#basically all of these were proven to be fake too

[dogwittaablog]

Those fanfic puck bunny "confessions" about Nolan being like a pussy god make me laugh so hard. Have you seen this man?

Listen if Nolie Polie Olie saw all those fake DR’s gassing him up, he’d be way tooo satisfied with himself.

Everyone and there mom “10/10 dick, 10/10 stroke game. Knows where the clit is” Some of them are still up on here too 😭

[maddyshome]

gojo is the moon but geto is not the sun. geto is the star. it is yuuji who is the sun.

sukuna is also the moon and yuuji is still the sun here too.

why? because yuuji's belief is a direct contrast to gojo and sukuna's. the sun and the moon need to be two opposing beings. like ying and yang.

to satosugu fans, stop living in a delusion. your otp is not the sun-moon pair. its more like the moon-star pair. so just go with that.

[starkwlkr]

teenagers | hugh jackman

an: i love y’all thanks for supporting my delusions about a 55 year old man (are y’all tired of me posting hugh/logan fics yet?? lol)

Your seventeen year old daughter, Olivia, leaned her phone against the paper tower holder. You and Hugh were getting breakfast ready while Olivia did god knows what. You would see her film tiktoks and take selfies for her instagram often so you assumed she was doing that. You were proven right when music started playing from her phone.

“I think the apple’s rotten right to the core. . . “

You watched as Olivia danced to the song. You weren’t even sure what the dance was, but you found it fun. Hugh just stood there completely confused.

Olivia finished the dance the turned her phone to record yours and Hugh’s reaction. She obviously posted it to tiktok where marvel fans found it funny that you and Hugh didn’t know what was going on.

oliviaaajckmn: 1 million dollars and I’ll make mum and dad do the apple dance in their costumes

wandasmagic wolverine is so brat coded

peter3stan PLS MAKE THEM DO THE DANCE

gwenpool “thank you olivia jackman” we all say in unison

buckysarm MAKE THEM DO THE DANCE AND MY LIFE IS YOURS

Hugh was a family man, it was no secret. Something he always loved doing was bringing his kids to work. Your two boys practically grew up on the x-men and avengers set. When Olivia was on set, Hugh was basically her assistant.

“Dad, I want a smoothie!”

“Dad! You’re not holding the umbrella right!”

But that was baby Olivia. Teenage Olivia spent most of her time in Hugh’s trailer or annoying her father while he rested in his trailer.

“Liv, go annoy Ryan or Shawn. Let me take a quick nap.” Hugh mumbled. He was still in his wolverine costume using a jacket as a blanket.

“I just want to know why Thor was crying? And don’t say who’s Thor! I saw the footage old man!”

“Oh my god! Is that Loki?”

No, the god of mischief wasn’t on set of the new avengers movie. Olivia had named her puppy after her favorite marvel character. The internet found it funny that wolverine or your character wasn’t the favorite.

Olivia was currently paying you a visit on the new avengers movie. To her, it did feel weird seeing you behind the camera instead of in front, but at least you were still part of the new marvel phase.

Pedro Pascal, the new Mr. Fantastic, asked for permission to pet the miniature dachshund. Olivia nodded and smiled when Loki the dog immediately took a liking to the older man.

“This is so beautiful I think I might cry.” Olivia fake sobbed as Loki started exploring the avengers set, he almost tripped over several wires, but Olivia saved the pup from getting tangled. It reminded her of all the times she almost tripped on the camera wires when she was younger.

“Hey, mother,” Olivia greeted you with a kiss on the cheek. She wasn’t the only one giving you a kiss, Loki had jumped into yours arms ready to give you kisses. “Loki missed you too.”

“Only Loki?” You teased. “Or are you just here to get a picture with Pedro?”

“You know me so well, mom.”

[pha55ed]

Is It Casual Now? || F2 (good ending)

type :: hurt/comfort tw/cw :: none contains :: ollie, kimi, paul, arthur, summary :: after getting heart broken by the boys, you're shattered. but the space between you two make him realize how dumb he was being - PART 1 HERE

f1 masterlist || f2 masterlist || more here!

Ollie Bearman | 03

After watching you run into your house with tears streaming down your face - Ollie instantly felt a pang in his heart. But he wasn't sure what it was. He thought it was just empathy, he always hated seeing you upset, so knowing he caused the pain was harsh on his heart. But, he thought it was for the better.

He didn't want to risk ruining your friendship. You were basically part of his family and entire life. Dating you would mean risking a nasty break up which would permanently change everything. His family loves you, if you broke up they would most likely side with you instead of Ollie. You got along with all of his friends, dating would change the entire group's dynamic. And even worse, if you did ever break up on bad terms: Ollie knew he would be shattered.

But his entire thought process was proven to be stupid. Saying no to your confession made all of those fears come true. You needed space from Ollie, to heal from the embarrassment and hurt you felt. While Ollie was dealing with every fear he tried to prevent by rejecting you.

So he did what he knew he needed to do: chase you down and get you to come back into his life. He learned that he needed you more than anyone else, even his own family. Once he finally put together all the dots, he came to your house a week later and knocked on your door.

But you weren't done healing yet, still puffy-eyed and snotty from crying your heart out. Like a true heart broken girl, you ordered some take-out to eat whilst sobbing. You didn't bother to check the cameras outside, assuming it was just the delivery man.

So imagine your shock when you're met with a driver, but not a delivery driver. Instead it was Ollie, looming over you with his height as he was holding a large box filled with gifts of your favorite things. But you couldn't ever get a peak at the box, since you instantly tried to slam the door shut - not wanting to see Ollie whilst looking like a mess.

But you weren't able to shut the door since his large hand pushed against your force. So now you were stuck there, looking up at him in week old pajamas and messy hair while he looked even more handsome than usual. You peaked at the gift bundle he made you - filled with your favorite snacks, flower legos, face masks, and almost every makeup and skincare product that you've ever talked about wanting.

"Please?" Ollie said, his voice soft. "I know I'm a jerk for rejecting you, and I don't expect you to forgive me or accept my confession but - I just want to give you something..." He said, looking at you with no pity in his eyes but instead a look of yearning.

"I don't need the gift," you say, not wanting to give in so easily. You wanted to say something cool, to reject his confession. But in your current state, it was going to impossible to fake confidence and reject him while looking homeless. "But um... thank you?" You said, unsure of how to reply to him.

"No no, please take the gift" Ollie said, pushing the door further as he handed you the gift bundle. And by pushing the door further open, you wanted to go curl up in a ball and hide - you looked horrendous.

And as Ollie looked at you, you could see his face soften even more. "When's the last time you showered? Or cleaned your face? Or gone outfside???"

All of his questions were way too embarrassing to answer. And as if the universe was doing it's best to give you a 13th reason, the delivery man came up to the door. The delivery man stood directly by Ollie and for some fucking reason he began to read out your order.

"Two cheese burgers with extra cheese, large fries, large sundae, side of chicken nuggets, and a soda?" The delivery man said, before putting the food into Ollie's arms and went off on his marry way. The man probably assumed you were sharing the meal... Ouch.

And as Ollie held the food, looking at you in such poor shape, he gave a small smile. "Can I have some?? And maybe help you tidy up?" And who were you to deny him any longer.

Kimi Antonelli | 04

It's been almost a month since you talked to Kimi. The interaction left you cringing in your head for hours on end, no matter the time or place. Although you loved learning Italian, it was impossible for you to do lately since you couldn't even speak it without feeling your throat close up from the thought of Kimi.

But luckily, you were able to heal with the time. You weren't over him, not quite yet, but you were able to focus on yourself for the time being. So you wanted to treat yourself out, going on a small shopping spree. Getting new clothes, makeup, even cute blind-boxes that you knew was a waste of money.

So when you came home, only to be met with a huge bouquet on your doorsteps, you were shocked. You put all your shopping bags down and picked up the large rose bouquet. And instantly, your eyes widened as you read the small card that was attached to it.

"Please unblock me. I miss you and want to make things right. But I understand if you don't feel comfortable. - lots of love, Kimi"

You completely forgot that you blocked Kimi on instinct! You felt like an idiot. All those nights you spent crying, hoping he would text you back and take it all back weren't able to happen because you blocked him. Without hesitation, you unblocked his number - getting hit with over 500 messages. If someone didn't know what was happening, they would have assumed you had some crazy ex boyfriend.

As you scrolled through the messages, you were met with paragraph after paragraph with apologies, begging to meet up, and more apologies. It made you feel awful to know that you were grieving over Kimi for no reason when he literally was sending the most heartfelt messages ever.

But you were hesitant. How could Kimi be so cruel and laugh in your face at the idea of dating only to spam you and beg for you. It was such a fast 180 that you were hesitant. So you agreed to meet up at your old favorite Italian restaurant in a few days.

As you sat down in front of Kimi, who seemed to arrive an hour early since the drinks and appetizers were already prepared. You felt your heart sting just at the sight at him. It made you feel the urge to cry yet again, even though you worked hard to become more confident without him - he just softened your heart.

And it seemed like he felt the same, he was absolutely star struck at the sight of you. His jaw was left hanging slightly, his eyes were sparkling with either tears or admiration, and his chest didn't move - you literally caught his breathe.

His breathe so stuck in his throat that he couldn't even speak, so you had to break the silence. "Um, hi?" You said awkwardly.

"Hi." He said, finally taking a breathe. "Um,,," He hesitates to dive too fast into the topic. "I got your favorite appetizers,, you should eat it before it's cold."

You simply nod, taking note of his care. He watches as you eat and you feel so awkward. "So uh, what did you want to talk about?"

"Well, I wanted to apologize - not really talk." He started, "I realized that what I did was so so SO stupid. Ever since you've been gone, everything has been so different. I can't eat anywhere we liked, can't go parties without them asking where you are - I can't even see my family without them asking where you are!" His voice got louder slightly at his annoyance at himself.

You just sat there listening, giving him time to say everything he needed. He continued, "And I kept trying to convince myself that I didn't need you and that we weren't serious, but who am I kidding, of course we were dating. I just never asked you to be mine and I feel so stupid for that! And then once you left it made me realize how much I missed you, now much I needed you."

As he spoke, rambling at an extremely fast pace, you realized he's been holding this in for a while. The way that his face and voice were still so angry at himself made it clear that he's not forgiven himself. But you were still wondering if he was trying to get forgiveness or actually date you.

"And then I got kind of depressed... I wasn't going out anymore, not working out, not socializing. And I guess my final breaking point was when my sister," He pauses, thinking back to what happened, "My sister asked where you were, and when you would play with her again, and I just - I just broke then and there" His fast rambling came to a halt as he looked down in shame for being so weak in front of his sister. "And um, as dumb as it sounds, she was the main person to encourage me to get you back."

You were always close with his little sister, playing dolls and dress up with her. She always wished she had a sister, especially since Kimi was only into masculine hobbies. You were that older sister that she's always dreamed of, so it broke her heart to not see you for so long. Now you felt even worse, knowing that she probably just thought you left her for no reason - not even saying good bye to her.

"I'm not trying to use her to guilt you. I'm just being honest. But I realized everything I did wrong. I'm sorry for saying I would never date you, I can't name a single person better than you. I'm sorry for leading you on for ages and never putting a title on us, I was just, scared, I guess. I wasn't confident in myself and just assumed you were too good for him - that my flirting was all one sided." He says, making you realize you didn't ever flirt with him back - it was mainly him.

And that when it clicked in your head, he was slightly right. You never once called him amore back, never reached for his touch in public, never once started anything romantic. He most likely saw this was him pining after you while you were just going with the flow. So now you felt like an even bigger asshole.

"Kimi," You spoke for once, "I'm so sorry that you went through all of that, I felt the same way. I do like you, that's why I asked in the first place."

"I realized that now. And I feel so stupid for what I did." He said, "Please let me make it up to you."

Paul Aron | 17

Going to the paddock has never been more nerve racking. Not because you were preparing for your home race, but because you would see Paul. You've been able to ignore him and leave him alone thanks to your extreme luck. But now you were forced to be with him for interviews, photos, and race discussions.

Once you arrived, your plan was to just say that you were having a tummy ache or head ache. Some type of pain that was bad enough to excuse you from doing your duties but not bad enough for them to tell you couldn't race. But before you could even speak to anyone - he was right there, in front of you.

You knew you should have come an hour or more early just to avoid him, but you overslept on accident. So now you were stuck standing their awkwardly as you looked up at him. You gave a small head nod, a sign of acknowledgement but also a sign of not wanting to speak to him.

But you knew Paul was stubborn, always the type to fight until he got what he wanted. So he just stood there and shook his head. "Nope," He said, "You can't ignore me forever. It's been 4 WEEKS (Y/N)."

You were avoiding his gaze, not wanting to look at him after how embarrassing it was to get rejected. You knew it was immature but you genuinely weren't sure how to respond to him, giving him a weak shrug as you kept your head turned away from him.

"(Y/N), please." He said, his hand reached forward and he held your chin gently, pulling your face to look at him. And that's when you saw how sincere he looked, as if he was in pain. His voice didn't convey his emotions, but his eyes surely did.

"What?" You say, not wanting to assume too quickly that he actually missed you as a person, "You want to fuck or something?" Trying to seem tough, as if his words from the weeks before didn't shatter you.

"No." He instantly said, his lack of hesitation made you surprised slightly. "I want to talk, tell you everything."

"About what?" You say, still trying your best to hide the fact that your heart was racing. You desperately wanted it to be good news, but that last time you hoped for good news it ended with you both splitting paths.

"You." He stared at you, "You, for fuck sakes, you. It's all I've thought about since, forever. I'm so so sorry, I'm sorry for being such an idiot when it comes to you. I know that we promised to not catch feelings and just be friends with benefits, but if I'm being honest I fell for you a LONG time ago."

His confession was shocking to you. If he fell for you first then why would he reject you? Why didn't he confess to you first? It was nice to hear him say he liked you back, but you were still lost.

"But I didn't think it was possible because - and I know it's so cheesy and embarrassing but - I know I'm not the best guy out there. So I thought that maybe just staying friends with benefits until I became someone I'm proud of would be smart. So I could be the perfect guy that you deserved and so when you confessed I just didn't feel ready and wanted to seem cool but I ended up sounding like a dick head-"

You cut him off by giving him a tight hug. Although you wanted to kiss him to shut up, his fast rambling made it impossible to get a good spot to kiss him. Your hug around him was tight, as tight as you could possibly give him. Telling him that you didn't care, that you wanted him as he was right now. And that even if he wasn't proud of himself yet, you were.

And he understood perfectly, giving you a tight squeeze back. He couldn't help but smile and kiss the top of your head. His large hands then slipped out of the hug and held both sides of your waist.

"I promise, once we're both not busy, I'll take you out on a nice date - one that's honest." He said, looking at you with a new light in his eyes.

Arthur Leclerc | 65

I'm gonna be so fr I don't know how to redeem Arthur... I've been stuck for weeks...... So if you have ideas, send it! But for now uh, you guys are still broken up LOLLL

[accio-victuuri]

(130) FAKE RUMORS FOR YOU. 💭💌

i have definitely made several posts related to fake rumors both from cql era & rumor houses so this is definitely one of my favorite things to share. these are all from cql filming timeline where the practice of fake rumors really started. this does not include the 49 initial fakes. as usual, these are not real. 🤐

i found the screenshot compilation over here. so there you go. enjoy! 🍰🍪🍭

1. the two of them are very close on the set and when female supporting role has not been deleted yet. During one scene, wyb once asked the director with a black face ( angry ) in front of xz “I can’t tell what the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji is. I can’t immerse myself in the role”

( I think it’s common knowledge that in the beginning, the production had some hetero agenda to appease censorship. As we all know, the book fans weren’t happy with that because it takes away the key essence of the story. I’m so happy we got the depiction of WWX/LWJ relationship that we did. I’m happy that XZ and WYB both voiced their bias to follow the source material. Remember XZ also said ( in an unofficial bts so let’s take it as fake too ) to cut the scenes with a female lead that seems romantic. so whoever is saying that these two were somehow tricked into starring in a bl drama needs some serious common sense lol )

2. xz watched wyb’s video of “yelling lyrics” and laughed at him for a long time

3. they looked up each others’ dark history, wyb searched xz’s old pictures, and xz searched are wyb’s videos.

( i think this is proven in an interview, they did look up each other’s previous works. HAHAHAHAHA! it’s so cuteeee cause this is like when you have a crush on someone and you stalk their socials to know more about them. but ofc theirs was all professional courtesy. or was it? )

4. next, xz said when he pulled out his blonde video he said that wyb was so cute. wyb even flipped up his hair to show him, but when another actor said it, wyb just smiled but didn't respond.

( lol omg dandan yibo! )

5. when playing Honor of Kings, wyb likes to play as topsolo and jungle, xz usually plays as midsolo, xz once complained that wyb has no team awareness and being unable to score points with him.

( there is a whole cpn about this that’s super interesting over here. )

6. likes to praise each other exaggeratedly in front of the camera and in private. even if they have NG scenes.

7. many scenes were deleted from the drama, such as the branding on the chest. There was also a scene where Lan Wangji went off the cliff to find Wei Wuxian. The scenes were not aired. I guess it’s too ambiguous.

8. wyb sometimes leaves the crew to do other work xz will often chat with him on WeChat. Once the director asked him who he was video chatting with. Then he just said “it’s Lao Wang”. The director was shocked at that time.

( we have cpn about this too, them sending each other photos and videos. chatting and video calling when they are not filming together. )

9. wyb introduced xz to motorcycles and raced with him at the scene. I feel like xz is not interested in the video but has been listening patiently.

10. The two of them often eat together after work, wyb loves to eat sour food. One time, xz staff bought two portions of “liang pi” xz thought it was a bit sour and ate a little. Wyb finished his portion and still ate xz’s leftovers.

