Baby Boy Summer Outfits

... be paid… fuck that, her baby was somewhere out there, probably... to dab at her forehead. Summer in California was… well, it...at all. Whoever took her baby did so in such a...next to it. Her darling boy, William, shuffled in like a... awkwardly, smiling at the teenage boy. "Well, you know, I'd ...go the distance with this boy before moving in with him... maker of many fine superhero outfits, said with a wince and...

... show, lots of smiles and baby giggles. You are going to... was all coordinated with matching outfits based on the meet theme.... When Kylene had her first baby, a boy Fitzgerald, Darlene arranged her schedule...!! Morning Jenny....enjoy your hot "summer like" day today!! Our hot ...

submitted by /u/Primary_Concert_1045 to r/WEYGSHOP [link] [comments]

Get your little athlete ready for summer adventures with these adorable and practical outfits. From park playdates to impromptu water fights, you'll appreciate the easy-to-move-in design and breathable cotton fabric. What's your go-to summer activity with your baby? submitted by /u/Primary_Concert_1045 to r/WEYGSHOP [link] [comments]

These adorable matching suits are perfect for capturing those special sibling moments at the beach, pool, or park. The easy-to-wear design makes it a breeze for you to get your little ones dressed and ready for a day out. What's your go-to summer activity to do with your mini-me and their mini-me? submitted by /u/Primary_Concert_1045 to r/WEYGSHOP [link] [comments]

This adorable coconut tree print outfit is perfect for hot summer days when you want your little one to look stylish and feel comfortable. The elastic sun print shorts and soft cotton t-shirt combo will keep your baby boy cool and happy. Are you stocking up for the summer months with cute and practical outfits for your newborn? submitted by /u/Primary_Concert_1045 to r/WEYGSHOP [link] [comments]

1.The Stew Crew has all but abandoned their long form YouTube platform and have switched to short form content on all platforms. This week after skipping another vlog, Evan says there just isn’t going to be one because they have been very busy. What they’re busy doing is delaying any real time footage while they travel, try to keep the larger Bates family together and (most importantly) Evan grows out his hair. Carlin is at 1.1 million followers which makes her a “macro influencer” and she can’t be out here just showcasing that much content all at once. Influencers in the big leagues live very curated lives, and run content up to a month behind real time. Long gone are the days of stories showing what’s happening in the moment, and 20-30 minute blocks of trips to the big house and waiting in line at Starbucks. What you get now is focused, purposeful and either a full on ad, or intended to prime you for the next ad. Would you believe that CVS is likely paying the Stewarts $20-$40,000 per campaign? Compare that to someone like Whitney and Zach who are making $2-$5,000 per campaign and it’s easy to see how Layla has 2 mortgages, vehicles, and is traveling overseas in this economy. Kids continue to sell and Evan and Carlin are being rewarded for having absolutely no boundaries while heavily exploiting their children. Carlin has quickly and quietly moved away from Katie and the unofficial ambassadors of questionable judgment (Evan and Travis) no longer even dare glance at one another. That leaves a giant hole in the Stewarts lives that needs to be filled, so enter Warden and his bribe...I mean bride, Kaybrie. Kaybrie was born to influence, preen and pose for the cameras and she has the “honey, sweetheart, sugar on top” mannerisms that fits just perfectly with the Stewarts content, so Carlin agrees to host a shotgun wedding of sorts in the Temu Tara backyard. The reason Warden needs to marry this girl is because her daddy is terminally ill. Truly a sad story and it leaves no room for snarking about how she showed up at the exact moment Warden was being dragged for filth all over the internet or how the Bates have invaded her life, taken over every aspect of everything and suddenly she has a public platform and has to live 24/7 with this scrawny little man child who doesn’t even have a w2. Carlin is happy to throw some cokes in her broken fountain out back, set up some Chick-fil-a trays on the pool house window and get these kids to having legal sex. When she isn’t helping Kelly Joe craft a sympathetic narrative, Carlin is spending every waking moment trying to get shots of Navy Kate’s feet or trotting out that old standard-- Layla Rae dressed as a princess loving on her daddy. Carlin is making lots of “daddy issues” content these days, just blatantly putting all of her own issues on display via Layla. We never thought we’d see the day but reels featuring Layla aren’t performing as well as baby sister’s are, and this fact makes Carlin dress her up in a full face of makeup and send her strutting down a sidewalk on the way to getting her nails done. She’s a real life working girl and let’s all hope she garners at least a million views on one of these reels because if not... she’ll be retired to the 3rd row of the Tesla right beside brother Zade. 2.Katie Clark is burning it all to the ground and doing it in a red string bikini. After posting a huge word salad that can be construed a hundred different ways and opens everyone in her family up to scrutiny, Katie cleans up her Instagram and leaves less than 200 posts... then hauls ass to the Jersey Shore to love up with her hunk of a man and thumb her nose at Tennessee. Seriously, what the hell is happening here? Her siblings are racing to post on anything she drops less they be called out as “the one” who has hurt her, but even their comments seem empty. There’s no way I am going to believe that she went from seeing at least Josie and Carlin almost daily to now just a few emojis left on a random posts. This girl gushed over her dad and wanted her mom and her sisters with her at all times. Her younger siblings had keys to her house, they planned a podcast with the Stewarts who they spent nights with, spent every Sunday with... Josie loaned her clothes and gave her a vacation at a lake house... they went on bougie shopping sprees and vacations and rented houses and cars together.... and now it’s just crickets?? The opinion seems to be split over whether Katie has had some awakening about her childhood being spent in a religious cult OR whether she’s just ticked off that her family isn’t willing to forgive her cheater, cheater Thrive market eater of a husband. Some folks think she’s no longer sharing Harvey and Hailey on the internet but they certainly seem to be front and center in every ad and shooting them from behind isn’t protecting them in the least. Especially not when every second since the cord was clipped has been filmed and shared with the public. Katie is doing some sort of count down to her next big move, while also not sharing where she is moving to. If she tries to claw back a little privacy now and set some boundaries, she’s going to face the wrath of her audience. Somebody is going to have to get a real job to support this cushy lifestyle Hailey and Harvey have been providing their parents and too bad for Travis and Katie... Chick-Fil-A doesn’t hire 4 year olds. 3.Josie Balka is currently undergoing the fundie version of Stella Gets her Groove Back. Her version of this is to stand in her bathroom, clad in a robe while aggressively applying product to her hair. Josie’s biggest enemy has always been her siblings’ cameras, and that is still the case. While she drops several reels of her new curly hair that make it look like a Vidal Sassoon shoot, photos from Warden’s fake but legally binding wedding show the REAL Josie with flat frizzy normal girl hair. Josie also decided to lean in to her Alyssa era by following up all of her coffee content with... you guessed it... numerous shots of clouds. I swear these artistic types... Anyway, she also showcases Miles saying a few words and takes all 4 kids to Costco so we can watch Kelton roam around in the suburban version of big game hunting while Josie tries to convince her followers that she wears Costco clothing. She still hasn’t said a word about a new house, but the Balkas do head over to Zach’s for what must have been a “What do we do about Katie” meeting with Carlin, Warden, Ellie and Whitney all in attendance. The outcome of the meeting is that Josie drops tons of “cousins are friends for life” content, along with filming fit checks that include Lydia and Ellie. Josie has years of experience riding the fence and keeping the focus on herself so if Katie wants to blow it all up... she’ll just take to her mirror and film a makeup tutorial and all will be well in her world. 4.Alyssa Webster heard that things were Rocky in Rocky Top and it was just the mess she needed to race back into town to see the fallout for herself. Luckily all 4 of her girls are forced to wear the same outfit and apparently they can all wear the same sizes so packing didn’t take much time and the Websters landed in the Stewart’s bonus room. Alyssa had 2 brothers getting married within days of each other, but nobody knows anything about Isaiah’s wedding so we can only assume she and her sitting room curtain dresses were at both. Alyssa and Lurch don’t have much time to hang out in Tennessee these days because they are also trying to hit up as many Conservative Christian events as they possibly can while they can still get tickets. Taliban Dan’s days in Congress are numbered, and just like she isn’t getting PR packages often anymore... she’s about to be dropped from invite lists all over TrumpLand when his predecessor takes office. Alyssa does manage to snag a picture with Warden at his non-shotgun wedding. It looks like she caught him sneaking off around the corner of the house and he’s dressed in full mourning clothes. Ellie is also dressed in full on black and appears to be the only attendant in the wedding party. Ellie is fast friends with Kaybrie for some reason and Addee nor JebJud are anywhere to be seen. The newest Mrs. Bates is eager to please and shares all about her first big day. Most importantly she needs everyone to know that this dress ain’t the only one she has. Apparently Kelly Joe found it on Facebook Marketplace. Doesn’t that seem... frantic? Why is KJ the one doing all this? Speaking of Kelly... she’s injured herself somehow again and has a finger wrapped up in a splint. Maybe she broke it wagging it in Warden’s face too hard? Kaybrie tags all of the influencer crowd and just thanks them profusely for making her newest/latest dream come true. She even allows her mother and sister to take a picture near her new inlaws. If you’re in the area and in the market for a cheap wedding dress, don’t buy this one bc guaranteed it is stained with the orangest spray tan ever known outside of the White House. 5.Remember during the big snowstorm back in January when Zach Bates inexplicably left his entire family and his heavily pregnant wife for a trip to sunny California? Now we know why. Dude packed up his arsenal of knives, his industrial sized vats of butter, mayonnaise and hauled half a cow to the left side of the country for a chance to be made a fool of on National television. He’s contestant #41 on a new Food Network show that also features Carnie Wilson and Dad Tok’s own stain on humanity, Jordan. Before he announces his latest shot at stardom, Whitney shows off the new $90,000, 8 seat Suburban Zach brings home. She’s absolutely thrilled about it, and we all remember that the last $100,000 SUV they had was a straight gift from God according to her. She has to thank her kids for this one because the last few years of exploiting them heavily is what allowed them to purchase this one. To celebrate the boys are forced to star in dad’s latest infomercial for some $700 wood fire pizza oven. He calls it a camp out, but it should be called what it really is... work. Whitney is off of maternity leave and back at her full time job of filming herself while driving, while in Target and while pretending to drink some grimy ass water enhancing powder. She starts every post by labeling herself a “mom of 6" and shows them all heading off to church where everything is linked, right down to the Bibles they carry. Whitney is also prepping for school to be out for summer and wants you to buy a tablet preloaded with some janky learning games so you can cut down on your kids’ screen time. Yes, please buy this screen so your kids will have less screen time. These folks never fail to disappoint. 6.Trace and Lydia were able to flee their tiny house and crash her parents Florida vacation for a few days. The Romeike family seem to be the most comfortable visa holding folks in the country right now. They are vacationing in other states, painting and remodeling rooms in their home and recently completed their high dollar, hand built barn. Not a care in the world. Momma Romeike and the Romeike kids are happy to show up in Lydia’s content. Before leaving Lydia posts a reel where she calls Trace her “cop husband” and says he can outrun her. The depths these women go to in order to find something to prop up these terrible men should truly be studied. Trace explained less than a year ago that he is only a volunteer with the Sheriff’s department as a reserve deputy so these people are practicing creative wording to the max. Lydia shows herself in more coffee shops editing together content that will eventually be an insomnia cure for some of us. Ryker has always hated the sand and the beach, but Lydia has learned to edit around that and baby Kaia is full on walking/stumbling around in a pair of oversized crocs. It seems as though Trace and Lydia’s time in the Stewarts’ world was short lived and they are once again pushed to the background. They can’t pick up any traction on social media, and their reels consistently garner less than 100,000 views. They won’t drop a YouTube vlog if they don’t have a sponsor and most of those seem to be on a trade basis. Trace always has time to golf though and Lydia is always in a brand new outfit. 7.The Queen of fundie skincare, Erin Paine, is working hard on new products to add to her store. Soon enough you will be able to coat your lips, hands and behind in scented cow fat, stirred up for you by the Chairman of the stay at home board, the professionally unemployed Chad Paine. Fresh back from a trip to Rocky Top where she posed with her favorites only, Erin took to Instagram for a little question and answer session that was really a well disguised ad. She asked herself a creatively worded question, “Do you speak to all of your sisters”... and then was able to honestly answer that with “Yes, of course”. Now we all know that “speaking to” and “getting along with” are very different things, but it made Erin think she had shut down all of the whispers swirling around about where she falls in the “90/10" split. She tells us that she would love living in South Carolina near Jane, that Chad is in charge of producing all of her tallow products and that is his one and only job and that her kids are all moving up to grades that don’t remotely match their ages. She answers all of this overlaid on a picture of Chad chasing her through a fruit orchard. Seriously, it’s a picture of this grown man in a full on sprint attempting to catch Erin as her dress blows in the breeze. She thinks it portrays whimsical love, but I think it’s the beginning of a Lifetime Movie. Erin shares another reel of the whole crew coming out of the front door of the rental house, headed to church. The rental house they’ve been in for about 6 months longer than they told us they would be. Maybe she can sell enough Moo-Mud to finally get that long dreamed of farm. 8.Michael and Brandon Keilen drop a new YouTube vlog where they speak in hushed tones while gazing admiringly at each other and tell the story of their youngest foster child’s first birthday. This vlog drops in the midst of Katie blasting her entire family for not standing with her, not supporting her and not helping her move. Is it any surprise that Saint Michael comes along to tell us all how eternally grateful she is for the undying love and support of her family? Michael fawns all over herself talking about how her family didn’t have to come to the party, didn’t have to buy gifts, she would have understood. Get out of here with this BS... what kind of person would say “yea, no thanks. We aren’t buying your foster kid a toy”??? Michael even focuses on her wonderful, amazing father and how he took the time to spend with his grandchildren and be so present and purposeful with them. Gil could certainly do with a little positive PR these days, right?? Brandon talks again about how much life has changed with the boys. He says they should have left them several months ago but they are still there with them, and they have no clue when they may leave. Before, they said adoption was not an option, but now they say if the opportunity were to arise, they would definitely adopt. Brandon seems to be more realistic than Michael. He talks about the sleepless nights, the lack of private time, how hard it all is... Michael just swoons and swoons while throwing around the beatitudes. This is a fluff piece orchestrated just when the Bates crew needed it most. Give it up for Michael for holding the party line even in the midst of the storm. 9.When the going gets tough... the tough head to a one bedroom condo in San Diego. That’s just what Tiffy and Lawson did, and they took Addee along with them. Nobody knows when they left, or when they will return because their content is harder to follow than a Donald Trump press conference. They are working on one month with no new vlog and the last one they posted was already old before it was even uploaded. Maybe Lawson is struggling without Travis around to guide him through his editing. Lawson does do a little preaching and posts some scripture about lacking wisdom and asking God when the answers aren’t easy. Not sure who he’s preaching to, but my bet is his sister. There’s lots of reels of their dumb “me man, you woman” content and Tiffy shares a reel of Lawson reading to the boys. Most of their content features Will on Lawson’s shoulders hanging on to the little bit of hair Lawson has. The child is nearly 2 years old and never allowed to walk, to talk, to run... or to wear pants. Will’s droopy diaper must really bring in the views for these 2. They do score an ad with Zillow and try to make folks believe they have moved to San Diego. Meanwhile, the only question that remains unanswered is where is Duke the dog? Bits and Bytes...Gil has been blazing in the pulpit lately. He tells his congregants that he would never choose to be one of those people trying to be famous on YouTube... he’d rather be an old time Christian. He also talks about not being influenced by the world, but to be influenced by God... later he tells them he has a big prayer he is praying, that he’s asking God for a miracle and maybe one day he’ll get it... meanwhile, Kelly Joe is busy applauding Carlin for selling a betting app and asking her followers to spend at least $30 for a chance to win some skincare items...Kelly also seems to be spending lots of time alone at Gil’s mom’s house...she wishes Carlin and Evan a happy 7th anniversary and Tori’s son turns 2. Layla gets her own post on Granny’s page for her recital, but there’s zero mention of Alyssa and John’s anniversary....Evan gets a $500 David Yerman bracelet for living with Carlin for 7 years...There is no mention of Tori, Michael, Lawson or Katie at the Wardbrie (Kayden?? Karden??) nuptials. There’s something just under the surface with the Bates crew, friends... I think we are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Have a great week! submitted by /u/dixcgirl10 to r/BringingUpBates [link] [comments]

