I hope you've got some time and a snack, because this one is going to be super long, as the events that follow span from late 2019 to last week. As per the rules, all names are altered herein.
Ok, so here's the backstory. My STBXW was my high school sweetheart. We started dating in 1992 when we were both 17 (we're both 45 now) and have been together ever since. She's the only woman I've ever been with my entire life. We married 5 years later at 22, fresh out of college. A year later, we had our 1st of two children, both boys. (22 and 17) 23 years I gave to her. Built her a house. Worked my ass off to give her the life she wanted. Sure, we had rough patches, but what marriage doesn't? Even in the worst of times, we found a way to pull through and come out the other side better. Which made the discovery of her affair that much more jarring.
Flashback to March 2020, when I 1st got the feeling something was "off". For a good 2 months prior, we were in a funk. I was on the mend from reconstructive knee surgery (blew out my ACL fall 2019) but still lacking in movement. At the time I only had about 55% range of motion on my knee. This took a toll on quite a lot in the house. I was out on worker's comp, as I had been injured on the job, and I was unable to do my usual household duties, so a lot got backed up. My sons would do what they could, but tasks only I was capable of doing had to be put on the back burner, or my wife had to do, which she wasn't pleased with. Things also crawled to a stand still in the bedroom between us. It had already slowed down prior to my injury, but in the state I was in at the time it completely stopped.
During these months, she (we'll call her Sue) was spending more time "hanging with co-workers" after work. Between November 2019 to March 2020 it was a regular occurrence for her. Naturally, I thought nothing of it. I've never in the 23 years I'd been with her had any reason to worry or not trust her. She has her friends, I have mine, and we have mutual. I'd go hang out with my friends all the time and there was no issue. It was all above board. It was around January of this year that I noticed something odd. Sue started getting noticeably distant with me. Sure, we were in a funk, but she'd never deny me affection to that point. The usual hugs and kisses she'd give me came to a halt. Her phone was attached to her hand long before my suspicion grew, but she'd always share and show me things she'd discovered on the web. DIY ideas and recipes on Pintrest, memes, all kinds of stuff. But she was now being guarded about her phone. Even her interactions with me became more snippy, as if she couldn't be bothered.
So we're now in March. Covid has arrived and New York City is locked down. Our chosen careers fall under the "essential" designation, so neither of us have to work from home. I'd just been recently cleared to return to work after 5 months on the shelf, and I was eager to get back after it, as 5 months on my ass rehabing my knee and not being able to do physical stuff drove me nuts. (For context, I enjoy physical activities. I'm an avid martial artist and I'm typically in the gym 4 days a week, on top of all of the home projects I did.) Within a week or 2 of the lockdown, my STBXW alerts me that she's going to have to start putting in extra hours. Again, I think nothing of this because of her field. Of course, I was under the assumption it'd be every other day, but no. It was every day. And not just an hour or 2. She'd come home 3 or more hours later, and go straight to the shower, spend a little time with me, a little time with our 17 y/o (22 year old lives with his GF crosstown) and then go to bed. As I'm able to support myself on my knee better, we started getting intimate again, but as you'd probably guess she wasn't mentally or emotionally present for it, which I noticed quickly.
So by early April, the picture started getting clearer to me. All of the signs were pointing to the idea that she was having an affair. That's when I decided I needed to find answers. So I scoured the internet on things I should be looking for. Signs of infidelity in one's partner, and sure enough she was pretty much ticking all of the boxes on such behavior. So then my search inquiry advanced to how to I find proof. I started with her social media. Looking at her FB entries from months prior, it's pretty much the usual. Pics of us and our sons, pics with her and her friends, and a more then a few pics of her nights out with co-workers. In these pics, it's a mixed bag of her closets friends from work, and a couple folk I've never met from her work. But I see one recurring thing in a number of these pics, one guy. In every picture he's in, he's rather uncomfortably close to her. His arm is around her shoulder, or his hand on her lower back. WAY to close for a guy I've never personally met. Needless to say that put a sour taste in my mouth.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
No, no, no. The worst was the fact that apparently, this dude is a friend of hers on FB and followers her on IG. So I go to look up his FB account and wouldn't you know it, I'm blocked. Why the hell am I blocked from seeing this guy's FB account, but he's friends with her on FB. Yep. Now I'm in Batman detective mode. At that point, I wasn't even trying to deny it. I knew she was cheating on me with this guy. My mission was to find out for how long. And over the course of April and May, that's what I did. You know I never had any clue the depth of info you could secure from phone, text and email records up until then. We have a family plan cellphone package, and I was able to pull up quite a bit of data. My STBXW's data history was telling. The 2 most frequent numbers she had interacted with from October 2019 to April 2020 was my own, and a number I'd never seen before. Take a wild guess who's number it was? A quick check on google and I confirmed it was the dude from the photos who blocked me on FB. (We'll call him POS, cuz that's what he is.) Again, the picture becomes even clearer at this point. But a lot of their messages and texts were disjointed, which meant she was deleting a lot of them. I knew she was cheating on me with this guy, but nothing in the data could serve as a smoking gun. I needed more evidence.
It's at this point that I tell my best friend Oz what I had found. He asked me did I confront her with what I had, and I said no because I felt like it wasn't enough. That's when he told me about an app that I could download to apparently spy on her communications in real time. I won't say the name as I don't know the rules on that here. I got it installed, sync up my data plan, and waited. Within days of doing so, I finally saw it. A text string between the 2 of them talking about how much fun they'd had the previous night, and making plans to do it again that weekend. Boom. Gut punch. To say I was completely devastating was an understatement. I guess that moment counts as my "D-Day", and for the next 2 days after I was just broken. I actively distanced myself from her those 2 days immediately after d-day, which she was noticeably shaking by. She'd try to console me and ask me what was wrong, but I'd brush it off and leave her presence. I couldn't even look at her. This woman, who I gave 23 years of my life to. Who I have given everything I could and more to as a husband, and she stepped outside of our marriage for a guy just 5 years older then our eldest son. By the 3rd day, I wasn't even sad anymore, I was pissed.
I contacted Oz to let him know my suspicion was confirmed, and he asked me had I confronted her yet. My answer was no, and I told him I wanted payback. I didn't want to just divorce her, I wanted to destroy her. I wanted to leave her life in shambles and fucking ruin her. It was going to take time to do so, and I devised a plan. In my readings and research on infidelity, I had saw a quote that resonated with me that went "the enemy of infidelity is unpredictability". Or something to that ilk. That was going to be the basis of my plan. I was going to make her life hell on wheels, while also secretly planning my exit strategy.
So we're now in early June, and I've still got the app installed. Pretty much every night, I'm gathering as much data as I can seeing their back and forth messages. They're talking like it's a full blown relationship they're in. Sexting, lovey dovey romantic stuff, nudes, the whole fucking bag. At that point I had stopped looking at any of it, I was just collecting info and cataloging on my private FPS server. Meanwhile, I start doing things "out of the ordinary". I start going out at odd times. I start coming home even later then she does. In her presence, I'm on my phone a lot more then usual and when she asks "what are you up to?" I just simply say "just stuff" and put my phone away. I'd also changed my log in info on everything, so she couldn't access any of my stuff. Mind you, for our entire marriage, we'd never hid anything from each other. But right around I'm assuming the start of her affair, she'd changed her password on FB, as well as on her phone stating "she had to because of the security breaches in recent months." Yea, really nice cover for hiding your affair from your husband. Anyway, I'd clued Oz in on my plan, as well as telling my older (and only) sister and two more of my closest friends what was going on. These are people I trust with my life, and I swore them to secrecy. (For context, Oz and I have been friends since we were kids. The other of our friends Joey and Nina we've known since High School. Make note of Nina, she comes into play down the road.)
July comes, and my STBXW is in full paranoia mode. She's texting and calling me a lot more frequently now, asking me if I'm going to be home when she's gets home, when am I coming home while she is and I'm not, asking me what am I up to, the works. I can see the seed planted in her head the month prior is starting to sprout, especially in her communication with POS. She's confiding in him her doubt and confusion. Telling him that I'M getting cold and distant. The fucking nerve of this woman!!! In the interim of these interactions with POS, she suggests that maybe they should stop meeting up at our house because she has no idea if I'd just show up, confirming that yes, she's had this fuckwad in my home. Thanks, Sue! POS asks her in that specific communication was she worried about me potentially cheating on her, which actually pissed her off. I can't even begin to describe the level of joy and how many laughs I got out of reading that exchange. My cheating wife arguing with her affair partner over if she's mad her husband could be cheating on her. Oh the fucking irony. Now bare in mind, I'm not hooking up with anyone. When I leave, I'm usually at Oz or Joey's throwing back some booze, watching fights and spending time with my bros, or at my big sis' house hanging with her and my BIL, who's like an older brother to me. My sis is 52 and her hubby is 58. She had told him about my STBXW's infidelity, but not of my plan. Couldn't risk it as he's a bit of a blabber mouth.
We'll fast forward now to October. That's when things seriously pick up. I've been in my "faux affair" for 3 months now, and Sue is hyper aware of the fact that I'm actively pulling away from her. It's been as long as the day I enacted my plan until the day she "confronted" me, October 20th, 2020 that I'd even touched her. No hugs. No kisses. No initiation of intimacy. Nothing. Not like she needed it, she was still fucking POS, just at his place or at motels. So that afternoon, she calls me at work, which wasn't rare before all this began, but certainly hadn't happened in a while and asks me to come straight home after work saying she had "something important to tell me." I'm not gonna lie to you all, I half believed she was going to come clean about her infidelity, but she of course didn't. Instead, I get home to her asking me was I unhappy with her. The. Fucking. Nerve. She sights the fact that I've been spending way to much time away from home, I don't show her affection anymore and our sex life has completely died. She tells me she's worried I'm pushing her away because I was resentful of how she treated me the months I was rehabbing my knee. And then came the punchline. She fucking asked if I was cheating on her. Folks, I fell out on the floor laughing hysterically. And when I say hysterically I mean Joker laughing gas hysterical. On the surface it looked like (to her assuming) it was me laughing off the notion of being unfaithful, but it was of course actually me laughing at the sheer irony of what was happening in front of my eyes. I'm tearing up, pounding on the floor in complete hysterics for a good 2 minutes before I compose myself enough to answer. I sit up and look her in the eyes for the 1st time in months shaking my head, but I don't give her and answer. I stand up, brush myself off, kiss the top of her head and go about settling in for the night.
Later that night, as I'm in my office I decide you know what? Given the brevity of what happened, I wanted to see what she was telling him. So I fire up the app and sure enough they're actually texting in real time. She tells POS "I know he's cheating on me. I asked him tonight and he literally laughed in my face. He fell on the floor and laughed for like 5 minutes. (It wasn't 5 minutes obviously.) He doesn't even care how I feel anymore. I don't know how or why, but he's gone. I know I've lost him. This is karma, I know it." The smile I had on my face reading that must've resemble the Cheshire Cat. She was breaking. POS attempted to console her, saying that if I cared enough for her, she wouldn't have had come to him to give her what I wasn't giving her, but the tone of her responses told me she was having doubt now. She had the nerve to step out of our marriage because I was unable to fulfill my role as a husband due to legitimate injury, and kept the affair going for at that point nearly an entire year, but the idea of her losing me to another woman was enough to make her waver? What a fucking weakling.
Now, during all of this I was also exacting the 2nd part of my plan for payback, getting all of my affairs in order financially. In September, I had met with a family attorney to get the ball rolling on divorce paper, with the mountain of evidence I'd piled up to that point. New York is an "at fault" state as far as Divorce, and the overwhelming amount of proof I'd gathered displaying Sue's infidelity pretty much solidified I could nail her to the fucking wall in a divorce case. My lawyer instructed me to get all of my financials in order in preparation for whatever division of assets might come as result. I went one better then that, secretly pulling all of my money out of our joint account and putting it in my personal account. I also started shopping around for an apartment as part of "phase 2".
We're now in November, and I've not changed my behavior. In fact, I've ramped it up. This is where my friend Nina comes into play. For context, Nina and Sue have never been what you call "close". I met Nina freshman year of high school 2 years before I met Sue. Even way back then, Sue has seen Nina as a "threat", as she's my closest female friend. There's always been an implied "I don't trust her" from Sue regarding Nina. She's never addressed it directly, but it's obvious to anyone who pays attention. Conversely, Nina's never been a big fan of Sue. Early in me and Sue's relationship, Nina called to attention to me how Sue was pretty much imposing herself into our little "square" of friends, whereas I didn't do the same with Sue's set of friends. That irked Nina because she knew why Sue was doing it, her. Among Sue's circle even now, there are no male friends...aside from POS. Whereas Nina is the only girl in my "square".
Nina had been "stuck" overseas due to the virus, and finally returned to NYC November 3rd. Oz, Joey and I decided we were gonna celebrate her return with a night at Joey's house for dinner and drinks. (There was only 5 of us, Oz, Joey, Joey's wife...who is also Nina's sister, Nina and myself. Sticking to CDC guidelines. We take the rona VERY seriously.) Nina, being the evil mastermind she is, comes up with an evil idea to trigger Sue. She suggested we take some photos in the same vein of the photos I discovered of Sue and POS months prior...and post them to my FB. And that's just what we did. It wasn't until the 5th that Sue got wind of it, as I'm guessing a few friends noticed my updates and saw how "uncomfortably" close I was with Nina. This really fucked her mind up, because she still believed I was cheating, and I can almost guarantee she "wanted" to accuse Nina, but she knew that Nina had been stuck in Europe for the majority of the year. Still didn't stop her from attempting to dress me down that night for being so as she said "handsy" in the pics. I saw this as a golden opportunity to deliver the the lead jab for my knockout blow. I say "So what about the pics with you and POS from last year? He was pretty handsy in them. But did you see me get bent out of shape over it?"
Dear in headlights. It was the 1st time I even mentioned the dude's name throughout all of this. The hamster wheel in her head started reeling in real time as she tried to to explain away those pics. To that point she hadn't even known I saw them, that's little I use FB. When I actually do post something it's like an event to people, which is why the pics with Nina specifically got so much traction among our circles. And explain away she did. "He's that way with everyone." "He's just a really friendly guy." "I can see how it looks, but there's nothing their." "I'm sorry if those pics hurt you. I'll delete them." No, no...the pics aren't what hurt me. The year you've been fucking the dude whilst lying to me that you're working extra hours and hanging with friends is what hurt me. But vengeance, as Lt. Comm. Warf from Star Trek: TNG so famously said "is a dish best served cold." From that night, Sue was being extra specially clingy and attentive to me. Like, annoyingly so. She's try to initiate affection and intimacy with me and I'd stonewall her at every chance. All the while, I'm still archiving everything she's saying to POS. Mind you by this point I'd long since gone numb. Any desire I might have had to save my marriage was dead. I'd checked out the day I enacted the 1st phase of my plan.
She's confiding in him that I've gotten worse. That she doesn't know what to do, and she feels like I absolutely hate her. (I do.) Then comes the bombshell. She says she can't see him anymore. The guilt is to much for her, and she feels like karma is suffocating her. She can't risk losing me. She says that she loves POS deeply, but she "still in love" with me, and she has to save her marriage before she loses me. No, my dear...you're about 8 months to late for that. POS loses his shit, saying such lovely things as "He doesn't love you the way I love you." and "You're making a mistake, you can't just throw me away like this." That text chain would be the last they'd have until about 3 weeks ago. Throughout the remainder of November into December, Sue is tuck in limbo. She's trying to gauge where my headspace is and is still unable to tell if I'm actually being unfaithful. Meanwhile, POS is steadily blowing her phone up daily, but she's not responding to him. I'd see her check her phone often, the quickly put it away. Meanwhile, phase 2 of the plan was now officially complete. The divorce papers were done. I'd found me a studio apartment in Co-Op City (New Yorkers will know the area) and signed a 2 year lease on it. All of my money was in my personal account. I was ready to throw my haymaker.
So we're now at Thanksgiving. My oldest and his GF were hosting a small gathering of our immediate families. So them (Oldest and his GF), Oldest's GF's parents (she's an only child) myself, Sue and our youngest. We have a great night. My oldest's GF is studying to be a chef, and she did all the cooking herself. The girl can fuckin' cook lemme tell ya'. As I had to keep up appearances of nothing being wrong between Sue and I, I initiated affection with her several times that evening. Kisses on the cheek. Cute lil' hugs. Wrapping my arms around her shoulders from behind. The gestures didn't go unnoticed by her, as she reveled in it. Bare in mind, this was the 1st time I touched this woman since I kissed the top of her head the night she "confronted" me in October...so just about 2 months. Not gonna lie, I felt repulsed doing it. But I had to. I couldn't risk the plan, and me being distant to her in the face of my boys, my oldest's GF and her parents would set off alarms. So my youngest decides he wants to stay over with his big bro for the night, so Sue and I head home. On the drive home, she thanks me for being so good to her, and says "I don't know what you're going through, baby. But I'm here for you." I had to hold off busting out in maniacal laughter again, and responded saying. "I know. I just need time."
So for the 1st time realistically since Springtime, we had sex that night. I figured fuck it, with what I'm about to do, may as well get some action before I delete her from my existence. I won't go into detail, but it wasn't "love making". When I was finished she was a lump of flesh laying their trying to figure out the direction of the truck that ran her over. No cuddling or anything after. I just got up, showered and and went to go sleep in my office. To her confusion though, I used a condom. 1st time 2 damn decades I did. She was definitely perplexed by it, but she didn't ask questions. (Sure as hell wasn't going raw in her knowing that she'd been doing so with POS for months at that point.) I wake up the next day and check my handy dandy spy app, and for the 1st time in weeks, she responded to POS. Dude went full novella. He professed his love for her. Said she was wasting her time trying to rekindle a flame in me that died. That she'd been "in a prison" with me for 23 years and deserved to experience the love and affection of a man who would cherish her. Mind you, this dude is 27 fuckin' years old. Five years older then our oldest son. And he's THAT sprung on a 45 y/o married mother of 2? What a grade-A, high quality SIMP. She chose to blow up our marriage and destroy the home we'd built for this dude? Pretty boy with a "soft side"? HAAAA!!!
She responded saying pretty much the same thing she said when last they talked. That she loves him, and enjoyed their time together, but she can't lose me. I'm still the love of her life, but she'll always have a place for him in her heart. That they can still be friends if he chooses, but the physical relationship between them is over. He begged her to see him one last time that week, and yep...you guessed it, she said yes. One more for the road, right? Who am I to say anything, that's what I did to her the previous night. Of course I added all of that to the archive I'd compiled. December 4th is when phase 3, the final phase of operation "Shinobi Ghost" started. The divorce papers where in hand. My new place or residence was set up. Now I had to slowly start moving me stuff out of the house. But 1st, I had to break the news to my boys. I called my oldest to the house that Friday night, had them join me in my office...and laid everything on that table. Not the specifics, but that there mother had been cheating on me for over a year, and I was going to be filing for divorce soon. My 17 year old was especially shaken up by this, because he himself had recently experienced his 1st taste of infidelity. Yep, his 1st GF had cheated on him just 4 months prior. Seeing his heart broken a 2nd time at the idea that his own mother was capable of doing this hit him hard. My oldest took it a lot better, and suggested taking his brother in to live with him until this blows over, to which I agreed.
We packed up some of his stuff, and he asked me was I gonna be ok. I told him "Yes, son. I'm going to be alright. And so are you. We're going to be alright. I promise." And then they were off. The hardest part was now over, and it was now time to arm the nukes. Over the next few weeks, day by day Oz would help me get a little of my most sensitive stuff out of the house. Gave him a list of all of the definite stuff to grab while Sue and I were at work and left him the spare key. This was all stuff Sue wouldn't notice was missing unless you told her it was gone. I'd also gotten a new phone and phone number, and told everyone who needed to know (Oz, Joey, Nina, My boys, big sis and my mother) my new contact info. Meanwhile, I'm keeping up the rouse with Sue and she's non the wiser. trickling bits and pieces of affection to her just to keep her off of the trail, whilst she's still in contact with POS. Not to the extent that they'd been prior, but there's still an emotional thing happening. The fog is feint, but it's still there. All the while, I gather everything, and I do mean everything. Every bit of data I've archived since I started the plan, call logs, texts, pics, emails...everything, and start making printouts. Folks, I must have spent over a $1500 on staples supplies. Printer ink, paper, binders, the works. And I cataloged everything in order, from the beginning of the affair until that last bit 2 weeks ago, December 16th in the binders. 14 of them.
I then put each one in a box, and gift wrapped each, addressing them to various people. My mother (my father passed 7 years ago), her parents, her 2 sister, her brother, her HR department (Did I forget to mention POS works for the same company, and there's an expressed rule against inter-company relationships because of the nature of what she does?), several of her friends, POS AND POS's parents. Lugged all of those fuckers to the post office and shipped them all out December 16th. ETA for delivery, December 22-24th. PERFECT. So we're now at Christmas Eve. Sue comes home around the usual time, no idea if she'd seen POS, I'd stop tracking her on the app the 18th. Figure I'd gotten all the mileage I needed from it. As per usual, she showers, hangs out with me a bit, I blow her back out on the living room couch (I know, I'm a fucking asshole) and she turns in for the night. The final phase was upon me at long last. The nuke I'd been arming since June was finally about to launched. In the middle of the night, I woke up and wrapped up one of the 3 remaining binders, with the divorce papers taped to the inside cover, and set it on my side of the bed with a note note that said "Merry Christmas" on it. Next to it I left my old phone, and the business card of my lawyer. I packed up the remainder of my most needed items, enough to fill 2 backpacks, and I left my home...that I spent 23 years in, for the last time.
That my friends, was one week ago. To Sue I am completely off the grid. Gone. Shadow ghosted. She's blocked on FB, but still hasn't blocked me for some reason, so I'm keeping tabs on the fallout. It's absolutely glorious. My packages have reached everyone I sent them out to, and Sue is getting crucified. Her youngest sister completely dressed her down. Both of her parents have condemned her. My mom absolutely destroyed her. Like holy shit, I know my mom has a mean streak...but the things she called Sue were un-fucking-holy. She's been frantically trying to find out if anyone knows where I am, but those that due, aren't saying a word. All over her FB feed she's desperately trying to reach me, because I'm guessing she knows I'm likely looking. But I'm not saying a fucking word to her without my lawyer present. That'll be the next time I share oxygen with her. She's got no way of spinning the narrative to paint me as the bad guy, because I've exposed her to everyone who matters to her. And from what a mutual friend who works in the same company as her, she and POS apparently are being put on administrative leave as of tomorrow, so yea...chances are she'll be going into 2021 unemployed. As for the the final 2 binders, well...one has been turned over to my lawyer as my final bit of evidence for my impending divorce, and the last one I put in my storage unit to be burned in Joey's fire pit when the divorce is final.
Do I feel guilty about this? No. Not even in the slightest. 23 years I did right by this woman. I gave her the home she wanted. I gave her the family she wanted. I gave her the life I felt we both deserved, and I loved her unconditionally. Never have I faltered. Never have I strayed. Never have I even entertained the notion of breaking my vows. When an issue came up that I felt was effecting our marriage, I came to her and told her, and we sorted it out as best we could. She opted to find comfort in another man's bed. Rather then come to me and say she was unhappy with our sex life at the time, she decided to step out with a young punk who gave her the tingles. So no, I have no sympathy for what I did, or for her. She can burn in hell for all I care. The most I stand to lose is my house, a car and maybe a couple hundred bucks a month in alimony, but seeing as the divorce is filed under the statute of adultery and NYS is At Fault, that might get waved with the insurmountable about of evidence I've provided. As far as I'm concerned, she's dead to me and I'm never looking back.
TL:DR - Wife of 23 years had a 1 year long affair with a co-worker 18 years younger then her. Pretended to be in an affair myself while collecting evidence of hers for the majority of 2020. Had divorce papers drawn up early Fall. Compiled all the evidence in early December. Shipped binders full of the evidence to everyone near and dear to her to arrive around Christmas Eve. Left one binder with the divorce notice attached inside on my pillow, as well as my phone and lawyer's card as she slept Christmas Eve. Completely went off the grid on her as her life completely imploded the following days after Christmas.
Quick edit: NYS is not fully "at fault". Under certain circumstances a divorce can be filed at fault, of which my lawyer has informed me my case falls under. I'll be meeting the STBXW with her lawyer tomorrow. I'm guessing I'll just update here.
2nd Edit: To the guy on Youtube and in my PM who said I got cucked for over a year, and all of my evidence will not be submittable in court claiming he's a "retired PI" with 20 years experience, you can fuck right the fuck off. Had a quick word on the matter with my lawyer earlier today (1/5/21) and everything provided outside of the phone calls are valid. Find something better to do with your time then harassing me, buddy.
UPDATE: https://www.reddit.com/useKermit_Defrogg/comments/ksuv4t/update_fooled_my_cheating_stbxw_into_thinking_i/
UPDATE 2: Shit jus got even worse...
STBXW of 23 years just tried to kill herself last night : Kermit_Defrogg (reddit.com)

