Country Concert Outfit Ideas

... was making use of. In concert with Eileen, she was manipulating ... match it? She already had ideas. If she could advance vampiric ... amusement that Kasia noted the outfit hadn't changed overmuch, the sleeves ... good is to serve this country, to strengthen it! One people, ...

..., and opened part of his outfit. He unbuttoned his trench coat... a large map depicting a country he had never seen before. ...The country looked vast, stretching from coast .... And now this map. A country. A continent. A world he ... mess started, there was a concert near the city center,—Marvin ... of smoke and said: —Any ideas on how to open that ...

... so we're doing dinner and country concert next weekend. I have no... help with plus size friendly outfit ideas! I have time to do...

Hi peopleee. Yesterday I found out Underscores is coming to my country for the Primavera Sound, and Im SOOOO excited. The show is in november but Im already trying to think about what to wear, any cool ideas?? submitted by /u/Secluded_On_Mars to r/underscoresplus [link] [comments]

So theres this guy who I met online we're both the same age, we live in different cities but same country, I think it's been 3-4 months since I met him and just in September he told me he likes me... I'm a girl who is not interested in casual relationships, I date to marry but he's been in 3 relationships before, he's ofc had his first kiss and he's also had s*x and that too he said he never thought about marrying them which means casual.. right?? I despise the idea of being in a relationship with a guy who does casual relationships (pls don't hate me for this in the comments, just a personal preference..) I've rejected him saying that I want to be in a relationship with a guy where we would be each other's firsts, I've told him his past bothers me ik it makes me sound like an asshole but yeah. But ugh why is he so nice tho? Like he's a commerce student and I'm a science student but when I ssid I couldn't understand a problem he literally tried to learn and explain it to me (that didn't quite work CUS SCIENCE ISNT THAT SIMPLE😭but the effort is what matters) and also if I'm gone for even 10 mins he spams messages like crazyy. He's obsessed with me, the last time I rejected him (yeah done that a few times) he cried and that made me cry cus that made me feel bad (yes I'm stupid) WHAT SHOULD I DO?? I really am a jealous person he's literally BEEN INSIDE A WOMAN BEFORE I CANT DATE THIS but I'm starting to become attached A major red flag I've noticed is that- his following count is 2000+ and I've seen so many women there, he's liked bikini pictures. When I confronted him he said "he doesn't find naked bodies attractive" then I said why did u like it then he said "it's complicated...I don't know" but a few days ago there was tyla's concert in Mumbai i said I wanted to go but he said he felt uncomfortable seeing stories of his friends because he saw tyla's outfit and it was inappropriate and made him uncomfortable. TYLA'S OUTFIT MAKES HIM UNCOMFY BUT HE LIKES BIKINI PICS ON INSTA??? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE submitted by /u/Downtown_Grand_2032 to r/TeenagersBharat [link] [comments]

1.You know that classic Thanksgiving song “Over the river and through the Woods”? Just imagine the Stew Crew changing the words to “Over the interstate and through the Mall to NiNi’s house we go. The Tesla knows the way, Mom screams SLAY, the props are all in play…. It’s time for an exploitive holidayyyyyy… ay!” But seriously… the Stewarts are churning out a record amount of content these days, and anyone who defends this mess by saying “they only show us 20 minutes of their lives weekly” is just not paying attention. They are filming round the clock…even when Evan makes a point to tell us he “didn’t pick up his camera”… still we manage to see footage. That’s when you have to be a savvy viewer and realize that while the movie camera wasn’t cranked up… the iPhone was there filming it all. Layla and Zade must be exhausted, and I am convinced the reason Navy cries in the car seat is that she misses her emotional support lens. The kids find out about the new mansion on the hill and we see their over the top reactions. They both have a tremendous amount of lines to learn… Layla has to talk about chandeliers and vanities and pretend to be a 5 year old Joanna Gaines prodigy, while Zade just runs around hollering while the camera chases him, and Evan adds his lines in post-production. Every time Navy Kate passes gas, they catch it on camera and sell it to us as an 8 week old smiling, laughing, and conversating with her loving parents. Even though they said they had no travel plans they head to Georgia for Sophie and Tyler Hill’s source of income’s 2ndbirthday. Of course it’s a princess party featuring live Disney princesses, and of course, Mary Katherine (Layla Rae) Gallagher is front and center singing to the crowd with the princesses while the birthday girl is shoved off to the side. What becomes crystal clear while the Stewarts are in Georgia is that THIS is the reason they have hauled off and bought a mini Tara. Carlin has been influenced by the Southern Belle vibes of Sophie… the bows, the ribbons, the soft pastels and willowy pines… that’s Sophie’s vibe, and Carlin can’t have ANY one topping her. If Sophie is Melanie Hamilton then Carlin will be Scarlett. The bad part about all of this is that means Evan has to be Rhett. Rhett Butler in Dude Perfect merch screeching “sweeeeet” with a proud boy haircut? Egads. The Tesla jetted out of Podunk Georgia as soon as the crowd dispersed, and made it back to the home studio for a few days of full time selling. Evan starred in an ad for a water machine that costs $200 and fills exactly 1 Stanley cup at a time, and Carlin filmed herself putting on gobs of skin care and makeup. She also found time to sneak away to downtown Knoxville and film with Josie at a swanky hotel to help sell her sister’s Styrofoam pool noodle for hair that just won’t go away. In between there was lots of Layla making crafts, getting her nails done, being filmed while sleeping, at a playground and holding her baby sister while they wear matching outfits. They also met up with the Balkas at a Christmas tree farm so they could force their gaggle of kids to run around wreaking havoc and out of 5 little kids, it was noticeable that Zade was the only one covering his ears while the chainsaw trimmed the trees. Too bad his parents and none of his amazing aunts and uncles seem to notice. Soon enough, the Stewarts were off to Nashville with another lame surprise story concocted and ready to unveil. Even though the Bates family celebrated an early Thanksgiving, and even though the Stewarts spend every Thanksgiving with Evan’s family… we are to believe that this trip is a major surprise for Evan’s mom NiNi who didn’t know they were coming. They arrive after dark and she opens the door in full hair and makeup. Layla and Zade push their way in while NiNi gives her best performance of shock to date… in the background you can clearly see the baby swing already set up. Does their dog use that swing because otherwise…I’m not buying the surprise. Evan is able to churn out several vlogs that are sponsored by all sorts of things, including a banking app. He gets a jab in on Carlin by saying he needs this app because of all that SHE spends. We learn that they are having lots of renovations done on the new house before moving. Also, suddenly the Stewarts are talking about and making reference to Santa Claus. In the past they never, ever mentioned the big dude from the North Pole, but now it seems one more taboo has fallen away and Evan is free to walk around Ho, Ho, Ho’ing (yes, I mean that in all the ways) to his heart’s content. In one final attempt to break the internet, Carlin and Evan film their tiny infant newborn completely naked except for a diaper, covered in butter, frosting and… whipped topping. There’s nothing left to say about the depravity on display here that hasn’t already been said. They don’t love their children and they are definitely suffering from some narcissistic personality disorders. If at any time in the future you wonder if they really are young, hip, loving, devoted parents… please remember sweet Navy Kate being turned into food. It’s the saddest thing I think I have ever seen and I don’t even feel like it’s ok to talk about it… much less watch it. 2.Travis Clark is committed to his nursing school bit by never filming unless he is in a pair of grey scrubs these days. While talk of school has pretty much dried up, the long hours that Katie needs to fill remain. She is hanging on to the hope that he has a nice long break from studying coming up and they can exploit their kids together… the way it’s meant to be. One of her new tricks is to repost old reels that performed well on their first go around. She has hundreds of thousands more followers now, and they need to see how precious Hailey was as a baby. Carlin has caught up and surpassed Katie with followers and views. Katie has tripled down on the Grinch content and films a reel where she turns her kids’ bathroom and bath into a full blown Grinch nightmare. She has no issue showing Hailey and Harvey IN the tub giggling and splashing. Despite her best attempts to serve her children up to the dark web, the reel garners less than a million views and Katie seems dejected almost. Travis swoops in with an idea to up the engagement by once again paying their followers cold hard cash in exchange for comments on their latest partnership with another robot vacuum. That seems to work, and Katie rebounds by linking all of her plush home Christmas items. She has $550 bedding on her $3000 bed and the family wears matching pajamas that cost a cool $250. Once again they try to convince us to buy those groddy frozen meals. They both talk about them but never take a single bite. Only Hailey is forced to gag down a tiny little nibble. Katie and Travis take the kids to a Christmas concert featuring that guy that Travis opened for last year. They all act like they are meeting for maybe the second time ever. Remi the dog celebrates her birthday and as a special treat, she gets shoved into the back of the SUV for a 10 plus hour ride to New Jersey. Either Katie couldn’t convince a younger sibling to give up Thanksgiving to stay with the dog… or they had breeding plans once they got to Jersey because otherwise we all know Remi would not have made that trip. Travis isn’t allowed to film much inside his parents’ huge mansion, so instead he signs the family up for a turkey trot. Travis’ brother dresses up in a turkey costume, and his dad is looking trim and healthy 6 months after open heart surgery. Hailey had to work on this vacation… mainly in a sporting goods promo and on the way up the camera was focused solely on her car seat to catch every mumble, song, every snack she ate, and every time her little eyes closed. She also films a reel where she tries on her hat from when she was born. The big point from that exploitation is that the kid has quite a noggin on her. They all go ice skating and Travis changes out of his scrubs into his… high school letterman’s jacket from 2019. This is a father of 2 kids remember. Just like at the Stewart home, suddenly Santa is hot with the Clarks. We learn that Santa actually shows up on Christmas Eve and hands out gifts for Travis’ family, and Hailey seems to know all about the old guy. Last year, Katie promoted Letters from Santa without ever uttering the word… and this year, it’s entirely OK to talk about Rudolph, Santa and of course… the Grinch. Gil still seems to think it’s all ok and you just have to wonder… which lifestyle was the lie?? 3.Josie Balka is very, really, entirely pregnant. She says this is the biggest she has ever been… and I believe her. She is also high risk and says this is the first time she hasn’t been able to transfer away from the high risk OB and deliver with her normal doctor in her normal hospital. This all sounds super scary… but she is telling us this while smearing on lip gloss and scratching her scalp while tossing her hair from side to side. She speaks so fast, with so much vocal fry that she truly needs a touch of the Stewarts’ closed captioning. Folks beg her in the comments to turn on her captions, but she refuses. I guess she figures no one can hold her accountable for what she says if they aren’t really sure what she said in the first place. To celebrate 5 years of her Effortless Beauty Shop, she finally has a new photo shoot that features her best friend along with Carlin and Kelly Joe Bates. They manage to hide the curling irons, brushes, and other heated appliances while giving the illusion that all of these cascading curls come from the dadgum pool noodle that she wraps and unwraps over and over and over. Truthfully what this hair dildo gives you is female pattern baldness and a widening part but you know… use at your own risk. The early days of the shop when she sold those maddening hats and really cheap jewelry are in the rearview and the future seems to be firmly planted on this one item. Speaking of one item… Josie swore by a huge tub of Bag Balm, even promoted it and linked it when it showed up in a reel. Her story was that Bag Balm prevented stretch marks and it was all her mom, who was pregnant more than 20 times, recommended. But all of a sudden… the tub of Bag Balm has been replaced by a tiny little container of Erin Paine’s miracle beef fat. Josie is happily hawking her sister’s item as a miracle cure for stretch marks. Funny how that happens at the very same time that Erin is hollering about the benefits of the pool noodle. Josie keeps dropping hints that it is almost baby time and the Balkas stay at home for the holiday. This gives momma plenty of time to exploit the kids by filming them getting baths, being tucked in and sitting completely still while she styles their hair over and over again. In a final bid to make baby Miles seem like a full-fledged toddler, they take him to have his head shaved while cooing that he looks “just like daddy”. No matter how much she smiles while she says that… it isn’t ever a compliment. KTron takes to the kitchen to prepare a huge Thanksgiving Day meal and it seems that he allows Josie to partake in it. She makes homemade bread and pies and cinnamon rolls and they show zero signs of moving out of that tiny little house before baby #4 arrives. The girls are already sharing a trundle bed shoved in a pantry and Miles is packed in a converted carport that they painted brown from ceiling to floor. Maybe Josie can talk to Alyssa and get the blue print for those triple bunk beds because home girl is going to need them. 4.The President of the Charlie Kirk Fan Girl Club is not happy these days. She managed to sucker a cabin rental company and a scenic railroad into comping her and her best friend’s family a free vacation and the internet rewarded her with just 35 comments and about 50,000 views. Alyssa Webster expected the general public to just go wild over her stilted content and that didn’t happen… just like the only people who ordered a sad hat were members of her Sunday School class that wanted to stay on her good side. Alyssa is learning that you don’t get to throw a temper tantrum, turn off your comments and still get the public’s approval and tons of freebies. She turned her comments off again and posted tons of pictures to celebrate her best friend’s birthday. She rained praises on this woman and it is obvious she has replaced a large majority of Alyssa’s real family. Lurch turned 36 and to celebrate Alyssa rigged the girls up in some matching dresses that looked like your grandmother’s couch. She and John pretended to be happy and dance around and the AI caption called him the one who holds them all together. Kelly Joe isn’t giving up her streak of birthday posts, no matter how mad Alyssa is so she posted a bunch of old pictures and wrote a caption that made it seem like she knows this man. Somehow Alyssa wound up on the HydroJug holiday mailing list and you would think she had won the lottery. She pranced, grinned and squealed over the free merch they sent while filming herself locked up in her bedroom to open it all. Somewhere in a warehouse a mailing list is being updated as we speak. Anyway, Alyssa films her sparkling clean house several times, showing the kids all lined up on the couch, sitting perfectly still. She is super proud of this and you can tell that the children wouldn’t dare touch anything without express written permission. She is hosting Thanksgiving at her house again, and shows off all of her drab brown food but none of the guests… if there were any. The girls are forced into those feed sack style muted tan dresses and made to line up in the flower bed out front for a holiday photo shoot. Poor Rhett gives us his standard sullen one thousand mile stare followed by a scowl that describes the heart of all 7 of these people. 5.Zach Bates has had a big year in real estate. He sold 2 houses worth almost 2 million dollars… both to his sisters. Now, he is hard at work trying to find something for Trace and fam. Even though he obviously racked up on sales commission, he is still slinging links like his life depended on it. Dude sells powders, potions, drinks, knives, cutting boards, meal prep, frozen meals… he even has an infomercial for a convection oven that he demonstrates using boxed frozen steaks. He is picking up the slack for Whitney who is expecting baby #6 and obviously having a rough go of it. Whitney is either really sick… or really smart because she seems to be locked on the couch, only able to get up for fun things, meals and to participate in brand partnerships that pay big bucks. They are exploiting their kids at a level they never have before, and that means kids in the kitchen happens a lot. Most of the hard work goes to Khloe, Lilly and Jadon. The oldest 2 don’t seem to be as camera ready, and understand what’s happening around them. Zach attempts to film making a pie for his Bates Kitchen vlog, but he struggles to follow the recipe and surprise, surprise leaves a ton of ingredients out, misses several steps, and improvises quite a few times. Kelly Joe comes over to rescue him by making Mama Jane’s Thanksgiving dressing. Zach insists on talking over Kelly and pretending to be the family know it all. If he would hush and let Kelly explain how to make the dern dressing, maybe it would have turned out OK and maybe we could have understood the stories she was sharing. I fear that folks in other parts of the country really believe this is how Southerners cook and that keeps me up at night because it’s just a poor representation. I’d love to have you all over to my momma’s kitchen to try the real deal. Moving on… Katie and Travis are invited over to Zach and Whitney’s for a copycat Olive Garden soup recipe. They film the kids all sitting around a TV, staring at their electronics and it almost seems… normal. There isn’t a Bible story to be found. Katie and Whitney are now at the “LYSM” level of Instagram relationship and there doesn’t seem to be much room for Carlin or Josie or Lydia as this “friendship” continues to blossom. Zach says they are changing things around in their house to make room for the new baby… he is working in the dining room and it appears that will be the baby’s nursery. After spending Thanksgiving with Whitney’s mom, the entire family dresses up in Grinch pajamas… obviously with Katie’s blessing… and heads out to a Christmas party for the Youth Group at their church. While Whitney is vertical with her hair brushed and makeup on she sells teeth whitening strips, vitamins and gives her best try at selling a protein shake. That thing almost makes her toss her cookies on camera and she has to stop and catch her breath after taking the slightest slurp. It’s right back to the couch for her… but not before posting the link so you can enjoy the goodness too. 6.Where the heck is Trace Bates spending his time these days? He says he only volunteers with the sheriff, and he only volunteers with Medic Corps… supposedly he is a full time influencer… but Lydia is always alone. She films GRWMs in the morning, at nap time and at night and she is always alone. She insists on talking Trace up though… even when she is forced to take out the overflowing trash all by her lonesome. According to her he normally does it… most of the time…. Who believes her? Lydia is committed to the grift and wears her pool noodle 22.5 hours a day but still Josie barely acknowledges her these days. There is no posting for several days because everyone is super sick Lydia tells us. When they get back to filming, they invite Kelly Joe over. She’s making her holiday rounds and appearing on all of the struggling vlogs just like a good Momager should. That’s Chapter 12 in the Kris Jenner handbook, btw. Kelly says all of the same things she always does about how to manage a big family, and how to keep calm in the face of the toddler years. Trace attempts to get her to name which child is the most dramatic and which was the toughest as a teenager, but she won’t name names beyond saying Lawson was a scaredy-cat who made everything super dramatic. She also says Lawson hates storms and flying sooo explain Medic Corps?? We also see a big Medic Corps holiday banquet held out in an Arkansas plane hangar. It’s a super fancy soiree and Gil, Kelly and Addee are flown in on a private Medic Corps plane for the party. After Kelly Joe says she will have 40 grandchildren by spring 2026, Trace tells her they are trying to give her #41. Yeesh. Trace tells the viewers that their offer on that dilapidated house was not accepted and that they are continuing to look. Lydia tries to say that folks keep asking why they don’t buy Carlin and Evan’s house… but they give it a heavy edit and it ends up making no sense. In a separate vlog we see the early Thanksgiving dinner at the big house and Trace interviews Kelly who has cooked basically everything, including 4 turkeys. She says no one messaged her back to say what they were bringing so she was worried there would be no food. Just a little glimpse into the reality of this supposedly tight clan. They all head to Janie’s farm for Thanksgiving and at least that gives them a different view to film. Lydia has been working with Trace on his ad reads and he has improved to the point that as long as he says. Each. Word. Slowly. He. Can. Get. Through. It. These two are so boring that at one point Lydia just sits the camera down and films the toy train going around and around the Christmas Tree…. They probably need another pregnancy just to keep up this grift. 7.Michael Keilen is back in her kitchen showing up her big brother Zach. She makes egg bites and does it seamlessly in less than ten minutes. She uses prepped veggies and tons of editing and everything is clean and organized and tidy. Unfortunately there isn’t a bit of personality and Michael looks like she’s frightened every time the camera pans over to her. She is also selling hand painted Christmas ornaments and tons of baby blankets. Erin promotes the blankets for her and Carlin throws her a bone by using one of her swaddles on Navy Kate. Michael spends Thanksgiving on the farm with Mama Jane, so she must have jumped through the hoops to get special permission to take the foster boys. Brandon may have had to stay behind for work, because he isn’t spotted anywhere. If Michael posts anything, her comments are full of folks asking about the boys… and if she doesn’t post, people question if something is happening with the boys. It was her choice to share the news, and they have been with the Keilens for about 6 months at this point. I am doubtful that Santa will make a stop at that house. That still seems like a bridge too far for this fundie royalty. 8.Erin Paine has finally dug herself out from under the weight of the many cards, gifts and donations sent to her after her recent illness and birth and is back on social media to grift anew. She shows the kids in various stages of play, sleep and study. Ellie is down for a visit and they take the kids to the zoo with some fundie friends. There are 13 kids all together and Ellie looks shell shocked. Erin squeezes close to Ellie for a picture and says they are 16 years apart so that people will comment and compliment her on how they look exactly the same age. Girlfriend knows what she is doing. Suddenly she is happy to shill links to her favorite makeup, protein powders and a Bible company that is giving her discount codes and kickbacks. The Paines drop the second part of the story of baby Henry, and things get really serious, really fast. We don’t ever get a clear answer as to what started all of Erin’s problems…but after a difficult delivery, things go downhill fast. She is surrounded by Tori, Gil, Kelly, Alyssa, Chad’s parents, Lawson and according to them… their church family. They give all of the credit and glory for her recovery to God even though they say she had a team of doctors that included a urologist, neurologist and a cardiologist. She shows a moving moment where Gil talks her through pain and disappointment and says their other children were scared to death. She thought Chad was going to be a widower with 7 little children and by the looks of him… he thought so as well. Erin has a fresh dye job, a blow out and glistening skin but Chad looks like dude has been through it. His complexion is sallow and ruddy, his eyes are glazed over with a distant stare and he is quieter spoken than normal. He guides Erin through this conversation, and admonishes her when she shares too much… like when she reveals that he pumped for her when she was too ill to breast feed the baby. Chad’s mom was headquartered in the NICU watching over the baby. Speaking of the baby, he gets fussy at some point and Chad leaves filming to go get him. With Chad gone, Erin’s easy smile returns and she becomes chattier. The only real diagnosis they ever mention is neuropathy and she is back to normal pretty much. She says she has written hundreds and hundreds of thank you notes and has hardly made a dent. That means hundreds and hundreds of people sent money, gift cards and gifts. Erin is hard at work selling the beef fat and pushes it via a question and answer box on IG. She posts as they travel from Florida to Oklahoma to be with the Paine family for the holiday. They stop off to visit Momma Jane and Lawson on the way, but we don’t see them at the big house. Erin proudly explains that Chad no longer does construction… he just stirs up beef fat and Young Living MLM oils all day and don’t you want to buy some? I still find it hard to believe that she is selling enough of those small little containers of tallow to provide for this family of 9. Kelly Joe says she kept a journal during Erin’s illness to try and track what was happening… interesting that none of this was done when Carlin suffered for almost a year from a mystery illness. By Thanksgiving, they are all decked out with the 20+ Paine cousins in matching shirts, eating a buffet dinner at the YMCA. All is right in Paine world. 9.The worst kept secret in all of fundie land was finally revealed when Lawson and Tiffany decided to drop a vlog that was filmed in June announcing that the baby will be a boy. If any fundie needs management… it’s these 2 because their content is truly all over the place. The only thing they are consistent about is exploiting baby Will… and making my ears (and eyes) bleed. After revealing that they are expecting son number 2, they threaten their followers by saying they plan to drop a ton of new vlogs in November getting everyone caught up heading into the birth month. Tiffy is supposedly due very close to Christmas. She has gestational diabetes that she is controlling through diet, so she could go a bit earlier than 40 weeks. Instead of a ton of vlogs, what they drop is one vlog showing how they wasted Tiffany’s parent’s money filming a music video for the ancient hymn “Silent Night”. Then, they premiere the music video and it lands with a big old thud of… who the heck cares. This thing is so awful, and the only thing remotely entertaining is that 98% of the comments say Tiffany is an amazing singer while nobody praises Lawson. Man, he is just not good. Her bleating like a lost baby goat seems Mariah Carey like compared to this muppet mouthed weasel. The making of the music video finds them in Montana with some real life ranchers who balk and stare at him while making cutting comments. One rancher actually says that it will only be a silent night if Lawson falls off a cliff. If only. Tiffany is miserable out in the middle of the desert where she says there’s bugs, flies and manure from the horses. She tries to hide out in the car with baby Will, but Lawson has a key so that plan fails. He forces her to a Montana Wal-Mart to pick out some cowgirl clothes to wear in this Western inspired song. What she ends up wearing defies explanation. Lawson is a 2 gallon man wearing a 10 gallon hat, while Tiffy is in a red, body con dress and a pair of 4 inch heels. She looks flat ridiculous next to her pud of a husband who has a brain the size of his belt buckle. I’m making myself angry just talking about these 2. What an embarrassment. Back in Nashville they get back to making stupid reels where Lawson runs around shirtless and Tiffany throws things at him or pretends that they are newly dating. They are really churning out the content also… Several reels and stories a day. They are exploiting Will by constantly filming him in nothing but a diaper while sharing every time Lawson needs to change him. Tiffany is committed to telling the story of her adoption but the story she is weaving is heavily edited and seems to feature her brother (who is 10 years older than her) as the hero. People catch on that maybe she is shopping around for a wife for her brother when she goes on TikTok and requests women’s information if they have commented anything about her brother. Seems a little risky…. They actually head to South Carolina for Thanksgiving, so Tiffany must have the all clear from her doctor… Lawson swings around his big camera while exploiting his baby and his elderly grandmother. Janie must hate to see the holidays coming because she knows she has to curl her hair, put on her rouge and get camera ready. NiNi could definitely offer her some tips. 10.Bits and Bytes… after marking everything down to five or $10 per item… The Bates Sister’s Boutique is finally officially closed. It’s the end of an era and the girls are finally free to shill for Abercrombie, Airee, H&M and Old Navy as much as they want… Ellie Bates has been on IG for several years now. All of the family members have tagged her in posts and stories and reposted her pictures but Thanksgiving weekend marked a monumental occasion when her profile suddenly becomes public. It doesn’t seem that she has any courting prospects, so it seems that as she prepares to graduate from the booth style table at the big house, she is poised to launch her influencing career. A quick glance at her profile shows that she spends a ton of timebabysitting all of her nieces and nephews so expect a new form of exploitation coming soon from Auntie Ellie… in 2025 Kelly started sharing links and creating reels and she’s going all out by sharing her own viewpoint of Thanksgiving at Mama Jane‘s and follows that up by sharing a link to a set of pots and pans. Of course she is quick to say that she’s not being paid to endorse this product, but she certainly makes sure to link it and thank them profusely for the free gifts…. Esther has also begun sharing more on social media than ever before… She spent the long weekend hitting the gym, showing off her form in her tight leotard while weightlifting. The closest Nathan Bates will get to a gym is to fly over it in his Medic Corps helicopter. Hope you all had a fantastic holiday break. While you’re doing your shopping remember… 10% off is not a sale… that’s a racket! submitted by /u/dixcgirl10 to r/BringingUpBates [link] [comments]