1.Remember way back in October when the Stewart fam bought a million dollar mansion? Remember how at Christmas they said they had no trips at all planned? Do you recall how 6 weeks ago Carlin said to get ready for wall to wall house content? Pepperidge Farm and this sub remember… but the Stew Crew dang sure does not. They have traveled non-stop, the new house is barely mentioned and their current home is just a stop over for laundry and repacking. Izzy, the doodle dog is MIA, perhaps sharing a kennel with the other missing family sidekick… Travis Clark. Carlin and Evan can’t hang out with the Clarks because it is bad for business, so instead they high tail it to Augusta to brown nose their way into the Southern Belle Blogger Bunch. When they touch down at Sophie and Tyler Watts’ corner of the world, it is easy to see where Carlin is getting her “Old South” aesthetic that has suddenly replaced her boho waif vibe. Anyway, surprise, surprise this group of numbnuts has scored tickets to the practice round of the Masters Golf tourney. If you don’t know, it’s a storied event that has deep roots in all the terrible things you think of when you think of Georgia. It’s also known for how exclusive it… was. Augusta National decided to let in influencers this year and now the pimento cheese and the fabled gnome are pedestrian at best. The 5 couples have to split their tickets so the guys go for their photo op and then trade out with the girls. None of this content goes viral and Carlin would much rather just turn the camera on her baby’s feet and let the views rack up. She is never without her camera these days, and everything is content. Layla isn’t pulling in the numbers she once did, even when they film her coated in lipgloss, throwing faces for the masses. Navy Kate is almost exclusively paying the bills at this point. Well, along with breastfeeding, which Carlin has turned into pure fetish content. They are slowly moving away from long form filming, and the vlogs that used to come weekly are now more like every ten days to 2 weeks. They know it’s more work for less pay and there’s more to examine… more chances for the mask to fall. Carlin turns 28 to much fan fair from everyone in her family that she doles out left over PR packages to, and they all make it back home just in time to pack for their next adventure that requires passports for the kids. First grade and Kindergarten sure look differently when you have 2 mortgages to pay… and being a baby in charge of car payments means you better not learn to crawl too soon. 2.If you predicted that Travis Clark would return from his 78 day social media exile on the same day that the Lord and Savior arose from the dead… then you obviously have…. 2 working brain cells. Good gracious these folks are predictable. After 2 months of random Travis body parts, he’s back and he is… shirtless. Dammit. Just when the management company seems to have gotten Lawson Bates to keep a shirt on, here comes Travis Clark, all loved up on Katie with his bare chest and big nips shining. Put that mess away, sir. Katie is on a permanent beach trip, staying in an AirBnB so she can exploit her children in new scenery that hasn’t been sullied by her husband and his mistress. What she didn’t expect was the home’s owner to show up in her comments and Doxx her while offering her a free stay. Who knows how long the Clarks will frolick on the beach before real life comes knocking. Is Travis in school in Orlando? Is he the new apprentice with Webster Heating & Air? Will they return to YouTube? Nobody knows. What we do know is that Katie continues her scorned momma glow up… she’s posing in bathing suits, giving crotch shots with fruit and wearing more eye makeup than RuPaul on the runway. The lawyer is long gone, and has apparently been replaced by a fundie therapist who shows up on Zoom to encourage Katie to smile even if it hurts and to be available whenever and however Travis wants. While these 2 fight their way out of their self created mess, Haley’s Disney Princess reels have a combined 60 million views. It’s obvious who is paying for this lifestyle. Haley sells the God app, shows up in her mom’s razor ads, sleep powder ads and models clothes for a Florida boutique. Katie drops some information about her miscarriage over a necklace link, and it’s clear she wants everyone to know the correct timeline. She says she miscarried in January and the baby was due in August… you do the math. They also take pictures at a new Florida church. I believe part of their running away is because of the church. Travis was in a leadership position at Clear Springs Baptist and that has to be shot all to hell now. If they have to move every time Travis gets angsty, the Clarks will have lived in all 50 states in the first ten years of this doomed pairing. 3.Josie Balka finally broke out of her beige 3 bedroom prison. Alas, it was only to head to a local park to set up for Kelton’s brother’s engagement. Yet another pair of half baked, too young fundies with hormones in over drive headed to an altar. Anyway, Josie filmed the whole thing and seemed giddy with excitement to be doing something besides stirring coffee, changing diapers and pretending to read her Bible. Too soon it was over and she had to head back up the gravel drive to that white painted brick hellscape to shill $50 wipes, Khloe Kardashian athletic wear and post everything with the word “slow” in front of it. She’s all about romanticizing “slow” mornings, “slow” evenings, “slow” breakfasts and “slowing” down. Speaking of slow…. Kelton Balka continues his march to male influencer. Now he’s jumped on to Josie’s fancy baby bottle partnership and he’s doing the voice over work. Supposedly this is so Josie can “sleep in”, but she’s up and going before he’s finished feeding the baby. Something else odd is happening in Balka world… Willow and Hazel seem to be mostly in skirts/dresses these days. At the park, on their bikes, going for walks… the girls are in dresses. It’s no coincidence that Erin always comments on Josie’s content. No matter how much she tries to make us believe that it was her idea to let go of the dolled up sex kitten look and get back to her freckled face basics…. I’m not buying it. Ole KTron and those wooly worms squatting on his forehead rule the roost. He has benched Josie in favor of his own center stage dreams. Alyssa Webster showed up to give us a March wrap up and can you believe that it looked exactly like the January and February recap? They celebrated 2 birthdays with a trip to the coffee shop, a grocery store cake at the kitchen table and those deranged dates with Lurch. There’s no mention of Katie, even though Katie has posted numerous times with Alyssa. Rhett is still wearing the sad hat. Truly a fundie debacle not discussed enough. Those hats toppled the Webster empire and when Alyssa realized no one was giving her money for a dumb hat and that she had been scammed by an online MLM… that’s when she took her leave from social media. Of course the Webster kids are all decked out in matching outfits for Easter. Alyssa forces them to all sit in the dirt under a tree and plaster on that fake smile so she can get her shots. It seems cruel that Allie is 11 and forced to wear the exact same get up that 5 year old Maci has on. Speaking of Allie, her birthday came and went and her mom chose to shout out a fellow cult friend instead of her oldest daughter. I’m sure we will see her awkward date with daddy in the April recap. Hopefully Allie gets her very own trip to the coffee shop. Ellie Bates, meanwhile, has been babysitting up a storm. She’s practically living with Zach and Whit and shows off Josie’s kids and Trace’s kids. The biggest shocker was her posing with Warden’s latest new girlfriend on Easter Sunday. The family is really going hard on promoting this new squeaky clean Warden image… even pretending to like this recent girlfriend. 5.Zach Bates took a “work trip” to California way back in January, and now is when his management company decided he should drop his content. Could it be that Whitney is near delivery? He doesn’t tell us what brand sent him to California, but he shows the management company, shouts them out as the best in the business and then proceeds to absolutely troll the hell out of Lawson by eating at every restaurant in a 4 mile radius of Tiffy’s home. I always knew Zach wanted to be the fundie Guy Fieri and this trip proves it. While he huffs and puffs from one restaurant to the next, Lawson is SCREAMING in his comments “hey, I know that place…. Hey, that’s around the corner from where we stay…. Hey, I should have been with you”. Lawson, you missed the boat. You could have been showcasing California landmarks instead of pretending to be a cowboy and taking pictures of yourself. In any case, back at home, Zach continues to drop reels of the same old food over and over… wanna watch him burn a hot dog? Make a roast? A steak? Chicken salad? There’s about 8 reels for each of the 5 things he knows how to make. Over in his Bates Kitchen, things haven’t changed. He’s still screwing up the recipe, leaving things out and forgetting steps while slinging food all over the kitchen, licking his fingers and talking with his mouth full. He and Whitney both exploit their kids every chance they get… like when they go to Costco where they happily show that they spent $860. Jadon and Lilly are the youngest/cutest/most easy to exploit so they show up the most. Whitney continues to push the same old tired links for powders, teeth whiteners and deodorant and no matter how much Zach wants to be the star…. Folks are tuning in for the kids and Whitney. In that order. 6.Trace and Lydia continue their march to mediocrity. I honestly don’t know what is going on with these 2 but something seems… off. Trace never seems to be around when Lydia is making content, and when he does pop in, he just says the same things over and over. Lydia is constantly at the gym. She sits in the car to tell us that while she was pregnant, Trace decided to start working out and getting fit. She points out that he did this exactly when she couldn’t….and that now that she is working out, he isn’t. That seems to be a running theme. They are on different pages. We don’t see any Easter content beyond pictures at Gil’s church in front of the flowered cross. Their weekly vlogs are just a few minutes long because all of the editing is Lydia’s job. Of course, this gives her an excuse to sit in random coffee shops during the week while Aunt Ellie plays with the kids. Maybe Trace is working a secret job somewhere… bag boy at the local Kroger, perhaps? They do update their followers with big news… they aren’t moving. Shocking, isn’t it? As interest rates soar and their content gets minimal views, they’ve made the decision to stay right where they are. Of course to hear them tell it, it’s because they love where they are and Lydia is scared of building. Interesting… she isn’t scared of one more set of stackable storage bins, is she? They don’t say that staying in their tiny house means no more kids because Trace knows Warden can come over and whip up a triple decker crib, no problem. The highlight of their latest vlog is Ryker’s styrofoam plane getting stuck on yet another roof and Trace yells at Lydia while she attempts to knock it down. They go on a bike ride where she schleps the picnic basket, blanket and the baby and he films them as she leaves him in the dust. Lydia is scratching around looking for reasons to brag on Trace and she decides on…. Making her coffee. Trace stumbles through the recipe for the amazing coffee he makes Lydia while admitting that it isn’t usually sweet enough and then she jumps in to give the exact recipe and steps. You know, for the coffee that TRACE makes. Mmmmhmmm. Lydia turns 28 and that gives them reason to film a fake surprise get away to luxurious, exclusive Myrtle Beach. While in Dirty Myrtle they make lots of couples content and one would hope this vacation doesn’t lead to Trace fulfilling that promise of giving KJ grandbaby number 41. 7.Erin and Chad Paine have whipped enough beef fat to afford a little vacation to Jekyll Island…or maybe it’s the love offerings that paid for the trip. In any case… they went somewhere, and Addee is with them. I guess they couldn’t hitch their wagons to Tori and Bobby’s vacay this year what with the new Smith kid making his debut. For Easter, Erin forced all of the kids to stand around her keyboard and maul a hymn. Even Callie had to join in, and you realize that she could be Erin’s daughter….actually, KJ would be just fine with that. Speaking of Kelly, she helps Erin do a little marketing by filming herself using Erin’s skincare in some hovel of a bathroom that must be the big house. All of the siblings are being forced to coat themselves in Erin’s grease so Chad doesn’t have to get a real job. Erin returns to YouTube to purr about her perfect life and give advice to all of us less thans. She tells us she never raises her voice, keeps the spark alive by looking into Chad’s eyes and holding his hand and says the secret to being perfect is to read your Bible. She recites her lines like a good little Gothardist and flounces off to pretend educate her children in the Florida sun. 8.Michael and Brandon celebrate Easter with the foster boys. She shows off their Easter outfits and they are the same thing being worn by 85 year old men. Fundies do love to dress a baby up like a little old man. It’s been a while since Michael has said the exact same thing over and over on social media, so while they are on a short road trip, she puts out a question and answer box so people can harass her about adoption, conception and her family. The only thing new - Michael mentions the birth parents of the foster children. She says they are “getting the help they need”. She is planning the baby’s first birthday party, and also plans to make more blankets for her shop. She says if adoption was an option, they would adopt…. But it obviously isn’t an option now because she twice mentions the birth parents who are obviously still in the picture. 9.Lawson and Tiffy have decided to milk a solid month of content out of this one bedroom condo they purchased in San Diego. They haven’t been to the place in almost 4 months and Tiffy calls it a “longer term rental” so how much time could they possibly spend there? Lawson prances around while Warden and JebJud do all of the work and Tiffy seems to think it’s a flex that her home was remodeled by a 22 year old and his 16 year old helper. God help the renters. In real time, they seem to be all alone for Easter in Nashville. Her parents aren’t around, we don’t see Callie and they don’t travel to the big house. They must be lost without their keepers. Tiffy films Will running around half dressed a lot and they have to cut a knot out of Teddy’s long hair. Guess he spends a lot of time flat on his back. Of course Lawson Ai’s himself into another background so he can wail and warble that same old hymn for an Easter post. Also… he’s back at the pregnancy baiting. Theodore is 4 months old. It’s enough already. 10.Bits and Bytes…Kelly Joe doesn’t mention Allie’s 11th birthday making it a clean sweep of all 5 of Alyssa’s kids getting nothing from Granny on IG… In other Kelly news, she appears to babysit for Josie. It’s unheard of for KJ to keep her grandkids without a sister there to do the heavy lifting, Kelton must have had to payoff a credit card or something… Alyssa attempts to get Disney’s attention by tagging them and asking for a free cruise on Katie’s post…Erin’s daughter Everly turns 8 and her personality is “likes animals”…Zade asks Carlin to DRAW his family’s names for him. Heavy subtitles are needed and the reel doesn’t come close to matching Navy’s views… Gil completed the roof on the big house and KJ complimented him by telling everyone how it was rotted, leaking and how badly needed it was. Have a great week friends! Summer days are back in my part of the world, 90 and sunshine all week! submitted by /u/dixcgirl10 to r/BringingUpBates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/Common_Doughnut6462 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes Previous BoRU [New Update]: I’m tired of my bf of 4 years ex being a ghost in our relationship. NEW UPDATES MARKED WITH ---- Editor's note: added paragraph breaks for ease of readability Trigger Warnings: possible grooming, sexual predator behavior ---- RECAP Original Post: July 10, 2025 I’m tired of my bf of 4 years ex being a ghost in our relationship. I don’t have many girlfriends to vent about this to so why not reddit? I want to try to get as many details as I can and try to keep things in order but I apologize if it’s all over the place. I’m just fuming right now about this situation. I have been with my (29F) bf (32M) for 4 years. He dated this one woman (who is 10 years older than him) for 6 years, about 3 or 4 years before we met/dated. My bf’s name is Aaron, and he has an older brother, Nate. Nate recently got married to Cassie. Cassie and my bf’s ex, Cate, have been long time best friends. Nate and Cassie met through Cate while my bf and her were together. Cate has a daughter (NOT my bf’s biological kid). For a few years though, Aaron and Cate lived together so he obviously had a good relationship with her daughter. I posted a story a few months ago about running into her daughter while our families were celebrating Mother’s day and how uncomfortable that was because my bf’s mother refused to really say who she was to my mom. My mom was just curious and kept pushing who she was and I knew immediately. Very weird situation. Cate is constantly brought up in random situations. I’ve learned to just deal with it. I can’t help that my bf and her dated for some time and she still has a friendship with Cassie. It’s annoying, but it is what it is. In the 4 years I have surprisingly been able to avoid running into her. Even though she’s a yoga instructor at my gym, and Cassie constantly tries to get us to go to her end of the summer party but my family does a vacation every year around that time. So I’ve just never gone. This has caused Cassie to get pretty upset with me, but idc. Cassie is now pregnant and due in August. Her baby shower is this coming Sunday. Every single woman in my bf’s family, including his mother, has made a comment “understanding if I didn’t show up” because they know Cate will be there. Just a couple days ago, Aaron’s cousin made a comment to Aaron saying “The baby shower is coming up.. Is Dani going? .. Won’t that be weird?” Then proceeded to say how she likes me better and that Cate is all about herself. I am so tired of her being compared to me. I’m so tired of her having a relationship with everyone in his life. I’m tired of everyone in the family making it “weird”. He has a past, who cares? She’s around... okay? Aaron and I have been together FOUR YEARS. They have been broken up SIX OR SEVEN YEARS. It’s so frustrating. On top of all of this, part of me truly believes that Cassie has been dying to get Cate and I in the same room. I think she wants the interaction to happen. Cassie and I have had not the best relationship. She tried warning me about Aaron. She told Aaron after meeting me once that she didn’t like me. I don’t know what to do here. Why am I made to feel like the outsider? I bet no one is saying how weird it will be for HER. What do I do here? How do I handle this when none of these comments are made to me. My bf obviously tells them that there is no reason for it to be weird and that I’m fine with it, but how do I make this stop? I’m sorry if this felt all over the place with info/details but I’m just so so tired of dealing with this. Relevant Comments OOP clarifies on why she is sending mixed messages to people around her and she is avoiding being around Cate OOP: So I think you have me a bit wrong. I never actively went out of my way to avoid her. I wanted the interaction to happen from the beginning. I find if a guy, let’s say, has female friends - I would rather meet them asap so it makes me real. Then I can see if they put boundaries in place. With this situation, I wanted his family feeling comfortable to have her and I in the same place. I’m not asking his family to end a relationship/friendship. I simply just don’t care to know. The end of the summer party just always ended up being when I had a yearly family trip where Aaron came with me. He would tell me it didn’t matter to him if he went or not but I was going to make an effort this year since Cassie clearly has an issue. It just happened to work out that our paths just never crossed in the 4 years. I don’t miss out on events or anything because I think she will be there. I’m so very comfortable and confident in my relationship and we have talked about rings etc. I just simply want this narrative his family has to stop. It gives her power in our lives and I just don’t care about her being brought up. Commenter 1: Wait, hold up, am I mathing the timeline right? Did Cate start dating your boyfriend when he was 18-19 and she was a full decade older???? And the family is totally cool with this woman continuing to be entrenched in their lives, and is constantly comparing you to her?????? Her attendance at family functions is more important than yours???? Cate is a total creep. What the hell. I don't even think this would be a question if the genders were flipped...... It wasn't very clear to me how your BF feels about the situation, this seems to be mostly just a problem with his family. Have you guys had a serious conversation about Cate? Hopefully, you guys are on the same page on this. If you guys can present a united front of, hey, please stop expecting us to associate with Cate, stop comparing OP to Cate, this is super weird and uncomfortable.....I think that will be more successful than you alone, where you can get painted as the jealous/insecure woman. And if your BF doesn't have your back and God forbid isn't actually over Cate or something, well, then you know to stop wasting your time and get the hell out of there. OOP: THIS. thank you!!!! I call her Mrs. Robinson. I believe he was 20-21 so my math could be not mathing but I know he had a year long relationship with someone else between her and I. I think it’s so gross for a 30-31 y/o to go for a younger guy. Esp a 20/21 y/o boy. Also a woman with a young daughter. My bf ended the relationship bc he couldn’t see marrying her and he wants a family. Everyone in his family talks highly of her though. So I think she’s a very bubbly/charismatic person. I just think if my kid did that.. I’d have an issue. Being 29 now.. young guys repulse me. I think they don’t speak about it out of respect for my bf. They don’t talk about their feelings much. My bf hardly tells his family what is going on in his life. He has always been like that. Aaron (OOP's boyfriend) needs to set boundaries on Cate attending the family events and making a scene toward OOP in front of Aaron's family. OOP should able to attend the baby shower OOP: It’s funny you say that because somehow, either through Cassie or maybe dinners at Cassie and Nate’s house that Aaron and I don’t get invited to, Aaron’s mom knew about his ex’s daughter getting into a specific college. My mind raced about that one and how that conversation happened or if his parents still spend time with her in some sort of secret. I want to draw a line in only one way. I just don’t want his family comparing or drawing conclusions on how they THINK I will react. When for a long time I did just want to meet her to get it out of the way. + I definitely intend to go. It proves the family right if I don’t, imo. They will all think I didn’t show because of her and I refuse to allow anyone to have anything more to talk about with the situation. My bf doesn’t let it bother him. He doesn’t entertain any conversation about her. But he doesn’t like conflict. I mean he shut down his cousins convo quickly about it when I wasn’t there. If I were there, or these comments were made to me I would react differently. I was thinking about going with my bf’s mom. Maybe even discussing the topic with her in private beforehand too. Just mentioning I don’t like the topic of her and how it made me uncomfortable knowing she knew about her daughter’s college acceptance. That it made me feel as though there is some secret relationship they have with her. My bf has told me things I can do that might get under her skin a bit if I want to go that route. lol   Update #1: July 14, 2025 (four days later) Update: I’m tired of my bf of 4 years ex being a ghost in our relationship. Hi THT fam, I was asked to give an update after my original post that I posted a few days ago regarding my (29F) bf (32M) ex being a ghost in our relationship. Thank you to everyone who gave their advice. I appreciated it all. So the baby shower was yesterday and I thought about posting but I was so frustrated yesterday I didn’t want it to be a rage post. There was no crazy petty confrontation or drama. There actually isn’t anything huge to really report but I have officially met Cate. It was Cassie’s baby shower and her sister had actually ended up going into labor yesterday morning so everyone was more concerned with that than anything else. I showed up about a half hour early to help my bf’s mom incase she needed it. It was just my bf’s mom and Cate there when I showed up. Also her current bf. She immediately introduced herself and I started helping anyway I could. She was very kind. As people started showing up though she made a comment saying “oh I should introduce myself” to everyone who showed up. My bf’s aunt showed up and they hugged and chatted a bit, along with Aaron’s cousin. It felt so strange to watch them all interact. She still very much has a good relationship with them all. I didn’t let that get to me. We had a couple more interactions where she complimented my outfit and made small talk about the food but I didn’t let the conversation go on long. I stayed at a table with all of my bf’s family. (His mom, his mom’s friends, his aunt, cousin etc.) I felt her eyes on me most of the day. Her daughter was there, too. For some reason it stuck out to me again that my bf’s mom was talking to her friend about Cate and her daughter and the colleges she got into. But all of his mom’s friends were mostly chatting to me about the house my bf and I are building. One of them had even said “wow the __(last name)_ boys really know how to pick beautiful women”. It was just something nice to hear in that really odd situation. However I guess she would be included in that in some capacity. I got home and my bf had asked me how it went because his mom mentioned her and I chatting. I crashed out on him. For some reason it just hit me that this woman is not going anywhere and I have absolutely no control of that. If we have kids down the road, one day she will most likely meet them and for some reason that bothers me. The family views her in a positive light, when she was about 30/31 and dated my bf at 20/21. I know some people struggled with that math in my original post. But they had to have broken up when he was 26. He dated someone between the two of us and then I met him when he was 28 turning 29. Her current bf is 8 years younger, too. I know it’s kinda irrelevant but I’m so annoyed at this situation. I’ll be seeing her again before the end of summer at Cassie’s party. I’m going once and never going again, lol. I think I’m allowed to not want to be around her. My bf feels the same. We both know we can’t do anything about the rest of the family having a relationship with her but from here on out we don’t want to hear about her or have contact. I know quite a bit about my bf and Cates relationship. I think she corrupted him in so many ways. I want so badly to tell his mother all the things I know so she understands exactly what kind of person she is. But at the end of the day, she got the boy and I got the man. Relevant Comments How did Cate corrupt Aaron during their relationship? OOP: Without going into too much detail, let’s just say they had a type of open relationship. Commenter 1: Honestly it feels like Cassie wants cate to be her SIL instead of you. This isn’t over but it’s still weird af OOP: “this isn’t over” ugh that’s what i’m afraid of. Cassie and her sister got pregnant like the same week. They live on the same street and are both besties with Cate. They’d love if my bf and Cate got back together and they could all be SILs. Cassie and Nate use to be the only two who would come over for family dinners and now her sister comes every time. Which I guess in a way my bfs parents are still family but when they come all they do is talk about being pregnant and I’m just kinda excluded. It’s such a complicated and odd dynamic. It just feels like Cassie wants to push me out. Commenter 2: You guys don’t have to go to where she is going to be. Let everyone know, it’s you two or her. OOP: The last thing I want to do is say that. Cassie and Cate have had a 20 to 30 year long friendship. They grew up together. It’s just not an option I’m ok with giving them. What I am ok with is saying I don’t want to hear about her, and neither does my bf. How does OOP's boyfriend feel about the situation with Cate and Cassie? OOP: So my bf is new to the whole ‘setting boundaries’ thing lol. He is slowly getting better and I’m proud of him for that. He had friends who would walk all over him and he finally was stern with them and created those clear boundaries. His cousin is the worst when it comes to talking about her. I told him next time he needs to say, “why do you think I care about hearing about her?” or something along those lines. He says he normally just gives her a one word reply or just tries to walk away from the conversation, which he believes is easier because of the kind of person she is. But I told him clearly that isn’t clear to her, and to say something very clear and direct next time. He also made it very clear that he doesn’t want to go to the party that he knows she will be at. His decision, not mine. I was fine with that, and his family will have to understand. I did also have a conversation with him just saying that it’s clear that Cassie and I just will never have that close relationship I was hoping we’d have, and I have to accept that. Family is important to me, however, so I will keep putting in the effort that family should but I just don’t expect the same in return. If I or my bf gave that boundary to her I feel it might cause a greater divide. I would be fine with him going to his mom, but I would worry about his brother or SIL maybe taking it wrong or just not inviting us at all. Which they have already kind of done with even small family get-togethers.   ----NEW UPDATES---- Editor’s note: the next two updates are over six months old, and they have not been posted onto the sub here. Noting the different title, but it’s tangentially related to the older posts I think I might be getting engaged this weekend: July 15, 2025 (next day from the previous update) There might be a better subreddit to post this to but idk! I don’t have girlfriends to talk to about this so I’m just going to post about it. My bf and I went on vacation a couple weeks ago and he already told me he asked my dad if he could ask me. Last Friday was my birthday and i really thought he’d do it then but he didn’t. He didn’t get me a birthday gift either. No card. No flowers. Which is not normal for him. Today he told me, after i vent about work, to get a mani/pedi tomorrow. I said “no, it’s Wednesday. I’ll go this weekend.” But he was insistent that i go tomorrow. He also said “i made sure we got a bunch of work done on the house last weekend, so we had a nice chill weekend together” He’s acting very odd. I feel like it’s going to happen soon. I’m so excited! I don’t want to ruin it but I’m like giddy about it! What do you think? Relevant / Top Comments Commenter 1: The thing that sealed the deal for me is him insisting on you getting a manicure! Congrats!! Be sure you share a pic of your ring!! Commenter 2: I think you might be right! Don’t put too much pressure on it but also definitely get nails you’d want to take lotsss of pictures of 🥰🥰. Commenter 3: Based off your post history - I don’t think now is the right time. You and your boyfriend need to sit with your feelings about the Cate situation longer, and you need to decide if you’re okay with that being the rest of your life before he pops the question. Don’t let him distract you with a sparkly. You will regret it down the line if you don’t come to terms with everything/try to resolve it first. OOP: An ex gf being his SIL’s bff is not a reason to not be with someone. I had never been in a situation like that and so it was new and uncomfortable and I had a lot of feelings about it. But absolutely NONE of those feelings were “i don’t want to be with him.” As time goes on, I will be more comfortable but him and I are on the same page. He’s fine sitting out whatever she’s at, if it’s what I want. I’m going to get comfortable with this uncomfortable situation. I am in no way allowing that situation affect our relationship. Commenter 3: Edited to reflect previous comment was by OP, not another Redditor I don’t disagree with you. But you have, the day before this post, realised that this woman will likely be in your children’s lives and said you don’t want that. I think that that and the other aspects of this woman being involved with the whole family, not just the sister, are important enough that she needs to sit with it and keep working through your feelings before jumping into an engagement literally a week later. There’s also the consideration of optics - his family is already being weird. Are going to be okay if some of them say things like ‘she made him propose after meeting Cate at the baby shower so she could”win”.’ What if his family think he is proposing just to shut you up about this because of the timing? Will he stand up for his love for you? Or will he ignore it? Engagement should be a joyful time and the focus should be celebrating the couple, and at this particular moment there is a lot of risk that the big unresolved feelings will cause drama. It’s something to consider. OOP: yeah I had a crash out moment lol. But he’s been planning something for a while now. He told me he has already asked my dad. I know this situation happened but 1. idc about the optics. idc what his family whispers about together. i’m happy with my bf and would be so excited if he asked. I’m not letting an ex affect how good our relationship is. HE has done nothing wrong. He told me not to go. He wanted to show up with his brother and father with the food so he could support me. But they never asked him. So ultimately, i just don’t think this situation should affect an engagement   My man did so good and i can’t believe I’m engaged: July 20, 2025 Picture of OOP's engagement ring description of the engagement ring Close-up of OOP's left hand held out against a gray, textured pavement background. OOP has medium-brown skin and neatly manicured nails painted a light pink or pale nude color. On OOP's left ring finger is a prominent engagement-style ring featuring a large, round brilliant-cut center diamond set prominently above the band, catching the light and standing out as a focal point. The band is thin and delicate, likely white gold or platinum, and it appears to be adorned with small pavé diamonds along the sides, adding extra sparkle without overpowering the center stone. end of the description   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