( this is basically true as well. i mean we have video/s of them eating off of each other’s plate )

11. wyb taught xz dancing and korean on the set.

12. both of them are very childish and like to use all kinds of strange words.

13. wyb once used a forehead ribbon in the dressing room to tie xz’s hands up, xz looked at him indifferently and helplessly.

14. when filming the scene in the cave, both of them got wet. The makeup laoshi asked them to hurry up and put on their costumes outside. The two of them were still in the water. When playing inside, wyb immediately took off xz’s outermost coat.

15. two people have discussed the issue of body hair xz asked wyb: Why do you have so little leg hair? Wyb said he was born with it. xz looked at him with an interesting expression.

16. the deleted branding scene was after Lan Wangji recovered from his injury. Looking for Wei Wuxian's body on the cliff, but we only saw the battle in the Nightless City. He was so angry and sad that he burned the torture instrument with lava and burned the same wound in the same place on his chest.

17. another one that was deleted was the conversation with Wei Wuxian on a snowy night. After Lan Huan finished talking about Lan Wangji, Lan Wangji came back, and Wei Wuxian called Lan Wangji with emotion and choked up, "Why didn’t you tell me? Lan Wangji lowered his head and said nothing. I heard that the producers thought the deleted parts were too ambiguous. The explanation is unclear, and there are many small scenes that have been deleted.

18. wyb once complained that xz’s playlist is very old because wyb can’t tell what kind of children’s song xz sings about 😂😂😂

19. wyb often plays Wei Wuxian’s flute on set but xz doesn’t play much with Lan Wangji’s sword. Wyb once said that he (xz) was the best blowing the flute the group. xz beat him because of that. Lol.

20. the reason for Lan Wangji’s shape is that there are two strands of hair in front. so when waiting for the scene, he would pick up the hair at the back xz and help him. He said it many times, and also said that Wang Yibo can get married if he has long hair that reaches his waist.

21. xz said that wyb has a shape that looks like bamboo shoots and then at noon that day, he asked the assistant to order the fried pork with bamboo shoots from the small kitchen. then ate together with wyb.

22. there is a scene where Lan Wangji needs to carry Wei Wuxian on his back. He tried and was officially filmed after one take. After the filming, the director asked them why they were joking. XZ said he didn’t know how to put his feet after lying down. Lan Wangji didn’t catch it either, both of them laughed.

23. wyb doesn’t eat snacks very much on set, but he does eat director Nie and about xz’s snacks. he said that xz does not eat snacks properly. The most common meal he eats is the fruit salad that xz brought to the set.

24. wyb’s sword tool was thrown around once and fell down. When we got to our feet, xz happened to see it next to him and laughed for a long time.

25. there were several group scenes shot in the suburbs of Hengdian. both guys have lots of mosquito bites. xz told wyb I will teach you how to get better quickly, so he used his fingers to make a cross on wyb’s mosquito bite. wyb’s face was like “you must be lying to me” but he still made a cross on every bite

26. the first time they filmed outdoors, when they talked about what insects there were in the fields, wyb told xz that he was scared of insects, especially those with many tentacles, then he carefully counted every thing that he was scared of.

27. xz likes to scare him with insects, during wyb’s birthday he also scared him with insects

28. once, other actors used a horror video to scare wyb, wyb didn’t know about it and immediately jumped to the side after watching it. xz stood at the side and said “he is really scared, don’t mess with him”

29. the two of them have different make up artists to help them touch up their makeup. One time, the make up artist who helped xz was absent, so wyb’s make up artist did both of their make up. wyb was standing at the side and he said “Bi Jie, if you use the brush that you used on his face on me, my face will become really pale” then xz hit him.

30. the two will play games together in xz’s car, xz gave one side of his bluetooth earphone.

31 . the staff watched the two of them arguing and at first I thought it was really a bad relationship, but after, they saw that the two will together. so he got used to it.

32. xz watched the pd 101 girl group dance in front of wyb, it seems that it is also a dance compilation. after watching it, xz has been obsessed with it and calls wyb asian dance king.

33. in the first month of filming, the two of them competed for a few days. Speaking in Beijing dialect, I can hear it from far away: “Have you eaten?”

34. continuing from the previous one, when filming started, the director requested that the right person be called Fang Zai’s name in the drama. The two of them like to call each other all the titles in the drama that was later developed. Brother Cheng! Elder! Senior! and so on.

35. xz has many types of eye drops, wyb uses them too and will ask xz to help

36. the two of us competed when they were bored waiting for the scene. waist strength and flexibility, xz bent over and touched his toes but can't stand still, so he fell forward. wyb’s hands were quick to help him up. he wanted to laugh because xz is an old artist who cannot break his muscles and bones

37. continuing from the above entry, wyb’s hand is big and he can wrap both of xz’s with one hand. wyb is proud of it. he also said his hands are whiter than xz’s.

38. when wyb sits on the chair, his legs are spread wide. Once while, he was sitting there looking at his phone, and then across from him xz kept looking at him and laughing without saying a word. wyb was pissed off by him. xz told him that wyb was wearing shorts today and his legs were too wide and was - little exposed.

39. when filming nightless city, there was a scene where Lan Wei stood high on stage xz secretly pinched wyb's waist to make him stand up straighter.

40. two people like to play games together and they always looked at their mobile phone. some directors have said that when Wei Wuxian is there, you will be sure that 3 away from him, there will be Lan Wangji coming out 😂😂😂

41. the two actually got to know each other very well quickly. the director also praised that it melted ( break the ice, so the ice was melted in this case ) very quickly, but the staff didn’t think about it. when it comes to wyb, he is actually very childish and lively, but also very matured.

42. Watching this pair for more than 3 seconds will definitely make you laugh, and xz laughs the hardest.

43. they often sing together while waiting for the filming. wyb can also teach xz the choreography he wants to dance on the show. xz complimente wyb’s legs for being so flexible.

44. xz is a very gentle person who is sincere and has no attitude. one time, the film assistant talked to him about his stance, but he may have said it wrong, which resulted in two wrong shots. he (xz) only told the director that it was his fault and then helped him after filming. the staff apologized to him and he said it didn't matter. The set was too busy and he should have checked again, it was super warm.

45. Occasionally, the crew will open interviews together and there are fans who will sneak in. Once in the wild, someone shouted xz, mommy loves you. sister loves you. If wyb hears it, zg brother loves you.

46. the scene was filmed three or four times where lwj caught the chicken because it so crowded at first. the cages are full of chickens. Wyb didn’t catch them the first time he started. there were only two chickens left inside as props, and they were caught by xz a few times later. the chicken was obviously frightened but the director cut it. the scene was chaotic.

47. in lwj’s drunk scene, wyb refused to drink. He also said that the drunken blush that the makeup artist painted on him was "not cool at all." xz said that after that he turned into a red peony and then was beaten by wyb. 😂😂😂

48. two people often bicker and go back and forth most of the time. it ends with the meaningless repetition of very young students talking to each other.

49. when filming the scene with snow, the two of them discussed it. they made an appointment to go to the ice sculpture and ski resort in Erbin during their vacation before the Spring Festival.

( I think is the place they planned to go ⛷️ )

50. the two often work with directors and producers on scenes and when telling directions, when the director said some very straightforward words, the two of them just look at each other and smiled.

51. the two people shot a scene outdoors, the wind was very strong, xz’s hair keeps blowing in the wind. he was talking excitedly, wyb naturally removed all the bits of hair stuck to the corners of his mouth.

52. In fact, they still like to move their feet most when they are fighting. There is one time xz pretended to kick wyb, but accidentally kicked wyb's thigh on the back, because there is mud on the upper part and there are some marks left, xz immediately said I was sorry to wang laoshi and cleaned him— but he was still beaten by wyb. yibo chased him with a sword for 5 minutes.

53. they discovered various strange ways to reduce swelling. once they discussed on the set how to reduce swelling faster, wyb asked xz “zhang ge have you tried taking a hot shower in the morning?” xz seems embarrassed to say so. wyb nodded wildly with a very understanding expression.

54. Continuing from the previous entry, the two of them were doing some exercise on the set— like raising your legs or something. The funniest thing is to lose face for swelling, there is an action to pull the ear on the same side upward with one hand. With the other hand, press the side of the face that stretches the ear, and push it toward the ear. Pushing in one direction, the two people were pulling each other in the corner, screaming in pain. It's all because the other party used too much force.

55. they are very concerned about each other’s appearance in the camera. shoot After Jin Dan's cut, the two of them watched the replay on the monitor together. but xz said that Yi Bo’s face was not in the best condition and it would be better to take a rest. Wyb is applying make-up next to him and listening.

56. when preparing for wyb’s birthday, xz was the first to say yes. xz wanted to give him a racing suit, wyb explains to him that the racing suit is specially customized by the team, so it wasn’t sent as a gift. xz looked a bit disappointed.

57. continuing from the previous entry, the helmet given as a gift was not there was delivered to the crew. After cutting the cake, I gave the first piece to xz, and said “zhan ge the helmet you gave me is placed in the C position at home. It is a lucky helmet and should be kept well.” xz smiled happily.

( c position means in the center, whatever or whoever is in the c position is the most important )

58. even when we they shooting for several days at night, there were two of us. when they stay quiet and don’t fight, they quietly get together and play with their hands. they take the opportunity to show the other person something interesting from time to time.

59. wyb once felt very uncomfortable while putting on makeup and couldn't hold it anymore, so the producer rushed me to the hospital. xz was filming a solo show. He heard that and made a phone call to ask wyb about the situation.

60. wyb will recommend clothing brands to xz and gave him a vx purchasing business card.

61. there is a period of time when two people will check each other out before putting on makeup. they will check hairline and then laugh at the other person and say who will be bald before you are.

62. wyb likes to eat pasta, garlic, coriander and the like.

63. one time xz fell asleep on the chair, lying on his back and mouth is a little open, then wyb surrounded him from all angles and took at least a dozen photos. but xz later found out and took them away, he deleted them all.

64. xz had some very hard scenes, crawling on the grass and had to use a blower for more than an hour, and his hands were covered with tiny wounds. His eyes were also inflamed. When the director asked him, he said it was okay. As soon as he saw wyb the first sentence he said is "I'm so miserable, lan er gege"

65. wyb seems to like the title Yiling Patriarch very much. he thought he didn’t have a domineering nickname, so he gave myself the nickname Gusu Wu Enemy. he told xz to say it, xz rolled his eyes and never said it.

66. the behind-the-scenes team gave each of them a GoPro to film some scenes, such as meeting for dinner together or playing games or something.

( lol where are the footage from the go pro?!!! )

67. After receiving the article, wyb took a photo and handed it over. It was him. they eating chicken together in the room and listened to the editorial team for seventeen minutes. In the video, wyb said xz more than 20 times.

68. xz told wyb that if he wants to raise a dog, it is best if he it’s obedient. It must be a large dog, if you really have a dog, name it Lizi. wyb said with a disgusted face that the name was not domineering enough, xz immediately retorted, he said it was called Red Haier, and then started fighting with his teeth bared.

69. wyb is actually very cold-faced and warm-hearted. He once helped to beat the board. He noticed that the field attendant was shaking a bit and was about to fall over after being there for too long. he immediately called cut and told the director to let the staff member rest. later wyb assistant also gave him water.

70. xz touched wyb’s Adam’s apple and compared it with his own, and was shocked and surprised, then gave wyb a thumbs up.

71. in the scene where the donkey was being led, xz was sitting before filming officially started. he was singing the theme song of Journey to the West on the back of a donkey, wyb also sang the vocals with him

"You carry the burden"

"deidei"

"I'm holding the horse"

72. xz likes to eat Japanese food, there are two Japanese food restaurants in Hengdian and many people have been there. If you don’t have time to go, the most popular place to order takeout is He Feng Na.

73. continuing from the previous entry, one time wyb rushed to announce that there was someone returning to the group and brought a bag full of bread to xz. I heard it was almond croissant.

74. the motorcycle helmet xz sent to wyb still has a stamp on the top of the head. there is a hand-painted lion drawn by xz himself, based on Simba’s drawing. xz showed the manuscript to wyb on the set, and wyb was very satisfied.

75. there are many scenes that are not good-looking during the shooting. the producer told wyb privately on the set not to watch this. they said they are all confident that the effect of the finished film will be very good. wyb said he didn’t mind, but was a bit in a low mood that day. when xz found out, he kept hanging around him and making fun of him to make him happy.

76. Lan Wangji’s hair once when shooting in the farmhouse, his crown ( headpiece ) is really a bit high, higher than a haystack, and he had to wear it several times. xz complains that wyb is not tall enough to wear a headdress.

77. Once when we were filming a group scene in the inner hall of the Chang family, xz and other actors performing the lyrics, wyb was always there to pick him up.

"interesting

"not interesting"

"In terms of thick skin, I am second"

"You are number one"

"wyb shut up!"

78. It’s the same scene, there’s always something fishy about wyb. there was nothing fishy about it, and it made two people laugh again, so much so that the director asked them to pinch each other's faces and pinched each other's arms and legs.

79. Following the previous one, xz’s mantra will change in the next two days OK—there must be something fishy about this blower. I’m eating eggplant in my lunch box today. There must be something fishy, there must be something fishy about Lan Wangji, and then he starts to act again.

80. In one scene, he was injured and was recuperating in an unknown place in Yunshen. , xz did a good job of subduing it and said wyb’s first sentence was “Wow xiao laoshi is very hot today."

81. The director is from Hong Kong and is fluent in Mandarin but standard. Once he said something quickly through the microphone : "The chicken is going to lose its wire, so be careful when having sex." xz and wyb went crazy after hearing this and burst into laughter, and then made the director laugh too and explained what he said, It was actually "As long as you are wearing a wire, you must be careful in everything."

82. sometimes when the two people are photographed looking at each other, because they are one beat by beat, the emotions must be connected, xz told wyb that if you're afraid of laughing, don't stare into my eyes, look at the place between my eyebrows. When the filming started, wyb stared at it and deliberately made cross-eyes.xz burst out laughing and had to apologize to the director immediately.

83. one time they probably watched a horror movie together. The next day when they arrived at the set, they danced and imitated the other actors. Wyb looked scared, but Wyb just sat on the side and smiled helplessly.

84. wyb often says wow, yeah yes yep and the like catchphrases, later xz also started to say yeah yes.

85. wyb liked to twirl xz’s flute, but accidentally lost it. he will the make amends to XZ like the ancients did.

86. there was a scene with three people, and wzc was also there. the whole time the two were talking about random little topics and even pointed swords at each other. Wzc tried several times to join in but couldn't get it in, so he just stood there bored.

87. later, when they saw wzc stopped talking, they thought he was angry. they started teasing him together again, wzc became furious when he was teased and made a loud noise. he complained to the director and said they were childish.

88. when the two people conduct dual interviews, wyb will wait for xz’s single interview to end. and then go into the business car together.

89. xz, wyb and senior sister have a three-person scene, while waiting for the performance, the senior sister suddenly asked: Mr. Lan is here to see you.

Did Xian only bring Qin and not Bichen? Didn't wait for wyb to react?

Come on, xz and senior sister fell to the side laughing, wyb was very confused

Miao explained dryly, "Aren't you here to play the piano for Wei Wuxian?"

90. When the two of them joined the group, they realized that they both liked songs by girl groups from foreign countries. When that group released a new song, they watched the MV together on the set. xz asked wyb if he could dance after watching it a few times, wyb taught him on the spot . xz said very sincerely, Lao Wang, you are amazing.

91. When other actors are wrapping up filming, they will be given cakes, both of them are just tasting, only wyb gave his first piece to XZ who ate it completely.

( so this is more like, with others, they will just take a bite. but when wyb gave him, xz ate it all. )

92. wyb's posture was very upright when he was hanging in the wire, Wu Zhi commented that there are times when it overturns, usually with waist control. If the body is not well controlled, it will easily become distorted. Although xz laughs at him every time, he will still always praise him. He said wyb is a kid from Springfield Flower Kindergarten, a friend that needs to be praised every day.

93. When filming Yi City, the scene required smoke machines to create fog. It feels like the field manager is waving a prop stick behind wyb. wyb asked xz, do you feel it? xz said what do you feel? wyb said let me go. xz's expression is speechless.

94. When filming the Baifeng Mountain section, wyb made an action where he needs to hold xz's wrist tightly to make him concentrate, and he will be very nervous when shooting. When he entered the scene, they took a few close-up shots in order to cut the scene. Director 1 after saying ok, xz rubbed his wrist and said Lan Zhan, you hurt me, wyb said can i see?

95. the people were waiting on the roof during wyb’s birthday , xz hummes and look at the stars one, two, three and four connected in a line. later wyb also sang along in a low voice.

96. filimg the heavy rain scene on Qiongqi Road. because xz has experience he told wyb in advance how to keep warm and prevent colds, tell him first that when the time comes, ask the assistant to get a blanket to soak up the water and prepare ginger soup or hot water. etc.

97. but he still felt a little bit uncomfortable the next day after wyb finished filming. he had a nasal sound when speaking. If his assistant brings medicine, xz will wonder if this cold medicine will have some antihistamines, which will make you sleepy and... are there any details such as whether the medicine will cause allergies?

98. In fact, there was another time when the forehead ribbon was removed and the hands were tied, the costume teacher wanted to tie it up. wyb said I would try it, so he did it on purpose and tied it tightly, then raised his hand and pulled it up with xz's hand, said very childishly, "Wei Ying, look"

99. One scene was in a teahouse, and it was about hearing that Wei Ying was not well. Lan Zhan put down the water glass heavily. Wyb once mentioned to the director if he wants him to silently crush the cup to express your mood? The director and editor after discussing the drama, said they felt that the emotions have not reached that level at this time.

