but my dad hasn't really gone anywhere without her in years, so we took precautions. We didn't expect her to actually do anything this awful, but we've never trusted her with the kids. The physical attack happened off camera, but there is some footage of her screaming and Luke crying before and after the event. She now has a child abuse charge on her rap sheet. We wouldn't let her get away with this.
EDIT 2: There is a lot of additional info I want to add. I'll try to respond to at least some of the comments (I DID NOT expect the amount I've gotten so far), but all I'll add for now is that Luke is okay. The visit to the pediatrician happened the day after. He already had a counselor (Jane was pretty traumatized when her dad and stepmom died, and was worried it would rub off on him) and will continue treatment. We've been hugging and pampering him a little more than usual, too. He's still upset, but is already doing much better.
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UPDATE: Entitled stepmonster got herself banned from my wedding - 5 days later
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I want to thank everybody who took the time to read and/or comment on my previous post. It's been a tough week, but it's always great to know that people care. I haven't been able to reply to every comment, but I will try to address some in this update. This might get a little long.
I'll start off by saying that me and Jane are going NC with my dad and SM. We haven't really spoken to either of them since the incident, and I don't plan on being the one to reach out. Any communication between us is being handled by my younger sister. She's completely on our side, but will remain in low contact for the time being.
I've decided to adopt Jane's way of dealing with people she cares about: forgive what's apologized for, but never forget. Basically, if dad or SM ever truly understand what they did wrong and sincerely apologize, we're willing to forgive them, even if begrudgingly so.
But we will never ignore (or let THEM forget) what they did to our family. And for the time being, neither of them will be allowed near Luke, our baby, and any other kids we may have in the future, even if we do forgive them.
As for the rest of my family: I read A LOT of comments suggesting that I post pictures of Luke's face, as well as the nanny cam footage. I'm not very active on social media, but even if I was, I'm not comfortable exposing my injured preschooler like that, especially given that nothing on the internet ever truly goes away. I also decided not to share the pictures with my family unless truly necessary.
I should probably mention that while my family adores my dad, most of them aren't very fond of SM. She had two failed marriages prior to meeting my father (the first of which resulted in my stepbrother), and he cheated on his then-girlfriend to be with her. My family loved that girlfriend, and disliked SM right away.
Not only has she been controlling and manipulative since the beginning, she's also tried to force her way into the "family matriarch" role by any means possible. Taking over planning duties for every family event was her favorite way to do it, because of all the attention and compliments that come with it.
The main reason why I hated these parties growing up was because she'd always find a way to make everything about her, including Christmas and mine and my sister's birthdays. The rest of the family felt neutral about it, but they never liked her.
With Luke, it was different. Most of my relatives didn't meet him until COVID restrictions got looser, and by then he was 2 years old. He's a bright and genuinely loveable kid, and there weren't really any other small children in the family, so everyone immediately started cooing over him.
The way I see it, SM got upset that Jane and Luke were accepted by my family so easily compared to her experience, and that's why she resents them both, but I can't confirm that.
She was also mad that, aside from not being the planner, she would have absolutely no involvement in the wedding party. She tried to pressure us into letting her officiate (one of Jane's best friends was offered that role a year ago), making stepbrother my best man (he wasn't interested, and I'd already gotten my best friend) or asking her sister's daughter to be our flower girl (we'd promised Jane's 3-year-old niece, also her sister's daughter is fifteen and doesn't know us).
She also tried to convince us to let my dad walk Jane down the aisle, since her father's gone, but her eldest brother (the BIL I mentioned in the first post) had already been enlisted. SM was disappointed that my family wasn't as involved in the wedding as Jane's, and kept making comments about how that "would never happen if we put her in charge".
All of that being said, there is NOTHING that can excuse being that awful to a child, especially if it really is the petty jealousy that I suspect.
Because I haven't spoken with my father, my sister has been keeping me updated on what he's been up to. As I found out through her, the story my dad and SM told the rest of the family completely erases Luke's injury and the abuse charges.
It insinuates that me and Jane banned them because we got annoyed with SM and decided to take it out on my dad as well. Because most people already disliked SM, explaining what actually happened that night wasn't hard, and most of the relatives that I actually wanted at the wedding have apologized and are berating my dad as well.
The people that didn't believe us, as well as those saying we overreacted, have been told they are not welcome in our home anymore. Those are mostly people from my dad's generation, so I can't say I'm surprised. But the realization that they are so biased they're willing to protect a woman they hate (after she hurt a child) just to make my dad happy has reassured me that I don't need any of them in my life.
Stepbrother is still in denial. He refuses to believe his mother could hurt a child, even with all the evidence we have. I have to admit I understand, I love my mom too, but that doesn't mean I'd excuse his obliviousness.
So he's banned too. It sucks, because we were close growing up, but I don't regret it. Besides, Jane has 3 other siblings besides Luke (the older BIL, a twin brother and a younger sister), and I'm closer to them than I ever was to him.
Speaking of Jane's family, they're all furious over what happened, and have been extremely supportive of us. Jane's maternal family basically adopted Luke after she got custody of him, and have called frequently to make sure he's okay.
We did manage to save some money with everybody we uninvited, and have decided to use it to help Jane's cousin. She lives in a different country, and was previously unable to come to the wedding, so we're paying for her plane ticket.
Luke has gotten much better, and is almost completely back to being the sunny child he's always been. The split lip was shallow. It's healing slowly, but didn't require any stitches.
We sat him down a few days ago, and explained that my dad and stepmonster wouldn't be around anymore. He really liked my dad, but understands that he and SM are attached at the hip. He's clearly scared of her, but we're doing our best to make him feel safe. Me and Jane have reassured him that he IS family, we love him, and no one will ever change that.
I'm not too worried about dad or SM trying to show up at the wedding, but we've alerted the venue and given them pictures just in case they try anything. Better safe than sorry.
Some people brought attention to the fact that SM is a hypocrite for saying Luke isn't family. I agree, for obvious reasons. Her main excuse for pretty much everything she does is that she doesn't feel like my family welcomes her.
Dad has been guilting me to take part in everything she plans by reminding us of that for as long as I can remember. The way he continues to make excuses for her without realizing this is basically a case of the pot calling the kettle black (except Luke actually IS family) is what has made me accept that, while I will always love my dad, it's not healthy or safe for me and my family to be around him anymore.
It hurts to know my son won't have his only remaining bio grandfather in his life, but he has two amazing step grandpas to make up for it.
For now, I'm sad, but satisfied with how things have turned out. I don't like to complain about my life. It's a mess, but a beautiful one. I love my fiancée, I love my kids, and I'm lucky enough to love my job. We're happy. I'm not letting anyone ruin that.
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Update on SM, my family and my kids - 16 days after original
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I'll start off by (probably) disappointing a lot of people: we're coming to terms with the fact that it's unlikely SM will get anything more than a slap on the wrist. Me and Jane are discussing our next move with our lawyer, but we're still not sure how we're going to move forward. It's too early to tell anyway, so we're trying not to get ahead of ourselves anymore than we already have.
However, I'm relieved to announce that we're getting started on the process for a restraining order against SM. We're using the same evidence we gathered the week following the incident (including the nanny cam footage and pictures of Luke), and we'll focus on that for the time being.
I still haven't spoken to my father. My sister is still in LC, but is seriously considering cutting ties with him. Because my sister is the only one on my side that still talks to him, my father keeps trying to ask her about me, and whether I've "calmed down" yet.