Hey hey guys, I finished season 3 a few minutes ago and I'm here to report back with my comments and impressions :) For those who have missed the previous episodes of my commentary, you can find them here: S1E1-S1E7 S1E8-S2E10 S2E11-S3E2 Let's get right into it: man... Faith is very annoying and she's only been here for 5mins I wish Kendra had survived and moved to Sunnydale instead :( the concept of a Watchers' retreat in the Cotswolds is sending me 🤣 are all Watchers British? It would make perfect sense Willow, Xander and the others have been pissing me off for a couple of episodes now. I get that they didn't know Buffy killed Angel after the spell came into effect, but even without that piece of information, surely they must have realised that Buffy has been through a fucking lot? Don't tell my girl that the should be having fun... she's grieving and trying to get back to her "normal" life already. None of them would be as strong as she is, in her place my man Giles is the only one who gets it... he knew something was up and worked his way through getting Buffy to open up I know this episode is literally called The Beauty and the Beast, but to me it looks like Angel is more in his Tarzan era what are Xander and Willow doing. WHAT ARE THEY DOING the Slayerfest slaps!! Mr. Trick and his dapper suit are very cool! I hope he's this season's villain, though it looks like it might be the Mayor instead teenager Giles is unhinged, I'm dying I know Joyce and Giles getting together would be Buffy's worst nightmare lol I like that Giles defended Buffy in front of the others but then told her in private how disappointed he was in her after the Angel thing... this is how you do it Buffy telling Xander that he only wants Angel dead because he's jealous... music to my ears SPIIIIIIKEEE!!!!!!!! the Joyce and Spike saga continues, and I thank the gods for it Angel's face when he saw Spike inside Buffy's house LMFAOOO "I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it." TELL THEM BABY. Spike is exactly how I like my men: down bad to the core CORDY!!! I had a heart attack, thought she'd died. She really didn't deserve any of this, and Oz didn't deserve it either Xander and Willow got on my nerves fuck this shit "We're not friends. We never were. And I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason." I said oh I'm sure The Wish gave me anxiety. Buffy dying like that... it just doesn't feel right, don't put that kind of thought into the world although she looked amazing with that lip-scar and the whole outfit... wish she would slay me too Xander and Willow only make sense together as vampires, the writers could have stopped at that instead of ruining the relationships with Cordy and Oz (yes, I'm still salty) Giles and Angel's long awaited reunion, this hurts I love Oz... he's really great. I'm scared he will die a horrible death Angel is so dramatic, man, just get inside sigh Joyce. What the fuck are you doing not to sound like a 17th century European peasant, but witches are dangerous - I think compared to other humans with supernatural powers or even demons, they are more resourceful, they can use their power in many different ways and can potentially set off, well, anything for instance, I wonder if a spell would be able to make a vampire human again... or give Angel the opportunity to have sex without turning back into a psycho vampire lmfao in any case, very curious to see where this newfound power takes Willow I don't even know what an ice show is supposed to be but I sure as hell would have liked to see Buffy and Giles go together :( betrayal hurts x100 more when it comes from Giles 💔 HE GOT FIRED??? oh fuck off I mean the old guy said it himself, Giles loves Buffy like a father loves their child. my man is not going anywhere!! Xander and Faith???? Man what's going onnnn rectifying my earlier question. Are all Watchers attractive British men who will win: a 243yo vampire or a 18yo horny teenager GILES WITH A SWORD!! Xander and Cordelia are back to their pre-relationship banter btw. there's still hope #delulu I was warming up to her, but now I'm afraid Faith needs to go you know it's bad when Xander is 100% right and reasonable you know it's even worse when Angel has to chain you up and psychoanalyse you "she could have left me there to die, but she didn't" actually she was about to do exactly that, Buffy is way too nice to Faith rip Mr. Trick, I will miss your drip and your soothing voice every time Buffy cries I have to stare intently at the screen and hope I will get sucked into the story so that I may cradle her in my arms I LOVE VAMPIRE WILLOW they could have kept her, I mean she wasn't that bad, right :( she goes back to her world and gets instantly killed by Oz, this is no fun I've had enough, I'm gonna kill Faith myself something's not right here though, it feels like Angel is pretending to be Angelus (when he was tying Buffy up, he looked at her in an almost sweet way...?) AND I WAS RIGHT!! they were working together, oh I like this, I wish we had seen more of this the fact that Buffy hadn't realised before that Joyce and Giles did in fact have sex 😬 oh sweet summer child what's in the booooox Willow is a better person than me because I would have been on that plane to Oxford dear Buffy, what Angel was trying to say is that he's going to have his own spin-off and that's why he's leaving you out of the blue I think the writers were not great with break-ups this season... you can tell they'd dropped the ball on Buffy and Angel completely even before this ep, because that's a lame ass excuse for a break up lol after the whole Angelus thing, no way the "I'm immortal, you're not" shtick is going to sound believable. Also, I vehemently disagree with Angel: I think I've seen enough of Buffy to say that she wouldn't be happy in a "normal" relationship with a "normal" human being. My girl is freaky! that's a very sweet thing Xander did... and this is how he and Cordelia can still get back together, in this essay I will- BUFFY IS GETTING AN AWARD???!!! MY BUFFY! 🥹 Giles putting on his proudest smile for her... that whole sequence had me in tears Angel showed up... stupid 243 old boy, go and make Buffy happy even if only for one night. I need Buffy to have just one moment of happiness Buffy beating Faith to a pulp can be so personal (I'm sure she'll recover, come on) Angel feeding from Buffy!! Yeah boiii aaand he's back to tortured guy Xander leading the Battle of Blackwater let's fucking gooo why is it that every scene with Buffy and Giles this season was manufactured to make me cry RIP Snyder....... teach the Hellmouth how to bully teenagers submitted by /u/danie_iero to r/buffy [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/Common_Doughnut6462 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes I’m tired of my bf of 4 years ex being a ghost in our relationship. Editor's note: added paragraph breaks for ease of readability Trigger Warnings: possible grooming Original Post: July 10, 2025 I’m tired of my bf of 4 years ex being a ghost in our relationship. I don’t have many girlfriends to vent about this to so why not reddit? I want to try to get as many details as I can and try to keep things in order but I apologize if it’s all over the place. I’m just fuming right now about this situation. I have been with my (29F) bf (32M) for 4 years. He dated this one woman (who is 10 years older than him) for 6 years, about 3 or 4 years before we met/dated. My bf’s name is Aaron, and he has an older brother, Nate. Nate recently got married to Cassie. Cassie and my bf’s ex, Cate, have been long time best friends. Nate and Cassie met through Cate while my bf and her were together. Cate has a daughter (NOT my bf’s biological kid). For a few years though, Aaron and Cate lived together so he obviously had a good relationship with her daughter. I posted a story a few months ago about running into her daughter while our families were celebrating Mother’s day and how uncomfortable that was because my bf’s mother refused to really say who she was to my mom. My mom was just curious and kept pushing who she was and I knew immediately. Very weird situation. Cate is constantly brought up in random situations. I’ve learned to just deal with it. I can’t help that my bf and her dated for some time and she still has a friendship with Cassie. It’s annoying, but it is what it is. In the 4 years I have surprisingly been able to avoid running into her. Even though she’s a yoga instructor at my gym, and Cassie constantly tries to get us to go to her end of the summer party but my family does a vacation every year around that time. So I’ve just never gone. This has caused Cassie to get pretty upset with me, but idc. Cassie is now pregnant and due in August. Her baby shower is this coming Sunday. Every single woman in my bf’s family, including his mother, has made a comment “understanding if I didn’t show up” because they know Cate will be there. Just a couple days ago, Aaron’s cousin made a comment to Aaron saying “The baby shower is coming up.. Is Dani going? .. Won’t that be weird?” Then proceeded to say how she likes me better and that Cate is all about herself. I am so tired of her being compared to me. I’m so tired of her having a relationship with everyone in his life. I’m tired of everyone in the family making it “weird”. He has a past, who cares? She’s around.. okay? Aaron and I have been together FOUR YEARS. They have been broken up SIX OR SEVEN YEARS. It’s so frustrating. On top of all of this, part of me truly believes that Cassie has been dying to get Cate and I in the same room. I think she wants the interaction to happen. Cassie and I have had not the best relationship. She tried warning me about Aaron. She told Aaron after meeting me once that she didn’t like me. I don’t know what to do here. Why am I made to feel like the outsider? I bet no one is saying how weird it will be for HER. What do I do here? How do I handle this when none of these comments are made to me. My bf obviously tells them that there is no reason for it to be weird and that I’m fine with it, but how do I make this stop? I’m sorry if this felt all over the place with info/details but I’m just so so tired of dealing with this. Relevant Comments OOP clarifies on why she is sending mixed messages to people around her and she is avoiding being around Cate OOP: So I think you have me a bit wrong. I never actively went out of my way to avoid her. I wanted the interaction to happen from the beginning. I find if a guy, let’s say, has female friends - I would rather meet them asap so it makes me real. Then I can see if they put boundaries in place. With this situation, I wanted his family feeling comfortable to have her and I in the same place. I’m not asking his family to end a relationship/friendship. I simply just don’t care to know. The end of the summer party just always ended up being when I had a yearly family trip where Aaron came with me. He would tell me it didn’t matter to him if he went or not but I was going to make an effort this year since Cassie clearly has an issue. It just happened to work out that our paths just never crossed in the 4 years. I don’t miss out on events or anything because I think she will be there. I’m so very comfortable and confident in my relationship and we have talked about rings etc. I just simply want this narrative his family has to stop. It gives her power in our lives and I just don’t care about her being brought up. Commenter 1: Wait, hold up, am I mathing the timeline right? Did Cate start dating your boyfriend when he was 18-19 and she was a full decade older???? And the family is totally cool with this woman continuing to be entrenched in their lives, and is constantly comparing you to her?????? Her attendance at family functions is more important than yours???? Cate is a total creep. What the hell. I don't even think this would be a question if the genders were flipped...... It wasn't very clear to me how your BF feels about the situation, this seems to be mostly just a problem with his family. Have you guys had a serious conversation about Cate? Hopefully, you guys are on the same page on this. If you guys can present a united front of, hey, please stop expecting us to associate with Cate, stop comparing OP to Cate, this is super weird and uncomfortable.....I think that will be more successful than you alone, where you can get painted as the jealous/insecure woman. And if your BF doesn't have your back and God forbid isn't actually over Cate or something, well, then you know to stop wasting your time and get the hell out of there. OOP: THIS. thank you!!!! I call her Mrs. Robinson. I believe he was 20-21 so my math could be not mathing but I know he had a year long relationship with someone else between her and I. I think it’s so gross for a 30-31 y/o to go for a younger guy. Esp a 20/21 y/o boy. Also a woman with a young daughter. My bf ended the relationship bc he couldn’t see marrying her and he wants a family. Everyone in his family talks highly of her though. So I think she’s a very bubbly/charismatic person. I just think if my kid did that.. I’d have an issue. Being 29 now.. young guys repulse me. I think they don’t speak about it out of respect for my bf. They don’t talk about their feelings much. My bf hardly tells his family what is going on in his life. He has always been like that. Aaron (OOP's boyfriend) needs to set boundaries on Cate attending the family events and making a scene toward OOP in front of Aaron's family. OOP should able to attend the baby shower OOP: It’s funny you say that because somehow, either through Cassie or maybe dinners at Cassie and Nate’s house that Aaron and I don’t get invited to, Aaron’s mom knew about his ex’s daughter getting into a specific college. My mind raced about that one and how that conversation happened or if his parents still spend time with her in some sort of secret. I want to draw a line in only one way. I just don’t want his family comparing or drawing conclusions on how they THINK I will react. When for a long time I did just want to meet her to get it out of the way. + I definitely intend to go. It proves the family right if I don’t, imo. They will all think I didn’t show because of her and I refuse to allow anyone to have anything more to talk about with the situation. My bf doesn’t let it bother him. He doesn’t entertain any conversation about her. But he doesn’t like conflict. I mean he shut down his cousins convo quickly about it when I wasn’t there. If I were there, or these comments were made to me I would react differently. I was thinking about going with my bf’s mom. Maybe even discussing the topic with her in private beforehand too. Just mentioning I don’t like the topic of her and how it made me uncomfortable knowing she knew about her daughter’s college acceptance. That it made me feel as though there is some secret relationship they have with her. My bf has told me things I can do that might get under her skin a bit if I want to go that route. lol   Update: July 14, 2025 (four days later) Update: I’m tired of my bf of 4 years ex being a ghost in our relationship. Hi THT fam, I was asked to give an update after my original post that I posted a few days ago regarding my (29F) bf (32M) ex being a ghost in our relationship. Thank you to everyone who gave their advice. I appreciated it all. So the baby shower was yesterday and I thought about posting but I was so frustrated yesterday I didn’t want it to be a rage post. There was no crazy petty confrontation or drama. There actually isn’t anything huge to really report but I have officially met Cate. It was Cassies baby shower and her sister had actually ended up going into labor yesterday morning so everyone was more concerned with that than anything else. I showed up about a half hour early to help my bf’s mom incase she needed it. It was just my bf’s mom and Cate there when I showed up. Also her current bf. She immediately introduced herself and I started helping anyway I could. She was very kind. As people started showing up though she made a comment saying “oh I should introduce myself” to everyone who showed up. My bf’s aunt showed up and they hugged and chatted a bit, along with Aaron’s cousin. It felt so strange to watch them all interact. She still very much has a good relationship with them all. I didn’t let that get to me. We had a couple more interactions where she complimented my outfit and made small talk about the food but I didn’t let the conversation go on long. I stayed at a table with all of my bf’s family. (His mom, his mom’s friends, his aunt, cousin etc.) I felt her eyes on me most of the day. Her daughter was there, too. For some reason it stuck out to me again that my bf’s mom was talking to her friend about Cate and her daughter and the colleges she got into. But all of his mom’s friends were mostly chatting to me about the house my bf and I are building. One of them had even said “wow the __(last name)_ boys really know how to pick beautiful women”. It was just something nice to hear in that really odd situation. However I guess she would be included in that in some capacity. I got home and my bf had asked me how it went because his mom mentioned her and I chatting. I crashed out on him. For some reason it just hit me that this woman is not going anywhere and I have absolutely no control of that. If we have kids down the road, one day she will most likely meet them and for some reason that bothers me. The family views her in a positive light, when she was about 30/31 and dated my bf at 20/21. I know some people struggled with that math in my original post. But they had to have broken up when he was 26. He dated someone between the two of us and then I met him when he was 28 turning 29. Her current bf is 8 years younger, too. I know it’s kinda irrelevant but I’m so annoyed at this situation. I’ll be seeing her again before the end of summer at Cassie’s party. I’m going once and never going again, lol. I think I’m allowed to not want to be around her. My bf feels the same. We both know we can’t do anything about the rest of the family having a relationship with her but from here on out we don’t want to hear about her or have contact. I know quite a bit about my bf and Cates relationship. I think she corrupted him in so many ways. I want so badly to tell his mother all the things I know so she understands exactly what kind of person she is. But at the end of the day, she got the boy and I got the man. Relevant Comments How did Cate corrupt Aaron during their relationship? OOP: Without going into too much detail, let’s just say they had a type of open relationship. Commenter 1: Honestly it feels like Cassie wants cate to be her SIL instead of you. This isn’t over but it’s still weird af OOP: “this isn’t over” ugh that’s what i’m afraid of. Cassie and her sister got pregnant like the same week. They live on the same street and are both besties with Cate. They’d love if my bf and Cate got back together and they could all be SILs. Cassie and Nate use to be the only two who would come over for family dinners and now her sister comes everytime. Which I guess in a way my bfs parents are still family but when they come all they do is talk about being pregnant and im just kinda excluded. It’s such a complicated and odd dynamic. It just feels like Cassie wants to push me out. Commenter 2: You guys don’t have to go to where she is going to be. Let everyone know, it’s you two or her. OOP: The last thing I want to do is say that. Cassie and Cate have had a 20 to 30 year long friendship. They grew up together. It’s just not an option I’m ok with giving them. What I am ok with is saying I don’t want to hear about her, and neither does my bf. How does OOP's boyfriend feel about the situation with Cate and Cassie? OOP: So my bf is new to the whole ‘setting boundaries’ thing lol. He is slowly getting better and I’m proud of him for that. He had friends who would walk all over him and he finally was stern with them and created those clear boundaries. His cousin is the worst when it comes to talking about her. I told him next time he needs to say, “why do you think I care about hearing about her?” or something along those lines. He says he normally just gives her a one word reply or just tries to walk away from the conversation, which he believes is easier because of the kind of person she is. But I told him clearly that isn’t clear to her, and to say something very clear and direct next time. He also made it very clear that he doesn’t want to go to the party that he knows she will be at. His decision, not mine. I was fine with that, and his family will have to understand. I did also have a conversation with him just saying that it’s clear that Cassie and I just will never have that close relationship I was hoping we’d have, and I have to accept that. Family is important to me, however, so I will keep putting in the effort that family should but I just don’t expect the same in return. If I or my bf gave that boundary to her I feel it might cause a greater divide. I would be fine with him going to his mom, but I would worry about his brother or SIL maybe taking it wrong or just not inviting us at all. Which they have already kind of done with even small family get-togethers.   Latest Update here: BoRU #2   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

3 kids/ Pennsylvania/1month , 1 year and 3 years 👪 Hello my name is Juliya and I'm 26 years old and I recently had my 3rd beautiful baby boy💎 Josh , as well At this time I'm raising my 1 year old Iris and oldest daughter Evelina 3 years old full time and sometimes lets be honest it is a lot to handle, and we are all relying on my husband's income. very unfortunately a month ago he got in car accident and our savings were spent on purchasing a used car from fb marketplace. This will be our 3rd baby first Christmas 🍪 🥛. and we wish to get them these gifts after careful consideration ⛄ 🌟 🔥 🎄🧦 Evelina loves climbing everywhere and spend time outdoors so we are wishing for her to get comfortable sneakers, and cute outfits for her preschool and Sunday school Iris little curious girl loves outdoors as well she follows her big sister everywhere and copies everything wat she does Josh this little boy loves when i carry him, enjoying every minute cuddling with little honey comb image of us ) https://imgur.com/a/NBNDHIV wishlist Evelina https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3W53SQ4IYABRR/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_4 Josh https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1903J4KAOK5D4/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_2 purchased: for iris, Kiddie Pool, Evajoy Inflatable Kids Pool, Summer Water Party Inflatable Pool for Backyard & Garden 90 * 55 * 35 inch ( fulfilled) evelina, preschool book, for jash ( utensils ) submitted by /u/asdfg199897 to r/SantasLittleHelpers [link] [comments]

3 kids/ Pennsylvania/1month , 1 year and 3 years 👪 Hello my name is Juliya and I'm 26 years old and I recently had my 3rd beautiful baby boy💎 Josh , as well At this time I'm raising my 1 year old Iris and oldest daughter Evelina 3 years old full time and sometimes lets be honest it is a lot to handle, and we are all relying on my husband's income. very unfortunately a month ago he got in car accident and our savings were spent on purchasing a used car from fb marketplace. This will be our 3rd baby first Christmas 🍪 🥛. and we wish to get them these gifts after careful consideration ⛄ 🌟 🔥 🎄🧦 Evelina loves climbing everywhere and spend time outdoors so we are wishing for her to get comfortable sneakers, and cute outfits for her preschool and Sunday school Iris little curious girl loves outdoors as well she follows her big sister everywhere and copies everything wat she does Josh this little boy loves when i carry him, enjoying every minute cuddling with little honey comb wishlist Evelina https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3W53SQ4IYABRR/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_4 Iris https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2ERV8PL73MCG7/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_3 Josh https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1903J4KAOK5D4/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_2 purchased: for iris, Kiddie Pool, Evajoy Inflatable Kids Pool, Summer Water Party Inflatable Pool for Backyard & Garden 90 * 55 * 35 inch submitted by /u/asdfg199897 to r/SantasLittleHelpers [link] [comments]

I am not OP. That is u/ThrowRAgirlcopdad who posted to r/relationship_advice TW: teen pregnancy, controlling behavior Original Post July 29th, 2024 I'm a 34 year old guy, and I have a 16 year old stepdaughter. My wife is 31. In highschool, my wife was a "popular girl" stereotype. Pink, blonde chunky highlights in her brown hair, this was the mid-late 2000s. She was on the cheerleading team, had lots of friends and boyfriends, was well known and liked. She was basically the living embodiment of the picture perfect girl from those cheesey 2000s highschool movies. And then she got pregnant. When she was 15, she had her daughter. She doesn't know who the father is, and any potential fathers for the girl up and left way back when. Her daughter is recently 16. I never wanted kids, I found them annoying. But I fell in love with my wife and got married when she was 20 and I was 23 after dating for 2 years. We hit it off, and I married her and decided to suck it up around the kid. I never planned to absolutely love being a dad to her specifically. Kids still annoy me, but my daughter (step daughter technically) was different. She was quiet, nerdy even at a young age. I married her mother when she was 5, and we clicked right away. We went on daddy-daughter dates every weekend. I played dolls with her. Let her paint my nails and do makeup on me. I drove her to and from school in my cop car. We even did daddy-daughter duo costumes for Halloween. Over the past two years she's developed a darker dress style. I don't know what the proper subculture of her outfits are, but according to her she's dressing like a horror game protagonist and a Monster High character. Purple is her main color she incorporates into this specific "aesthetic blend" as she calls it. I don't get it, but maybe that's because I'm a man in my 30s, I don't know. She likes ghosts, tarot cards, vampires, zombies, aliens, creepy victorian dolls. I don't get it, but also I don't care because if it makes her happy so what? She's also an introvert, and prefers to play games on her computer or read fantasy occult novels rather than hangout with other teens her age. She has friends, so I'm not too worried about her being completely withdrawn. I'm just glad I don't have to drive her around since she only has a learner's permit currently. My wife hates this. My wife always wanted a girly girl. Pinks and pastels and flowers and all that. She wants our daughter to get a boyfriend, be more social, be a cheerleader like she was. Which, in itself is valid. I get it, I'm sure most every parents has preferences for what they want their kid to turn out like, and some disappointment when they stray from that fantasy is valid. Some. My wife will constantly takes and hides my daughter's darker room decor. She constantly gets pastel dresses for our daughter, tells her to wipe off her dark eye makeup, tries to set her up on dates with jock types from my daughter's school, and convince her to sign up for both school and summer activities like cheerleading or volleyball. I could have put up with all of that, I really could have. But a few weeks ago I woke up to my wife finally hitting finally hitting her breaking point. I woke up in the middle of the night to my wife screaming and having what I can confidently describe as a borderline meltdown. She was crying and saying all she ever wanted was a normal daughter who likes pink, and is a cheerleader and has a boyfriend and will give her grandkids. I had to drag her out the hallway after 30 minutes of this. I kept thinking it would stop, but it kept going on and on. My daughter was just staring at this whole thing in the doorway of her room. What caused this meltdown from my wife? My daughter dyed purple over the blonde streaks/highlights my wife had forced her to get in her hair. Which wasn't even breaking a house rule, as my wife and I have both told her she can do whatever she wants with her hair as long as she doesn't stain too many towels. It's been weeks, and my daughter won't talk to her mom. My wife is still up with her antics, but now it's in overdrive. Everyday she brings home some type of trendy clothing in pink or pastels and tries to give it to my daughter. My daughter is getting fed up and stays in her room all day, and has confessed to me she can't wait for school to start back up in a few weeks so she can get out the house and be with her friends again. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don't want to "side" with anyone in this situation. I understand my wife wants a daughter who she can relate, and my daughter wants a mom who understands her. I don't know what I can or should do. I need help. I need advice. Added Comments for Context This comment concerning if his wife is living through her daughter OP My wife was a junior. She has a late birthday, and had always been a year younger than her classmates as a result. She got pregnant early in her junior year, and had the baby a few months before turning 16. She never went back to highschool even after having the baby. She was lucky and already had most of her credits finished anyways from taking advanced classes and ended up finishing highschool online. She's told me before that she could have graduated a year early had she wanted to, but that she was planning to stay her senior year and just take elective classes and focus on getting a cheer scholarship since all her main credits were to be filled. She wasn't allowed to do that for the online option. I don't know if this was a thing in her district or just a thing back then but if you were online and finished your required credits, unless you planned to try and go for an honor graduate path and take more non-elective/advanced core classes you basically had to graduate online or try and transfer back in school. She couldn't do that with the baby, so she was forced to miss out on going back to school for her senior year. At least that what she told me. This comment concerning setting up her daughter with jocks OP I never understood setting our daughter up with jocks. My daughter has told me about her type before while we were playfully teasing each other, and she said she likes nerdy guys. She also said that while the jocks guys are nice to her on the dates, she just isn't attracted to them. Update Aug 5th, 2024 It's been about a week since I last posted about how my wife was having a meltdown over how my daughter chose to dress. Two nights after I posted, I sat my wife down and very bluntly asked her what exactly the problem was. She kept saying she just wanted a daughter who was similar to her, but after I kept asking she broke down and admitted the real reason why she was having her meltdowns. My wife feels that her daughter is the only way for her to have more family in the future. She's estranged from her siblings, her parents don't speak much to her, and all of her friends from highschool stopped talking to her after her pregnancy. She wants a family back, and she's hoping that her daughter will marry a nice boy and give her grandkids so she can have a family again. She said she never brought up having more kids with me because she figured I'd be against the idea. I don't know how I feel about having more kids with my wife, but it certainly won't happen now. So my wife is in therapy to try and get her to realize that she can't just view my daughter as a way to create a family. She's doing well so far, but it's too soon to really tell. My daughter is also in therapy. She's been in therapy since she was a kid for bullying issues, but now her therapist is trying to focus on the meltdown situation with her. My daughter actually seems relatively unaffected by this whole situation other than a little annoyed, so I don't know if that's good or not. I took my daughter to Hot Topic for some back to school accessories and then took her out to eat, just the two of us. She's still excited to go back to school, she misses her friends and her clubs. My wife and daughter have started talking normally again. They had a long talk, which I was present for, where my wife apologized for being so pushy and extreme with her wishes. My daughter was well receptive to this talk and seems to be back to her normal self, I am keeping an eye on both of them to be sure. My wife is doing her best to understand my daughter's interests. Last I know the two were watching some slasher TV show on Hulu as a way to bond, and it appears to be working. There isn't any bad blood between the two. I know things are soon, and that things can change, but so far everything appears to be smoothing over pretty well. Thank you for all the advice, harsh and gentle, that I reviewed through my original post. It definitely slapped me in the face as what could happen if I didn't get both of them help and make them talk it out. **Added Comments for context* Commenter Do you not think that couples counselling would be a good idea, or are we just ignoring the huge elephant in the room? Your wife wants more kids. You’ve just said you definitely don’t, which is fine, and that’s going to cause resentment. If she is set on having more kids and you’re set on not having any then isn’t it cruel to stay married to each other? OP I'm not opposed to having kids a in a bit, just not now. I originally didn't want kids, but I love being a dad to my daughter and I know now that if more kids were to happen I'd also love being a dad to them. I just don't think it's a good idea to have kids now given that wife is working on herself in therapy. I'm not trying to rush things right now because we still have time to have kids. My mom had me at 37 so I know that we still have time to have kids if we decide on that. Commenter Why does your wife assume that just because your daughter dresses in the way that makes her happy and follows her interests that she won't ever have kids? What makes your wife assume only "I peaked in highschool" girls could have families? I'm glad she's in therapy and I hope the daughter only changes if she WANTS to change and not because her mom is a wacko. OP It confuses me too, because my daughter has said she wants kids in the future. We've had talks about her future before, and she has mentioned how she wants a good job so her and her kids can be rich. I know she's 16 and that she can still change her mind, but as of now she seems pretty sure of having kids in her adult years. I am not the original poster. Please don't contact or comment on linked posts. submitted by /u/secure-raspberry-763 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

My boy has very chunky thighs so it’s been tough finding cute rompers that fit him. I had a 3-6 month linen romper from Janie & Jack planned for his 100 day celebration but it definitely doesn’t fit him. At 11 weeks he’s 16 lbs and 25 inches and has a round belly and chunky thighs. Where can I shop online for a cute outfit? I’m not looking for a suit or suspenders outfit but something nicer than an everyday outfit. It’ll be in a restaurant (not outdoors). Thanks! submitted by /u/bananna1212 to r/bigbabiesandkids [link] [comments]