100. The director mentioned in the drama that 16 years later Lan Zhan saw Wei Wuxian’s smiles will change unconsciously, wyb also said deliberately “then when I see Brother Zhan’s sweet smile, I will follow him (laughing)”

101. they spent the Dragon Boat Festival together on the set, and also had sweet and salty rice dumplings. they had an argument xz said that Chongqing people basically only eats salty rice dumplings, wyb must follow him. Just tell me sweet rice dumplings are delicious. I was noisy and wyb suddenly said he will also eat salty rice dumplings, and then he will be beaten by xz and said that you insist on following me. wyb only laughed.

102. There happened to be a night show on the Dragon Boat Festival, and the producer specially bought it rice dumplings to eat together. The two of them had a meal on the set, xz had a video chat with his parents on WeChat. He especially introduced wyb to them as ttxs’s super awesome host. wyb said hello obediently, and then after xz finished the video, he slapped him with his sleeve.

103. xz once asked wyb how to make one eye flow first when crying, wyb smiled evilly and said that I have great control.

104. Taking pictures of Hantan Cave, the temperature inside the cave is very different from that outside the cave and it’s nearly ten degrees. Be white clothes are easy to see through and can be irritated by cold water it’s easy to expose your flesh and bulge. If xz finds out, he whispers to wyb for a while and then went ashore to find the staff. When we he came back — the two people had an extra layer of white coats inside.

105. wzc often rolls his eyes like Jiang Cheng when seeing the two of them fighting, xz once caught him and said it he was against him. “Jiang Cheng, you don’t help me” wzc just said that “I will not interfere with the affairs of the two of you.”

106. Let’s talk about wzc first. There was a scene where wwx was beaten up while filming wzc. During the break, he said that wwx was beaten badly enough and was beaten by xz.

107. In Xuanwu Cave wwx went to pull up the collar of Lan Zhan’s clothes, maybe he used a bit too much force to make the area under wyb's collarbone red. After the cut, wyb pulled it open and showed it to xz to accuse him. xz said he was right and said I'm sorry, but then said it's because your skin is too fair and tender. Showing it, wyb replied that it was because he was young. 😂😂😂😂

108. When two people are filming a fight scene, they will feel a little uncomfortable. they didn’t want to injure each other such as being hit by a prop or scratched. Once xz was at front door of Chang's house bumped against my knee, and it turned blue instantly, and wyb asked the assistant to bring some muscle tape from his bag and help him apply it himself.

109. Continuing from the previous entry, xz will also bring his own band-aid, the kind that is cartoon style, including Little Yellow Duck and SpongeBob SquarePants.

110. When they were in Guizhou, they made an appointment to get up in the morning and go for a run but did not persist for a few days. xz complained about wyb in the morning and when he arrived at the gym, I was still wearing the hotel slippers.

111. There was one scene where we faced an enemy together in the woods. While waiting for the set, xz started singing and their backs were to each other. wyb while listening, he scratched the ground with his sword.

112. To shoot in the hanging cliffs, xz actually has tools on the ground that is easy to pull. The director didn't have any requirements when looking at the location. The two kept holding hands, but never let go. After a while, xz has been put down to the ground, wyb stopped his hand and looked at his palm, It took five or six seconds to stand up.

113. In that scene, a close-up of Lan Wangji’s face was also shot. Yan asked xz not to leave yet and help Yibo pick up his feelings. xz is looking up at wyb, the director is using a microphone to narrate the introduction and roughly speaking

"Wei Ying broke free and was falling. He was trying to prevent him from falling.

“You fell with me"

"He has no desire to live anymore."

"He is the most important person to you. For the first time in your life, you feel panicked”

"You are desperate, you are regretful"

"There is no more Wei Ying”

114. wyb did a great job, it took only two or three shots to pass. The staff members were so empathetic to him that they choked with tears.

115. but xz just stood under that cliff background and kept looking up at him, he was obviously crying too.

116. Continuing from the previous entry, after this scene, the makeup teacher will wipe off their tear traces. There is a path between the two of them. They kept looking at each other and said nothing.

117. The sleeves of Lan Wangji’s costume have always been very wide. He once did a dance move of doing cartwheels on the spot, and it was so smooth. xz was working very hard to cheer him on and compete with him.

118. When wyb seems to have pharyngitis, xz has asked him, and wyb said it usually happens. xz for some time then replaced his green tea for medicinal tea, wyb asked why the taste was different, xz pointed at his throat “It's good for you here”.

119. Continuing from the previous entrt, when wyb takes cold medicine, xz specially tells him to drink more warm water for 2 days and stop drinking my tea.

120. We sang together in the days after we came back from participating in a variety show. they repeat this sentence, child, you are the best. then later in the one-shot scene of wyb, xz would sing wyb, you are the best.

121. strings of Lan Wangji’s qin are specially made and are better than ordinary string so it will be flexible. One time when he was bored outdoors, he was playing with strings. After a while, he became quiet and pulled XZ aside to whisper. xz after listening, immediately raised his hand to signal to the director: Director Wang Yibo played the strings and broke one! He broke the prop!!! Wyb is behind him and the man who was caught got angry and pushed xz on the shoulder.

122. One time wyb was spraying sunscreen, xz saw it and asked him to help spray. wyb held the sunscreen to xz and said "呲呲 "呲呲——" but I didn't press it on purpose, xz Look at him with an expression like "Are you sick?"

123. The scene where Lan Wangji agreed to buy the rabbit lantern, xz smiled brightly, and wyb smiled back. Then after cut he was told, "Yibo, don't smile so big."

124. xz accidentally said this in front of the behind-the-scenes camera that after he and wyb finished work, they will go to see a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner for massage because both of our waists hurt.

125. On the set, they lifted up each other’s hems to see if they were wearing basketball shorts, and they will high five and say “hey man!” they have a tacit understanding.

125. When filming the scene with Jin Ling, XZ asked him his age and learned that it’s actually a month or two older than wyb xz was so shocked that he turned his back. wyb is so young and wants to play the role of an elder, and he still acts so similar.

126. In a one-person interview with both people present, they will tease each other, when wyb teases xz he will obviously look away and smile. On the other hand, wyb will look at him openly and give him a warning look.

127. During breaks on the set, xz would often sing some songs, Korean, Mandarin and English are available. wyb is sometimes next to him and when asked to change songs, xz also cooperated with him to change songs. There is one time he was asked to cut the song after I had just sung a few words. xz was obviously confused. If you can't change the subtitles, just say wyb, have you bought a membership? Changing songs is VIP. It’s a Unique service!

128. The scene where the two people fell out holding each other in their arms started posing on the ground. The director felt that the position where XZ was leaning was too low and he should have raised his head. You can see the position of wyb's eyes, just turn on the microphone, Commander Feng said, "Wei Ying, move higher on Lan Zhan." "No need." “Stand up and move directly." "Come up a little bit, and a little bit higher, yes. "XZ's ears were red after shooting that scene.

129. When they were in the mountains of Guizhou, because it was a real wild place, tge grass and other plants are very tall. When wyb reached the top of the mountain, he asked xz, Do you think there will be snakes here? then XZ said: But Hanguang-Jun, aren't you a master of martial arts? You can just use the sword. Later, xz saw that wyb was really scared, so he used the flute and wiped a circle of grass around him and said that Brother Zhan will protect you even if there is a snake.

130. wyb once took a big bite while eating noodles. he was chewing while looking at my phone, xz “said something: Brother Bo, you are like a hamster eating, and then he changed his mind and said, more like a camel. Have you ever seen a camel eat? How about learning to eat slowly like a camel?”

wyb laughed and then didn't even bother to eat the noodles.

BONUS: wyb’s fingers are very long and have distinct bones. He told xz that his hands and the joints are old and aged. It was because of his training in dancing and some were sharpened by riding bicycles. xz was very surprise said, Lao Wang, your life experience have so many vicissitudes, and then he started a few words, "Until it feels like your wrinkles have the marks of time."

wyb had a question mark face and didn't know what song he was singing.

( I tried to look up the lyrics listed 直到感觉你的皱纹有了岁月的痕 迹 and google is giving me “atleast i still have you” by Sandy Lam. but i’m not sure. )

Note: I might go back to this and edit some bits. I’m just in a fake rumor coma and my eyes and brain are aching at this point. 🙃🙃🙃 but i hope you still had fun reading!!!!

[centrally-unplanned]

(Spoilers ahead) So with the obvious caveat that the show has several more episodes to go so this all might still be addressed, I am gonna have to lay down some criticism on seasonal favourite Hibike Euphonium right now - this is my complains-about-things blog after all!

The show has an issue in that its Kumiko's story, and the story it is dealing with is that their chosen strategy of intensive auditions that swap members between performances is draining morale - plus her own defeat in said auditions is complicating her emotions and further draining morale as she is the well-liked president. Her friend and co-executive Reina is actively rejecting solutions, and the teacher Taki won't comment on the drama. So she has to solve it. Which she does with, essentially, a big heartfelt speech before their performance.

As a minor aside, right before their sectional performance? I thought the morale issues were affecting practice? Were they or weren't they? Too late to fix that now, right? Not a big deal but I did still want to note it - don't sacrifice realism for drama in a show as grounded as Hibike is.

On to the meat of the problem - Reina and Taki-sensei. Kumiko's big speech is essentially a mea culpa, being a "yeah I should have communicated my honest feelings right out the gate" deal. This choice and the presentation of it generally lines up with Reina being proven right in her stance - including explicit comments from Kumiko saying such.

The problem there is that Reina is totally wrong and also being a huge asshole about it:

You don't get to say this to your bff at the first sign of trouble and just walk away from it - you definitely don't get to do it when you are extremely obviously running interference for your teacher because you have the hots for him. At every turn Reina has made this problem worse - calling out students for casually gossiping on their own time, verbally chastising any dissent, at one point in this episode even contradicting Kumiko publicly in front of the club to argue with a student mid-rehearsal. Her idea of a solution is literally just "club members should shut their mouths and never dissent from Taki-sensei's vision", which since they are human beings and also not in love with him is not actually a workable plan. I would bet at least a third of the drama comes from the way Reina acts, which would make any student both sus of the behind-the-scenes dynamic and double down out of spite. She is a club leader and is failing at her job in a basic way.

And since Kumiko's speech "resolves" the problem, all of these failures are handwaved away; she doesn't really have to say anything, right? Her and Kumiko seem fine now. Her failure as a friend and her failure as a club leader is just sitting unaddressed. Maybe it will come up next episode, but that still doesn't make this "arc conclusion" satisfying.

Now lets move on to Taki-sensei. His "arc", as much as he can have one as a non-core member, is detailed with a lot more care. His thing is that he is just a dude, he doesn't have magic insight or anything, and even Kumiko is putting him on a bit of a pedestal. Throughout the season they have all these little hints about him being not nearly as mature as his role-as-teacher suggests, including his childish snacking habits:

Some have interpreted this as critical, but I don't personally - Taki tends to be explicit about his own fallibility, like when Kumiko asks if he is tailoring their music specifically to win the competition and he replies "idk if that is even a thing actually". And this latest episode definitely peaks at Asuka pointing out that Taki is probably not confident in his choice to deny Kumiko the solo - his confidence in it is faked for the purposes of club morale:

He knows its controversial, he knows morale is hit, and is powering through it.

That is all fine enough, but it also makes him a bad teacher. I won't harsh too much on the fact that he puts way too much in the hands of his student leaders, because its done to center the narrative on their arcs. But, for one, that falls apart when the crisis is explicitly one in Taki. Expecting a student to fix that is pretty asinine. And he definitely brings this on himself - he never explains his decision-making to the students, not even in a sanitized, authoritative way. He just expects them to deal with no guidance. When Kumiko's friend Kanade gets cut midway from a failed audition, she rationalizes the decision really well, explaining that the tuba section was weak and their numbers are capped, so they sacked someone from the already-strong euphonium section.

What a graceful, morale-saving explanation. Which Taki never gave! Kanade just inferred this. He doesn't have to explain every decision in detail of course, but some level of guidance as to why changes are being made would have gone a very long way.

Now you can say "his vibe is just to be standoffish, its his method", which imo is a dumb method but okay, I'll run with that. But if you do that and outsource all of the communication to your student leaders, then you can't also be standoffish with those student leaders. According to the text he knows about the drama; which means he knows Reina is a clusterfuck wannabee dictator and she and the vice president are having open shouting matches after rehearsal, and that Kumiko is spiraling through an indecision crisis. So meet with your damn leadership team and help them nail out a plan. And tell Reina to check her libido at the door or something. Either this above-it-all strategy is intentional, at which point you are botching its management, or it isn't, at which point you are botching being a teacher.

(And if the stakes of all this were small enough that he didn't need to bother having a meeting about it, then Reina is being a much bigger asshole and Kumiko is being a bit of a sob story weakling. I don't think that is the intended message)

I think some of this "harshing on Taki-sensi" I am seeing in the fandom is coming from noticing his failures as a teacher alongside the narrative hints about his arc. But I don't think based on this episode the narrative is going to acknowledge them. Its a "he's human" narrative, which is tonally quite different. I do expect some level of "change" in Reina at least, but it doesn't seem like a real apology is not going to be the offing. And I think it stems from the fact Kumiko is just being overly centered in a story where the conflict is not something she is driving. It has to be her problem to be her story, and this isn't quite enough to meet muster.

But I could be wrong! Lets find out I guess.

[matan4il]

Buddie 607 meta

I thought Felisa’s introduction was an interesting one. She’ll be closely associated with Eddie throughout the ep and by the end of it, we’ll see more layers to her, but the intro still presents her life as being to a great degree fake and shallow, very much revolving around putting on a show for her audience. Not to mention, Athena letting us know that Felisa at one point acted in such a violent and even life-endangering manner isn’t there for nothing. I found it an interesting choice to clue the audience in from the get go that this is not someone who is greatly compatible with Eddie, but even more so, that she’s not exactly someone who has room in her life to co-parent a kid with CP. And once again, it hit me hard, how in comparison, from 201 already we saw how similar Buck and Eddie are, and from 202 how much Buck would adore this kid,care about him, be a good co-parent and make all the room for Chris in his life.

~~ We saw in previous eps that when something is up with Buck, Eddie always notices it. So it came as no surprise he was the first to raise an eyebrow at Buck’s diet change. However, I had to scream a little about the shot that reveals this (and had to gif it). They could have focused on Buck’s glass after he was seated, they could have filmed him torso up. But no, they let Buck sit down as the camera follows him, and more than that, they had him sit down in profile, which emphasizes the crotch area way more than if he were to sit down normally and we’d get a frontal shot. This is intentional as all heck, and the framing expressions on Eddie’s face as he watches him, making it seem like Buck’s crotch is what he’s noticing, it’s too much to all be coincidental. ~~

But back to Eddie being THE team member with Buck senses that tingle, this ep showed us that it’s not just us thinking their bond is unique. The fact that we get a zoom in on Bobby looking at Eddie with an inquiring expression and gesture with Athena also turning his attention to him to get his reaction, and that Eddie without even a pause says he doesn’t know what’s up with Buck, it once again demonstrates that the trope of “everyone sees it” is true for Buddie. Everyone around them is completely aware that these two are married. ~~

Okay, regarding Buck’s sperm donation, the universe was CLEARLY screaming at him that this shouldn’t happen. In an ep that directly references back to 406, where Buck first tells Eddie that, and in doing so reveals himself to be someone who believes in listening to signs, and who reaffirms that this hasn’t changed because when his secret comes out he mutters to himself, “Stupid bracelet curse,” it’s very interesting that he ignores it all and goes ahead with the donation (at least for now). I do assume that the point is whatever he chooses, it will be his choice. He’s not being superstitious, or latching onto excuses, he's choosing his own path, and that will play into the rest of this storyline in terms of his growth as a person. ~~

Small side note from a gay person who knows a lot of gay couples that had to use sperm donations: men have to abstain from masturbation to do a sperm count, it’s not a personal choice, and the period of time to abstain is 2-7 days. Anything above that makes the sample worse in terms of sperm quality. My point is, Buck was trying to make things better, but he actually made them worse. I trust the writers did their basic research and they know this fact. ~~

The oblivious Eddie vibes were strong in this ep. While we got the background story for his disbelief in the supernatural, it also generally demonstrated that Eddie doesn’t tend to believe in that which he can’t see with his own eyes. He needs palpable proof, and neither emotions nor their significance can be proven that way, which might explain why he keeps missing the signs regarding what he and Buck really have. ~~

Something that got to me (and can also be counted in the “oblivious Eddie” column) was Felisa telling him that Alexis is all she has. As Eddie suspects this assistant of wrongdoing, he will later in the ep tell Felisa he knows Alexis is the only one she feels she can count on. It was just really loud to me, Eddie can try and talk to Felisa about what this means because he knows exactly what it’s like to have someone like that, Buck. So the subtext parallels Alexis with Buck, which means I was watching with interest to see what will we discover about this assistant? Even though everything seemed to point to her being guilty, if she was subtly paralleled with Buck, I was pretty convinced it would turn out she wasn’t the one hurting Felisa. I loved finding out that this ended up being the case. And I also thought it was interesting that in this context, Eddie brings up the tsunami in the ep’s last scene. The only way he thinks he can turn this woman’s POV around is to give Chris as an example. And that is exactly what he was doing for Buck as well, in 301. Not to mention, Buck embraced the insight Eddie was offering him during his chat with Chris in 302. Even in terms of the character’s name (yes, the name geek is about to strike again), Felisa comes from the Spanish version of the Roman name Felix, which means “lucky,” but also “happy” (for example, ‘felix finis’ means “happy ending” in Latin), and who do we know who’s been on a quest to find his happiness this season? This ep might not have been Buddie heavy in the text itself, but Buck was there, between the lines of Eddie’s storyline, the whole time.