According to her, he's annoyed that half of his family refuses to talk to him, but still doesn't seem to accept why. I told my sister that she doesn't need to keep playing messenger pigeon between me and our father (I never asked her to do it, and it's clearly taking a toll on her), but she insists she'll stop when it "feels right".
By the way, there is absolutely no doubt whether SM attacked Luke. Not only did Luke say it the moment we got home, but that was also confirmed by my father in a failed attempt to defend her behavior.
He never tried to hide it from us. That (and the fact that he gave Luke an ice bag) is literally the only positive thing I can say about his actions. And SM was too busy screaming about how much of a "whining brat" Luke was being to deny it.
To those who guessed SM is younger than my dad, you get an invisible cookie! She's also 5 years younger than his previous girlfriend. They got together when I was around 15. Also, stepbrother is only a month older than me (she turns 50 later this year; had him at 21, married his father a year later).
Both our kids are doing mostly okay. Luke's back to running around the house in his Superman costume whenever he doesn't have anything better to do. He did have few nightmares this past week, and has asked to sleep on our bed twice. We don't mention my father around him, and he's still seeing his counselor.
Our 14-month-old son has learned two new words ("hi" and "bye"), and Luke is trying to teach him to say his name. Jane's sister, who moved away for college, is coming over for a couple days to celebrate her 21st birthday later this month. Luke's excited to see her, and Jane's excited to get drunk with her (can't say I blame her). We're hoping her presence will cheer us all up.
I'm not doing so good, and neither is Jane. She's usually the kind of person who tries to keep her negative emotions to herself, but she cried herself to sleep almost every night the week it happened. It breaks my heart to see her like that, and I can't help but feel like this is my fault.
There's a part of me trying to tell me I had no way of knowing SM would do anything like that, but that doesn't really change anything. I allowed my father near my kids unsupervised, even though I knew she'd probably tag along. This is the guiltiest I've ever felt, and I don't think I'll ever forgive myself.
Jane has been improving lately, and is trying to convince me to see a therapist. I've never really done that before, apart from a psychiatrist when I was younger, but now feels like a good time to give it a try.
I was surprised by a few messages this week from people telling me to forgive my father and SM, as well as re-invite them to the wedding. That's not happening. In fact, I'm not willing to ever forgive SM. My dad has now degraded to a huge maybe, but I will never understand or forget what she did.
Also, though the wedding is the last thing on our minds right now, we're not postponing it. We considered rescheduling, but the date we'd settled on is pretty much the only one that works for our guests. We have passwords with all our vendors, and gave them all clear instructions not to talk to anyone but us.
Jane's family is bigger and closer to each other, which is why they're more involved in the wedding than mine, but I do have family participating: my sister is one of the bridesmaids, two of my cousins are groomsmen, and my mom is walking down the aisle with the wedding party.
Going through all of this with Jane has made me understand even more just how much I love this woman. I couldn't ask for a better partner to start a family with, and I have no idea what I'd do without her. This didn't tear us apart, and I couldn't be more thankful.
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UPDATE: I saw my father and SM for the first time since she attacked my child - 1 month after original post
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I didn't plan on updating again before the wedding, but something pretty huge happened.
The good news is we got the RO. The bad news is me and Jane had to see both SM and my father at the court hearing. This was our first time seeing them since we kicked them out of our house over a month ago, and neither of us were looking forward to it. We left the kids with Jane's brother and SIL, so at least Luke didn't have to see them.
The hearing itself went a lot quicker than I expected. I'll give credit where it's due: my father was, at the very least, smart enough to understand there was no way they were winning this. There was a lot of evidence against them.
Not only did we have the nanny cam footage and Luke's pictures and medical record, but my sister had also gathered every text and e-mail SM had sent her and the family about what happened. And SM hates speaking on the phone, so there were A LOT of those. They didn't even bother to get an attorney for the hearing.
The judge granted us a protection order against SM. She's not allowed within 500 feet of us or our property anymore. We're changing all our locks this week, and I'm thinking about changing my phone number as well.
I have to admit, the moment we left the courthouse was the safest I'd felt since this whole ordeal started. Jane was close to tearing up with joy when we got to the car. We picked up the kids and went to McDonald's with BIL and his family to celebrate.
Hours later, my father called me. The order doesn't extend to him, so he can still do that. Jane and the kids were in bed, so I answered. I didn't expect him to change his mind and apologize all of a sudden, but decided to give him one last chance.
He tried to start some awkward small-talk, but I told him to get to the point. He asked me if the order was truly necessary. I stated, very clearly, that SM was never coming near Jane or my children again, and that I was glad I had an RO to formalize that. Every excuse he had for SM was pretty easy to shut down:
"But she only hit him once!" "Yep, and that's enough for me."
"The kids need their grandma!" "She's not their grandma, mom is."
"SHE'S MY WIFE. You need to respect her!" "She attacked Luke. She disrespected my family in my own house. I don't owe her anything, least of all my respect."
He then went on a rant about family, how much of a godsend SM was and everything she'd done for me and my sister since she came into our lives.
I replied by listing every time I could remember about her lying, overstepping a boundary or acting unhinged around me, my family or my sister. I brought up both my adult life and my youth. Examples included her attempts to hijack most of our milestones (recently, our wedding plans, our son's birth, Jane's baby shower and my sister's college graduation), her obsession with the idea of a "perfect family" and her disgusting attitude towards Luke.
I also made sure to mention her habits of going through mine and my sister's stuff when we were younger. It's trivial, compared to everything else, but this behavior went on until my sister moved out of their house, only three months ago. We're pretty sure she found out about Jane's wedding dress appointments by reading my sister's planner while she wasn't home, for instance.
Some of the memories I mentioned are long and hard to explain, but they did cement the fact that SM means nothing to me.
He tried to go with the whole "she doesn't feel included" excuse again, but I shut him up. I said he'd had the opportunity to protect his grandchildren, but had chosen his monster of a wife instead, and that's enough for me to want nothing to do with him. I hung up without saying goodbye.
My sister told me he called her afterwards, and she told him she was going NC with him as well.
I think we're both starting to accept our father won't change. It sucks, but he's made his priorities clear, and his children and grandkids aren't among them.
For now, that's it. Now that they're fresh in my mind, I'm thinking about sharing some of the stories I reminded my father of, but that's gonna take a while. Until then, as always, best wishes to all of you.
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Stepmonster tried to hijack our baby shower - 6 weeks after original post
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I mentioned in my last post that I was thinking about sharing some stories from before I (finally) got an RO against my lovely SM and went NC with my father. Though there are plenty worth writing about, I'll start with one of my sister's favorites. All names are fake.
My fiancée Jane found out she was pregnant in June 2021, and we announced it to our immediate families in August. At first, SM was completely uninterested in our baby. Not that I expected much from the woman whose reaction to our pregnancy announcement was to ask Jane if she was "sure it was mine" (even my dad berated her for that one), but she barely seemed to acknowledge the fact that we were expecting. Instead, she was more interested in my stepbrother, who was also engaged, and would "give her beautiful grandbabies soon".
No complaints. We didn't want her involved, and we didn't even have to say anything.
Planning our baby shower was complicated. Both me and Jane would have to work until the holidays, and I wanted to be involved. The due date was in February 2022, so we decided on early January as the best period of time. We enlisted two people as planners: my sister Laura (just realized I'd never given her a name) and Jane's best friend Nina.
Me and Jane are mostly laid-back people. We didn't want a big party, nor did we want to spend too much money on it (we were saving for both our baby and the wedding). We decided early on that the shower would be co-ed. It would also have to be indoors (again, January), and we settled on a guest list of 25 people (plus about a dozen kids).