This story is at least a decade old but it's still one of my most satisfying petty revenge stories. When I (then 19M) was home for the summer from college, my sister (then 17F) was reveling in being the only child in the house. My sister is the baby of the family and act likes it. We generally get along but she could occasionally be a spoiled brat. I am the opposite of my sister. For most of my childhood I was a bit of a doormat. Classic middle child, very well behaved and under the radar. I didn't fight back much, did as I was told, and generally behaved. The biggest shakeup I brought to the family was when I came out as gay at 17. No one was really bothered by it and my family is generally pretty supportive. Still, it was a difficult thing to process and I am glad I got to the point I have today. This is relevant to the story. Now, at the time I was a much better and more responsible driver than my sister and as a condition for staying at home for the summer rent free my parents would occasionally ask me to drive my sister to and from places they didn't want her driving (usually longer distances or on the highway). For the most part I did not mind. I love my sister and we generally get along very well. But like I said she can occasionally be a real brat and has trouble when things don't go her way. One night my sister had gotten tickets to attend concert with a boy she liked. As my aunt and uncle were in town and my parents wanted to spend the afternoon having a few glasses of wine out on the patio they asked if I would be ok driving my sister to the concert that evening. I accepted and figured that was that. My sister and cousins decided they wanted to look at some new outfits and asked me to drive with them to the mall. Being the good brother/cousin I was, I piled them into my car and took them to the mall. All was well until my sister decided I was getting on her nerves over something and we got into an argument. Wasn't a big deal until my sister, visibly annoyed, rolled her eyes and said: "You don't have the be such a 'faggot' about it" I saw red. I had been called this word before and have been able to shrug it off, but from my own family? I was not going to take it. I could have yelled, argued more, or even stooped to her level but it suddenly came over me what I was going to do. It was simple. I was not going to drive her to the concert. I told her as much and she smirked to tell me "yah, right like mom and dad are going to be okay with that." Now when we got home I went to my parents, explained what happened and let them know I would not be driving her to the concert. To my complete lack of surprise they took her side and explained to me they understood I was upset but I would still need to take her to the concert. My sister's smug look was all I needed. "No." was all I said. My parents seemed confused and then explained that that was not an option. I simply said "you cannot make me. I do not care what you do. I will not drive her." Years of resentment over having to be the "good" sibling finally spilled out and I simply said "no." My parents, a few glasses of wine deep, tried everything. They threatened to ground me, yelled at me, threatened to take my things, got in my face, and I held my ground. I told them I would take any punishment they wanted but no one could force me to drive her. At one point I even looked my father in the eye and said "Tell me it's ok for her to call me a 'faggot.' Tell me it's ok for anyone to do that" and my parents didn't know what to do. They were too drunk to drive and it was too late to ask anyone else. My sister refused to apologize but as we got closer to the time we had to leave I could tell she was starting to panic. The rage on her face was building up and it was the sweetest revenge I could ask for. For once she wasn't going to get her way and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing would make me do it. This was the hill I would die on. My sister ended up missing more than half of the show and cried the whole night. It's what she deserved. As for me, my parents never even ended up punishing me. Maybe they were too stunned to do anything or more likely saw that I was right. But from that point on I had no problem setting boundaries as needed. I could be kind but I wasn't going to be my family's doormat. submitted by /u/mopedmister to r/pettyrevenge [link] [comments]

My (F35) SIL (husbands sister) is getting married in about 6 weeks. A year ago, she asked my husband to be a groomsman, my daughter (will be 5 by the wedding) to be the flower girl, my son to be the ring bearer (18 months by the wedding), and me to be a bridesmaid. She did say if the expense of four of us in the wedding was too much, she could find a bridesmaid to take my place. My husband and I knew that with kids in the wedding (1 or 2) we would be actively parenting the whole time and it would not be a “fun” wedding for us but decided if it was what his sister wanted we could totally do it. My one concern was that baby boy might not be steady enough to walk down the aisle and the attention might make his entrance unpredictable. SIL thought the 5 year old could pull him down the aisle in a wagon but he’s a chunky baby and she would struggle with the weight and attention. I said we can try to have him walk but worst case scenario I could carry him down and have someone up front (a cousin) ready to take him. She was onboard. Now we are 2k in on outfits, showers, gifts, etc and I did most of the coordination for the multiple pre wedding parties. Now my MIL is getting involved (she is footing the entire 50k bill). She called to confirm that the 5 year old could go without a car seat in the limo because she wants to get a smaller limo. Hubby told her smaller limo won’t be an issue since we will follow in our car with both kids in car seats since baby boy will need a nap and maybe the z5 year old would shit her eyes for a few. MIL lost it. Apparently, even though our invit said “x” family and we RSVPed for 4, only the 5 year old is invited. She expects up to leave the 18 month at home. We have a tux being delivered in 2 weeks, did not make plans for overnight childcare, and he was asked to be in the wedding by the bride. MIL is insisting he go on vacation with my parents or my parents cut their vacation short to come to the wedding as babysitters (they were not invited to the wedding originally). I booked my summer nanny for the weekend (another $500) because I didn’t want to put my parents in that position but she went around me and asked my parents anyway (they are not friends). My parents will do this but I don’t want to ask them to give up their vacation to be an unpaid babysitter when the weren’t invited to the wedding to begin with. SIL would still like both kids and really wants a flower girl but won’t go against her mom at this point and tell her that she asked baby boy to be in the wedding (and approved the tux)! So AITA for taking away the flower girl too? Honestly at this point I’m just tired (lots of other wedding drama with MIL and SIL) and an easier night and sleeping in the next morning sounds wonderful. submitted by /u/Always2Sides- to r/AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]