Alright you lovely lot of people, story time.
A little bit of back round on myself. I am 37 years young. Introverted as hell, but it hasn't stopped me from accomplishing a lot in my life. I enjoy history, classic cinema/music, literature and I've always preferred the company of a select few over a crowd of people, as people friggin' drain me with inane nonsense a majority of the time. Yet, I've always believed in being there for people, no matter what. Your family, your friends, total strangers if the case arises. That's what being a human being is. Treat others how you would like to be treated and all that jazz. I also know, that nobody is perfect, and everyone has their struggles, especially now.
Now onto the relationship that made me go monk again.
Since 2018 I've been taking care of my elderly grandmother who suffered from dementia, that we didn't know she had at the time but suspected. I was working odd jobs on the side while I could and helping my grandfather as he owns a company that he still works for to this day at 80+. He has always been an inspiration to me and I only hope I could be half the man he is at his age. During this time, taking care of my grandmothefather I would mainly do it alone, because I was the single guy (by choice ) with nothing else better to do. And I didn't mind. I enjoy the company of the elderly since they seem to appreciate the simpler things in life, such as life itself, once they start getting older.
During this time I would spend most of my day making sure my grandmother was okay. She had her routines. She enjoyed swimming at 80+ going into a hot tub religiously for longer than she should. And enjoyed talking on the phone! Who would have thought! My grandmother was addicted to the phone as far back as I can remember. She had 30 ft extension lines to the old school rotary phones back in her house when I was a child, so she could walk around the house talking. As a young child you notice these things, but think nothing of it, because you were too busy watching Pee-Wee's playhouse, or The Real Ghostbusters, or outside playing with your friends (yes this was a thing) reading comics, playing with G.I.Joes and learning how to use your first swiss army knife.
My grandmother practically raised me since my mom was busy working as a child. I never met my real father once in my life as he was apparently a real scum bag. I found out he died a few years back and felt sad I never met him, but had no memories of him, so it didn't last long. So back to my grandmother. Her dementia had taken hold and she slowly started forgetting things. She'd forget where she put things, her credit cards, her purse, her tv remote. And then would get angry. If she couldn't find something, or thought she lost something, especially her phone, she would lose her shit. I know this was because of the dementia, but I had seen this before. I had seen this as a child, as a young man, and as grown male. A woman losing something, then losing her sh*t. I've seen the same from men as well. But with the phone, it's like losing your contact to the outside world. You have FOMO. You feel like you're nobody if you're not in on the conversation. I've seen this before. More so in women, then men. The phone had become a lifeline to other people, to other people's lives, and my grandmother would use it to call me nonstop to help her with things. Fix the television (that she couldn't figure out anymore) show her how to print pictures off facebook ( I hate social media) and how to cook the food I cook for her and my grandfather. Stupid stuff, but I would compromise my time, because who else was going to do it? My Parents have lives, my siblings have lives, and my grandfather still works to this day. So someone had to "Man Up" because nobody else would.
I would spend entire portions of my day with her, taking her places, making sure she ate alright, take her grocery shopping, get gas in her car (she still drove before the dementia was diagnosed) and show her how to use modern technology even if I hated doing so. It was just too much for her mind. Just like modern women. The stimulation is too much. Too many thoughts of other people contaminating your mind with nonsense. I would cook dinner for her and my grandfather or get take out food and come back to their house and watch a film or two with them almost every night. I'd watch my grandfather and grandmother both smile and cry over old school films they hadn't seen in years, and I would do so in return. It took me back to being a child. Watching films with them when I was a young boy. My grandmother was a VHS collector and in turn made me appreciate them and as hobby I would collect them over the years and DVDS/Blu-rays and such. I also would find and sell out of print copies of movies and video games/CDs to supplement my income. So every day after taking care of my grandmother and enjoying her and my grandfather's time, I slowly started thinking, I wish I had someone who would actually enjoy my company as much as they enjoy mine, and I enjoy theirs. Someone with an old soul. Someone who didn't enjoy modernity and wanted simpler things, and enjoyed simpler times.
Skip to July 2019. By now I'm at my grandparents house every morning at 5:30 to 6 am, to take care of my grandmother. Her dementia has grown increasingly bad. She yells all the time at me, my grandfather, whomever. Her need to call people on the phone and try to get them to take her to places and do things she use to do when she was healthier had me beyond stressed. My grandfather, stubborn as he is, didn't know what to do, and continued to go to work, leaving me alone with my grandmother all day. Eventually my mother starts to help me take over afternoons and I come back at nights to do the routine movie, dinner, tuck into sleep etc. This way I can take care of my life and not go completely insane. I had taken up smoking cigarettes again after a five year kick. I was mentally drained. I needed to get out. I had been single for 8 years. No dating. No Mating. I was a monk from my last relationship and decided I was better off alone. But I needed someone. Everyone does from time to time. We also try to get a nurse aid to come and help with my grandmother so I can continue with my life and not be there all day and night. It doesn't work.
Skip to September 2019.
Early morning. I get to my grandparents house and my grandfather is red in the face, saying my grandmother is cussing him out, going nuts on him. I've seen this before. I go inside. Try to talk to her. I get called all sorts of things. It's okay, I can take it. I have before. Things get worse. Mom and Stepdad try to come over and help. No help. Grandmother starts to get hostile and pushy/ throwing things. My grandfather says to call the EMS for her to take her to the hospital. I'm the one to do it. We go to the hospital, Doctors say she has a possible UTI making her act out this way. I'm a hot mess smoking cigarettes outside. I realize then our dog has been home all day and probably hasn't been outside. My parents owned a dog who I had taken care of for years as well. I had to live with my folks due to past surgeries and basically having to restart my life over twice from it. I tell my mother I'll run back to their house and let him out. My younger brother is with me. We get home, and my dog is walking around funny. He walks over to his water bowl, and starts drinking and drinking and drinking. He wouldn't stop. I was worried right away. Then he was outside....Vomiting. In the grass. Didn't look good at all. My brother calls my mother, tells her what's going on. They rush home, then take my car to rush our dog to the VET 45 minutes away. I sit and wait. I get a call. It's my younger brother. He tells me our dog has passed away. I break down as a man would when he loses his best friend. That was the start of the heartache.
Days pass. My grandmother has been diagnosed with Stage 3 Dementia. My Grandfather and mother make the decision she needs to be in a nursing home full time. I am crushed. I never thought they would do that to her. She had been so kind to everyone her whole life and her house was her home, her peace. She was extremely extroverted and loved to be outside and talking to people. Running for people, doing for people. I suspect some of it was for praise, but my grandmother was a genuine good soul. Now she was going to spend the rest of her days in a home. And I would visit her everyday, and listen to her tell me everyday "I'm coming home tomorrow, You come pick me up and we'll be okay!" I would internally die a little inside hearing this, and I'd say "Yes, I will be here tomorrow for you!" knowing damn well she'd never leave that place. My grandfather and mother insisted that if she left, she'd be inclined to go home and it would be worse off. I just wanted my grandfather to realize he had to stop and take care of her. Not let some strangers take care of her. Not letting her be around friends in her own house. But in the end, I know I couldn't have taken care of her by myself.
Skip to October 2019.
I've accepted that my life is completely different now, and I've lost a great deal in a short time. I was coping with a lot. I visited my grandmother every day in the nursing home. I was still helping with my grandpa, still earning money, and still trying to have a life. I create a online dating account. It reminds me why I hate social media. The filters. The faces. The bios all sounding the same. Then I come across one. She's an older woman, but looks great for her age. Says she is Introverted (awesome) and enjoys Horror films (Great!) and a few other details I enjoyed. She was also a Goddess, according to her and her tattoo. I message her something and immediately get a message back! Whoa. We chat a bit, I tell her what I'm into, but also tell her currently what is going on in my life. We seem to hit it off pretty quick, and the next thing I know we have a date. Date night comes, and I get a call from my grandmother. It's a bad night for her, and then for me after dealing with an hour conversation or so about wanting to come home. This was an everyday thing for me. So I called my date up and asked if I could postpone or I could possibly go somewhere closer to where we lived since she only lived a few minutes away from me. She agreed I could buy her a starbucks coffee at 9pm on a friday night and bring it to her. I didn't want to starbucks so I stopped at a gas station and got her an ICED Starbuck coffee. Good enough right? It was. I meet her. She's pretty awesome right off the start. Asks me about my day and I ask her about hers. Tell her about my grandmother and why I had to postpone. Says she understands and thinks I'm pretty great for what I do. We make out almost immediately, and I could have gotten more, but I didn't want sex. I wanted companionship. Someone to talk to. So we just made out cuddled and watched The Joker. I leave at like 4 in the morning, she tells me to text her when I get home. I do, emojis hearts and all that silly fluff. Days later we're hanging out again, doing the same stuff. She wants to clearly have sex. I don't give it up because I want to find out who this girl is. RED flags ignored from her wanting me early on.
I start to ignore her because I feel like If I give her too much attention I'll seem clingy. She still insists on hanging out almost every other night. So we do. Eventually one night, we make love. A few times. She seems to enjoy it and I did too. After 8 years of not having sex, it's nice, but nothing is nicer than having someone next to you who (pretends) to care about you after the act is done. I start to stay over, as I would usually leave early in the morning, and she gets use to that. I get use to it. Things feel good.
My grandmother calls me everyday still. Tells me how great I am, and that she wants to come home and for us to watch movies etc. (For someone with dementia she had a great memory still) And it would eat me up inside, but I knew she was safer there, than she would be with me, but I always regret being the one who called the EMS to have her put away. It slowly would eat away at me.
December 2019
After being with my girlfriend for a couple of months I finally ask her to go STEADY. Yep, I'm lame. She asked me what that meant? I told her. A committed relationship. A couple. She said I was lame, but she accepted. I even started to use the L word again with her. It was odd telling someone you loved them after not doing it for so long. Then one day, my grandmother called me. She was blaming me for not being there all the time, etc, even though I was the only one there, visiting her every single day. It just made me snap. I quit working for my grandfather. I went off on him and my mother for allowing this. I said they had no idea how this made me feel for being the one who locked my own grandmother up, trying to do the right thing. It didn't matter. Nobody listened. So I broke something. I broke a window and I was kicked out. I was sleeping in my car. I didn't care. I didn't even tell my girlfriend till later that night. She told me to come over and I could stay with her. So I did. We talked, I told her about everything how I felt, just needed someone to listen to me for once, instead of being the one always listening. And she did. She said I could stay with her till I sort things out. During this time we really grow to love each other, finish each other's movie quotes. I taught her survival skills, how to prep for disasters, end of the world shit. Etc. She thought I was goofing around, I was serious. I read disaster books and study history so I know where we are headed in our current state. She bragged to her friends and family about me. It felt good to feel appreciated. Then suddenly, Corona comes around.
Jan - Feb 2020
Things are doing good, I'm helping fix up the girlfriends house. She works and lives as an onsite manager at her job, so It was definitely something to get use to. I bought her all sorts of things she needed for her place, it looked like someone's place who ate out dinner every night and rarely cooked for herself. For I helped make it feel more like a home. We went shopping to get new plants for the house, furniture that I would have to move and or put together. We would talk all the time about our plans for the future etc. I eventually got a new job, but then I lost it, as the lockdowns began.
March 2020
The lockdowns have started. The masks have started. The prepper in me knows this is not good. The girlfriend doesn't really see it as anything major. Until 2 weeks, became a meme. Even then she didn't see it. She remained an essential worker throughout all this, meanwhile I watched people I knew working jobs for 30+ years lose them due to this pandemic. I eventually built her a proper pantry and filled it up with food and water for her. I spent hundreds, thousands on stuff for her to keep her safe and have her set up in case something happened. Solar panels, portable power stations. You name it. She finally realized I was serious about this, and about her, and about US. She would post pictures of the things I gave her claiming she was now a "Survivalist" etc. It was cute. Women are cute. Things seemed well. I wasn't working, still looking but wasn't working full time, but could still pull money in from doing side jobs and selling collectibles. While she worked. I cooked, I cleaned, I did the dishes, the laundry (all by hand because none of her appliances worked) I helped fix things in her place. Fix her car tires, fix the problems on her new car she bought (Without me going to look at with her) and ultimately did alot of work at her job, for free, to help her out. She enjoyed it, I enjoyed it. I thought
July 2020
By now the quarantine has gotten to people. I'm use to being inside and alone and not going out all the time so it's not too bad to me. For my girlfriend, like others, it is. They miss going out. They miss their social lives. They're all on their phones way too much now. Searching for SOMETHING. Meanwhile, I've created a spare bedroom at my girlfriends place, because she snores, and I couldn't sleep most nights with her. Terrible I know. I also have insomnia so it was vital I get at least a couple hours of sleep a night to keep my sanity. So one night after spending time with the woman, making love etc, I tell her I'm going to crash in the other room so she can get some sleep, and I can as well. Kiss goodnight etc. I walk in a couple times in our bedroom to check on her, she puts her phone down immediately and I ignore it. Then I can't shake something. I'm just thinking she's talking to someone etc. I didn't want to be that guy and ask her for her phone. So I did something that wouldn't get me into trouble. I installed the dating app we used to meet back in October. I get online and start looking for women her age in my area. Boom. See her profile. New pictures. Single. New Bio. I lose my poop. I burst into the bedroom and go off on her. I say what the f are you doing? Call her names. Yell. Then I grab my stuff, pack up everything. Takes me 5 hours or so to do this at 1 in the morning, and take about 7 trips in my little car to and from her places and my parents. At this point I'm just beyond pissed and upset and start drinking and smoking heavily.
A couple days later, we talk, I apologize (stupid of me I know) for flipping out. She said she just felt lost and confused etc. Same ol' trite. We get back together. Make love, and eventually I come back. Things feel weird, but I'm glad to have her back in my life. I truly love this woman and would do anything for her. Then, this changed everything. Her sister, age 50, alcoholic, divorced multiple times, dating multiple men, moves in with us. Yep. 3 people in a tiny apartment. Living together. Doomed from the start.
Her sister claimed her mother whom she was living with, had bed bugs and had to come stay with us. I said okay. Turns out it was permanent. This b*tch took over my spare bedroom I made. And then I even helped her set up an office in their so she could work from home, while drinking all day like an alcoholic. Good times. So now I was dating a woman, and dealing with her sister's bullsh*t. I had to listen to her about her failed life, her men that she didn't need, yet was constantly monkey branching from one to the other. I will admit this lifestyle was not one I am accustomed too. I'm a white male, and my girlfriend was african american. So I had to listen to her talk bad about men, her own family behind their back, etc, all day. Whilst I was busy cooking, cleaning, doing EVERYTHING neither of them would do, all the while trying to find a new job during a pandemic. Meanwhile neither of two really understand what was going on. Just as long as they had their job, and their booze. I slowly started to realize this woman was never going to leave my life. She wanted to cling to little sister to drink and tell her all her problems, especially about MEN. This really put me off, seeing as I was man, who was helping take care of their asses. I was buying groceries, with little money I had, and then her sister would continue to eat, drink, and rarely contribute to our household. The only thing she would contribute was BOOZE and that was after she would drink most of the stuff I had bought. I didn't sign up for this. And everyday, I still had to deal with this, and talk to my grandmother, and try to find a job whilst being a house maid.
September 2020
It's my girlfriend's sister's birthday. The pandemic has made everyone crazy by now. Including my girlfriend, her family etc. I'm cool as a cucumber. Except it's 103F degrees outside. I'm grilling out for a small group of her family for her sister, and I'm outside for hours, prepping for her sister, with my girlfriend, waiting on her sister to get to the park we had planned it for. What was she doing? Getting drunk, letting us do all the work for her, meanwhile her friends were showing up to her own party that she wasn't at. Ridiculous. So I grill out for hours, nobody says thanks other than my girlfriend. She tells me "Thanks for being so great, you're so great." I like to think I have been great. Turns out I got dehydrated from being outside in the heat all day and ended up getting sick. Went home and to bed. Girlfriend doesn't console me, instead has some family members and friends come over from the party, to get loud and drink. No consideration for my health. A day or two later, I get in huge fight with girlfriend saying she didn't give a d*mn about my health what I did for her and her sister etc. End up packing up all my stuff once again, and leaving. I was done. I signed up for a girlfriend not a girlfriend and a sister. If her sister was hot maybe, but not the case. I was done. I thought. But alas, we talked, she apologized, I apologized (again stupid of me) and we got back together.
October 2020
My favorite month. I love Halloween. So much I helped decorate my girlfriends place with stuff, and she said she never did this in her life. She had a bad childhood, and I don't think she ever really did FAMILY stuff that didn't evolve drinking or getting high etc. She really enjoyed it. We watched horror films all month, and she seemed genuinely happy. I was happy. Not with the living situation, but happy with her, and happy with life. I was still dealing with my grandmother. Not being able to see her thanks to the lockdowns had really put a damper on my spirit, but I never showed it around my girlfriend. She knew or claimed to know how much my grandmother means to me. But I don't think she ever understand what I really did for her or put up with just to help others. Everyday having to retell my grandmother why I couldn't visit her because of the pandemic, something she couldn't comprehend. It was killing me slowly again inside, but I dealt with it, because that's what men do.
Nov-Dec 2020
Things had been going well. I had been putting in job applications with no luck, but I was still keeping busy, hadn't let this pandemic crush my soul completely. My girlfriend was becoming more and more stressed, and drinking more and more. I was too. I also started to resent my girlfriend for leaving a mess every single day. It would take me 4 to 6 hours a day to cook breakfast and bag it for the girlfriend, clean the dishes, clean the house, vacuum, take care of the cats, make her lunch, do the laundry, clean the dishes again, rinse and repeat. It became exhausting. Her and her sister would just get drunk and spill something every single night. I would step into something sticky and it would drive me absolutely mad. Like living with children rather than grown up. Whatever, I love this girl, right? I'd do anything for her. She found a kitten end of November too. Rescued him when it was cold outside and we took him in. I loved the little sh*t and our other cat more than anything after losing my dog a year ago. Older cat would sleep with me in bed, and the little one I'd let out and play with in the day and he'd bite and claw me. How I miss that. My girlfriend however had grown distant. I noticed it more and more. She slept on the couch with one cat. I slept in our bedroom with another. Her sister was constantly interrupting us and putting a strain on our relationship. My sleeping pattern was changing and my insomnia was getting worse again. But I still loved this woman right?
Most of December though, we do alright. We talk about Christmas plans etc. I get her gifts that she says "Are the best gifts EVER" and a one year anniversary ring and she took them to her families house for Christmas to show off, and tell everyone how great her boyfriend was. She never met my family. I tried to get her to come to family events even during this CRISIS. Never met my family other than my brother and cousin. That's cool though right? I love this girl. Christmas day, I call my grandmother. Wish her a merry Christmas. Tell her I love her. She says merry christmas and I can't wait to see me again and come home. It kills me. Five days later my grandmother passed away. After being told she was sent to the hospital and would be okay, I got the call at about 9:45 pm from my brother saying she had passed. I had just fallen asleep from a long day, and this nightmare was not one I was prepared for. I immediately started crying and my girlfriend hugs me, askes if there is anything she can do. I say no. I leave to my grandparents house, and we all just cry. I don't get back home till 2 in the morning. She barely says anything to me. Rubs my shoulder, and I cry myself to sleep.
My grandmothers funeral was January 5th. I have missed talking to her every single day. My girlfriend sees me walking around like a zombie. I feel lost. She doesn't even try to console me. I cry every morning to myself while making her breakfast. I never let her see me cry. My girlfriend didn't goto the funeral because she had to work, and then tried to say I never asked her to come to the funeral after I told her I didn't know the funeral date till after her work schedule was made. Girlfriend seems more cold than ever to me. I needed my best friend she claimed to be. Just one day out of the past year I needed her for emotional support. Nope.
My girlfriend's birthday is a day after my grandmother's funeral. I get my girlfriend a birthday cake, and some gifts. She barely cares. I'm depressed as hell. She DOESN'T care. She says she wants to go out for her birthday etc. I'm depressed as hell. Have a lip/mouth infection that I tell her about, she dismisses it and just says I need to see a doctor. Thanks babe. That night she goes out. I don't go with her. Says she went to bar or some shit. I don't remember nor car. Comes home piss drunk, I don't care. For a week she ignores me. Doesn't ask how I'm doing. Nothing. I still continue my routine. Cleaning cooking, etc. She says he wants to go out again on a sunday for her birthday. I said you already had your birthday. Doesn't matter. She celebrates it all month apparently. She askes me to go with her I decline saying I'm not in the mood but to go enjoy herself. She leaves at 3 in the afternoon, dressed sexy as hell, doesn't come home till 10:30 at night from the "Bar." I stay up all night waiting for her to get home, she's p*ss drunk again, and I just goto bed. A couple night's later We have dinner watch a movie, everything seems okay again. I'm nodding off in the chair in the living room, because I haven't slept proper in weeks. I goto bed. I wake up 30 minutes later to her drunk sister and her laughing being loud. I text her to keep it down please. Didnt happen. An hour later. I text her again. Keep it down! She says she's trying and it's her sister. I said tell her to be quiet then. Continues to another hour. Can't sleep. Depressed. Angry. Tell her to please shut the f up! Girlfriend says okay. Text me back saying her other sister and brother in law will be here on saturday for her birthday (how many f*cking birthdays do you get!) and they will be loud so I should probably go back to my parents house. A house I haven't been in in a over a year. I said fine, I'm leaving in the morning. Packed my stuff up. Left. Didn't talk to her all day that day. Text her at night. She never answered. Called her. She kept making up excuses not to talk to me. I've seen this before. She then calls me at midnight saying she can talk. I say I'm going to bed. She breaks up with me the next day over text. Not like an adult. Over a text.
​
I lost it. I freaking lost it.She said I wasn't bringing anything to our relationship, and seeing me act how I act over the loss of my grandmother was making her think I was a sinking ship basically. I said how can you be so cold? 3 weeks ago I was the best boyfriend ever. Now this. Betrayed. Stabbed in an already broken heart. I tried to talk to her. Why? She screwed me over? I loved her. I loved her. But what I didn't love was what she pretended to be. I realized she never cared about me or what was going on in my life. It was always about her and her family. So what did I do? I lost my shit. I blew up her phone and wanted to make her feel the betrayal and pain she gave me. I just lost my grandmother and this b*tch had the nerve to say I was the problem? And she made me believe I was. After all I did for her, and put up for with her and her crazy sister and family. I tried to talk to her and she ignored me. For a year and a half living with and loving this woman, and her feeding me bullsh*t whilst never asking for anything in return other than companionship. I lost her. I lost my cats. I lost my grandmother. All in a couple weeks. I wanted her to feel the pain I felt and the pain she had brought me. After her ignoring me, I finally got drunk and went back to our place to see she had a party going on. She was celebrating her birthday and the removal of me from her life. That is how it felt. To see the woman you loved, who you just gave an anniversary ring to, then stare at you like a total stranger whilst she is intoxicated and you're standing there looking like a emotional trainwreck. I just wanted answers as to why she would do this to me? It didn't matter at that point. It was over. And we both let it out on each other. I tried apologizing like an idiot. Just made it worse for me. She gave up along time ago. And now I'm just trying to put myself back together. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I just work and drive and smoke cigarettes now. And she doesn't care. And never did. She's already moved on, loves her new life, new boyfriend I'm sure of. I should have seen the red flags. But didn't. Stay safe out there.
​
Fin