We came up with the idea of a pizza party. Me, Jane and Luke (my BIL/surrogate son) have had homemade pizza nights weekly since I moved in, and we thought it would be fun to incorporate that into the shower. Nina found an event venue with a pizza oven, and Laura figured out ways to incorporate classic baby shower stuff into the theme.
The resulting plans were awesome. Make-your-own pizzas, non-alcoholic drinks and plain bodysuits for the kids to customize. Nina and Laura mixed pizza decor with baby decor and found pizza-shaped sweets. It almost seemed messy, and I was surprised they made it work, but we loved it. Most of the planning was finished by the middle of November.
Well, later that month, my stepbrother's fiancée left him for her ex. They'd been together for 4 years at that point, and it was both sudden and traumatizing for him. He was devastated.
SM then realized the grandkids she dreamed of would take longer to come than she'd thought. So naturally, without her son's milestones to obsess over, she moved on to mine.
Suddenly, SM went from aloof relative to excited grandma-to-be. Facebook posts, tacky "Promoted to Nana" shirts, the whole nine. At first, we were too busy finishing things up at work and getting ready for the holidays to worry about that, but it didn't take long for her to start pestering us about planning the baby shower, as well as a gender reveal.
We denied the possibility of a gender reveal party. No offense to those who like them, but we don't. Plus, we had decided to wait until birth to find out the sex. SM tried to get us to find out and tell her "as a Christmas present", but we didn't. We also denied her the baby shower.
She told my father, and he told Laura into letting SM help out with the plans. She was still living with at the time, so she didn't have much of a choice. She called Nina, and they met SM for coffee. Though I wasn't there for that meeting, Laura told me what happened later.
Before they could even mention their plans, SM started talking about hers. According to Laura, she pulled a shockingly thick binder (complete with the words "Oh, Baby!" on the cover, colorful tabs and pieces of fabric poking out) from her bag and skipped to the shower section. It was short compared to the rest of the binder, but still long. And it was all to describe her one and only baby shower project. Laura sent me pictures, and… oh boy.
I'll give her this: it looked like the most Instagrammable baby shower ever. That being said, it was also barely functional and obviously expensive. There were balloons, oversized teddy bears, giant alphabet blocks and cringe-worthy signs everywhere. SM was going for pretty over cozy, with uncomfortable chairs and some fancy food ideas that didn't look edible (most of them had soft cheeses, which Jane couldn't eat).
The color palette was just three different shades of pink with gold accents. We'd be fine with a pink baby shower if it at least tried to mix things up a little, but SM's pictures looked like Barbie had puked all over Hello Kitty's birthday party. When Nina tried to remind her that we didn't know the sex, SM said she "just knew that it was a girl". Spoiler alert: it wasn't.
SM also wanted an all-female, child-free party with fancy caterers and alcohol. She had written down a "guest suggestion list" containing some of her closest friends (neither mine nor Jane's moms were on it) and planned party games no one had any interest in trying out. Basically the only thing everyone could agree on was to hold the party indoors.
Laura and Nina weren't given an opportunity to show her their plans until she was done. Once they could, they explained that, while they could find a way to incorporate some of SM's ideas, they'd already settled on the pizza theme. She tried to protest, but Laura stated that it was kind of them to even offer that, as the shower was a month away and we'd already greenlit their plans.
SM even called me to try to get them to change their minds, but I just repeated their words. My dad had found out he couldn't come to the shower, so he didn't get a say in anything anymore.
The holidays came around, and the subject was dropped. SM seemed to be okay with the pizza party. Nina managed to pair some of the pink decor she'd wanted with matching blue stuff, and even added one of the huge teddy bears.
Fast-forward to a week before the shower. Jane was almost 8 months pregnant. Everything had been bought, all guests had RSVP'd, and pretty much anything was ready to go. The shower was set to start at 7PM. SM offered to get to the venue earlier to prepare everything.
Laura agreed, mostly because she knew SM would complain if she "didn't get to do anything", and the venue even let them drop off their decorations before the party. Me and Jane promised to get there at 6.
Two days before the shower, however, the venue called Nina. They told her that SM had stopped by to drop off large, heavy boxes of what she called "a little surprise" for us. She'd informed them that she planned on showing up at 3:30PM to start setting it up. They were calling to reinforce that the venue was only booked past 4PM, since SM almost threw a tantrum when told that.
All of the decor was still at Nina's place, so she called Laura to check if they'd left anything with SM. Thankfully, my sister is both smart and used to this shit, so she drove to the venue the next day and asked to see SM's boxes. She told me she wasn't even surprised at its contents when she opened them, but was still shocked at SM's audacity.
All of the boxes were filled with pink, frilly decorations. Some of them seemed to be the exact same items SM had initially shown Laura and Nina. The signs, the balloons, the placemats, everything.
Laura realized that's why SM intended to get to the venue earlier: to set up the baby shower she'd planned and pretty much force us all to party in Barbie hell with her.
She called Nina to figure out what to do. Neither of them could come at 4PM, so it was almost inevitable for SM to get her way. The most obvious solution they came up with was to throw everything away. But Laura had a better idea. That night, they called me and Jane:
"Hey, wanna destroy a party in two hours?"
Laura got home and invited SM to go to a salon with her, lying about having coupons. SM agreed, and they planned on going right after SM was done preparing the baby shower.
At 4PM the next day, SM got to the venue. She was done setting things up by 5 (I'll admit, the woman is fast) and quickly left to meet Laura at the salon. Once they were together, Laura texted Nina that "the Coast was clear".
At that, me, Jane and Nina went to the venue. Sure enough, SM had prepared her party. To make this shorter, I won't describe it, but I will say it was so pink it almost gave Jane nausea.
For the next two hours, Laura distracted SM at the salon while the three of us quickly took down every piece of decor SM had put up and replaced it with the pizza party stuff. We set up the activities, made up the tables, and put every pink item we found back in SM's boxes. It was actually really fun. We were done only minutes before the shower started.
A handful of guests arrived before SM did, so I barely saw her all night. Laura told me that when they got there, SM's jaw dropped as she tried to make sense of what had happened to all her pink decor. My sister just smiled, whispered "nice try" in her ear, and went to help Luke customize a bodysuit.
Overall, the baby shower was everything we'd hoped for. Our friends were there, people had fun and we had a ton of pizza. So I didn't really care that SM spent the whole party literally sulking in the corner. Nina did catch her trying to put little pink bows on top of the cupcakes, but she quickly shut that down. I give Laura and Nina full credit for saving the day.
SM's interest in our baby quickly died after that. She stopped wearing her Nana shirts, didn't come to see us at the hospital when he was born and refused to even acknowledge that he was a boy until she met him weeks later. Up until we went NC, she was a very loose definition of the word grandmother.
I couldn't be more grateful my son will never know her.
EDIT: The baby shower was at 7PM because it was the only time that worked for everyone. That included the venue, because it was booked for the morning and we needed time to set things up.
Luke was the only small child there; all the others were at least 9. Most of the parents there left early on, too. Also, though it wasn't child-free and we were prepared for everyone we'd invited, not everyone on the guest list was able to come.
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Part 2 is here
I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.

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How should I react to this situation?
Hello. I am almost 20 years old. I have same aged boyfriend, we’re together for 4 years. It’s first relationship for both of us. We’re both very loyal, family type and we both are happy with no trying another partner.
I am not talking to my family, my family is now his family. We love each other with every family mamber. Now we live alone together with BF for 1 year.