Just turned 36 (M), live in HCOL (NYC) and was managed out of my role a month or so ago (was more or less an amicable parting, company is a Series B startup and was going in a different direction; I was able to accelerate my full 4 year vesting as I'd been there 3.5 yrs already, plus given 8 weeks severance). Have worked ever since graduating college in 2012 and have always had a next role lined up before leaving or quitting a job. I had another full time offer lined up, but declined it realizing I was completely burned out and needed to take at least a month or two to recharge. Saying no to the new job was extremely difficult, I feel like i'm trying to recharge but just cannot get used to the idea of not actively earning and working. I have such a huge backlog of personal projects I want to run and books I want to read, but just not feeling like myself enough to get started on them. Numbers: Traditional IRA $1.1M 401ks (prev. employers) $610K Roth IRA $155k Condo Home Equity $477K ($923K left to pay on mortgage) Brokerages $355K Crypto $176K Running line of credit open with -$40k balance at 8.5% APY Married, no kids but spouse does not earn an income. Numbers are only my own individual assets (condo is in my name only, etc) and spouse has roughly $500k in brokerage assets abroad. All things put together we burn close to $20k/mo which is a figure I never thought possible but we eat well, travel well, have invested a lot in home improvements, and live in the most expensive city in the world. Goal is to move to Asia in the next 2-3 years for LCOL and to be close to spouse's family (intend to raise kids in Asia vs. NYC). No FIRE number yet in mind as I haven't done the research yet to know what we'll need to be financially secure and still live incredibly well in a foreign country. However I did set myself a $3M NW goal to feel comfortable enough leaving the US without needing to immediately get a job. My question: Has anyone else gone through a similar experience (read: identity crisis) in transitioning from high income in HCOL city to zero income on purpose? If you're addicted to working and earning, how to you stay disciplined and not interview for roles or full time jobs you know will put you back in the rat race and eventually lead to burnout? How long do you give yourself to figure out how much you want to downshift in life (partially working to stay busy, etc) while still feeling OK with spending at levels that don't change your lifestyle? Any other tips on managing a transition like this appreciated. This community is awesome and I've learned so much 🙏🏼 _________ Update: Wow, didn't think this would blow up like this but am truly super grateful for the advice in here, lots of takeaways for me and wanted to add answers to common questions plus add some color: Income: $265k base cash + equity (not counting equity in figures here since it's paper money). Got married to spouse late 2023, and it took ~20 months to get her green card authorized to work in the US. She's been actively interviewing since then and may land something soon in the $150k-$180k range. She also has savings from previous jobs and we've used those funds as needed for larger one-time costs. Line of credit: LOC is ~3 years old and was open at ~3% the first two years, then got jacked up to ~8% this year. Reason I opened it to begin with was to pay back $65k in taxes from capital gains owed on stock that was sold to purchase my condo. I had the LOC fully paid off in Q2 this year but then ran into large expenses I needed to make in the last 6 months (including exercising stock options which ran me ~$25k), and I didn't want to sell stock to pay for it since that would have tripped off even more cap gains tax. I haven't received my severance yet but plan to use as much of it as possible to pay down the balance. $20k monthly burn --> closer to $17k actually when taking monthly average over last 9 months: $7k | Mortgage + HOA + Property Tax + Utilities (electricity + water) $1k - $1.3k | Restaurants (group dinners with friends, one or two fancy meals a month with just the wife, hosting friends and family that visit from out of town) $1.2-$1.5k | Entertainment: concerts, comedy, broadway $1-$1.5k | Travel & Vacation: we fly mostly on points but do pay out of pocket for hotels and activities at destinations, and have also had a lot of friends get married this year, plus attended their bachelor and bachelorette parties. $850 - $900 | Groceries: we mainly Instacart from Costco then get whatever they don't have from the local bodega or Trader Joes. $700 | Gym & Fitness: (two gym memberships, NYC tennis & padel court bookings and workout classes from time to time) $650 | Subscriptions & memberships: streaming, AI tooling, cellular bill, home wifi, social club membership $600 | Retail shopping & clothing (lots of friends getting married with coordinated outfit requirements) $500 - $850 | Healthcare: (therapist, acupuncture, medical prescription copays, dr visit copays, PT copays) $500 | Lyft + Ubers: I take the train when traveling alone whenever possible, but when traveling together, typical cost one-way to JFK is $75-$100 $500 | Gifting (this is taking friends out for bday dinners, birthday gifts for friends, wedding gifts for friends, family etc). $450 | Bars & Nightlife: includes rounds of drinks bought for friends $450 | Alcohol delivery (mostly wines, I drink a couple glasses daily after work and we host friends who also drink a lot) $450 | Home renovations (power shades, wallpapering & painting, bathroom shelving, art purchases) $400 | Personal care, haircuts, nail and beauty salons, health supplements, and not so healthy supplements $300 | Home cleaning support: our cleaner comes once per week $150 | Self development coursework, meditation retreats once per quarter, conferences and networking summits that seek donations to operate $100 | Coffee shops $140 | Home maintenance & repairs (think HVAC servicing) and home goods that are always purchased like toilet paper $130 | Food delivery apps Work burnout: I think I can take the other full time role if I still want it (recruiter reached out saying they haven't found anyone better and asked me to reconsider, and they might be able to wait another 4-5 weeks if I said yes today) but I'm not sure if that's enough time. For context, I have a 20mg/day adderall prescription for ADHD but was grinding myself and taking up to 60-90mg just to perform at the level and hours that I needed to. Titrating down now and brain/body recalibrating is telling me that I might need more time). submitted by /u/ilovemynikes to r/Fire [link] [comments]

I am not OP. That is u/Diligent_Pineapple35 who posted to r/AITAH Original Post Aug 3rd, 2025 Saved on redditonwiki TL;DR: Went on a work trip with two junior employees (not on my team) and they missed the flight home because they went sight-seeing the day we were leaving. I still got on flight even though they weren’t at the airport. Long version - This past week I was presented with an industry award in Nashville that an agency partner nominated me for. I am a Director at my company. My Co decided to send two junior-level employees to the event as well because they thought it would be a good experience for them - a Specialist who has been with us a little over a year (25f, first job out of college) and a summer intern (21f, rising senior). They are not on my team (report up through separate VP) and I have very limited / no interaction with them in daily work life. They were VERY excited to be going. This was going to be the Specialist’s first time on a plane, lots of Teams chats asking what to wear, etc. We were flying in Thursday morning and leaving Friday evening so it was a very short trip, but I tried to help share info about the event (types of attendees, awards reception/presentation Thursday night with a country western theme, then I was speaking on a panel Friday morning). There’s so much I could say, but I’ll try to highlight key points: Specialist barely made Thursday AM flight because she doesn’t have a Real ID and had to do extra screening. She had no idea what a Real ID was, or the basic rules of flying (liquid restrictions, etc.) She was VERY upset they made her throw away some of her skincare that was over 3oz. Thurs night event was country western theme, and while a majority of people there were business casual, Intern shows up in a bandana tube top, micro skirt, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. I pulled her aside and asked if she wanted to run upstairs and change since it was still a business event, but she said she was fine and she thought she looked cute and on-theme. After ceremony I invite them to join me with some colleagues I knew from other Companies in the hotel bar, but they tell me they want to “check out Broadway”. I make a face and say this would be a good networking opportunity, they make “c’mon mom” jokes, and so I tell them to be safe and remind them the time and location of first session the next day. Text them around 11pm that I hope they got back safe, no response. Went to bed. Text them the next morning offering to meet them for coffee before morning sessions, no response. No idea if they actually attended any sessions or saw my panel, but I did find them in the hotel lobby afterward looking incredibly hungover. Have about 2 hours after event is over and before we need to go to the airport, I invite them to late lunch with our agency partners. They decline because they want to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Again, make a face and say I don’t know if they will have time and I think it would be a good opportunity for them to spend time with our agency. They act like I’m the wet blanket so I tell them I’m leaving for airport from the hotel at 4pm sharp and meet me in lobby so we can share a Lyft. Text them at 3:45pm that Lyft is arriving in 15 mins, no response. Text them that Lyft has arrived and I’m leaving for airport, no response. Text them when I get to airport and tell them security line is long (neither had pre-check), no response. Text them when I get to gate to please give me some sign of life, Intern sends very short response about 10 mins later: “In Lyft, there’s traffic.” Nothing else. Text them flight is starting to board, no response. Text them when I’m in my seat that boarding is about to end, no response. Doors close, they don’t make it, put my phone in airplane mode. Land a couple hours later to a barrage of texts from them. They’re “stranded in Nashville”, don’t know what to do, how to rebook, who to call for help, etc. I also have an angry voicemail from Specialist’s mom that I “abandoned her daughter in Nashville”, she has never flown and has anxiety, she’s having a panic attack at the airport and needs medical attention, she could be human trafficked (???). I call Specialist and Intern back, both phones ring but neither pick up. Text to see if they were able to rebook, no response. Forward them email with our business travel info with after-hours contact and text them that I sent the email, no response. Texted an hour or so later to see if they were okay, no response. Did not call the mom back. Also have text from their Director (don’t know her well, just started with Co a couple weeks ago) asking what’s going on. I send her brief overview and screenshots of all my unanswered texts to them from earlier in the day along with the transcript of the vm I got from the mom. She acknowledges my response, but no further dialogue. Now, I get an invite for a Monday morning meeting from that Director with their VP and our C-Suite leader. My VP is on PTO. I feel like these are adults, I was communicative, and I’m ultimately not responsible for their decisions. But you tell me, AITA here? Update Aug 4th, 2025 (Insert “it’s meeeeee” Wicked meme here). This whole fiasco has really challenged my Reddit skills, lol. Here’s my update after my meeting this morning. If there is a better place/way to post it that won’t get me in Reddit jail, LMK: Meeting over. CMO didn’t join. It was other VP and Director, plus the internship coordinator, who is in HR. VP asked all the questions. It was over Teams, on camera, recorded, almost comically formal, like I was being deposed or something. During the meeting: Was asked to recap what happened, starting from when we arrived. I was prepared, had all my key points. Kept it factual on my actions, no speculation on their actions. I shared my phone screen live, went through the text messages with timestamps and the voicemail from Specialist’s mom. I was asked if I had requested or encouraged Specialist to put any expenses on her P-card. This question took me by surprise. I said I didn’t even ask or consider that she had a P-card, and beside the Lyft from airport to hotel, which I scheduled/paid for, I was never outside of the hotel/official conference activities with either Specialist or Intern that would have required any sort of payment. I did say I would consider it to be her line manager’s responsibility to make sure she understood our travel and expense policies prior to traveling. I was asked if at any point I had reached out to anyone at the office about anything that was transpiring, to which I said no, I certainly intended to when I returned, but we are talking about everything that happened within a 32-ish hour window, all while I was trying to focus on what I was sent there to do: participate as a panel member at the conference, attend other presentations, take advantage of face-to-face time with our agency, and accepting my award. I said I felt it was reasonable to believe any other attendees would have expectations for participation and outcomes set by their leadership team, especially when coming from another department, where I wouldn’t be knowledgable about their goals and objectives. Similarly, if there were different expectations of me based on other Co attendees, I would expect that to be clearly communicated in advance. I was not asked if I thought Intern and/or Specialist should receive any sort of reprimand, and I didn’t feel comfortable trying to interject something like that based on the flow of conversation. I’m under the impression that they’re meeting with Specialist and Intern separately, but my meeting was first. After the meeting I debriefed with a trusted colleague, who shared the following from Friday “water cooler” chats: I definitely offended Intern by pulling her aside about her outfit. She posted it to Snapchat with a caption about it, and some other interns/employees saw it. Dying to know what exactly it said, but coworker said everyone who did see it agreed it was inappropriate for a work event. ALLEGEDLY Specialist’s mom had once called previous Director (who left, Director in meeting today replaced him) about Specialist’s working hours. It is known that several months ago Specialist was pulled off a high profile project team. Apparently when she was asked to put in some evening and weekend hours to meet a deadline, Mom called Director and complained. Don’t know if I believe this to be true but Mom stepping in could be a pattern. What I’m hoping helps validate my “testimony” is separately on Friday, one of my agency partners I was with emailed my CMO about a conversation we had after the ceremony on Thursday evening with some ideas he had. Typical agency sales-y stuff, but he also unknowingly corroborated my alibi on Thursday night. So, that’s where we are at. Last night I had convinced myself this all would result in me receiving a big apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and that I shouldn’t have had to deal with this, etc. But I didn’t, which makes me feel this is still a bit unresolved. I did send all my notes to my VP on Sunday, but his PTO is medical related and I know he’s not able to really check in, so just keeping my head down until I hear anything else. An AITAH Nashville Work Drama Final Update Aug 6th, 2025 This will be my final update. It’s probably not going to be as juicy as you want it to be, but hopefully it provides some level of closure to this whole thing. This post will still be long because I generally have a problem with brevity and I have BIG feelings about this whole experience. Here are the things I want to say. I bolded the topics so you can choose what interests you. Was the post fake? No. I don’t really understand why it was flagged, what rules I broke, etc. I did alter some details to try and protect my identity (more on that later) but feel this is a generally acceptable Reddit practice. At the point where it was taken down it had already gone “viral” so I honestly appreciated the decline in notifications, lol. According to my DMs many people felt entitled that I provide them with “proof of authenticity” and it’s like, be so for real. I’m a human looking for advice on the internet not a gold plated, uncirculated, oversized, novelty Sacajawea quarter you buy from an infomercial in the middle of the night. If you don’t like something or think it’s fake or it’s not bringing you joy, just scroll on, it’s really easy to do. Threatening a stranger won’t prove anything or make your life better. Was I actually doxxed? Yes. While I received many incorrect guesses at my true identity, there were a couple that were correct. And holy shit is that scary. I don’t know what compels a person to go to such lengths to try and figure out who a random internet poster is, but maybe don’t spend your time doing that? Unless it’s someone threatening to shoot up a school or bomb a concert venue, of course. Take those despicable monsters ALL the way down. But I’m just an elder Millennial trying to navigate imposter syndrome in corporate America, pay my bills and generally be a good person so one day I can hopefully retire and rescue a borderline concerning number of geriatric Pomeranians. Very unworthy of your CIA-caliber sleuthing. Please, make friendship bracelets or try diamond painting as a relaxing hobby instead. Or join the actual CIA and take down would-be school shooters and concert venue bombers. Has anyone from my job seen my post? Yes, in some form. More than one person, in fact. Perhaps naively, this was something I never even considered would happen. It’s Reddit! It’s anonymous, and everything is cycled through in about 24 hours, right?!! But as soon as the reaction videos started coming across my FYP, a People Magazine (web) article?!!!!, and all the other ways this thing took on a life of its own … NGL I had pretty severe panic about this — like wow, I handled the situation as best I could and came out relatively unscathed, but me seeking validation of internet strangers will be what takes me out in the end. So far I have not been reprimanded over it… but I accept whatever comes of it. Not my most professional move to air out other’s not most professional moves on the Internet and I will seek a healthier outlet in the future. Maybe I’ll make friendship bracelets, or try diamond painting. Will Specialist and/or Intern be fired? To my knowledge, they are both still employed, although today is the official last day for the entire summer intern cohort. I know how I would handle one of my team members if they did this (but I trust they would never, ever, ever, because they’re sensible and smart and amazing… and probably reading this) but for these two, it’s not up to me to decide. And while I take full accountability for bringing all gestures widely this on myself, I’m at a point where I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative within my actual place of work. In conclusion For everyone who commented and sent such nice, supportive messages - thank you. Sincerely. I did get some good advice and I’m glad I could help you temporarily escape into someone else’s work drama, provide HR training material for new employees on travel policies, or maybe validate that whatever you did on your first work trip that creeps into your brain when you’re trying to fall asleep at night wasn’t actually that bad. I took the rest of the week off, which may seem like an overreaction, but sometimes weird stuff impacts you in ways you aren’t prepared for. I’m going to use the time to rest, do a bit of reflection, and look at pictures of geriatric Pomeranians. I am not the original poster. Please dont contact or comment on linked posts submitted by /u/secure-raspberry-763 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/Diligent_Pineapple35 posting in r/AITAH and r/redditonwiki Ongoing as per OOP 1 update - Long Original - 3rd August 2025 Update - 4th August 2025 New Update Final Update - 6th August 2025 AITAH for still getting on a flight home when my two young coworkers I was traveling with weren’t at the airport yet and were obviously going to miss it? TL;DR: Went on a work trip with two junior employees (not on my team) and they missed the flight home because they went sight-seeing the day we were leaving. I still got on flight even though they weren’t at the airport. Long version - This past week I was presented with an industry award in Nashville that an agency partner nominated me for. I am a Director at my company. My Co decided to send two junior-level employees to the event as well because they thought it would be a good experience for them - a Specialist who has been with us a little over a year (25f, first job out of college) and a summer intern (21f, rising senior). They are not on my team (report up through separate VP) and I have very limited / no interaction with them in daily work life. They were VERY excited to be going. This was going to be the Specialist’s first time on a plane, lots of Teams chats asking what to wear, etc. We were flying in Thursday morning and leaving Friday evening so it was a very short trip, but I tried to help share info about the event (types of attendees, awards reception/presentation Thursday night with a country western theme, then I was speaking on a panel Friday morning). There’s so much I could say, but I’ll try to highlight key points: Specialist barely made Thursday AM flight because she doesn’t have a Real ID and had to do extra screening. She had no idea what a Real ID was, or the basic rules of flying (liquid restrictions, etc.) She was VERY upset they made her throw away some of her skincare that was over 3oz. Thurs night event was country western theme, and while a majority of people there were business casual, Intern shows up in a bandana tube top, micro skirt, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. I pulled her aside and asked if she wanted to run upstairs and change since it was still a business event, but she said she was fine and she thought she looked cute and on-theme. After ceremony I invite them to join me with some colleagues I knew from other Companies in the hotel bar, but they tell me they want to “check out Broadway”. I make a face and say this would be a good networking opportunity, they make “c’mon mom” jokes, and so I tell them to be safe and remind them the time and location of first session the next day. Text them around 11pm that I hope they got back safe, no response. Went to bed. Text them the next morning offering to meet them for coffee before morning sessions, no response. No idea if they actually attended any sessions or saw my panel, but I did find them in the hotel lobby afterward looking incredibly hungover. Have about 2 hours after event is over and before we need to go to the airport, I invite them to late lunch with our agency partners. They decline because they want to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Again, make a face and say I don’t know if they will have time and I think it would be a good opportunity for them to spend time with our agency. They act like I’m the wet blanket so I tell them I’m leaving for airport from the hotel at 4pm sharp and meet me in lobby so we can share a Lyft. Text them at 3:45pm that Lyft is arriving in 15 mins, no response. Text them that Lyft has arrived and I’m leaving for airport, no response. Text them when I get to airport and tell them security line is long (neither had pre-check), no response. Text them when I get to gate to please give me some sign of life, Intern sends very short response about 10 mins later: “In Lyft, there’s traffic.” Nothing else. Text them flight is starting to board, no response. Text them when I’m in my seat that boarding is about to end, no response. Doors close, they don’t make it, put my phone in airplane mode. Land a couple hours later to a barrage of texts from them. They’re “stranded in Nashville”, don’t know what to do, how to rebook, who to call for help, etc. I also have an angry voicemail from Specialist’s mom that I “abandoned her daughter in Nashville”, she has never flown and has anxiety, she’s having a panic attack at the airport and needs medical attention, she could be human trafficked (???). I call Specialist and Intern back, both phones ring but neither pick up. Text to see if they were able to rebook, no response. Forward them email with our business travel info with after-hours contact and text them that I sent the email, no response. Texted an hour or so later to see if they were okay, no response. Did not call the mom back. Also have text from their Director (don’t know her well, just started with Co a couple weeks ago) asking what’s going on. I send her brief overview and screenshots of all my unanswered texts to them from earlier in the day along with the transcript of the vm I got from the mom. She acknowledges my response, but no further dialogue. Now, I get an invite for a Monday morning meeting from that Director with their VP and our C-Suite leader. My VP is on PTO. I feel like these are adults, I was communicative, and I’m ultimately not responsible for their decisions. But you tell me, AITA here? Comments MissHibernia I think that OP went incredibly above and beyond here considering that it was a WORK EVENT SHE WAS RECEIVING AN AWARD AT so to have these junior idiots causing any type of fuss was really an unnecessary hassle for her when it should have been a personal celebration OOP: Okay thank you so much for saying this because I took it out of my main post since it was so long already, but I made a short acceptance speech after getting the award. I worked really hard on it and practiced a lot. It was only like 90 seconds but I asked Specialist and Intern to film it for me because I wanted to share it with my team members who helped me with it. Left my phone with them and everything but they “forgot” and that kind of upset me. It’s obvi not the end of the world but like, come on. Hari_om_tat_sat So they even failed at the only job you gave them with explicit instructions (“film my speech” — official speech at official event). Definitely worth including in your bullet points. lychigo You were there as their coworker, not as their mother. Firstly, no one should be expecting you to take care of them in that way. They're adults. And even when you did offer them direction and support, they didn't even have the decency to get back to you. And a call from her mom? Good Christ. I would come prepared with documentation and also let your supervisor know, even if they're on PTO that this is what was happening. Mac1721 The call from her mom is what really gets me. As an adult, I fully understand calling your mom for help when you’re panicked, like this girl stuck at the airport with no flying experience. I would 100% call my mom if I were panicking in that situation. My mom, however, would help me get my shit together and clam down and solve the problem myself, not call another person on the business trip and yell at them for leaving me stranded. That far crosses the line Apprehensive_Mark_20 They seem to have mistaken a business trip for a vacation. Also they acted irresponsibly around time, dressing, and networking possibilities. None of this is your fault. You are not their mother. You treated them like the adults they are, the fact that they didn't act like adults is not on you NTA. RebeccaMCullen After their behavior on this trip, I'll be surprised if they ever get a chance to go on another company funded trip, let alone still have a job. fetgdry Confirming you are female re the “c’mon mom” comment. This shouldn’t be, but is this a gendered issue that your company sent a senior female to do work and babysit two junior females? I can understand never having flown before, but you went above and beyond to look after and help them. They aren’t you direct reports and frankly they didn’t do their job of actually benefiting from your experience and network. They took it as a chance to have a holiday. If a colleague of mine was late, I wouldn’t be expected to miss my flight to help them. What you did was again above and beyond in trying to organise grown adults. Re the meeting, if the people in attendance can impact your performance / bonus etc, I would strongly suggest emailing them to ask them what the meeting is about and reschedule when your VP is back. If you don’t want to trouble your VP, I think that is fine also, but you should be prepared to make this an uncomfortable conversation for them as to why they think it’s ok to send two junior female employees to be babysit by another senior female employee. Would they expect this from a male colleague, my guess is probably not. Good luck and update us! OOP: Thanks for this comment. I don’t want to make this a gender issue, but if the meeting does turn on me on Monday I have been trying to find a way to professionally say, if it had been [male counterpart on my team] who went on this trip with the same outcome, would you be having the same conversation? Interestingly, perhaps, everyone on the meeting invite on Monday is a woman. My VP is male but on PTO so won’t be in attendance. **Judgement - NTA*\* Update - 1 day later OOP replies in the crosspost from r/redditonwiki after the post was removed from r/AITAH (Insert “it’s meeeeee” Wicked meme here). This whole fiasco has really challenged my Reddit skills, lol. Here’s my update after my meeting this morning. If there is a better place/way to post it that won’t get me in Reddit jail, LMK: Meeting over. CMO didn’t join. It was other VP and Director, plus the internship coordinator, who is in HR. VP asked all the questions. It was over Teams, on camera, recorded, almost comically formal, like I was being deposed or something. During the meeting: Was asked to recap what happened, starting from when we arrived. I was prepared, had all my key points. Kept it factual on my actions, no speculation on their actions. I shared my phone screen live, went through the text messages with timestamps and the voicemail from Specialist’s mom. I was asked if I had requested or encouraged Specialist to put any expenses on her P-card. This question took me by surprise. I said I didn’t even ask or consider that she had a P-card, and beside the Lyft from airport to hotel, which I scheduled/paid for, I was never outside of the hotel/official conference activities with either Specialist or Intern that would have required any sort of payment. I did say I would consider it to be her line manager’s responsibility to make sure she understood our travel and expense policies prior to traveling. I was asked if at any point I had reached out to anyone at the office about anything that was transpiring, to which I said no, I certainly intended to when I returned, but we are talking about everything that happened within a 32-ish hour window, all while I was trying to focus on what I was sent there to do: participate as a panel member at the conference, attend other presentations, take advantage of face-to-face time with our agency, and accepting my award. I said I felt it was reasonable to believe any other attendees would have expectations for participation and outcomes set by their leadership team, especially when coming from another department, where I wouldn’t be knowledgable about their goals and objectives. Similarly, if there were different expectations of me based on other Co attendees, I would expect that to be clearly communicated in advance. I was not asked if I thought Intern and/or Specialist should receive any sort of reprimand, and I didn’t feel comfortable trying to interject something like that based on the flow of conversation. I’m under the impression that they’re meeting with Specialist and Intern separately, but my meeting was first. After the meeting I debriefed with a trusted colleague, who shared the following from Friday “water cooler” chats: I definitely offended Intern by pulling her aside about her outfit. She posted it to Snapchat with a caption about it, and some other interns/employees saw it. Dying to know what exactly it said, but coworker said everyone who did see it agreed it was inappropriate for a work event. ALLEGEDLY Specialist’s mom had once called previous Director (who left, Director in meeting today replaced him) about Specialist’s working hours. It is known that several months ago Specialist was pulled off a high profile project team. Apparently when she was asked to put in some evening and weekend hours to meet a deadline, Mom called Director and complained. Don’t know if I believe this to be true but Mom stepping in could be a pattern. What I’m hoping helps validate my “testimony” is separately on Friday, one of my agency partners I was with emailed my CMO about a conversation we had after the ceremony on Thursday evening with some ideas he had. Typical agency sales-y stuff, but he also unknowingly corroborated my alibi on Thursday night. So, that’s where we are at. Last night I had convinced myself this all would result in me receiving a big apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and that I shouldn’t have had to deal with this, etc. But I didn’t, which makes me feel this is still a bit unresolved. I did send all my notes to my VP on Sunday, but his PTO is medical related and I know he’s not able to really check in, so just keeping my head down until I hear anything else. Comments chrisff1989 Sounds like they paid for random stuff using their company card and tried to blame you for it. I'd be shocked if they keep their jobs MSK165 Thank you for this update. You won’t get an apology. That’s not how this works. One of the leadership may tacitly acknowledge that their behavior was wrong, but your involvement in this saga is over. My prediction: this is a career-limiting event for both of them. Intern will not be receiving an offer, and specialist will be terminated for using her P-card for unapproved items. (The termination will actually be for her helicopter mother, but on paper it’ll be for expense policy violations.) ShaneRealtorandGramp Nah, both will be fired for unprofessionalism during their trip with the additional violation for the specialist charging improper stuff as well. The specialist is really screwed because she will lose out on income and benefits. The intern is probably still in college so she can go through entry level recruitment but it's still going to be a pain and its a small world so news of the interns behavior will spread. The punishments they are getting match with how much both of them fucked up Final Update Update - 5 days later An AITAH Nashville Work Drama Final Update Original post (but IDK if you can even see it anymore): https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/znzQLMx6vl Monday Meeting Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditonwiki/s/d6cv5xzEQI This will be my final update. It’s probably not going to be as juicy as you want it to be, but hopefully it provides some level of closure to this whole thing. This post will still be long because I generally have a problem with brevity and I have BIG feelings about this whole experience. Here are the things I want to say. I bolded the topics so you can choose what interests you. Was the post fake? No. I don’t really understand why it was flagged, what rules I broke, etc. I did alter some details to try and protect my identity (more on that later) but feel this is a generally acceptable Reddit practice. At the point where it was taken down it had already gone “viral” so I honestly appreciated the decline in notifications, lol. According to my DMs many people felt entitled that I provide them with “proof of authenticity” and it’s like, be so for real. I’m a human looking for advice on the internet not a gold plated, uncirculated, oversized, novelty Sacajawea quarter you buy from an infomercial in the middle of the night. If you don’t like something or think it’s fake or it’s not bringing you joy, just scroll on, it’s really easy to do. Threatening a stranger won’t prove anything or make your life better. Was I actually doxxed? Yes. While I received many incorrect guesses at my true identity, there were a couple that were correct. And holy shit is that scary. I don’t know what compels a person to go to such lengths to try and figure out who a random internet poster is, but maybe don’t spend your time doing that? Unless it’s someone threatening to shoot up a school or bomb a concert venue, of course. Take those despicable monsters ALL the way down. But I’m just an elder Millennial trying to navigate imposter syndrome in corporate America, pay my bills and generally be a good person so one day I can hopefully retire and rescue a borderline concerning number of geriatric Pomeranians. Very unworthy of your CIA-caliber sleuthing. Please, make friendship bracelets or try diamond painting as a relaxing hobby instead. Or join the actual CIA and take down would-be school shooters and concert venue bombers. Has anyone from my job seen my post? Yes, in some form. More than one person, in fact. Perhaps naively, this was something I never even considered would happen. It’s Reddit! It’s anonymous, and everything is cycled through in about 24 hours, right?!! But as soon as the reaction videos started coming across my FYP, a People Magazine (web) article?!!!!, and all the other ways this thing took on a life of its own … NGL I had pretty severe panic about this — like wow, I handled the situation as best I could and came out relatively unscathed, but me seeking validation of internet strangers will be what takes me out in the end. So far I have not been reprimanded over it… but I accept whatever comes of it. Not my most professional move to air out other’s not most professional moves on the Internet and I will seek a healthier outlet in the future. Maybe I’ll make friendship bracelets, or try diamond painting. Will Specialist and/or Intern be fired? To my knowledge, they are both still employed, although today is the official last day for the entire summer intern cohort. I know how I would handle one of my team members if they did this (but I trust they would never, ever, ever, because they’re sensible and smart and amazing… and probably reading this) but for these two, it’s not up to me to decide. And while I take full accountability for bringing all gestures widely this on myself, I’m at a point where I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative within my actual place of work. In conclusion For everyone who commented and sent such nice, supportive messages - thank you. Sincerely. I did get some good advice and I’m glad I could help you temporarily escape into someone else’s work drama, provide HR training material for new employees on travel policies, or maybe validate that whatever you did on your first work trip that creeps into your brain when you’re trying to fall asleep at night wasn’t actually that bad. I took the rest of the week off, which may seem like an overreaction, but sometimes weird stuff impacts you in ways you aren’t prepared for. I’m going to use the time to rest, do a bit of reflection, and look at pictures of geriatric Pomeranians. Comments Disastrous-Ocelot317 I never considered looking at pictures of geriatric Pomeranians to be particularly grounding, but honestly that sounds lit. You deserve all good things. Thanks for updating. occamsracer The doxxing is wild. These interns definitely charged some sus stuff to the company. unexpectedlytired If these interns don't get properly punished then it's proof to me they are effin' somebody or are related to the right people. zephen_just_zephen Meh. It's easy for an intern to not be invited back, but in a lot of places they'd still be paid for their three months even if they murdered another employee with witnesses, and were taken away in handcuffs. No company wants the reputation of not upholding their end of the intern social contract. I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP. Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments submitted by /u/SharkEva to r/BORUpdates [link] [comments]