Artist: Grimes
Album: Miss Anthropocene (Deluxe | Revised | Revised Deluxe)
Label: 4AD
Tracklist and Lyrics: Genius
Release date: February 21, 2020
popheads [FRESH] thread: Here
Listen: Apple Music (Deluxe) | Spotify (Deluxe V1) | YouTube Music (Deluxe V1)
You know me as the girl who plays with fire,
But this is the song I wrote you in the dark ...
Madness, intellect, audacity?
Grimes, the stage name of Claire Boucher, is an electronic musician and multimedia artist from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. How ordinary and uncontroversial that makes her sound. As any Pophead surely knows by now, Grimes is far from either of those things.
Much of the lore behind Grimes' early career seems well-known by now to her fans: she attend McGill University in Montréal, Québec (a very prestigious school) where she had an interest in neuroscience and worked on her Russian, a language she had first picked up in childhood (she is of French and Ukrainian heritage, and her name means "clear (f.) butcher" in French, a fact she finds hilarious). She chose her stage name after hearing of grime music on her MySpace (which is still around), and listed her music as "grime" despite never having heard grime music before (she ended up liking it, by the way). She also goes by c, the physical constant for the speed of light, because she finds her name hard to pronounce (she has a slight speech impediment, as well as a lisp for the sound /s/, though she doesn't care about the latter).
Grimes learned to use recording software in university (Apple's GarageBand) and about music production from friends, and got involved with the music collective Lab Synthèse, which had a production space in a now-closed warehouse in Montréal and spawned the label Arbutus Records, which has since housed many Canadian indietronica acts. Grimes' first two albums were released on this label: Geidi Primes, a concept album about her favourite novel, the science fiction epic Dune; and Halfaxa, an ambient electronica album that has been described as gothic, both in 2010. Not expecting that anyone would hear her debut (it was first released as a run of 30 cassettes with hand-drawn covers by her), both albums were well-received by critics, to her surprise. All writing and almost all production was done on both by her alone.
Grimes' early work was linked to the "witch house" microgenre, an underground scene of electronic music that was gothic in both sound and aesthetic, and was briefly popular around the early 2010s. (This can be seen on the tracklist of Halfaxa with that scene's trademark use of arcane symbols in their titles.) In 2011, she released the split EP Darkbloom with fellow Canadian electronic musician D'Eon, with the first five tracks being by her. Notably, this EP had her first song to have a music video, the self-directed "Vanessa". Her breakthrough, though, was yet to come.
If you're looking for a dream girl, I'll never be your dream girl
Visions (2012), Grimes' first LP with her new label 4AD, won her widespread acclaim and made her a cultural phenomenon in her home country of Canada. The album gave a more accessible and poppy spin on her early mix of dark, ambient and psychedelic music, and is a bewitching, trance-like album to listen through. Although the first single from it was "Genesis" with a music video featuring Brooke Candy, she won acclaim for her song "Oblivion", written about her own experience with sexual assault and trauma afterward. During this time, Grimes' image became linked with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype, the concept of "kawaii" (a Japanese aesthetic which roughly translates as "cuteness") and her waiflike appearance; as well as her reputation as an outspoken feminist.
Grimes has expressed dislike of being misinterpreted as a less serious musician during this time because of her turn towards a pop sound and aesthetic, as well as frustration at not being taken seriously as a woman music producer, still fairly uncommon in electronic music. Indeed the recording of Visions is a key part of Grimes lore: she made the album alone at her home in a matter of weeks, neither sleeping nor eating, and taking amphetamines to stay focused (she has alluded to possibly having ADHD before). [Author's note: Grimes has since disavowed the association of her music with drugs, saying that she has struggled with addiction in the past.]
Her next album came in 2015: the widely acclaimed Art Angels, which saw a turn towards an even poppier sound and moved away from the ambient and psychedelic feel of Visions towards classic synthpop and electronica. Art Angels was recorded again at her home, now in Los Angeles, and showed a mix of strong pop hooks with more intelligible lyrics that touched on themes of personal doubts, lost friendships, and her place in the music industry. [Because this album is most likely her best-known on Popheads, I will not discuss it in much depth].
Infamously, she was quoted in 2019 as calling the album a "piece of crap", a narrative she has refuted since, saying her comments were taken out of context. Despite her success, neither Visions nor Art Angels had any singles that charted highly even in her home country, but she gained a loyal cult following online. To accompany the album, she also released The Acid Reign Chronicles, a series of music videos by her and her best friend HANA).
How could one follow up an album that's been repeatedly called one's magnum opus? It would have to be something crazy, wouldn't it? Something that's provocative ... it gets the people going ...
This is the sound of the end of the world
Does anyone think global warming is a good thing? I love Grimes. I think she's a really interesting artist
We come to it at last: Miss Anthropocene, stylized at release as Miss_Anthrop0cene, Grimes' fifth studio LP and my pick for album of the year.