We had a long-term beatiful phase of our relationship. We were so close like we never been. Just love, fun, trust, talks, lots of inside jokes and calm loving atmosphere between us. No worries, no arguments.
We went to his home two days ago. We have one same friend, he live nearby his parent’s house. He is same age.
We went on a short walk with his dog like usual for couple of minutes in the morning. My boyfriend never mind this and he doesn’t mind that we are friends. We also spent a time together in group.
He saw us at this walk together. We were just walk fr. He send me sms with one word “class” and then he started to ignores me all day. I hate it so I didn’t care and celebrated a family birthday party. Next day we went home and we were both cold and try to look bored to each other.
I tried shortly tell him that I don’t know what’s going on but I am not going to chase him like everytime. I did nothing so wtf. He knows that if something happens I am here for him and I care and solve it… I told him so everytime we are together. He is hard introvert and it’s difficult for him to talk about something deeply and also about his feelings and thoughts.
But to be honest I love him very much. We have same humor, we are attracted to each other and we’re both happy together. But It seems to me like this:
When I am happy, smiling to him, iniciates a dialogue, actions, and act like I do most of the time he is nice to me too, he can lay at the bed and staring to my eyes at me for hour. He seems to be really in love with me. He wants to hug very often, spend a lot of time with me and he is really kind. He doesn’t like talking about his emotions, so he never tell me „I love you”, „You’re pretty”. „I am happy with you” first, but I respect it. I can feel it from his actions and eyes.
But when I have day when I don’t want to chase, I am sad, I need a hug or just simple care from him, or we had a dialogue, when he did something what he knows I doen’t like and I am distant from him, when I rect a little bit cold to him then everytime, he starts to be really cold.
He starts to talk to me like I am nobody to him and he don’t need me, that we can broke up and he won’t care that much or ignores me just lying near me and he do a little show everytime. Show that it’s too obvious.
When I came to him (it’s everytime me) He starts to run away from me and pretend that he has something more interisting to do that me. I want to talk about this problem and that situation calmly a kindly. But everytime he just starts to parode my honest feelings („I am sad because…” and he respond with irony in his voice:„Yes I am very sad too because of it!”) and doesn’t care. And when I started cry during my arguments (I was abused, this is trauma thing) and tell him how I am sad and how is he hurting me with this, he talk like he doesn’t care and I hurt him more, but I can see at his eyes and face like he is really sorry and he want to be with me and hug me. But again, I have to do this and I have to say sorry to him, even when I did nothing and he is the one who owes me a sorry.
I don’t want it like this again… I want to feel a little bit of his care to me during our arguments. I want to feel he want me too and I am not the only one who cares about our relationship because I know that he also cares. I don’t know WHY IS HE ACTING LIKE THAT. I try to tell him I feel this and try to solve this but… nothing changed

Os Singh, são um casal de origem indiana, hoje já >80, muito simpáticos, sem filhos e, com um elevado sentido de humor. São nossos amigos, já há muitos anos.
Logo depois de casarmos, no final dos anos 90, fomos convidados, juntamente com outro casal amigo, para um jantar na sua casa.
A meio da semana, recebo uma SMS do Singh, que apenas dizia: “sexta-feira, 19h30 jantar na nossa casa. Ementa: carabineiro tigre, faisão e arroz-doce”. Durante a semana, comentei com a minha mulher, que o Singh era assim, fino, só pratos especiais “…lá da terra dele…” e tal.
Repondi “OK, lá estaremos” e assim foi.
Nessa sexta-feira, à hora combinada, chegámos a casa dos Singh e, depois de uns breves cumprimentos, alguma conversa e alguns aperitivos, passámos para o jantar.
Ao sentar-me à mesa, fiquei surpreendido, porque cada conjunto de talheres, tinha também ao seu lado, uma grande lupa, (apenas para os quatro convidados), tipo as lupas do Sherlock Holmes. Perguntei ao Singh o porquê da lupa, ao que ele me diz:”Já vais ‘ver’…”, depois mais tarde, compreendi o que era ‘ver’.
Passado uns minutos e alguma conversa, entra na sala a Marineida, sua mulher, que trazia uma grande travessa, com aquilo que pareciam ser…
”Carabineiros Tigre…” diz ela, muito séria. “Preparem os talheres que eles estão mesmo apetitosos…”
É aí, que o Singh, distribuindo por nós pequenos pratos e, colocando alguma quantidade desses camarões em cada prato, diz: “Ora, um pratinho de carabineiros tigre para cada um…para apreciarem melhor e, para estimularem a imaginação e o paladar, usem as lupas.”
Os carabineiros tigre, eram camarões do rio Tejo, aqueles camarões, tão pequeninos que é preciso mesmo uma lupa para os podermos ver… e comer.
O faisão, era frango assado, com batatas fritas e salada.
Da ementa do jantar, a única realidade foi o arroz-doce. Por sinal muito bom.

Bom, eu acho que aqui alguém pelo menos vai me dar uma luz sobre o que aconteceu.. Enfim, vamos lá.. Eu, (H26), conheci uma garota (F25), vou chamar de C, naqueles apps de relacionamento, o da vez foi o facebook. Pois bem, eu conversei bastante com ela, e a conversa fluía num nível muito agradável, para ambos os lados. Com o tempo fomos descobrindo que gostamos das mesmas bandas, músicas, sendo de humor é bem parecido, e por aí vai. (Aqui é importante destacar que conversamos numa base diária, e creio que faz um mês, um mês e pouco que estamos nessa "rotina") Chegamos a sair uma vez, e foi bem agradável o rolê, curtimos as bandas que estavam tocando e tudo mais, porém não ficamos. Entramos numa conversa sobre esse assunto, e ela me disse que naquele dia em específico ela não queria ficar, pois tinha adorado a minha pessoa, as conversas e tudo mais, porém que não era um "não definitivo", que queria muito continuar esse rolê nosso, se conhecer melhor e tudo mais (confesso que eu fiquei um pouco triste, mas eu coloquei pra mim mesmo que aquela moça valeria a pena o esforço). (Contextualizando, eu saí de um casamento de 4 anos(morando junto e casando), e fazem 2 anos disso tudo, e estou muito bem com tudo o que aconteceu, termino e afins). Pois bem, comecei uma faculdade agora no final de julho, e enquanto isso conversava com a C todos os dias, basicamente desde as 8 da manhã, até às 20, 21 horas da noite, e quando eu chegava da faculdade dizia a ela por whats que havia chegado, dizia boa noite, dorme bem, bom descanso e etc. Até aí tudo tava fluindo super bem, o assunto sempre rendia, as vezes enviavamos memes um para o outro, no Tiko teko ou no insta mesmo.. nunca faltava assunto, sabe? Ela me contava da profissão dela, dos casos que ela atendia(veterinária), mostrava vídeo e foto dos casos etc etc etc. Essa semana eu perguntei a ela quando iríamos sair de novo, pois a primeira vez tinha sido muito legal.. ela me disse que não sabia, pois tinha que resolver alguns trabalhos da pós dela e tal, eu sugeri dia 19, pois teria uma festa anos 80, ela topou e ficou por isso. Paralelamente, uma amiga minha, fez aniversário ontem(05/08), e ela já tinha me intimado a comparecer nessa festa (isso foi antes de eu conhecer a C. ), e eu estava meio em dúvida se iria, pois