Would you wear this fit? Rate it 1-10! submitted by /u/theguyslist to r/theguyslist [link] [comments]

TL;DR: This is the LIVE BLOG from Day One of Eurovision rehearsals in St. Jakobshalle in Basel - if you have any questions, ask them in the comments and we'll do our best to reply! Here's the current schedule for today – all timings are CEST. 🇮🇸 Iceland: VÆB – RÓA 🇵🇱 Poland: Justyna Steczkowska – GAJA 🇸🇮 Slovenia: Klemen – How Much Time Do We Have Left 🇪🇪 Estonia: Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato 🇺🇦 Ukraine: Ziferblat – Bird of Pray 🇸🇪 Sweden: KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu 🇵🇹Portugal: NAPA – Deslocado -------------------------------------------------------- 10:00 CEST – The first rehearsal liveblog is back for 2025! Guten morgen from beautiful Basel, and welcome to DAY ONE of 2025’s Eurovision Song Contest rehearsals! We’re very happy to be back on the Eurovision sub once again this year, and hope you’ll stay with us for a week of rehearsal sneak peeks, AMAs and fun stuff. Today the acts from the first half of the First Semi-Final will rehearse for the first time on stage in Basel – we have the best seat in St Jakobshalle, and we’re here all day. This megathread is where you’ll get a flavour of the staging, the costumes, the pyro and the general vibe/vaeb of each performance. Rehearsals will start at 10:30 CEST with Iceland – is everyone ready? -------------------------------------------------------- 10:05 CEST: Photos and videos – an update 📷🎥 This week’s video/photo schedule has changed from previous years - we’ll be sharing an ‘I’ve Arrived’ video for each artist on Instagram and TikTok later today, and First Look photos will be posted on Eurovision socials tomorrow. We’ll also come back tomorrow and add photos/links here on Reddit, for those of you reading later in the week. -------------------------------------------------------- 10:10 CEST: A few things to note! Just a few notes about this live blog for anyone who wasn’t here last year. New people join in every day, so this will be a daily reminder ❤️ How rehearsals work: - Each country has half an hour to rehearse – that’s usually enough time to run through their performance three times. - If there is any pyro (smoke, fog, fireworks, burning fake pianos) they will be rehearsed in the final run-through. So we’ll add that information at the end. - Usually the costumes worn in the first rehearsal are the ones you’ll see in the Semi-Final – but not always. We can only tell you what we’re seeing today. Which leads us to... How the Live Blog works: - We are seeing all these performances for the first time, and have no idea in advance what to expect. So we watch the first run-through in the arena with the laptop closed, then try to describe what we’ve seen in words that fans from all across the world can understand. It takes time, and when staging is complex it can take even more time. We always want to do each performance justice, so please be patient ❤️ - ‘We’ are the Eurovision digital team, but this live blog is actually written by one person – hello, my name is Heidi, and I’m delighted to be guiding you through first rehearsals once again. Please add your questions to the comments and I’ll do my best to reply! -------------------------------------------------------- 10:40 CEST: Rehearsal 1: 🇮🇸 Iceland -VÆB – RÓA Let’s kick things off with an Icelandic party banger, shall we? VÆB (pronounced ‘vibe’) are brothers Matthías Davíð Matthíasson and Hálfdán Helgi Matthíasson. They are the first TikTok-born act of this Semi-Final, but definitely not the last. RÓA means ‘rowing’, and this song is very much about boats. Like a sea shanty, but make it an anthemic Nordic banger. The routine is fundamentally the same as the one we saw at Söngvakeppnin, but with a little Basel polish – the two-part wooden boat is painted white with some waves at stage level, and the three backing dancers have upgraded outfits - silver dungarees with cute Icelandic jumpers and silver bucket hats. But the two VÆB boys are in the same outfits with hoods we’ve seen previously, and of course their trademark silver shades. The whole routine has been elevated, and the arena is already jumping. Is there a mic drop at the end? Of course there is. Two interesting things that we’re going to see used to great effect this year – the LED wall at the back of the stage is full width and height, so it allows the artists to create hugely impactful graphic backdrops. VÆB use it for very cool geometric landscapes and seascapes in neon red and blue that feel very Icelandic, along with VÆB in giant letters that we saw at the national final. Also the front of the stage has an enormous rectangular frame that supports the roof - this is also entirely clad in LED pillars on all three sides, so they can use front and back graphics to create depth of field. It's really clever, and looks amazing both on screen and in the audience. 🔥 PYRO update - lots of smoke jets, for the Icelandic geyser vaeb. Our eyebrows are so far intact, but Poland is incoming. EBU/Sarah-Louise Bennett -------------------------------------------------------- 11:06 CEST: share your hallucinations Just for fun, and since we’re not posting photos until tomorrow and you’re all using your excellent imaginations, feel free to draw a picture of any of today’s staging based on our description and post it in the comments. Or construct a scene out of household items, we’re easy. We’ll mark you out of ten for accuracy. -------------------------------------------------------- 11:23 CEST: timings update! Just to let you know that rehearsals are currently running about 15 minutes behind schedule, which isn't unusual for day 1. Poland just starting! -------------------------------------------------------- 11:25 CEST: Rehearsal 2: 🇵🇱 Poland - Justyna Steczkowska – GAJA Time for a supreme goddess to emerge from (Icelandic) Chaos - Poland is up next, and our first returner of the season. Justyna Steczkowska first represented Poland at Eurovision in 1995 with the song Sama – she’s an established artist in Poland, having released 19 studio albums, recorded over 200 songs and performed more than 3,000 concerts. Every year there are a few songs that have a bassline so deep you can feel it in your chest. GAJA is definitely one of those – the reverb pounds through the floor of the arena, and for at least a minute we forgot to breathe. Justyna descends on two ropes from the roof at the beginning of the song in this version, in a black catsuit that’s very similar to the one she wore at Polskie Kwalifikacje, but without the shoulder fringing. Her four backing dancers (three male, one female) also have different outfits, with gladiator-like fringed skirts and VERY high heels – the choreography is complex, so 10/10 for core strength. The LED wall starts with spinning planets and water and lightning and lava like it’s the birth of the universe. Then at the end Justyna is lifted back up into the heavens against a backdrop of fire-breathing dragons. It’s giving Game of Thrones meetis Eurovision, and it’s an absolute spectacle from start to finish. 🔥 Pyro update! Low smoke on the main stage from the start, and flame jets during each chorus and for the final big note. EBU/Sarah-Louise Bennett -------------------------------------------------------- 12:04 CEST: another timing update! We are now running about 40 minutes behind schedule - some tech issues on the stage are being resolved. Welcome to Day 1 - this is, after all, what rehearsals are for. Will let you know when we restart. In the meantime, we love your drawings so much we're going to turn them into a TikTok tomorrow, when we have the actual pictures to compare them to. Great work, everyone ❤️ -------------------------------------------------------- 12:20 CEST: Rehearsal 3: 🇸🇮 Slovenia - Klemen – How Much Time Do We Have Left Rehearsals have started again, with our first ballad of 2025. It's an absolute heartbreaker from Slovenia’s Klemen – he’s an actor, singer, songwriter and TV host. He’s hosted EMA, Slovenia’s national selection, four times, but this year it’s his turn to represent his country at Eurovision. How Much Time Do We Have Left is a song about the fragility of life, and the staging really captures that haunting theme, with both the LED wall and the front arch both sparkling with thousands of stars that change from red to blue through the song. It's also a different outfit from the one Klemen wore at EMA – in this rehearsal he’s wearing a black suit with a white t-shirt, rather than the grey turtleneck. As we saw at EMA, Klemen sings the middle section upside down, supported by two backing dancers. After two uptempo openers, this feels it will create a moment of beautiful, hypnotic stillness during the First Semi-Final – Klemen’s huge vocals fill the hall with heart and soul. EBU/Corinne Cumming ---------------------------------------------------- 12:55 CEST: Rehearsal 4: 🇪🇪 Estonia - Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato One last rehearsal before we take a break for lunch, and it’s Estonia’s Tommy Cash. He’s a singer and conceptual artist, with a huge social media following across Europe – he’s even played Glastonbury, and now he's bringing his unique style to Basel. Espresso Macchiato is the first of three songs featuring the Italian language this year, and one of two songs about Italy that aren’t sung by…Italy. Welcome to the joyful unpredictability of Eurovision - it's one of the many, many reasons why we love it so much. Tommy is wearing the same blue suit/long red tie we saw at Eesti Laul, and the routine is also much the same, with two burly security guards who are joined by two others for Tommy’s trademark spaghetti-legged dance routine. The LED backdrop creates an alpine landscape that matches the mountains that flank the stage, with similar animated graphics to those we saw at Eesti Laul, just much bigger and bolder. There’s a real fun energy to this song - you can’t help but sing along. This is, as the kids say, going to go VERY big in the hall. EBU/Sarah-Louise Bennett ---------------------------------------------------- 13:25 CEST: Time for lunch! 🥗 The arena team is taking a break right now, but we'll be back at 14:25 CEST for Ukraine, Sweden and Portugal. We’ll report back on what crew catering is like this year, but only if you tell us what you’re having for lunch. ---------------------------------------------------- 14:10 CEST: We're back! VERY nice crew lunch of meat loaf and vegetables, with vegetarian/vegan options also available - we are already being very well looked after by the Swiss team in Basel. Back in the arena now for the afternoon session - Ukraine due on stage in about 15 minutes, so don't go away! ---------------------------------------------------- 14:10 CEST: Rehearsal 5: 🇺🇦 Ukraine - Ziferblat – Bird of Pray In the first Semi-Final it will be time for Spain to perform now, but as one of the Big 5 they won’t rehearse until Thursday. Instead it’s time for our first band of 2025 – Ukrainian 3-piece Ziferblat. They formed in 2015, and took part in X Factor Ukraine in 2019, where (FUN FACT) they were mentored by none other than Andriy Danylko, aka Eurovision legend Verka Seduchka. Made up of Daniel, Valentyn and Fedir, Ziferblat define themselves as being part of the new generation of Ukrainian music. The staging has definitely undergone some changes since the performance that won them Vidbir – the suits are a similar wide-legged/puff shoulders 1970s cut, but they’re now each in a different solid bright colour with lots of sparkle, and the three backing singers have glittery gold pantsuits. The on-stage garden of grass and flowers has also gone – instead the LED wall has pink and green neon graphics that pulse and swirl with the music, and explode during the chorus. The lighting and close camerawork really drive this performance - even the way Daniel walks around the stage is perfectly choreographed to each beat. The whole thing is VERY stylish and polished, but that’s very much the Ziferblat signature, no? 🔥 PYRO update! There's low smoke on the main stage from the start, then some fireworks during the guitar middle eight. Post lunch lull? Not in this arena. EBU/Corinne Cumming ---------------------------------------------------- 15:00 CEST: Rehearsal 6: 🇸🇪 Sweden - KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu So last year Sweden were represented by Norwegian twins, and this year it’s Finnish trio Kevin, Axel and Jakob, aka KAJ. But despite being the first Finnish act to represent Sweden, they’re from the Swedish-speaking part of Finland and are singing in Swedish. It’s also the first time Sweden have sung in their own language since 1998. Are you keeping up? No matter if not, your local TV commentator will almost certainly explain this all again next week. All of which, excitingly, means we’re six rehearsals in, and have already clocked up six different languages, and we still have Portuguese to come. Bara Bada Bastu means ‘just sauna’ – this song is an invitation for the Eurovision fandom to steam it up, let go of stress and turn up the heat like a Swede/Finn. Staging-wise, we can confirm the changes from Melfest that KAJ have already spoken about – the same greeny-brown suits, a firepit that’s more like the wooden heat rock box you get in a sauna, and a log store that is easier for the (now three) dancers to tilt into sauna mode. However: a few additional things to note: the opening sausage is SIGNIFICANTLY LARGER than the one we saw in Melfest. The LED backdrop provides an entire forest complete with deer, until the key change when the entire arena goes full neon laser party for an epic finish. And finally, KAJ have found some fir trees! We’re too far away to tell if they’re real or fake, sorry. Will try to sneak into the prop store later – we did it last year to check if the Windows95man denim egg had pockets. 🔥 PYRO update! Flames in the fire pit, and flame jets in the middle eight just before the key change. Then smoke jets to accompany the laser party ending. Sweden have left nothing unsteamed. EBU/Sarah-Louise Bennett ---------------------------------------------------- 15:50 CEST: Rehearsal 7: 🇵🇹Portugal - NAPA – Deslocado Time for our final rehearsal of the day, and it’s Portugal’s NAPA. They are Guilherme, Lourenço, Francisco, Diogo and João, a 5-piece band from the Portuguese island of Madeira who released their first album back in 2019. Sung in Portuguese (our seventh language of the day!), Deslocado translates as ‘displaced’ – it’s a song about feeling out of place in the city, but also the peace of knowing you can always go home. The emotion is very much in the tradition of Portuguese Fado, but the sweeping musical arrangement of Deslocado also adds a contemporary summer vibe. They describe their influences as bands like The Beatles, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Arctic Monkeys, and you can definitely hear a touch of all three in this performance. The set-up of the band on stage is the same as we saw at Festival da Canção, but a few things have been added for the Basel stage. Firstly, the band’s outfits have changed – now they all have long-sleeved jackets or shirts in different muted colours that elevate the whole thing to a new level of style. The LED wall adds some lovely floating clouds and animated skyscapes that change colour in sync with the LED arch, all of which adds to the dreamlike quality of this performance. The harmonies are stunning in this big space – even if you don’t understand Portuguese you can feel the emotion, and those gentle final notes gave us goosebumps. A lovely way to end the day. EBU/Corinne Cumming ---------------------------------------------------- 16:20 CEST: Day 1 is DONE! That’s it for today’s Eurovision rehearsal Live Blog – what a fun first day. Thanks to everyone who has read along and joined in with your questions and comments and drawings - it’s great to be sharing this experience with the Eurovision Reddit community, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. We’re off for a walk and a stretch, but we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the next eight rehearsals – Norway, Belgium, Azerbaijan, San Marino, Albania, Netherlands, Croatia, and Cyprus. That is a VERY banger-heavy day, so stock up on energy drinks and snacks. Rehearsals start at 10:30 CEST (although we’ll start the live blog around 10:00) – hopefully we’ll see you then! submitted by /u/eurovision to r/eurovision [link] [comments]