It’s called Miss_Anthropocene. It’s a concept album about the anthropomorphic Goddess of climate Change: A psychedelic, space-dwelling demon/ beauty-Queen who relishes the end of the world. She’s composed of Ivory and Oil - Grimes via Instagram

?

The way I figure it is that climate change sucks and no one wants to read about it because the only time you hear about it is when you’re getting guilted. I wanted to make climate change fun. Miss Anthropocene has got a Voldemort kind of vibe. She’s naked all the time and she’s made out of ivory and oil. It’s going to be super tight. [...] If I’m stuck being a villain, I want to pursue villainy artistically. If there’s nothing left to lose, that’s actually a really fun idea to me. I think it has freed me artistically. The best part of the movie is the Joker. Everyone loves the villain. Everyone fucking loves Thanos. Let’s make some Thanos art. (Source)

If you haven't heard this album or know anything about it yet, you might be thinking: Wait, what?
Miss Anthropocene is a concept album about the apocalypse. As Grimes said, she wants to make climate change fun. We're living in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, the age of humanity, so named because we now have the power as a species to alter our environment, or even destroy it. Some might find this disturbing. Grimes, however, finds it thrilling.

So my album’s about a modern demonology or a modern pantheon where every song is about a different way to suffer or a different way to die. If you think about it, god-making or god-designing just seems so fun. The idea of making the Goddess of Plastic seems so fun to me. - Grimes

As is common with Grimes: Is she serious? Is she trolling? Being edgy? When the news is full of natural disasters, species extinctions and dire warnings about a climate apocalypse, why would anyone want to make an album about how dying from climate change is awesome? Well, it should be said: Miss Anthropocene is not Grimes. She is a character, a personification of our times, and she is also (this is very key) a villain. This is, as Grimes has done before and shown a long-running interest in, a work of science fiction.
It would be absurd not to talk briefly about how our last year was dominated by the life-altering effects of COVID-19 and how life in quarantine has felt like the apocalypse to many. It's been hard on us, our mental health, our finances. This isn't a "quarantine album", and the album was mostly finished before the virus appeared in the news. Grimes did not predict it, but she ended up making the perfect soundtrack to our dire 2020 anyway and how powerless we felt to do anything about it. "You're gonna get sick, you don't know when", she sings. The threat was always looming whenever we went out, and when we stayed in we had little to do often but doomscroll through news articles about wildfires, protests against police brutality worldwide, a draining election cycle in America, take your pick. Last year was frankly a shitshow no one saw coming - though maybe they should have. Things just aligned right with this album being full of darker lyrical themes, and darker in sound than the bright-sounding Art Angels.
We had a taste of what the album would be like before it came out with the song "Pretty Dark" (video, a demo track released in 2019 that didn't make it onto the album. On this song, Grimes explores alternate characters, being a girl named "Dark", as a chance to escape from her Grimes persona. However, the concept of the album ended up being much more complex, with a whole pantheon of "new gods" that are fitting for our time, each song representing a different facet of the modern world. Here they are as listed on her website months before the album came out:

1. Goddess of climate crisis: Miss Anthropocene
2. Demon of addiction: "Delete Forever"
3. Goddess of ID and social media: War Nymph, her digital avatar
4. Demon of AI: "We Appreciate Power"
5. Goddess of gaming: "Violence"
6. Demon of political apathy: "My Name is Dark"
7. Goddess of simulation: "4ÆM"
8. Demon of ego death: "Before the Fever"
9. Goddess of digital lust: "IDORU"
10. Demon of sexual assault: "Darkseid"
11. Goddess of gender roles: "So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth"

Isn't this pretentious? Maybe. But it's optional: you don't need to know all of the album's lore to understand what Grimes is singing about on it. For those who wish to know the background and thought process behind the album in more detail, I highly recommend reading this interview with another uncontroversial Popheads fave, Lana Del Rey first, then delving into her Genius annotations. For now I'm going to give my own, somewhat subjective (!) takes on what each track is about.
Annihilation sounds so dope!

• "So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth" (Visualizer)

In 2020, Grimes became a mother for the first time with partner Elon Musk, having a child named X Æ A-Xii (the Roman numeral for 12); a breakdown of how they came up with this unusual name can be found here. Grimes and Musk met in 2018 on Twitter, bonding over an obscure philosophical reference (a thought experiment about the dangers of AI called Roko's Basilisk) and made their first public appearance together at the Met Gala that year. Because Musk is (I would argue) an even more controversial figure than Grimes is, I won't be talking about him otherwise, nor do I believe it's relevant to the album. However, this song does touches on her feelings about pregnancy and motherhood, having to (in her words) sacrifice her body to another being.
When Grimes announced her pregnancy in a rather cryptic Instagram post, there was some debate over whether she was pregnant herself at all (remember, she trolled the media in 2019 by claiming to have had an experimental eye surgery which makes zero biological sense). This was cleared up soon, however. On this song, Grimes reflects on being (as the saying goes) heavy with child, bringing new life into a world with an uncertain future. This entrancing song sets the tone for the rest of the album, as does its music video, which begins with a reference to the classic sci-fi film Blade Runner (a movie about rogue androids in Los Angeles that takes place in the far-off year of ... 2019, the year of the song's first release).

• "Darkseid" (Lyric video)

This song references the name of a powerful comic book supervillain, as well as Grimes' Playstation user ID, with online gaming being (her words) "where I go to kill people and stuff". The song features lyrics in Mandarin Chinese by Taiwanese rapper 潘PAN (Pan Wei-Ju), also known as Aristophanes, who had a feature on Art Angels' "Scream". A fan translation can be found here. Here Grimes develops upon her fascination with villains and death, while the lyrics by 潘PAN are hard to interpret literally, but paint a vivid picture of death and decay. The opening line feels quite fitting for a year where many of us sat at home all day being anxious (Unrest is in the soul / We don't move our bodies anymore ...) while the operatic backing vocals call to mind religion and medieval themes, another long-running interest of hers. However this is by far the most difficult song for me to connect with its "god" in concept, and I think its original concept was most likely just abandoned.

• "Delete Forever" (Video)

On this song, released only a couple of weeks before the album itself, Grimes surprised fans with a poignant acoustic ballad with influences from country music - not exactly the kind of genre she is known for doing. Taking the title from a prompt on her computer, Grimes wrote this song about the opioid crisis in North America, being saddened by the death of rapper Lil Peep, who had overdosed on fentanyl (a powerful opioid and dangerous street drug). As well, she touches on her own experiences with drug abuse (I did everything / More lines on a mirror than a sonnet) and being around drug culture in her youth, having lost many friends to drug addiction herself; she compares the experience of feeling euphoric on drugs to the myth of Icarus flying too close to the sun. Grimes describes this song as emotionally hard to perform for her, as is "Oblivion". In the video, she plays a queen overlooking a crumbling empire.