seria em uma baladinha da cidade, e eu sou um "jovem idoso" e fico meio deslocado nesses locais kkkk Pois bem, eu lembrei que eu prometi que iria, e pelo bem da amizade eu fui nessa festa (e também porque ela me disse que ia ter bolo 😋).. (Só que eu não comentei nada sobre a festa que eu iria, para a C. , Aqui eu já não sei se fiz errado de não ter falado para ela que iria nessa festa, mas eu vi como algo sem muita importância de "se avisar", até porque, é uma amiga, e eu não tenho interesse nessa amiga, e sim na C. ) Eu tava lá nessa baladinha, e tocou uma música conhecida e eu resolvi gravar um storie e postar, e eu não sei se a C. Viu ou não o storie.. No final do rolê, estávamos eu, essa minha amiga, e uma outra amiga ali fumando um cigarro e esperando o Uber delas chegar, enquanto isso essa amiga aniversariante tava reclamando que tava com frio, que tinha que ter trazido blusa, e eu peguei e dei um abraço nela, brincando com ela, dizendo que eu iria ajudar ela a se esquentar (mas por tudo que é mais sagrado, foi sem maldade alguma) E ficamos rindo disso, afinal, nós 3 ali estávamos na zoeira, e a aniversariante tava meio embriagada, e rindo dessa situação (bêbada e com frio). Papo vai, papo vem, chegou o carro das duas, eu me despedi e fui embora para casa, cheguei e dormi. Hoje, dia seguinte, não vi nenhum sinal de algo errado, ou que eu poderia ter feito algo errado, segui meu domingo, fiz minhas coisas em casa, lá pelas tantas eu mandei alguns reels de uma banda que eu e a C. gostamos, e ela visualizou a mensagem (aqui eu devia ter ativado o primeiro alerta, pois ela geralmente vê, curte e fala algo sobre, não é algo que ela faria, ver e deixar pra lá) e não falou nada. Agora, mais a noite, eu abri meu whats para mandar mensagem a um amigo, e vi que a foto dela havia sumido, AQUI BATEU O DESESPERO, eu fui olhar nas outras redes, e TODAS estavam bloqueadas (insta, Tik Tok, até no fb ela me bloqueou, mesmo eu não tendo nem enviado solicitação de amizade à ela por lá).. eu fiquei (e ainda estou) em parafuso, tipo, eu não fiz absolutamente nada de errado(até onde eu vi), eu cheguei a mandar mensagem de SMS para o número dela, como se fazia antigamente, pedindo para ela me desbloquear e ao menos me explicar o que aconteceu, porque do nada ela sumiu de tudo e eu fiquei sem entender nada.)
E tipo, eu gostei MUITO dela, desde as primeiras conversas, temos gostos bem parecidos e tudo mais.. meu questionamento seria, se ela foi até o local sem eu saber e viu a cena do meu abraço com a minha amiga, e interpretou isso de outra forma? Ou, se ela pesquisou sobre mim no Facebook, e lá viu alguma publicação antiga minha com a minha ex por exemplo (antiga eu digo antiga mesmo, papo de 2 anos pra mais) ? Ou ainda, algum conhecido dela estava lá, viu a cena e falou para ela? (Não tenho conhecimento se ela falou de mim para alguma amiga ou algo do tipo, tendo em vista que nas conversas ela falou que tem muitas poucas amigas, pois a maioria delas apunhalou ela pelas costas em momentos de necessidade)..
Eu tô real sem saber o que fazer, pois eu curti muito ela, tanto que acabei mandando mensagem em todas as redes que nós conversavamos, na esperança de ela abrir alguma e ver minha mensagem e falar comigo.. Tipo, se eu tivesse sido um fdp, eu super entenderia, mas cara, eu não fiz nada.. e eu tava gostando dela.. eu tô triste, "pra baixo" por conta disso.. e sem entender e sem saber o que fazer também.. Se alguém puder me dar uma luz sobre a situação, me ajudaria, porque eu juro pela minha vida que eu não fiz nada, não tive intenção de fazer nada.. Eu só fui em uma festa de uma amiga e dei um abraço nela.. :(

I am in no way defending them. I'm just honestly curious.
It seems like a lot of people are now "finally able to admit" that they've always thought SM's jokes were trash, that the boys are ugly, Matt's music sucks, a few posts glorifying seeing them get physically hurt(??), etc.
Like, y'all. I'm not the coping mechanism police, but it seems kinda wild that so many people are just like, "oh these bad things are out about them, now I can finally say how I feel about them which was definitely always bad".
Personally I'm just bummed. Aside from thinking that they were probably assholes off camera based on their humor, I didn't expect any of this other shit, and it legit just makes me sad. I liked them, and I liked their dipshit humor. I don't want to see them get physically hurt though, and I'm not gonna retcon my past enjoyment of their videos and pretend I never actually liked them that much because of all this. You can like something that turns out to be bad and feel upset about it, y'know? It unfortunately happens a lot.
I'm not trying to start any arguments or anything either, everyone is gonna deal with this in different ways and I'm definitely not trying to make anyone feel invalidated for dealing with this however they want. I guess that just stuck out to me as kinda silly I guess.
edit: I just wanna thank y'all for being civil, and sharing your insight. As a relatively newer fan, I didn't have the same experience of watching them decline over the years, and didn't know a lot of people were feeling these things even before the recent info came out. It makes a lot more sense now. I appreciate everyone being kind. I'm sad, and I'm sorry to everyone else feeling sad as well (or mad, etc). Appreciate you all.

Pessoal, ontem fiz o meu desabafo, e hoje vou contar a minha história. Vou chamar a mulher de Y.
Eu conheci Y no Tinder e descobri que ela era melhor amiga de um familiar meu.
Comecei a sair com Y sem grandes expectativas ou compromissos sérios, pois ela tinha falado sobre seu histórico de traições sofridas e mentiras e estava procurando algo casual.
No primeiro encontro, nos demos muito bem, mas continuamos sem grandes expectativas e nada definido com Y.
No dia seguinte, tinha um encontro marcado com outra garota, S, que eu já conhecia antes de Y. Esse encontro não foi tão bom, mas apenas assistimos a um filme em minha casa, sem nada acontecer.
Uns dias depois, chamei Y para o nosso segundo encontro, fomos para minha casa e assistimos filmes. Y notou um cabelo de S que havia ficado na minha casa. Y então questionou sobre o cabelo, e eu expliquei toda a situação. Percebi que Y ficou um pouco incomodada, mesmo não havendo nada sério entre nós e ainda estarmos nos conhecendo.
Mais tarde, tive o meu terceiro encontro com Y, e começamos a nos dar muito bem. Eu comecei a gostar dela e expressei meu desejo de ter um relacionamento sério casamento e afins, Y mudou e também estava querendo isso,. Acabei me apaixonando por Y de verdade. Por causa disso, decidi fazer uma limpeza em minha vida, cortei o contato com outras pessoas, fiz uma "faxina" em minha vida, pois estava pronto para investir em meu amor por Y.
As coisas entre mim e Y estavam ficando cada vez mais sérias. Saíamos com frequência, ela passava várias noites na minha casa, fazíamos muitas coisas juntos, como andar de mãos dadas, cozinhar juntos, e eu ajudava ela em tudo. Minha família e amigos sabiam da existência de Y, nossa relação era pública e estava caminhando para algo muito sério e duradouro.
No entanto, houve um domingo em que Y me chamou para participar de um programa com a família dela. Y disse: "quero te levar, porém, meu pai vai pensar que estamos namorando." Fiquei um pouco hesitante em ir, pois queria conhecer a família de Y em um encontro verdadeiro e significativo. Por isso, optei por não ir e fiquei em casa jogando e acompanhando as postagens de Y no Instagram.