(Goddamn, this is long. I've highlighted different areas so you can just read sections relevant to what you're attending. I'm also always happy to talk Vegas and can answer more specific questions.) Hi all. I'm a huge pro wrestling nerd and a Las Vegas geek. Although I don't follow WWE much anymore, Mania Week is still one of my favorite weeks of the year. With the amount of satellite shows and the greatest wrestlers from around the world descending on one city, it's Pro Wrestling Thanksgiving; everyone is there and there's going to be too much to consume. When WWE announced Mania coming to Vegas, I knew I was going to be there and cross a bucket list item off my list: spend 4 days consuming live pro wrestling from morning until late night. I've lost count of how many times I've visited Vegas. Hell, I lost count how many times I visited last year. I've stayed up and down The Strip, Downtown, and a couple of locals places. Yes, I play the slots enough that I have some status and get free rooms. I visit so often because my preferred choices of entertainment, big name concerts, wrestling shows, and sports events, don't happen at my home in Montana (also, I'd give anything for half decent dim sum here). But Vegas is a short flight and, despite recent changes, still relatively cheap for quick getaways. I get asked often for things to do and see, places to stay, what to eat, etc. So I thought I'd offer up some Mania week specific tips from a frequent Vegas visitor. Vegas Basics (you may have heard some of these:) Shoes-. Wear comfortable shoes that you've broken in. Ladies, think twice about the cute heels unless you're staying on/near your hotel. You will walk. A lot. "Caesars Palace is right there!" It's not, and it's huge when you get there. Keep your feet happy. -Distance. Speaking of walking. Everything looks closer than it is. The WWE-centric stuff like WWE World at the Convention Center, isn't walkable to too many areas of touristy interest. Budget time to get where you need to be, whether walking, rideshare/taxi, or shuttling. -Buskers. The Vegas Strip has become much like Times Square or Hollywood Blvd with the amount of buskers and street hustlers. Costumed characters, musicians, mariachi bands, shirtless buff dudes and groups of girls in showgirl outfits. They're not free. If you absolutely have to have your picture taken with any of them, negotiate a price up front before the pic is taken and the 2 showgirls are demanding $100 each. "Monks" will approach you and attempt to put a bracelet on you and then ask for a donation for the temple they're building. They're not munks, there is no temple. Completely ghost them. I'm going to include timeshare people inside the hotels here. Mostly found in the cheaper properties such as Flamingo, Excalibur, Luxor, Harrah's, these people dress like hotel management and will approach you, especially if you're a couple, with lines like "Have you got your free comps yet?" They will offer, and give you, show tickets and dining vouchers. The price you pay is sitting through a "90 minute" (lol) timeshare presentation that turns into 4 hours and happens offsite. They drove you there and they're your ride back. And they've got your "free" show tickets held hostage. If you want to see Blue Man Group, just buy Blue Man Group tickets. -Porn Slappers: Groups of people snapping playing card sized pictures of naked girls advertising direct to your room services. Unless you want to collect them all like Pokemon, don't even extend your hand out or you'll have all of them shove a handful at you. (If you do take a handful just for shits 'n giggles and recognize, by name, at least 3 of the girls on the card, you may want to curb the internet porn for a while. No, 2004 era Tera Patrick isn't available.) (By the way, that "$59 to your room" is exactly that. A girl will show up to your room and collect $59 and then negotiate prices from there for everything from a strip show to....other things. You'll be lucky to see a calf, let alone anything else, for $59. Plus there's a big chance you're gonna get robbed. Don't do it. In fact, if you're in your YEET shirt and a beautiful, strange woman takes sudden interest in you, she ain't free.) Prostitution is illegal in Vegas. -Money. You're going to spend it. Everything is more expensive and then you get fee'd to death. There are some islands of value, and the many Walgreens/CVS/ABC Stores are havens of decent value for drinks, water, snacks, alcohol, and any basics your forgot to pack. Watch out for things like "venue fees" or something similar tacked on to restaurant bills. Usually 3%-5% added on to the bill. You can ask for this to be removed and they don't put up much of a fuss. A party of 2-4 shouldn't be paying "service fees." Just some Vegas bullshit that's pissing regular visitors off. -Your Hotel. This is probably too late but if you've booked some off Strip el cheapo hotel, you should reconsider and look into a low to mid priced Strip or Downtown property. Any money you save will be wasted to extra time, transportation expense, and possible frustration trying to get from an out-of-the-way hotel to the areas of interest and where the events are happening. -Airport Transportation. Everyone hates cabs in favor of Uber/Lyft, but from the airport I find taking a taxi faster, more convenient, and depending on how many other travelers are also getting a rideshare, price comparable. Airport to Strip properties prices are set with no meter running, so you'll know your cost before getting in. There's signs around the pickup area. The taxi line is right outside the baggage claim doors and moves quickly even if there's a lot of people waiting. And with fixed pricing, they lost all incentive to long haul unknowing tourists. Bring cash to avoid the $3 card fee and give a nice tip if the driver made it pleasant. Also, the fixed pricing is good for trips to the airport, too, however Uber/Lyft are convenient and usually cheaper here since they can drop you at the terminal and your property has less of a chance for surge compared to airport pickup. -A Vegas Vacation. Unless you're only going to the 2 nights of WrestleMania, I have to advise against trying to have a Vegas vacation while attending all the wrestling things. Even if you're only going to WWE hosted events, it's going to be a lot. Plan some extra days or come back some other time for "Vegas, baby." I often hear "2 days in Las Vegas is enough" when anything less than 4 feels like I was barely there. Those people burn the candle at both ends (and there's nothing wrong with that, if that's your thing). Little to no sleep, all day binge drinking, maybe some substances. My advice: Sleep if you need to sleep. Enjoy your drink instead of pounding shots before 10am (and if you have to have one of those slushy drinks, get a smaller one). Plan for some relaxation times. Fit in some veggies in a couple of your meals. Do that and you'll be fine even if you're doing Wednesday-Tuesday with wrestling things from morning until midnight. The Venues: Allegiant Stadium. History will be made! Transportation- Despite what I said above, Allegiant is surprisingly walkable from The Strip. I'm seeing round trip shuttle services for $66 or something and, depending on where you're coming from, that may not be necessary. The Hacienda Bridge will be closed to traffic hours before the event in preparation of foot traffic from The Strip. Get there just off the Mandalay Bay casino floor near the entrance to The Shoppes (the door is between the escalator and the sports bar). Getting to Mandalay Bay is easy from Luxor, Excalibur, New York New York, Park MGM, MGM Grand, Cosmopolitan, Vdara, and Bellagio via use of free trams and inner walkways, and the door to the walkway to the Stadium is really close to the exit of the tram at Mandalay Bay. And if you're further north but on the Monorail line, I'd consider taking that to MGM Grand, hoofing it over to outside Excalibur, tramming it to Mandalay Bay, and walking to Allegiant before paying for shuttles or rideshares. Free trams run from Bellagio (with Cosmopolitan and Vdara access) down to Aria/Park MGM with a stop at the Crystals bougie mall in between. There's also a tram from outside Excalibur to Mandalay Bay. It only stops at Luxor on the return trip from Mandalay Bay. Getting from Park MGM to the Excalibur tram stop is an easy walk through Park MGM and then through or around New York New York. The door- There's one primary entrance almost everyone uses. It gets packed. Everyone piles into the nearest ones on the right, so move to the left to find some shorter lines. Stadium Amenities- There's no shortage of food and drink options in Allegiant, including tourist favorites like Dirt Dog, Evel Pie, and Pinkbox donuts. I had a brisket burrito at BBQ Mexicana at the LSU vs USC football game last season that was amazing. Here's their food and bar options: https://visit.allegiantstadium.com/plan-your-visit/food-beverage-menu-guide There's also an In-N-Out Burger on the opposite side of the main entrance. I've never been to that one but I imagine it gets pretty busy pre and post events. There's a few other places nearby as well. If you're a Raiders fan, there's lots of Raiders photos and history on the main concourse. Food and Drink Prices- I won't say it's cheap, however considering it's Vegas and a stadium that hosts NFL and major events, its...fine? I've never felt overly gouged by food/drink prices at Allegiant, like I needed to slowly sip my cocktail because it's the only one I'm buying. Bottles of water are actually cheaper than the prices in the hotel shops (you just have to drink it out of a Raider branded bottle). Merch- WWE probably has their merch game more on point than most, however in the 1 football game and 2 concerts I've attended at Allegiant, there's been only giant merch stand and it's right inside the main doors. The line gets very long. I waited over an hour to get a Rolling Stones t-shirt. Now, I've only ever sat in the lower bowl area, so I don't know if there's smaller merch stands in the upper levels or down on the floor, but there's never been another one on the main concourse. I suggest getting the merch you want at WWE World or just ordering it. God forbid there's Mania exclusive merch only available at Allegiant. Get there early if merch is a must. Special Areas- if you bought tickets in Sections 109-115, you're going to be in the Modelo Cantina Club. If you're in Sections 131-137, you're in the Twitch Lounge. I unknowingly bought a ticket here once and, oh my, it's the way to go. You go in a special entrance that opens up to an area with comfortable seating areas, bars, and multiple food options. And restrooms. These are only open to the sections listed, so you'll have shorter waits for concessions and a less crowded bathroom, as well as comfy seating areas if you need a break from the commotion. After Mania- that walkway back to The Strip will be packed. In Vegas, the ushers don't give you any time to linger after the event and let the crowd clear out. You're not at a slot machine or overpriced lounge if you're just chilling in the stadium. All rideshares will be surge pricing. Those free trams and even the Monorail will be packed. I went to see Pink at Allegiant and walked to MGM Grand to catch the Monorail to Horseshoe, was the last sardine on the car, and even at Horseshoe had to wait for a few different elevators as other concert goers were heading up to their rooms, too. I highly recommend enduring the packed bridge back over, walking over to at least The Park (outdoor area between New York New York and Park MGM) and just chilling and talk about the show with your people, check online reactions, etc. Or just take a leisurely stroll to where you need to go. Or wait in a long taxi line or pay surge rideshare. For those of you paying for the shuttles, you're still going to be waiting a while to get on one and it'll have to deal with traffic leaving too. Be patient. T-Mobile Arena. Go Knights Go! Transportation- T-Mobile is walkable from anywhere mid-Strip on south, especially if you make use of the free trams up from Mandalay Bay and down from Bellagio. If you're staying at Park MGM or New York New York, you can walk out the door and hit it with a tennis ball with a decent arm and only a couple of bounces. Again, if using the shuttle services, consider if you need to pay that price. A rideshare directly to the arena may trigger a surge, but one to New York New York or Aria might be cheaper and be a quick walk. The door- the opposite of Allegiant Stadium. Everyone lines up behind the left doors. Walk over to the right and you'll find shorter lines to get in. If you're a T-Mobile subscriber, you'll find a door just for you over there. Arena Amenities- Decent concession options, including a Shake Shack. https://www.t-mobilearena.com/arena-information/arena-dining There's a bar/lounge area at the very top of T-Mobile on the east end. For Golden Knights game, this is a first come, first serve standing room only area open to anyone with a ticket. But I have no idea how it operates for something like WWE/NXT shows. The Toshiba Plaza is the area outside the front doors. There will be bars set up, probably a merch stand or 2, and maybe some entertainment on the stage. Along with The Park leading up to the Arena, a great place to hang out before heading into T-Mobile. Concession Prices- ugh. Over $20 cocktails. Way too much for a Bud Light tallboy. Plenty of great food options in the properties just outside the Arena. Eat before/after. Merch- The main merch stand is right inside the doors, however there are multiple smaller merch stands on the concourses of all levels. Special Areas- Sections 15 and 16 have access to the Bud Light Lounge. Sections 5 and 6 have access to the Ghost Lounge. Again, these are areas only available to those sections with multiple food and drink options and a restroom. As a bonus, I find those seats really nice for my large ass. And just like Allegiant, I didn't even realize I bought that section until I went to see Lady Gaga. Now, I always check if I can get one of those areas. After the show- you're in the thick of the action. NYNY and Park MGM will be hopping, as will Aria, Cosmo, and Excalibur. Plenty of options to grab some food or a drink or just hang out after. If you're heading over to Palms for the late night Collective show, it's a quick rideshare or taxi ride from NYNY or Park MGM but traffic out might suck. Now I have seen some comments here about going back to the room after NXT for a nap before Mania night 1 and....I don't know. If you're staying anywhere south of T-Mobile (NYNY, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay) or at Park MGM or Aria, this is possible. But if you have to take a ride back to your hotel, I think you're cutting it close. T-Mobile to Allegiant is walkable and you'll have plenty of time. I don't know, I guess I don't like to be in a rush and that's what I'd be if I had to go to a north property and then back the other way to Allegiant. If you're staying Downtown or anywhere off Strip other than Palms, Orleans, or Rio, forget it. Fontainebleau. You're staying at the Official WWE Hotel? You bougie motherfucker! Fontainebleau is the newest Strip property and, as of right now, the newest in all of Las Vegas. It is NICE. There's also not any cheap food or drink options on property. Even the food hall is not cheap. But it is pretty and the staff are great. Get a room facing south and you're likely to get a nice view down The Strip and of the Sphere. Rooms are very nice. Washing Potato is great for dim sum and Chinese entrees. Mother Wolf is DELICIOUS Italian food (get the focaccia). If you like your steak with a side of Las Vegas night club, go to Papi Steak. The main issue with Fontainebleau since the day it opened is that it isn't near anything. The North Strip is in the process of making a comeback but it's not there yet. It doesn't get a lot of foot traffic. For Mania Week purposes, it's a GREAT location for WWE World and, to a lessor extent, Wrestlecon at Westgate (10-15 minute walk), but it's not near most of things you think of when you think "Vegas." The Stratosphere tower looks close, but it's a bit of a hike. It is across the street from Circus Circus, which has cheaper food (including $2 hot dogs and beers at Slots-A-Fun) and some decent fun if you're bringing kiddos, including the Midway, Adventuredome, and the new Spongebob interactive ride thingy. There's also one of the surprisingly few Strip McDonald's across the street, as well as Resorts World not too far away, which has slightly cheaper and, in my opinion, better fast casual food options like Junior's and their Famous Food Food Hall, which has much better options than the Fontainebleau food hall (the Char Kuey Teow at Googleman may be my favorite dish in Las Vegas and you can get it and a beer for less than $30). I am morbidly curious how a wrestling crowd attending WWE events in LIV nightclub are going to mix with the normal crowd that shows up at LIV. I was personally fascinated sitting at a slot machine and noticing that, somehow, club girl's skirts have got even shorter than when that was my scene. Whole butt out and everything. Just remember, take your advice from the Bella's theme song, you can look but you can't touch. The Palms. Home of The Collective. I really like The Palms. This is going to be a great place for those of us who are going to a lot of the shows being hosted by GCW. Rooms are pretty basic but well appointed, clean, and comfortable. I think Palms has the cheapest mini bar prices I've seen in Vegas, although I'd still recommend staying away from the "no-no bar." The Pearl is a great venue. TNA has had shows there before and they were great. Some of The Collective shows look like the tickets are slow moving, so I'm curious what it'll be like if it's a small crowd. Merch area? Sucks. Small and cramped. Hoping GCW has a bigger area set up, possibly just outside the venue. Palms has some great food options, including some quick options for between shows. The food court has a McD's, Panda Express, Coffee Bean, and Earl of Sandwich, all with prices not much more than you'd get at the ones in your hometown. The McD's is 24 hours. I don't have an Earl of Sandwich near me so I always go there and a nice sized sandwich is $10 (the holiday turkey sandwich, my GOD, it's amazing). The noodle place, Send Noods, is good. Tim Ho Wan is good dim sum. Mabel's BBQ is okay. Big portions. A bit too pricey because it's a Michael Symon restaurant. The A.Y.C.E buffet has all you can eat whole lobster and crab on Wednesday and Thursday for $80 starting at 3pm. It's popular and the line is long. Prime Rib and crab on Friday night is $53. Brunch starts at 9am each day if you want to stuff your face before the 11am show. Palms is off Strip but not way off Strip. Rideshares and taxis usually aren't too bad, especially if you're going to somewhere center Strip. UNLV Cox Pavilion- Cross The Line TNA is at the home of the Runnin' Rebels. I've only been there twice, once for a women's basketball game on Black Friday attended by less than 100 people, the other being a MC Hammer/Tone Loc/Young MC concert. That was fun. Not too far off Strip. Quick and not expensive Uber/Lyft over there. No frills venue. Basic college campus basketball arena concessions. Soda, popcorn, hot dogs, etc. Alcohol is served. 'Tis Vegas, after all. Downtown- Multiple Venues Meet, The Nerd, Fremont Country Club, etc, hosting Prestige, West Coast Pro, Stardom, Pandemonium, Pride Style, New Texas and lots others. All of these are near, but not actually at, the Fremont Street Experience, the big LED canopy. These are all small venues but will be perfect for the shows they're hosting (maybe except Stardom, seems like demand is there for a larger space). The vibe of these shows may be the best of the week because Downtown is such an amazing place. Besides the Fremont Street Experience, there's Fremont East, packed with bars and places to eat. There's a pro wrestling bar, DDT. El Cortez is nearby, which is old school Vegas. They've recently spend some money to add a whole new area with new bars, gaming space, and the new noodle place Hot Noods (what's with noodle restaurants and double entendre names?) Downtown is going to be the place to be late night Thursday and Friday. There's even a show at Container Park, which should be cool and is worth checking out even if you're not going to the show there. FSW Arena- So you're going to a show here? There's a lot of shows happening here, including a WWE ID tournament show. What can I say? In the most loving way I can say, it's a dump. Dumps can be great for indie wrestling but they're still dumps. There's no air conditioning, so if it's hot outside, it's hot in there. There is no space in there. There's barely space for fans. Merch? Never seen it. Concessions? I think they were selling those small bags of chips you can get a case of at Walmart once. Bring a filled water bottle if you want something to drink. There is nothing nearby to walk and grab some food or a drink. When you're getting your Lyft or taxi there, you may think they're taking you somewhere to steal your kidney. Your driver is probably wondering why a Strip tourist is wanting to go to some warehouse. That's what it is. A big commercial warehouse complex. One of them happens to be a wrestling school and the home of Vegas' local promotion, Future Stars of Wrestling. But that place has produced Solo Sikoa, Chris Bey, Karrion Kross, and others, so what do I know? I'm shit talking but it's fun. But it is the indiest of indie venues of Mania week. Silverton- Really, Stardom? The Thursday Stardom and Spark Joshi show are out at Silverton, a locals casino. In the grand scheme of things, it's not too far from The Strip, but it is a bit out of the way. Going to be a pricier ride there and back. And those are the shows you're seeing that day. Most everything else is off the table or you'll get there late because the start times don't sync up with other events. I've never been to Silverton. I think there's a Bass Pro Shops there. There's an aquarium that has mermaids in it. I'm sure the food options are decent and cheaper than The Strip or Downtown. This location means I'm missing Stardom this Mania week. Silverton is too out of the way for Thursday and the Friday show Downtown is the most expensive non-WWE, non-full Collective ticket of Mania week. The Convention Center- WWE World Never been inside here either. It's HUGE. And looks really nice on the outside. If you're trying to get here from south or mid Strip, a good option is to take the Monorail to the Westgate stop. The Westgate has a Boring Company underground Tesla tunnel that has 2 different stops at the Convention Center (and also Resorts World, but that's it for now). It's Vegas' shitty, non-convenient solution to public transportation. Underground trains? Naw, Teslas. EDIT: I'm a dumbass. The Monorail has a Convention Center stop, too. There is a great place for breakfast and lunch near the Convention Center. Siegel's Bagelmania. Fresh bagels that they can make breakfast sandwiches or pastrami, corned beef, or brisket at lunch. There's also a Pinkbox donuts inside for amazing, large donuts. Westgate- Home of Wrestlecon Another place I'm not that familiar with due to it's out of the way location. I know the sports book is legendary, as are the themed suites you can stay in. Westgate, under a different name, was the Vegas home for Elvis, and there's some Elvis stuff around. Westgate was also the long time home of Star Trek: The Experience. It closed long ago, however some of the theming is still there in their timeshare area if you want to see it. The Westgate Monorail stop is convenient if you're staying south/center Strip and want to get to Wrestlecon, WWE World, or any of the WWE Events/Hall of Fame at Fontainebleau, which is a quick 10-15 minute walk from the Monorail stop. The Cosmopolitan- Wrestling Observer Convention Old Big Dave, Alverez, or whomever planned this picked the gem of the Strip. I LOVE Cosmo. Great eats, including Block 16 Food Hall with Hattie B's Hot Chicken, Lardo, and District Donuts, Sliders, Brew, which has one of the best bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits I've ever had. There's also Eggslut serving good breakfast sammy's with a long ass line. China Poblano, a Mexican/Chinese fusion, is also good. And The Henry is great for late night and breakfast, opening at 10pm and closing at 2pm. Can you find Ghost Donkey or the Ski Lodge? Is the old school barber shop really just a barber shop? The centerpiece bar, The Chandelier, has the ONE cocktail I recommend everyone try once: an off menu drink called The Verbena. It has the "buzz button," a flower that will numb up your mouth and tongue, giving the drink different flavor profiles each time you sip. The Cosmo casino is almost always a vibe. High energy. Most of the rooms have a balcony so you can sit outside. If you get a fountain view, you may never leave the room. Yeah, great place to hang out with Uncle Dave. Must Do's in Vegas: I know I said don't try to fit in a Vegas vacation with your wrestling trip, but if it is your first time in Vegas, try to do a couple of things in addition to the graps: The Bellagio Conservatory- everyone knows about the Fountains out front and they're spectacular. The sidewalk on The Strip can get crowded, especially with all the buskers and mariachi bands. There's a sidewalk that wraps around the lake leading into Bellagio, a viewing area just off Bellagio's porte-cochere, or an elevated walkway from the Strip to Bellagio just to the south that are better viewing spots, which have speakers to hear the music the water is synced to. Less people seem to know about The Conservatory. Just inside Bellagio past the front desk lobby, it is a large atrium with seasonally changing displays made of plants and flowers. It's so beautiful and, if not overly crowded, serene. I find the best time to go there is between 1am to 7am. Lucky for you, with all the wrestling things, this will be the time you have available to go! Venetian/Palazzo Grand Canal Shoppes- Just really cool. Take a walk through. They got rid of the street performers, unfortunately. The Sphere- Probably no time to take in any of the concerts/shows there, but if you've never seen it in person, just watching it can be mesmerizing. The pedestrian bridge between Palazzo and Wynn has become known as The Sphere Bridge. It has an amazing view of Sphere, especially nearer the Wynn side of the bridge. For a better, but less popular view, take the escalator down on the Wynn side, make a U turn, and walk up the sidewalk a bit for a stunning full view of Sphere without a plexiglass panel to look through. If you want to walk right up to it, take the escalator down on the Palazzo side, make a U turn, and take a 10-15 minute walk past the Venetian Expo Convention Center and walk right up to Sphere. Okay, this was a lot longer than I intended. But I love Vegas and wanted to share some of the things I've learned over the years to my fellow wrestling fans. There's a couple of subreddit's, /r/vegas and /r/LasVegas, that have FAQ's for general info. If you have questions or want specific recommendations for where you're staying, please don't hesitate to reach out. I love talking Vegas. submitted by /u/jdbozeman to r/SquaredCircle [link] [comments]

So I’m going to a Garth Brooks concert in Vegas. I hurt my foot and ankle last week and it’s slowly healing. Honestly even if I didn’t hurt my foot I would have a hard time wearing boots for that much walking. I have this shirt being made. Needs ideas on what to wear to be comfortable and cute for bottoms and shoes. submitted by /u/MixRight371 to r/PlusSizeFashion [link] [comments]

So, I'm going to this rap concert later this month and i was kind of taken aback by the fact that it actually starts at 4PM so my outfit ideas were a little skewed. It's in this country club and i live in a coastside town, so probably looking for a casual look but obviously not something super laid back. I don't want to go too basic. submitted by /u/igordeos to r/AskMenAdvice [link] [comments]