• "Violence" (Video)

Grimes brings up again her fascination with the history of warfare and weaponry over a club banger, produced by the late i_o (Garrett Lockhart) who sadly died in November of unknown causes. Described as a love song sung between the planet Earth and humanity that portrays a dysfunctional relationship between the two; in describing the concept behind the music video, Grimes also talks about digital violence as a modern addition to the physical violence of the past, which is fitting given its "god" is video games.
The video, filmed in the Vibiana cathedral in Los Angeles, features Grimes surrounded by women wielding swords and dance choreography inspired by Tiktok, with a cameo by HANA as the dead woman on the floor. Though Grimes didn't plan to put this song on the album, and the video was choreographed and filmed in a hurry, nevertheless she was pleased with the results. With its edgy and ironic concept (no, Grimes does not really love violence, nor does the Earth; she does collect swords though), as well as its excellent production, this is my own favourite song on the album.

• "4Æm" (Performance video)

Written for the long-delayed video game Cyberpunk 2077, in which Grimes plays an NPC named Lizzy Wizzy, this track has Grimes make use of her love of Bollywood films, sampling the soundtrack of the historical drama Bajirao Mastani. Grimes is well-known for her insomnia (see: the recording of Visions above), which is in turn known for its health effects (explaining the lyrics about getting sick). Here Grimes seems to portray being up all night in an ambivalent way. [Having stayed up all night many times, including to write this piece you are reading right now, I can confirm it only feels fun up to a point, after which it becomes exhausting.]
To me this sounds like great music to play in a futuristic city at night - Grimes is a big fan of the cyberpunk genre herself, which tends to feature this setting, as shown by her previous references to Blade Runner and Akira (an influence upon the video of "Delete Forever").

• "New Gods"

Here Grimes gets into the theme of the album as being inspired by the "gods" - secular replacements for religion - that underlie the concept of the album, the most important being the goddess of climate change (Miss A herself) but including addiction ("Delete Forever"), insomnia ("4Æm"), and more.

I was like, “Well, who are the new gods?” Because we have all this new stuff. We have plastic and pollution and plastic surgery and social media. The new gods sound sick. They sound like … like the Sailor Scouts, like these sick demons. - Grimes

Here Grimes also alludes to her image as gothic, describing herself as wearing "black attire, black eyeliner", fittingly for a bleak-sounding, pessimistic song. Being the slowest track on the album, it may be hard to get into, but it wouldn't be the same without it.

• "My Name Is Dark"

Grimes described her thoughts behind the making of this song in this ... interesting tweet. (I voted for "fighting Balrog", but it seems closer to the latter.) Her "nu metal song about insomnia" ended up being not quite either but does show some of the influence of industrial music on the album; she again brings up drug use, sleeplessness and her alter ego of "Dark" from the single "Pretty Dark".

It’s just about pretty obvious, like, paradise in hell, making the decision to be good or bad. The specter of death always haunting you. It was serious. - Grimes

Grimes depicts herself as jaded and nihilistic (The boys are such a bore / The girls are such a bore / I never trust the government and pray to God for sure, yeah) in the lyrics and alludes to mental illness and self-destructive urges with the opening lines about wishing for annihilation ("When you don’t care if you live or die, when you’re so depressed that you’re like, 'Whatever, fuck it'"). She also hints at her long history of controversies and misconceptions in the media (I'm not shy but I refuse to speak / Because I don't trust you to understand me). Grimes found the song very difficult to make, wanting it to sound "roaring" with its screaming vocals.

• "You'll Miss Me When I'm Not Around"

In one of her most melancholy-themed songs, here c. sings openly about suicide ideation, conceptualizing it as another demon of hers. She brings up various suicide methods and self-harm, and imagines herself in death as happy. Despite its morbid subject matter, this is a deceptively upbeat song musically. Although self-destruction and death are recurring themes on this theme, this is the one where she talks most about wanting to die herself.

• "Before the Fever"

First of all, that title is almost too on the nose for an album released in February 2020.
Here Grimes sings about hedonism in the first verse and uses an old joke as a metaphor for death (There are many ways in / But there's only one way out), referring to birth and death. She explains the title thus:

Grimes explained how she wanted "Before the Fever" to invoke the "literal feelings" of dying — the uncertainty, desperation, and bizarre tranquility presumably felt when one knows it's the end. "Fevers are just kind of scary, but a fever is also sort of poetically imbued with the idea of passion and stuff, too," she told him. "It's like it's a weirdly loaded word — scary, but compelling and beautiful." What's more terrifying and more beautiful than committing yourself to another person when everything could very well implode in your face? One could even call it romantic. (Source)

Even though it was written before the COVID-19 outbreak became serious, nevertheless the theme of this song could easily be called love in the time of coronavirus for the way it combines metaphors of illness with romance (cf. the analysis of "Violence").

• "IDORU"

By far the happiest-sounding song on the album, this seven-minute epic is also the longest, and much needed after the dark themes that pervade much of it. Beginning with what sounds like birdsong, it's a fun, cute, lighthearted ditty that gives a bit of much-needed hope to the album (I wanna play a beautiful game / Even though we're gonna lose / But I adore you). Maybe we're all going to die and humanity will go extinct; maybe not. If that's going to happen, can't we have some fun anyway?
As an aside, the title is a neat pun on the phrase "I adore you" but also seems to be referencing the novel Idoru ("idols") by famed cyberpunk author William Gibson, in turn about the Japanese concept of "idols", a unique kind of celebrity.
There has been fan speculation over who, if anyone, the song may be about; Grimes alluded to its meaning on a livestream with HANA but did not say in the end. My own take is that it could just as well be about the Earth itself.
These are all ten of the tracks on the standard edition of Miss Anthropocene; on the deluxe version(s) there are five bonus tracks, four of which are alternate mixes of other songs on the standard edition that differ mainly in length ("So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth", "Violence", "My Name is Dark" and "IDORU"). These seem to have been done to make the longer tracks more suitable for playlists, explaining the name "algorithm mix" for them. As well, there is one more: the original WAP.

• "We Appreciate Power" (Video)

First of all: what a fucking BANGER.
"We Appreciate Power" is a bonus track that was released as a single in 2018. It was originally meant to feature vocals by Poppy, who had featured Grimes on her own 2018 album Am I a Girl? but after a feud between the two, she was replaced with HANA. Musically, it is influenced heavily by nu-metal, it blends crunchy distorted guitars and loud rock drums with an awesome electronic drop. Grimes' and HANA's vocals trade between verses and choruses and blend so well it is hard to tell which part is whose upon first listen. This song was due to have a larger-budget music video, but ended up getting a bare-bones video instead, which is still a very fun watch with its cyberpunk visuals.
Lyrically, it was inspired by a North Korean girl group who make propaganda music for the state, as well as Grimes' fascination with the concept of an AI dictatorship. "We Appreciate Power" touches on common cyberpunk themes like mind uploading, transhumanism and simulated reality. The song portrays AI rule as something desirable yet frightening, punctuating the lyrics with unsettling shrieks and ending the song with Grimes chanting "Submit" repeatedly. Despite its tongue-in-cheek nature, the song's lyrics led to a minor controversy: for her speculation of AI replacing humans, musicians Zola Jesus and Devon Welsh called her a "silicon fascist" and they got into a spat on Twitter that seems to be resolved, with Grimes acknowledging Zola made some good points. As for the prospect of an AI takeover: it's frankly a terrifying thought, but at least we'd have jams like this.
Now is the time to burn twice as bright and half as long. Sincerely, Miss Anthropocene
This writeup is dedicated to all those cyberpunks who fight against injustice and corruption every day of their lives! (DJ mix)
Thanks so much for letting me do this writeup, Popheads - and thank you if you made it to the end. I know there is a lot here, but Grimes is a longtime favourite artist of mine and I had a lot to say. I hope I've been reasonably balanced here and not come off as an apologist stan; I am well aware Grimes can be "messy" or a "problematic fave". However, I've tried to explain the best I can what this album is really about, give my thoughts, and explain why I think it's one of the albums of the year. As well, if I said anything factually wrong, please let me know; I tried my best to source everything and get things right.

Questions for the culture:

• [Voice of Anthony Fantano] What did you think of the album? Did you love it? Did you hate it?
• The album was infamously leaked months before its release. (I didn't listen to the leak.) Did you listen to it or not, and do you think it may have affected fan reception to the album?
• A big problem with concept albums is that they often have an elaborate concept that doesn't come across well in the lyrics. What do you think of Grimes' concept for this album and did she succeed at it? Do you have different readings of the lyrics than what I wrote?
• How would you say this album holds up against her others? Was the darker tonal shift a good thing? Would you have liked her to make a more upbeat or poppy album?
• How would you rank it this among the year's albums? Were they better on average, worse, etc.?

Feel free to ask me any other questions, bring up other topics as you like and I will respond to everyone. (I just have one request though: please for the love of god do not bring up Grimes' partner or child; I think it's messy and like I said, not very relevant to the album anyway.) Any other topic, no matter how "spicy", is fair game though. Just be nice.
Hope reading this was fun! We have more AOTY posts every day for the rest of the month, so be sure to check those out too.
WE APPRECIATE POPHEADS
- vayyiqra

Hello again, everyone! I have come to bring you another neckbeard experience since people seemed to want more. Also, to the YouTubers that read my last story, I am so glad everyone enjoyed. Our tale today isn’t as horrific as Gundambeard, but it was still pretty creepy. So, I hope you guys are ready for the ride. As always, TLDR at the end
Some people were a little confused with how the Gundambeard story ended, but I did give his gifts away to neighboring children (I didn’t know his address and he delivered them in person, so I couldn’t send them back. Lucky me, right?), and it was actually my dad’s sister that told him my address, since she knew this guy’s dad, but this woman actually knew that GB was insane. Needless to say, I cut ties with her and we are now as much enemies as Stormcloaks and Imperials.
Anyway, let’s meet today’s star performers.
Faith: Me, 23F, same gothic, introverted, cosplaying, nerd and by now, a rather crabby little human. Apparently, still neckbeard bait.
Mason: 26M, my older brother, still that overprotective, wrestling loving boi that will throat punch someone for messing with his baby sister.
Goku: Our neckbeard of the day, 24M. To this day, I still don’t know much about this guy, other than he should have a big red flag tattooed across his forehead and probably shouldn’t be within 30 yards of any event involving human interaction. Dude, if you ever see this, and you know who you are. I hate you. Also, you ruined Dragon Ball for me.
This story actually happened in March of this year. Yes, the cursed 2020 gives me another neckbeard.. I wanted a fresh start, but instead I get a stalker. Not cool. Again, since I’m always on my phone, and my laptop is a piece of crap, I am back bringing you a new story on mobile, so sorry for any mistakes.
This story starts where every horror story begins. Online dating sites. Since I didn’t wanna use something that I had to pay for, because I’m broke as a joke, my dumb self decided to try Facebook dating! I know, how could Faith get any stupider since the last story, right? Everyone is entitled to one stupid mistake in their life, right? Well, apparently this is mine. I had made the account in November of 2019 and was seeming to do pretty well. Aside from the sleezeballs and “nice guys”, that is. Until February when we meet Goku (you’ll understand why he is named this soon). He liked me on the site, and he seemed normal enough, so I matched with him. We begin chatting and he finds my Facebook page. Which is weird enough since it only shows my first name on the site and we have no mutual friends. I added him and he began messaging me, little by little at first.
It started out with messages like “Hi, how are you?”, “You look great in your pictures.”, “You must be big into horror movies.” and things like that. My profile picture at the time was a shot of me in my favorite cosplay with a fellow cosplayer, and absolutely wonderful fella, dressed as Jason Voorhees (my favorite slasher) from a previous con that Mason had taken. “Thank you. I really love horror movies and anything of the like.” I replied. Finding the conversation to be quite pleasant. At. First.
Two weeks after we start talking about random nonsense, he asks if I want to be his girlfriend. Mind you, I had never met this guy before or anything like that. “Goku, I think that’s a little too fast. I don’t even really know you all that well.” I replied. When I tell you that this guy’s profile was weird, I’m not exaggerating. His whole timeline was made up of nothing but face swapped videos, pictures with e-girls that looked extremely uncomfortable (I felt so bad for those poor girls), and the most neckbeard quotes I had ever read. Like those cringy thrown together pizap ones plastered on a Joker picture. I immediately thought “Faith, you incompetent ninny, what have you gotten yourself into?”. Well, readers, it gets worse. Much, much, worse.
Fast forward a week and my favorite local cosplay convention is finally coming to town. I told Goku that I just wasn’t comfortable going out with someone that was so pushy and that I hope he understood. He said yes and I didn’t hear from him for the week.. Until the night before the con. My phone begins blowing up with notifications from both Facebook and Instagram. Like, comment, like, comment, like, comment, I thought it was just my friend (We’ll call her Jigsaw for this story since she loves the Saw movies) who just had some really exciting news to tell me since she’ll text me like a mother who you missed two calls from. I’m putting the final touches on my cosplay, which wasn’t really much as Mason walked in the room “Geez, Faith. Is Jigsaw okay? Your phone is going crazy.” He asked “She was. I thought she was going to shower and eat.” I answered before looking at my phone. It wasn’t Jigsaw, it was Goku. Who had found my Instagram and liked every single picture I had ever posted, commenting creepy crap on them, such as “My beautiful girlfriend” and “That’s my baby”. Dude, seriously? I had to literally go on my pictures and delete every single comment. Which took like 45 minutes. 45 minutes that I could have used to work on my cosplay. I decided to message this guy “Goku, please stop telling everyone I’m your girlfriend. I told you, I wasn’t comfortable anymore.” I told him “Is that why you never accepted my request?” He asked. I looked farther down into the abyss that was now my notifications and saw it. “Goku added you as his girlfriend.”. Nope, nope, nopety, nope. I quickly declined the request and replied “Declined.” before getting back to my outfit.
Finally, it was con day! I was mixed emotions that day, I was extremely excited for the event, but I was also really worried because at the time, my grandfather’s health had been rapidly declining and, due to the plague, we couldn’t go see him. Finally, my parents were allowed to go, so they told us to go ahead to the convention and have fun. When I began getting ready, I realized something. A key piece of my cosplay was missing. I had forgotten to look for it thanks to having to delete creepy comments from Goku. I was gonna cosplay Shota Aizawa from My Hero Academia, but I couldn’t find my scarf. So, I decided to pull out my handy dandy go to cosplay when things go wrong. Lara Croft. I only had about 30 minutes to get ready, so Mason (who was cosplaying WWE Superstar, The Fiend) helped me with the paint. I had to get the ‘dirt’ on my back, arms, shoulders, face and such and fake blood on my face. (that guy is a life saver). I drove us there since I have a knack for remembering directions and poor Mason is directionally challenged. It took us a little longer than usual since the main road was closed, but we got there on time and in one piece.
When we got out of the car, I pulled out my phone to text my mom that we had made it safely and to tell Jigsaw that I would keep an eye out for anything she might like as a gift. She lives a state away, so I have to mail her gifts. Unfortunately, by this time, we were no longer friends with Link, which sucked.. Fenix, who wanted to come, unfortunately had to work. I would have loved to seen him at this con. But, instead of getting to text my mom, I get a message that makes my blood run cold. “Hey, are you at the con yet? I am.” Read a message from none other than Goku. Now, I hadn’t told Mason of the situation, because I figured I could handle this on my own. But, I didn’t tell this guy I was coming to the con. I told him nothing about it at all! So, I was a little worried that this guy might cause a scene or something. I wish that had been all.
Mason and I paid our way in and immediately went to looking at some of the artwork and pop vinyls the vendors had for sale before deciding to go say hi to some of our favorite con friends. We go say hello and give hugs to our favorite people, Ashe, Papa, Noir, and Sparrow (names changed, of course), before deciding to check out the action figures, comic books, and more really cool thing being sold. Then, I spot Goku. Dragon Ball cosplay tank shirt, a purple hat that Barney the Dinosaur would punch himself over, literal pajama pants, and flip flops. He didn’t actually have a facial hair, but it was trying to grow and to his neck it was going. I quickly snatched Mason behind a comic display and finally explained everything “Mason, I really need your help. There’s a guy here and I’ve already tried to get him to leave me alone, but he’s still trying to talk to me. If he bothers us, can you make him leave me alone?” I asked as I could see his facial expressions behind the mask go from “wut” to overprotective in a heartbeat “He comes over here trying to mess with you, he gonna ‘let me in’.” He assured. Fiend reference for those wondering. I pointed him out and Mason starts watching this guy like some kind of terminator. We begin walking around and then get spotted. I noticed Goku kept his distance, but had his phone in his hand. I never got any messages, then it hit me when I heard a click. He was taking pictures of me. I kept leading Mason around the conversation building to try and lose him, but this guy found us no matter where we went. This went on for over 2 hours. He never tried to talk to us, just stood around corners with his phone in his hand. This guy thought he had some James Bond level skills, when in reality, he was worse than the rhino scene from Ace Ventura. He almost knocked over a fake plant.
I was getting sick of being followed. He was on the verge of getting beaten with a foam board pick ax. I then had to stop to tie my boot, so I sat on the floor with Mason standing guard so I didn’t get stepped on by any poor unsuspecting tall or masked con goer. Then I saw a pair of shoes that I didn’t recognize. I looked up to see, and I will never forget this, a Pokémon thief. He had a bag full of Pokémon thrown over his shoulder like a weeb Santa “Are you Faith?” He asked “Yes..?” I asked. Why didn’t I just lie and say no? “Oh, good! That’s Goku!” He replied. This was one of the suckers I saw walking around with Goku earlier before he broke off to play secret agent. I didn’t recognize him with the rest of his costume on. “Oh, okay.” I replied. My go to ‘I am extremely uncomfortable, get away from me’ line. My memory kinda blacked out and I remember I was in the bathroom, hiding and beginning to hyperventilate. Then I remembered something, I had left Mason. I stayed in the bathroom for about 5 minutes before poking my head out and seeing my little Fiend just waiting by the door “Where’s Goku?” I whispered “That guy? He left. Guess he didn’t wanna let me in.” He answered. I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t wanna cover him in brown Halloween paint. He told me a little of the conversation, but I forgot most of the details. But, that guy was about to get a hand shoved down his throat if he didn’t leave me alone. The rest of the con went great! Mason had scared Goku completely out of the building and even bought me a Jack Skellington picture to make me feel better.
On the way home, I gave Mason my phone and told him to block Goku on everything he could find. I later found out that my grandfather had unfortunately passed away while we were at the con, but my parents didn’t want me to know while I was there. Had I known, I’m pretty sure that guy would have been choking on that foam board pick ax I was carrying. I’ve been back to cons since then, but thankfully, I haven’t had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing Goku again.
Thank you so much to everyone that reads this little nightmare of an adventure! May your quests in life always be a bountiful success and may your path be clear of neckbeards. And for my fellow con goers, if someone is stalking or harassing you, don’t be afraid to call them out for being the creeps that they are. Love you all!
TLDR: Creepy neckbeard from a dating app thinks I wanna be his girlfriend after rejecting him and proceeds to stalk me at a cosplay convention until he is threatened by The Fiend.