No mesmo dia, tínhamos combinado de assistir a uma série juntos, mas devido à correria, ela acabou esquecendo. À noite, Y foi para casa de uma amiga. Quando perguntei sobre assistirmos juntos, Y começou a ser agressiva comigo, algo que nunca tinha acontecido antes, já que nunca tínhamos brigado durante o tempo que estávamos juntos. Como sou uma pessoa que preza pela paz, expliquei para Y que poderíamos assistir outro dia, mas ela continuou sendo agressiva. Então, desejei boa noite e fui me deitar.
No dia seguinte, percebi que Y havia me bloqueado em tudo e mandei um SMS pedindo para conversarmos pessoalmente. Passaram-se 6 dias, e pedi a uma amiga de Y, em quem confio, para falar com ela que eu queria conversar pessoalmente. Y respondeu de maneira agressiva à sua amiga, dizendo que "o que eu e X temos, resolveremos entre nós."
Mais 2 dias se passaram, e mandei mais um SMS pedindo para conversar. Sem resposta.
Após 3 dias, decidi agir. Fiz uma carta manuscrita, comprei flores (já que Y gosta delas) e chocolates. Na carta, expressei tudo o que eu sentia por Y e pedi para conversarmos novamente PESSOALMENTE!
Y, então, me desbloqueou e mandou uma mensagem cruel, como se fosse um personagem, dizendo que eu não significava nada para ela, que eu havia traído a confiança dela por ter saído com outra pessoa enquanto estava com ela, que eu era mentiroso, e que estava saindo comigo apenas porque eu a tratava bem, que eu não era o perfil que ela buscava entre outras coisas....
Ela falou mais um monte de coisas sobre mim, meu humor, dizendo que eu estava tentando impressioná-la demais desde o início, o que ela achou estranho. Eu sou uma pessoa que mostra amor com ações, pois acredito que ações valem mais que palavras. Eu fiz muitas coisas por Y e a tratei com carinho e dedicação.
Pela mensagem, deu para entender que Y, havia se colocado em um pedestal, se exaltando muito superior à mim.
Respondi a essa agressão de Y com afeto, agradecendo pelos momentos vividos e dizendo que sempre a levarei em minhas memórias e outras coisas!
Hoje, faz cerca de um mês que não nos falamos. Sempre fui transparente com Y, por causa do seu histórico anterior. Ofereci até a senha de minhas redes sociais, falei com quem eu sairia, onde estaria e os horários, pois realmente não me importava em compartilhar isso para que Y se sentisse confortável. Eu não vou atrás de Y novamente, eu fui uma vez só, ir duas vezes já é humilhação.
Meu coração está muito confuso com o que aconteceu, ter uma história terminada por mensagem, ainda mais de forma cruel, sem um diálogo pessoal.
Meu coração ama Y, e estou torcendo para que o tempo e os bons momentos vividos pesem e Y venha me procurar para termos um diálogo cara a cara, mas eu estou focado em mim, minha aparência física mudou para melhor, acabei conseguindo mais prestígios profissionais e clientes. Financeiramente eu estou ganhando muito!
Eu gostaria de entender o que fiz de errado.
Qual a opinião de vocês? será que Y vai perceber que fez algo de errado e vira dialogar cara a cara?
Única coisa que eu sei é; o tempo não para e ele é cruel.
​

So for TD's birthday, I'm going to fulfill a deal I made to u/Less-Ad-9927, and explain why I like every character, starting off with the first generation and the original hosts for now.
Let's start off with the first character to get elimination from Total Drama, and one of my favorites, Ezekiel. Simply put, I just find his character very interesting, how one of the biggest losers just did not quit and became a threat in his own right, not by dominating the competition, but completely out of the competition, making him a unique type of threat. Heck, by the end of his run, the guy hunted down and caged seasoned All-Stars, even being the first legitimate threat to Mal. In addition, I find him funny, both his arrogance and lack of self-awareness as a human, and him inflicting pain on others or getting pain inflicted on him as a feral, and him simping for Anne Maria was a good mix of both his feral and human personalities, as he does tackle her underwater and take her to a mine, but his awkward flirting reminds me a bit of human Zeke. Also, his determination is so ridiculous that it's really cool, seeing as the guy literally swam all the way to Hawaii from the mainland based off of one sniff. Plus, he just provides a creepy atmosphere when he's antagonizing, which is always neat. Overall, my 3rd favorite character in the entire show and if I averaged my liking of characters by scene, he might be my favorite.
As for Noah, the next character to have a final elimination from Island, while he isn't one of my favorites, I do still like him. In World Tour, he had some cool one-liners, my favorite probably being "What, did we land in the 70s" and some minor slapstick moments which could be enjoyable. I also found him entertaining in Dodgebrawl and I like that RR showed a new side to him. Pretty neat overall.
Back to one of my favorites, we have Justin, who I find to be simply hilarious("With all your deformities, "So your answer is denial", several slapstick moments) as well as genuinely pretty interesting with the way he started off being able to literally control nature with his looks, but a boon doesn't work forever, so that ultimately stopped and he had to rely more on other tricks. Even as a mostly silent character in Island, him getting everyone to fawn over him just by existing was funny. Either by 10th or 11th favorite character overall, just legitimately amazing.
Next is Katie, who I did enjoy a bit for her brief time. Her fighting with Sadie was mildly entertaining in the Sucky Outdoors, and I liked her line that Sadie should be stronger for the both of them, genuinely a pretty cool line.
Next up is Tyler, who is frankly, really serviceable slapstick comedy throughout both his competing seasons as well has having some bops with dumb humor. In addition, WT also expands him a bit with his strong fingers being strong fingers, with them being helpful as a really cool moment and demonstrating his fidelity in his relationship with Lindsay(and ig also that he's willing to help Cody be a creep). I don't like him as much I used to, but I still think he's a really cool character overall.
Next is the very person he helped to be a creep, Cody. He is a fantastic character, being hilarious with slapstick as well as also being an entertaining scumbag when he's in nice or creepy mode. It's also neat how he can be surprisingly competent at times like we see in Greece, Area 51 with the candy, and Japan with combining the others' ideas, as well as him figuring out why Alejandro's fake picture was fake and his interactions in general are also pretty fun in general, be them with Heather, Alejandro with a trust turned hatred(and him using his nickname to distract him was a great moment), Sierra(which I'll talk more about later, but for him, his reactions to her tend to be funny, or Duncan(the punch is unexpected, and thus, funny, and the expression on his face exudes both calm and anger, which is pretty cool).
Next is a character with a very similar audition and pretty similar concept, but one who I like more, Beth. Similarly to Cody, it's fun to see her surprising competence, especially in her rivalry with Courtney, which is just really cool all around, and her exposing Leshawna's bad-mouthing is just a really cool scene to watch(plus, it leads to Leshawna's cheer). I also find her funny, for similar reasons with Cody in that she's a pathetic creep to an absurd extent, but she also has good one-liners on her own like "One will tear you from limb to limb and the other's a shark", "Quick, take the pins out"(and her concussion lines in general), and her friendship with Lindsay is also pretty endearing. Also, I like her role in WT in Aftermaths 1 and 3. Her and Justin are basically interchangeable on my rankings at 10th or 11th. Ig I am leaning to liking her a bit more as of now though.
Now, it's the other half of the BFFFLs, and the one I prefer, Sadie. Like Katie, she is mildly entertaining in general, but I prefer her for one reason: Marshmallow eating freaks. Oh yeah, and her pelting Courtney with apples was pretty funny in general.