*DO NOT COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS. I am NOT OP. Original post by u/Tall_Thinker in r/StoriesAboutKevin * trigger warnings: accusations of racism, accusations of rape, extreme stupidity mood spoilers: frustrating   Kevin compared himself to african slaves and called me a racist for Selling him cheap vape liquid - July 6, 2022 To Begin with i want to apologize for any grammatical errors. English is my second language. So this is a story about my former Friend Kevin. I met him through school for people between 18-35 years of age when i wanted to become a Sound engineer. This is very important to the story. Kevin liked music and was actually a decent singer, but lacked any form of self awareness and couldnt take any constructive criticism whatsoever. With that being said, lets start from the beginning. When i first started at this school to become a Sound engineer, we All sat down and said hello to eachother, told a bit about ourself etc etc. Then our music teacher asked us if we did anything fun during our summer vacation. Kevin was very eager to say something so our teacher let him start. He said he went to Germany with his family and bought a ton of very "cheap" cigarettes. Our teacher asked him "well how cheap?" Kevin almost yelled out "10 euros Per pack!" Most of us laughed a bit and asked him if he knew what the exchange rate was. Kevin sat dumbfounded and asked "whats that?" My teacher then asked "do you know what exchange rate means?" Kevin ofcourse said No. He was Then told about currency and what the exchange rate is. The following conversation went more or less like this Kevin: but the pack said 10 Teacher: but it was another currency, you paid almost double the price Kevin: but the pack said 10, how is that more than 40? (Our local currency) Teacher: because euro's are a different currency than our own. Kevin: but..... But it said 10..... I dont understand Fast forward 6 months Every december our school set Up a Christmas theater Play for kindergardeners to enjoy during the first week of that month. Totally free, made kids happy, let our musicians and Sound engineers get some experience in, fun week honestly. Anyway. We practiced this stuff from october until the week of the live shows. Kevin always wanted to be the "lead actor" which means santa. Kevin was a big guy and our school only had 1 costume for that part. When it was time to do costume testings we found out that the big black belt for the santa outfit, did NOT fit Kevin at all! So when Kevin Saw that, he flipped the f*** out. We were all yelled at. One of our guys had enough and told him "lose 30 kilos in 3 days or figure something else out" Later that day our actors for the play had to practice their lines and some scenes. Kevin was pissed everytime somebody took more than 0.5 seconds to react for their lines. Think Sharpay from high school musical, that kind of diva. So he made himself very unpopular, very fast. The fun part about this, is that even though he got pissed at others during practice, he was the person most notorious for forgetting his lines. Que the live shows. Every single one of us took it seriously. Even though it was a free show for children, we still wanted them to be happy. The show starts, everything runs smoothly. That is until..... Kevin walks on stage. 30 seconds in and he stares blankly at the other actors cause he forgot his lines. This continued for most of the show. You would think that it would be stage fright, right? RIGHT?! no no. Kevin did this every single day throughout the entire week. Never bothered to read the script, never bothered to ask the others for advice. His excuse? "Im santa, im the Main lead, if you dont like me you can f*** off!" Followed by hours of Facebook updates with "nobody likes me, im a warrior of justice! Shoutout to the real bros!" Etc. And im not done. This school was for musicians, Sound engineers, camera guys, even game development. We All knew we had 4 years, taking classes, visit venues, concert halls, All the big Boy stuff. But ofcourse our regular classes were the usual thing. Now Kevin, Kevin decided he knew Better. Kevin didnt see this as a school. Kevin Saw this as a place where he would sing, eat, shit, repeat. Through the 4 years he went there Kevin participated in 1 class. 1 full hour class. His excuse? "Im here to sing, not learn, deal with it" so ofcourse we let him believe that. Finally me and my producer talked to him and said "look, you sit on a expensive chair in a million dollars studio and stare at the screen, All you have to do is stay awake" so he went to class. Did he stay awake? Absolutely not. He fell asleep not once, not twice, but THREE times! After class was over we went out for a cigarette. I asked Kevin "you fell asleep three times dude. How?" His answer almost made me slap him in the face. This...... Waste of air looked me in the eyes and said "the teachers doesnt have to be so hard on us, we are students, not african slaves" i asked him if he was serious and he said that he was, so i simply walked away. Later that day we had a big discussion about him thinking he could compare himself to african slaves. This turned into a big fight where Kevin dragged the entire school into it. Nobody sided with Kevins slave Theory so he got the upper management to get a meeting with Kevin, me, and 2 others. The head of the school board told me "apologize to Kevin or you wont leave my office" i told him that he would have a long Day ahead of him, cause i didnt want to apologize for Kevin comparing himself to slave trading. After a 30 minutes staring contest, he decided that me and the leader not backing down was dumb, and i should go back to class. I agreed and told him that football was on tonight (we both cheered for the new Orleans saints) After This i met Kevin outside when i was smoking. He very humbly asked "can we talk? I cut myself with razors last night cause i was so mad" I asked him why on earth he would cut himself. Kevin looked at me and said "cause i read online that its the popular thing to do when you are sad" i shook my head, called him an idiot but gave him a hug and said that all is forgiven. I did feel very bad since had actually cut himself. He had never done self harm before or after that. Now. Kevin was a straight moron, No lying about that. But he always made the jobs harder for sound engineers. To paint you a picture. You have to adjust All the Sound levels to create a nice mix as the end result. Does the drums drown everything out? Turn it down, cant hear the guitar? Turn it up. This idea was baffling for Kevin to understand. We were at a big conference for schools and educational places. We ofcourse highlighted our Sound engineering, music department and game development classes. So we were doing a few live songs to gather a crowd around our booth. Kevin had a few songs and my producer was doing the Sound. Suddently Kevin decided to "cup" the mic. Which is when you hold your fingers around the grille part of the microphone. This is the worst thing you can ever do to a Sound engineer (rappers are notoriously hated for this on a global scale) the reason that Sound engineers hates this, is because it will create feedback from the monitors and make the very annoying high pitched sound that Will make your ears bleed. So my producer kept adjusting the EQ and try to turn the Sound level on his microphone down. This did not sit well with Kevin. Everytime the Sound was lowered, Kevin sang higher. In the end my producer had to simply turn off Kevins microphone. Kevin was Furious. Yelled at everyone in sight. Walked Up to my producer and asked "wtf is your problem?! Why did you do that?!" Kevin was not happy when he was told "your voice annoyed the microphone, speakers, and everyone around you" Kevin didnt talk to us the rest of the Day. Now, A year after This we were all pretty much done with Kevins moronic way of life. We were at this small festival where our school got to Play some songs. The band before us started 15 minutes late. Everyone of us just thought it was No big deal. Then there was Kevin with the big brain comment. The band on stage which was another school just finished a song. The front singer was just about to say something when Kevin yelled "WHEN ARE YOU GOING OFF STAGE SO WE CAN PLAY?!!" At this time i had enough. So i smacked him in the back of the head and started yelling at him " stfu you retard! Those are 13 year old kids, its not their f****** fault!" He turned around and said "my girlfriend is right there man, i was just kidding!" I just told him i didnt give a f*** and that he should keep his mouth shut. 2 years after This, we were both done with the school. I started working, he was..... Well he wasnt doing anything with his life. He couldnt find a job because he expected a months Pay for 2 Days of work and working 8 hour shifts are hard. He showed Up to job interviews in sweatpants, long greasy hair he never combed, and he rarely showered either. Yet he didnt understand why he couldnt find a job. Then covid happened and concerts werent a thing at that point. So i started working in a vape shop to keep a steady income. Kevin vaped as well, so i sold him some liquid for wholesale price so he saved money instead of getting ripped off. Because of this, Kevin thought i was taking advantage of him and called me every name in the book. I got kinda annoyed by that and told him "whatever dude, you saved more than half off of everything because of me" so by me saying that...... Kevin called me a racist (Kevin was a german immigrant) and told me i hated germans. So i blocked him and havent talked to Kevin since. Im sorry this dragged on, but these a but a few of the stories of my Kevin. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings of Kevin!   Kevin is back and worse than ever - September 19, 2024 This is an update to my first Kevin story on here. I really do apologize for making this so long, but I tried to slim it down as much as possible. First story: https://www.reddit.com/r/StoriesAboutKevin/s/FjDjEaDMEE Now for the update. An update on my last Kevin post. I have posted about my Kevin before and he is equally as stupid as before. Grab your popcorn, this is gonna be a long one. So, last year I split up with my at the time fiance, had nowhere to go or to live. Kevin and I had started to get into contact again and offered me to move in with him, until I could get myself back on my feet. I was very very thankful for this, as I would otherwise end up homeless. I started to live with Kevin and it didn't take long for the oddities to begin. Whenever I would buy myself snacks from the local supermarket, i would find the wrappings laying on the kitchen counter with him denying to ever touch my stuff. I told him he could take it since he let me live with him, but at least let me know so I could buy more if needed. Yet he kept denying it. Through Kevin I met my current girlfriend, she started basically living with us. Something we all enjoyed fully. One night, my girlfriend decided to have a girls night out with one of her girl friends and get a few drinks. Meanwhile I was staying at home with Kevin playing some videogames. My girlfriend then asked me if we wanted to join them for some beers. We ofc said yes to this and started getting ready. When I came out of the shower, Kevin was in his bedroom to find some clothes. I could hear female moaning from his bedroom and thought to myself "that's odd" and opened the door to ask what was going on. While he was finding clothes, he decided to watch porn on his phone. I asked him "uh..... What's going on?" He jumped up from the bed, trying to stop the video and said nothing was going on. I started laughing hard and said "bro, watching porn is normal, but..... Maybe try and hide it better next time" anyway. I was getting my expensive perfume and getting all nice, cause I wanted to make a good impression, since this was the first time meeting a friend of my girlfriend. I told Kevin that first impressions matter. Kevin is an odd one and decided to grab 5 different deodorants and put them on all at once. I looked at him baffled and said "that's..... That's not how you do that" To which Kevin replied "yes because the more you put on, the better you smell" To which I replied "dude..... You put on 5 different fucking scents, it's not gonna work how you think it is" Before we left, Kevin got a phone call from a mutual friend of ours. Kevin started talking about how he was gonna get so much sex tonight cause there was gonna be a girl there. I had to politely tell him "yeah, don't count on it" to which he got upset. Kevin is a big guy, out of touch with any manners, hygiene or social awareness. Finally we show up to the bar, I introduce myself and decide to buy the next round. Meanwhile Kevin is trying to slide across the floor to follow me, knocking over chairs and generally seems way to hyped up. I told him to behave and calm down and to stop knocking shit over. We get back to the table and my girlfriend, her friend and me starts to talk about any and everything. Kevin sat quietly and got more and more annoyed as the night went on. He had only said 2 things to this woman the entire night and didn't understand why he wasn't making any progress in regards to getting with my girlfriend's friend. After some hours the girl decided to go home, so me, Kevin and my girlfriend decided to head back to our place as well. When we got home, he complained about how he didn't understand why she wasn't in love with him or wanted to come home with us. I tried telling him that 1, he didn't talk to her all night and just sat and stared at her all night while looking annoyed, and 2, she had a boyfriend, he would have known that if he listened to anything being said. Fast forward to movie night. Me, my girlfriend and Kevin was watching a movie called 'The Meg' spoiler alert, it's about a prehistoric huge shark. While we were watching it, Kevin said "I bet it's CGI and not an actual Megladon" I responded "given how they've been dead for a few million years, I think you're right" It never crossed his mind that an extinct animal was made via CGI. This wasn't the only movie or series that Kevin couldn't understand. In general, he didn't understand that CGI is a huge part of movies today. We were watching fast x and a scene where somebody is jumping from one car to the other, Kevin said "I bet it's camera tricks, no way would they do that in real life" I again had to explain how it's CGI and the cars in the scene is standing still in real life, everything else is made in post production. They aren't actually risking life's by doing that. He looked at me baffled and said "are you sure?" And I responded "yes dude, I'm sure" To which I was asked "how do you know?" And my final reply was "because they aren't risking people's lives in cars moving 120 miles an hour, making people jump out of 1 window through the other, while the cars are spinning around, it's common fucking logic" Whenever he sees movies, he thinks that what he See's, is what they are actually doing, scene for scene. Except for someone getting killed, he gets why nobody wants to get killed in real life. A little while later, he was accused of raping somebody, which I know for a fact wasn't true. The police told him to come to the station to ask some questions, check his phone, etc etc. While the police was going through his phone, he was held up in a holding cell. When they released him, he came home and said that he experienced police brutality, his human rights were stripped from him. I asked him what had happened and he said "They took my rights away, held me in a cell, took my phone and wouldn't let me leave!" My response was "okay, I get why that sucks, but that basic police procedure. They have to see what you say, how you react, check your phone for any evidence. That's not police brutality " Kevin then got angry and said "but I'm innocent!" I then said "right, but how could they possibly know that without checking up on it? They need to find any form of clue or evidence to see what's true and what's not" Kevin then said "BUT THEY SHOULD KNOW THAT IM INNOCENT!" I then get annoyed at him and growled and said "how the hell are they supposed to just know that? They have to look at and find evidence before they can reach a conclusion! That not police brutality at all!" "But they should know I'm innocent!" Was the only thing he kept repeating after that. He was cleared of the charges luckily, but we knew he didn't do it. To this day he still thinks what the police did, was illegal. Anyway. A while after that, my girlfriend and me moved into our own apartment. After a while, Kevin kept starting to ask us for money. Kevin had a habit of blowing his entire paycheck in 4 days and had to rely on everybody else. How you may ask? He met a girl through TikTok and fell in love with her, and I mean really fell in love with her. She made it clear to him that she wasn't interested, but he still thought he had a chance. He put his "flirting skills" to work and started buying her gifts on TikTok. Those gifts are sort of animations that shows up for a few seconds and then...... That's it I guess. I don't know. I don't use tiktok. He spent several hundred dollars if not above 1.000 dollars on these weird animations for her, cause he thought that would make her fall in love with him. He spent all his money traveling half the country to see her, then he didn't have any money to return either, so he was begging everybody for money so he could go home. He finally broke contact with her after 6 months and an insane amount of money spent. He also fell in love with someone else. My girlfriend had another friend, she introduced Kevin to said girl. Let's call this girl Emma. Emma and him started talking, and Emma thought it was a simple friendship, but Kevin fell in love after an hour. The day after Kevin started talking to her, me and Kevin were playing video games together. He kept being distracted by the phone and we kept losing because he couldn't stop looking at their conversation on messenger. It got so bad that right after he sent her a message, he kept whispering "respond, respond, respond, respond" over and over Again. Let me make it perfectly clear. Kevin had JUST sent the message, she literally didn't get half a second to respond, let alone read his message. She quickly got tired of him and she said she just wanted some alone time and wouldn't be on her phone for the rest of the day. This didn't sit well with Kevin. The following messages read like this Kevin: do you wanna talk tonight then? Emma: but it already is tonight? Kevin: yes but then we could say we just talked until a specific time? Emma: I just want some alone time Kevin didn't understand what he did wrong, he still doesn't to this day. Kevin has been single for years and the slightest form of contact with a woman, he takes as flirting. I got way more to tell about Kevin, but this has already gotten too long. I apologize for the long read. TL;DR: Kevin is a fucking moron.   Reminder - I am not the original poster. DO NOT COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS. submitted by /u/J_S_M_K to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