This is not the original post. This text has been copied and pasted into this subreddit for the purposes of curating the best Reddit updates in one subreddit. You can find the link to the OP below. I am posting this with the approval of the OP. You can find the last compilation of updates on this story in this sub here. If you wish to skip down to the newest update on this one past all the updates that have been posted before, scroll down and look for the two lines of cool cats, like so: 😼😼😼 😼😼😼 Content warning: Some childhood bullying Mood spoiler: A mostly neutral/happy ending. ORIGINAL POST: AITA for raining on my cousin's parade regarding the name she picked out for her baby? from /r/AmITheAsshole, posted May 27, 2019 by /u/LightningStr My cousin Stephanie and I are really more friends than relatives. An important note is that she's not really online much, so can be out of the loop on certain memes and jokes in internet culture, and tbh, doesn't really understand the concept of viral internet references or how they work. Stephanie is pregnant and just found out it's going to be a girl. About a week ago, she told a gathering of her best girlfriends that she's going to name her daughter Karen. The room instantly went cold, but after an awkward silence, everyone else politely said it was lovely. I couldn't bring myself to respond at all. Later in the evening, when Stephanie was out of the room, everyone was immediately like, "OMG, that poor kid," and "why would she pick Karen of all names?!" I was uncomfortable with this conversation, given that everyone had been so positive about the name to her face. I thought more about it over the next couple of days, and just felt really weird about the whole thing. The name is really loaded, to the point it could be detrimental to the baby, and Stephanie had no idea of the connotations to make an informed decision. So a couple of days later, I tentatively brought it up. I told her I was so excited for the baby, and just wanted her to have all available information when picking a name. I then started to explain that Karen has some negative connotations and has become sort of an internet joke to describe a specific kind of entitled middle aged woman. Stephanie instantly was furious and started talking over me, saying, "why are you saying this?! This is so mean!!" I was really surprised by her reaction (it felt very, very out of character), so I immediately stopped and said, "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just wanted to tell you something I thought you might not know." She replied, "That's the name I picked for my daughter. And you think I picked it as some kind of joke?! I don't understand why you'd say something so hurtful." When she said that, I felt like it signaled that she didn't really understand what I was trying to tell her, so after agonizing for a second about whether to press the issue even though she was so angry, I felt like in for a penny, in for a pound, and since she was already mad, I wanted her to at least understand what I was trying to explain to her. I googled "Karen know your meme" on my phone and tried to show her the screen of results while saying, "look, I'm just saying that there's more meaning to the name than you may realize." She stood up, pushed my phone away, and shouted, "Wow!!" She then stormed out of my home and drove away. My aunt and mom have been berating me all week, because Stephanie told them that I made fun of her baby name. Stephanie has not spoken to me or responded to my texts since. I can take a hint, and I'm not going to broach a topic again that caused so much distress, but I keep going back and forth on whether I was TA here by bringing it up in the first place. Note: In the original post, OOP was overwhelmingly given a YTA judgment in response to this post. Edit: Thanks, everyone! I have been properly schooled, and I accept my judgement that I was TA here. Stephanie and I have a history of being extremely open and honest with each other (I was the maid of honor in her wedding, which we planned on being the case from a young age, and we always joked as teenagers that part of my duties would include talking her out of the marriage if the groom she picked sucked), and so maybe I was too flippant with approaching this topic due to our history, and was unempathetic in underestimating how much she was already invested in the name she chose for her future daughter. I admit I'm a bit frustrated that Stephanie still doesn't understand what I was trying to tell her (she still thinks I was making some kind of weird, cruel joke accusing her of picking the name as a joke), but I have messaged her a sincere apology that she accepted, and I will never speak of this again, to Stephanie or Baby Karen. I'll also stand up for Stephanie if her other friends shit talk the name around me again. If they're not willing to voice their thoughts to Stephanie directly, they need to not say the kinds of things they were saying behind her back. Edit 2: One more thing: I definitely was not trying to tell Stephanie to not name her daughter Karen. I just wanted her to make the decision either way knowing the connotations, since I'd want someone to do the same for me if I picked a baby name with cultural baggage I wasn't aware of. I realize now I handled it poorly and was hurtful to Stephanie in the process, but I just wanted to be clear that I wasn't actively trying to talk her out of the name. I just didn't want her to be blindsided if it came up later. Additional context from OOP's comments: Stephanie and her husband have a deal on baby names where she picks girl baby names, he picks boy baby names, and they each have unlimited veto power for the other person's choices. He's on board with Karen AFAIK. We're all the same age (late 20s) but neither of them spends time online or is even particularly tech savvy. UPDATE one year later (posted June 16, 2020) My post last summer wasn't the most exciting or dramatic on AITA, but I wanted to provide an update if anyone is interested. Baby Karen was born healthy and happy back in October. She's an absolute sweetheart of a baby, and I'm totally in love with her. Between March and May, I didn't get to see her at all in person, but I was doing regular FaceTime/House Party calls with Stephanie and Karen, and over the last few weeks, I've been going over to Stephanie's house to sit in her backyard and chat with Stephanie/coo at Karen from a lengthy distance. I have two reasons for updating. First, I've realized since Karen's birth that her name has taken on new meaning to me. When I'm with her, Karen just means her, and I don't think about the other connotations. In other words, you guys were right! That said, though, my second reason for updating is that Stephanie got back into her years-unused Facebook at the beginning of the pandemic to keep in touch with people. She's been on it pretty regularly lately for the first time in years (historically, she's not really been into social media). Most people in our area/social circle have been posting really heavily about BLM and the protests happening right now, as well as racial justice issues more generally. As a result, Stephanie has now come into contact with a deluge of Karen memes for the first time, and found them confusing and horrifying, especially the use of "Karen" as shorthand for a racist. I've basically just declined to talk about it with Stephanie, because it went so poorly last time, but both my mother and her mother have hounded me about it because it's upsetting to Stephanie, and said things like, "Is this what you were talking about before? Why didn't you say so? Why didn't you explain it better?! You should have told Stephanie!!" And Jesus wept!! You really can't win. Thanks again for all your feedback on my last post! It was very helpful in giving me some Zen about the situation. Edit: Wow, I've been super overwhelmed by the flood of very kind, heartfelt PMs (and just one or two not so kind ones) as well as the comments on my other post. Thank you, everyone! It continually amazes me how many nice and empathetic people frequent a sub devoted to assholes. Additional comments from OOP for context: In response to someone criticizing Stephanie: To be fair, Stephanie has been cool about it. First, she saw a bunch of posts about "the Central Park Karen" when that white lady was harassing the black birdwatcher in the park, and came to me asking me to explain why everyone was calling the woman Karen when her name was Amy. (Since she's gotten back on Facebook, she often asks me to be like her internet culture "interpreter."). I immediately told her, "Sorry, I'm not having a conversation with you about this, because we had a major conflict over it last year, and I'm not getting into it with you." I think that was the first time she started to understand what I'd been telling her last year. And in fairness to her, she didn't bring it up with me again after that. As for my mom and aunt, they're kind of generally ridiculous. They tend to be extremely reactive to whatever is going on precisely at that moment, and if someone in the family is upset, they get overinvolved trying to "fix" it. Stephanie has been venting to her mom about this (not about me, just how upsetting the memes are), and she and my mom have just been doing their normal thing of blowing it out of proportion, and now making it my fault somehow. I love my mom and aunt dearly, but they're not to be reasoned with. In response to another criticism of Stephanie: Honestly, with my mom and aunt, it's easier to just wait for them to move on to the next shiny thing. 😁 I don't blame Stephanie at all. She's just upset and confused, but hasn't made it my problem at all. My aunt and mom just have a flair for the dramatic. In response to someone saying they still thought OOP was TA because they only brought up concerns with the name for selfish reasons: I probably wasn't clear about this in my original post, and I think it's probably because that's the part I cut down when I went way over the word limit on that first post, but when I described feeling weird and uncomfortable over the couple of days I took to ruminate after Stephanie's announcement, the weirdness and discomfort was mostly a response to what happened with our friend group rather than just my own feelings about the name. I felt super uncomfortable being in the room while our friends shit-talked Stephanie's name choice after praising it to her face. I didn't have the presence of mind in the moment to call them out before the moment was passed, and I sat with that guilt for a couple of days. I didn't want to tell Stephanie what they said, because it would be tattle-y of me, and I also didn't want to cause conflict within the friend group or upset Stephanie. So raising the topic on my own seemed like a good compromise at the time. I did wrestle internally with how to handle it, and clearly I missed the mark. In response to the comment: "Do you understand that there is a massive difference in being upset with your friends for their response, and approaching Stephanie because you say you want her to be fully informed of her name choice? These are two different things that you're conflating.": No, to be clear, I didn't raise the conversation with Stephanie in lieu of scolding our friends; I brought it up because I thought they owed it to her to raise those points to her face if they were going to say them at all. Ultimately, I thought Stephanie was owed the knowledge of those connotations, whatever she chose to do with that knowledge. Also, I don't know how to explain the context of our relationship, but Stephanie and I have a lifetime of shared radical honesty with one another, from the inconsequential (telling each other when outfits are unflattering) to the difficult (when she gave me a come-to-Jesus talk years ago about how someone I considered a close friend was super shitty to me and that I should end the friendship). Based on our extreme closeness and shared history, this conversation felt like the right move at the time, even though it ultimately backfired. UPDATE two years on (posted October 14, 2022) Hi all, I've gotten a few PMs over the last couple years asking for updates, and since we just celebrated Karen's third birthday, I wanted to circle back to anyone following this story. First of all, Baby Karen (not so much a baby anymore!) is doing amazingly on her developmental milestones! She's a very bright child, sharp as the sharpest tack, and extremely tuned into her environment. Some of what she says is already fully in complete sentences, which just makes me want to cry when I hear it, because it seems like Stephanie was giving birth just yesterday. Karen loves books already, and will intently study the pictures in them for huge stretches of time and claim to be "reading." And you would not believe the uncomfortably incisive questions she's already asking. I am fully convinced this child is going to grow up to be an actual genius. Regarding the name: unfortunately, when Karen started daycare earlier this year, she started getting grief for her name pretty quickly from the older kids. The daycare she attends mixes the ages together at a couple of different points throughout the day, and while there fortunately wasn't much direct bullying, two of the age-5s must have heard and internalized the derogatory connotations of the name Karen at home. As a result, they found her name absolutely hysterical, and they kind of spread the idea to the other kids that there was something funny/wrong about her name. Karen was too little to understand what was happening, but found the other kids' behavior toward her generally upsetting. The daycare staff made every effort to shut it down, and let Stephanie and her husband know right away. After about a month of this, where the daycare wasn't having much success putting the kibosh on this behavior, and the kids weren't dropping it, Stephanie and her husband made the decision that Karen would be going by "Karrie" from now on, which was already an established nickname that a lot of family and friends were already using, and that Karen already recognized as referring to herself. Stephanie and I never really fully revisited what happened during her pregnancy, but when she was telling me about what was happening in daycare, she apologized to me. I immediately felt terrible and reassured her there was no reason to apologize, emotions are complicated when you're pregnant, and that I thought having Karen go by Karrie was a great solution. (Though changing what you're used to calling someone is fucking hard, I've found, and I'm still directly addressing her on manual mode, every single time.) A lot of the responses I got to my last post were gleeful and leaned into the schadenfreude of the situation, and I have to say those responses really bummed me out. I would much, much rather live in a world where I was wrong about the impact Karen's name would have on her. I cannot emphasize enough what a sweet-dispositioned, smart, curious, loving little girl Karrie is, and how much she deserves every good thing in life. Also: a lot of people didn't like Stephanie in my last post, but I need you to understand that this is a tiny snapshot of a very emotionally high-strung time in her life, and overall, Stephanie is a wonderful lifelong friend. She has gotten me through so many personal crises over the years, and she will never fail to show up for the people she cares about. Being pregnant and having a strong emotional attachment to the name you've picked out for your daughter is completely understandable, and her pregnancy was pretty rough on her moods. (She once wept uncontrollably at a cat food commercial when she was about seven months pregnant.) I also think my approach for trying to explain the name issue those years ago was very clumsy, and I could have done a better job of bringing it up. That said, with the distance of time, I am really glad I did broach the topic. I feel like I owed Stephanie that information, and I can feel good about giving it to her. If I'd chosen not to bring it up at the time, I think I'd have a lot of regrets now. The only thing I'd change now, looking back, is that I would try to bring it up more gently somehow with Stephanie so I could have had the chance to explain. In summary: all is well! We've run into a little bump in the road with other kids' reactions to Karrie's name, but in some ways, it's better to get this out of the way now, when Karrie doesn't really understand what's happening, than have this happen in kindergarten or elementary school down the road, when full-on bullying could be a risk. She's adjusting really well to going by her nickname full-time, and Stephanie and her husband are planning on enrolling her with "Karrie" as her preferred name in all future schooling. And since schools around here go by preferred name rather than legal name in things like classroom roll-calls, it's possible she can get through K-12 without it ever really being widely known among her peers that her legal name is Karen. (And I really hope this common usage of the name Karen dies down in the next few years!) Edit: Really disappointed to be getting hate messages directed at Karrie, wishing that terrible things befall her and calling her the c-word. Please remember she's an innocent child. Edit 2: Point of clarification: the boys at daycare apparently didn't know that Karen was a name. The way they'd heard it used at home made them think it was just a term used to insult people, and that it might be a "bad word." That's why they found it so funny, because, in their worldview, it was like meeting someone named "fart face" or "asshole." The daycare staff explained to them that Karen is a real name, and that lots of people are named Karen, and of course they tried their best to curtail the mockery, but nothing really helped until the name change and a little bit of time had passed. Things at the daycare are now back to normal, the other kids are calling her Karrie, and everyone has (fortunately) moved on. Edit 3: Please don't harass Redditors who gave a YTA judgement on my first post. They gave their honest judgment at the time in an online space specifically set up for that purpose. I didn't post on an advice sub, I posted on a judgment sub, and there's no reason to call people to the mat for judgments I asked for, made in good faith, from three years ago. A comment defending Stephanie in response to someone commenting that she's a bad friend to OOP: Stephanie is genuinely a great friend and a good person! She once dropped everything and drove 300 miles because I had just been in a (relatively minor) car accident in a city I lived all alone in as a young adult. She once gifted me $1500, no questions asked, and insisted I never even think about paying it back, when I needed to get out of a really bad cohabiting situation while broke. When we were teenagers and the cool boy she had a massive crush on made fun of me for something I was extremely sensitive about, instead of keeping quiet, she blew her top, stuck up for me and told him off, then led me away to comfort me away from him. She is loyal and kind and has incredible character. This post is such a tiny, tiny snapshot of who she is as a person. When I raised my concerns, Stephanie was emotional, very pregnant, and somewhat sleep deprived. Her pregnancy was rough on her body, and on top of hormones, I think she was just genuinely confused by what I was trying to tell her. 😼😼😼 😼😼😼 FINAL UPDATE, posted April 17, 2023 For those of you who have contacted me asking for an update, I wanted to circle back and close the book on the Baby Karen/Karrie chapter. As of last month, Karrie is now legally Caroline [Lastname], and she has even been issued a new birth certificate with her new legal name. The daycare bullying issues had already died down since Stephanie and her husband switched to calling her Karrie, but this legal name change now means that the "Karen" issue won't crop up again when she starts school. There were also some other minor incidents that pushed Stephanie and her husband to make that decision around a legal name change. They were getting to the point where, almost any time they were having to provide Karen's legal name to get a service, they were getting an immediate reaction, even from adults. It was usually just a meaningful look, but barbed comments were not unusual. The final straw was when they were at the airport getting ready to fly to visit Stephanie's in-laws with Karrie. The TSA agent at security made a snarky comment, and then later when they needed to ask the gate agent about their seats, the gate agent rudely laughed at seeing Karrie's ticket, then showed the gate agent standing next to her, who just shook her head and said, "poor kid" to her co-worker while fully ignoring Stephanie and her husband. (And they had this interaction in front of Karrie.) Something about that day in the airport was a turning point for Stephanie and her husband, and they started the name change process as soon as they got home. It was much easier than they were expecting, and cost a grand total of $30! Karrie is a joyful, sociable little girl, and while it's impossible to know right now if these negative experiences caused any lasting damage (and I sincerely hope they did not!), I'm happy to see that she continues to be a very outgoing, confident child. The conversation with Stephanie I mentioned in my October update was awkward and brief, but we've actually gotten back into it a few times since. Stephanie has apologized profusely for her initial reaction when we first talked, I've apologized for approaching things so poorly, and not telling her right away about what our friends were saying behind her back, and in those conversations, we mainly ended up focusing on the resulting spiraling of my mom and aunt and what a mess that turned into. Together we've started to unpack some of the intergenerational shit around our family issues. To provide some of that context, our maternal grandparents were a nightmare. Our grandfather was an authoritarian revivalist preacher who was physically abusive and referred to himself as the "spiritual leader" and ultimate authority of the family. Our grandmother was a manipulative narcissist who psychologically tormented my mom and aunt for their entire childhoods. As a result, my mom and aunt trauma bonded considerably during their childhood, and grew into extremely anxious and reactive adults. Any whiff of conflict sends them into panic mode, and in our family, we have these well-worn grooves of behavioral habits with my mom and aunt overreacting to anything that feels like discord, and scrambling to clumsily "smooth" things over. As a result, Stephanie and I have both been working hard to build better boundaries with our moms' generation, and have agreed to be really cautious about what information we give them, especially anything that is highly emotional. I've been in therapy for a couple of years now, and Stephanie also started therapy late last year. We've been talking about the ways that my grandparents traumatizing our moms caused intergenerational issues that impacted us, and Stephanie is determined that the cycle ends with her, and that these issues will not go on to touch Karrie. Thank you, everyone, for your kind words, both here on my profile posts and on the best-of-updates reposts, which I've also been reading. I've gotten some incredibly thoughtful and kind messages, which have meant a lot to me, even if I haven't had the chance to respond to all of them. For those who may still want to be critical of Stephanie, I again want to emphasize how out of character her initial reaction was, and how much physical, hormonal, and emotional upheaval she was in at the time. These posts are a teeny-tiny window into just one aspect of the dynamic, funny, kind, caring full human being that is my cousin and best friend. Stephanie has been my most loyal and trusted friend for pretty much my entire life, and she has fully earned some grace for reacting less than perfectly to my [extremely clumsy] approach when she was sleep deprived, hormonally wrecked, and brain fogged. Stephanie has read these posts now as well, along with most of your comments, and (after I explained to her what Reddit is) they were helpful to both of us in our talks about our weird family dynamic. I can't imagine I'll have any more updates down the line, but thanks for following along the last few years. Edit with a note: OOP has requested that people not tag/harass/berate anyone who gave her a YTA judgment originally, which apparently happens every time she posts an update. Don't be weirdos, folks. submitted by /u/Father-Son-HolyToast to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am not the OP of this post. This post has been copied and pasted into this subreddit for the purposes of curating the best Reddit updates in one subreddit. You can find the link to the OP below. You can find the last time this story was posted in this sub here. Mood spoiler: Nothing earth shattering. Some mild childhood bullying that the target is too young to understand, but all's well that ends well. ORIGINAL POST from /r/AmITheAsshole, posted May 27, 2019 by /u/LightningStr My cousin Stephanie and I are really more friends than relatives. An important note is that she's not really online much, so can be out of the loop on certain memes and jokes in internet culture, and tbh, doesn't really understand the concept of viral internet references or how they work. Stephanie is pregnant and just found out it's going to be a girl. About a week ago, she told a gathering of her best girlfriends that she's going to name her daughter Karen. The room instantly went cold, but after an awkward silence, everyone else politely said it was lovely. I couldn't bring myself to respond at all. Later in the evening, when Stephanie was out of the room, everyone was immediately like, "OMG, that poor kid," and "why would she pick Karen of all names?!" I was uncomfortable with this conversation, given that everyone had been so positive about the name to her face. I thought more about it over the next couple of days, and just felt really weird about the whole thing. The name is really loaded, to the point it could be detrimental to the baby, and Stephanie had no idea of the connotations to make an informed decision. So a couple of days later, I tentatively brought it up. I told her I was so excited for the baby, and just wanted her to have all available information when picking a name. I then started to explain that Karen has some negative connotations and has become sort of an internet joke to describe a specific kind of entitled middle aged woman. Stephanie instantly was furious and started talking over me, saying, "why are you saying this?! This is so mean!!" I was really surprised by her reaction (it felt very, very out of character), so I immediately stopped and said, "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just wanted to tell you something I thought you might not know." She replied, "That's the name I picked for my daughter. And you think I picked it as some kind of joke?! I don't understand why you'd say something so hurtful." When she said that, I felt like it signaled that she didn't really understand what I was trying to tell her, so after agonizing for a second about whether to press the issue even though she was so angry, I felt like in for a penny, in for a pound, and since she was already mad, I wanted her to at least understand what I was trying to explain to her. I googled "Karen know your meme" on my phone and tried to show her the screen of results while saying, "look, I'm just saying that there's more meaning to the name than you may realize." She stood up, pushed my phone away, and shouted, "Wow!!" She then stormed out of my home and drove away. My aunt and mom have been berating me all week, because Stephanie told them that I made fun of her baby name. Stephanie has not spoken to me or responded to my texts since. I can take a hint, and I'm not going to broach a topic again that caused so much distress, but I keep going back and forth on whether I was TA here by bringing it up in the first place. Note: In the original post, OOP was overwhelmingly given a YTA judgment in response to this post. Edit: Thanks, everyone! I have been properly schooled, and I accept my judgement that I was TA here. Stephanie and I have a history of being extremely open and honest with each other (I was the maid of honor in her wedding, which we planned on being the case from a young age, and we always joked as teenagers that part of my duties would include talking her out of the marriage if the groom she picked sucked), and so maybe I was too flippant with approaching this topic due to our history, and was unempathetic in underestimating how much she was already invested in the name she chose for her future daughter. I admit I'm a bit frustrated that Stephanie still doesn't understand what I was trying to tell her (she still thinks I was making some kind of weird, cruel joke accusing her of picking the name as a joke), but I have messaged her a sincere apology that she accepted, and I will never speak of this again, to Stephanie or Baby Karen. I'll also stand up for Stephanie if her other friends shit talk the name around me again. If they're not willing to voice their thoughts to Stephanie directly, they need to not say the kinds of things they were saying behind her back. Edit 2: One more thing: I definitely was not trying to tell Stephanie to not name her daughter Karen. I just wanted her to make the decision either way knowing the connotations, since I'd want someone to do the same for me if I picked a baby name with cultural baggage I wasn't aware of. I realize now I handled it poorly and was hurtful to Stephanie in the process, but I just wanted to be clear that I wasn't actively trying to talk her out of the name. I just didn't want her to be blindsided if it came up later. Additional context from OOP's comments: Stephanie and her husband have a deal on baby names where she picks girl baby names, he picks boy baby names, and they each have unlimited veto power for the other person's choices. He's on board with Karen AFAIK. We're all the same age (late 20s) but neither of them spends time online or is even particularly tech savvy. UPDATE one year later (posted June 16, 2020) My post last summer wasn't the most exciting or dramatic on AITA, but I wanted to provide an update if anyone is interested. Baby Karen was born healthy and happy back in October. She's an absolute sweetheart of a baby, and I'm totally in love with her. Between March and May, I didn't get to see her at all in person, but I was doing regular FaceTime/House Party calls with Stephanie and Karen, and over the last few weeks, I've been going over to Stephanie's house to sit in her backyard and chat with Stephanie/coo at Karen from a lengthy distance. I have two reasons for updating. First, I've realized since Karen's birth that her name has taken on new meaning to me. When I'm with her, Karen just means her, and I don't think about the other connotations. In other words, you guys were right! That said, though, my second reason for updating is that Stephanie got back into her years-unused Facebook at the beginning of the pandemic to keep in touch with people. She's been on it pretty regularly lately for the first time in years (historically, she's not really been into social media). Most people in our area/social circle have been posting really heavily about BLM and the protests happening right now, as well as racial justice issues more generally. As a result, Stephanie has now come into contact with a deluge of Karen memes for the first time, and found them confusing and horrifying, especially the use of "Karen" as shorthand for a racist. I've basically just declined to talk about it with Stephanie, because it went so poorly last time, but both my mother and her mother have hounded me about it because it's upsetting to Stephanie, and said things like, "Is this what you were talking about before? Why didn't you say so? Why didn't you explain it better?! You should have told Stephanie!!" And Jesus wept!! You really can't win. Thanks again for all your feedback on my last post! It was very helpful in giving me some Zen about the situation. Edit: Wow, I've been super overwhelmed by the flood of very kind, heartfelt PMs (and just one or two not so kind ones) as well as the comments on my other post. Thank you, everyone! It continually amazes me how many nice and empathetic people frequent a sub devoted to assholes. Additional comments from OOP for context: In response to someone criticizing Stephanie: To be fair, Stephanie has been cool about it. First, she saw a bunch of posts about "the Central Park Karen" when that white lady was harassing the black birdwatcher in the park, and came to me asking me to explain why everyone was calling the woman Karen when her name was Amy. (Since she's gotten back on Facebook, she often asks me to be like her internet culture "interpreter."). I immediately told her, "Sorry, I'm not having a conversation with you about this, because we had a major conflict over it last year, and I'm not getting into it with you." I think that was the first time she started to understand what I'd been telling her last year. And in fairness to her, she didn't bring it up with me again after that. As for my mom and aunt, they're kind of generally ridiculous. They tend to be extremely reactive to whatever is going on precisely at that moment, and if someone in the family is upset, they get overinvolved trying to "fix" it. Stephanie has been venting to her mom about this (not about me, just how upsetting the memes are), and she and my mom have just been doing their normal thing of blowing it out of proportion, and now making it my fault somehow. I love my mom and aunt dearly, but they're not to be reasoned with. In response to another criticism of Stephanie: Honestly, with my mom and aunt, it's easier to just wait for them to move on to the next shiny thing. 😁 I don't blame Stephanie at all. She's just upset and confused, but hasn't made it my problem at all. My aunt and mom just have a flair for the dramatic. In response to someone saying they still thought OOP was TA because they only brought up concerns with the name for selfish reasons: I probably wasn't clear about this in my original post, and I think it's probably because that's the part I cut down when I went way over the word limit on that first post, but when I described feeling weird and uncomfortable over the couple of days I took to ruminate after Stephanie's announcement, the weirdness and discomfort was mostly a response to what happened with our friend group rather than just my own feelings about the name. I felt super uncomfortable being in the room while our friends shit-talked Stephanie's name choice after praising it to her face. I didn't have the presence of mind in the moment to call them out before the moment was passed, and I sat with that guilt for a couple of days. I didn't want to tell Stephanie what they said, because it would be tattle-y of me, and I also didn't want to cause conflict within the friend group or upset Stephanie. So raising the topic on my own seemed like a good compromise at the time. I did wrestle internally with how to handle it, and clearly I missed the mark. In response to the comment: "Do you understand that there is a massive difference in being upset with your friends for their response, and approaching Stephanie because you say you want her to be fully informed of her name choice? These are two different things that you're conflating.": No, to be clear, I didn't raise the conversation with Stephanie in lieu of scolding our friends; I brought it up because I thought they owed it to her to raise those points to her face if they were going to say them at all. Ultimately, I thought Stephanie was owed the knowledge of those connotations, whatever she chose to do with that knowledge. Also, I don't know how to explain the context of our relationship, but Stephanie and I have a lifetime of shared radical honesty with one another, from the inconsequential (telling each other when outfits are unflattering) to the difficult (when she gave me a come-to-Jesus talk years ago about how someone I considered a close friend was super shitty to me and that I should end the friendship). Based on our extreme closeness and shared history, this conversation felt like the right move at the time, even though it ultimately backfired. UPDATE two years on (posted October 14, 2022) Hi all, I've gotten a few PMs over the last couple years asking for updates, and since we just celebrated Karen's third birthday, I wanted to circle back to anyone following this story. First of all, Baby Karen (not so much a baby anymore!) is doing amazingly on her developmental milestones! She's a very bright child, sharp as the sharpest tack, and extremely tuned into her environment. Some of what she says is already fully in complete sentences, which just makes me want to cry when I hear it, because it seems like Stephanie was giving birth just yesterday. Karen loves books already, and will intently study the pictures in them for huge stretches of time and claim to be "reading." And you would not believe the uncomfortably incisive questions she's already asking. I am fully convinced this child is going to grow up to be an actual genius. Regarding the name: unfortunately, when Karen started daycare earlier this year, she started getting grief for her name pretty quickly from the older kids. The daycare she attends mixes the ages together at a couple of different points throughout the day, and while there fortunately wasn't much direct bullying, two of the age-5s must have heard and internalized the derogatory connotations of the name Karen at home. As a result, they found her name absolutely hysterical, and they kind of spread the idea to the other kids that there was something funny/wrong about her name. Karen was too little to understand what was happening, but found the other kids' behavior toward her generally upsetting. The daycare staff made every effort to shut it down, and let Stephanie and her husband know right away. After about a month of this, where the daycare wasn't having much success putting the kibosh on this behavior, and the kids weren't dropping it, Stephanie and her husband made the decision that Karen would be going by "Karrie" from now on, which was already an established nickname that a lot of family and friends were already using, and that Karen already recognized as referring to herself. Stephanie and I never really fully revisited what happened during her pregnancy, but when she was telling me about what was happening in daycare, she apologized to me. I immediately felt terrible and reassured her there was no reason to apologize, emotions are complicated when you're pregnant, and that I thought having Karen go by Karrie was a great solution. (Though changing what you're used to calling someone is fucking hard, I've found, and I'm still directly addressing her on manual mode, every single time.) A lot of the responses I got to my last post were gleeful and leaned into the schadenfreude of the situation, and I have to say those responses really bummed me out. I would much, much rather live in a world where I was wrong about the impact Karen's name would have on her. I cannot emphasize enough what a sweet-dispositioned, smart, curious, loving little girl Karrie is, and how much she deserves every good thing in life. Also: a lot of people didn't like Stephanie in my last post, but I need you to understand that this is a tiny snapshot of a very emotionally high-strung time in her life, and overall, Stephanie is a wonderful lifelong friend. She has gotten me through so many personal crises over the years, and she will never fail to show up for the people she cares about. Being pregnant and having a strong emotional attachment to the name you've picked out for your daughter is completely understandable, and her pregnancy was pretty rough on her moods. (She once wept uncontrollably at a cat food commercial when she was about seven months pregnant.) I also think my approach for trying to explain the name issue those years ago was very clumsy, and I could have done a better job of bringing it up. That said, with the distance of time, I am really glad I did broach the topic. I feel like I owed Stephanie that information, and I can feel good about giving it to her. If I'd chosen not to bring it up at the time, I think I'd have a lot of regrets now. The only thing I'd change now, looking back, is that I would try to bring it up more gently somehow with Stephanie so I could have had the chance to explain. In summary: all is well! We've run into a little bump in the road with other kids' reactions to Karrie's name, but in some ways, it's better to get this out of the way now, when Karrie doesn't really understand what's happening, than have this happen in kindergarten or elementary school down the road, when full-on bullying could be a risk. She's adjusting really well to going by her nickname full-time, and Stephanie and her husband are planning on enrolling her with "Karrie" as her preferred name in all future schooling. And since schools around here go by preferred name rather than legal name in things like classroom roll-calls, it's possible she can get through K-12 without it ever really being widely known among her peers that her legal name is Karen. (And I really hope this common usage of the name Karen dies down in the next few years!) A comment defending Stephanie in response to someone commenting that she's a bad friend to OOP: Stephanie is genuinely a great friend and a good person! She once dropped everything and drove 300 miles because I had just been in a (relatively minor) car accident in a city I lived all alone in as a young adult. She once gifted me $1500, no questions asked, and insisted I never even think about paying it back, when I needed to get out of a really bad cohabiting situation while broke. When we were teenagers and the cool boy she had a massive crush on made fun of me for something I was extremely sensitive about, instead of keeping quiet, she blew her top, stuck up for me and told him off, then led me away to comfort me away from him. She is loyal and kind and has incredible character. This post is such a tiny, tiny snapshot of who she is as a person. When I raised my concerns, Stephanie was emotional, very pregnant, and somewhat sleep deprived. Her pregnancy was rough on her body, and on top of hormones, I think she was just genuinely confused by what I was trying to tell her. submitted by /u/Father-Son-HolyToast to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OP. Original post by u/daintyanus in r/JustNoMIL   Part 1 posted here TW: Animal death   Magda earned herself a trip to the ICU – 26 May 2016 I removed the text because my MIL's flying monkeys found this post and are harassing me about it. I don't hate you. Your children don't speak to you because you failed as a parent and wouldn't protect them from her. I refuse to have someone so toxic think they can dictate my life. They aren't my biological children but I am still their mother. I'm leaving the comments because to normal people, family would never behave this way. You know what she did and you know she needs help. Denial will not make any of it go away. 11 June 16 update: we're working on an out of court settlement because Magda is desperate not to go to jail. When everything is wrapped up, I'll repost the story of what she did and the aftermath. Thank you for your well wishes and support.   Magda accepted our out of court settlement – 21 Jun 2016 Now that that the legal stuff has been settled, I can talk about this stuff. Get comfortable because this is long. DH is the youngest of four sons. He's the oops baby, there is an 10 year age difference between him and BILs 2&3 (fraternal twins). Magda has always been resentful of him and made him the family scapegoat. Her sons and the wives of BILs 2&3 are her devoted flying monkeys. SIL1 got sick of Magda's shit and filed for divorce after Her racist meltdown at me at the Super Bowl party. What she did: DH was on an important business trip to Asia. His father passed away very shortly before 'the incident'. Since we are NC, DH did not attend the funeral. I attended at the request of FIL's sister, DHs favorite aunt, who has been NC with Magda since the 90s. The only interaction with Magda's flying monkeys is when my SIL came over and talked shit for wearing a pantsuit and no makeup instead of following Magda's directions for attire. DH's aunt told her to go to hell. Magda and I did not interact at the funeral. On Thursday, she goes to my youngest's school to pick him up (kidnap him). She is certainly not on the pickup list. She gets denied and blows up. The cops get called because she is screaming. She tells the cops that I'm physically abusive and she wants to protect her grandchildren from me. She bites a cop and gets arrested. I don't know why they released her to one of my BILs pretty much immediately. On Friday, she goes to my brother's shop with her GC grandson, where my oldest works part time. My brother tells her to leave. She starts screaming, my son comes out from the back to see what's going on. Magda runs to him, embraces him in a death hug, crying and blubbering about how she can't just watch her family self-destruct. She will do anything to protect him, she's sorry she hasn't acted sooner to stop my violent rages. The cops come, Magda and GCGS take off. They peeled out of the parking lot in Magda's Mercedes. On Sunday, the kids and I were at church and came home to a bunch of cop cars and animal control at our house. The cops told us that my MIL broke into the house, made a mess, and killed my elderly, 12 pound, little dog. This sent our 75 and 90 pound pitbulls into a fury, mauling her. The neighbor heard the screaming, saw the broken window and Magda's car in the driveway (lol why Magda?) connected the three, and called the cops. The cops tased the dogs to get them to stop attacking her. Magda was rushed to the hospital. She picked up hospital acquired pneumonia. We were told that she had bites on 60% of her body but that was a dramatic over statement. She had bites on her face, neck, forearms and hands. She also broke her hip, had her front teeth knocked out, and cracked some ribs from falling. The inside of the house was thrashed. Broken mirrors, picture frames, dishes strewn everywhere. My art studio was a mess. Thankfully the kids rooms were unscathed EXCEPT for the massive pile of shit on the rocker in the baby's room. As I'm cleaning up, I notice everything destroyed was mine. The photo frames smashed were of my family members. The dishes she destroyed were dishes I bought back from Mexico. The chair she shat on I bought. She opened all the drawers in the master bedroom and destroyed most of my clothes with scissors and bleach, including my wedding suit. She destroyed all of my makeup, worth thousands of dollars because I have a Sephora problem. She stuffed all my makeup brushes, a hair brush, and my flat iron in the toilet. We got the dogs back after a couple of days. The shelter staffed remarked how docile and well mannered they were. Since then, they do not let me or the baby out of their sight. If I put the baby down for a nap, my female stands watch next to the crib. I appreciate it but they are constantly under my feet. Magda is completely unrecognizable now. There is no amount of plastic surgery to make her resemble her former self. Getting knocked down on the pavement broke her hip, cracked ribs, and knocked out her front teeth. Speaking is excruciatingly painful due to her facial injuries and since her hands were badly injured, she can't text or email her vitriol either. She is completely dependent on others for her care, eating, toileting, dressing, turning over in bed, everything requires assistance. Her house is now a mini rehab hospital instead of the sterile museum it was previously. When I made my previous post, SIL2 and SIL3 blew up my phone with abusive texts. They blew up the kids phones with abusive texts. Someone called CPS anonymously saying that I was letting kids drink and do drugs in the house. They also said i would leave the baby with the kids while I went and got high on meth. CPS came to our house. They spoke to each of the kids privately. The kids described Magda's campaign of harassment since I announced my pregnancy. The CPS worker thanked us for our time. Our house is clean, there's tons of food in the house, and the kids are obviously well cared for. We haven't heard back from them. I got an anonymous email saying I needed to delete my Reddit thread or I was going to get raped the next time I walked my dogs alone, So I deleted the post. My nephew, Luis (patron saint of garden hoses) tracked the IP address down to golden grandson's office park. He denied it when called out and then I should go back to Mexico if I don't feel safe in LA. I found the contact information for golden grandson's boss and forwarded her the email with a short explanation of what happened. She likes to donate major sums of money to domestic violence shelters and rape victim advocacy groups. After an internal review, golden grandson was found to have sent that email from his work station. He's been fired. His father called DH, ranting about destroying the family, DH stayed stone faced, thanked him to expressing his thoughts and told him to fuck off. DH has really exploited on Magda's desperation to stay out jail. He had to leave a very important business trip to deal with his mother after he went NC (for real, he wouldn't come home from his father's funeral). He told me when he was on the plane coming home, he thought about all the times he compromised to please her and it meant nothing. He thought about how his brothers' children are not only NC with Magda, they're NC with their parents too. With everything at stake, he just didn't want to lose everything. He got back at her using the thing she cared about most after her looks, money. We gave her lawyer two weeks to mull over the evidence. We have the video footage of her vandalizing our home, the text message logs, all of the emails, sworn statements from her grand daughters she visited on her east coast trip, and copies of the reports when she make a fallacious reports to immigration and the health department getting my brothers shop raided. We told her lawyer she can settle out of court or we can go to trial with a guarantee of a civil lawsuit afterwards. The evidence was so damning, our lawyer was practically jizzing his pants to represent it. So she settled. We're still in shock because Magda never rolls over. We are receiving a substantial amount of money and other assets. There is a binding agreement that Magda is not to contact us or any members in my family directly or via proxy, if she violates this, we will sue her again. The same goes for DH's brother's and SIL2 & SIL3. The inheritance DH's brothers were promised as a reason to endure their mother's emotional abuse will not be there due to the high cost of her care and paying out the settlement. She has an RN and nurse assistant there 24/7. Her life is gone. She's in constant pain, bedbound, and cared for by brown people who converse amongst themselves in a different language. Her sons aren't helping the way she wants, but her care requires skilled nursing so they can only do so much. BIL3 is a physician, but a radiologist. I don't think he's seen a patient in person in decades. Magda's sister called my daughter to chastise her for refusing to speak with Magda, telling her that she shouldn't let her step-mother poison her against her blood family. Daughter lost it. She told her great aunt everything that happened. She also told her that her step-family is her family. My parents spend time with her and are interested in what she has to say. My father volunteers at her soccer club instead of sitting, looking bored in the stands like Magda (and calls it 'volunteering'). My parents have never bad mouthed her father because they love him. Twisting the knife, she said she feels more like a [my surname] than a [DH's surname]. That conversation ended with, "You can twist the truth to suit your own reality, I guess, since that's what you people do." This girl, that snark is strait from my mouth. There are family members who believe his brothers story of my sending the dogs to attack Magda when she came over to talk through our differences. My kids are taking this hard. Summer is here so at least the kids will stay busy. The boys have part time jobs and my daughter is playing two sports. They're more serious and guarded. But at least they're throwing themselves into their hobbies. We haven't decided if we want to stay in this house. I have a sentimental attachment as this is my aunt's house. We bought when because she was retiring to Mexico. It started out as a three room shack and slowly morphed into a fairly large house. My uncle was an excellent carpenter/tile layer/mason. Some of my happiest childhood memories are here. I wanted my kids to have happy memories here. Also, if I wanted a house comparable to this we would have to leave the area. This Magda bullshit has tainted this house. When I look at the backyard, I don't see the memory of my youngest slowly dog paddling around the pool after he learned how to swim, I replay the video footage of my insane MIL beating my dog to death with a crowbar in my mind. So that's where we're at. Again, ladies and gentledudes of JNM, your stories and supportive comments helped me keep my cool. I wouldn't have handled this ish as well in my own.   When Magda stole her newborn grand baby – 1 Jul 2016 Inspired baby napping threads, I present to you a Magda story via one of her estranged granddaughters. Magda was a third spouse in her children's marriages. So naturally she was in the delivery room, named the baby, and was involved in all parenting decisions. DIL comes home the hospital with the baby boy. Magda comes over, demands baby so DIL complies and goes to take a long shower because Magda wanted time to 'bond'. While DIL is in the shower, Magda told her son that she wanted to show off the baby to her friends and HE SAID YES. The oldest sibling, Magda's #1 scapegoat (the person telling me the story), had a meltdown, she didn't want Magda taking her brother. She was so afraid Magda was going to make good on her often said promise she was going to steal the baby forever. Her father spanked her for being disrespectful to Magda and she was sent to her room. Later, while the baby was still gone, his sister caught her mother crying but denied it. When she asked why Magda took the baby, her mom told her Magda loves her brother and it's important that they have bonding time. This is why all of Magda's granddaughters and one of her grandsons is no contact with her AND their parents.   Magda is a terrible step-grandma – 23 Aug 2016 Edit to add, this happened a long time ago. When my husband's oldest brother got together with his (soon to be ex) wife, she had a three year daughter. Magda, at first, was delighted as she had no bio grandchildren yet. she wanted a doll to dress up. Since my BIL and SIL are spineless, they let Magda do whatever she wanted. Step granddaughter (SGD) wasn't a girly girl. She liked jeans, toy trucks, and getting dirty. Magda insisted that she wear dresses and have tea parties. Eventually, Magda made it her duty to other and shame SGD. Nothing that little girl did was ever good enough. When my SIL had her son (golden grandson who sent me anonymous rape threats), Magda latched on to him and made sure to ignore SGD as much as possible. By the time SGD was about eight, she was not allowed in Magda's house if she wasn't wearing a dress. Magda kicked her out of the house before Thanksgiving dinner when she was 13 because she wanted to wear jeans. Dresses only in Magda's house didn't apply to her bio granddaughters. This became a bigger issue once SGD was starting high school. She was presenting herself very masculinely and was became successful in ahletics. Magda was insistent that SGD needed therapy because she wouldn't conform to traditional gender norms. SGD went to therapy with conservative therapist affiliated with her ultra conservative Catholic Church three times a week. Her bastard younger brother, on Magda's order, stole her diary and gave it to Magda. Magda read her diary out loud at Easter dinner. She outed her as a lesbian and gave her brother a new entertainment system for his bedroom. Magda decided that she needed to go to gay conversion camp because having this butch lesbian in her family was unacceptable. My other nieces and nephews saw this happening and it really scared them. They avoided SGD's brother because they were afraid that he would tell Magda something to make her send them away too. Magda made pitting her grandchildren against each other an art. I'm surprised they are close as adults. SGD was gone for a whole year. Her parents told everyone that got was accepted last minute as a foreign exchange student in Mexico. She really was in Mexico, but not in Monterey with a nice family. She was in a torture camp in the jungles of Sinaloa with a bunch of other rich gay kids. she came back 30 pounds lighter, dead eyes in the eyes, and a broken ankle. SGD knew it was just easier to give in than to fight. She bid her time until she turned 18. She wore the dresses, took the medications, stayed home, and tried to keep a low profile. She took off on her 18th birthday and hasn't spoken to her parents since. There is a photo from the first family dinner after she got back. She's wearing a very femme outfit, hair and nails done with eyes in a far off galaxy. That photo always put me off because she looks so out of it, it's the first thing you see in the photo. I just learned of this delightful piece of family history. I knew she was No contact with her mom and step father, but she also went No contact with her father for signing the papers to send her away. She was always close with DH because of their shared SG status. DH also babysat her frequently. Magda would volunteer his time to babysit her while they did family stuff. This kept two scapegoats out of family outings. How this came up is that I was asking for advice with my youngest. He's gay, 13 years old, and has sustained emotional damage from Magda. I see him struggle and don't really know how to help him. He's only come out to my uncle. Thankfully, SGD is wise and gave me some excellent insights. Examples of Magda's cruelty for you llamas: At family dinners, when everyone else was eating off china and silver, Magda would set SGD's place with corelle and plastic cups. Magda would only buy her high end sports equipment/clothes in pink. the $450 soccer shoes were nice but they came in other non-pink colors. Magda forbade my BIL and SIL to get SGD confirmed. Magda doesn't think gay people should be allowed to be Catholics. Magda made my BIL and SIL reimburse her for the of the camp because SGD didn't stop being a lesbian. Magda paid one of her friend's grandsons to go on a dat with SGD after she got home. SGD went because she had no choice, gross dude kicked her out of the car when she declined to blow him. She walked home four miles. Magda is still confined to bed. She's been healing nicely but still is 100% dependent on others for her care. I know it's wrong but my heart flutters when I call my lawyer for updates. We've gotten the first wave of settlement money so we're getting serious work done.   