Speaking of Courtney, now we have my favorite character in the entire show. I am thinking of doing a bigger write-up on her, later, maybe her birthday, but for now, I'll just say this. She is easily the most interesting character in the entire show, starting off as a by-the-books kind of person, but with plenty of red flags as you see her be rather apathetic from time to time(like writing the BFFFLs off as eaten by wolves), and her bio and audition hint similarly. However, she is still overall pretty chill despite showing more and more of a darker side... and then you get to Haute Camp-ture where out of anger over her elimination, she refuses to enjoy the place, and looks for Harold to give a beatdown to. Then the Island Special where she gets physical with Izzy pretty quickly and seems a bit too nonchalant about leaving Duncan with a hurt leg. Which may not be too bad, as neither are actually injured by her, but then she outright steals a hot air balloon, showing she's not messing around, and mugs the boys for a million. Action capitalizes on it further, showing a new side to her entirely and having her partake in cruel actions like injuring Justin or bargaining with lives. Also, her literally suing her way back in the show was a really cool way to mess with the game from behind, so there's that. WT and AS tone her brutal behavior down, but she is still expanded there with her clinginess to Duncan being highlighted in early WT and her affably evil side being shown in SMS. Not to mention, she is hilarious, having plenty of great slapstick and snark moments and even dumb moments bc she isn't the most self-aware, as well as entertaining scumbag moments, making her very versatile humor-wise. Oh yeah, and her interactions are amazing, but I've already gushed enough, so I'll just say this: Courtney based.
Now, Harold. He's overall a really cool character, having plenty of funny moments as well as cool demonstrations of his mad skills, especially in Masters of Disasters where he saves everyone from the stakes of literal death. His rivalry with Duncan was also pretty entertaining, and I like how it wasn't just all hatred, also having some moments of respect and cooperation, and I respect his existence in the World Tour aftermaths, providing some neat comedy every now and then. He also is part of the reason for Courtney's descent which I have to appreciate. Also, him psychoanalyzing Heather in TDDDI was neat.
For our first Island merger, Eva, she was simply a cool antagonist in No Pain, No Game, her absurd pettiness being funny and her beating up Sasquatchanakwa and wearing his fur in 10 seconds being pretty cool. I also liked her in the special, as it showed a more human side of her, and she had funny moments in the Aftermaths.
Next is Trent. There's two things I like about him, which are highlighted in his different seasons. Island with his slapstick, and Action with an interest factor. He has plenty of funny moments with almost dying in Island and I like how he unintentionally became a toxic influence in Action, plus, him dumping his girlfriend in a roundabout way, getting Justin to do it over text, has absurd comedy to it.
Now, Bridgette. I find her to be consistently great throughout her seasons, not having one or two peaks. She has good slapstick comedy, is interesting with her not being an angel due to committing infidelity, but unlike other cheaters, going hard with the apology, and I like her dynamic with Geoff in general in the aftermaths, be it them being hostile or making out due to absurd circumstances.
Now, a character with a similar hair color, Lindsay. She is pretty funny in general, but I'll be honest, I like her more for the interest factor. She started off as a villain's sidekick, a secondary antagonist while not meaning much malice herself(though it doesn't excuse her actions, she still knowingly helped Heather), but after Heather turned on her(and not because Heather did anything bad to anyone else lol), she snapped, and after that, she is perceived as an idiot, not someone to be taken seriously, but later, while she is still an idiot, she is one that's taken seriously, taking charge of her team and of the merge cast, her authority drowning out anyone else's. Plus, her friendship with Beth is endearing and I really like her rivalry with Courtney, especially when it's them trying to both assert their authority.
Now, DJ. I find his animal curse plot genuinely very entertaining, due to how absurd the methods in which the animals get hurt are, and the surprise factor also helps. Also, it's slapstick comedy, which, if you've been paying attention, you'll know is probably my favorite kind of it, but in addition, the animal curse also advances Aleheather, and I love the implied placebo effect with him doing great and not hurting animals as soon as he doesn't think he has the curse, then going back to hurting the animals as soon as he thinks otherwise. Also, the animal-loving guy hurting animals is ironic, and irony is pretty cool, which also helps. Though aside from the animal curse being amazing, his general personality as friendly, though very insecure and prone to irritation/testiness at times is endearing to watch.
So a character that I would have talked about already if not for her return, Izzy. Her crazy shtick leads to plenty of funny moments, and she's also pretty cool with being able to overpower Chef at times and her athleticism. I also like how she has a different side in Masters of Disasters, and the way she returned is a neat loophole. Also, the way she gets the case back from Justin in TDDDI is really cool, probably my favorite episode of her.
Up next is Geoff, the only character where my favorite season of his is one he doesn't even compete. That's because as an aftermath host in general, he is frankly just awesome(and a lot better than when he's a competitor). His Captain Hollywood plot was pretty interesting and funny, demonstrating that power can change even the nicest, and in afterward, this isn't fully ignored, as he still has sadistic moments despite having learned his lesson. Though what I really like about Geoff is his performance in Aftermath Aftermayhem, where after Blaineley sends his girlfriend to Siberia, he defeats her, not by slaying her dragon, cutting down her army, climbing her tower, or whatever, but by humiliating her with his power as a TV host in several ways, then sending her to compete in Total Drama, a show not known to treat its contestants nicely, through a clever loophole. It was genuinely really thrilling to watch.
Now, Leshawna. I found her Spa Day event to be one of the more interesting scenes in TD, demonstrating that a generally upbeat and friendly person can be quite underhanded, and it resulting in a surprising bond with Heather was also really cool. In addition, her role in the Gaffers' dynamic was appreciated, trying to mediate between Harold and Duncan, which added to their rivalry. Also, her cheer at the end was really neat. I also like her competence with out-log-rolling a bear being the best example.
Now, Duncan, a character I prefer to everyone I talked about before sans Courtney and Ezekiel. Why, you may ask? Well, the best way to answer it is interactions. His dynamic with Courtney is the best one, having really entertaining conflict be it as teammates who don't like each other, an abusive relationship, or bitter exes. Him eventually agreeing to work together with Beth in Mutiny was also pretty fun to see, and as I mention with Harold, their dynamic was just fun in general, and his rivalry with Alejandro is also pretty cool. Not to mention, his stuff with Owen, which just leads to funny moments in general. Even outside his generation, his interactions with Zoey were pretty neat, with the irony of him trying to prove to her that he was bad but just ending up doing something nice for her, and her misinterpreting his skull as a bunny was funny. Interactions are his strong point, but he is also interesting enough on his own, being a rude and sadistic delinquent who occasionally does nice things, of those, he goes to great lengths to hide, but also can go pretty far with his malicious actions. Also, he has cool slapstick, which as always, is appreciated. 7th favorite character overall.
Remember when I said that sans Courtney and Ezekiel, Duncan's the best one here? Well, now he's not, because it's time to talk about Heather. From her debut, she had a strong presence in Total Drama, always snarking at or complaining about things she didn't like, and in general, was just a massive jerk, though as I've hinted at, I find being a bad person funny. Speaking of funny, she also has, you guessed it, slapstick. Guessing it was meant to satisfy the viewer bc of how much of a jerk she was, but I just appreciated the comedy with it, the jellyfish event being a great one as well as the golfballs in the finale. Not to mention, she has great interactions, both with the Amazons due to the entertaining rivalry with Courtney as well as strategizing with Cody and Sierra. On the Gaffers' side, her being the one to be chill with Leshawna was pretty cool, and I liked her banter with Harold and Duncan. Also, she has a factor of interest similar to the latter, being a bad person, though with nice moments such as giving Sierra a wheelchair or opening the gate for the others in Wawanakwa Gone Wild. Though her best interaction is with Alejandro, their rivalry being fun to watch progress and ultimately culminating in her shoving him to the bottom of a volcano. Also, her cameo in ROTI was really cool, outright hijacking a zeppelin is rather kick-butt. 4th favorite character overall.