(apologies for my own inferior gifs for this one section of the post) ~~

And that can also be seen in the moment when Eddie expresses his notion that he’s starting to think he might be the one who’s cursed. It’s the dramatic turn point in that arc and, despite Hen and Chim being the ones more closely associated for most of the ep with the whole thing (the ones who talk to Eddie about it, expresses their fear and superstition, trying to keep a distance from the bracelet), it’s Buck that Eddie says those words to. That’s the show telling us it recognizes that everything has more potency when it’s between those two. Plus, it’s also a reminder that even in the middle of his own trouble with his sperm donation, Buck will always check in on Eddie. ‘Coz that’s just how soulmates roll.

~~ Thank you to anyone reblogging! Y’all give me life. And for any show of support. I also wanna thank wholeheartedly @whosoldherout​, who not only produced fabulous gifs for this meta as always, she did so while dealing with some stuff, and I just want you to know you’re a hero! xoxox

[neospokenworld]

Hello, I just wanted to say something here

You see, I'm from Venezuela and always lived here and as you probably know already know the situation here is pretty dire, our ex president (because he is, and it's been proven) altered the votes on the elections to say that he won with 51% of the votes even tho this has been proven to be completely false and the reality is that the opposing party won with 70% of the votes, thus making it very much clear that we're living in a dictatorship.

The thing is that we've been literally on this ever since 1999 more or less, back in Chavez times it was a lot more discrete but the intentions were very clear from the start by making the election time 6 years instead of 4; making it so he could be reelected over and over again; expropiating a lot of private enterprises only to destroy them and finally handpicking Maduro to be the next one in charge on his final moments before passing, so now ever since 2013 it has been pretty clear that the goal of these fuckers that are on power is to stay there as long as possible and make the country bleed until there is nothing left. We've protested for them to go out ever since 2002 and that has always resulted in tons of death and also one of the biggest migrating nationalities in the world, there are currently more Venezuelans outside of the country than inside of it and that is because of this government.

We've been suffering for far too long, right now we are one of the poorest countries in the world and arguably the one with the most percentage of inflation out there, the national coin is barely worth something right now and is all thanks to them unlike what Maduro, Diosdado and their party wants you to believe.

Here in 2024 it was the first light of hope in the country as Maria Corina Machado was going to be the one going against Maduro in the elections but he basically banned her from going for presidency for 15 years, they knew that they would lose if Maria Corina went in against him, but what they didn't expected was that the country would unite for the one she ended up putting as a replacement. That one being Edmundo Gonzales, the 28th of July we all went to vote, as early as possible so nothing weird happened, and even then a lot of people who were probably up since midnight had to wait until late afternoon because the people carrying on the elections delayed it a lot, saying that ''the machines were slow'' and whatever lie they could come across. I personally had to wait around 4 hours or so to get the chance to vote but I know people who had to wait their entire morning or worse, the entire day to get the chance to vote and guess what? the machine were going smoothly, not once those were going ''slow'' or had some kind of delay as the government says.

The night came, and on with it an ''error'' that caused the system to crash, right when it put Edmundo at around 70% on top of the votes, and suddenly as it came back, he had 44% of the votes out of nowhere, so the people rightfully so went to the streets to protest about their right to have a new elected president, and ever since then 4 days ago it has been chaos. The military is shooting to kill anyone that participates in the protests, lots of people who were witnesses of the voting tally have been hunted and detained because of it, and it's been pretty clear that the government won't stop until everyone is either dead or in fear of them, they've gone as far as to say that the people who were killed were ''faking it'' and ''using ketchup to fake the blood''

I'm not asking for money or anything here, all I'm asking is for anyone reading this to spread the word. There have been threats of a national blackout and cutting the internet to leave us uncommunicated to the outside world, everything can be found on twitter and tiktok since there are tons of people from here posting what is happening, this is not a matter of left or right, the government here doesn't care about that, this is a matter of the rights of freedom for an entire nation that is deep into a dictatorship that is slowly killing of the entire country

So spread the word please, there are tons of people dying here and it's not gonna stop unless these motherfuckers either step down or die

[mari-lair]

Aoi knew she would die in chapter 70.

Despite everything that happened, Aoi was mostly silent on her adventures with Akane and Teru through the boundary, she only started talking when they went into the tunnel.

More specifically, after Akane mentioned a light at the end of the tunnel.

Aoi is a smart girl, and No.6 had told her she was kidnapped to die from the start, so the lack of light at the end of her tunnel was enough to connect the dots of her fate.

She doesn’t panic in the face of death, but she does understand they’ll be separated soon, so she starts talking. Aoi has few words per speech bubble and many "..." so it feels like this isn’t easy for her, that the words still come off as quiet and reserved: She has basically no experience voicing her emotions.

The only times she opens up and shares her genuine thoughts, is when she is certain it will be the last chance she gets before disappearing from everyone’s lives.

She is cold and confident when she vents to Akane and expresses her frustrations, but she is quiet about herself in the tunnel, and that tells a lot about her character.

Aoi was certain no one cared about her true self when she was venting, just her cute popular girl persona, and it hurts, so she wanted to hurt others too, to feel like the one in control, and convince herself that running away, taking the solution that doesn’t involve facing her fears, isn’t a mistake, her mistake was letting people get close to her.

She is angry with herself too, because she cares about the genuine and honest people that spend years with her, and yet, she was never genuine with them. She hates her true self so she feels like they’ll hate her too if she let them see behind the mask: She wants to run away before they leave her, but she never had the 'courage' to abandon them. She is ‘stuck’ in the living world, hating herself for all her flaws and yet craving love: a love she gets so easily that she feels like she doesn’t deserve it, so it becomes fake in her eyes.

This eternal conflict can really drag a person down, so when No.6 offered her a way to be more detached she accepted without a fight: The potion she was given seems to lower her empathy, instead of fully brainwashing her, is the push she needed to discard the people that tied her to the living world and fulfill her longing to disappear.

No matter how real her wish, and her pain, so are her actions, and when her plan to 'throw Akane in the trash with Nene' fails, and her plan to make him stop loving her also failed, she gets held back again: She put her plan to disappear on hold.

She couldn’t leave after seeing Akane bleeding out from her own hands and still clinging to her. She looks so sad. No matter how much she tries to detach herself, she cares too much.

She even rip her skirt to bandages his wounds.

Cause she never truly hated him, the one she wanted to throw away from the start was herself: She is jealous of him and yet she deeply loves him, she only lingered in the living world long after she grew tired of herself because she loves a lot.

Aoi is sure she is right about them abandoning her once they see her real self. She know she is smart and she realized her fears that they were hiding something from her turned out to be right, so she cut them out of their lives before she was proven ‘right’ again and they cut her out of theirs.

She had to be cold with Akane, sink deeper into the idea she is cruel and unlovable and people will only ever lie to her, so that it would be easier to fulfill her wish.

Talking about her problems was never a goal of her vent, she is convinced she is unlovable with such fervor that there is nothing to discuss. It's why she tries to run away the second she finished reafirming her conviction living as she have been is pointless, and had to be dragged by force into the conversation.

In contrast, when she reached the tunnel in chapter 70, she is in a pensive state. She was reassured after her confrontation in chapter 69 that Akane love her, flaws and all, but she was still unsure how to feel, in the mentality of someone who has been very very close to just... giving up on living. And while Akane's love does help her feel less like an unlovable mess, it doesn’t heal all her doubts, and she is left with a lot to think.

She is more soft-spoken in the tunnel because she has nothing to prove, she just wants to talk, to express herself. There is no hidden agenda, no end goal, just guilt.

The more she talks with Akane, the less alone she feels, and the more she opens up, slowly getting comfortable, making promise after promise with him: These promises make her look forward to the future, make her have hope, and want to live.

When you keep in mind that Aoi knows that she will die, this scene feels much more tragic.

She never expected any of her plans to come to fruition, but just the idea of playing games and zoo dates made her feel better, made her feel hope, and realize she had nice things.

There are good people in her life, she doesn’t have to live in fear: She is loved, her real hobbies and interest are treasured.

Akane’s declaration burst her bubble of make belief, make it finally hit her that she will die, that she’ll lose it all before she gets experience it.

Akane may still have a future, he sees the light, but he will lose her as soon as they leave this tunnel. Aoi knows her death will destroy him, but she can’t tell him: Just like Teru, she understands that Akane will refuse to abandon her if he learns the truth, and she wants him to live, so she can’t tell him.

She believes this is the last time they’ll ever see each other, and after everything he has done for her, she can’t even tell him that she likes him, which, unlike her death, is something she really wants to tell him, something she can give him right away and that she ‘should’ since she won’t get another chance.

But she doesn’t, because she is a coward.

So she was left alone in the dark with her regrets, carrying this wish to live, to stay by her friends side, to confess to Akane, and believing she had lost it all.

She no longer wants to die. She has hope and a longing for life, so she follows Hanako to the train instead of dissapearing into the void.

I am glad her rescue was successful, and she was able to get back to her loved ones

[negrowhat]

FWB vs. Fuck Buddies vs. Unlabeled Boyfriends

Let's get into the FWB trope in BLs and how the "Benefit" part is always just falling in love. And it's never even both of them falling in love, it's always one that's basically already in love from the beginning and just afraid to admit it because they don't want to be rejected.

Let's get into the fact that most of these cases are actually just the main characters being Fuck Buddies and not FWB until proven otherwise and by otherwise I mean boyfriends without a the label. I lean more towards Fuck Buddies because Friends With Benefits means they have to start off being friends first and most of these situations start between people who are not friends prior.

I say Boyfriends without the label because these "Fuck Buddies" are usually monogamous with each other and spend all their time together and comfort each other and express feelings of fondness for each other and protect each other and....that is very much the opposite of a Fuck Buddy.

Anyways here have some examples:

Win and Team from Between Us. I mean they never established themselves as anything but still carried on a sexual relationship throughout the series as things got complicated between them. Highkey they are the most true to the intended purpose of Fuck Buddies. They actually were part of all 3 categories, but like in succession. They started off as Fuck Buddies but became friends so then Friends with Benefits and then found themselves in that limbo of wanting to be boyfriends but too scared to admit it.

Kaeng and Puth from Y-Destiny. I mean technically they started off as Fuck Buddies who were actually both playboys. They didn't really have a real friendship outside of the sex; they ran in different circles until those circles collided when their friends paired off. Kaeng has always wanted something more but Puth always denied it. We saw Puth in contact with some of his conquests and even tried to get a boyfriend. But on the backend he was secretly catfishing Kaeng through texts to flirt with Kaeng and profess his feelings of love.

King and Uea from Bed Friends. Our most recent example of how this trope is just in name only. Although they are trying the hardest to make it true to the term until you factor in King's behavior towards Uea outside of the bedroom and the fact that Uea wants them to be monogamous sex friends. King clearly just suggested a sexual friendship because he wants to get closer to Uea and at this point for Uea it's more about adding some comfort and control into his otherwise depressing reality.

Tharn and Type from TharnType the Series. All the toxicity, messiness and homophobia highkey made me forget they started a sexual relationship first and then became FWB and then Type had his whole crisis before they became boyfriends. Despite all flip-flopping around they do in fact fall in this trope.

Some honorable mentions to:

Fah and Sher from Fahlanruk which I started but didn't finish because Fah was really not a likeable character. But they both carried on hella sexual conquests aside from each other which was what they both loved to do but then Fah kind of forced Sher into a FWB thing because he wanted Sher to himself.

Friendzone s1 and s2. That series was a mixed bag of FWB, cheating boyfriends, fake friends, and all the other messy odds and ends young adults find themselves mixed up in.

Only Friends. It looks like it's going have multiple FWB storylines that all intertwine. It's going to be messy and I'm very excited for it.

ANYWAYS this post actually had no real point other than to say...I think I want a series where FWB or Fuck Buddies actually just stay that way until they both move on separately and we see the process of how they make a clean break from each other intimately and move on. Is there a something like that out already? Let me know.

[waterfall7290]

Understanding Jeremy: an empathetic and psychological analysis of Jeremy Wade Delle - and the people who loved him

PLEASE NOTE: This article is intended for people who already possess a general knowledge of Jeremy Delle’s life events. I wouldn’t recommend reading it before having learned about his life, because I will be jumping from one event to the other and it will be difficult to keep track of everything if you don’t know what I’m referring to.  If you want to get a more-than-general idea of Jeremy’s life, you can visit jeremywadedelle.com.  

I never met Jeremy nor am I a psychologist, yet I have studied psychology and I have learned in great detail all that was made public (and not) about Jeremy. This is basically a sum-up of everything I have learned about his psychology and about his loved ones during my almost four years of researching and writing No more “Later Days”; other than the things I have learned in my own personal experiences with both adults and teenagers.

I will try to be as chronologically linear as possible, but since several topics are crisscrossed with each other (meaning multiple topics have multiple links to events from both Jeremy’s earlier and later years), this article will be divided in theme sections more than age/years sections. 

For its writing, I consulted the following sources: a multitude of scientific articles and websites (only parts relating to Jeremy were quoted, although a link to the full article was always provided); jeremywadelle.com, ssheps.com, thejeremystory, the 1991 police report, screenshots I have gathered over the years with information and claims made by people who (supposedly) really met Jeremy - I use the term ‘supposedly’ a lot because everything about Jeremy is true until proven otherwise, which why I very warmingly invite anyone who actually knew Jeremy to contact me and help me confirming or debunking the info in my possession. 

In addition, I have used the information Ash shared with me contained in the emails exchanged between him and Chris; plus a seven-pages-long September 1990 letter Jeremy wrote to Chris.

ABOUT THIS LETTER: the entire communication happened between Ash (admin of jeremywadedelle.com) and Chris from Austin. Chris came out of nowhere one day sharing information he had about Jeremy: he talked very in detail about him and his loved ones and he did it in a very transparent, not glorifying or victimizing way (usually, when people make up info about Jeremy, they have very black-and-white views of him and his loved ones); he also scanned a seven-pages-long letter Jeremy had supposedly written to him in September 1990 and explained its contents to Ash. Unfortunately, Chris disappeared before Ash could get a chance to talk to him on Google Meet. He never got explicit permission from him to share the new info and didn’t know how to feel about the truthfulness of the letter. Since I’m his moderator, he shared these contents with me to ask me for my opinion.  To Ash, Chris' disappearance is really strange, which makes him doubt Chris was real. However, Chris knew many things about Jeremy and even knew the name of Jeremy’s sister, which is something only few people know. Still, why would he disappear into nothing just like that? Perhaps the topic was too hurtful. Or it could be that maybe Chris never really existed, but who in their right mind would come out of nowhere to produce a fake suicide letter and a fake seven-pages-long letter in order to fuel a very very niche topic that, after thirty years, almost nobody talks about anymore?  I didn’t really know what to think of it until I decided to compare the writing on the infamous “Later Days” note Jeremy wrote to Lisa and the writing on both the suicide letter and the letter Jeremy had supposedly sent to Chris… and they matched. The way of writing certain letters is the same, the handwriting is the same. So the letter must be real.  I would really like to share it, or at least share the most interesting parts of it (together with the handwriting comparison I made), but Ash made me promise not to do it because the letter is very personal and we never received explicit permission from Chris, while he did give me permission to share what Chris had told him via email.   Perhaps one day we will receive permission to share the letter, or maybe Ash will simply decide to share it himself (which would be right, since he was the one the letter was scanned for). I hope so. 

Until that day, here is the result of my extensive research on the Jeremy matter. Hopefully it will help people to look at the events from different perspectives and produce a less judgemental and black-or-white opinion of both Jeremy and his loved ones. 

AN UNSTABLE FOUNDATION: JEREMY’S CHILDHOOD BETWEEN HOMES, SCHOOLS AND A SPLIT FAMILY

1975 - Jeremy was born and lived in house 1 with his parents Joseph and Wanda and his older sister for a few years before his parents separated when he was four (1979). According to thejeremystory and to Mr. Delle's statements from the 1991 police report, the divorce must not have been easy or peaceful.

From The Jeremy Story (‘1. Early Years’, section ‘1979’): “May 23 - Joseph files for divorce from Wanda, claiming conflict of personalities that prevents reconciliation”;  From the 1991 police report (pages 15-16 of the PDF): “I advised Mr. Delle that I was going upstairs to confront Mrs. Crane, his ex-wife. He said that she would become hysterical and that I would not be able to control her, that if you looked up hysterics in the dictionary, that’s where she’d be. He said that he would tell her, but he did not want to have to deal with her at this time. [...]”

It is very likely both Jeremy and his older sister may have seen their parents argue multiple times. I wouldn't be surprised if after the divorce, both parents badmouthed the other parent in front of the children: this happens very frequently when a divorce isn't peaceful.

1979 - Joseph went to live in another house and remarried shortly after, only six months after divorcing Wanda. From an outside perspective, it could seem that Mr. Delle was very quick to rebuild another life and ‘forget’ about his previous one - at least that’s what it must have looked like in the eyes of his children, I believe.

From ssheps.com (‘Jeremy Wade Delle’, section ‘Robert B.’, ‘From Shelly:’): “All he [Jeremy] ever wanted was attention, as he didnt get much at home.", "His mom basically abandoned him and his dad was no Saint either. In fact he was too wrapped up into his new wife to notice what was going on with Jeremy.".  From a comment a friend of Jeremy from Timberlawn left on Findagrave: “[...] you’re parents [...] were to busy with worrying about their own lives. [...] I hope your parents have become better people today and not so into themselves anymore.” They later corrected themselves: “I spoke in the wrong [...] I have carried the displeasure of how ya’ll acted as parents back then but [...] I know now that no matter how hard we try to keep our kids safe as parents that our kids will do what they want to do no matter what we do.” From the 1991 police report (page 23 of the PDF): “Mrs. B advised Delle had told students that his father did not pay attention to him." This last comment was doubted by me in this post.  From the 1991 police report (page 25 of the PDF): “Mr. Delle also advised Jeremy had had problems dealing with the divorce of he and his wife and had sought counseling for depression.”