Magda hired people to stalk me – 17 Sep 2016 I got a bunch of messages for people asking for an update. Luis received a call from one of our cousins, asking why a beige Toyota Camry is following me around. I drive by his shop frequently because it's a couple of blocks away from my house. He noticed it a few weeks ago but wanted to make sure, just in case. He gave Luis the license plate number and I gave it to our lawyer. Before the lawyer gets back to us, I get a call from one of Magda's caregivers. He tells me Magda has convinced herself that I'm plotting to murder her and my BILs with cartel assassins. She's hired private security at the house and private investigators to follow me around. The private security pats them down, checks their bags, and waves a metal detector wand at them. The investigator comes three times a week and brings stacks of photos. I don't know him, but he's a regular customer of my older brother's tattoo parlor where my oldest works part-time. He recognized him from photos in Magda's house. My phone number is still in Magda's phone which is how he got a hold of me. He said he was concerned for my safety because this crazy old rich lady has it in for me. Lawyer calls back, confirming beige Toyota belongs to shady PI company. Lawyer tells them they are participating in violating a restraining order and reports it to the police. As expected, the police do nothing because the investigators did not make contact with me. Lawyer is taking care of it. I feel violated in every way possible. I don't feel safe in my home and I don't feel safe in public. I was willing to stay and remodel the house but this is some next level BS. I don't know if I'm truly okay with being so geographically close to my husband's bat shit family. My daughter stopped playing club soccer because of bullying. A bunch of Magda's friends volunteer for the club and their granddaughters have shut my daughter out socially. Magda's #1 golden grandson's teenage SIL also plays for this soccer club and has gleefully led the campaign to shut out my daughter. What hurt her the most was when they called her a race traitor when they heard her speaking Spanish. They sent her really fucked up shit via SnapChat. I'm so upset for her because she has a very promising soccer career ahead of her. She was being scouted and I worry she won't have the same exposure if she's just playing for her school. In other news, my BILs and Magda are suing us. DH is handling those details. He told me this is a classic rich people thing to do, fight with family members via lawyers for years. Magda regrets settling with us out of court so she intends on bleeding us dry with lawyer fees. Joke's on her because we don't give a shit. We make plenty of money ourselves to support our family. The money and assets obtained from suing Magda is just extra. If we spent all that money on lawyers fighting her, so be it. I really wish dealing with her crazy ended when my dogs mauled her.   Musings on my trip to meet Magda – 14 Oct 2016 After finding out I was being followed by someone paid by my psychotic MIL, I left LA and a holed up at DH's uncles ranch. It's so nice to feel like I have privacy, but I miss my husband and big kids. Uncle has assured me that my BILs are not allowed on his property. I've been sleeping better here than I have in almost two years. I told DH that that I'm coming home approximately when I fucking feel like it. Even though I grew up poor, I went to a very expensive private school on scholarship. My sister was the housekeeper for the chair of the alumni association and she somehow talked him into getting me into the school on scholarship. I went to this school and thrived. I was popular and did well in sports. I made a lot of friends that I'm still close with. My connections I made there helped get me into a good college on scholarship, and later helped me land jobs after I finished grad school. I was helping DH's aunt move some stuff around in their guest house and there was a framed photo in the wall of uncle and FIL playing golf at their country club, which triggered a memory. Magda has been a shit to me the entire time I've known her. On the first trip back to California after DH and I got together so our families could meet each other, we went to lunch with Magda. As we're waiting for her, one of my friends from high school was coming out of the restaurant, so we stop to chat. When Magda walks up to us, she has this weird look in her face, interrupts my friend in mid sentence, demanding how we know each other. Magda and FIL belong to the same country club as my friend's parents. Friend looks at Magda like she's totally insane. Before she could answer, Magda asks if I was her drug dealer. Friend looks genuinely horrified and tells Magda no, we went to (school) together. Magda feigns surprise and asked me how my parents afforded it. Friend rolls her eyes, leans in to hug me, whispers "Don't marry him. His mother is awful" and almost ran off to her car. That weekend, their country club was having their annual pancake breakfast fundraiser for the Shriners, FIL was the event chair. We go because FIL asked very nicely and DH wanted to introduce me to his parents friends. I wore an appropriate outfit. Magda said I looked embarrassing and dowdy. If I had worn something more flattering, I knew she would say I was dressed inappropriately. We get there and Madga instantly has CBF. She was annoyed that we didn't bring the kids. The kids were at Luis' house playing with his kids. When asked, the two oldest didn't want to go because going anyplace with Magda means uncomfortable clothes and being nagged to sit still. Magda was pissed that she couldn't play GMOTY in front of her friends. she kept introducing me using a diminutive of my name (very Anglo sounding) that nobody has ever called me. Bless DH, he corrected her every time, queue more CBF. My friend I saw at lunch was there with her parents and husband. I'm talking to them, Magda butts in and saccharine-sweet asks them how they know me (using name nobody calls me). Friends mom looks confused and Magda points at me. "Daughter and [my actual name]went to high school together." Friend's Mom turns to me, grabs my hand and says, "You were my favorite of [friend]'s friends. I know your influence kept [friend] out of trouble. If you two were hanging out together, I didn't worry. Thank you again for setting me up with Luis, my yard has never looked better." Magda's CBF could be seen from space. Friend's mom sees one of her friends and takes me away from Magda for introductions. The more people friend's mom introduces me to, the more angry Magda looks. Friend's mom introduces me to a very well-known Mexican soap opera actor, I see Magda making a beeline to DH out of the corner of my eye and she's looking at me while pointing her finger in his face. As soon as I'm alone, Magda grabs my arm and pulls me to a quiet corner. "Know your place," she hissed. "You are just a temporary comfort. People like us, are on another level from people like you. You might have conned your way into (private high school) but I will never let you in this family." She squeezed my arm so tightly it left a bruise. As soon as we're in the car on the way home, DH told me that Magda isn't comfortable with how I was all over [Mexican Soap Star] in front of her friends. She told me that it wasn't a good idea to let the kids meet me so soon. If we got married, i wouldn't love him like his late-wife did (late wife was an asshole of epic proportions, but was Magda's doormat). Which then reminded me of: A few days later, we have a family dinner with Magda, FIL, DH's siblings and families. I can't remember what we talked about but it was all a series of little jabs at me. I went outside to get some fresh air. Magda's cook comes outside (she still works for Magda BTW). With a low quiet voice, in Spanish, she asks if I love DH. When I respond yes, she told me to keep him in Florida, if we move back to California, Magda will do everything she can to destroy my life. She then told me that Magda ordered her housekeeper to remove all the valuable things from downstairs because she was worried I would steal from her. She said she could tell I was a good mother to DH's children and she could see I was a kind and patient person by the way I responded when Magda repeatedly insulted me. After this trip, Magda decided I was a an uneducated, illegal immigrant out for DH's money. It pisses me off all over again that his brothers just went with it. I'm thankful to Magda's domestic staff who have always been decent, hardworking people taking pity on me. It feels weird to be that person. I've been with DH for over a decade and her lifestyle is still totally foreign. I still feel like I'm pretending when we go do rich people stuff with his family like sitting in the first section at Laker Games or attending museum fundraisers. I hope they all fuck off and get incurable skin fold fungal infections.   Magda tries to buy our family photos – 6 Nov 2016 I've been using the same photographer for family photos for years. He's the younger brother of the other scholarship kid at our fancy private high school. He's fairly successful now and easy to find on the internet. We have worked on many projects together over the years and are facebook friends. He's aware of the Magda related drama. You can order prints from my photographer's website using an access code. Magda years ago had the code because she paid for our wedding photos. A few days ago, she logs in and places a huge order of photos. Specifically, none of the photos with me in them. She ordered nearly one hundred prints of my daughter's quinceañera (sweet 15 party) and the family photos we took for this year's christmas card. Thankfully one of his office people called to confirm the address for the photos and offered to personally deliver them because shipping would get expensive for the larger prints. Magda had ordered a poster sized print of my youngest big kid on the dance floor with the baby. My stomach absolutely turned. I explained that my mother-in-law was a psycho and she needed to have her access revoked. In the spirit of JNM, I instructed the lovely admin to refund her money and send an equal amount of prints of me. It was expensive but it felt good, so worth it. I wonder how she felt when she got the poster size print of a particularly unflattering photo of both of us, taken at my wedding. Magda receives the photos and sends BIL3 to confront DH. BIL3 comes to our house while DH and Luis are working on the front yard. They start arguing and DH tells him he's going to call th e cops. The sole reason I'm posting this is because Luis got BIL3 with the garden hose. Like with Magda, Luis hosed BIL3 to his SUV and got a ton of water in the interior. I wasn't able to witness it in person but it was caught on our security cameras. BIL3 and DH are arguing, waving their arms around and Luis comes around the corner AND BAM, full on soaking with the sprayer. We have a long driveway so having the hose on full blast for 80 feet feels like an eternity. I'm getting better at dealing with this bullshit. I decided to come back home because I missed my family. We're fixing the house up and moving to Northern California. I decided to resign from my job and focus on freelance work.   Part 3 posted here Reminder - I am not the original poster. submitted by /u/hotfudgeunicorn to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am not the OP of this post. This post has been copied and pasted into this subreddit for the purposes of curating the best Reddit updates in one subreddit. You can find the link to the OP below. Additional note: I have posted this particular update in this subreddit previously. I am reposting it here with mod permission, since the growth of the subreddit since originally being posted means most readers here will not have seen it. I'll be reposting some of my favorite old BORU posts on this subreddit every few days going forward. They will be clearly labeled for those who prefer to skip reposts. Mood spoiler: Not necessarily a positive outcome, but nothing heavy ORIGINAL POST from /r/AmITheAsshole (posted May 2019) My cousin Stephanie and I are really more friends than relatives. An important note is that she's not really online much, so can be out of the loop on certain memes and jokes in internet culture, and tbh, doesn't really understand the concept of viral internet references or how they work. Stephanie is pregnant and just found out it's going to be a girl. About a week ago, she told a gathering of her best girlfriends that she's going to name her daughter Karen. The room instantly went cold, but after an awkward silence, everyone else politely said it was lovely. I couldn't bring myself to respond at all. Later in the evening, when Stephanie was out of the room, everyone was immediately like, "OMG, that poor kid," and "why would she pick Karen of all names?!" I was uncomfortable with this conversation, given that everyone had been so positive about the name to her face. I thought more about it over the next couple of days, and just felt really weird about the whole thing. The name is really loaded, to the point it could be detrimental to the baby, and Stephanie had no idea of the connotations to make an informed decision. So a couple of days later, I tentatively brought it up. I told her I was so excited for the baby, and just wanted her to have all available information when picking a name. I then started to explain that Karen has some negative connotations and has become sort of an internet joke to describe a specific kind of entitled middle aged woman. Stephanie instantly was furious and started talking over me, saying, "why are you saying this?! This is so mean!!" I was really surprised by her reaction (it felt very, very out of character), so I immediately stopped and said, "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I just wanted to tell you something I thought you might not know." She replied, "That's the name I picked for my daughter. And you think I picked it as some kind of joke?! I don't understand why you'd say something so hurtful." When she said that, I felt like it signaled that she didn't really understand what I was trying to tell her, so after agonizing for a second about whether to press the issue even though she was so angry, I felt like in for a penny, in for a pound, and since she was already mad, I wanted her to at least understand what I was trying to explain to her. I googled "Karen know your meme" on my phone and tried to show her the screen of results while saying, "look, I'm just saying that there's more meaning to the name than you may realize." She stood up, pushed my phone away, and shouted, "Wow!!" She then stormed out of my home and drove away. My aunt and mom have been berating me all week, because Stephanie told them that I made fun of her baby name. Stephanie has not spoken to me or responded to my texts since. I can take a hint, and I'm not going to broach a topic again that caused so much distress, but I keep going back and forth on whether I was TA here by bringing it up in the first place. Note: In the original post, OOP was overwhelmingly given a YTA judgment in response to this post. Edit: Thanks, everyone! I have been properly schooled, and I accept my judgement that I was TA here. Stephanie and I have a history of being extremely open and honest with each other (I was the maid of honor in her wedding, which we planned on being the case from a young age, and we always joked as teenagers that part of my duties would include talking her out of the marriage if the groom she picked sucked), and so maybe I was too flippant with approaching this topic due to our history, and was unempathetic in underestimating how much she was already invested in the name she chose for her future daughter. I admit I'm a bit frustrated that Stephanie still doesn't understand what I was trying to tell her (she still thinks I was making some kind of weird, cruel joke accusing her of picking the name as a joke), but I have messaged her a sincere apology that she accepted, and I will never speak of this again, to Stephanie or Baby Karen. I'll also stand up for Stephanie if her other friends shit talk the name around me again. If they're not willing to voice their thoughts to Stephanie directly, they need to not say the kinds of things they were saying behind her back. Edit 2: One more thing: I definitely was not trying to tell Stephanie to not name her daughter Karen. I just wanted her to make the decision either way knowing the connotations, since I'd want someone to do the same for me if I picked a baby name with cultural baggage I wasn't aware of. I realize now I handled it poorly and was hurtful to Stephanie in the process, but I just wanted to be clear that I wasn't actively trying to talk her out of the name. I just didn't want her to be blindsided if it came up later. Additional context from OOP's comments: Stephanie and her husband have a deal on baby names where she picks girl baby names, he picks boy baby names, and they each have unlimited veto power for the other person's choices. He's on board with Karen AFAIK. We're all the same age (late 20s) but neither of them spends time online or is even particularly tech savvy. UPDATE one year later My post last summer wasn't the most exciting or dramatic on AITA, but I wanted to provide an update if anyone is interested. Baby Karen was born healthy and happy back in October. She's an absolute sweetheart of a baby, and I'm totally in love with her. Between March and May, I didn't get to see her at all in person, but I was doing regular FaceTime/House Party calls with Stephanie and Karen, and over the last few weeks, I've been going over to Stephanie's house to sit in her backyard and chat with Stephanie/coo at Karen from a lengthy distance. I have two reasons for updating. First, I've realized since Karen's birth that her name has taken on new meaning to me. When I'm with her, Karen just means her, and I don't think about the other connotations. In other words, you guys were right! That said, though, my second reason for updating is that Stephanie got back into her years-unused Facebook at the beginning of the pandemic to keep in touch with people. She's been on it pretty regularly lately for the first time in years (historically, she's not really been into social media). Most people in our area/social circle have been posting really heavily about BLM and the protests happening right now, as well as racial justice issues more generally. As a result, Stephanie has now come into contact with a deluge of Karen memes for the first time, and found them confusing and horrifying, especially the use of "Karen" as shorthand for a racist. I've basically just declined to talk about it with Stephanie, because it went so poorly last time, but both my mother and her mother have hounded me about it because it's upsetting to Stephanie, and said things like, "Is this what you were talking about before? Why didn't you say so? Why didn't you explain it better?! You should have told Stephanie!!" And Jesus wept!! You really can't win. Thanks again for all your feedback on my last post! It was very helpful in giving me some Zen about the situation. Edit: Wow, I've been super overwhelmed by the flood of very kind, heartfelt PMs (and just one or two not so kind ones) as well as the comments on my other post. Thank you, everyone! It continually amazes me how many nice and empathetic people frequent a sub devoted to assholes. Additional comments from OOP for context: In response to someone criticizing Stephanie: To be fair, Stephanie has been cool about it. First, she saw a bunch of posts about "the Central Park Karen" when that white lady was harassing the black birdwatcher in the park, and came to me asking me to explain why everyone was calling the woman Karen when her name was Amy. (Since she's gotten back on Facebook, she often asks me to be like her internet culture "interpreter."). I immediately told her, "Sorry, I'm not having a conversation with you about this, because we had a major conflict over it last year, and I'm not getting into it with you." I think that was the first time she started to understand what I'd been telling her last year. And in fairness to her, she didn't bring it up with me again after that. As for my mom and aunt, they're kind of generally ridiculous. They tend to be extremely reactive to whatever is going on precisely at that moment, and if someone in the family is upset, they get overinvolved trying to "fix" it. Stephanie has been venting to her mom about this (not about me, just how upsetting the memes are), and she and my mom have just been doing their normal thing of blowing it out of proportion, and now making it my fault somehow. I love my mom and aunt dearly, but they're not to be reasoned with. In response to another criticism of Stephanie: Honestly, with my mom and aunt, it's easier to just wait for them to move on to the next shiny thing. 😁 I don't blame Stephanie at all. She's just upset and confused, but hasn't made it my problem at all. My aunt and mom just have a flair for the dramatic. In response to someone saying they still thought OOP was TA because they only brought up concerns with the name for selfish reasons: I probably wasn't clear about this in my original post, and I think it's probably because that's the part I cut down when I went way over the word limit on that first post, but when I described feeling weird and uncomfortable over the couple of days I took to ruminate after Stephanie's announcement, the weirdness and discomfort was mostly a response to what happened with our friend group rather than just my own feelings about the name. I felt super uncomfortable being in the room while our friends shit-talked Stephanie's name choice after praising it to her face. I didn't have the presence of mind in the moment to call them out before the moment was passed, and I sat with that guilt for a couple of days. I didn't want to tell Stephanie what they said, because it would be tattle-y of me, and I also didn't want to cause conflict within the friend group or upset Stephanie. So raising the topic on my own seemed like a good compromise at the time. I did wrestle internally with how to handle it, and clearly I missed the mark. In response to the comment: "Do you understand that there is a massive difference in being upset with your friends for their response, and approaching Stephanie because you say you want her to be fully informed of her name choice? These are two different things that you're conflating.": No, to be clear, I didn't raise the conversation with Stephanie in lieu of scolding our friends; I brought it up because I thought they owed it to her to raise those points to her face if they were going to say them at all. Ultimately, I thought Stephanie was owed the knowledge of those connotations, whatever she chose to do with that knowledge. Also, I don't know how to explain the context of our relationship, but Stephanie and I have a lifetime of shared radical honesty with one another, from the inconsequential (telling each other when outfits are unflattering) to the difficult (when she gave me a come-to-Jesus talk years ago about how someone I considered a close friend was super shitty to me and that I should end the friendship). Based on our extreme closeness and shared history, this conversation felt like the right move at the time, even though it ultimately backfired. submitted by /u/Father-Son-HolyToast to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I believe that BDIA (Burke Did It All) theory as outlined by Chief Investigator Kolar makes most sense in JonBenet’s case. In this post, I’m going to explain why. I’ll try to cover every piece of evidence that makes me think BDI: some of my points will be factual, others will be purely subjective. So, for the most part, this is just my view on things. 1) Circumstantial evidence and speculations a) Pineapple: Burke’s fingerprints are connected to the last action of JonBenet that we know of On the table in the breakfast room, investigators found a bowl with unfinished pineapple and milk as well as an empty glass with a tea bag. During the autopsy, the pineapple was also found in JonBenet’s stomach. According to Thomas, it was “consistent down to the rind with what had been found in the bowl”. The bowl itself “bore the fingerprints of Patsy and Burke.” In turn, “latent fingerprints on the drinking glass on the dining room table … belonged to Burke” (Kolar). According to Schiller, "Based on the condition of the pineapple in her intestine, the experts estimated that JonBenet had eaten it an hour and a half or two hours before she died." So, she ate it shortly before being hit in the head, considering that she lived for 45-120 minutes after that. It could happen right away or a bit later. As a side fact, a medical imaging technologist conducted an experiment and concluded that she was hit within 30-minute timeframe. The original post is gone now, but you can find the details about the experiment copied here. There are two likeliest scenarios here based on available evidence: either Patsy served a snack of pineapple and tea to Burke after they came home from the Whites or Burke made it himself, and Patsy’s prints on the bowl are explained by the fact that she handled the dishes earlier (their housekeeper was not there). I believe in the latter version of events for a simple reason: the way this snack is prepared screams of a child, not an adult to me. There is a big amount of pineapple inside: it’s highly unlikely that whoever was eating it would finish it. There is just too much of it. A huge inappropriate spoon was chosen. Kids don’t care about such things and they often overestimate how much they’ll be able to eat. Patsy says this much in her interview: “Somebody else did this, because I would never put a spoon that big in a bowl like that … I would think I would put two or three pieces on their plate with the rest of their food or something, because, I mean, it looks weird to set out a bowl like that.” She is a liar, but in this case, I believe her because the meal does look childish to me. So, it is likely that Burke and JonBenet were eating pineapple together shortly before JonBenet was attacked. But apart from this theory, we also have Burke’s testimony where he indeed places himself in the vicinity of the attack. In his Dr. Phil interview, he says: “I had some toy that I wanted to put together. I remember being downstairs after everyone was kinda in bed and wanting to get this thing out.” Due to the location of his room and the fact that it was nighttime, it would be easy for Burke to hear where everyone was. So he went downstairs after everyone was in bed, and it’s very possible that this was the moment when he decided to eat pineapple, too. It was his favorite fruit. His admission just reinforces the idea that he was downstairs when he wasn’t supposed to, and the pineapple links him and JonBenet together shortly before the blow to her head. b) Chronic sexual abuse of JonBenet It was proven that JonBenet had a prior hymenal injury that indicates previous/ongoing sexual abuse: it was thought to be digital. She was also assaulted with a paintbrush very shortly before her death. Since no sperm was found and penile penetration wasn’t confirmed, we cannot determine the age or even the gender of the attacker. However, obviously, it had to be someone with access to JonBenet. And I think Burke fits this profile not just because he was a member of that household, but also because he and JonBenet were known to often sleep in one room. From Bonita papers: “[After bedwetting,] JonBenet would usually get up and change her own clothes. Sometimes she would go into her brother’s bedroom and crawl into the extra bed to avoid going back to her own cold, wet one.” From Burke’s interview: BR: “I would sometimes sleep on - I forget which bed. But I would sometimes sleep in there ‘cause mine got cold. DS: “Cause your room got cold. So whose bed was this?” BR: “Um, JonBenet.” Furthermore, while we have no way of confirming it, there was an account that likely came from the housekeeper about Burke and JonBenet playing “doctor” together. Here’s a detailed one: “I walked in on them two or three times when they were clearly playing some game like doctor. They were in Burke’s bedroom and had made a “fort” of the sheets from his bed. They were under the sheets and Burke was really embarrassed when I asked what was going on. He was red in the face and yelled at me to get out. It happened about three times in the months leading up to the Christmas when JonBenet died.” Coincidentally, this was around the time when her bedwetting issues reemerged. Also, take a look at Specifics of assault thread, it has more playing doctor accounts. Also, from Bonita papers: “Dr. Bernhard felt there needed to be more follow-up with Burke in the discussion of sexual contact. The only show of emotion by Burke, other than the irritation with the questions about the actual crime, was when Dr. Bernhard began to ask about uncomfortable touching. Burke picked up a board game and put it on his head an action indicating anxiety or discomfort with these types of questions and that there was more that he was not telling her.” Here are some statistics on sexual abuse among children from Kolar's book: "The statistics for forcible rape were even more discouraging. Sixty-one (61) boys under the age of ten had been arrested for this offense in 1996. An additional three-hundred and thirty-five (335) boys had been arrested who were aged 10 to 12 years." Sibling molestation is more common than molestation by an adult family member and it's the most underreported type of sexual abuse. Data from a recent US Department of Health and Human Services Child Maltreatment Report (2014) states that at least 2.3% of children were sexually victimized by a sibling. By comparison, during this same period 0.12% were sexually abused by an adult family member. [Sibling sexual abuse] may also be the longest-lasting type of intrafamilial sexual abuse and the type of abuse most likely to remain undisclosed in families and unreported to authorities." Link to research where this is mentioned. More: "As many as 40% of children who are sexually abused are abused by older, or more powerful children. The younger the child victim, the more likely it is that the perpetrator is a juvenile. Juveniles are the offenders in 43% of assaults on children under age six. Of these offenders, 14% are under age 12." Link. Note: this report includes studying sexual abuse committed by other children, adult family members, strangers, and people who the family trusts. Of them, 40% of cases are done by kids. From older and more specific sources: "In-depth research indicates that brother-sister incest occurs most often, as much as five times as often as father-daughter incest (Nakashima and Zakus, 1977). c) Location JonBenet was found in the basement. The basement, with its Train Room, was viewed as Burke’s domain. He played there a lot, alone and with his friends. d) Scatolia Many people heard about Burke’s smearing his feces on JonBenet’s things, but there are a lot of misconceptions here. This is what actually took place: The Ramseys’ previous housekeeper, Geraldine Vodicka, reported that Burke smeared feces on a bathroom wall. We don’t know which bathroom it was; it happened 3 years before the murder. LHP reported finding grapefruit-sized fecal matter in JonBenet’s bed. Kolar about the crime scene: "CSIs had written about finding a pair of pajama bottoms in JonBenet’s bedroom that contained fecal material. They were too big for her and were thought to belong to Burke. Additionally, a box of candy located in her bedroom had also been observed to be smeared with feces." We don’t know who actually did this. However, personally, I find it hard to believe that JonBenet would reach out for her candy box with her fingers stained in feces. Burke did have one reported incident of smearing, so it’s logical to assume that he indeed was the one to smear JonBenet’s candy box. He could use pajama bottoms to do that. This would speak of his negative feelings to her on that specific night. 2) The crime Whenever I consider what happened to JonBenet, I see an illogical, chaotic crime that no sane adult would commit. Let’s review it in the chronological order. I’ll cite Spitz, the forensic pathologist involved in this case: This first injury sustained by JonBenét was believed to have been the constriction marks on the sides and front of her throat. … [H]er assailant had grabbed her shirt from the front and twisted the collar in their fist. The cloth from the edge of the collar had created the discolored, striated bruising and abrasions on the sides of her neck, and the knuckles of the perpetrator had caused the triangular shaped bruise located on the front side of her throat. (You can see an experiment with the size of this abrasion here. Imo, it supports the idea of BDI.) Then: JonBenét reached up to her neck with her hands to attempt to pull away the collar causing some nail gouges / abrasions with her fingernails on the side of her throat. Released from the grasp of the perpetrator, JonBenét turned and was struck in the upper right side of her head with a blunt object … The blow would have rendered JonBenét unconscious and accounted for the absence of any additional defensive wounds on her body. Inflicted perimortem with her death, was the insertion of the paintbrush handle into JonBenét’s vaginal orifice. The last injury sustained was the tightening of the garrote around JonBenét’s throat that resulted in her death by strangulation /asphyxiation. It is believed that 45-120 minutes passed between the blow and the strangulation. So, we have someone strike JonBenet in the head with a heavy object and then go quiet. Some time passes. As she’s unconscious, several abrasions appear on her body. People tried to match these marks to stun guns, but nothing fit. Kolar, in turn, compared the marks to the train tracks lying in the Train Room and found a perfect match. Kolar: “The pins on the outside rails of that piece of “O” type train track matched up exactly to the twin abrasions on the back of JonBenét. This was a toy readily accessible in the home and located only feet from where her body had been found. Crime scene photos / video had captured images of loose train track on the floor of Burke’s bedroom as well.” u/AdequateSizeAttache performed her own experiment. You can read about the results here. Personally, after seeing all this, I’m certain that JonBenet was poked with train tracks. This is very childlike behavior, not to mention that train tracks belong to Burke in particular. It looks like he tried to wake her up and gauge whether she shows any signs of life. Assault with a paintbrush is once again pretty juvenile in nature. The injury was acute but the harm was pretty limited for someone who’d do it for sexual gratification. The paintbrush was jammed inside once and that’s it. Then JonBenet was strangled. Again, why would an adult spend time constructing a crude device that looks like a boy scout toggle rope or a tightening stick? It’d be easy to strangle her with a belt, some rope, manually, or even smother her. Spending time to make this device is a strange decision. However, it’s not so strange if we consider that it was done by a boy with an engineering mindset who enjoyed building things — and Burke did enjoy it, it was his hobby. There are misconceptions about the ‘garrote’ or the knots being intricate — in reality, they were not. The ‘garrote’ was a nylon cord with a knot tied to a paintbrush. As for the knots: Kolar: "Investigators would also enlist the aid of a knot expert, John Van Tassel of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He would eventually determine that the slip knots used in the wrist and neck ligatures were of standard fare. The end of the cord wrapped around the remains of the paintbrush were observed to be concentric loops and ended in a simple hitch that secured the knot in place. Again, there was nothing particularly fancy about the knots suggesting that a skilled perpetrator had been responsible for tying them." Michael Kane, the prosecutor: "I don’t know where this came from that these were sophisticated knots. I don’t know that anybody had the opportunity to untie those knots who was an expert in knots, but the police department had somebody who fit that category and that was not the opinion of that person. These were very simple knots." In my opinion, out of Burke, Patsy, and John, Burke is the likeliest candidate to kill JonBenet in this strange manner. There are other reasons that make me this so: if interested, check Specifics of strangulation thread. Also, JonBenet’s body was found with her feet pointing toward the door and her arms being raised. It’s not a proven fact, but it looks like someone dragged her by her arms at some point. Adults could just pick her up, a child couldn't. There is another BDI theory that Burke simply hit JonBenet in the head and the parents staged the rest. I don’t believe this to be true for several reasons. First, I’m certain that John and Patsy would call the ambulance. JonBenet’s head wound didn’t even bleed. She was still alive. Patsy never shied away from calling the doctor, so it’s difficult for me to imagine that she would suddenly change her patterns and choose to do terrible things to her daughter’s body. In addition, I don’t think they’d go to such lengths to hide this kind of attack. Kids fight. One kid hitting another in rage is common. On the other hand, if they found JonBenet strangled and assaulted with a paintbrush… this could push them into covering the crime up because they’d never be able to explain it away. Another reason why I think the attacker inflicted all major injuries is the paintbrush assault. Why stage sexual attack, then hide the evidence and try to deny it happened? It doesn’t make sense. If they wanted to make it look like JonBenet was raped, it’s one thing, but the Ramseys were never willing to discuss it. Also, the bindings on her wrists were very loose and didn’t even leave marks — they were believed to be staged by most investigators. This is a stark difference from the strangulation. The person who tied her wrists coudn't bear harming her more than she already was. If we imagine that one parent strangled her as staging and another one tied her wrists, then still, I’m sure that the strangler would correct the sloppy work after taking a look. So, I have no doubts that the same person hit, assaulted, and strangled JonBenet; the duct tape and the wrist bindings were staging. 3) Behavioral evidence and speculations a) 911 call Patsy’s 911 call was officially enhanced because there were voices heard after the conversation ended. Everyone interested in the phone call can try this recording. The enhanced conversation starts with 1:45. It is an official part of investigation. You can find information about who worked on it in this post. The phone call is described by Thomas, Kolar, Schiller, Miller, etc. in their books. It was deemed credible enough to be used during Grand Jury hearing, and Burke admitted it sounded like his voice on it. You can see some quotes from it in these screens from a documentary. This is what has been officially reported (taken from Kolar's book:) Male (angry): “We’re not speaking to you!” Female: “Help me Jesus. Help me Jesus.” Young male: “What *did* you find?” Years later, experts from CBS documentary who tried enhancing it with newer technology deciphered Patsy's words as "What did you do? Help me, Jesus." This bit is not the official version, but it is exactly what I personally always heard. Some sources (including Schiller) report additional bits that came earlier. In them, Burke asks, "Please, what do I do?” This explains why John tells him "We are not speaking to you." Both reactions from John and Patsy are telling to me. If John or Patsy murdered JonBenet, I don't think John would snap at Burke like this. If Patsy killed her, he would feel extra protective. If he killed her, Patsy would be protective, and I think she would snap at him for daring to snap at Burke after what he did. "What did you do?" definitely sounds like a follow-up from John's words, and I believe both are applied to Burke. And of course, there is the fact that both parents deny Burke was ever there in the kitchen with them, but I’ll cover it later. b) Psychological profiles Many experts believe that the attack on JonBenet started as a rage attack. And that’s where the psychological profiles of John, Patsy, and Burke come into play. John was described as calm, cold, and collected even in very stressful situations. Some gave him a name “Ice Man”. He never shouted, he never showed physical aggression. I struggle to think what his 6 yo daughter could do to make him not just lash out at her, but to grab an object and hit her in the head. If we imagine that he was the one to sexually abuse her and she screamed, then I think his first instinct would be to cover her mouth with his hand. It’s very easy to subdue a small child, you really don’t need to grab something heavy to do it. I don’t believe he was sexually abusing JonBenet, too. His other children not just love him, they adore him. They are his fiercest defenders. Melinda lets him near her own children. When he lost Beth, his first daughter, due to a car accident, he was a wreck. According to what others said, he was wailing in pain in the attic every night; he named his plane after his daughter; he started reading about afterlife daily. In terms of JonBenet’s pageants, he visited talent parts in particular, not the whole thing. Pretty strange for someone who’s sexually interested in his daughter — you would think he’d take a chance to stare at her in alluring outfits. Patsy was also not known to be strict or aggressive, although some people commented on her possible mood swings. There are no accounts of her punishing her children physically and Burke confirmed in the interview that when he and JonBenet did something bad, they were just talked to. Patsy lived through cancer and was known as a very passionate mother. For her to grab something and bludgeon her daughter in the head with it? I find it more believable than with John, but not nearly as believable as Burke doing it. Burke is the only person the family who is known for having hit JonBenet in the head before. It happened several days before JonBenet’s birthday in 1994. Burke hit her in the face with a golf club, got her in eye, and Patsy had to take her to emergency room. Later, Patsy claimed it was an accident. However, we also have an account from Judith Phillips, the photographer of the family, voiced in the CBS documentary: “I think Burke had a bad temper. It’s like he had a chip on his shoulder. He had hit JonBenét. Before the murder, I would have to say, it was probably a year and a half. They were playing in the yard and apparently he hit her with the golf club, right here(points to area under eye). She (Patsy)says the kids were playing, Burke lost his temper and hit her with a golf club.” Kolar muses about the dates (the blow to the face shortly before birthday + the blow to the head on Christmas): “One can only wonder whether sibling jealousy or envy may have played any part in that instance, and whether these feelings spilled over into the events of the Christmas holidays in 1996.” An interesting account from Thomas: “In 1995 [JonBenet] tripped in a grocery store, landed on her nose, and the doctor treated her with ice and Popsicles. Six months later she fell again, bonking herself over the left eye. In the twenty-four months before her death, she visited the doctor eighteen times.” Was JonBenet really that clumsy? Or maybe Burke did hit/push her and Patsy came up with excuses? But please note that only some of these visits were due to physical injuries. JonBenet had other issues, too. c) Reactions to murder John and Patsy were described as devastated by JonBenet’s murder by multiple people. Several examples. Thomas: "[Patsy] looked vacant and dazed, repeatedly asking in a soft, empty voice, “Why didn’t I hear my baby?” Schiller: “While Patsy slept, Pam found John in the living room holding Burke. To Pam, Ramsey seemed to be in a trance. His face was blank. His eyes were red. “I don’t get it,” he said over and over. Then he got up, walked outside, shook his head, and asked aloud, “Why?” Thomas: “Patsy was in a stupor on the living room floor after taking a Valium issued by Dr. Francesco Beuf, her children’s pediatrician and a family friend. John Ramsey also took a couple of Valium and walked through the house drinking scotch, occasionally stumbling. Once, a police officer overheard him cry softly, “I’m sorry … I’m so very sorry.” John Fernie and Dr. Beuf took him for a short walk outside." Shapiro's account: “The next Sunday I attended church, and as I sat down, to my left, in the row right in front of me, were Patsy and John. Burke was sitting with the Stines, near me. I had to look away fast, not wanting to draw attention to myself. Patsy looked like she was in tears and scared. John was just calm. Burke was happy as a clam, hopping around with a friend.” Kolar sums it up further: “Trujillo … informed me that he had taken the photographs on the afternoon of Saturday, December 28, 1996, when he was collecting non-testimonial evidence from members of the family. I took a few moments to silently study each of the photographs. John Ramsey looked tired, haggard, and despondent. Patsy Ramsey was hard to recognize. Her hair was pulled back tightly against her head; she was pale and without makeup and looked as though she had aged a hundred years. The beautiful woman I had seen in many other photographs was barely recognizable, and there was no doubt in my mind that she was consumed by anguish. Like his parents, Burke was seated in a chair and he leaned back slightly, with his right arm slung casually over a nearby table. Burke looked directly into the lens and smiled for the camera.” Now on to Burke in particular. Out of all members of his family, Burke was the only one consistently described as having flat affect. Pam Archuleta about memorial service for JonBenet: “During the service, Burke was playing with a model airplane and not paying attention to what was going on around him. His parents were grieving as were every adult in the room, but Burke was ignoring everything and just flying his plane lost within his own thoughts. I wondered what he was thinking and feeling.” Thomas’ description of Burke’s interview with a child psychologist Suzanne Bernhard: “The boy remembered his sister as being “nice” but added, “Sometimes she bugged me.” JonBenet would tickle him and rummage through his desk to find candy and baseball cards. Bernhard asked how he was dealing with his sister’s death, and Burke replied, “I kind of forget about it. I just kind of go …” and he lapsed into sounds similar to Nintendo beeps. His descriptions were flat and indifferent. Bernhard detected no fear that the killer might come back for him or that Burke thought the family was in danger. The psychologist said it was very unusual for a child to feel safe when a sibling had been violently killed.” Bonita papers: “Burke displayed an enormous amount of lack of emotion, almost to the point of indifference, which Dr. Bernard explained may be attributed to shock, but could also have been a lack of attachment to his family … Even in response to questions which should have elicited strong emotions, he remained non-expressive. When asked “How have things been since your only sister died?”, Burke responded, “It’s been okay.” When asked to draw a picture of his family ... JonBenet was not in the picture at all. Dr. Bernhard thought it extremely abnormal that JonBenet was not in the family picture at all, since her heath had occurred only 13 days prior. Most children continue to include deceased siblings in family drawings years after the death because it is too devastating for them to think about the loss. Burke also told Dr. Bernhard that he was “getting on with his life”, another very abnormal reaction for a child who had so recently lost his sibling.” Kolar: “Anthony [Burke’s friend] told investigators that he never saw Burke cry during their stay in Atlanta. Kaempfer advised that the only time she had seen him display some emotion and sadness was at the cemetery after the graveside services. He had left a group of people and went to the side of JonBenet’s casket, patting it gently. After that brief display of caring, Burke and Anthony went exploring, skipping through the headstones in the cemetery.” Kolar: “Stine appeared to Kaempfer to have been disturbed by the conversation and had listened to Burke and Doug talk about how JonBenet had been strangled. Based upon Kaempfer’s statement, it appeared that Stine had over overheard the boys discussing whether or not manual strangulation had been involved in JonBenet’s death. Stine described the conversation as being “very impersonal,” and it struck her that the discussion about the details of JonBenét’s death was like the boys were “talking about a TV show.” This discourse between Burke and Doug had taken place no more than two days following JonBenét’s murder and apparently had such an impact upon Stine that she brought it up in conversation with Mary Kaempfer at the first opportunity.” Schiller: “On the third day [of interview about JonBenet’s death], Schuler asked Burke if he had any questions, anything he wanted to know. By the way, that Rolex watch you have on, Burke asked, how much did it cost?” So, what does it mean? Burke showing little emotion for JonBenet doesn’t make him a killer. Maybe he didn’t love her; maybe he is just emotionally superficial. On the other hand, I would argue that this is exactly what makes it likelier for him to kill JonBenet like she was killed rather than for his parents, who were described as loving and doting by practically everyone. d) According to Kolar, “I had also found it interesting that the Paughs had reportedly purchased several books on childhood behavior for the Ramsey family. The titles of the books were intriguing: The Hurried Child – Growing Up Too Fast, by David Elkind; Children at Risk, Dobson / Bruer; Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right From Wrong, Kilpatrick.” Note that these books aren’t focused on problematic children in particular. They are pretty general in nature. However, they are all behavior books, and all three address the issue of early development of sexuality and crossing boundaries that children often don't recognize as wrong (among other things). The fact that Nedra chose to gift books about parenting to the Ramseys can imply that she either heard about some problem or observed it herself during her stay at the house. It does look like a strange gift for someone who's had kids for a while — and three books at that from one person! — unless there were some issues. e) People around the Ramseys provided interesting observations about their behavior Schiller: “Howard, who had known [John] for years, felt he knew something about JonBenet’s death but couldn’t talk about it. She thought it was something he didn’t have anything to do with, but she also saw a man who didn’t know how to help his wife deal with their daughter’s death.” Schiller: “On 12-27-1996 at Fernie house, Patsy said, "they've killed my baby" to Pam Griffin and then asked, "Couldn't you fix this for me?" and then "We didn't mean for that to happen." Pam couldn't say why, but she remembered feeling as if Patsy knew who killed JonBenet but was afraid to say.” Kolar: "While attending the memorial services in Boulder, and while playing with Anthony in Atlanta, Burke was described by Anthony as acting like “he kind of knew what happened and trusted that people would find out.” Anthony indicated that Burke may have appeared “confused” at times, but was not acting upset and indicated that he was not scared. When asked how he was doing, Burke said he was “fine.” From these reactions, people felt like John and Patsy didn’t kill JonBenet but knew what happened; Burke’s friend commented that he felt like Burke believed people would find out the truth and appeared confused but not scared. My interpretation: Burke wasn’t scared that his parents would be arrested and he likely knew he himself wouldn’t be arrested due to his age. He was confused by the amount of efforts his parents invested to create panic and mislead everyone, and he believed it might not last long. 4) Protecting Burke While this is largely a behavioral analysis part, it’s so significant that I feel like it should be placed in a separate section. I’ll start with a quote that I feel describes the situation well. Account of Brian Cabell: "Distraught, seeming uncomfortable and a little frightened, the Ramseys nonetheless seemed ready. They sat there not as two individuals but as a couple." John and Patsy not simply covered up this crime — they engaged into an actual war to keep the truth hidden. They worked as a team and they both lied, accused, and obfuscated. The preface to their book Death of Innocence states: "Wherever we go... whatever we do..." The meaning of these words is disclosed in chapter 6. It's a song from Gypsy that JonBenet apparently loved. The complete line is "Wherever we go, whatever we do, we're gonna go through it together." My subjective interpretation is, these words outline their actions well — whatever they have to do, even if it’s ugly, they are in this together. Patsy when asked if John did it: “If John Ramsey were involved, honey, we wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d have knocked his block off. Read my lips! This was not done by a family member. Didn’t happen. Period. End of statement.” John when asked if Patsy did it: “"If that was what happened, I would not protect her from or protect that fact ... Absolutely not.” Yes, sure, both are liars. But I do believe they wouldn’t cover for each other. Patsy would have benefited from giving John up in numerous ways. She'd be a heroic woman who suffered at the hands of a monster and fought for justice — she had cancer before that and was fighting for her life, so I'd say people who like to blame the victims for "not seeing anything" would be few in number. She'd get endless attention and sympathy, she'd still have a lot of money even after the divorce since at least a part of everything belonged to her, too, and she could sue John for the rest (plus the money from the interviews); she's do right by JonBenet, protect her son from a monster, and stay true to her religious convictions. Kolar: “Patsy stated that she would have nothing left to live for if she lost Burke.” Patsy in DOI: “The thought that the Department of Social Sservices might have considered removing Burke from our custody still horrifies me … Maybe Burke has been in an accident, and if we lost him, too, I couldn't live." John's career is trickier, but it could have taken off, too, if he span the tale right. He’d also do right by JonBenet and protect Burke. He’d get a chance to find a new lovely partner and cultivate the image of a brokenhearted father. I think he and Patsy were a strong couple, but I don’t believe they were so in love that they’d pick one another over their children. I do think they protected Burke. Here’s why - and here's more info on why they might have covered for Burke. a) Not letting Burke be questioned The Ramseys did everything to stop people from interacting with Burke. Burke is an early riser who didn't leave his room that morning even despite all the commotion; it was Fleet who finally asked about him, which forced John to go 'check' on him. When people tried to talk to Burke, John stopped it. He stopped the police from doing it, too. From Thomas' book: "So when Officer Rick French saw [Burke] being taken away, he went over to talk to the boy. But John Ramsey intervened. The father told the policeman that Burke didn’t know anything and had slept through it all, and he hustled the boy to a waiting vehicle." They resisted the questioning. Shortly after the body was found, when Dr. Beuf determined that Patsy couldn’t be interviewed because she felt too badly, he also “determined that Burke Ramsey could not be interviewed by police” (Thomas). Now this is very strange, considering that we know that Burke’s emotional state fully allowed him to be interviewed. In fact, without the knowledge of his parents, he spoke to detective in the afternoon of 26th, although the questions centered on JonBenet’s disappearance only, not murder. I’ll address this interview later. Later, when the officers were doing routine stuff like taking the fingertips, "[John] was shepherding Burke, a month shy of turning ten years old and apparently oblivious to the gravity of the situation. Gosage and I went gently about our business while Ramsey held and hugged the boy, almost smothering him and speaking quietly in his ear." Later: "We got very little from an interview with nine-year-old Burke Ramsey, for whom Team Ramsey had dictated stringent terms to an agreeable district attorney’s office: No police could be in the room, the questioning would be by child psychologist Suzanne Bernhard, and the session would not be held in a police building. Any possible police leverage was bargained away before the session began … Detectives Jane Harmer and Ron Gosage, a group of social workers, and Burke’s lawyer, Patrick Burke, watched from behind a two-way mirror. The detectives were able to make suggestions to Bernhard, but the psychologist asked shrink questions, and the interview became an entirely different sort than one to solicit evidentiary information … More than a year and a half would pass before Burke was allowed to be interviewed again." Thomas about the second interview: “Now eleven years old, Burke would be interviewed alone by Schuller while Hofstrom and Ramsey lawyer Jim Jenkins watched from another room. The arrangement seemed designed more to make the boy comfortable than to elicit information.” In 2010, Boulder Police tried to speak with Burke at his home, but he declined. His attorney Wood called BPD later with an objection. He informed that Burke has no interest in answering questions. Beckner confirmed it in his AMA: “Yes, we had two detectives fly out to meet with him at his residence to see if he would sit down and talk to us. He refused and later his lawyer told us not to contact him again.” b) Sealing Burke’s medical/psychiatric records This was something the investigators couldn’t access because Ramseys’ attorneys fought against it with particular vehemence. Apparently, the family was entitled to an “island of privacy” after their ordeal. Beckner confirms this in his AMA: to the question of whether BPD ever successfully obtained the medical records for Burke, he says “No.” c) Infantilizing and distancing Burke from the crime There are numerous accounts of the Ramseys lying to distance Burke from the crime, from major to minor ones. 1) 911 call. The Ramseys are adamant that Burke slept through the night and heard nothing. Even when the information about the enhanced call became public, they still insisted that Burke wasn’t there. According to them, Burke slept through the shouting and running up and down the stairs, through John/Patsy entering his room, through the policeman entering with a flashlight, through all the visitors arriving, etc. They were forced to alter their testimony later when Burke admitted he wasn’t asleep, but they still never admitted he was with them in the kitchen and just pretending to sleep upon the arrival of the first officer. 2) The gifts. Kolar: “There had been another discrepancy in one of Patsy Ramsey’s law enforcement interviews that caught my attention. Investigators had noted that the wrapping paper on a pair of Christmas presents observed in the Wine Cellar at the time of the discovery of JonBenet’s body had been torn. She told the detectives that she couldn’t remember what was contained in the presents, and hence the need to tear back part of the paper. I learned, over the course of my inquiry, that it was Burke who had actually been responsible for tearing back the paper of the presents while playing in the basement on Christmas Day, and I wondered why Patsy would claim responsibility for doing this.” Indeed, why would Patsy lie that she did this when it was Burke who did this? And when did he do this, exactly? It’s possible that he and JonBenet sneaked downstairs together to take a look at whatever gifts were still left (LEGOS parking garage for Burke stands out in particular), and something about it led to their conflict. 3) Burke’s age when he hit JonBenet. During the incident where Burke hit JonBenet with a golf club, he was 7 year old. It happened in 1994. Patsy claims it happened in 1993 and then tries to make Burke even younger in a ridiculous way. Patsy: “He was taking a practice swing, he was just a little guy, he was two or three, or two and a half, and he was -- it was our first summer there, how young they were there.” Obviously, JonBenet wouldn’t even be born if Burke was 2.5. Continued in Part 2 submitted by /u/K_S_Morgan to r/JonBenetRamsey [link] [comments]