Now, I don't watch Greg's videos solely because I can't tolerate him visually, which is why I am so grateful for u/FillerBear for their TL;DW work. However, I don't mind sifting through long sloughs of texts and what a time to TL;DR something recent Greg decided to vom out of his brain. Here we go.
(I may also grammar nazi a bit but it'll be limited to strikethroughs and my own opinions will be in italics. Super TL;DR below if it's too much to read)
Onision: In Real Life (Onision's Reaction to News of The "Documentary") < At your own risk!
First paragraph: To start us off, he explains why he didn't make a "monetized full video" about the documentary; he didn't "have the energy to make yet another video", something about his vanity and desire to be on camera is dead...
There are eight ellipses in this short paragraph, I find this extremely annoying at best. Moving on.
Second paragraph: He continues on about how it's not fun to make videos about his life anymore (shocker) and that it was fun to make "fake meltdowns... fake prank videos (he) did with numerous people," by which he brings Shiloh as an example; shaving her head, filming her in the shower, etc and hints that he likes Dave Chappelle. He then laments about how people used to understand his jokes but people hae "lost their memories of exactly what was actually going on back then." He brings up the typical "people are fucking stupid" sentence as the finisher for this paragraph.
There are four dashes that were needlessly used and a missing open bracket towards the end of the paragraph. Next.
Third paragraph: Using larger bold text, he makes a statement piece of sorts. Quote "It's kind of the same deal with a lot of Youtubers - they did a lot of hilarious things which, if you weren't there, you just don't get it in 2020." Talks about cancel culture and brings up that even though it was demanded of them, they are now being punished for the said demanded thing. He finds it "hilarious" about this irony, and akins it to "watching dogs attack their owner as their owner is trying to feed them or seeing a snake eat it's own tail"
He likes using the words "hilarious" and "hysterical" a lot. Just something to point out. Anyway...
Fourth part: This is going to be kinda long because he's micro-analysing the documentary summary which I'm clumping together as one part but I'll be as brief as I can.
He skims through two sentences and is agreeable to them, but the third one prompts a Joker meme as his response.
Here I'd like to clarify that he's using five different font sizes and styles at this point. Font continuity is not his strong suit.
Quote "But while his channels were twisted, his real life might be more sinister." He then states that the use of "might be" confirms that they have no proof of what they claim. Mentions Hansen coming by his house and that "blindness of society and complete detachment from facts/common sense" is why people like Joker. Some talk about being a puppeteer to people online, even when he's out of the picture. Basically reads as someone trying to prove that they're always in control period. Bullshit.
A gif of an aloof Greg clapping his hands together to transform into the Ledger Joker that looks like he just slapped himself appears. So edge. Much crin-geh. Very EUUGH.
Quote "This cutting-edge investigative series explores the mystery, controversy and alleged criminality surrounding Greg Jackson." Spends a paragraph focusing on "alleged" like a dog with a sausage, so much that the word itself is used six times with quotation marks. He emphasizes that their use of the word means they're speculating without proof and for the money. Says "Sarah is a literal criminal" and "Shiloh is a literal criminal". Same old song.
Tries to put aim the gun at all his exes about their "criminal behavior" and why "Discover" is instead focusing on "a former US Air Force cop... who literally helped the police bust illegal establishments in Oklahoma City while volunteering as a US Vet." Mentions being persecuted for speeding and blackberry bush removals. If only, Greg.
He changes font again at this point. Make up your fucking mind.
Calls Billie, Sarah and Shiloh "the three siren's". More mention of his being a US Vet, his deployments... but goes back to "the three siren's" and lambasts them about their drug using/dealing, committed felonies and disirespect for the law.
Quote "... bringing forward new research and revelations about the man that the YouTube community loves to hate." He laments about being the hated victim, how people only care for themselves and how they only care about the law "when it's on their side." Lowkey shoutout to LeafyisHere.
Font size changes AGAIN. FFS.
Fifth paragraph (finally): Here he starts revealing a lot of "criminal acts" that Shiloh and Sarah have done, because he assumes we think it's cool that they're doing crims, ending with his go-to "Sarah apologized for being a rapist" quote. He then expresses how we ignored what they did and "be on the wrong side, and have literally no concept of what reality, evidence or justice is."
I am literally going to have a brain aneurysm and I will literally drown myself in alcohol after I'm done with this because I am LITERALLY done with seeing the word LITERALLY used by a mid-30s man like a highschooler would. LITERALLY.
Sixth part: He places a Speaks video Onision's Receipts (Proving He Did Nothing Wrong) here and proceeds to make big, in bold text statements about his warning people about taking the wrong people's sides, namely Social Repose, Blaire White, Shane Dawson, Shiloh, Hansen and Joy Sparkle's sides. He then proceeds to state what was wrong about them and how he was always right with a bonus Reacts video Chris Hansen's CRIMES & LIES (The Onision Case) and a special addition of Sarah with another Reacts video Sarah Admitting To Sexually Extorting Onision & Other Incirminating Video Evidence.
Seventh paragraph: So why does this docmentary exist? Quote "It's Discovery Plus finding a way they can make money from lies." To the best of his knowledge, which let's face it isn't much, the documentary's sources are from Regina and Shiloh. Now he proceeds to emphasize how he's never met Regina, how desperate Regina was and was crazy about Kai; same treatment with Shiloh except it's calling the cops on her multiple times and her getting into trouble with fighting people "due to her difficult personality."
Eighth part: Talks about the videos talk discuss interactions with Shiloh and links DeOreo and RealStream's vids on their experience, adn then shifts to something Damon Elliot, Shiloh's former producer" told him directly about her being "evil" which he was still in contact with Shiloh. Quote "Her own music producer, trying to get me to never take her back."
Ninth paragraph: This begins with a series of confusing text with multiple double asterisks, which make this extremely hard to read. Fuck you Greg. Type like a fucking adult if you're even capable of doing that anymore.
He blatantly insinuates that we're not going to listen to him and that the reason he's linking all these videos and pictures that will follow soon after is because he wants to easy-link this to people who ask if he owns the documentary. Brings up what he thinks is fine print shenanigans that a member of his Discord spotted; quote "...in the contract it implies they can edit me out of context and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it..."
the end is near. my salvation.
He then posts three screenshots; the first is an email correspondence from Thomas Patterson asking for an interview for the documentary with a pdf attached, the second is of said pdf which is a Personal/Appearance Release Form that Greg would have to sign should he have agreed to the documentary and the third is a similar email from Thomas Patterson to Kai.
Another rogue Ledger Joker appears. How very droll.
Final part: Quote "Imagine someone making a whole TV show about you, calling it "Your Name: In Real Life" despite never having met you even once... absolutely, hilarious."
FFS I can't EVEN. Last sentence. Ellipsis "absolutely" comma "hilarious" FUCK YOU GREG. NO.
On an additional note, there was ONE comment on 9th of December from Benny Fox: "I don't know how a documentary on you is allowed? Your not charged with any crimes I know of. This is not going to go down well I suppose. You better get an attorney to help your defense or at least a public relations lawyer." Grammar is not as bad but considering I've just spent nearly two hours reading and rereading this, this reads like a fake comment.
That is two hours I will never get back. Super TL;DR is Greg has extremely questionable grammar and if this forum post had myspace options we would have seen peak myspace cringe because his choice of font sizes was aggravating. And he's regurgitating the same old shit we've been accustomed to seeing. Now I'm gonna go drink away my pain, have a good night you guys.

During 2020 I decided to branch out more and discover more entertainment and more art that I hadn’t experienced yet. This led me to the IMDB Top 250. Recently I made it halfway through and I wanted to share my rankings and my thoughts. Since these are the best of the best I’ve given each movie their own best picture superlative. (Number in parentheses are IMDB ranking and number on the side are mine)