     What are the psychological effects of a conflictual divorce on the children? Here’s what several studies found.

     From https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/children-high-conflict-divorce-face-many-challenges: “[...] children may be battered and injured by factors that are directly or indirectly associated with the divorce: reduced parenting time with one or both parents; financial instability; relocation, which involves changing schools and losing friends; and the inconvenience of traveling between the parents’ homes. Both clinicians and forensic evaluators know that the single most important factor that harms children of divorce is continual conflict between the parents. Children are damaged when their parents fight in front of them, over them, and through them. [...] Many children of divorce have transitory symptoms, which may take the form of excessive worrying, sadness, anger, oppositional behavior, impaired social relationships, and compromised school performance. These symptoms may occur when the child initially learns his or her parents plan to divorce, when the parents argue excessively, when the parents separate, and when important changes occur in the child’s life, such as moving to a new neighborhood. The typical diagnosis is one of the adjustment disorders (eg, adjustment disorder with anxiety). [...] If the external stressors––especially, high conflict between the parents––continue for an extended period, the child’s symptoms may become internalized and develop into a more serious mental condition. Typically, the symptoms cluster to take the form of an anxiety disorder, a depressive disorder, or a somatic symptom disorder. [...] Regarding possible DSM-5 diagnoses, major depressive disorder and suicidality may develop in a child who grieves the loss of his previous family life or the loss of time with the noncustodial parent. If the child fears the loss of the custodial parent, he may develop separation anxiety disorder. [...] A serious consequence of high-conflict divorce is parental alienation, a mental condition in which a child closely allies with parent A and refuses to have a relationship with parent B without a good reason. [...] Parental alienation comes about as a result of 3 interacting and mutually reinforcing factors: Parental alienation usually occurs in the context of a high-conflict separation or divorce, although the seeds of parental alienation may have been sown when the family was still intact; Almost always, the preferred parent, also called the alienating parent, has indoctrinated or brainwashed the child to fear or dislike the rejected parent; Although clearly influenced by the alienating parent, the child adopts and internalizes the campaign to criticize, insult, and denigrate the alienated parent [...].” 

From https://harbormentalhealth.com/2021/10/29/effects-of-divorce-on-childrens-mental-health/: “Some researchers suggest that the significant differences between children of divorced and non-divorced parents are not the result of separation or divorce per se, but a consequence of the reduced social support from parents and the children’s perception of the destructiveness of interparental conflict. Social support means having friends and other people, including family, to turn to in times of need or crisis to give you a broader focus and positive self-image. [...] many kids seem to bounce back. They get used to changes in their daily routines and they grow comfortable with their living arrangements. Others, however, never really seem to go back to “normal.” This small percentage of children may experience ongoing—possibly even lifelong—problems after their parents’ divorce. Emotional effects of divorce on children’s mental health: Divorce creates emotional turmoil for the entire family, but for kids, the situation can be quite scary, confusing, and frustrating: Young children often struggle to understand why they must go between two homes. They may worry that if their parents can stop loving one another that someday, their parents may stop loving them; Grade school children may worry that the divorce is their fault. They may fear they misbehaved or they may assume they did something wrong; Teenagers may become quite angry about divorce and the changes it creates. They may blame one parent for the dissolution of the marriage or they may resent one or both parents for the upheaval in the family. [...] Divorce usually means children lose daily contact with one parent—most often fathers. Decreased contact affects the parent-child bond and researchers have found many children feel less close to their fathers after divorce. One of the other effects of divorce on children’s mental health is a child’s relationship with the custodial parent—most often mothers. Primary caregivers often report higher levels of stress associated with single parenting. For some children, parental separation isn’t the hardest part. Instead, the accompanying stressors are what make divorce the most difficult. Changing schools, moving to a new home, and living with a single parent who feels a little more frazzled are just a few of the additional stressors that make divorce difficult. Financial hardships are also common following divorce. Many families have to move to smaller homes or change neighborhoods and they often have fewer material resources. [...] The addition of a stepparent and possibly several stepsiblings can be another big adjustment. And quite often both parents re-marry, which means many changes for kids. Mental Health Problems: Effects of divorce on children’s mental health may increase the risk for mental health problems in children and adolescents. [...] studies have also found depression and anxiety rates are higher in children from divorced parents. Behavior Problems: Children from divorced families may experience more externalizing problems, such as conduct disorders, delinquency, and impulsive behavior than kids from two-parent families. In addition to increased behavior problems, children may also experience more conflict with peers after a divorce. Poor Academic Performance: Children from divorced families don’t always perform as well academically and tend to have trouble with the school if the divorce was unexpected, whereas children from families where the divorce was likely didn’t have the same outcome. Risk-Taking Behaviors: Adolescents with divorced parents are more likely to engage in risky behavior, such as substance use and early sexual activity. According to research, in the United States, adolescents with divorced parents drink alcohol earlier and report higher alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, and drug use than their peers. Adolescents whose parents divorced when they were 5 years old or younger were at particularly high risk for becoming sexually active prior to the age of 16.

Separation from fathers has also been associated with higher numbers of sexual partners during adolescence.” From https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/2004_1/p3.html: “There was some evidence that changes in discipline as a result of divorce led boys, especially, to be less compliant with parental commands than children in intact families. Emery summarized that parents involved in conflict with each other are probably poorer models, are more inconsistent in their discipline, and place more stress on their children.”.      From https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/2004_1/p2.html: “Jacobson (1978) [...] found that the greater the amount of time lost with the father since the marital separation, the greater the maladjustment of the child in areas such as aggression and learning disability. Peterson and Zill (1986) analyzed data from National Surveys of Children in the United States, gathering information about 2,301 children. [...] A child living with a parent of the opposite sex was especially prone to problem behaviour, according to Peterson and Zill. [...] Kelly and Wallerstein (1977) examined, in 60 divorcing families, the visiting patterns of children with their non-custodial parent. In general, younger children between the ages of two and eight saw their non-custodial parent more frequently than did older children. Half of the older children aged nine to ten experienced erratic or infrequent visiting or no visiting at all. The response of the older children to the divorce was anger. The authors concluded that infrequent visiting correlated with a destructive visiting pattern. [...] In a more recent book, Wallerstein concluded that the children of divorce suffer most in adulthood: The impact of divorce hits them most cruelly as they go in search of love, sexual intimacy and commitment. Their lack of inner images of a man and a woman in a stable relationship and their memories of their parents' failure to sustain the marriage badly hobbles their search, leading them to heartbreak and even despair (Wallerstein et al., 2000). [...] Other studies have indicated that wives who have divorced bear a greater economic burden. In general, they are worse off economically than their former husbands are (Espenshade, 1979).” 

1980 - Jeremy, now five, moved to house 2 and began attending school 1 (Kindergarden).

1983 - Joseph divorced his second wife.

1984 - Wanda remarried, marrying Mr. Crane, when Jeremy was nine. They went to live with Jeremy and his sister in house 3. I do wonder if they lived alone or if the other children of Mr. Crane lived there as well, as it appears he had two other sons (one of them a teenager at the time) from a previous marriage. If they all did live together, Jeremy must have found it even harder to receive the attention he needed, but I am inclined to think Mr. Crane’s sons lived with their mother just like Jeremy and his sister lived with their mother after their parents’ divorce.

Anyway, Jeremy was now attending school 2 (elementary). If you are a child and you feel like your parents aren’t giving you enough attention and love at home, where are you going to look for those? Outside, naturally. However, if you are a child who really needs love and attention you’re probably going to get attached to anyone who shows even the minimal interest in you - the reason for which every abandonment you will then live, from that moment onwards, will hurt you more than the same thing happening to, say, someone who grew up in a stable and loving home instead. 

This attachment theory was confirmed by Chris in one of the emails exchanged with Ash: 

"Jeremy was a really, really, genuine and sweet person. He attached to people - probably a little too easily, too hard...and was like the most loyal of dogs (I don't mean that in a negative connotation whatsoever.) He was always down to do whatever the plan de jour was, he was just happy to be getting to spend time with "you." He wanted to make those around him happy by his wit, humor, antics, etc.”

1986 -  Eleven-year-old Jeremy moved to house 4 and went back to attending school 1 (but now in elementary). That would mean changing four homes in seven years and three schools in six years, though the last three houses were only ten driving minutes from each other. 

What are the psychological effects of frequent moving and changing schools on child development? Here’s what several studies found.

     From https://achieveconcierge.com/how-does-frequently-moving-affect-children/: "Stability is the keyword here, meaning that kids will generally know what to expect from their day-to-day activities. It also means they feel secure in their relationships, health, and safety. [...] According to the Institute for Family Studies, stress due to repeated transitions can undermine a child’s sense of control over their life. Parents may also feel this and begin to suffer from mental health issues, affecting their ability to parent and instill a sense of security and trust in the child’s life. In turn, the child may develop their own emotional, social, and academic deficits. Children can also experience learned helplessness, meaning that, as a result of prior stressful experiences, they come to accept and remain passive in negative situations that they have the power to change. The implications of this on future decision-making can be detrimental. [...] Regardless of age, gender, and education level, the likelihood of reporting lower life satisfaction, psychological well-being, and quality social relationships during adulthood was higher in persons who frequently moved as a child. Researchers also discovered that introverts and those with neuroticism [Neuroticism is a core personality trait characterized by emotional instability, irritability, anxiety, self-doubt, depression, and other negative feelings] fared worse when it came to moving repeatedly. Persons who hold these personality traits tend to have a difficult time forming new relationships and managing stressful situations. [...] Moving is a stressful and burdensome process, and multiple relocations during early childhood and adolescence are associated with increased psychiatric visits and hospitalizations. Some children may become withdrawn and depressed."      From https://www.jstor.org/stable/2673244: “Children who have moved an average or above-average number of times are not significantly harmed if they reside in families in which both biological parents are present; however, for children in other family structures, any move is associated with an adverse school life.”      From https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/06/moving-well-being: “The researchers also looked to see if different personality types – extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism – affected frequent movers’ well-being. Among introverts, the more moves participants reported as children, the worse off they were as adults. This was in direct contrast to the findings among extraverts. “Moving a lot makes it difficult for people to maintain long-term close relationships,” said Oishi. “This might not be a serious problem for outgoing people who can make friends quickly and easily. Less outgoing people have a harder time making new friends.”      From https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-98-6-980.pdf: “Previous research has shown that children who move frequently tend to do poorly in school and report more behavioral problems (Adam, 2004; Jelleyman & Spencer, 2008). Adolescents who moved frequently as children are more likely to smoke, consume alcohol, and attempt suicide (Dong et al., 2005).”      From https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306460398000239: “Results showed highly significant positive relationships between moving and early initiation of illicit drugs including marijuana [...]. Relationships between moving and measures of alcohol use/problems (onset of first drink, onset of any alcohol-related problem) were either weak or nonsignificant. Important sex differences were found, with statistically significant relationships between moving and early drug use initiation and progression occurring primarily among males.”

Picture it: you’re a child who quickly learns that nothing is forever, because the two most important people in your life, your parents, divorce (badly). From that moment on, you move houses and schools several times, but you barely have the time to get accustomed to or feel safe in your new home, or to make friends at the new school, that out of nowhere you’re forced to move or change schools again. The internet doesn’t exist yet (or at least not as we know it) and the only ways you have to keep in contact with friends is either by letter or phone. You can meet each other, of course, but you’re both just children and you can’t hop on a bus by yourselves, so you strictly have to depend on your parents’ availability. In the meanwhile, you can send letters, which take days or weeks to arrive, or you can call, which is immediate, but then what? You’re not as hyper connected as we are today: in a certain sense, after the call ends, you’re on your own again and the other person stops existing until you call or receive a letter from them again. 

But what if you’re lucky enough to find a friend you can keep, in spite of it all? What if you find someone who loves you for who you are and with whom you can be yourself; a best friend who probably feels like family, a sibling, that one stable presence in your life you so badly needed? Apparently, Jeremy was lucky enough to find one. 

1987 - Jeremy began attending school 4 (middle school).

From jeremywadedelle.com (‘Early life’): “Sept 1987 – Mid 1988 - Jeremy starts grade 7 [...]. He fails grade 7 and has to repeat the school year."

A MAJOR TRAUMA: THE TRAGIC LOSS OF A BEST FRIEND

(around) 1988 - Jeremy's best friend Mike died, supposedly in a car accident. This left a great scar on him.

From Jeremy's September 1990 letter addressed to Chris: “It’s almost unreal how close I feel to you. I thought there could never be another Mike. You’re not really a Mike but you’re a good close friend. It’s been 2 ½ years since I’ve told a guy my age I care about him a lot.” 

In one of the emails exchanged with Ash, Chris explained: 

“Oh, and Mike - who he'd said that he didn't think there would ever be another of. That was his best friend (verified by his parents. Mike was a very real person) who had been killed in Mexico a couple of years earlier. Car accident I think, or maybe he got hit as a pedestrian? Again...it's been 30 yrs. But he talked a lot about the loss of Brian [Likely a typing mistake] and how close they'd been since kindergarten (I think). But that was a pretty rough blow to him.”

I supposed that Jeremy was indeed referring to Mike when he claimed that it had been 2 1/2 years since the last time he had told a guy his age how much he cared about him. This would mean that, given the letter was written in September 1990, if the person Jeremy was referring to was indeed this Mike, he must have died around the spring of 1988, exactly when Jeremy was attending seventh grade, which may be the reason why he failed it. Naturally these are only suppositions, but it is important to state that before Chris, nobody had ever mentioned Mike, though one person on ssheps.com had spread a similar rumor, more than ten years earlier:

From ssheps.com (‘Jeremy Wade Delle’, section ‘Mary N.’): "I live here in Richardson and I have had two daughters graduate and one there right now. I have heard from older mothers that have been around that the reason Jeremy was having problems is because he had a good friend who drowned in white rock lake one night while a group of friends including Jeremy were playing football on the banks. Supposedly Jeremy was dealing with the guilt of not being able to save him. I do not know how true this is but it might be something to look into."

I’m not inclined to believe rumors, but given Chris’ testament, I think there may be some form of truth behind it.

     Take this new trauma and dump it on the shoulders of a pre-teen who has already gone through the traumatic instances I mentioned. His brain is still developing, therefore it’s lacking appropriate emotional and psychological resources to deal with all of this; he also grew up in a household in which, because of internal conflicts, his parents were unlikely able to teach or show him appropriate ways to deal with emotions and problems.

The thoughts and feelings that are going to arise in him as a result of this latest trauma are an unimaginable amount of grief followed by the overwhelming feeling that he will never be able to find anyone who will make him feel as safe and accepted as his best friend - his source of stability - did. He’s going to feel a huge void, a big missing part of him that he has no idea how to fill… not to mention an inconceivable amount of guilt if, perhaps, this best friend really did die in an accident where Jeremy was present but was unable to save him, like the rumor reported by Mary N. suggested. 

     And how do emotionally unskilled people fill voids? In what way can the brain develop as a consequence, in such a young and fragile age? Well, it’s not hard to imagine: there would very likely be behavioral issues, such as the development of a personality or mood disorder, perhaps. If there were several instances of being abruptly separated from loved ones who served as an important source of stability, the result would probably be the development (or most likely the accentuation) of some important form of fear of abandonment, which can manifest itself in being possessive of other people (namely the ones with which a closer bonds is formed, like a girlfriend) and in easily and excessively idealizing and attaching to new people; not to mention that one could very likely find quick, unhealthy and irresponsible ways to deal with the pain - like smoking, drinking alcohol or doing drugs. Jeremy indulged in all of these behaviors, behaviors which are very typical of a personality disorder he was rumored to have been suffering from, though there was never an official diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder. This disorder was long thought to be diagnosable only from eighteen years of age, though recent studies have shown it can start to manifest itself in people as young as eleven years old. I will describe BPD in detail when I will talk about Jeremy’s first relationship with Nancy when he was fourteen years old.