**I am NOT OP. The OP of this story is u/HolidayGourmetTurkey.** Trigger Warnings: Death of a Child, Miscarriage, Trauma, Self-Harm, Accusations of Abuse. This story has previously been posted to BORU here. The latest update has been marked with "***". I just found out why my boyfriend never holds my toddler niece, Posted December 29th, 2023. Sorry, this is gonna be a long one. I (27F) have been with my boyfriend (28M, Jay) for 5 years. We’ve both been very close with each other’s families, and we’ve even talked about marriage. However, one touchy subject is children. Whenever we discuss it, he gets kinda stand-offish. He doesn’t really dismiss the idea though, it’s just that he doesn’t seem invested. I’ve always wanted kids, and he just always says he’s fine with whatever makes me happy. Ever since, I’ve been content with this situation. However, things escalated during this holiday season. Our setup has always been that Jay spends Christmas Eve and dinner with my family, then I spend Christmas Day with his family. This was the first Christmas I’ll spend with my first and only niece (2F, Ana, she spent her first Christmas in the hospital due to her health condition, but she’s okay now), so I made sure to spend a lot of time with her. We played a lot, we opened gifts together, and I even reenacted Ana’s favorite storybook using her favorite doll. We even had matching outfits! My sister (30F, Amy) thanked me for giving her and her husband some relief from childcare the entire day. However, Amy also said she noticed that Jay, who was just either sitting on the couch watching me or helping my mom with the dishes, was kinda distant with Ana. I told her I’ve also noticed that before, and I just chalked it up to maybe Jay was hesitant and awkward to play with Ana because he feels he’s “just my boyfriend.” Then Amy said she won’t mind, since she and her husband already treat Jay as part of our family. I then went back to Jay and encouraged him to play with Ana and help us set up her new dollhouse, but he said he’s not feeling too well. He ended up drinking a few more beers and stayed on the porch by himself, scrolling on his phone. I didn’t press harder and thought he might really just be feeling under the weather. I just want to add for context that Jay isn’t an alcoholic. He’s a sweet, wonderful, funny man who’s sometimes broody and deep in thought, but he’s never abusive, manipulative, or moody, and he only drinks on special occasions. The next day, on Christmas Day, we had lunch with Jay’s family. Afterward, I volunteered for cleanup to help Jay’s mom (62F, Mary) and brother (31M, John). Jay’s family was the best any significant other could ever ask for. They’re very sweet and supportive of us, but they’re never prying. They always check up on us, but they never overstep. So, as we were cleaning up, Mary asked me how my sister’s baby was (they helped with the bills when Ana was hospitalized last year). I told them that Ana’s in great condition now, and that she already spent the Christmas at home. They were very delighted upon hearing this. Then, I shared with them the thing I noticed about Jay. Initially, I thought maybe Mary could just give me advice on how to approach the issue with Jay since he’s clearly not the playing-with-kids kind of guy, but then John casually said something like “Oh, because of Rosie,” then Mary quickly shushed him. Rosie was the daughter of Jay and John’s eldest sister, Beth (35F). I never knew the actual details because everyone was very secretive about it, but all I knew was that Rosie passed away when she was just 3 years old and Beth and her husband moved away afterward. I never met them in person. So, later that night, when Mary, John, and the other family members got a bit more drunk and Jay was already sleeping in the bedroom, they told me the story (I didn’t force them or anything). Apparently, Jay, being the youngest of the siblings, was really close with Rosie back then. Jay was just around 14 years old when Rosie was born, so he became the super fun uncle (like I am now with Ana). He was actually Rosie’s best friend. Then, on summer of 2012, Jay was playing with Rosie outside (he was blowing bubbles and she was chasing and popping them) when a speeding car, driven by a woman who was distracted on her phone, skidded into the yard toward Rosie’s direction. Jay reacted quickly and was able to reach and grab Rosie so the car actually hit him, but the impact of the crash caused Rosie’s head to whiplash as Jay hugged her. Jay was in a coma for 3 days and had multiple severe injuries and internal bleeding, but Rosie didn’t make it. Everything was caught by the neighbor’s CCTV so everyone knew that Jay was a hero for trying to protect Rosie (it was even covered by the local news), but Beth, who was understandably in grief, resented Jay for not being able to save her daughter. Beth and her husband then decided to move to another country to cope with their grief and start a new life, and they’ve had minimal contact with the family ever since. Jay, meanwhile, took the loss really hard. He blamed himself for not being able to save Rosie and not being able to attend her funeral since he was still at the hospital at that time. Mary said that Jay was never the same after that. He never went near kids, and he became a lot colder, quieter, more reserved, and antisocial. He also had anger issues, but it thankfully went away (I haven't had any issues with this). We also live in an area where people don’t believe in therapy, so Jay never received professional help. After learning all of this, I bawled my eyes out because I never knew Jay was carrying such a heavy burden. The whole incident became a taboo family secret that no one mentions in fear of Jay breaking down or doing something he might regret (although to be fair, he’s never had violent or self-harm tendencies ever since, so this was just a precaution). They also never told me before because they assumed Jay would be the one to tell me, but I told them that he never did, and that I never really asked him. I then thanked everyone for letting me in on this, and I told them that I’d talk to Jay about it when the time is right. They understood, and they said I could just ring them up if I need help or support in any way. For now, I just want Jay to enjoy the holidays and his remaining vacation days from work. Now, I don’t really know how to start with him. I know seeking professional help to process all the trauma and grief, even if it’s been over a decade ago, would be the top priority, but I don’t know how to bring it up to him. I don’t even know when is the right time to bring it up. I just want him to know that I love him no matter what, and that I’ll support him in every step toward his healing, especially if we’re to form a family of our own. Relevant Comments: Jay is amazing, what a shame his sister blamed him, but I guess that’s what grief does to you. I hope he gets the therapy he needs From what I gathered from Jay's family, Beth never really voiced out that she blamed Jay for Rosie's passing. However, she became cold toward him to the point of almost ignoring him during family gatherings before they moved. Of course, everyone knew what it was all about. Maybe you guys can start couples counseling? Jay has been living with his guilt, sadness, and anger for SO long. He might not be receptive to individual therapy. But maybe if you go together…it can open the door to healing and communication. Maybe with your love and support in couples consulting it will propel him further. But the last part of your post is all you can do OP. Show Jay how much you love him and how much you crave to listen to all that he has to share. Be his safe space, his partner. ✨🥹💗 I will join this opinion with huge approval. Even though you really love Jay, it's most likely he will have a hard time opening up about it, and even if he says he's okay, do you know if he ever saw any therapist? This is the kind of thing that I feel would give PTSD to anyone. Also, remember that he does not know that you know and might take badly the fact that the family revealed it to you, so make sure to remind him not to get mad at them, that it was a slip of the tongue and they had to explain. He seems like a wonderful person, but as you said yourself, grief can make you irrationnal sometimes, and it definitely doesn't look like he processed it all. In any case, he is a wonderful man, and I'm glad he found a partner that is attentive and empathetic. You two take good care of each other, have a wonderful new year and lots of love. You deserve it. I'm currently leaning toward waiting for him to bring it up himself, but of course I hope that it happens kinda soon so the grief and trauma don't consume him more than they already have. Thank you for your kind words! Holy crap I think we were all thinking that he had the worst intentions in the beginning. But that couldn’t be more wrong. This man was a hero and unfortunately his family has turned it into a dirty secret. I feel for you both so much. I don’t really have any advice. I just want you to know that you are both incredible people and I hope your love finds a way and you’re able to raise a beautiful family together, if you choose. It's really sad how the family handled it, but I can't really blame them because I grew up in the same area. We live in a provincial, non-progressive city, and their family even lives in a more rural community where everyone knows everyone. If there's any "scandal" that potentially tarnishes the family name, it's swept under the rug. I guess the "heroic" part of the story is something the family could have been proud of, but the trauma, anger issues, lashing out, and antisocial behavior that Jay developed, as well as how Beth left the community afterward outweighed everything, so the entire thing just became the family's dirty secret. Sadly, that anger never went away; it's sadness now. Be understanding, and make sure your family understands as well. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out a way to tell my family to be more sensitive about the subject around Jay without outright telling them the story because it's not mine to tell. Thank you! (This comment was downvoted) Is it just me or do I feel like Beth is a total piece of shit for how she treated Jay? It’s easy to say that as an outsider. Grief really REALLY fucks with someone’s thought process. I don’t blame anyone in this situation, Beth probably was looking for someone else to blame for her daughters death. Yeah, the only person I blame is the distracted driver. I don't normally curse, but fuck her. She didn't just kill a baby, she destroyed a loving family. From all his family's stories, Jay seemed to be a very upbeat, warm, and sociable guy before the incident. I don't really blame Beth for how she reacted and processed her grief. As I mentioned in another comment, she never outright blamed Jay, but the family assumed she did for how she treated him afterward (again, we don't live in a very progressive area). She lost her daughter, and she was also young back then (she was just around 24) when it happened. Even if I never knew her, I wish Beth nothing but peace and healing throughout all this. She died as he was hugging her, I. Can't imagine the grief he went through. That's also something bothering me a lot. Of course, I'm just assuming here, but knowing how much of an overthinker Jay is who hyperfixates on what ifs, I know he has replayed that moment in his head a million times, overanalyzing every little detail. One of the worst things he could possibly be thinking is that maybe he was the one who killed Rosie, because it was the whiplash and not the actual crash that impacted her the most. It's bad enough that he lost his niece and best friend, but for her to die in his arms and thinking that it was him who might've accidentally killed her instead of saving her is absolutely horrible. That's the "what if" I fear he's thinking the most. And just to be clear, no one actually blames him. Why are they so hard pressed on forcing him to interact with a child more than he wants to? Instead of letting him get comfortable in his own time, you're all forcing him to do it right now. I'm very uncomfortable with children but given time I'll come around, I just need to get over the anxiety and panic about hurting them by accident. If somebody and their family were this insistent I'd just be more uncomfortable. I don't think anyone is really forcing him though. In the 2 years we've welcomed Ana into this world, no one has forced Jay to interact with her just for the sake of it. I've been interacting with Ana every time our family gets together, and Jay has been distant but fine overall, and we just let him be because it was never an issue. We all just accepted that he wasn't comfortable around kids. Also, when I was encouraging him to interact more during Christmas Eve, it was more along the lines of "Hey, you know you're welcome to help us with this dollhouse, you know? I know you're judging my lack of craftsmanship here lol" Amy's intention of bringing this to my attention is just to make Jay feel more welcome in our family. Again, it was me who assumed that maybe Jay was just awkward with Ana because he might've felt like an outsider and he didn't want to overstep. My entire conversation with Amy was rooted more in including Jay in our family and making him feel comfortable enough. However, given everything I've learned, I'll make sure that everyone is more sensitive with this subject around him. UPDATE I just found out why my boyfriend never holds my toddler niece, Posted April 20th, 2024. Hi, it’s been a while since my first post. I have some major updates for anyone interested. You may check my profile for my previous post. Also, I took some time to organize my thoughts first to make sure I don't miss anything pertinent. It's kinda long as a lot have happened since, so I've divided this into sections to make it easier to follow. QUICK RECAP My boyfriend (Jay) and I have been together for 5 years. Throughout our relationship, I noticed that he's always distant with kids, including my niece, Ana. During Christmas, Jay's family revealed that it was because of an incident over a decade ago. Turns out, Jay was really close with his toddler niece, Rosie. One day, when they were playing outside, they were hit by a distracted driver. Jay tried to save Rosie. He sustained severe injuries, but Rosie still didn't make it. Beth (Rosie's mom and Jay's sister) acted cold toward Jay after this, then she and her husband moved to another country after a few months. From then on, Jay's personality changed, becoming cold and antisocial, and he never received professional help. All of this has become Jay's family's "dirty" secret. PART 1: THE CONFESSION Since learning about Rosie and posting here on Reddit, I’ve been so conflicted about what to do. A lot of you had opposing opinions, and all of them had merit, but knowing Jay and how he’d most likely react, I chose to keep it a secret until I find the perfect time. What I didn’t anticipate was that the perfect time would come in the form of a pregnancy scare. Back in January, I had a false positive. Everything happened so quickly within a day. I had a rollercoaster of emotions, but bottom line was that I’m not pregnant after all. When Jay got back home that night, I knew I had to tell him everything. I told him I had a pregnancy scare, but he has nothing to worry about since it ended up being negative. At that moment, I saw all the blood drain from his face, and he became so pale that I was worried he was going to faint. I was holding his hand, and he became so sweaty and cold and shaky. He rushed to our refrigerator to get some water, and it was obvious he was spiraling really hard. That was when I told him I knew about Rosie. I came clean because I knew that was what he was panicking about. I assured him that I’m by his side, and he could react however he wanted to. I repeatedly apologized for disrespecting his trust and lying to him for weeks. I also asked him to please not be mad at his family because they meant well when they told me. Throughout all of it, I couldn’t really read Jay’s expressions. I wasn’t sure if he was about to scream out of anger or burst into tears. I told him that we don’t have to talk about it any further if he doesn’t want to, but I’d be willing to listen and support him whenever he’s ready. His only response that time was him asking me if I wanted to break up with him, which confused me. I told him of course not, then we hugged, then he said he needs some time to process everything before we discuss it, which I respected. For the rest of the week, we tried to interact like nothing happened, but everything was awkward since there’s this huge thing hanging between us. PART 2: THE TALK The following weekend (which was 8 days after), we finally sat down and talked about everything. He started by apologizing for not telling me sooner, but he revealed that his last girlfriend dumped him after he told her about Rosie. He said he was so relieved after I reassured him that I wouldn’t do that. He then told me that it was something that’s been weighing him ever since, and he’s confirmed that he never sought or received professional help. However, he said he’s very much open to doing that, but he didn’t think he’s ready yet. He also said he’s afraid to go down that path because it might release some inner demons and drag me down with him. Another thing Jay told me was that ever since Rosie was born, he felt an instant and deep connection and a sense of responsibility for her, even when he was just a teenager that time. He said that having Rosie in his life made him realize how much he wanted to be a father when he's older. However, since the incident, he’s afraid of messing things up again, so he never really considered having kids from then on despite really wanting to do so. I then reassured him that we’re on the same page on this. Although I also want to have kids with him in the future, I don’t want to force it on him when he’s not yet ready. He also said that whenever he sees me with Ana (my niece), he gets kinda jealous because he wants to join us every time. However, he constantly reminds himself to keep his distance just to be safe. I told him he doesn’t have to worry about that, and that he’s more than welcome to join us if he wants to. I also told him that my sister and the rest of my family actually considers him a part of our family, just to reassure him more. Jay tried to lighten the mood by joking and saying now that I know everything about him and still didn’t break up with him, I could finally expect a proposal anytime soon. We both had a good laugh, but we agreed to wait for his recovery first before getting engaged or discussing our future family. PART 3: BETH During our discussion, Jay also had another heartbreaking revelation. He said that during the height of the pandemic, Beth’s husband (Brian) reached out to him. Brian said that Beth had COVID and was confined in a hospital, and that he was already running low on funds due to bills and unemployment. He also said that Beth had been almost catatonic since Rosie’s passing. She had been resistant to any outside and professional help, but she was institutionalized for about a year after a self-harming incident. For the past decade, she’d been cold, distant, and withdrawn from society. Apparently, the rest of Jay’s family also knew about all this, but again, they just swept it under the rug. To be fair, they had been helping Brian by sending financial aid to support Beth, but their version of the story was that Beth had just gone low contact since they moved. Also, to be very clear, Jay said that Beth never blamed him for what happened to Rosie, although he initially felt that way when he was younger. It was more of their parents interpreting and spinning things a certain way to avoid tarnishing their family’s reputation, but when Brian reached out to him directly years ago, he started to understand better. However, he still hasn’t processed everything, and he still partly blames himself for the whole thing. PART 4: OUR CURRENT SITUATION For now, what we’re exploring is couple’s therapy so we can discuss our mutual issues in a safe and pressure-free space, and hopefully, kind of ease him into the world of therapy. We’ve already found the perfect therapist to help us, and we’ve now had 6 sessions with her. From what I can tell, Jay seems a lot happier and less burdened. We’ve also had “homeworks” from our sessions, and Jay was even the one reminding me to do them. Right now, I’m just hoping that he becomes ready enough to open up about Rosie so he can heal and recover from his trauma. Not for me, but for his mental and emotional well-being. No rush though, all in his own time. Also, Jay has no social media, but I showed him the original Reddit post I made. He spent like three hours reading through all the comments. It was the first time I saw him get teary-eyed because he never expected so many people giving him support and saying kind words to him. He was extremely overwhelmed by everyone’s kindness, so we’re both grateful to all of you for that. We also saw some TikTok and YouTube versions of the story, and you bet Jay browsed through all of them. He’s still baffled why the TikTok versions have Minecraft or cooking videos in the background, but I just told him it’s a trend haha So, there, if you've made it this far into our story, thank you for your time! I have a good feeling that Jay and I are going to be fine. We still have a lot of challenges ahead of us, but here's to hoping for the best! EDIT: So Jay and I now kinda share this account. He might reply directly from time to time (this is his first time on Reddit, so please be kind to him. I had to explain to him what OP and a lot of the other lingo mean haha). Yeah, but we're both reading everything! Again, thank you for being so kind! Relevant Comments: I hope Jay continues healing, and eventually Beth somehow gets out of the mental hole she’s in. Both them went through something horrible that no one who hasn’t been in that situation can comprehend. Thoughts for both of them Thank you for your kind words. As for Jay, I can see that he's already making some progress, even though it's more like baby steps. Nonetheless, it is still progress. As for Beth, I can't even begin to imagine what she's going through. I just pray that she finally finds some peace eventually. I'm so happy with this update, that now Jay knows that you're on his side and is getting professional help. What happened to Rose was a tragedy and wasnt his fault at all. My heart hurts to think of the weight he must be carrying for all this time. Wishing you two all the best! Yeah, he's starting to open up more about his internal struggles and burdens, but he hasn't touched on the subject of Rosie yet. The least I can do for him is to let him know I'm here for him. Thank you for your kind words! Deleted Comment. I won't make excuses for them. On a human, personal level, they are extremely lovely, generous, and kind people. They have welcomed me as a part of their family, and they even extended help when my sister's daughter, Ana, had congenital health problems. I have met different relatives of my exes before, and in comparison, Jay's family has been the most wonderful and welcoming. However, I would say that they are a product of the very traditional, nonprogressive area in which we live. We are a Catholic community, and most activities revolve around our parish. Reputation is everything, yet town gossip is still very rampant. I understand that this may sound backward-thinking in our modern times, but that is the reality of our lives (I also grew up in the same area, so I fully understand their behavior). Although I agree with you that everything that happened and how they reacted to it had been unfortunate to say the least, and Jay and Beth got the brunt of it. Im so sorry for asking but im really baffled here. Jay was a victim as well. He was in the accident. So what kind of reputation was to be saved? And why did they let Jay feel like it was his fault? What town gossip can possibly be there from this awful accident? I cant wrap my head around this. I truly hope Jay can find his much deserved peace, especially Beth & Bryan. And you, you are an angel! I'm honestly just as confused as well. I don't think the intention was to make Jay feel he was at fault. I think the intention was to just not talk about it at all and make it seem like it never happened. Like a family secret never to be brought up so the bomb doesn't go off or something. Being rational definitely wasn't a priority, and unfortunately, it was Jay and Beth who suffered. You're being an amazing partner to him, im happy he has you 🥺❤️ yeah she's pretty wonderful. lucky to have her in my life. -jay Please tell me that woman who was driving is STILL in jail. Thats the update i want so bad. Justice. Everyone out here suffering - wanna make sure she didnt just grt community service / slaps on wrist She did 1 year jail time, 5 years probation (not sure how much was really served) Is his sister physically ok now, after COVID? I really hope they both are able to get the help they need, they deserve the peace and I’m pretty sure that the little girl wouldn’t have wanted her uncle and her mommy to live in so much pain and suffer. I truly wish both of them the best. And to Jay personally; Laugh for her. Play with Ana, teach her stuff, have fun, enjoy life and don’t be so hard on yourself. If this would have happened to some strangers and you’d read it in the newspaper, would you blame the boy who tried everything he could to save this little girl? From what I can read in this post, but especially between the lines, you’ll be a great dad one day. Will you be able to always protect them, to never let them get hurt, to always be there, ..? No. But you will do your best. You’ll do everything you can. You’ll love this/those beautiful human being/s with every fibre of your being. This is everything you have to do. Love them. You can’t have the control over them or the things that can happen, and this is not your fault. You’re only human. And you deserve to have the life you always dreamed of, to feel free and to be yourself. Your true self. And as someone who suffers under complex PTSD: You think once you open this box, everything will rush all over you. It will consume you, you’ll lose the little control you have, you’ll get sucked in and everyone and everything around you too, your world will go down and you’re not strong enough yet to keep it together. - That won’t happen. It’s hard work and it hurts like hell. Yes. But your brain will give everything to protect you. Piece by piece. There’ll be days where you feel like you’ll never see the light, but there will be also days you’ll feel so free and loose, at peace with yourself, that things lift and you’re able to breathe again. And you’re not alone. And you won’t pull your woman down with you. Don’t forget that she wants to be there, that she loves you and she wants to carry this bag with you. And it’s much easier to carry weight when you do it together. As a team. You’re stronger than you think. Take a look in the mirror. Look into your eyes and take a moment to truly realize that you’re still here. You’re alive. You found a woman who truly loves you, a family you can build on, a future ahead of you. You’re still here. Beth has recovered from COVID, so she's physically fine now. However, she's still mentally detached and has gone back to her almost catatonic state. Jay suggested couples therapy to Beth's husband after experiencing it firsthand, but we don't have an update on it yet. Also, thank you so much for your insights. You said a lot of sensible things that we never knew (both Jay and I were clueless about therapy and psychology in general), so we actually learned new things from what you said. Jay says he appreciates you and is extremely grateful, and so am I! Happy for you both and sending energy your way for the growth and healing you need. I would think individual counseling would be a good option for you guys as well just because with trauma like this it can be very helpful. My heart goes out to Jay and am so happy you two found eachother. Yeah, that's the plan. Once Jay becomes more comfortable with therapy and feels ready enough to do it on his own, he'll have individual counseling so he can focus on his healing. I'll be right here supporting him in every step. Thank you! I have a rule that I won’t hold a baby unless it has been at least 48 hours since I dropped anything. It’s pretty rare that I succeed maybe that should be my rule too -jay Jay, I think it’ll help you to start playing in the house with Ana with OP right there. Try it for a few minutes. If you feel overwhelmed, you can also step away. OP can take over. It’ll help you to desensitize. Try it again later on and see if you can increase the duration, even if it’s just for an extra minute. When my niece was a toddler, she loved playing with me. She’d be on the floor and I’d be sitting with her or on the couch. She’d spend hours with her play phone, telling me that the monsters were over here and then she’d hand me the receiver of her play phone, telling me to call the police. So then I’d pretend to call the police. This would go on for hours. Literally hours. LOL! But it’s a wonderful memory. As for holding babies, you can try that step when you’re feeling more confident. When I’m holding a baby, especially for the first time, I’m sitting on the couch. It makes me feel more secure. And with this, again, you can try it for a few minutes. If it feels like too much, you can hand the baby back to the parents. It’s all about taking baby steps. You’ll get there. Hi, thank you for your suggestion. We've also discussed this already. However, Jay still doesn't feel like he's ready for such a step, however minor it may be. When I brought up the idea of him maybe joining us whenever I play with Ana, he had such a huge smile on his face, but then he started sweating and hyperventilating. For now, we'll settle for a more hands-off but still thoughtful approach by preparing a gift for Ana's 3rd birthday (she's in her mermaid phase, so Jay's designing a mermaid tail that we'll both create as best we could haha). We still have a long way to go, but I'm hoping we'll eventually get there. *** My friends tell me (28F) that I’m in a toxic relationship with my bf (28M), but I don’t think I am. What do I do?, Posted August 28th, 2024. Sorry, this is going to be a bit of a long one. TLDR at the end. I (28F) have been in a relationship with my boyfriend Jay (28M) for 6 years. Last Christmas, I made a huge discovery about Jay’s life. Long story short, his 3-year-old niece died in his arms when he was just 17 years old. They were extremely close, and they were playing in their yard when a car hit them. He tried to save her, but he eventually couldn’t. He blamed himself for it, and his family covered everything up. Jay never received any support or professional help. Also, his sister (his niece’s mom) had become catatonic following the incident, and she moved to another country with her husband. Everything resulted in Jay being uncomfortable about the topic of kids, even though he actually wanted to have his own, due to his unresolved issues. Fast forward to January. I found out that I had an early miscarriage that led to a false positive pregnancy test. I was lucky that I had my sister with me throughout the day when all this happened, but then when I came home, of course I had to tell Jay. He then spiraled and had a full-on panic attack, but this eventually led to us confronting his trauma and us getting therapy. We’ve been in couples therapy since late February. Everything was going smoothly, and our goal was to slowly ease Jay into therapy, then when he feels ready, he’d have individual sessions to address his issues surrounding his niece’s passing. That started last June. We’ve been having a couples therapy session once a month, then he’d have individual sessions 3x or 4x a month. There were times he even had to go 2x a week. I won’t go into too much detail anymore, but it has been extremely difficult for us. I can only imagine how painful and difficult it is for him. I’d like to preface this by saying that ever since I met Jay, he had been extremely kind, sweet, gentle, and caring. I’ve never heard him curse, and he’s always the peacemaker when we chance upon conflicts or commotions (in restaurants, stores, etc.). He’s usually reserved and brooding, but he also jokes around a lot. We have a running joke of out-punning each other in the grocery store for various products and brands we see. He’s also never raised his voice. If he’s mad or annoyed at me, he just gets quiet and sleeps it off, then we’d discuss it in a civil manner the next day. I’ve never seen him actually get angry at me or anything for that matter. However, when he started with his individual therapy sessions, I noticed that he started getting more irritable, neurotic, and easily triggered by a lot of small things that never bothered him before. He’s also been cooking less and less (he says that cooking has always been his happy place before), and we’ve been ordering in a lot more. I can feel him almost always being restless, like there are always a million things going through his mind and he wants to say something, but somehow couldn’t? There were also times when he wakes up at night and just sits by our window staring at nothing, like he’s in deep thought or something. I tried to talk to him once during those times, but it was as if he couldn’t hear me. Also, he’s been less endearing toward me. Like, he’s not cold or harsh or anything. It’s just…he doesn’t seem to be as sweet as before? In our past 5 anniversaries, he had these elaborate plans that always led to an extremely sweet and memorable experience (a romantic dinner at a celebrity restaurant, a video greeting from all my friends and family, a concert of our favorite band, a musical show that I love, and a meet and greet with my favorite author). This year though, he totally forgot our anniversary. He then tried to make up for it by buying me a nice dress, which isn’t even the correct size. Last week, Jay and I were invited to a housewarming party of one of my best friends. The two of us were originally supposed to attend, but he suddenly didn’t feel well, so he just dropped me off and went home. There, my best friends had some sort of intervention for me. They said that they’re all worried about me because they’ve been noticing how Jay has been treating me lately. They said that he’s been somewhat neglectful of me, and that he doesn’t treat me like how I deserve. They notice that he’s been leaving me alone a lot, flaking out on a lot of gatherings, and had been generally distant toward me and everyone else. They were even concerned if Jay had been abusive toward me, which I categorically denied since he had never ever harmed me. Lastly, my friends said that Jay had not been providing me with the emotional support I need. The past months, I had been venting out to them about various things, including my job, some family problems, and my miscarriage. They said Jay should’ve been the first person I share these things with, but I just told them that I couldn’t. Of course, I couldn’t tell them about Jay’s trauma and everything else going on in his personal life. They even theorized that maybe Jay is cheating on me, which I can confidently refute. They then advised me to break up with him if he doesn't shape up and treat me right because they said that I deserve better. Right now, I just don’t know what to do. I love and respect Jay a lot, and I know that his personality change is caused by his trauma and therapy. Our therapist warned us that this might happen because of the severity of his trauma, so I was somewhat prepared and I still know that he’s still the Jay I love and care for. However, I had no idea that to outsiders, our relationship already looked and felt toxic. I made a commitment to Jay that I’ll be with him throughout his recovery process, and I fully believe he’ll get through this, however long it takes. Despite everything, I still love him. I just…I don’t know how to reach and connect with him now. Maybe I should also go into individual therapy myself? I don’t know, it’s now kinda out of our budget and his trauma seems higher priority than what I’m going through right now. Maybe I should just wait it out? Or maybe I should listen to my friends and consider taking a break from our relationship? I really don’t want to do that because Jay needs my support, but is it the right move for me? TLDR: My boyfriend is undergoing therapy to resolve severe trauma over 10 years ago. This has caused some personality changes in him, which my friends thought made our relationship toxic. However, knowing the full context of his issues, I couldn't bring myself to break up with him (as advised by my friends). What do I do? EDIT: Additional context that Jay and I were not planning on having a baby when I had the miscarriage. The pregnancy was unexpected (I didn't even know I was pregnant), and the miscarriage was even more so. Nonetheless, it all still affected me mentally and emotionally, even up to this day. **Reminder - I am not OP.** submitted by /u/Sebastianlim to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

(my post originally from r/CharlotteDobreYoutube) TLDR at bottom I will try to keep as many relevant details in here as possible without going too far off track, since the history with us and with her is utterly a novel. This is long, but worth it, so here goes. 11 days before my wedding I kicked out two bridesmaids (A and M.) This meant I had two left (E and L.) It started with bridesmaid A who asked if her boyfriend could wear a cowboy hat to my wedding. Mind you, my wedding venues were a church for the ceremony and a beach front venue for the reception. I told her that I did not want a cowboy hat in my photos or in my wedding, that that was not the vibe my husband and I were going for, and it just didn’t fit either venue’s décor or environment. A bit of a backstory – A is not in the best position financially. She was dating her boyfriend for like 2 months before she got pregnant. He promised her a better life closer to his family, she believed it, got fired from her $50k/year job, left her first child w/ her ex-husband (Child 1 was supposed to be my flower girl, whose dress we also bought,) they moved from State A to state B, they don’t make much money. They now have the newborn that they can barely afford while living in a camper. Before A asked about the cowboy hat, she asked about jeans. I did not want denim at my wedding. Denim is not formal. She said he was going to wear the same outfit to the wedding as his grandmother’s funeral. Fine, not a big deal. I told her if they are black jeans that is fine since from a distance they will look like slacks. (I gave her an inch and she was definitely looking for that mile.) She kept going with it and I eventually said, “I did not want denim, but I made the exception for you two.” And she said “Yeah, it’s not like we could have afforded anything else anyway.” I felt the tension and left it alone for the night. The next morning, she texted me that she was hurt, that I had an attitude basically and I’ve been acting some type of way, she again brought up the money situation. I tried to be understanding and that I know they are not in the best position financially, but a lot of my family is not, and I know a lot of people are spending quite a bit to get where we are for the wedding (about half our guests were coming from out of state.) I also said I wanted everyone to have a great time and I was sorry if I came off any type of way or insensitive. This was not good enough for her. She decided to say that a wedding was about celebrating our love and if I was focused so much on a cowboy hat my priorities were in the wrong place. I asked her what was going on because this was clearly not about a cowboy hat and she avoided answering. Also did not tell me anything else it might have been about. She said ever since planning the wedding I have been micromanaging, acting proud, and some other accusations that made no sense. I had no idea what she was talking about because a lot of the decisions my husband and I needed to make were taken care of with both venues – food, DJ, set up, breakdown, clean up, etc. A also said she had been talking to M about the way I was behaving, and that the cowboy hat was the final straw. (What’s that even mean? If I was bothering you with things, why didn’t you tell me so I could fix it or change the way I was approaching things?) Somewhere in the midst of this whole thing, she said her daughter (Child 1) would just be uncomfortable in her dress and wouldn’t sit still for more than 30 mins (A lie, I have been around her and she is well behaved,) and also said her boyfriend does not like to eat in front of people (Arms must be tired from all that reaching) and all around is just making excuses, trying to call my bluff about this; if the boyfriend can’t even wear the cowboy hat to the reception, then they probably just go fishing after the ceremony, and not even come to the reception. She also said we could have helped with her shoes. In many other words, I told her just because we make more than her does not mean we owe her anything and told her almost everything we were paying for. Then told me to chill and that I was probably emotional from the planning and everything going on. Basically, gaslit me when she was the one that literally threatened not to come because of a cowboy hat. She brought up money again like five more times and how they’re broke – so clearly this is about money. Husband and I bought the dresses, fronted the Airbnb we needed to get ready in, we fronted hair & makeup without asking for anyone to pay for their portion, bought gifts, A’s plane ticket (she paid us back the next day,) and many other things for our wedding for the bride and grooms party so everyone had a good time, knew they were appreciated, and felt like the event was worth the traveling and time. Throughout my wedding planning, I pretty much planned everything with my husband, and we asked for hardly any input from anyone since no one was really available, no one was close, and it was just easier. So the whole micromanaging comment made no sense to me. I was doing my best to be flexible and understanding of finances for A, not as much for bridesmaid 2, M, but a little. She was also in a state 3 time zones away from me, so her plane ticket was not cheap. I have known this girl A for six years. I am crying at this point. It’s the afternoon, I have to get final headcount to the reception venue for catering THE NEXT MORNING. I am texting my mother, bridesmaid E, friend D, a group chat on messenger, and I have not told Husband yet. Every single one of them was on my side. E said, “If she is this way now before your wedding, imagine what she is going to be like on your wedding day.” And being the desperate person I was, I said to friend D “I know this is shitty and a horrible circumstance but if I needed you to be a bridesmaid, would you? The dress color and material are still available on [Vendor’s site.]” She said absolutely. I felt terrible for asking but I trusted her. M now comes in. She was busy at work so she could not respond to the chat as much, but I was keeping a lot of the chat between A and I because I did not think M needed to be involved. A kept bringing the chat back to the group chat. She brought enough back to the group chat that M picked up on some stuff and basically agreed with A, she said I was being insensitive, and “At least she asked you before she did it.” I’m sorry, what? Backstory for M – A few months earlier she said she was upset I did not officially ask her to be a bridesmaid and did not think it was worth it to come to my state for the wedding because it would be the second time she is here with her boyfriend but not for them; like not for their own reasons such as a vacation. We had a conversation when I started planning and I asked if she would be comfortable ordering a dress for me to see what it looked like. She said “Aww you want me to be a bridesmaid?” I said “I thought that was obvious!” So maybe it’s a thin line, but she went shopping with A and I, went to try on dresses with her, and LET US BUY HER DRESS. She could have said something beforehand that she did not want to, rather than just thinking she had to. She also was not going to be there for the rehearsal since there was a concert in her state rescheduled for two days before my wedding and she was not going to miss it. Understandable since she would have had to get up at 5 am or earlier the night after the concert to get to my state sometime Thursday evening or Friday afternoon. I did not like this, but I accepted it because she also said “I think I’ve been part of enough weddings to figure it out, -insert laughing crying emoji- By this point husband also called me for something, I don’t remember what, but I eventually said to him “I don’t think I want either A or M to come.” He said “Okay, whatever you need to do. I’m fine at this point.” I summarized the events and he said “If you want to burn everything to the ground I don’t care, that’s fine with me.” I stewed on everything for a few hours but I knew what I had to do. I let it sit, I said nothing else, I went to run an errand, I was on the way home, told D when the rehearsal and dinner was, asked if she could make it, she said yes. I told her to order her dress, called the florist, I told them I needed one less bouquet, and got home about 30 mins later. A few hours later I said to both A and M, basically, “You know what? Never mind. I don’t want either of you to come. This is my wedding, we are paying for everything, and I was not wrong. I do not deserve this treatment. It is not my fault A you made shitty decisions and can’t afford anything and M you planned a wedding before, how can you agree with her?” and quite a few other things. (Told them both to send back the dresses but ultimately did not end up caring and said they could do whatever they wanted with them later.) A then said I was attacking because I was frustrated. No, A. You made shit decisions and you’re taking it out on me now. M called me and I didn’t answer. (She was married before, divorced now. Whole other fucking story.) The other kicker? A kept her flight to STILL COME SEE HER DAUGHTER and was going to need a CAR RENTAL ANYWAY, and A HOTEL ROOM with her boyfriend. So wait, was it NOT actually about money? I don’t even know anymore. Anyway, D got her dress by Thursday or Friday the same week, we went shoe shopping a few days later, and she bought her own shoes, too. My wedding party on my wedding day had three girls that were super supportive, loving, and made my day a whole lot easier. They were by my side, made me smile and laugh, and made the day so much more special. I have screenshots, by the way. If anyone wants them, I can attach them to a google doc and have you see them, haha. Just PM me! TLDR; Bridesmaid didn't like that I didn't like or want a cowboy hat to a non-ranch or country themed/styled wedding and flipped out when I said no, her boyfriend could not wear one. She then said I was focusing too much on it but threatened not to come when I said no, and then gaslit me when I said I didn't want it and told me it was just a cowboy hat and that my emotions were probably all over the place from wedding planning. Bridesmaid two chimed in and agreed with her that I was being "insensitive" about it, even though husband and I fronted everything except shoes, flight, and car rental for both of them, and didn't even ask them to plan any type of bridal party or bachelorette party due to distance. Told them both nevermind, I don't deserve to be treated like I'm the enemy when I didn't do anything wrong other than say no to one thing asked. Edit: TLDR added submitted by /u/pewtermug to r/bridezillas [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/HaveClothesWillTrave to u/HaveClothesWillTrave [link] [comments]