1. The Dark Knight (4)- Best Picture For: Being compared to every new superhero movie ever
2. The Shawshank redemption (1)- Best Picture For: Having a poster that spoils the movie
3. Inception (13)- Best Picture For: The trailer that changed everything
4. Return of the Jedi (85)- Best Picture For: Having homicidal bears that make some people really upset
5. Terminator 2 (38)- Best Picture For: How to do a proper sequel
6. Infinity War (64)- Best Picture For: Zoe Saldana haters
7. 1917 (93)- Best Picture For: Being a war movie not about WWII or Vietnam
8. The Prestige (47)- Best Picture For: Magic David Bowie that’s not Labyrinth
9. Aliens (74)- Best Picture For: Alienating the horror movie crowd
10. The dark knight rises (71)- Best Picture For: Bane’s voice setting the standard for Nolan’s sound engineer
11. Full metal jacket (99)- Best Picture For: People leaving halfway in
12. Saving private Ryan (26)- Best Picture For: People leaving twenty minutes in
13. Forrest Gump (12)- Best Picture For: Stopping Richard Nixon. God bless you Forrest
14. Memento (55)- Best Picture For: B movie +Gimmick= A+
15. Good will hunting (88)- Best Picture For: Baseball gloves
16. The usual suspects (33)- Best Picture For: A prequel to Seven
17. Empire strikes back (14)- Best Picture For: Being compared to every sequel ever
18. The last crusade (121)- Best Picture For: Buddy cop comedy
19. Schindler’s list (5)- Best Picture For: Best Picture
20. Ford v ferrari (197)- Best Picture For: Fast and Furious for the Oscars
21. The Truman show (171)- Best Picture For: Conspiracy theories
22. Se7en (20)- Best Picture For: Letting us know about Kevin Spacey
23. Whiplash (46)- Best Picture For: Anxiety inducing jazz
24. The silence of the lambs (23)- Best Picture For: Putting the Sir in Sir Anthony Hopkins
25. 3 Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (151)- Best Picture For: Grief
26. Prisoners (200)- Best Picture For: Wait, that guy is gonna be the riddler? Oh my...
27. Parasite (30)- Best Picture For: Explaining class systems better than school
28. 12 Angry Men (5)- Best Picture For: Truth being relative
29. Fight Club (11)- Best Picture For: Having a quote everyone knows, but actually about the dismantling of society as we know it
30. The Sixth Sense (164)- Best Picture For: Proving M. Night was once a legend
31. Star wars: A new hope (25)- Best Picture For: Creating the largest hate group of all time. Star Wars fans
32. Raiders of the lost ark (56)- Best Picture For: Being a cool Sunday school lesson and a movie about beating the Nazi’s at the same time
33. The Departed (44)- Best Picture For: Rats
34. Pulp Fiction (8)- Best Picture For: Everyone skipping Bruce Willis’ hotel section
35. Lawrence of Arabia (109)- Best Picture For: What 1917 did for one shot WWI films this movie did for coloration and shot composition for WW1 films
36. Django Unchained (60)- Best Picture For: Bounty hunting
37. Fargo (176)- Best Picture For: Midwesterners
38. Interstellar (31)- Best Picture For: Quantum physicists
39. Hacksaw ridge (190)- Best Picture For: Having a pacifist first half and the most violent things you’ll ever see in the second
40. Up (122)- Best Picture For: People leaving 15 minutes in
41. Monsters Inc (232)- Best Picture For: Making liars of parents who said there’s no monsters in your closet
42. Toy story 3 (110)- Best Picture For: Breaking grown adults
43. Toy story (81)- Best Picture For: Getting every 2D animator fired
44. Endgame (73)- Best Picture For: Audience applause
45. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (96)- Best Picture For: Break up depression
46. Kill bill Vol.1 (175)- Best Picture For: Quinten Tarintino doing whatever he wants for four hours straight
47. Requiem for a dream (91)- Best Picture For: Being a better drug PSA than anything school taught
48. Inglourious Basterds (86)- Best Picture For: Learning German through tension
49. The lion king (35)- Best Picture For: Being a PG Hamlet musical
50. Spotlight (226)- Best Picture For: Redeeming Scott Templeton from The Wire
51. The Green Mile (29)- Best Picture For: Weeping
52. Gone girl (188)- Best Picture For: Never trusting your spouse again
53. The Godfather Part 2 (3)- Best Picture For: Being the best prequel-sequel outside of lion king one and a half
54. The Matrix (16)- Best Picture For: Woah’s
55. Die hard (127)- Best Picture For: Being the template of every action movie to come after it
56. Logan (218)- Best Picture For: Proving X Men movies can be good
57. Hamilton (27)- Best Picture For: The reason to get Disney +
58. Hotel Rwanda (225)- Best Picture For: Being Schindler's list for people that hate black and white
59. Goodfellas (17)- Best Picture For: The origin of the Wet Bandits
60. Room (172)- Best Picture For: People that think castaway is overrated
61. The Pianist (37)- Best Picture For: Being Schindler's List for people that hate black and white
62. Inside out (160)- Best Picture For: Expressing emotions better than you ever will
63. Braveheart (78)- Best Picture For: FREEDOM!
64. Gladiator (42)- Best Picture For: Showing the good half of Ridley Scott’s filmography
65. The Shining (62)- Best Picture For: Pissing off Stephen King
66. Back to the future (36)- Best Picture For: Being a light hearted family movie that has plot points of rape and incest
67. Dr. Strangelove (69)- Best Picture For: Satire of the Cold War
68. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (9)- Best Picture For: Being so proud of a piece of music you include it as much as possible
69. City of God (22)- Best Picture For: Being the most violent movie I’ve ever seen
70. The Godfather (2)- Best Picture For: Proving Al Pacino was once a good actor
71. Batman begins (130)- Best Picture For: Creating the gritty superhero genre
72. Apocalypse Now (54)- Best Picture For: Cow parallels
73. The terminator (245)- Best Picture For: The movie with that one quote in it
74. Wall-e (63)- Best Picture For: An easily digestible dystopian look at our bleak future
75. Alien (74) - Best Picture For: Being the wrong answer to Alien vs. Aliens
76. Return of the King (7)- Best Picture For: *Insert multiple endings joke here
77. Deathly Hallows part 2 (217)- Best Picture For: Milking cash from consumers and milking tears from fans
78. Finding Nemo (170)- Best Picture For: Anxiety for parents
79. Dead gets society (214)- Best Picture For: Creating the gold standard for teachers that can never be met
80. Mad Max; Fury Road (205)- Best Picture For: Fire guitars
81. Pan’s labyrinth (142)- Best Picture For: If Alan Moore wrote the Chronicles of Narnia
82. It’s a wonderful life (24)- Best Picture For: Wait this Christmas movie is about suicide
83. How to train your dragon (199)- Best Picture For: Adorable killer beasts
84. Stand by me (206)- Best Picture For: Oh this is where stranger things comes from
85. Coco (76)- Best Picture For: Crying in Spanish
86. The princess bride (244)- Best Picture For: A bigger disparity in quality from first half to second than full metal jacket
87. Catch me if you can (195)- Best Picture For: Being Spielberg's most underrated movie
88. Into the spider verse (67)- Best Picture For: Actually doing a good job replacing an iconic character
89. Before sunrise (193) Best Picture For: Being a super unrealistic love story yet at the same time extremely honest
90. Warrior (161)- Best Picture For: Having actors before they were famous do a better fighting movie than Rocky
91. Fellowship of the ring (10)- Best Picture For: *Insert eagles joke here
92. Two Towers (15)- Best Picture For: Being the first of many opportunities to give Andy Serkis an Oscar
93. Amadeus (83)- Best Picture For: The kind of movie you watch expecting nothing and being blown away
94. Jurassic park (166)- Best Picture For: Having a banner fall over a T-Rex
95. Rocky (230)- Best Picture For: Training montages
96. Joker (58)- Best Picture For: Wait this is ranked 58th movie of all time. It’s great and all… but 58th really?
97. Raging bull (147): Insecure boxing
98. 2001 (90)- Best Picture For: Educated stoners
99. Million Dollar Baby (209)- Best Picture For: Adding depth to the argument is Hillary Swank hot or not
100. Platoon (215) - Best Picture For: Charlie Sheen not being on your TV at 2 at night for two and a half men reruns
101. Gran Torino (180)- Best Picture For: Clint Eastwood learning not to be so racist
102. There will be blood (148)- Best Picture For: Milkshakes
103. Network (207)- Best Picture For: Prophesying clickbait
104. A clockwork orange (102)- Best Picture For: Make sure no one walks in on you watching this movie
105. Taxi Driver (106)- Best Picture For: The movie with that one quote in it
106. Rear Window (52) Best Picture For: Peeping Toms
107. Green Book (131)- Best Picture For: Ending racism
108. The Help (243)- Best Picture For: Ending racism
109. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest (18)- Best Picture For: Jack Nicholson is Jack Nicholson in a psych ward
110. The wolf of wall street (143)- Best Picture For: Make sure no one walks in on you watching this movie
111. V for Vendetta (156)- Best Picture For: Making a random day in November a nerd holiday
112. Witness for the prosecution (68)- Best Picture For: Having six plot twists in five minutes
113. Sunset Blvd. (65)- Best Picture For: Lying to help someone’s mental health and hoping it ends well
114. To kill a mockingbird (119)- Best Picture For: Having a dog die that inadvertently propels the plot that’s not of mice and men
115. The General (198)- Best Picture For: Train enthusiasts
116. A Beautiful mind (139)- Best Picture For: Being a boring biopic, having a twist, and then being boring again
117. The Circus (236)- Best Picture For: Music but with pictures
118. The Kid (101)- Best Picture For: Music but with pictures
119. Blade runner (169)- Best Picture For: Having more cuts than a butcher house
120. Monty python and the holy grail (126)- Best Picture For: If quoting, opens doors like some form of secret society
121. Heat (124)- Best Picture For: Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro fanfiction
122. Monty python’s life of Brian (216)- Best Picture For: Making Christians mad without seeing it even though the movie is about blindly following the crowd
123. Anand (125)- Best Picture For: Random sing along sections
124. Hachi: a dog's tale (211)- Best Picture For: Not being a good movie but at least it has a dog
125. Klaus (185)- Best Picture For: Being overrated

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR jokeres as requested by jokeres (query: "boardgamerecommender jokeres")
Generating recommendations based on a pool size of 1267 with a commonality factor of 81 at level 5 (higher is better).
---NEWER GAMES jokeres MAY ENJOY---

1. Aeon's End - 2016 (8.5)
   
2. Decrypto - 2018 (8.2)
   
3. Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure - 2016 (8.2)
   
4. Exit: The Game – The Abandoned Cabin - 2016 (8.0)
   
5. Ethnos - 2017 (8.0)
   
6. Hero Realms - 2016 (8.0)
   
7. Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra - 2018 (7.9)
   
8. Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu - 2016 (7.8)
   
9. Bärenpark - 2017 (7.8)
   
10. Quadropolis - 2016 (7.8)
    
11. Fabled Fruit - 2017 (7.7)
    
12. KeyForge: Call of the Archons - 2018 (7.7)
    
13. Dice Forge - 2017 (7.7)
    
14. Imhotep - 2016 (7.7)
    
15. Codenames: Pictures - 2016 (7.6)
    
16. Photosynthesis - 2017 (7.5)
    
17. Kanagawa - 2016 (7.5)
    
18. Magic Maze - 2017 (7.4)
    
19. The Mind - 2018 (7.3)
    
20. Cottage Garden - 2016 (7.3)
    

You can request a longer version of this list by posting the text "boardgamerecommender jokeres new" in a comment.
---OLDER GAMES jokeres MAY ENJOY---

1. Bruges - 2013 (8.0)
   
2. Dixit: Odyssey - 2011 (7.9)
   
3. Legends of Andor - 2012 (7.8)
   
4. Trains - 2012 (7.8)
   
5. K2 - 2010 (7.7)
   
6. Las Vegas - 2012 (7.7)
   
7. Yspahan - 2006 (7.6)
   
8. Between Two Cities - 2015 (7.6)
   
9. Deep Sea Adventure - 2014 (7.6)
   
10. Friday - 2011 (7.6)
    
11. Camel Up - 2014 (7.5)
    
12. Ascension: Deckbuilding Game - 2010 (7.5)
    
13. Kingdom Builder - 2011 (7.5)
    
14. Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age - 2008 (7.5)
    
15. Lanterns: The Harvest Festival - 2015 (7.4)
    
16. Ca$h 'n Guns (Second Edition) - 2014 (7.4)
    
17. Rise of Augustus - 2013 (7.3)
    
18. Forbidden Island - 2010 (7.2)
    
19. Mascarade - 2013 (7.2)
    
20. Welcome to the Dungeon - 2013 (7.1)
    

You can request a longer version of this list by posting the text "boardgamerecommender jokeres old" in a comment.
---GAMES YOU MAY FIND UNDERRATED---

1. Ghost Blitz - 2010 (7.0)
   
2. Ca$h 'n Gun$ - 2005 (7.0)
   
3. Pickomino - 2005 (7.0)
   
4. Eight-Minute Empire - 2012 (7.0)
   
5. Cockroach Poker - 2004 (7.0)
   
6. Castle Panic - 2009 (6.9)
   
7. Niagara - 2004 (6.9)
   
8. Guillotine - 1998 (6.9)
   
9. Mystery of the Abbey - 1995 (6.9)
   
10. Spot it! - 2009 (6.8)
    
11. Saboteur - 2004 (6.8)
    
12. Mamma Mia! - 1998 (6.8)
    
13. Pit - 1903 (6.8)
    
14. Red November - 2008 (6.7)
    
15. Jungle Speed - 1997 (6.7)
    
16. Gloom - 2005 (6.6)
    
17. Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game - 2013 (6.5)
    
18. Get Bit! - 2007 (6.4)
    
19. Dungeon Roll - 2013 (6.2)
    
20. Pass the Pigs - 1977 (5.7)
    

You can request a longer version of this list by posting the text "boardgamerecommender jokeres underrated" in a comment.
---GAMES YOU MAY FIND OVERRATED---

1. Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers - 1987 (4.8)
   
2. Advanced Squad Leader - 1985 (7.2)
   
3. Grave Robbers From Outer Space - 2001 (5.1)
   
4. Skat - 1810 (6.7)
   
5. Agra - 2017 (6.8)
   
6. Lord of the Rings: The Duel - 2002 (5.4)
   
7. DC Comics Deck-Building Game: Heroes Unite - 2014 (6.8)
   
8. Ace of Aces: Handy Rotary Series - 1980 (6.6)
   
9. Pay Day - 1975 (4.4)
   
10. Hnefatafl - 400 (6.1)
    
11. UNO Attack! - 1999 (5.0)
    
12. Necromunda - 1995 (6.9)
    
13. Rallyman: GT - 2020 (7.0)
    
14. Monopoly: The Card Game - 2000 (5.2)
    
15. Girl Genius: The Works - 2001 (5.8)
    
16. Letter Jam - 2019 (7.0)
    
17. Myth - 2014 (6.2)
    
18. Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition - 2018 (8.7)
    
19. Carcassonne: Winter Edition - 2012 (7.2)
    
20. Malefiz - 1960 (5.1)
    

You can request a longer version of this list by posting the text "boardgamerecommender jokeres overrated" in a comment.
Your boardgaming soulmate is carol12 (based on a shared taste in 18 games).
For more information about how this bot works, and optional commands, see this post.
These recommendations are courtesy of simiansays, who wrote the board game recommender. Please direct any complaints or queries to him! Happy gaming!

DC Comics has published literally thousands of Batman comics in the character's eighty-odd years of existence, but few are more infamous than A Death in the Family, when DC let fans decide whether Jason Todd, the second character to use the identity of Robin, lived or died.
An apology in advance: many primary sources for this drama have been lost to the annals of history: this was the 1980s, the Internet wasn't really a thing yet, so fan discussion around comics mostly took place in Usenet newsgroups and comic book letter columns, both of which are very difficult to find archives of today. I've reconstructed the story as best as I can, but I wish I could find more quotes from fans at the time.
Also, SPOILER WARNING. There are unmarked spoilers for Batman comics from the 1980s below this line. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Who was Jason Todd?

Jason Todd was a character introduced in 1983's Batman #357 by writer Gerry Conway and artist Don Newton and under the auspices of editor Len Wein, as a replacement for Dick Grayson as Robin. Grayson had outgrown the pixie boots and scaly shorts of the Robin identity, and graduated to his own identity as Nightwing, over in The New Teen Titans. But Conway felt that Batman still needed a Robin, so Todd was born:

Gerry Conway (writer, Batman and Detective Comics, 1981-1983): I always felt that Batman worked really well with a sidekick like Robin. My interest in the character was the version of Batman as a detective, the version of Batman as a guardian of Gotham. This was prior, I believe, to the deep-dive into the “dark knight” kind of concept of Batman, so, for that end, the idea of a younger sidekick who could bring out a little more levity in the character seemed useful. But Dick Grayson as a character had grown into a young adult and was integral to the Teen Titans series, and had his own life and his own storylines that were developing separately from Batman, and [he] couldn’t really play that secondary role that I was interested in exploring. [1]

Todd was introduced as the son of two acrobats who had been murdered by Batman's enemy Killer Croc, in a striking similarity to Dick Grayson's origin written forty years prior. Todd would officially become the new Robin in Batman #368, published February 1984, and would continue to go on adventures (written by Conway and then by Doug Moench) with Batman until 1986's Batman #400. During this period, he's probably best remembered for a. being involved in a custody battle between Batman and a vampire, and b. getting the drop on Mongul in the classic Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything" by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons.
But then the Crisis happened, and everything changed for Jason.