     For now, I will limit myself to reporting what several studies found about the effects of bereavement on the psychology of children and teenagers: 

     From https://psykologisk.no/sp/2015/03/e5/: “Having relationships with and being attached to others is important for human beings, and young people, especially, invest a lot of energy in being included, and being part of a group (Coleman, 2011). During adolescence and through young adulthood there is a shift with decreasing parental support and increasing support from friends (Margolese, Markiewicz, & Doyle, 2005). The importance of friend relationships during adolescence and young adulthood would predict that losing a close friend at this age could be a life-changing experience (Balk, Zaengle, & Corr, 2011; Ringler & Hayden, 2000). Experiencing a loss could lead to growth and maturity, but may also interfere with normal developmental tasks and impede function (Doka, 2000; Neimeyer, Laurie, Mehta, Hardison, & Currier, 2008). Young girls have a closer relationship with their friends than boys do, with higher levels of both intimacy and peer support (Coleman, 2011; De Goede, Branje, & Meeus, 2009; Malone, 2012; Markiewicz, Lawford, Doyle, & Haggart, 2006), predicting stronger grief reactions in girls. [...] Previous studies have also found that for some the loss of a friend can result in more severe grief reactions than the loss of an extended family member (Holland & Neimeyer, 2011; Pfefferbaum et al., 2000; Servaty-Seib & Pistole, 2006–2007). [...] Bereavement following violent losses (accidents, homicide or suicide) increases the risk for complicated grief, thereby causing greater distress (e.g., Currier, Holland, & Neimeyer, 2006; Hardison et al., 2005; Lobb et al., 2010). [...] when comparing the scores of friends with those of close family members (bereaved parents and siblings) in our study, we found as high, and sometimes higher, scores in friends (Dyregrov, Dyregrov, & Kristensen, 2014). Among friends, 83% were in the risk zone for complicated grief [...]. In particular, friends had reactions like longing and not being able to accept the loss, and had high levels of intrusive thoughts and avoidance symptoms. Many reported feelings of unreality and experienced traumatic reminders. In addition, they reported feelings of depression and worry, and had relatively high scores on suicidal ideation.”      From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8794619/: “Childhood bereavement is associated with a range of mental and behavioral health problems, including depression (Cerel et al., 2006), posttraumatic stress reactions (Keyes et al., 2014), substance use (Kaplow et al., 2010), suicide-related behaviors (Guldin et al., 2015; Hill et al., 2019), decreased academic performance (Oosterhoff et al., 2018), and impairments in developmental tasks (Brent et al., 2012). [...] Criteria for PGD [Prolonged Grief Disorder] as per the ICD-11 includes “persistent and pervasive longing for and/or persistent preoccupation with the deceased, accompanied by any of the 10 symptoms that indicate intense emotional pain (e.g., sadness, guilt, anger, denial, blame; difficulty accepting the death; feeling one has lost a part of one’s self; an inability to experience positive mood; emotional numbness; difficulty in engaging with social or other activities) for at least six months following bereavement” (WHO, 2018). [...] Intense emotional pain in youth may be motivated by frustration and anger about feeling deprived of the deceased person’s help in responding to their developmental needs [...]. [...] In older children and adolescents, separation distress may sometimes take the form of a wish to die or fantasies of dying (i.e., suicidal ideation). These wishes reflect an intense desire to be reunited with their loved one and, depending on their own spiritual beliefs, may serve, in their own mind, as a means of overcoming the painful physical separation from their loved one (Kaplow et al., 2012; Kentor & Kaplow, 2020).

Developmental slowing may appear in adolescence as the avoidance of forming age-appropriate future aspirations, such as career and family goals (Kaplow et al., 2012; Layne et al., 2017). [...] Both children and adolescents may express discontinuity in identity as shame or embarrassment surrounding the loss, as they may now feel different from others and subsequently self-conscious (e.g., I’m different from other kids because I don’t have a mother anymore); however, this manifestation may be more salient in older children and adolescents due to their increased prioritization of peers combined with the critical developmental task of identity development during this time (Brown & Larson, 2009; Kroger, 2006). Similarly, existential or identity distress can result in fears related to getting close to others or forming new relationships (e.g., I don’t want to feel the pain of losing someone ever again) (Saltzman et al., 2017). Loss-related existential or identity crises may also manifest in adolescents as extreme risk-taking or recklessness, tempting fate, indifference to one’s safety or well-being (‘‘I don’t care if I live or die’’), and feeling like life is meaningless (“its’s not worth trying” or “nothing really matters anymore”; Kaplow et al., 2012, 2013; Layne et al., 2017). [...] The nature of the relationship to the deceased is also important, as research shows relationships with the deceased that were close, supportive, and confiding are associated with an increased risk of maladaptive grief symptoms (Lobb et al., 2010). Additional research has found that adolescents who experienced the death of a friend had significantly higher maladaptive grief symptoms than those who experienced the death of a grandparent, and emotional closeness to the deceased was a positive predictor of maladaptive grief reactions regardless of the relationship to the person who died (Servaty-Seib & Pistole, 2007). [...]       From https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1487&context=etd-project: “Children frequently feel guilty about the death of a loved one. While this can be attributed to the child's egocentrism, Krupnick (1984) points to these guilt feelings as a way for the individual to feel in control of the environment, as a way of denying or defending against the sense of being ineffectual, a state which can lead to depression and apathy, similar to Seligman's description of "learned helplessness" and resultant depression (Seligman et al, 1974). Another typical reaction of children is to fear further abandonment. Richter (1986) interviewed children who had experienced the death of a sibling. One 13-year-old boy remembered his fears of the time following his loss: "If someone went away, I always felt they wouldn't come back, i was afraid my mom would go away to work and never come home (p. 23)." [...] the death of a sibling, parent or other significant attachment figure has an impact on the child's ability to achieve certain developmental milestones, depending on the child's age at the time of the death. If the death occurs when the surviving child is in the middle childhood stage, the long-term effects will be in the area of competency and self-esteem, which will also affect the ability to form a sense of identity and intimate relationships. If the death occurs when the surviving child is in adolescence and working on issues of identity and intimacy, these will be the areas most affected as an adult.” 

A DIFFICULT PERSONALITY: THE ‘BOY WHO CRIED WOLF’ AND PARENTS WHO (DIDN’T?) CARE 

Image credit: Shayna Feinstein

In my post in which I analyzed Jeremy being bullied, I also introduced proof of him being a "pathological liar", as his father called him. For four years of researching Jeremy and his world, I had no idea what that meant until I experienced it myself.

So, I currently work with teenagers and one day I found out a lot of the things one teen had told me were lies. I was angry about it at first, until one of my colleagues explained the situation to me: this teen lived alone with their mother, who wouldn't pay much attention to them and basically let them do whatever they wanted. They had learned that in order to gain the attention of their mom, they would need to paint things bigger and more worrisome than they were: that's how they became a pathological liar.

     With that, I managed to add the final, missing piece to understanding the Jeremy puzzle. Jeremy had made several comments to his friends about his parents not paying attention to him: his father had remarried and lived in another home for ten years - he clearly had built another life in which Jeremy may have not been involved much. His mother, on the other hand, had in all probability to work twice as hard while she was single in order to provide a home and food for her two children. She must have had a lot to worry about and probably didn’t give Jeremy the amount of attention he so badly needed, which is a difficult thing to do when you yourself need to rebuild your life from scratch. Jeremy was also the youngest in the family, his sister was older when their parents divorced so she was probably better mentally equipped to cope with, or at least to understand, the events. It also seems his sister was doing better at school than him (she was also a cheerleader, for a short while) and it could be that she received more attention than Jeremy. Jeremy did, in fact, "blame his problems on his parents and his older sister"; but I’ll include some considerations Chris made in one of his emails exchanged with Ash, so that you can get another point of view since, until now, all we knew was what Jeremy had told people:

"Another thing that I read that I really don't like because I don't think it is accurate, and this has been being said since around the time of his death. The thing about his not receiving enough love at home. I knew both of his parents back then. His dad more than his mom. He was definitely cared for. Was he a needy kid/teen? Apparently more than realized. Was he not given or shown love and support? Not even close. Often people can say that they love us, and try for all they know what to do, in attempts to show us. That doesn't mean it is the "right way" or most well received way for the individual. I think that his parents were doing everything that they could to pick up after their divorce, start anew with new partners, while trying to co-parent their kids pragmatically. Did [Jeremy's sister] get more attention from his mom than he did? Yeah I'd say so. I think that his dad was sort of at a loss as to what to do, so befriending him to try and understand him was the route he took. Sometimes kids need a parent more than a best bud. This was the late 80's and our society was not as used to wide scale divorce as we are currently. I remember the mid-life crisis divorce trend hitting big around 1984/85/86. [...] We as a culture were still navigating widespread single parenting, and were not yet fully aware of how much of a task it is/was. No, I don't think he was lacking love or emotional support at home. I just don't think that it was what he needed for his particular wants from a parent, whether that was consciously or sub-consciously such”.

There is one thing that I feel the need to point out about Chris’s point of view: he had met Jeremy’s parents but he did not know how they would act behind closed doors, when he wasn’t around; and there's no real way to tell given everyone gives their own version and we wouldn’t get a clear view out of Jeremy even if we could: he was a teenager and a pathological liar who tended to paint things bigger than they were… so who knows? I guess the truth is in the middle and it’s similar to what Chris said: there are different ways of showing and interpreting love, different love languages, and they don’t always get recognized, understood and appreciated. No doubt Jeremy’s parents loved him, but maybe they and Jeremy shared a different love language.  

     Let's now try to understand how it feels to be around a pathological liar: if somebody constantly lies about themselves and their life, so much that you can't really tell whether they are telling the truth or just painting things bigger or making them up... how much can you really say you know about them? How can you really get close, so close that you can effectively help, to someone who never lets you see who they really are or how they really are feeling? Because you see, Jeremy's problem wasn't only the lies, it was also the fact that he was a boy and boys and men are expected to be strong and never cry, never show any ‘weak’ emotion, never show any sign of vulnerability because otherwise they’re going to be labeled as weak. Consider also that Jeremy was living in one of the least progressive states - Texas - in years in which nobody would really say how they felt out of fear of being seen as crazy; and remember that looking for a therapist wasn’t even the first option given that in the United States even calling an ambulance costs lots of money. 

     What you're going to obtain as a result of all of these factors is someone who bottles everything up, using any sort of quick, cheap and unhealthy thing - alcohol, smoke, drugs - in order to cope, until they eventually explode because they have very poor emotional regulation skills. You're going to have a kid who is unpredictable and indulges in dangerous, self-destructive behavior, both because they don't know any better and because they grew up learning that they need to be dramatic (and lie) in order to obtain attention.

     But let’s switch perspectives: imagine that you’re the parent of such a child, a child who is always being ‘dramatic’, and imagine that some kids from some psychiatric hospital (who carry the stigma of being ‘not normal’ and unreliable) call you and tell you that your kid (who, again, you know very well to be dramatic) said some worrying things and mentioned suicide... would you believe them? Because I have got to be honest with you: once I understood Jeremy's ‘boy who cried wolf’ tendency, I finally understood that his mother did not pay attention to the warning of his friends not because she didn't care, but rather because she thought Jeremy was acting out for attention, like he often would. I can’t even imagine the trauma of finding out that, this time, the threat was real, and living with the remorse that you should have somehow been able to distinguish this real threat from all the other 'just for attention' ones. Plus, today it is known that behind someone who constantly tries to draw the attention of others, there is a request for help (when there aren't certain personality disorders like narcissistic and histrionic), but can you really expect a parent living in a psychology-ignorant society to know this? 

     What about Jeremy’s father, then, did he care? Well, he ran out of all his insurance’s money (and it must have been a lot) in order to allow Jeremy to stay six months in Timberlawn to get better; and when Jeremy got out Joseph looked for another therapist. Also, when Jeremy was arrested for theft at Richardson High School, Joseph asked the police to report his son’s theft to the juvenile system, so he could receive proper help. This doesn’t look like a father who didn’t care about his son, does it? Someone who didn't care wouldn't have spent a dime on Jeremy. What it looks like, is that Joseph was simply desperate, much like Wanda: they didn't know what to do with their erratic, incorrigible son anymore, their resources and knowledge were very limited because they lived in a time where the Internet didn't exist so they had very limited options or solutions - in other words, they knew what was in their immediate surroundings; if there were other solutions, they couldn’t know about them.

     Connected to this is Joseph and Wanda's reaction when learning about Jeremy's death: Wanda became "hysterical", Joseph was described by the policeman filing the report as showing “no emotion, remorse or anything else, concerning the death of his son". What I personally believe is that Wanda was “hysterical” also because she understood this time Jeremy’s threat was real and she didn’t listen; while Joseph, on the other hand, it took me a lot of time, study and pondering to understand that maybe he was acting ‘uncaring’ because… he had expected Jeremy’s suicide to happen. 

Think about it: the last straw was him asking the police to have his son’s theft reported to the juvenile system - a desperate request from a desperate father who had run out of solutions. His son had already attempted suicide, but after Timberlawn he was acting even worse and it seemed like he was never going to get better. In fact, his only aspirations at age sixteen were to get a car and a girl pregnant and he didn’t want to stay off of drugs nor stay out of trouble. In my eyes, Joseph was acting ‘uncaring’ because he had expected and feared something so terrible would happen, but he had run out of solutions so he felt like it was only going to be a matter of time - he felt helpless. And when the day finally came that Jeremy did kill himself, I think the first thought that went through his mind was: “It happened.” 

     So no. It is easy to point fingers and blame Jeremy’s parents, but from all the sources I could gather and the pondering I did, I believe his parents did try, until the very end, at the best of their knowledge and abilities, but were left feeling helpless seeing that no matter what they did or how much money they spent on him, Jeremy was resisting every treatment. 

It goes without saying that those parents are grieving for Jeremy until this day, just like his poor sister is. “No day shall erase you from the memory of time”. 

LOVE ON THE BORDER LINE: LOVING SOMEONE WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO LOVE 

Image credit: waterfall7290. This was one of my first Jeremy drawings, made in 2020, and I guarantee you it’s only a matter of time before another Tumblr content-stealing website comes along and republishes it elsewhere without my consent. Oh well.

March 1990 - Jeremy met his first love, Nancy. First loves are known to be the ones you never forget about, because it is the first time you’re having such strong feelings for someone, someone you don’t really know and that you idealize because you’re young and naive. Later in life, after many ‘life lessons’, you eventually learn not to idealize people and that it takes time to form a strong bond. However, when you’re just a teenager and especially when you’re in such desperate need for love, you don’t do that. And you don’t do that if you have Borderline Personality Disorder.

ABOUT BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER:  Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a long-term mental health disorder which commenced to be widely studied in the 1980s. Because of the severity of its symptoms, it requires the attention of very skilled and highly trained mental health professionals. This condition is considered one of the most stigmatized and challenging to treat, reason why not many therapists feel comfortable working with it or even diagnosing it (source). This is also due to the fact that it is common among borderline patients to display manipulative behaviors which could result in the loss of their therapist's license (source).      Borderline Personality Disorder is characterized by rather intense and sudden mood swings, impulsivity, a pattern of unstable relationships, intense episodes of anger, depression and anxiety lasting from a few hours to days. Individuals suffering from BPD also possess an unstable image of oneself, extreme fear of abandonment and a tendency to dramatically shift their opinion of people by either idealizing or demonizing them (commonly referred to as "black and white thinking") (source). Additionally, they often turn to substance abuse, self-harm and reckless and impulsive behavior (e.g. shopping spree, reckless driving...) in an attempt to ease their intense emotions or, on the contrary, to try to feel any kind of emotion, since they go through chronic feelings of emptiness and dissociation, too. It is estimated that 50 to 80% of individuals suffering from BPD self-harm and that up to 10% manage to commit suicide (source). The intensity and presence of the symptoms varies from patient to patient.       BPD has a genetic predisposition. Environmental factors that have been identified as contributing to the development of borderline personality disorder include primarily childhood maltreatment (physical, sexual, or neglect), found in up to 70% of people with BPD, as well as maternal separation, poor maternal attachment, inappropriate family boundaries, parental substance abuse, and serious parental psychopathology (source).      For a long time, it was believed that BPD could not be diagnosed before the age of eighteen years old, because several of its symptoms (e.g. impulsivity, anger outbursts, intense emotions, identity disturbance…) can be mistaken for normal changes in the body and mind happening during adolescence. However, in later years, numerous researches have shown that BPD can indeed start to manifest itself in adolescence (as young as eleven years old): “Using the same Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth version (DSM-V) criteria as in adults, borderline personality disorder (BPD) in adolescents is defined as a 1-year pattern of immature personality development with disturbances in at least five of the following domains: efforts to avoid abandonment, unstable interpersonal relationships, identity disturbance, impulsivity, suicidal and self-mutilating behaviors, affective instability, chronic feelings of emptiness, inappropriate intense anger, and stress-related paranoid ideation. BPD can be reliably diagnosed in adolescents as young as 11 years. The available epidemiological studies suggest that the prevalence of BPD in the general population of adolescents is around 3%. The clinical prevalence of BPD ranges from 11% in adolescents consulting at an outpatient clinic to 78% in suicidal adolescents attending an emergency department.” (source) 

Now, I’m no psychologist or such, but we could find some similarities between Jeremy’s reported behavior and the symptoms here described:      Efforts to avoid abandonment: threatening suicide twice (both episodes in July 1990) in order to convince Nancy to get back with him; offering Michelle to raise a child that wasn’t even his so he could still be involved with her. In addition to this, the September 1990 letter addressed to Chris shows a really insecure and ‘clingy’ Jeremy writing 4/7 pages of affection and appreciation for his friend!       Unstable interpersonal relationships: the tormented relationships both with Nancy and Michelle and his incapability of setting and respecting boundaries, like not accepting the breakups and insisting on contacting and expressing love and longing for both. A core symptom of BPD is also the idealization/demonization of people, which he did with both ex-girlfriends: Nancy was idealized as she was seen as the love of his life (the ring he wanted her to have on the last day) although they had known each other for less than two weeks before dating and they had dated for only a month; while Michelle went from being idealized to demonized the moment she broke up with Jeremy (he accused her of being partially to blame for his suicide).       Identity disturbance: identity disturbance is a term used to describe incoherence or inconsistency in a person's sense of identity. This could mean that a person's goals, beliefs and actions are constantly changing - like Jeremy lying about himself and his life or Jeremy admitting (in the September 1990 letter to Chris) to getting his arm tattoo and pretending to be affiliated with the Confederate Hammerskins only to impress Chris.       Impulsivity: lying, making threatening comments about the Math teacher, stealing a stereo, stealing money from the basketball game, stealing the ring and the gun, stealing his parent’s car multiple times to go visit friends as far as Austin... impulsivity basically means getting in potentially risky/dangerous situations without thinking of the consequences first.      Suicidal and self-mutilating behaviors: this one is obvious, but self-mutilating/self-harming behaviors can also include abusing substances (which Jeremy was known for); exercising to the point of collapse or injury; getting into fights in which one is likely to be hurt; having unsafe sex; denying oneself a necessity as a punishment; stopping medication or starving with intent to cause harm; deliberate recklessness (e.g. risk-taking with cars and trains). (source, source) Now I don’t know if Jeremy had any self-inflicted wounds on his body, but I believe he did show signs of the other self-harming behaviors which I have written in bold: he was found to be twelve pounds lighter when he died (which means in some way he had denied himself the necessity to eat) and he “did not want to stay clean” from drugs (which was necessary for his well-being). He was also reckless (see: impulsivity).      Chronic feelings of emptiness: emptiness can be ‘fought’ by indulging in unhealthy behaviors like doing impulsive and risky things like stealing a car, lying about one’s life, abusing substances… the riskier the behavior, the more alive one feels (thanks to an adrenaline rush).       Affective instability/Inappropriate intense anger: affective instability is a term used to indicate rapid emotional shifts, usually towards a negative emotion such as depression, anxiety or anger. Several people described Jeremy as a kid with anger problems.       Stress-related paranoid ideation: Jeremy telling Ryan that “for some unknown reason people were trying to track him down, and someone was going to kill him”, so that’s why he needed a gun.      I may be stretching things here, or maybe I am not. There’s no way to know if Jeremy really had BPD (and maybe some other comorbid disorder like Bipolar Disorder), but I’ve always been inclined to think he did fit several of its symptoms. 