Now, an Island finalist, Gwen. She has neat snark and occasional slapstick, but the main things I like about her are her coolness factor and her interest factor. For the former, she defeats an armed criminal just by kicking him. Plus, she is the last one in the Big Sleep and Basic Straining, and holds her own against Courtney in a boxing match. Though in addition to that, she is genuinely interesting, being an anti-social loner, who after making friends, basically becomes more normal, even getting into a petty fight with Bridgette over who's crush did something(which is a rather stereotypical teen to do). and this being followed up in later seasons. Heck, boyfriend-kissing demonstrates her integration into teenage society too. Her moral ambiguity throughout all this is intriguing as well, as she shows both virtues and flaws, humanizing her well.
Now, for the last of the original contestants, we have Owen. His upbeat, enthusiastic attitude mixed with him not being the sharpest tool in the shed leads to great humor, especially with the way he exaggerates his emotions. Not to mention that he has plenty of slapstick as well as surprising competence. He even has unsurprising competence in ITDDY, as one would expect him to be unfazed by grossness. That being said, I also find him to be very interesting. For starters, while he is, on the surface, just a cheery, fun-loving guy, he has a dark side. This can be observed with him making a bet with Cody to steal Gwen's bra, not accounting for Gwen's consent, shoving Izzy in front of a psycho killer(though to be fair, he panicked, and an every-man-for-himself attitude there makes sense, but still doesn't paint the best moral picture), using Blaineley as a surfboard, making the fart balloons that trapped the All-Stars, but especially with the mole plot, which while starting off as a necessity for his family, evolves into enjoying it, and he admits to having done bad stuff outside of just the job. I also love the mole plot in general, as it shows his brand of manipulating, a new kind. 5th favorite overall.
Now, onto the WT newbies. Starting off is Blaineley. She encompasses entertaining scumbag well, being an abhorrent jerk, but genuinely really funny while being one throughout the first 3 aftermaths in World Tour. It also helps that her rivalry with Geoff in the 3rd one is extremely fun to watch as I mentioned on Geoff's entry, but she herself is great there, especially now that she has a motivation to hasten it, causing her to go over-the-top with starting things. As a contestant, she is also pretty cool, initiating an alliance with Chef with a unique bribe, and her brief rivalry with Heather was fun. I also like how despite being a terrible person, she is really chill and down-to-earth, even when openly doing terrible things, not openly throwing tantrums too often.
Next up is Sierra. who similarly to Blaineley, is an entertaining scumbag, repeatedly violating Cody, albeit in ways that are so absurd that I have to laugh. Though in addition to that, she also has humanizing moments, giving food to Sam with the other Hamsters, being disgusted with the cheating despite having fought with Courtney earlier and admitting to liking Gwuncan, saving the other Hamsters from falling off a cliff even with Cameron already safe(unlike with Niagara Brawls, where it was selfish), and most notably, with being willing to let herself die to help Cody win. This isn't like any other moment of saving Cody, as while a selfish intent could be argued there as you can't enjoy kissing Cody if he's dead, you can't enjoy kissing Cody if you're dead either.
Now, it's time for the final contestant, Alejandro. He is a hyper-competent competitor, which can be a bit too much at times, but he also has several weaknesses, especially explored with him failing to defeat Mal and consistently being outclassed by him, that humanize him very well, but even aside from Mal, he is outright dumb at times, turning around to kiss Heather when he was about to win and knocking Cody into shark-infested waters when he didn't have to to win. Also, taking out DJ and Bridgette might not have been the best ideas considering they're free allies in the merge. In addition, his dynamic with Heather is great, it being fun to watch them compete in every episode, and him having the upper hand more often making his defeat as earned as it is. 6th favorite character overall.
Now, to a host, namely Chef. Chef is a great presence throughout, his pessimism and anger serving as funny moments, and it's also cool whenever he's an obstacle in a challenge, which happens a lot, and as challenges make the show, that is not something to gloss over. He also gets to host challenges, my favorite example being Eat, Puke, and Be Wary, where he's both a host and an obstacle, and one who brings about Commando Zoey, so triple plus there. Also, his dynamic with Chris is pretty fun, as it leads to slapstick moments for him, but also times when he gets back at Chris to keep it interesting, but them being pals is also neat to see.
Now for the main host, it's Chris himself, the reason the show exists, the first character you see, and a character who appears in every season, even the Ridonculous Race(though he's pretty mid there lol). Remember what I said about Blaineley encompassing an entertaining scumbag? Well, he is the epitome of it, being essentially the sandbox creator of the show, choosing what the challenges are and adding things to them, but because he's a terrible person, that results in really brutal, yet entertaining challenges. Though he isn't just a Minecraft creative mode player who puts the mobs in dangerous situations, he also has plenty of fun interactions with the mobs, aka, the contestants, and also with Chef as I said. For some examples, his rivalry with Ezekiel is amazing, especially since it leads to the few times where he loses control of what's going on, and almost gets mutated himself. His rivalry with Courtney is also great, as in Action, she has some power over him, erasing some of his invulnerability. Topher also does this by gaslighting him successfully, and while he wins against Topher pretty easily at the end, it's still fun to see some of his own cleverness. Speaking of which, it's pretty fun to see a contestant try to one-up him, but him just not being affected and them getting oofed anyway(an example that comes to mind is Axel trying to escape the Drone of Despair), though even he sometimes gets careless such as in the balloon episode, so this isn't always the case. Overall, Chris is freaking amazing, and if Courtney wasn't as good as she was, he would remain my favorite.
So that's it for now, happy birthday Total Drama, my favorite show. These characters are not much more than a 4th of its stock, yet I can say a lot about just them, so imagine how based the entire show is,

Hello. I am a divorced, independent woman. I now have a stable business and investment. I wish I could retire when I was 45 so I could have more time to enjoy my life. I need someone to accompany me during the journey. I want to meet a mature, kind man. I hope he respects my culture. I'm not looking for quick sex or a casual situation. I am humorous and mature. I like cooking food from different countries, listening to quiet music, watching movies, and working out. I like to learn new knowledge. I don't have any political stance. Let's get in touch via SMS chat first. If we get along well, then we can meet and go on a trip together. If you are interested in my content. You can contact me.

Hello. I am a divorced, independent woman. I now have a stable business and investment. I wish I could retire when I was 45 so I could have more time to enjoy my life. I need someone to accompany me during the journey. I want to meet a mature, kind man. I hope he respects my culture. I'm not looking for quick sex or a casual situation. I am humorous and mature. I like cooking food from different countries, listening to quiet music, watching movies, and working out. I like to learn new knowledge. I don't have any political stance. Let's get in touch via SMS chat first. If we get along well, then we can meet and go on a trip together. If you are interested in my content. You can contact me.

Hello. I am a divorced, independent woman. I now have a stable business and investment. I wish I could retire when I was 45 so I could have more time to enjoy my life. I need someone to accompany me during the journey. I want to meet a mature, kind man. I hope he respects my culture. I'm not looking for quick sex or a casual situation. I am humorous and mature. I like cooking food from different countries, listening to quiet music, watching movies, and working out. I like to learn new knowledge. I don't have any political stance. Let's get in touch via SMS chat first. If we get along well, then we can meet and go on a trip together. If you are interested in my content. You can contact me.