The table man. The plastic table flexes. Granted I have not been reading this Reddit. I have watched all the videos, and I strongly believe that if someone had noticed this, it would have been talked about. I would like to upload a video but my phone makes VLC videos - I don't have the accounts, time, or desire to make a YouTube video, but I can show you in a picture. It starts out straight and then it flexes. https://preview.redd.it/di8y8mu5vngc1.png?width=1382&format=png&auto=webp&s=2dd9439ba54bfc218b346b99d43ec7f6ec93054a Here's the thing, (and I'm even more sure of this in light of the recent patents R* has filed) Put the trailer in slow motion and watch it over and over. That flex is amazing. And what it means is even more amazing. It's not like they went in an specifically made the table the only thing to flex like. I'm pretty sure they coded all different material TYPES with different properties. Everything plastic will bend, until it snaps or shatters. Wood could shatter and splinter. This is a big deal. Not just because what will happen when we are inside that incredibly detailed liquor store and we go a bit crazy. Think about the scene in the hotel with the wooden wall. Umm. What happens when you put a grenade against the wall? Can you blow a hole in it? How does this change commiting crimes and missions? Maybe you know a VIP is sleeping in the next room. Maybe you have bugs and hidden cameras! It's easy to imagine being able to break through that wooden wall inside an old hotel room, but it's really no different than if you were outside on the balcony of the hotel, right? Do you see where I'm going with this? Can I raid a crack house by driving a car through the front of the house into the living room? This is the start of destructible environments. Maybe we don't get to completely level a skyscraper, who knows. But I think the start is there, and R* made sure to code the game the right way for further expansion. R* is doing some next level stuff here. To me, it looks like the characters have skeletons. I can find 4 parts during the trailer where the visibility of their wrist bones changes in conjuction with their wrist changing position - just like real life. Also, I'm pretty sure the muscle definition changes. Also, look at Jason's forearm when he's driving, look at the vasculature. I'm not saying that the characters have complete skeletons, maybe you wouldn't need a spine or ribs, but it's possible! The jiggle element would be easier. So bones, fat, muscles, veins. Is this real life? (the veins might be permanently there) Watch the trailer looking at nothing but the position of characters hands. I'm not sure this has been mentioned either. Previous games all had Lego men hands, lol. When I first watched the trailer, I wondered if GTA 6 was using a randomizer, such as when people are dancing in the club or on the boat. But the mudding scene sure does look deliberate - and with what we are learning about the AI and their interactions with each other, the hand positions look like they could be tailored to specific moods or situations, although still chosen randomly out of a pool of present gestures. These are definitely not Lego hands. And with the NPC interaction with each other and throwing stuff? WTF? For real. My hype about this game continues to grow. These patents and what they're doing is undesirable. My first few times watching the trailer, I was definitely impressed, but I was only looking at the graphics quality. As we go on, we learn more and more about how R* focuesd on building this world from the ground up. And we are in awe. So now when they do start polishing the graphics? What about the 1st remaster on the next next gen of equipment? Looking back at those early leaks, nothing you could say would lead me to believe we'd be talking about the game like this past few weeks. I cannot express how in awe and hyped I am. I look forward to a future where video games will bring people together. I have been in the US Army for about 20 years. Every friend I've ever made is gone. I have moved away from my extended family, so that connection is weaker. I am not able to visit all the friends I have spread out all over the globe, but the ability to live in a world like this would be the next best thing, and maybe even better. I'm not sure I would go visit my brother in person next Friday night, but if he wanted to sit and chat while we watch the sunset on a Ferris Wheel for 30 minutes, well that would be doable. Or to play a few missions. I'm hoping we get to scan our own bodies for our characters, and that R* adds some way to verify that someone is using their own body for their character. It would be nice to meet singles from your real life area this way. I am not big on having my character go to a fake gym, but having the option for a real life character sure would motivate me to go to the gym in real life! R* could actually do something positive for their customer base's health this way. I also dream of a world where there are realistic events to go to. Let's say a Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert where they are playing in real life. Rockstar could make an absolute KILLING if they charged $1 and a few hundred million people went. (something like Taylor Swift) Fifty cents for the cheap seats, $1 for front row. Everyone wins. R*, the artists, and players like you and me. How is this different than just doing a pay-per-view event? Well, when we are integrated into our characters, a feeling of actually being there. I would not call a friend on the other side of the country and ask if they wanted to watch a pay-per-view event together over the phone. We would never put on a recorded concert on YouTube and watch it at the same time. However, in this virtual world, we would feel there. We would be wearing our latest outfit, and we could talk and look at each other. If this was a one time event, not recorded, and the other millions of people were experiencing it at the same time. Maybe Fifty Cent plays his first concert in 10 years. I would pay 50 cents to see it. And probably so would a hundred million other people. Do you understand how much money this would make for R*? Do you understand how much more this would integrate the virtual world into everyday life? Rockstar could get rights to stream award shows, or other historic events. An individual celebrity could charge a group of 10 people to have a virtual lunch or a meeting. I invest a lot - I might even pay to have lunch with Stanley Druckenmiller. You might think someone that famous could just charge for a Zoom lunch. We'll, they already do that. But what about when they are laid up in the hospital, looking like dog ass. Maybe they don't want to wash their hair or put on clothes. There is both more a barrier of protection from reality in this virtual world, all the while being more real than a team meeting on Zoom. Being able to look around the room at individuals, especially in 3d. So Druck charges $1,000 per head, and R* gets a cut of that. Rockstar now has more money to build more games! Maybe you think I'm getting all Meta on you, or Ready Player 1. That's because I am. (maybe this is why Meta recently laid off a big portion of their Metaverse staff) You would not find a better real world than R*, with their characters having skeletons and all the recently patent stuff. However - you would need to have different types of lobbies. I would not want to sit on a Ferris Wheel with my brother and enjoy the game like I want, but then get trolled every 10 minutes and us both respawn in different areas. This would disrupt everything. And no - turning me into a ghost and not being able to shoot stuff doesn't work. Maybe me and my brother want to go hunting on a safari. Maybe we want to battle the cops together, without worrying about an F-16 blowing us up. You need different types of lobbies. Of course, if we were sitting at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, everyone would be locked down. (no grenades, lol) because this would ruin the magic. I would say the same thing happens in all other parts of the game, unless that is what you are playing the game for. People who want to fight each other - STILL WOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS. My point is that you would not be losing customers who don't want to troll by giving them options to play the game like they want. Personally, I like to play with people, not against the. I don't know why. I would argue that this is actually more like real life. I've never been shot by a helicopter. I've never been shot at all! You need lobbies that resemble real life, but I can still blow up other stuff with friends. I want to be able to meet off-road enthusiast, not trolls. Maybe I want to meet people who are working on making a cinematic movie, in game. GTA had different crews - some were supposedly friendly, but there always turned out to be a troll. Regardless, for whatever reason, that idea did not work. I don't want to be limited to a crew of 100 people, where maybe 5 of them are online and one of those could be a troll. Meeting people organically, in a threat free environment (like real life) is a must for this game. R* has the ability to really make this game into something special - the concert, events, connecting to old friends, meeting singles, etc. Like it or not, this is the future. Art, architecture, chess clubs, etc. In the next few decades, virtually all of this will be online. R* has the ability to capture and control this aspect of things, which will give them MORE money to create more. I never got why someone would be against friendly lobbies. It makes no sense. You are just losing players. Getting blown up every 5 minutes is not fun for me, and that's why R* lost me as a customer 6 years ago. My goal talking about this is to hopefully have a better game for myself, and this action would not take away from anyone else's enjoyment. I want these live concerts, events, and lunches to make R* money, because this is good for everyone. I want a lobby where I can have fun how I want to have fun, and this is good for everyone. Anyway, in the trailer, looks at the characters hand positions, wrist bones, and vasculature. They have skeletons, lol. submitted by /u/Bulletproof7 to r/GTA6 [link] [comments]