Back to Jeremy's love life: why is love so important in our society? Because it is the foundation for building a second home, a second family. Ever since we’re children, our society brainwashes us into believing love is magically going to solve all of our problems: think of all the fables and stories that tell about a prince saving a princess and finding love and a happy ever after; think of all the cartoons, especially Disney, every one of us grew up with - love is always the goal, love is the magic force that saves. And that task of solving problems and providing happiness is always assigned to women, who are seen as the embodiment of unconditional love and family. Girls grow up with the idea that a boy is going to protect them and boys grow up with the idea that a girl is going to cure their issues with the magical power of love. Everyone falls for this stereotype, but those who didn’t feel loved enough by their first family tend to believe in this more strongly than those who grew up in a loving home. 

     Now when Jeremy found Nancy, he thought he had found the cure for all of his sadness and issues. He was missing his first family, so he felt the need to create another one, one in which he would actually experience undivided love and attention, and idealized this to be possible with Nancy. Unfortunately, the problem was that Jeremy was incapable of healthily manage a relationship, both because he had never witnessed what healthy love was (given his parents had had a messy divorce) and also because he was so young and inexperienced and going through adolescence, a time of life where a million changes are happening both on the inside and on the outside and it is difficult to navigate through them, especially if you lack emotional regulation skills and the help of a proper therapist (namely a cognitive-behavioral one which is so common today but which was so uncommon at the time). 

     So what happens when you have all these emotional regulation problems, huge expectations, a huge need for love and a huge fear of abandonment? You cling onto the other person. You become very jealous because you’re afraid of losing them and you constantly project your fears onto this person, becoming possessive and suffocating - toxic, in other words. 

     And what can the person you’re with, which is your opposite, do? They leave you. They probably won’t even try to work through the issues because at such a young age, let’s be honest, the majority of teenagers want to have a good time, not to have someone who drags them down. Plus, it’s really of no point to try to work through said issues if the person you’re with doesn’t want to solve them, probably makes you feel smothered and unsafe and doesn’t even look like the kind of person you could ever build something with (Jeremy really had no aspirations, while Nancy had many). 

From the 1991 police report (page 20 of the PDF): “Nancy advised they dated from that time until sometime in the middle of April at which time she broke off the relationship with Delle due to him being possessive and his problems with drugs and depression."

Let’s switch sides again now and let’s try to put ourselves in Jeremy’s shoes: how are you going to react knowing that after having lost half of your family, friends through the years, your beloved best friend… now even the person you thought you had a future with, the ‘love of your life’, left you? You will probably think life is an unending source of pain in which everything you love eventually leaves you. Maybe you even blame yourself for it: “Everything I love leaves me so it must be my fault, I ruin everything”. Thoughts of this kind can lead to desperation, desperation which can exacerbate into extreme behaviors if you don’t receive any (professional) help or are incapable of both processing and expressing your emotions in a healthy way.

April 1990: Jeremy attempted suicide, two days after breaking up with Nancy.

     His parents came together and decided to put Jeremy in what was thought to be the best hospital in Texas at the time, in an attempt to give him the help he needed: Timberlawn psychiatric hospital in Dallas. Jeremy spent six months of his life there, having the chance to come home for a brief time thanks to occasional passes.  

In Jeremy’s September 1990 letter addressed to Chris, Jeremy claimed to have made some friends in Timberlawn who helped him, Chris being the most important one, who was like a “big fucking brother” to him. He also stated:

“I’m glad I got engaged with therapy and treatment, it’s made my time [in the program] shorter. [...] Now that I look at it running was stupid and didn’t solve anything so I’m not doing it cause it makes me feel like a complete dumbass, and that’s something I don’t want to feel like or be remembered as, cause I’m not.”

July 1990: Jeremy met Michelle at Timberlawn. Michelle was as troubled as Jeremy was, if not more: apparently she had been subjected to some important traumas during her childhood, which had made her into a very troubled and unstable person. At Timberlawn, she and Jeremy found each other and felt like they could understand each other, the ‘rejects’ of society who could build a happy future together. 

     Nevertheless, Jeremy was still longing for Nancy and when he got a pass to come home from Timberlawn in July 1990, he drove to her residence one night and did something very manipulative and toxic: he stated that he had a gun and that he wanted to kill himself. He had tried to do the same thing earlier that month when he had met Nancy again at the summer retreat sponsored by Casa View Baptist Church: he had climbed on a rock and had threatened suicide. Such manipulative and toxic behavior is unfortunately very typical of people who have serious disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder, for example. However, it is important to know that the majority of the people who do these things don’t usually do it out of malice, which means with the intent of hurting the other person - on the contrary, they often do it because life has no meaning to them and they’re desperate: they cannot accept the idea that the person who means everything to them doesn’t want them anymore and they don’t know any better way of gaining their attention, so they use suicide as a last resort. Still, malice or not, such behavior is very toxic and manipulative and should not be excused.  

     Now, try to put yourselves in Nancy’s shoes: even if she did not want to be in a relationship with Jeremy anymore, why do you think she never cut ties with him? She certainly wasn’t indifferent to him, in the sense that she cared about him, but I truly believe the thing that stopped her from cutting all ties was guilt and fear - fear that if she left, Jeremy would kill himself and she’d have to live with remorse. So she stayed, and Jeremy never really moved on from their breakup, because he could call her anytime he wanted and she’d always answer… and I can empathize with that choice, if that was really what made Nancy stay. Many people believe that if two people stay friends after a breakup, maybe the dumped one will suffer less… but they won’t. They will actually suffer more because they will keep hanging on to the hope that maybe, maybe one day they’ll get back together with their loved one - which is what, to my understanding, Jeremy hoped for until the very end.  

Let’s go back to Michelle. It is not known if Jeremy met Michelle before or after these incidents. I am inclined to believe they may have met later, or maybe Jeremy already knew her but got interested in her following these events. This would make sense and it could be seen as a desperate attempt of his to find a replacement for Nancy. In my opinion, if he really had been in love with Michelle, he would have stopped calling Nancy; yet he didn’t, he kept calling her until the very end, so that’s why I believe Michelle was really a desperate lifeline to him. This makes even more sense if you consider that Jeremy did seem like the type of boy who would fall for basically anyone, as if he was constantly trying to fill a void. Surely that’s a normal thing at his age, but I have noticed a pattern which I want to report here:

From the September 7, 2021 email ‘RE: RE: I need your help with the story’ Ash exchanged with me: “Just be sure to convey that Lisa was just a crush of his...not a real deal first love or so. He was very committed to Nancy and Michelle at the time. But he could not decide. And he was always looking to score something "better", so to speak. In this regard he was the typical teen boy. He wanted to make love with Lisa. He was very focused on blondes with big ... you know. As I said, very blunt. It is apparent from his notes and what Lisa told me, which is why she turned him down.”; From the 1991 police report (page 30 of the PDF): “1/15/91 I received two letters [...] Jeremy Delle addressed to a Ladanda [...]. These notes talk about [...] his feelings for Ladanda."; From the suicide letter Jeremy sent to his friend Chris from Austin’s family and which was posted on jeremywadedelle.com (‘Later Life’, section ‘January 1991’): “[Censored, presumably the name of Chris’ sister]: “you are very very pretty. I hope you make some guy happy. You’re parents too.[...]”.

Anyway, Jeremy was released from Timberlawn in October 1990, while Michelle was re-admitted into Timberlawn. This makes you understand that the poor girl was really having a hard time, so it should come to no surprise that if someone as balanced as Nancy wasn’t capable of handling a relationship with Jeremy, neither could a girl who kept being re-admitted into psychiatric hospitals. Michelle couldn’t handle being with someone who was pressuring her to have a family with him and possibly get married… while being only sixteen and having been dating for only a couple of months! It is very normal to idealize people during adolescence, but all that running and pressuring to build a family together when they barely knew each other was over the top and it’s actually something that’s very common in people with, again, Borderline Personality Disorder. 

     Adding to this, Jeremy was a pathological liar, and usually pathological liars get to a point where they can’t really differentiate the truth from when they’re lying because that is a mechanism their brain has learned not only to gain the attention of people, but also to build a different reality than the one the person is actually living in. I guess you could define it as some form of dissociation: you dissociate from your real life and live into a fantasy, a fantasy you really, really want to believe, to the point you lose yourself in it. And that’s what Jeremy did when he was going around showing people pictures of a baby which wasn’t even his: he desperately wanted to believe he had a second family - so desperate, that when Michelle told him she thought she was pregnant but not of him, he offered to raise the baby, even if it wasn’t his. He wanted to have a second family so badly because he wanted to find love, but a love which wouldn’t divorce, wouldn’t die or wouldn’t leave him: he wanted a forever happy ever after; he wanted certainty and safety, above all.

      So when Michelle rejected him, he demonized her, saying she was (part of) the reason why he would later kill himself. Obviously, it wasn’t Michelle’s fault: if Jeremy had been doing better and he and Michelle had broken up, he wouldn’t have killed himself - instead, he killed himself because he had a lot of problems and traumas weighing on him… so it was not because of how Michelle may have acted. 

I don’t know how Michelle is doing today, but I know she’s had a very troubled life and while I don’t think the death of Jeremy is what caused her adult problems, I believe it’s part of it and I feel sorry for her because she had no fault over what happened; just like the Delle family had no real fault: they all did the best they could with the best of the knowledge and abilities they had at the time. 

LIFE AT RICHARDSON HIGH: THE HOSPITAL STIGMA, FEELINGS OF INADEQUACY, BULLYING AND ALIENATION 

October 1990 - Jeremy was released from Timberlawn. He was a broken, lost and depressed fifteen-year-old with several traumas weighing on his shoulders and with very low self-confidence and self-esteem. He had a great need for love and attention which stemmed from his parents' divorce and the fact that, in his eyes, they weren’t giving him enough of any of the two. He was looking for someone - anyone - who could love him and stay with him forever… but his family was split and the friends he had made during the years had lasted only a short time, because he had changed schools and addresses multiple times and now he was alone in a new city, new school, with no friend by his side.

The friend he cared about the most, Chris, was 200 miles away in Austin. His forever best friend, Mike, the first and real family he felt like he had, had died in a tragic accident a few years earlier. On top of all that, both his girlfriends had broken up with him, making him feel like he wasn’t worthy of being loved. And if he wasn’t worthy of being loved, he could never have his own family. 

Was it even worth trying to build a bond with someone anymore, given life had taught him no bond ever lasted? On one hand, it really seemed like he wasn’t destined to find a loving and stable figure, and on the other hand, it seemed like he didn’t deserve to find any. Deep down, it is likely Jeremy felt like he wasn’t good enough to be loved (he couldn’t have a healthy relationship even if he wanted to, as his behavior was a big issue) and like he was too broken to get his life together. But he tried to fight this feeling.

     After coming out of the hospital, he went to live with his father, who had been a kind of estranged figure all of his life - maybe not estranged but one with whom he surely had much less contact. He probably didn’t know how to act and neither did his father, much like Chris suggested. Jeremy must have also felt rejected by his own mother, whom he felt ‘didn’t want him anymore’. Ash suggested that Jeremy’s behavior with the anger outbursts, the drug problems and the ‘drama’ must have been very hard on his sister and his mother, so maybe that’s why Wanda sent him to live with his father. Who knows. In any case, he was undoubtedly closer to his mother (having lived with her all his life) and mothers are generally more emotionally available than fathers, in the sense that it is easier for a son to open up about his feelings to his mother than to his father, especially one that hadn’t been much present in his life. 

As a result of all this, Jeremy acted up and was ‘dramatic’, he told a lot of lies because he had developed like that, he had learned that he needed to make others worry in order to make them notice him. But this backfired because it got him into trouble and arose conflicts with his parents, making him feel worse and worse. On top of all that was also his addiction to substances, which made him feel better temporarily but once the effect ended, he would feel those ugly emotions again so he would go look for those substances again - he was trapped in a never-ending cycle of unhealthy dependency which he could not (or did not want to) stop.

     Richardson was his fifth home (six, if you also count the residence at Timberlawn) in ten years and Richardson High was his seventh (or a little less, the exact number is uncertain) school. All his life had lacked certainty and stability and now he was also carrying the stigma of being the ‘crazy' kid, the ‘not normal' kid, the ‘something is wrong with him’ kid because he had spent six months of his life in a psychiatric hospital. Most of his new schoolmates were richer kids and they all looked like they had their life together, while he did not, not in the slightest. He felt pressured to play a role, he had to make up stories about himself and look cooler than he actually was even if in all probability, in my opinion Jeremy felt like the exact opposite. But no one wants to be your friend if you’re a loser. 

     So he acted up in class. He made up grandiose, sometimes blatantly false stories in order to make people like him. Some did (Lisa and Ryan, for example), but the majority was indifferent to him while others started to bully him… to the point of throwing stuff at him when the teacher wasn’t looking? Who knows. But there were surely people making fun of him, alienating him even further and making him feel even more like he wasn’t worthy of being loved. Jeremy reacted both with depression and anger to this, depression when he was feeling like he had no control over his own life, and anger when he wanted to have control over his own life, but he felt like the circumstances and the people around him wouldn't let him. He was described as a very angry child.

Then Jeremy did some stupid teenage stuff that anyone could have done - stole some money from a basketball game, kept questionable things in his locker that looked satanic while the Satanic Panic hysteria was going around, said some bad things about two teachers he didn’t like. While for a lot of people that would have been considered normal teenage behavior, Jeremy was targeted from the moment he stepped foot in the school because he came from a psychiatric hospital and was therefore judged dangerous. Therefore, the moment he made some mistakes the school went after him.

December 1990 - Jeremy was put in In School Suspension. The problem was that he was kept there for a longer time than other kids (one month, of which two weeks of school time). For context: the general time spent in ISS is a couple of days, the maximum is 10 days but only if something really really bad was done, like beating someone up or something. Certainly not for smoking (the initial reason for which he was put in ISS) or stealing some money, or having some questionable but not dangerous stuff in a locker, or making some bad comments about some teachers (the reason for which his stay in ISS was extended).

What I'm trying to say is that I believe the school would have treated the situation differently, in a lighter way, had it been another kid; but because Jeremy came from a mental hospital, he was treated like a problem child from the moment he stepped foot in his new school. ISS was like isolation and the last thing Jeremy needed was to be separated from everyone else almost as soon as he had arrived because, I believe, that’s what confirmed to him, more than anything else, that nobody really wanted him around and that no matter how much he tried, he was never going to get better, life was never going to get better, because everything had kept going steadily worse and there was no sign that it could ever get better.

     And that’s when, surely after some major breakdown, Jeremy finally felt a weight off his chest. He felt consolation in the thought that he did have a choice after all, that there was something he could do to feel like he had any power over his life; there was a way to stop suffering. And that would be dying.

January 8, 1991 - Jeremy went to school and he looked really happy, he hugged people, because he felt relieved in knowing all of his pain was soon going to be over. But he had no intention of leaving without a fight, I believe. He didn’t want to leave silently, because otherwise people wouldn’t have remembered him. Otherwise, everyone would have forgotten him just like they had forgotten him while he was alive. 

     Why did he choose Barnett’s class? I have no idea. Several students claimed Barnett was a really great teacher, so maybe Jeremy did it because he felt ‘safe’ in her class. Other people said that the kids in the English class were the ones who bullied Jeremy, so maybe he felt like giving them a lesson. Someone else (not from that class) said those same kids never bullied Jeremy. Therefore… who knows. Who knows why he chose that particular class. Maybe there’s no real reason, maybe it was simply the first class that came to his mind.

What matters, I believe, is why he decided to do it - like I said, I believe he wanted people to notice him and to remember him forever, but he didn’t want to physically hurt anyone because, I believe, there was no malice in him. Jeremy had a golden heart, he loved people (his own way), more than he loved himself - that’s what I understood about him. I’m pointing this out because I am really sick and tired of people associating him to those school shooter monsters who instead took lives with them. Jeremy could have killed someone that day but he didn’t, I think that’s a very important distinction that needs to be made. Still, it goes without saying that even if he didn’t hurt anyone physically that day, he did psychologically. It’s not only the people who witnessed his death who will have to live with that trauma forever, it’s also his family and friends.

     But if Pearl Jam didn’t write the song, only a selected number of people would have known and remembered him. I think Jeremy will forever be remembered until the song is remembered. Unfortunately, the song pushed a narrative that many people still believe to be accurate even to this day. In addition, the song made all the wrong kinds of people know about the incident and act nasty about it: some acted like vultures around Jeremy and his loved ones and inflicted even deeper traumas by calling Jeremy’s family and invading their privacy and grief, asking them very inappropriate questions or making very inappropriate and outright insane demands, like having Jeremy’s bloody sweatshirt… or so I was told. But given the things I have seen ever since I have known the True Crime Community (for which it will be very clear, at this point, that I feel a deep, burning hate), I have no doubt things like these really happened.