While many people are probably surprised over the fame and subsequent fall of semi attractive skinny white boys on TikTok this past summer, I unfortunately was not. In fact, I had just spent the first few months of a global pandemic watching a normally peaceful fanbase for a reality tv show become divided over one. This is the story of how a young upstart drag queen named GiGi Goode nearly turned a fan community upside down, and basically caused it to split amongst 2 apps. Since season 13 is on its way, and GiGi’s drag sister/Haus mate Symone is a contestant, I thought y’all would enjoy the sordid tale of miss Goode. It was hard to find direct sources, as a lot of Reddit threads on the drama sub were locked, and I couldn’t link to them, but I did the best I could. Setting the Scene In January 2020, RuPaul’s Drag Race announced its 12th season would be premiering February 28th, 2020. This season promised 13 new drag queens, who would compete in sewing, acting, overall performance, and a very infamous celebrity impersonation version of Match Game called Snatch Game. For this story, we need to focus on 3 queens up and coming to the race. First, there was plus sized queen Sherry Pie who many considered to be a wholesome theater kid, as well as super annoying. Second, there was the essence of beauty, Jaida Essence Hall. At the time, she seemed to the fans to be just another pageant queen, nothing spectacular. Finally, there was the reason this post is being written up on Hobbydrama, the beautiful miss GiGi Goode . She was 21, the minimum age to compete, but certainly seemed to be powerful and beautiful. Young queens don’t, on average, have a harder time winning, as someone unacquainted with the franchise might suspect. No one could’ve suspected she’d garner the cult following she did, or that they’d be so... young . Burnt Pie, And The Fastest Rise To Reddit’s Fan Favorite The series took the split premiere route, half of the queens being introduved on the premiere, and the other half being introduced a week later. Of the 3 queens worth mentioning, GiGi Goode competed in the first half, and Sherry Pie and Jaida were introduced in the second. In the first premiere, fellow fashion queen, the French Nicky Doll overshadowed GiGi. GiGi’s only real star moment in the spotlight came during the challenge, a rap battle, in which she proclaimed that she was “Ggggggggggggigi goode”. Meanwhile, in between the promos, shocking allegations came to light about Sherry Pie, which have already been discussed on this subreddit. In summary, Multiple, and I mean MULTIPLE men began reporting that Sherry had hooked them with a casting director named “Alison Mossey” who worked for HBO/Broadway, and was casting a project called Bulk. The men would be asked to read weird monologues for the camera, and one man was even asked to start taking steroids! Eventually, they had all learned that Alison Mossey didn’t exist, and that when they brought that up to Sherry, she ghosted them. The fandom was outraged. In 12 years, this was the WORST thing a contestant had ever done before/during their season airing. Buzzfeed even picked up the story, practically calling for the season to be cancelled. Production acted quickly, deciding to disqualify Sherry, and to edit her out of all future episodes. Unfortunately for them, it was too late to edit her out of that night’s episode, and it was clear she was supposed to be a well liked queen. The spoiler sub even revealed that she would’ve been a finalist, and potentially even had a rivalry story arc with GiGi Goode! But fortunately for Jaida Essence Hall, in the dual premieres’ special version of the traditional lip sync battle elimination method where the top two queens instead performed for the win that night, she and Sherry Pie were set to face off. The Reddit live postings nervously held their breathes. Would Scammy Pie, as she was newly crowned, win the faceoff, or would it go to Jaida, who was automatically being adored just for opposing her. Jaida beat her, and the fans rejoiced. They gave her nicknames such as Jaida Essence Christ, Savior of Season 12. She seemed to be unanimously loved... And Then The Plague Hit When Coronavirus quarantine hit, fans were uniquely devastated. These new girls wouldn’t get to take advantage of the slew of gigs usually provided to new Ru girls! But one queen certainly did. And perhaps the pandemic emphasized what would’ve happened anyways, or perhaps it just created the perfect storm after Sherry’s disqualification. See, if the Spoiler Subreddit’s rumors are to be believed, GiGi Goode and Sherry Pie were to be rivals originally, before the disqualification and re editing, and their feud was supposed to play a major part in the season. For those who don’t watch the show, Rivalries can be VERY beneficial for those involved in them, practically guaranteeing you the crown, especially if the fandom despises your rival. Season 4 winner Sharon Needles was infamously quarreling with fellow finalist Phi Phi O’Hara. Season 5 winner Jinkx dealt with a whole triad of mean girls who ended up in the top 4 with her, and their competition allegedly helped her take the last spot in the finale from one of the trio, Detox. Many fans speculated after season 11 that part of why its winner, Yvie Oddly, got so much more screen time in later episodes and later won the show despite having an ok run stats wise (I believe she has the worst track record of any winner, ever, despite the fact that she’s a gifted artist) was because fans loved her more than her frenemy, Silky. And the fans clearly adored Jaida after she beat Sherry, even if the pair weren’t proper rivals. But with Sherry Pie needing to be edited out, the editors had to do something. And if the rumors are true, that would explain why they instead focused SO MUCH, and I mean, SO MUCH AIR TIMEon her alleged rival, GiGi Goode. The Perfect Storm Before we continue, I need to say that GiGi Goode is a fabulous drag queen. She may be lacking in an interesting personality, but she can dance, sew, and capitalize on her lack of personality by impersonating a robot, as she did in Snatch Game to mercifully take the win from Sherry Pie’s offensive imitation of Katherine Hepburn’s Parkinson’s. She deserved almost all of her 4 wins (the Madonna Rusical win is unanimously believed to have belonged to fellow competitor Jan Sport), and I hold no animosity to her any longer, nor does most of the fan community. I also do not think her fans deserve to be bullied, considering most of them are literal middle schoolers who just don’t understand that reality tv shows are edited or that you can’t say dumb shit on the internet while you’re on a tv show without consequences. Of course, she seemed like the front runner. But that wasn’t what really made her popular amongst the fandom’s younger members, who might not have been able to grasp how edited reality tv shows are. At this point, you’re probably wondering why I used the word boy in the title, since with drag queens, it’s polite to use she/her and girl or woman when referring to them in drag. But there’s a great reason for that. See, with everyone on lockdown due to COVID, many young girls and gays, but especially middle school aged girls, were boy crazy. And it didn’t take long for the young teens of the fandom to realize that out of drag, GiGi was hot as hell . That, combined with her success in the competition, particularly during the middle of the season, which would’ve aired in April, when stay at home orders were strictest, seemingly made newer younger fans go crazy, especially on IG. For many who were newer fans of the show, either starting with this season or the disaster that was season 11, GiGi had attained godlike status. Her young age also helped. She was 21, the youngest competitor on her season. She made funny faces in interviews, and referenced material popular with teenagers, such as her runway referencing the musical Heathers . She even “dated” costar Crystal Methyd, forming Crygi , a relationship that is still debated today as to whether it ever was real, is still real, or was made up for fun and extra attention by two best friends who’s big break was ruined by unforeseen circumstances. Meanwhile, older fans, particularly here on Reddit, especially in the satellite subs, kept chugging along and rooting for Jaida. After all, Jaida was a bad ass, as fans quickly learned. She was sharp, and possessed a wittiness not seen in the stereotypical pageant girl. Unlike GiGi, behind her pretty face was personality and sass. She even won the makeover challenge despite being paired with someone of another race, which can normally lead to disaster. But while Jaida was perfect and sweet, not causing drama with anyone, her fans were not often the same. In fact, they had an unusual disdain for GiGi. Was it because she had attracted younger, annoying fans to the fanbase? Was it because GiGi’s mom is supportive, and GiGi was very proud of that, leading to fans in the cringe sub snickering and calling her “mama’s boy”. Obviously, looking back on it, those are silly reasons to not like someone, but once again, it was quarantine. People needed somewhere for their emotions to go. As the season continued, it became obvious the crown was really between Jaida and GiGi. Inevitably, this led to fan base tension. GiGi fans, regardless of age, were called immature, and chased off of the Drag Race satellite subreddits, preventing newer fans from joining the wider community. The main Reddit tried to stay neutral, but 85% of anything posted by a GiGi fan on any platform would end up on the cringe subreddit. The Drama subreddit would chronicle every time GiGi even breathed wrong, looking for more excuses to villanize her than they’d ever done with a queen before. What makes this MORE infuriating looking back on it was that queens were getting death threats and being called racist slurs, badly this season. Brita had to leave social media, and widow nearly quit drag, but instead of calling out racist and rude fans, the critical Drag Race fans elected to pick on GiGi’s child fandom. Meanwhile, Drag Race fan pages on Instagram, where fans tend to be on the younger side, had already practically declared GiGi the winner themselves, and had no patience for those who reminded them Jaida was just as talented, although they were by far not as vicious to Jaida fans as Reddit fans were to them. The community had gone from being unified in opinion on all platforms to essentially breaking up, with Jaida fans ruling Reddit and GiGi fans ruling Instagram. As the finale approached, fans were split. Who deserved the crown more, Jaida, who had done the drag race equivalent of Beowulf slaying Grendel in her first episode, or GiGi, with her 4 wins, beauty in and out of drag, and iconic looks? Not So Goode After All The first signs that GiGi would be sort of problematic arose when she proclaimed on an Instagram story in late April or early May that “being queer is a privilege”. While her young, mainly straight or bisexual and female devotees saw it as inspirational, older fans found it offensive and mocked her for it, sharing their own experiences with homophobia and pointing out that no, being queer is not a privilege. The fact that she had, from day one, practically bragged about her amazing relationship with her mother, who makes many of her outfits and does a fantastic job, had already made fans with rougher coming out experiences see her as privileged and clueless about the real world. Her tone deaf remark sealed any doubts in her dissenters minds that she was more than a spoiled brat. GiGi quickly apologized for her remark, claiming it was “Just a saying we say in my drag Haus, you guys”. She also caught flack for saying while prepping for a political debate challenge that she “didn’t read the news and wasn’t interested in politics”. Her young fans defended her as “having anxiety”, but older fans already pissed at her pointed out that the winners of the show are often considered by mainstream media to be sort of “ambassadors” for the drag community, and that their behavior (or lack thereof) could make drag performers look bad, or add to a trend of turning a blind eye to political issues within drag fans and performers. Some even went as far as to say that she definitely didn’t deserve the crown after her remarks. Going into the finale, it really looked like she would win. She was even able to land a collab with popular but controversial YouTuber, Jeffree Star, to go up the day after the finale aired, raising Redditors eyebrows that perhaps she really knew that she would win (often the winner just gets a feeling that it’ll be her, as do her competitors), and her and her Haus were able to talk their way into booking her a major collab for the very next day. It didn’t help that Jeffree is inherently a controversial figure, even when the pendulum of public opinion towards him is swinging in his favor, as it was at the time, or that she’d gotten to filming as soon as social distancing orders allowed it. Then, GiGi fucked up. ”I Can’t Breathe” See, the finale aired May 31st, 2020, right after George Floyd was murdered. GiGi Goode, apolitical queen, was beyond excited for her big week. It’s been lost to time what the original context was. Was it her upcoming collab with Jeffree, one of the biggest names in the makeup and YouTube industry? Was it the upcoming finale? Either way, GiGi decided the only way to express her excitement for the week were in 3 simple words, 3 simple words also trending on Twitter. “I can’t breathe.” Fans were HORRIFIED. Was GiGi Goode making a joke about George Floyd? Many of her older fans quietly changed their Reddit flairs to one of the two other finalists. Some fans pointed out that I can’t breathe was a trending hashtag on Twitter when she tweeted, and, given her previous track record of cluelessness, she had likely just used the phrase in hopes of getting more engagement on her post. 6 months later and of living with the insanity that is GiGi Goode and her young teenaged fans, I can totally see that the latter is probably true. GiGi is an airhead who can barely answer questions when asked on Twitch livestreams. She was busy that week, obviously, and might not have been on social media enough to have heard about what happened yet. She likely assumed the phrase was a new meme or something, and used it without looking into it. What she did was wrong, but it wasn’t the worst thing a queen has ever done or said on Twitter, or even the most racially insensitive (the natural born red head erasure meltdown of summer 2019 takes the cake for that, but that’s another story). But at the time, with the tension between mainly newer fans who didn’t realize the show was editing GiGi positively and that she wasn’t actually the world’s most amazing drag queen as well as some older fans who just liked GiGi, and Jaida’s fierce supporters nearly reaching a boiling point, GiGi had made a critical error. One that would need a major apology. Quickly, GiGi put out a statement. In her statement she legit referenced the Wizard of Oz, which later turned out to be related to her finale lipsync look Fans were PISSED, and rightfully so. Another issue was quickly leaked. Due to it being early in the pandemic, before how to shoot a tv show safely by quarantining performers and minimizing those on set was widely known as an option, the finale was filmed remotely. The queens were ordered to film at home, to keep things fair. After all, while GiGi lived in LA, competitors Crystal and Jaida lived in middle of nowhere Missouri and Milwaukee, respectively. GiGi and even Jaida were clearly at an advantage. As usual, GiGi decided rules didn’t apply to her. The head of her drag Haus, Marko Monroe, has done work with Lizzo, and although no one knows if Lizzo’s the one who actually gave them the keys, his connections to the music industry meant she was able to get LA studio space. When production found out, they were understandably PISSED. Whether it was because they were truly concerned about fairness, or worried that GiGi’s decision would be seen as an unfair advantage by fans unhappy with her win, they made her reshoot at home. The fans were even more pissed that she had essentially tried to cheat, especially after her “I can’t breathe” incident earlier in the week. When the big night came, GiGi did... ok. She certainly wasn’t remarkable or groundbreaking, but she was decent. It was clear from IG she expected to win. Her Haus definitely violated California rules about gatherings, complete with a cake with GiGi’s face on it. She was ready for her big night. However, When it was time for the winner to be crowned, Jaida, who had filmed her lipsync in her living room with no backdrop whatsoever, took the crown. Fans rejoiced. Peace was restored to the world of the Drag Race fandom. GiGi Goode tucked her tail between her legs and barely even promoted her collab with Jeffree. Although we’ll never know for sure if GiGi’s faux pas cost her the crown, we do know that the fanbase holds some sway in who ultimately wins. After all, despite having only 1 win, the worst track record of a winner in Drag Race history, Yvie Oddly took the crown from competitor Brooke the year before, and while her epic finale reveal of a metallic version of her face on the back of her headpiece definitely was the primary reason, her popularity with fans while the season was airing, especially after fighting with Silky, certainly helped. We also know the winner isn’t decided at the finale taping, or whatever you could call this year’s finale, and all queens who make it to the final lipsync are filmed winning, even if there are rumors that production knows who they’ll have win by that point from people who’ve attended live (one rumor states that Yvie, for example, originally made a joke about eating babies when her crowning was filmed, but production allegedly on the spot made her refilm it, telling her to cut that out). So it is entirely possible that, had GiGi not fucked up on Twitter, she could’ve won. With the negative feelings towards her still fresh, instead of being known as a “robbed queen”, as many runner ups popular during their seasons are, GiGi became just another pretty faced fashion queen amongst the fan community. The hype around her had died. No one over the age of 14 was demanding she return for an All Stars, as they had with other finalists who had better track records than their season’s winner. In fact, the general consensus by both Reddit and Instagram fans became that she’d been pushed down their throats, and that Jaida had always been prettier/funnier/wearing better outfits anyways. The fandom returned to a harmonious place. Where Are They Now? With All Stars 5, the next season, mainly featuring queens from older seasons, and after the belittling and icing out for acting like, you know, CHILDREN, the younger fans who gave GiGi her cult following were not as interested in the show. They turned to worshipping her and her drag Haus, Avalon. The Haus of Avalon started throwing Zoom “Haus parties” for 5 bucks a ticket, mainly attended by teenagers, in which their members performed. GiGi has, at both parties, performed scantily clad numbers for her middle school adorers, including one number that was basically her stripping in a car. They also opened a Twitch channel and shoved GiGi in front of the camera, in or out of drag, as much as possible, allowing her teen fans to ask her exciting questions such as “Do you have Tiktok?” (No, she thinks she’s too good for it), and, “What’s your favorite American Horror Story season” (Coven or Asylum, depending on her mood that stream). However, it’s benefited all of GiGi’s friends, as her pal who actually has a personality that isn’t “smol awkward 2014 Tumblr bean” Symone already has a strong fanbase going into season 13 . GiGi Goode got to do a drive in tour with Voss, the premier drag race alum touring company, before they realized that teenagers so young they needed parents to drive them to the show mostly didn’t know how to behave at a drag show, much less one during a global pandemic. Needless to say, she was not invited on the Halloween tour, and the queens were no longer allowed to run around the VIP section for that tour. She’s doing quite well though, advertising for makeup brands and even walking in Rihanna’s SavagexFenty fashion show alongside All Stars 5 winner Shea Coulee. Arguably, she’s the most famous girl from her season outside of the drag community. Although All Stars 6 has already filmed and she’s definitely not on it, the fandom 6 months post her fiasco has stopped actively hating her, even the avid Jaida supporters, and seems to support the idea of her potentially being cast on All Stars someday, once she’s matured a bit more. Jaida Essence Hall became known as one of the most deserving winners amongst the fanbase, and, it seemed, the drag community as a whole. Unlike past winners, she had no minor “bratty” incidents during her first few months reigning (and not because no clubs were open, as the two most recent former winners had their incidents occur on social media). The drag world loved her, and she was booked for so many virtual shows. She also got to walk in Rihanna’s show, in her own section and not with the other two drag queens. She might not have become a minor Instagram celebrity with constant interviews the way GiGi had, but within the fandom, she was universally loved. And Sherry Pie has disappeared, as she should have. TL;DR After a queen was exposed as being a sexual predator, RuPaul’s Drag Race decided to quickly edit her out, focusing more on the queen who allegedly was supposed to be her rival, GiGi. Unfortunately, many fans had already gotten attached to another queen, Jaida, who beat the predator in a lipsync on the one episode show runners couldn’t edit in time. Mainly young fans who didn’t know the full extent of what happened or weren’t old enough to comprehend that reality tv is edited to tell a story and focus on certain people adored GiGi, especially because she’s young and handsome out of drag, and they were in quarantine at the time. GiGi’s dipshit remarks, apparent flaunting of her positive parental relationship, and seemingly being pushed by producers soured older fans to her, and they mocked the shit out of newer fans, MAINLY YOUNGER TEENAGERS, who adored her. Eventually, GiGi tweeted something insensitive and gave a bullshit apology, pissing everyone off, Jaida won the crown, and the fandom eventually calmed down and stopped actively bullying children who hadn’t even entered high school yet. EDIT: Wow, THANK YOU GUYS for 140 upvotes! I know this isn’t the juiciest drama, but surprisingly, my former Catholic school kid complex needed to just write this all out in a bubble bath one night to feel less guilty about being part of it, and to the people who encouraged me to publish this, thanks! Also, although the Drag Race fanbase has other, MUCH more serious problems, I also wanted to call us out preemptively before season 13 to make sure what happened during season 12 doesn’t happen again, because we are so much better than that. Especially to my fellow female fans: We are not the people who made fun of us back in middle school for being Tumblr kids or the adults who mocked us online, and we should not be becoming those people, in any internet space, not just the bowels of Drag Race Reddit. To the literal children I was a part of bullying: I’m sorry. We went way too far in bullying you all off Reddit just because y’all were middle schoolers with a celebrity crush and a poor understanding of how reality tv works. Especially because most of these kids were girls (strangely young gay male fans weren’t really on the GiGi hype train), and I know damn well I probably would’ve been among them if I was 12-14 right now. Edit 2: Considering I just landed on the Cringe subreddit, I will no longer be actively checking this post. Not that any of them would read far enough and realize I was basically calling them out for picking on kids and not “disrespecting Jaida in the name of worshipping GiGi”, and get really mad, lmao. I just don’t have time for messy people who are grown enough to know better. Edit 3: and here they come, this post will be downvoted to 1.1K by the end of the day, guaranteed. Thanks for the love, y’all. Also, y’all coming here to read this from the Cringe subreddit know DAMN WELL I’m not defending that airhead GiGi Goode, but that I’m defending the literal children y’all found on the internet to harass. I even held the bitch accountable for her wrong doings. I just hope when the kids come back for Symone this season, as they all went to being just Haus of Avalon fans after you kept picking on them after the season ended and everyone else moved on, you can treat the 13 year olds making shitty memes and using tumblr language so bad it gives anyone who grew up in that area nausea to read a bit more decency, and focus on mocking the racists, because lord knows for every one post calling out those bullying Brita and Widow, there were 5-10 more making fun of children for basic ass and unfunny memes or for basically being 12-14 year old girls. submitted by /u/removelimblegally to r/HobbyDrama [link] [comments]