Part 0 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Tomorrow makes one week since I made my bet. And here we are, finishing the discography of one of the more prolific superstars of our generation. I don't know the actual numbers on where she stacks up in terms of published content for a multiplatinum artist, but I can say from personal experience that this woman has A LOT of songs. I've learned so much about a person who only days ago was just a one-dimensional caricature of vapid teen girls in my mind. Now I'm fascinated by her creative depth and enchanted by her wild smile. She's written some things that struck me in places I don't let people strike me. Yes, some of these songs have been a swift kick to the balls and I'm not sure I could have anticipated that. But I'm getting too mired in the moment here. It's hard to believe that after this post, I'll be done! ....you didn't actually believe that, did you? I'll see you tomorrow. This week-long series was always driving towards a Part 7 with all of you in the passenger's seat. Let's get started. Midnights (2022) Lavender Haze Oh, are we out of the indie folk phase? That's ok, it was nice that we got two albums of it. I wonder what she means that the haze is creeping up on her. I looked it up to make sure she was still with Joe here. Post-wiki: She certainly was with Joe, and had posted a video about how he inspired her to write this song. She has now taken it down. Oof. I don't know if I think Lavender Haze works for me as a way to describe the honeymoon phase of a new relationship, but I'm not a multi-platinum recording artist! All I could think about was that Lavender Haze is what happens when it's really humid, right before a Purple Rain. Music video: We're in our Windows 98 era now, people. What do I mean by that? Something about the art style of the clouds, the age of the TV, the smoke everywhere, the tambor of the music, Taylor in the purple water, the set dressing/apparel, and the general psychedelic nature of the video takes me straight to learning how to type on a clicky beige keyboard in a library computer center. I get that you could also read this as 50s but this is MY review, and I say that it's like an operating system and hardware set best known for looking like a nicotine stain. Maroon The rust that grew between telephones. I don't know what it means but it gets the people going. Is it bad to quote Kanye in a Taylor Swift review? We've got a color-saturated chorus here. Given that she has a whole album called Red, I'm sure there's plenty of color lore out there. Anti-Hero Oh, this is the I'm the problem song! Is she owning up to being an imperfect partner? That's refreshing, I know we've gotten pieces of it but to have a hit that focuses on it is, in my eyes, a sign of her being comfortable within herself. Lol, the idea of Taylor's daughter-in-law killing her for money is psychotic and pretty funny. The way she said everybody agrees was chilling. Post-wiki: "I just struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person." I think this is a statement that many people would identify with, especially those of us whose identities are built upon what value we generate for others. I'm a very insecure person, and the need for external validation drives my creativity. If I ever reached a point where just waking up in the morning was enough to draw effusive praise, that engine would break down and I'd lose my entire sense of self. I don't know if this is true for Taylor, but her art helped me talk about it, and for that I'm grateful. Anti-Hero is a great song for a lot of reasons, but this one is mine. Music video: I'm sorry but when she cut into that egg I wanted to punch my monitor. The concept here of Bad Taylor educating Good Taylor to pick up all these bad habits is great. I also like that her blood is purple and sparkly, it really fits the theme of the album. Beach house ---> Cat Sanctuary! This sketch is brilliant. Say what you will but I'd listen to Growing Up Swiftly. It has the Knives Out vibes. I like this song more after the video. I don't have time to talk about Giant Taylor right now. Snow on the Beach (feat. Lana Del Rey) Who is Lana Del Ray? She has a name that makes me envision an expensive restaurant where I probably can't get a table. I've seen snow on a beach, it is absolutely weird and beautiful. If this album is like snow on the beach, I'm going to be very happy with it. Oh we're still doing color, and I also just realized we're very clearly doing weather as well. If she gets in a car, we're going to need to scramble the jets. Post-wiki: Taylor is getting weirder. This is a good thing. Comparing two people simultaneously falling in love with snow on the beach is a stretch, and all I can say is keep stretching because you work best when you're limber. Cool that Taylor got to work with another musician that she loves! You’re on Your Own, Kid Sprinkler splashes --> fireplace ashes. I think I don't enjoy this song. It's a little bland, but I liked that line. If there was something meaningful here, I missed it. Apparently track 5s are important so I feel like I'm missing something. Post-wiki: I'm sorry, this is where the friendship bracelet thing comes from? It's this obscure and buried in a non-single? OK, I see that it's a track 5 and y'all do your thing or whatever but wow, Swifties are something else. Very cool. In BNL fandom, there's a tradition that when they sing If I Had A Million Dollars, when they say "we wouldn't have to eat kraft dinner" (mac and cheese), you through boxes of kraft mac and cheese onto the stage. This has led to a number of injuries. Moral of the story, don't throw things. Just generally. Also, no hitting. Midnight Rain Whatever this sound is, give me a whole bunch. These lyrics are dope. I broke his heart 'cause he was nice. You're awful. What an atmospheric jam. This album really has a specific vibe, huh? Question…? We've got some city pop creeping in here. Yes I know what that is. I've lived. I've seen pictures and videos in music videos of Taylor in Japan. I bet she likes the weird pop that came out of Japan in the 80s. I have been kissed in a crowded room and had people clap, and what I did after that was go and take the heaviest nap of my life because my new wife and I were EXHAUSTED. I did not, in fact, leave her house in the middle of the night. We were not property owners. There was a nugget in that chorus that ties back to the middle of the night theme of this album, I know I got distracted but I am in fact listening. Vigilante Shit This is not the first song about being a vigilante that I've heard from Taylor. I don't remember where the other one was. When someone says they're bumping some music, I picture something that sounds like this. Brrt. Bwumwum, chkchkchkchk. He was doing lines? That shit will explode your heart and we will not be able to help you. Dressing for revenge is some Kill Bill energy and I'm all about it. Bejeweled (Music Video) OK, so Swifties in the game thread say that Travis Kelce lets Taylor bejeweled. I FINALLY get it. She gets to go out and wear the stuff and be seen. Good for her. Good for them. I hope they work out, it would be a lot of fun to see her cheering him on for the rest of his career. He's going to retire in a year or two, so we wouldn't get a lot, but it would be fun while it lasted. This song is almost chiptune-y, which is an easy way to get me to like it. I'm a child of the SNES. This album has been pretty varied with it's sound, which I appreciate because I'm getting oversaturated with the standard Swiftian melody. At the same time, these songs seem a little shorter than usual which also helps. Music video: Yes, mommy. Having learned that Taylor directs her own music videos these days, I can tell her film will have a clear vision. A lot can go wrong in such a large project but I'm looking forward to her visual storytelling in a longer runtime. "Nice!" Those interjections in these songs, like "Go! Fight! Win!" Are my favorite thing about the whole discography and I have no idea why. It instantly makes a song one of my favorites. I like how she's integrating these mid-century aesthetics with the hyper modern synth sounds in the music. It's a surprisingly slick combo. Yeah, this music video was excellent. Labyrinth Ooh, I like a song that says oh no when she's falling in love. It gives it urgency and mystery. It helps that we've got some mystery music playing. We're in our Scooby Doo era, where's the lover in this Labyrinth. Sorry, that last joke went a little overboard. This track sounds a little like those songs from Big Red Mystery Machi---jinkies, I've got Scoob on the brain. Was that low voice hers, using a pitch changer? Karma Karma is my boyfriend, too, Taylor, and we're breaking up cuz clearly you vibe with him better. Well hold on now she's dating Spider-Man. Haha, I can't believe she wrote "aren't you envious that for you it's not?" To her point though, she got through a bullshit viral Anti-Taylor movement and came out the other side an even bigger mega-star, so go off girl. Karma is a relaxing thought for her, and that's gotta feel good. I'm convinced this song is about Kanye's downhill slide though, which has been kind of sad to watch at the human level. He's not well. Sweet Nothing The picture she's painting here is very pleasant. And the clavicle---what is that thing called? Hold on. Clavichord! This isn't a clavichord. It's some kind of keyboard synth instrument that made me feel like ice skating. I know music words but I use them wrong. You've read this far, you surely know that about me. Speaking of which, I love the rhythmatics of her vocalism here. It's something she does more often in these later albums and I find it really fun to listen to, fitting a lot of words into a small space. I feel like this song is about Joe and it makes me sad. It sounds like they were comfortable. Mastermind Oh my, we're going to space. Hey she said planets! Haha, well the intro sound got it across. C'mon Taylor, make it weird. I'm a rocket man, I can handle it. If Taylor told me she was a mastermind and that she captured me like a bug in a net, I'd ask her to humanize me a little more and suggest that maybe a relationship doesn't have to becomposed of a hunter and a hunted. I feel like she wrote a song about that, named after the guy who voices Bob's Burgers. The Great War This is about surviving a fight in a relationship. Yes, I know I've gotten quite good at plucking the meaning from these tunes. No other observations. Bigger Than the Whole Sky Atmospheric is the word of the album. Echoes of an acoustic guitar, played through a sepia-tone barn window. I like it. Do I love it? Maybe not, it's a little static, but at this point I'm convinced we're getting another 20 albums from this woman in the next 10 years so if she wants to do one that feels like this, I'm just gonna pay her the money. Paris This is a song written by Celebrity Taylor. Ooh la la, or something. I actually like when she plays at doing the celeb schtick. Did you see the photos? No, but thanks. Oh, so the story is about sitting in an alley drinking cheap champagne and pretending you're in Paris. Sometimes she likes to build a moment and then pull back the curtain and it's fun. High Infidelity Everybody say welcome back to the beeps and boops music. It's a fun way to layer a song, makes it feel light without sacrificing dimension. Ok, I'll bite. Where was she April 29th? I'm going to bet that this song is about Scarf Guy and she got stood up on April 29th at that party. It makes sense, she's saying he killed her by not loving her enough and now he regrets meeting her because she's written songs about him. Well, Scarf Guy, you signed that work order for your own damn self. What was he keeping count of? Glitch Blood moonlit glitch, she's clearly singing about Castlevania speedruns. 2,190 days since what? I'm not gonna be able to guess that one, unless it's also referring to April 29th. Man, I thought I'd get more out of this song but it played it safe. Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve People have mentioned this track to me in anticipation. Oh Christ, is this about Scarf Guy again? Grown man, encouraged developing a relationship but treated her like a paint splatter? She's 19, yeah this is Scarf Guy or John Mayer. Actually, I'm sure it's John Mayer cuz dancing with the devil fits much more. She had big feelings for the Scarf Guy, but this is just regretting being with a bad person, which is John Mayer. "Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first." :O That was a grenade of a lyric. And the next song is called Dear Reader instead of Dear John. I pick up what you're putting down, you clever, clever girl. Dear Reader I feel obligated to say that burning all your files is not only against the retention policy, but could land us in pretty deep water with regulatory authorities. When you aim at the devil, make sure you don't miss? Yeah I don't think you missed Taylor, that line about giving back your girlhood was an absolute strike. I can't believe we're dealing with this stuff all the way in 2022. Good that we are, but I'm surprised it wasn't in Lover. Maybe it just wasn't time yet. Hits Different OK, I hate to admit it but the visual of leaving a club and throwing up on the street takes me back to College a little bit, and it indeed hits different nowadays. Hey, asshole outlaw! I saw that in the 'say two words, guess the song' thread the other day. If I was aiming to write a thesis about all this, I'd line up her outlaw references and her vigilante references and draw some conclusions between any shared context or meaning in the songs. That's free analysis bait for anybody that wants it. Antithetical dream girl gives Alternative Girlfriend vibes and I'm here for it. Snow on the Beach (feat. More Lana Del Rey) I can get behind a pluckier version of Snow on the Beach, sure! Lana Del Ray searching "aurora borealis green" like a mid-40s power mom picking out paint samples for the she-shed vision board. You deserve your own dedicated space, queen. What does it mean to be for someone like Janet? Karma (feat. Ice Spice)) Grah! That's the sound I make when I go to drink something but there's spice on the ice. Who put fucking cardamom on top of my damn julep. I think this song is the most 'painting fingernails emoji' song on the album. Is she saying she's draggin that wagon because she has an XL booty? Music video: GRAH. Mary Tyler Moore. That's who reincarnated as Taylor Swift. Yes, I know MTM only died a few years ago. Still, though. If Taylor 'retires' from her release schedule in the future, she'd be a slam dunk for a once weekly night show. I have no idea what I'm talking about, by the way. Whoever this lady is from the music video hanging out with Taylor has the wagon! You’re Losing Me The vocal effects here are glitzy. Feels like Lover. "I know my pain is such an imposition." That feels. Hmm, there was another song where Taylor sang about how a guy was losing her. Final Thoughts on Midnights: I like the sound. It isn't going to make my top 3 for her albums, but that doesn't mean it's bad. I almost feel like this one should be a vacation album. I could imagine myself in an alternate future, listening to this while waiting for traffic to clear in some history-rich middle-European city, as I head to a spot I've heard about that has the good bread. Do other people come up with dumb fantasies like this? Sometimes I feel like I have an illness. Favorite songs were Karma, Bejeweled, Question, and antihero. I feel bad putting the hits on here but they were what I liked. Non-Album Songs The Alcott (The National feat. Taylor Swift) Barn me, music video. Thank you, I'm ready to start now. The lead singer of The National has resting muppet face and it makes me want to hug him. Look it up, I'll be over here sharpening my next confusingly accurate pseudo-complement. Man, I love this song. I hope people like it. "Read my sentence out loud, cuz I love this curse on our house." Can Taylor write my eulogy? I have terminal vibe poisoning and it feels like a warm blanket choking me out, slowly, gently. Anti-Hero (feat. Bleachers) The intended head bob frequency is actually double the BPM. Give that a try, but sit down because I got dizzy when I did it. Man, that line about a famous baby and 90s guilt is just a string of hyper-meaningful nonsense. I don't know how it echoes through my millennial soul, but it sure does. Hey there's some saxophone! They snuck it in like a clever metaphor into a music review. Three Sad Virgins Please Don't Destroy is a cool name. Hey, isn't that Pete Davidson? How does he always look like he just woke up after passing out in the gutter? He looks like he smells like used chap stick. Oh fuck, Ben's dea--oh no actually he's fine. One question, where's Taylor? Oh, there she is, lol. What if I told you this whole bit would've been better if you just had Taylor do Pete Davidson's part? Speak Now (Taylor's Version) IDK you guys, a careless man's careful daughter? Did you see how she drove that lambo in the rep music video? She wasn't even looking at the road, like, at all. "Alex, this is Teen Taylor, she doesn't even have a license yet." Well, we need to make sure she respects her learner's permit because once she graduates from passenger to driver, shit could go sideways. One of the benefits of doing the Taylor's Versions separately is that I get to experience the album for a second time within the confines of the experiment, and after having listened to her full narrative arc up to the current release. Knowing what I know today, this album is absolutely freckled with lore seeds, just waiting to be sprinkled with life water and tucked into some time soil. Country Taylor is also a lot easier to vibe with now that I know it's not all she's got. Actually, that's a bigger point than I made it out to be. The fact she's hopped through four distinct genres now (at minimum) completely changes how I listen to this: "Here she is, Taylor with the cowboy hat on, boy isn't she just cute as a button? Did you see her rhinestone cowboy boots? Did you see her curly hair?" Yeah, I did! And I'm having fun with this Taylor. And later, I'm going to have fun with this other Taylor, you should come see her, too. Electric Touch (feat. Fall Out Boy) Eyes emoji? Is this alt rock? Well, not exactly. She flirted with it but it still sounds like Speak Now. That's the point, I know, it's a vault track on this album. But to have Fall Out Boy lean into her sound, instead of her lean into theirs, is a waste. Hey, at least the chorus gets going a little. It is kind of funny listening to Pete Wentz sing some very Taylor lyrics. Can I request a Bullet for my Valentine collab at some point? When Emma Falls in Love I have a niece named Emma. She's eleven. I think. I wonder if she's enchanted by Taylor Swift music. This song is cute and carries that classic sound from this era. "If Cleopatra grew up in a small town." I almost wanted to tease about the smaller population sizes in ancient times, but did you know AT LEAST 400,000 people lived in Alexandria when Cleopatra was alive? Bonkers. The mouth of the river Nile is a hell of a drug. Good song, good contept, not anything exciting though. Next! I Can See You I just said the last song wasn't exciting, but this one might be. It's trying some things that sound unique. Minor key maybe? I'm not good at diagnosing that. Would it be weird to say this sounds like rep, but played through Speak Now equipment? Yeah actually I'm standing by it. This song has the rep voice and attitude, but the instrumentation of Speak Now! This is great! The bridge borrows melodies from You Belong With Me and Love Story almost verbatim, which is sneaky. I can hear the melody of "he's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers" and also "the one you're looking for has been here the whole time," with startling clarity. Music video: Is this Mission Impossible or Mr. Robot? I feel like I recognize these women but I couldn't tell you who they are. OK hold up I recognize that werewolf! How cool that they are on good terms. Are they stealing her album art? HAH. I'm going to be selfish and root for Taylor to have a fight scene in her movie whenever it happens. She's had some great ones in music videos. Castles Crumbling (feat. Hayley Williams) Castles crumbling is a phrase we've heard probably four or five times from Ms. Taylor Swift. I'm not about to break down what she means by it at large, but I'll take a quick stab at it - castles are a romantic, fantastical structure that fit her whimsical imagination at this age. They're a perceived sturdy thing, so when they're crumbling it can be very frightening and make you question yourself. Also, in real life, castles are constantly trying to fall down. The reason they're so expensive is because upkeep is unbelievably burdensome. Foolish One This song is friends with tolerate it and other songs about Taylor, or her character, being in love with someone who just...doesn't care. Does anyone else think about how Taylor either 1. gets shot or stabbed, or 2. is preparing to get shot or stabbed in a lot of songs? Not a majority of them anyway, but I'd guess it happens in as much as 7% of her songs, which at this volume is quite a lot. As standard as this song is, it's still kind of catchy. Timeless We're going hard into the story right away, this is a great sign. Taylor's describing herself finding some antique photos of a couple, and seeing herself and her lover in them. This is very on brand for our girl, especially in this era. She sees something romantic and imagines what it would be like for her. Instead of stopping there though, we're continuing the story, broadening the scope. Now we're on to a romance book. Once upon a time, these two concepts would be two separate songs. But now Taylor's stacking blocks higher. If you were looking for it, this is it in my opinion - her best country song. 1989 (Taylor's Version) This is it. We've reached the most recent release. I can't believe this came out right before I started this process. I've been excited about this one the whole time because it's the album art I've been seeing since the start. My wife and I remarked that Taylor's hair never looks like anybody did anything to it, and how it lets her stay looking like a normal, relatable girl still. That was true in the eras movie, and it's true on this album cover. She lets her hair be messy and I appreciate it. If I remember correctly, there was even a whole thing about how Voldemort tried to get her to straighten her hair, and while she's definitely altered her hair in interesting ways for certain projects, it feels like her normal hair is kind of a statement. IDK, you tell me. So I thought Welcome To New York was a slightly-less-boring sitcom opening credits song before. I like it a little better on the second pass. It still has no complexity to it but it's exciting. Blank Space is that song that I always forget about and then when I hear it I'm like, oh yeah this one is really good. It's one that's starting to sound like rep, but still has the bright sound of pre-rep. Call me crazy but I think if she put Blank Space (remix) on reputation (Taylor's Version) as a vault track, with a facelift and maybe an extra bridge, it would do numbers. Alright, alright. I'm starting to think 1989 was already heading toward the reputation sound before all the stuff happened. Style also has that city grime synth and the more dangerous smile that her rep songs have, she just hasn't followed it to the conclusion yet. This relisten has me thinking that 1989 is one of my top 3 albums. Oh crap, yeah it is. I love the music, I love what she's doing with the smokier voice, I love the stories she's telling. I'm looking down this tracklist and thinking, yep yep yep that one's a winner, that one, that one, ooh definitely that one...This is the album where I don't get to a track and think, nah I'd skip this one if it was allowed. There's something really special about realizing these things in real time with you, by pushing them through my keyboard. It's different than listening with someone next to you. It's like writing letters. It lets me feel what I'm feeling, then feel the excitement and anticipation of seeing your reaction later on. What a fun accident this whole thing ended up being. Kismet. I have a spotify account that acts like a mausoleum for my old music, and I've added 1989 TV, Folklore, Evermore, Lover, and reputation to it. That's my Mount Rushmore for this adventure. You'll have to wait for the final ranking order for the albums. And the tracks. And the lyrics. MY EX MAN BROUGHT HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND-- Apple Music was throwing a fit so I switched to the lyric video for I Wish You Would. If you haven't seen it, and you're a car lore-ist, go check it out. Man, I haven't been meh about a single song on this album. “Slut!” I've been looking forward to this song because I've seen promo art or something for it, and I was like, I be that'll be a fun song. Turns out, it's more of a mellow thinker of a track instead of a song to dance to. She's saying that even if it makes the media slander her, she thinks it's worth it for the guy. And if she's going to be drunk to deal with all the noise of the world, she might as well do it while in love. Sad. Cool. Say Don’t Go These vault tracks have been methodical so far. I probably shouldn't be expecting an anthem or anything upbeat. The back half of this album is more reserved to begin with. Well, it picked up! My mistake. Trust is hard. Now That We Don’t Talk This album is better than all of the other ones. Have you heard this song? Have you heard this album? She just can't MISS. Suburban Legends I'm a suburban legend too. Look: My friends all have cool nicknames - they call me on a landline they all want to chase their fame I just want to hang your picture frames I don't want to fan their flames - the burbs are where I choose spend my time, with you I'm embarrassed to post that but it's what came into my head while I was listening to it so I'm obligated. Roasts go down below. Did she just say tick tock on the clock?? "I broke my own heart because you were too polite to do it" yeah alright I'll leave the songwriting to her I think. Is It Over Now? Red blood, white snow, blue dress on a boat. Color lore crumbs are gonna have to stay lying there, I just don't have the energy to collect and connect them. Man, these vault tracks are totally processing how she feels about hiding from the media while the people she sang about don't, and the toll it's taking on her mental health. And they're all bangers. Bad Blood (feat. Kendrick Lamar) I hear that Kendrick Lamar is very important and good, but when Bad Blood started and he started going "UHH! UHH!" I wigged out a little bit. His verse was good, and the new bass line for this chorus is adding a really cool dimension. STOP GOING UHH! He's good with his word economy, a lot of what he wrote carried meaning without wasting anything. That's kind of the opposite of my thing. I build meaning by tripling the recipe and then adding extra spice to balance it, back and forth until it the last bite tastes right. Amateur cook vs professional chef I think. Non-album songs: Sweeter Than Fiction Taylor looks think as hell on this album art, but I love her outfit. Your eyes wider than distance? What in the world do you mean? Is she describing Anya Taylor-Joy? HAHAHA oof that was mean. She's very talented and beautiful. And you could park a double wide trailer between her eyes. SORRY. I haven't heard of the movie this is from, but the song is fine. It's a standard-issue Taylor piece. Well, folks, that brings us to the end of Taylor's discography. Did you read it all? Did you listen to any of it along with me, while I tried to ruin it for you? We heard a lot of stuff, and I said a lot of things. Taylor became something, then something else, than a third thing, and she just kept trying on new outfits. She looked good in pretty much every single one. I feel you panicking that I'm about to wrap up, but we have things to do so strap in one last time and let's review.... The Eras Tour Movie Film For Theaters Welcome to my blog you guys! Today I went to the M O V I E S. With my wife! As a teen, a few of my friends worked at the local movie theater so I would go almost every day. I'm talking five, six times a week. I'd see everything that was showing multiple times, even if it was total garbage. I'd hit matinees after school, pay for a single ticket, and hop theaters like a fucking delinquent, but nobody bothered me because I bought concessions between movies. They were getting their money. Don't feel sympathy for the Cinemark corporation, it's a bad look. I've done basically everything you can do in a movie theater, except for the things Lauren Boebert does. I've snuck in pizzas through the faulty emergency exit, enough for the small group of people watching Fury Road in nowhere Kansas at 3pm on a Tuesday, and left a tip for the teenagers who'd have to clean it up. I've done my homework by the light of a Nokia flip phone in the back row. I've danced in the aisles, held a girl's hand, held my wife's hand, laughed, cried, nearly peed my pants trying to hold it until the end, had a panic attack, tripped, fallen, laid down, and fallen asleep. Today, I paid $40 dollars to go to the scariest looking AMC I've ever pulled up to. We were the only ones in the theater. It was 4pm in rural Virginia, for a movie that was exiting theaters in two days, and it's what I wanted because I was going to be taking notes on my phone the whole time, so it worked out great. I haven't been in a theater since 2019 and if you told me that my return would be for a Taylor Swift concert film...honestly I'd believe you, I'll see anything. The trailers played for a couple pixar nothings, a follow-up to Mean Girls, a prequel for Willy Wonka, another Hunger Games thing, and some other event movie. Hollywood is truly alive with creative energy. This performance is at SoFi in L.A.! This stadium was a big deal when it was being built, they couldn't stop talking about it on football broadcasts. It delivered, the place is amazing and I hope to be there in person in a few years for the Olympics, one of the only things in life that I care more about than football or breathing. I'm going to hit my highlights and give you my overall impression: The opening of this set was so overwhelming that I'm not kidding that I didn't write down what the first song was and I don't remember anything about it. I was just experience the come-up of the sensory overload and being generally dazzled. I'm sure it was great. Cruel Summer was super fun, and I was reflecting on the outrageous story of Swifties collectively deciding it would hit #1 to give her the seven consecutive that she deserves. I know she pushed it forward with promo, but it would never have happened without this crazy mass of loving and devoted fans she's accumulated. It flowed into The Man, which was almost as fun. I really enjoyed watching her posture shift into the masculine character, and seeing her hang out on America's most professional looking fire escape. We ran straight into You Need to Calm Down, and I saw the dollhouse from one of her music videos appear on the enormous screens. Every time Taylor goes for a walk down the stage with a group behind her, it looks so badass. I also love that each dress she wears has a matching pouch for the mic box. I picture her crew pulling that box and plopping it into the next pouch as she has clothes running on and off of her. As a theater person, this was fun to think about. There's nothing quite like the energy of keeping a performance on track and the physical work that flies by. It's the same energy as a football game or playing a concert. I love game day. It was about at this point that I stopped taking notes. Sorry, the movie was good and I was bad. We'll see how my memory does for us. I think we'll be fine. I got the chance for the first time in my life to sing along with my wife to the hits from Fearless. It helped that there were no other people in there. I caught myself giving her commentary on the backgrounds for each song, telling her the things I learned from the wiki and the comments of my blurbs. I recalled the favorite lines I'd written to her, and she patiently reminded me each time that she had, in fact, read them. This commentary thing would run the entire 2.5 hours of the movie, and my wife deserves a mountain of credit for letting me tell her so many things. When Willow hit, I felt like someone had stolen my dog and dyed it key lime green. The witchy atmosphere, the sheer October of it, was breathtaking. It also helps that Willow is an absolute gem. Marjorie followed it, and right before it began they showed a close up of Taylor. I'm going to assume it was sweat, but she had a single bead of something running down her cheek. I'm sure it wasn't a tear, there's no way she wouldn't stop to compose herself if it were. I don't know if her grandmother is still alive. A lot of time was spent in the Evermore material, which is totally understandable given that it hadn't gotten a tour. I expected the same from Lover. I'd lie if I said I wasn't wondering if reputation would hit mid-show or close it. I figured she'd close with Midnights, and I was delighted when the lights dimmed on Evermore and the stage was overrun by that signature snake. It wasn't the same level of mind grenade as the rep movie, but the reputation era still delivered a hell of a set. I was saying things like, c'mon, do Don't Blame Me! Do Look What You Made Me Do! The only one I didn't get was This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things. My favorite thing was all the Taylors in boxes. Two of the performers had really interesting and fun interactions with her through the glass that made me laugh. This was also, I think, the portion where she stomped on the set to shatter it like glass. That was a very impressive bit of theater. I actually sang WANEGBT out loud. A little bit. It's not my anthem but my wife was really into it so I joined in and made her laugh. Worth it. All Too Well came on and my wife ran to the restroom. I told her that it was probably the best time, since this was a ten minute song. Her eyes almost bugged out of her head when she heard how long it was. She got back just in time for the cabin to appear on stage. The Folklore set was one of the best. Maybe I just love the aesthetic in general, but the cabin looked so good and the stories she told were so magnetic. Taylor was great at introducing the different songs. One of the things I've failed to talk about up to this point is just how happy she looked. I know she's doing her job with specific expressions and characters she's projecting out to the crowd, but those moments where you can tell she's just SO, HAPPY, to be touring again, it's so hard not to soften your heart towards her. What a girl. Folklore got what I think was the most screentime of the whole show, and while I appreciated it, I think I wanted a little more rep. Am I crazy or is Blank Space one of the better songs with one of the worse performances during the eras tour movie? It was really simple and kind of leaned on the music video, instead of doing something new. She did that for a couple songs but this one was worse for it while the others were better for it. I think I might've just wanted more from it than it gave. Shake it Off is such a slam dunk of a concert song. Everybody gets into it. Same with Bad Blood. My wife asked me if she'd be doing anything from her first album, and I told her she wouldn't leave it out Sure enough, she hit a few of those oldies and it left my wife feeling satisfied. As I expected, Midnights rounded us out. It's a unique mood that feels informed by, but never standing upon, her other stuff. Big Taylor destroyed some buildings. I thought of Travis Kelce letting her Bejeweled. The whole thing felt like it was coming to a close as she controlled her dancers' movements during Mastermind. I really like how much room she gives her dancers to play and have their personalities. They aren't faceless people, I felt like I was getting to know them throughout the show. She closed on Karma, a song I find totally captivating and also a little sad when I think about what happened to that guy. I left the theater with my miniature tour poster held carefully so that it could make it up on my office wall safely. Yes, it'll go into my office as a memory of this adventurous week. FINAL THOUGHTS I've spent all of my Saturday writing and relistening to the discography. Not everything, of course. I have my preferences now, and I wanted to use what time I have left to enjoy those. I'm going to post this without any final thoughts, it will feel more final to have for tomorrow. Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 submitted by /u/Alex_Demote to r/TaylorSwift [link] [comments]

Going to see Luke Bryan in concert down on the Jersey Shore near the end of June. Trying to figure out what to wear. I’m from the city but I’m very adaptable. I know jeans are standard fare. Looking for shirt and foot wear options. I’m 57, 5’ 10” 186 lbs and muscular. I have fantastic arms and upper body. Help a city boy out. submitted by /u/Hopeful-Mirror1664 to r/mensfashion [link] [comments]

i’m going to see them in november and i have 0 clue what to wear. it’s my first concert that isn’t one my parents chose (they choose country music, but like bad country music 😭) IK i have a bunch of time but i want ideas!!! submitted by /u/lunanotlovegood to r/RainbowKittenSurprise [link] [comments]

You guys, I need your help! I know I’ve seen threads in the past with this topic, but I’m looking for concert outfit ideas for my wife! For context, she’s 32 and is used to going to mostly country concerts. She also is very conscious about her outfits and loves to plan them in advance lol in fact, I’m currently listening to her discuss her outfit choices for Taylor Swift in June 😅 Going to an FOB show is going to be a new world for her, so let me know if anyone has any ideas for her! submitted by /u/KSweens11 to r/FallOutBoy [link] [comments]

Lights is only the musician of Electro-pop I listen to, all my friends listen to classical or country. I will be attending her concert for the FIRST TIME in April. I was curious on how or what aesthetic clothing I should go for to attend her concert. Any inspiration clothing or store link would be helpful and appreciated! Thank you! ^^ submitted by /u/Rachellxoxo to r/lightsalot [link] [comments]

Dave perfectly summed up what we already knew & felt about these Saudi shows. Too perfect not to share. Taking solace that someone with the voice to be heard is putting WWE on blast for this hypocritical behavior. Talking out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to being progressive but willing to sacrifice their morals for a buck. With less than a day to go before WWE’s Super Showdown in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, there is a story which for long-term news and propaganda purposes makes the first and probably last Undertaker vs. Bill Goldberg mach seem like nothing. Last year, WWE embarked on the ten-year deal with Saudi Arabia, which. At the time, was, with the exception of U.S. television deals over the last half dozen years, it was the biggest money deal the company had ever signed for anything. The WWE announced one show a year, which became two both of which generate more money each for the company than the biggest WrestleMania in history. Of course in doing so, there were ugly truths and got uglier. WWE has tried to promote women as equal to men and as legitimate in-ring competitors after generations of them being either a side show, or a T&A product masquerading as wrestling. WWE has tried to get rid of the ugly stereotypes that the industry had until the recent generation, from savage Islanders to German Nazis to bald-headed Russians, salt throwing Japanese and other foreigner who are there to put down Americans. And don’t get us started with Mexican landscapers and the wonderful track record with pretty much any ethnicity that be exploited by ugly stereotypes. The company clung to Martin Luther King. Made the broadcast desk this weird affirmative action platform with a steady stream of bad commentators put there because of gender or race as opposed to ability. But with so much money in their face, they, without even debating, threw it away. Well, actually, they didn’t. The goal was to have their cake and eat it to. They still build one Raw a year around Martin Luther King Jr., spout on about being at the forefront of a women’s cultural evolution that they’re actually more than 50 years behind tennis, basketball, skating and pretty much every sport on. While at the same time, they made this deal. Worse, last year, the same government they made the deal with lured in a reporter for the Washington Post in a planned out murder. Now, the reporter wouldn’t come to their country after they kept trying to entice him. But they got him to their embassy in Turkey, and then not just killed him, but dismembered him first. This was, of course, inconvenient timing for WWE. It wasn’t fair. Why should we suffer on a deal we already made just because it was a deal with murderers who culture goes against pretty much everything we cling to in our home market propaganda. Granted, the second show was no longer the paid for propaganda piece of the first. Things are a little more calm now. No senators are telling them they shouldn’t go. The murder was months ago. While some companies pulled out of doing business with them, most didn’t. Although its laughable the idea that Starbucks opening stores in a country is compared with a deal by the guy who from all evidence plotted and then attempted to cover up the murder. Did Starbucks, in exchange, have Saudi Arabian propaganda all over their U.S. stores and having signs everywhere telling people how progressive the new leadership in Saudi Arabia is? Sometime in the ten-year deal, WWE was going to get another bragging point. At some point in the next ten years, women would be allowed to wrestle on a show. WWE has already promoted hard having this breakthrough in Abu Dhabi as being of some cultural significance, touting a very light chant of “this is hope” as a key line for years in company speeches. Keep in mind that TNA had a women’s match years earlier, so it wasn’t a breakthrough at all. And it’s hardly a culture change. But, for real, there will be a time, and it may even be on 6/7, that WWE does host the first women’s pro wrestling match in Saudi Arabia. Natalya and Alexa Bliss are in Saudi Arabia as of this writing. WWE will take credit for changing culture. Of course, that’s silly. There are women competing in sports at schools (only in private schools, so rich has its privilege but two years ago women in public schools were allowed to at least take P.E. classes). Until last year, women were prohibited from attending any events in most stadiums. Last year that changed, although they are allowed at shows like this, although it is segregated seating. Somehow I don’t think the female Sputnik Monroe is coming from WWE to modernize this and change society, but we shall see. Women’s basketball competition dates back to 2003. By the way, it was outside forces that have led to changes for women in Saudi Arabia. It wasn’t WWE, it was the IOC. You know how they did it? Before the 2012 Olympics, they told Saudi Arabia that if you don’t have a women’s team, your men’s team is banned from competing. Suddenly, there were women, at least in certain social circles, allowed to compete in sports, private school were allowed sports teams and they’ve sent women to the last two Olympics. Going there, taking the money, and waiting as is going on at this writing for the government to decide what it’s going to do hardly qualifies. Still, will WWE at some pont, maybe next week, talk about its influence more than you ever heard watching the last two Olympics? Yes. So here’s the situation. At one point, evidently the government told WWE that they would allow them to have a women’s bout on the 6/7 show in Jeddah, which is a more progressive city than Riyadh, likely the home of the November show. That may explain why there is no All-women’s PPV show on the 2019 schedule after how successful, at least aesthetically, the first show was. But it’s gone back-and-forth. WWE never spoke a word about it, because it would be an embarrassment if they promoted it and then got the thumbs down when they arrived. But now, it’s still going to be tough. The news is out that Natalya and Bliss are in Saudi Arabia with the idea of doing a match. There is no confirmation such a match will or won’t take place. The company has hinted about it in case it doesn’t. But if it doesn’t, the company does look bad because at that point they would have been strung along, and then told no. For that reason, if Saudi Arabia looks at the big picture and doesn’t want to embarrass WWE, they need to allow it. They care enough about not embarrassing WWE that they allowed them to do the second show without spouting the propaganda that the relationship was built on in the first place. Even now, WWE has promoted the show, constantly talking about how it is as big or bigger than WrestleMania, using the city “Jeddah,” but banning the term Saudi Arabia from its own television. Of course that term isn’t banned with all the localized promos the wrestlers have done for that market. Really, there’s no reason women shouldn’t be allowed on the show. The IOC forced them to allow women to compete in sports. The Russian circus came to town and for whatever reason, they were allowed to have their women perform in tight outfits. Of course, that led to a conservative backlash and the people who okayed that ended up it hot water over it. Mariah Carey performed there on 1/31, and was heavily criticized for doing so, more covered up than se would be at a U.S. concert, but still flashingly dressed. Actually most of the criticism of her came from Saudi Arabian women, who felt a star of her stature shouldn’t endorse and do the bidding of a government that treats women the way they do. Unlike Carey, WWE is way below the line that people in the U.S., or Saudi Arabia, would care. And it was believed the government brought in Carey specifically to rebuild its image after the Khashoggi murder. submitted by /u/WetBehindYourEars to r/SquaredCircle [link] [comments]