CONCLUSION

Image credit: Scott Snyder, Jock - from the comic book: “Wytchers - Vol 1″ 

I guess what I really want people to ponder upon, is that from my understanding, mistakes were surely made but all of Jeremy’s friends and family tried, at the best of their knowledge and abilities, to help him… but he was a very difficult and unstable person to deal with, there’s no doubt about that. I see people say: “I wish I had been his friend, so I could have helped him” all the time. I used to say the same things, until I wrote the trilogy No more “Later Days” and dived deep in basically all the things you have read in this article and I understood that, at some point, anyone would have easily felt frustrated at trying to help a kid who kept getting in trouble and who looked like he didn’t want to get better. And all of the people who make these comments seem not to take into consideration that you can’t spend your entire life and time helping someone, someone so difficult and stubborn, because everyone has their places to be, things to do, family and friends to see… etcetera. Jeremy needed a lot of help and attention, more than was available at the time in a place like Texas and more than his family and friends were capable of giving him. Surely, some things could have happened differently, some different choices could have been made. But you must not forget that nobody really had the intention of causing harm to Jeremy (well, except for his bullies of course) - everyone tried to do what was the best, the rest was… a very unfortunate chain of consequences. 

     I do wonder if, had he been born later, he could have had some more concrete chances to save himself. I like to think he could have, but it still would have been a very very very complicated situation. He would have had the internet where he could have searched for solutions and talked to people who were going through the same about his feelings, feelings that he kept bottled up. I know the internet is what saved me when I was a teenager, and I know I’m not the only one… otherwise I believe I would have ended up like Jeremy. I guess this is what keeps me going and do what I do, both on the internet and in real life. I’m a survivor, so I try to teach what I’ve learned to other people so that hopefully, I can make them into survivors as well. I do it for Jeremy and I do it for myself, I do it for all those who didn’t make it. 

I couldn’t save Jeremy because I wasn’t there when it happened, but maybe, maybe I can help building a future in which stories like Jeremy’s never happen again. And you, if you’re reading - you can and should do the same. For you. For me. For Jeremy. For everyone. 

If you have taken the time to read all of this - congratulations! You must be someone who is really interested in Jeremy. I hope I helped in making people ponder upon and understand what it took me four years and a trilogy to understand.

If you have read this and actually knew Jeremy, because you’re either a friend or a family member… what do you think? Have I managed to portray an accurate image of him and you? Are my sources accurate? I would love to hear your opinion and criticism, in case you have any. The same goes for anyone else who read, obviously. I’m always open to constructive feedback.

If you’d like to contact me, my email is waterfall7290 + @ + google mail domain.

Thank you for reading this far.

Always,

Waterfall 

ABOUT THIS BLOG

[koddyroddy]

Funhouse Speculation on DFF

I love horror, and I absolutely love guessing who the unknown killers could be in a horror story. Dead Friend Forever is perfect for this type of diversion!!!

I have to share my wild speculations on this wonderful little show, even if I'm proven wrong later (that's part of the fun). Heeheeheeheehee.

I'll start my speculations assuming there's only human killers (for now).

Who is a killer? My guess at the Episode 4 mark--

Jin!!!!!!

(plus Top for obvious reasons)

Hear me out!

We are one third of the way through the series, and there's so much more story to tell. Per horror film tropes--the first third we often get red herrings (that may or may not end up being true).

First, let's deal with the two most suspicious characters.

Phi and Tan: Are they the killers? Options:

Phi and Tan are the killers, perhaps as revenge for Non's death and/or they are working with Non.

Phi and Tan are red herrings to make people think they are the killers when they just aren't.

(Variant of #2) Phi and Tan are not the killers, but they were friends with Non and wanted to learn about what happened to him. Still not the killers.

Phi and Tan are red herrings at first but one or both end up being one of the killers as a reverse uno later in the show. In this situation, at some point in the show's middle third it will be revealed that they are not the killers in some "decisive" way. The reverse uno comes in the last third with the final twist revealing No, He (They) Is (Are) the Killers!

At this point, they're just too obvious, so I'm skeptical of them as the killers. That said, Tan seems the more suspicious of the two.

Next, Por: Is he a victim or one of the killers? Thoughts:

In many horror films, one of the killers often ends up "dead" earlier in the story only to reveal themselves to be very much alive at the story's climax. I mean Por did basically impale himself on that tree branch. I admit the stomach wounds seem real, so who knows. The thing I'm looking for now is whether or not his body gets moved to an out-of-way place. If they move the body, then the chances of him being a killer increases. After all, he'd be able to freely move about if no one is watching his body.

Question though--who exactly would be his primary target? Hmmm.

On to Tee and Fluke: Killers or the primary targets? Thoughts:

These two are breaking under the pressure! They both seem more likely to become killers in the mania of the situation than to be the original killers. Tee seems like a primary target, if he actually was Non's main bully, but I'm not 100% sold on that.

For Fluke, it's interesting that this entire situation seems almost designed to push his buttons. That said, if Por is one of the killers, then Fluke would be the obvious accomplice. Who would be their primary target?

Now, let's discuss Top: Top, Top, Top. Thoughts:

I think he's faking the crazy.

Consider this--Top when he gets off the bike outside the house:

He looks pretty clearheaded to me. What's unclear is the state of his shirt. Speaking of...

The shirt doesn't look as green in the first picture as it does in the second when he's come into the house and is starting to "seizure." Plus he doesn't have the traces of green vomit on his face in the first picture (which is easier to see when you watch the show as opposed to looking at my crappy screenshot).

As I said--he's totally faking it.

Of course, I'm currently speculating on the killers being wholly human. All the supernatural stuff I'll save for another post. At this point, he's "killed" Por, so the question really becomes Who Is His Accomplice? Por and Fluke? Seems a little unlikely, but you never know. Also, if he's the first killer revealed, then he's not the mastermind.

Regarding his primary targets--hold on that.

At last, we have Jin and White: Final boys or the ultimate masterminds? Thoughts:

What a juxtaposition these two make. Honestly, it's hard to tell which is more suspicious.

With White, as the story progresses, he seems more and more like the final boy. BUT! Why would the killers target him? He wasn't a part of the original group who knew Non. Often in horror, the final girl/boy is someone that the killer saves to the end because they are the primary target. Why would anyone target White?

That said, the main person I can think of is Top. In the first episode, there was that joke about Top joining Tee and White in a threesome. Is there tension there that has yet to be revealed? Is White Top's primary target for taking Tee?

To flip it, is Top helping White get revenge for his--I don't know--big brother Non? I could totally see that. Maybe it's White that Top wants, and so he's helping him exact revenge. It is Top's freakout that lead to Tee freaking out, after all. I like White as the final boy more than him being a killer, so the question is who is the second (or third killer?) and who is he targeting?

Then we come to Jin.

At the beginning, Jin had more markings of being the final boy, but over time, he's proven to not be that helpful. I have no memory of him contributing anything positive to their situation. With his dislocated shoulder, he's now turned into a damsel in distress. There's potential backstory per the show's trailer that Jin liked Non. Could he secretly be the one planning revenge?

Also, so much of his story seems to revolve around Phi, almost as if they're trajectory is separate from everyone else's. With so much more story to tell (two thirds of the show!), I wonder how they're return to the group will go.

With horror tropes in mind, Jin seems the least likely candidate, which is why he's the most suspicious to me right now. This is totally just gut feeling, with barely any logic around it. I fully admit it.

But wait, what about Non? I need more information. He could be the red herring.

...

I have many more thoughts as I speculate away, so I'll likely post further once I collect them. There's a lot to think about regarding the supernatural aspects (are we going to get a Blair Witch ending?) and the sexual dynamics (are we going to get a Captivity ending!?!?). Now that's a thought.

[destinyc1020]

i love u and ur blog but sometimes ur way too naive or maybe not naive but u see black and white when sometimes things arent that clear or straightforward (diff anon btw). obv not all BTS are fake, thats not what people r saying. basically between the filming in 2022 and now she seems to be keeping her distance a bit more than before. obv we could all be wrong and the next interview we'll be proven wrong. i am sure its nothing. its just slight diff in her behavior towards timmy from what we've seen so far has changed.

I'm sorry Anon, but I'm not "naïve".

I just don't read into every single little thing, or question what ppl themselves say out of their OWN MOUTHS....especially when we've only seen ONE official cast interview (one!!) so far on this Dune Part 2 press tour. 🥴

Case in point: Back when the cast met up in Brazil for the con, ppl were trying to say that "smthg is weird/off", or were trying to claim that Z and Florence somehow had "beef" with each other (what??? 🥴).

But now, now that they were just on Kimmel sitting side by side, laughing, and joking/interacting with each other, you all think they're fine, but now ASSUME that Z and Timmy are "off" with each other. Seriously??? 🥴

She was sitting directly in front of him! Excuse her if she's not going to twist and contort her body to give him full eye contact during an interview! 🙄

The problem is, SOME of you all read way too MUCH in the silliest of little details, and it ends up being absolutely NOTHING in the end. 🙄😒

It's also probably another reason why those Tomdaya breakup rumors got so viral that they had paps asking Tom out in the streets of LA whether he and Zendaya had "broken up". 🙄

Look....I'm one of the biggest body language fans and observers out here, and I'm ALWAYS honest with my thoughts, opinions, and "gut feelings" (good OR bad) on my blog. I would have long since said smthg if I felt like smthg was "off" with Z or Timmy... or with anyone in the cast last night.

I think some fans need to stop being so uptight. At the VERY LEAST, compare apples to apples. If we get an interview with Timmy and Z together solo on this press tour and she's "acting weird", THEN I'll say smthg.

But until then, there's nothing I've seen at all that leads me to believe that they aren't friends anymore, or that she's "cooled off" of him.

Also, keep in mind please that Timmy has a girlfriend now (he did NOT during Dune 1 press), so if you notice any change, she might just be respecting the fact that he's in a rlshp rn and def doesn't want ppl spreading false rumors cuz Timdayas are already delusional out here. 🙄😒

[herrlindemann]

Zillo - January 2004

thanks to ramjohn for the scans.

With big things casting their shadows far ahead, the new Rammstein album, which at the time of this writing didn't yet have a final title, is of truly gigantic proportions. The rumor mill has been churning for quite a while and as early as April the band's official website published the first results of the work on the successor to 'Mutter'. However, by the time the listening session started in front of a manageable number of journalists, quite a bit of water had flowed down the Rhine. In a noble ambience and under the highest security precautions, we too were able to convince ourselves that the hype about the ten pieces presented there was not just hot air.

The palette ranges from the insanely brutal 'Mein Teil', which is supposed to form the first single, to the simply knitted, but much softer and catchier 'Los'.

In between, Rammstein play with all sorts of proven elements, but always surprise with another new detail. From the socially critical number 'Amerika', whose refrain you can sing along to immediately, to the slightly sacral sounds ('Amore'), the band not only counts on quick success, but also dares to take risks. The electronic components, which often played a key role in earlier compositions, were somewhat reduced. Instead, even if that hardly seemed imaginable with Rammstein, real guitar thunderstorms, which are part of the kit for example in the pre-single or in 'Stein um Stein', got even more heaviness and brutality. At times one almost wishes that the ax had stayed at home so that one could better enjoy the beautiful melodies or other ideas. Basically, the boys are quite happy with their world, as Oliver and Paul confirm in an interview. Harshness or even violence is not part of their everyday life. And yet Paul sees no immediate challenges in the distance between artistic expression and the rest of their life. “Strangely, there is no discrepancy. It's also not difficult to chop up everything musically in the rehearsal room, but then put the guitar against the wall and go outside to pick up your child from kindergarten. This works perfectly. I think that's important too. The reverse path, or the reverse connection, is more difficult. When the child suddenly wants to know why Till has strapped on a huge plastic puller man, then it's a bit strange. But then again, it's not that bad. On the contrary, the more private life you have, the more fun it is to play in the band. Band and family is not really possible, but every day that you manage to balance it is wonderful.”

Apparently it's not necessary as a heavy band to always show an aggressive character. Which he also confirms, but also limits. “From our experience I can say that the hardest bands are often the nicest. In addition, however, a threatening, frightening or aggressive effect on stage may not be entirely theatrical. The roles that we show on stage are hidden somewhere within us. However, this site is not on all day. If everything were just fake, then people would notice and it would never go down well. You have to find that middle ground somehow. There's no such thing as 'off-duty creep', you have to have something of it in you, otherwise the fans would feel it.”

It's nice that even bands, whose possibilities on stage are very generous, are concerned about their fans. They should surely be very interested in what else Oliver and Paul had to tell. A continuation of the conversation can therefore be found in the next issue.

[cyarskj1899]

It is just so shameful that they tried to cover up this mess with the late A. years of filth could have been prevented had he been caught and jailed during that time for molesting a 15 y/o and marrying her. All those little girls and boys that could have been saved smh I feel like crying and this and yet every time I think about it the rage inside wouldn’t let me cry. What if it was my friends or my family heck even me?

As I hear people begin to go "how did people let this happen," I want to say it's still happening. Look at how many people didn't believe Megan Thee Stallion after she reported being shot, look at how the media/stans and celebrities acted. (There’s a special place in hell for all of y’all 50 cents, Drake and his fake bbl , dababy, joe budden, akademics, lil duval, lebron, that Keebler elf’s daddy, stepmother and even his biological mother for giving birth to such a toxic masculinity, egotistical little bald headed biiitch) They’re were willingly being a bunch of bastards slutting themselves out for a degenerate (to hell with that gremlin and everyone who has said that she was lying fquck every last one of them) and the only logical people besides her fans where two white crime journalists who were spreading the truth better in the last month than those anti black and bw media bloggers (damn them to hell too i ain’t forgot I never forget) in the last two years. That’s why it’s two middle fingers up for everyone who said that she was lying. Why? Because FQUCK them who doubted her and I’m glad that elf is going back to Canada where his napoleon complex arss belongs that’s why!

This sh!t ain’t changed, we’re now more aware of it. We should be outraged by these pick mes and nigcels, a disgrace to the black race, the ones that George Walker bush should had left behind education wise because apparently the no child left behind policy was a mistake and they’re basically the descendants of the slaves who Harriet Tubman would have capped!

don’t believe me? Look at Aaliyah for example . Her uncle Barry Hankerson is trash. He was R. Kelly's manager, knew what happened to his niece with him, and then turned around and stayed working with him. That's partially why the family has not wanted to discuss this. They basically let their own daughter become groomed, abused, manipulated and raped by a monster had he been stopped sooner after Aaliyah, so many girls and boys would have never been victims of his smh!

In all of these cases, one thing that's been common has been the betrayal of family and friends. From Barry Hankerson to Kelsey -- these women was exploited by people who they trusted.

that fact alone makes never wanna protect nobody but me. If I ever get harmed I’m singing like a bird. I don’t gaf if that’s your fave. You mad little pick me and nigcel? Too motherfqucking bad! Those bastards you be cockworshiping ain’t gonna pay your rent nor have sex with your crusty arss , your unwashed legs, your tragic weave and extensions, and your ashy feet!

Every black person who ends up on the wrong side of the law isn’t railroaded by the justice system so spare me the takes on how people like r Kelly or Tory lames and anyone else like them is treated no different than how people from emmitt till to George Floyd were treated. They weren’t railroaded by the system, they weren’t murdered because of white womens lies or having counterfeit two thousand pennies or anything like that. They were rightfully convicted because it was proven by the state courts that they were guilty of the horrific acts they committed against people more specifically black women and for that reason the punishment that they received or will receive was deserved

[d1sc01nf3rn0]

I'm not disliking the fallout tv show, but I certainly could be enjoying it more (and the Amazon new ad policy isn't helping)

It feels weird cause is not like I am disappointed. I saw (or tried to) Westworld and it fucking sucked. It was the kind of fake deep plot full of blood and sex that impresses people that have little media literacy, and it annoyed me how the supposed plot twists were so obvious that I dropped it at the first season. So I wasn't expecting anything grand from the Fallout show, considering it was 1- created by the same guys, and 2- probably created due to the lawsuit Kilter Films lost to Bethesda after basically trying to create Fallout Shelter two.

A cashgrab series created by a cashgrab company.

But I still wanted to be proven wrong, I wanted to eat my words and be surprised. I mean, Amazon Video has a lot of great series, I'm currently watching Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and it's great. Why can't Fallout be great too?

It sucks cause it is my favorite videogame franchise (next to Castlevania, which doesn't fucking count cause it's dead), and it only shows me that just as what happened to Disco Elysium, all the games I enjoy that started as a satire and critique of capitalism, are doomed to end up replicating exactly that.

I could make an entire critique of all the things that are wrong with the show adaptation (except Norm, Norm is great and he should've been the protagonist. Getting real Fallout 1 Vault dweller vibes from him) but is just feels pointless, it feels like a waste of time. I could make a great critique of how Mrs. Maisel excels at capturing the struggles of a divorced Jewish woman trying to be a comedian in the 50s; but what can I even say about the Fallout show?? It doesn't completely suck, because granted, there are some things they managed to portray really well; but most of the show reeks of that Kilter films fake deep pretentious stench, and I hate that. I watched the show cause I love Fallout, but man I really wanted to be wrong about it.

And the worst part is that this applies to basically every single piece of media that exists nowadays. It's not supposed to provide a message, is supposed to create profits and be simple enough for people to understand it and not create TikTok videos complaining it endorses imaginary stuff. Of that I am disappointed.