The Crisis

You don't have a comic book company for almost fifty years without running into some hurdles along the way, especially where characters and continuity are concerned. In 1954, psychologist Frederick Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a book asserting that comic books were harming the children of the day, causing them to turn into delinquents. As a result, the bustling superhero genre of comics at the time slowed to a crawl, with most of DC's (then known as National Periodical Publications) characters, such as the Green Lantern and the Flash, ceasing publication and being replaced with comics about talking animals, romance stories, and giant alien monsters.
Just a few short years later, in October 1956, creators Robert Kangher and Carmine Infantino would introduce a new version of the Flash in Showcase #4, and the Silver Age of comics had begun. Eventually, the Golden Age Flash was reintroduced, and it was established that the Silver Age characters resided on Earth-One, while the Golden Age characters were from Earth-Two. Everything was fine and dandy, until DC decided things had become too confusing and that they needed to kill their multiverse.
In 1986, DC published one of the very first comic crossover events - Crisis on Infinite Earths, an earth-shattering story that pitted almost every hero in company history against the threat of the Anti-Monitor. The outcome was that all the characters and stories from Earth-One, Earth-Two, and several other alternate Earths that had appeared over the years were consolidated into a single, streamlined universe, and with that came changes for several other characters, Jason Todd among them.

The New Jason Todd

After Crisis, new blood was in the Batman editorial offices. Former Batman writer Denny O'Neil had taken over as editor of the Batman family of titles, and he had a different opinion on Robin than that of Wein and Conway before him.

O’Neil: There was a time right before I took over as Batman editor when he seemed to be much closer to a family man, much closer to a nice guy. He seemed to have a love life and he seemed to be very paternal towards Robin. My version is a lot nastier than that. He has a lot more edge to him. [1]

In keeping with the desire for a darker, edgier Dark Knight (it was the 1980s, after all), this version of Batman debuted without a Robin by his side. Dick Grayson was still Nightwing, but Jason Todd was nowhere to be seen. This darker interpretation of Batman was only solidified once Frank Miller put his touch on the franchise with "Batman: Year One" in Batman #404-407, and the standalone graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, the impact of which cannot be understated.

The Dark Knight Returns was a pivotal moment in the formation of what we would consider a recognizably “modern” incarnation of Batman, someone who is brooding and dark, a loner who isolates himself from society to obsessively carry out his one man crusade by any brutally violent means necessary. It was also an important milestone for comics a medium when it landed on top of the Young Adult Hardcover New York Times bestsellers list—a feat it only qualified for thanks to its release as a trade paperback in bookstores. For the first time, mainstream audiences were zeroing in on Batman, and not because of a popular TV show or serialized movies, but because of a comic book. 2

Immediately following "Year One," O'Neil asked writer Max Allan Collins to reintroduce Jason Todd as Robin into the continuity, in a storyline titled "Batman: The New Adventures" starting in Batman #408. The new Todd was a delinquent orphan, caught by Batman when he tried to steal the tires from the Batmobile and taken in and trained to be the new Robin.
At first, the change was controversial among the fandom, especially given the wildly contrasting takes between Mike W. Barr's softer portrayal of the Dynamic Duo in Detective Comics and the harsher portrayal from creators such as Collins, Jim Aparo, and Jim Starlin (best known now as the creator of Thanos) in Batman. But nobody was clamoring for his death yet, and the intensity of debates around the new Jason Todd, fought out through comic book letter columns, were milder in comparison to those around whether there should be a yellow oval on the Batsuit or not. [3]
Over the next few years, fan hatred for Jason began to grow, as the new incarnation of the character was not only a replacement for a highly beloved character, but also had a lot of anger issues to sort through. But then came the boiling point - Batman #424, written by Starlin and pencilled by Mark Bright, released October 1988. In that story, Todd confronts Felipe, son of a South American diplomat who was heavily involved in the cocaine trade. Batman reasons that, because Felipe has diplomatic immunity, there's nothing he can do to stop him, but Todd thinks otherwise. Felipe falls from a skyscraper to his death, leaving Batman to wonder: "did Felipe fall... Or was he pushed?"
(Starlin, for what it was worth, hated Todd from the get-go, and specifically wrote this story to play to the controversy:

Starlin: In the one Batman issue I wrote with Robin featured, I had him do something underhanded, as I recall. Denny had told me that the character was very unpopular with fans, so I decided to play on that dislike. [1]

He had also tried to have Todd killed beforehand, of AIDS:

Well, I always thought that the whole idea of a kid side-kick was sheer insanity. So when I started writing Batman, I immediately started lobbying to kill off Robin. At one point DC had this AIDS book they wanted to do. They sent around memos to everybody saying “What character do you think we should, you know, have him get AIDS and do this dramatic thing” and they never ended up doing this project. I kept sending them things saying “Oh, do Robin! Do Robin!” And Denny O’Neill said “We can’t kill Robin off”. [4]

A Death in the Family

By 1988, though, O'Neil had changed his tune. Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke had left longtime supporting character Batgirl crippled and confined to a wheelchair, to major praise from fans and critics alike, and there was blood in the water. Sales for Batman were at levels not seen for over a decade thanks to the works of Miller and Moore, Tim Burton's Batman feature film was on the horizon, far removed from the camp aesthetic of Adam West and Burt Ward and entirely Robin-free, and fan hatred for Todd was at an all-time high.

Jenette Kahn (publisher, DC Comics, 1976-1989; president, 1981-2003; editor-in-chief, 1989-2003) : Many of our readers were unhappy with Jason Todd. We weren’t certain why or how widespread the discontent was, but we wanted to address it. Rather than autocratically write Jason out of the comics and bring in a new Robin, we thought we’d let our readers weigh in. [1]

O'Neil and his team of editors brainstormed how they could remove Jason from the story, and the answer was clear: kill him, just as Starlin had suggested time and time again. Recalling the success of a 1982 Saturday Night Live sketch in which Eddie Murphy let viewers vote via phone on whether he would cook or spare a live lobester, O'Neil proposed a similar system to Kahn, who loved the idea.
So, A Death in the Family began in Batman #426, written by Starlin and illustrated by Jim Aparo. When Jason receives word that his missing mother is alive, he follows a set of leads across the world to find her, only to discover that she was being blackmailed by the Joker. Jason's mother hands him over to the Clown Prince of Crime, and that's how Batman #427 ends. On the back cover of that issue, DC ran a full-page ad, proclaiming: "Robin Will Die Because the Joker Wants Revenge, But You Can Prevent It With a Telephone Call" and giving two 1-900 numbers: one to call to save Jason, and one to kill him.
Two versions of issue #428 were written and drawn. One where Jason lived, and another, where he died. Both went into a drawer in O'Neil's desk, and the fans would choose which one would ever see the light of day.
The fans went rabid. One letter, published in Batman #428, read as follows:

"Dear Denny, I heard some of what you are planning for "A Death In the Family" story line, including the phone-in number wrinkle, and I don't want to take any chances whatsoever. Kill him. Your pal, Rich Kreiner."

From 9:00 in the morning on Thursday, September 15, 1988 until 8:00 in the evening on Friday, September 16, fans could call in to either of the two numbers for fifty cents a call and cast their vote. In the end, the votes were tallied: 5,271 voted for Todd to survive, and 5,343 voted for him to die. By a margin of 72 votes, Robin died in the pages of Batman #428, beaten to death with a crowbar by the Joker. The image of Batman cradling Robin's dead body became immediately iconic.

The Reaction

Fan reaction to the story was mixed, despite the seeming fervor for Todd's death and the blood that was on their hands. The letters pages for Batman #430 (1, 2) show a mixture of celebration over Jason's death, remorse over individuals' decisions to vote for death, and hope that Robin's absence would lead to more mature Batman stories in the future. However, every issue of A Death in the Family was a best-seller, and a collected edition was rushed out in early December of 1988, only a week after the final issue in the arc was released to stores.
But now that the fan feeding frenzy was (mostly) over, the media feeding frenzy had begun. You don't just kill Robin and get away with it without media attention. USA Today and Reuters ran articles on the story, and DC was besieged with interview requests from radio and TV stations.

O’Neil: I spent three days doing nothing but talking on the radio. I thought it would get us some ink here and there and maybe a couple of radio interviews. I had no idea—nor did anyone else—it would have the effect it did. Peggy [May], our publicity person, finally just said, “Stop, no more, we can’t do anymore,” or I would probably still be talking. She also nixed any television appearances. At the time, I wondered about that but now I am very glad she did, because there was a nasty backlash and I came to be very grateful that people could not associate my face with the guy who killed Robin. [1]

Internally at DC, there were suspicions that the vote had been rigged in some fashion.

O'Neil: "I heard it was one guy, who programmed his computer to dial the thumbs down number every ninety seconds for eight hours, who made the difference." [5]

But regardless of whether it was or not, Jason Todd was dead, and he would remain dead for as long as O'Neil stayed at DC - long enough for the phrase to be coined: "nobody in comics stays dead except for Uncle Ben, Bucky, and Jason Todd." But he wouldn't remain dead forever.

Legacy

Jason would be succeeded by a new Robin, less than a year after his death. In a crossover storyline between Batman and New Titans written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by George Perez and Jim Aparo, entitled "A Lonely Place of Dying", the character of Tim Drake would be introduced. Unlike Todd and Grayson before him, Drake would challenge the assumptions made about the character of Robin - he figured out Batman's secret identity on his own, and deduced that Batman needed a Robin by his side, to ensure he wouldn't take unneeded risks.
Gone were the short pants of yesteryear - Drake wore a full-body suit with an armored cape, and was more of a detective than a fighter. He debuted to mixed reactions, although fans soon grew to love him under the pen of Chuck Dixon, who would be one of the major architects of Batman in the 1990s.
Todd would get a second chance at life seventeen years later. In 2005, writer Judd Winick wrote the storyline "Under the Hood," published in Batman #635-641, 645-650, and Annual #25. There, it's revealed that Todd returned to life thanks to an alternate version of Superboy punching reality (it's comics, don't ask) and the aid of R'as al Ghul's Lazarus Pits, and donned the identity of the crime lord the Red Hood in his quest for revenge against the Joker.
Todd, as the Red Hood, persists as a popular character today, a lasting symbol of Batman's failure, as he operates as a pragmatic vigilante, willing to take risks Batman isn't.
More recently, in July 2020, DC announced a Death in the Family animated interactive feature film in the vein of Black Mirror's "Bandersnatch" - again, viewers can choose whether Todd lives or dies, among other options.
Edit: fixed a typo.

Preface: I love Lululemon. I don't love their prices, so most of my pieces are bought from the sale rack. I'm lucky, and I have a discount that I apply on top. I've bought a few of these pieces, so the ones I have, I will attach a mini review! I'm also pretty "eh" on most of their bras. I am, however, willing to pay a third of the price for a bra that would be fun to wear under a loose tank top or t-shirt. Onwards!
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Bras
Lululemon Free to be Wild Bra
Free To Be Wild Bra Dupe (AE)
Another One!
Yet Another One!
Review: I have these in my cart now! Waiting for the AE sale to start in a few days
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Lululemon Free To Be Serene Bra
Free To Be Serene Bra Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Flow Y Bra
Flow Y Bra Dupe (AE)
Flow Y Bra Dupe Diamond Dye (AE)
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Lululemon Energy Bra
Energy Bra Dupe (AE)
Energy Bra Dupe (AE)
** This is the Energy Bra *Peek version
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Lululemon Free To Be Moved Bra
Free To Be Moved Bra Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Free To Be Bra *Long Line
Free To Be *Long Line Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Free To Be Serene Long Line
Free To Be Serene Long Line Dupe (AE)
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Shorts
Lululemon Align Short 10"
Align Short 10" Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Align Short 4"
Align Short 4" Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Align Short 6"
Align Short 6" Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon On The Fly Short
On The Fly Short Dupe (AE)
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Shirts & Tanks
Lululemon Quick Pace Short Sleeve
Quick Pace Short Sleeve Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Free To Be *Wild Tank 2-in-1
Free To Be *Wild Tank 2-in-1
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Lululemon Swiftly Tech Long Sleeve
Swiftly Long Sleeve Dupe (DHGate)
**Planning to get some of these in a future haul, I love these for summer! Great for hiking, and for staying out of the sun
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Lululemon Swiftly Tech Short Sleeve
Swiftly Short Sleeve Crew Dupe (DHGate)
Swiftly Short Sleeve Crew Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Ready To Roll Crew
Ready To Roll Crew Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Swiftly Tech Racerback
Swiftly Racerback Tank Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Define Jacket
Define Jacket Dupe (DHGate)
**Planning to add one of these to a future haul. For a more comfortable fit, SIZE UP. Define jackets fit skin tight! I size up to a 12 from my usual 10 in Lululemon shirts.
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Lululemon Brunswick Muscle Tank
Brunswick Tank Dupe (AE)
Brunswick Tank Cropped Version (AE)
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Lululemon All Tied Up Tank
All Tied Up Tank Dupe (AE)
Another All Tied Up Tank Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Power Y Tank
Power Y Tank Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Meet Halfway Tank *Striped
Meet Halfway Tank *Striped Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Free To Be Serene 2-in-1 Tank
Free To Be Serene 2-in-1 Tank Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Muscle Love Crop Tank
Lululemon Muscle Love Tank Crop Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Align Tank
Align Tank Dupe (AE)
Align Tank Dupe (DHGate)
Another Align Tank Dupe! (AE)
Side Note: This store on AE is NOT SHY about including the product name in the description. Highly recommend following the store!
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Lululemon Love Crew
Love Crew Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Pushing Limits Long Sleeve
Pushing Limits Long Sleeve Dupe (AE)
Another Pushing Limits Long Sleeve Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Cool Racerback
Cool Racerback Dupe (AE)
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Leggings & Pants
Lululemon Speed Up Tight 28"
Speed Up Tight 28" Dupe
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Align Crop 21" Dupe (DHGate)
Another Align Crop 21" Dupe (DHGate)
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Lulemon Gather and Crow Crop
Gather And Crow Crop Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Dance Studio Jogger
Dance Studio Jogger Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Fast And Free Tight
Lululemon Fast And Free *Reflective Dupe (DHGate)
Review: DEFINITELY size up!! I bought these in my regular size (8), and they were like a 4/6. I have them on a new order, and I ordered a 12 this time. These leggings run SMALL due to the compression.
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Lululemon X Barry's Stronger As One Tight
Stronger As One Tight Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Align Jogger
Align Jogger Dupe (AE)
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Lululemon Wunder Under
Wunder Under Crop & Full Length Dupe (AE)
Wunder Under Dupe (DHGate)
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Lululemon Fast and Free Tight
Fast & Free Dupe (no logo) (AE)
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Lululemon Wunder Under Crop *LE *Scallop
Wunder Under Crop *LE *Scallop
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Lululemon Align Legging
Align Legging 28" Dupe (DHGate)
Review: I got these in the Camo, and I recommend sizing up. Lululemon Camo runs small, and I got these in a 10. They are the same size as my usual 8. I have another pair on order in my regular size. The fabric is also more similar to nulux then nulu. Might buy a few more as gifts!
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Bags
Lululemon City Adventurer Backpack
City Adventurer Backpack Dupe (DHGate)
Another City Adventurer Backpack Dupe (DHGate)
Yet Another City Adventurer Backpack Dupe (DHGate)
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Finis!
Edit: This took me about 2 hours, and my eyes are so sore. I tried to match things as closely as possible. Hopefully this helps some other people, and just as a reminder, both AliExpress and DHGate are starting a "sale week" soon!! So fill your carts now, and checkout when the sale is on! RIP to everybody's wallets, and let us all rock some Lulu drip without the Lulu price tag!