I got one, y'all! And it's a doozie! So buckle up and strap those feed buckets to your llamas and let me tell you a tale of a BAMF five-year-old and an old bat who should have minded her own damned business. First, backstory/introduction. My only child, from here on out 'DD', is a total spitfire. She's five and EXTREMELY sassy and opinionated and takes exactly zero bullshit. She also has.... eclectic... taste in clothes and hair. Now, I've always allowed her extreme amounts of leeway with both of those. As long as all the important bits are covered, I don't comment on her outfit choices. I've literally seen her go to school wearing a Jurassic Park t-shirt and a poofy pink skirt. Whatever kiddo, you do you! She's some sort of geeky pixie punk rocker and I love it. She DEMANDED to be Castiel from Supernatural for Halloween and rocked the hell out of a trench coat (he's her favorite character ever and she swears she's gonna marry him one day). Her hair is also hers to do what she wants with. I restrict the semi-permanent hair dye to summer, but she often wears hair chalk and colored hair spray, and she gets to make the call on her haircuts. I do all this because my dad, a JustNo in his own right, was so insanely controlling over my appearance that I still have body image issues 15 years later. According to Narc Logic, women who have short hair, tattoos, piercings, or wear shorts and/or tank tops are whores. Literally whores. I wasn't allowed to wear anything but long pants even in the heat of the summer. I nearly died of heat stroke once and he STILL wouldn't let me wear shorts. I cut 2 inches off my waist length hair and was beaten for it. Shit like that. So yeah, I let my minion run amok with her hair and clothes because this isn't the hill I'm going to die on. On to the main event! DD announced last night that she wanted a hair cut. Her hair had grown out from a lovely bob into...well, an unkept mop. So, we spent the better part of two hours browsing the almighty Google for haircuts until she found one that she likes. I decided to lop mine off too (returning to a pixie cut) and called my stylist, who penciled us in for 3pm today. Great, off we go! Now, Stylist is pretty awesome. She does great work and doesn't charge me out the nose. She was quite happy to buzz the back and sides of DD's head (a 4 guard) and swoop and trim the rest of it over one eye. Again, punk rock. I think she saw Lzzy Hale wear her hair like that once. DD's in the chair, I'm getting my hair washed, and then... I hear it. That derisive little snort. Y'all know the one, the one that sounds like an inverted fart from a CBF. I put my glasses back on and look about for the source. In the waiting area is this woman. Older, with perfectly coiffed silver hair and more gold chains than M.C. Hammer. She's staring a hole in the back of my little punk's head. If DD's hair could have caught fire from a glare alone... Now, I try not to start shit. But you look at my kid like that, and we're gonna have problems. In all of my wet-haired glory, I fix this old biddy with my best Mamma Bear scowl and ask "Is there a problem?" Old Biddy sniffs as though I had shoved a bag of dog doo under her nose. "I'd never let my child get that haircut." Now, DD is blissfully unaware and I want to keep her that way because I want her to grow up with unbreakable self esteem (rather than issues out the wazoo like poor momma). "Well, it's a good thing that she's my child, then." Maybe not my best comeback, but I just want the bat to stick a sock in it. No such luck. She comes back with "My DiL is always letting my baby get stupid hair cuts like that. He looks like a girl. I told her, the next time I see him he'll be coming back shaved bald." Bitch says WHAT??? Stylist and I are looking at each other like we've been warped into Bizzarro World without realizing it. WhyTF does this dried up old prune think she has any right to her grandson's hair? But wait, there's more! "I tried to cut his hair last summer and she just went crazy! Started screaming about how she would never let me see him again, as though my son would ever deprive his momma of her grandbaby. His hair was just soooo long, he looked like a girl!" Again with 'looked like a girl' being used as an insult. THEN the bat turns to my daughter and actually tries to approach her. Stylist is gently trying to keep me in my chair (probably didn't want to have to mop blood off the floor if the bat touched my kid) as this all unfolds. BitchyBat looks my little punk in the eyes and says "wouldn't you rather keep your hair long and pretty so you can wear bows in it? Boys like long hair!" Y'all...... Y'aaaaaall.... I'm so beyond proud of DD right now. She straightened up, looked Batty dead in the eyes, and goes "Go away, assbutt!" (Back to the Castiel thing... for those not in the know, he's an angel and he heaves a Molotov cocktail at Lucifer while yelling 'hey, assbutt!'. Quite the BAMF.) My five year old has more balls than I ever did. Bonus: Can't get the pretty formatting to work, so here. Mini-Castiel tax https://imgur.com/yHIWuAX Edit: BitchyBat slunk back to her chair in the waiting area and buried her nose in a magazine, glowering at us until we left. Zero fucks were given by Red or DD. submitted by /u/redqueenswrath to r/JUSTNOMIL [link] [comments]