Newly engaged daughter of narcissistic parents, the black sheep. I haven’t lived with them for a few years because of an incident by my N father that my covert N mother condoned as “he did it because he loves you”. I moved out immediately got on my own feet a few years later. My father has gotten much less N over the years and has apologized for his rage. I can accept an apology but still keep my guard up. My mother has gotten more unapologetically manipulative. Has said that she doesn’t believe in apologizing to anyone other than her husband and her mother because she is “above me” and doesn’t have to. Nfather who was the main abuser had calmed down so much and things had been calm for about a year I thought I could finally have a wedding that spotlights me. I was wrong.
I talked about wedding venues with my mother. I picked an affordable one and talked about how cheap it was in comparison to others. My father only heard the prices for the expensive venues. After my mother had left he said “who’s paying for the wedding? (Fiance name) better be coming with bags of money”(fiance is out of town). I hadn’t asked them for financial help I was just discussing venues. I told my mom that what he said hurt me. She said “he just wants to make sure (fiance name) steps up like a man and has money when he returns” so I told her “He has a job, dad needs to step up and be a man and not try to pass off what’s usually the dad’s job to pay for his daughter’s wedding. I didn’t ask you guys for money”. She had nothing to say.
My mom suggested she make the food for the wedding. I told her ok, I want X food. She said X food isn’t wedding food I’m gonna make XY food. I wasn’t too attached to the food choice so I let her have that one and let it go.
My fiance and I decided to bake cupcakes for the wedding, my family said it was a bad idea because I wouldn’t want to bake cupcakes right beforehand. Then my mom said “Don’t be offended but, I’m a much better baker than you. I’ll make them”. She’s never had my baking, she just wants people to give her kudos on her skills with the bonus of insulting me. She never responded to my text telling her that it hurt me and she never mentioned it again.
I tried inviting my sister to be a bridesmaid. My sister said she didn’t know if she wanted to be a bridesmaid or not and to ask me later. I asked her a month later and she said “do you want me to be a bridesmaid?” And I said, I’ve asked you twice. She didn’t respond. A little while later I was talking about our officiant and my sister said “I want to be the officiant”. A couple weeks later when the officiant fell through, I asked my sister to be the officiant and she said she was “just kidding about that, I just want to show up like a guest and didn’t want to pay for officiant training”. That was a few months ago. Within the past few days, I show her the bridesmaid stuff that’s being shipped on it’s way and she goes “so I don’t get to be a bridesmaid?” And I tell her that she said she didn’t want to be one. She said that I had never asked her. So I asked her “do you want to be a bridesmaid” and again she said “do you want me to be a bridesmaid” and we did that enough times that my parents and brother got annoyed with her not giving an answer. I ordered her bridesmaid stuff out of exhaustion about the subject but texted my mom that I’m hurt that my sister is being so disrespectful trying to make it like I never asked her to be a bridesmaid. Was it so I can be the bad person who didn’t ask her sister to be a bridesmaid? My mom told me that my sister “just wanted you to ask in a specific way ‘will you be my bridesmaid’” and I told her I that I had asked 3 times and that’s real close to begging and I shouldn’t have to beg anyone who doesn’t want to be involved. Bridesmaids are supposed to help and make things easier. Plus she’ll have to pay for her dress, like she didn’t want to pay for being an officiant. My sister told my mom “we aren’t even close, I’m surprised she asked me”. So jokes on me for thinking that I should ask my sister right? My sister has never had many friends, hasn’t moved out of my parent’s house, and has never dated even though she’s in her late twenties. We had been peaceful as far as I can remember but my brother told me she holds some grudge against me from when we lived together in college. Which is strange because she didn’t want to go anywhere with me, had my dad yell at me to go back home so my sister could use the vehicle for shopping, and only needed me to spend hours driving her between school and my parents house every weekend.
I brought up how my sister isn’t even thinking of me and how I have to pay for the bridesmaid stuff (ordering hers entirely separately because everything was already ordered) and she could have been considerate of me wanting her there and how heartbreaking it is to have to beg your sister to be in your wedding. My mom glossed over everything except the money aspect and said “why do you keep saying you’re paying for and planning everything yourself? I can help you” I told her I bought my dress, shoes, accessories, bridesmaid stuff and even showed her pictures as they came in and my mom never offered to pay. And when I try to include my mom with the cupcakes she insults me to make herself look better so I’m planning everything alone and she will know about things when I tell her. She goes “fine” in that hurt voice because only she and my sister are allowed to feel hurt.
My dad had asked me since the venue is hours away, how everyone will get there. I told my dad that to make everything easier for the guests, we might get a car service to shuttle people up to the venue and shuttle them back. My mom goes “what’s this you told your dad about a car service?” So I said “it’s an idea to make it easier for everyone so people can actually make it since it’s so far”. She goes “all of our family have vehicles that can make it, why do you have to pay for your friends to make it to your wedding”.
I thought “I’m strong enough, I can tough it out now. I’m used to the stuff they pull. I’ll power through it and not give them power or choice and not care what they think because I want the wedding of my dreams.” Because of these and a couple other things that have happened (1)the first officiant choice making a sexual pass at my fiance and having to kick them out 2)my oldest friend and bridesmaid is getting so jealous of my engagement that she’s simultaneously bullying her longterm boyfriend about not being engaged in front of our friend group and being “too busy” to see me when we used to see each other once a week 3) cutting off another friend couple because the guy was inappropriate toward everybody) I just don’t have any fight in me anymore. I fought for so long to get on my feet and live as peacefully as possible and I had finally reached peace. What is supposed to be the happiest time in my life has turned into a nightmare and I can’t stand the thought of moving forward with wedding planning for my dad who doesn’t want to spend money on me, my sister who needs me to be the bad guy, and my mom who wants it to be a wedding re-do for her to show off in front of her family. I was already battling with the idea of telling my dad I don’t want him walking me down the aisle because giving the daughter away isn’t something I believe in especially in our situation. Now I don’t want them there at all. I don’t want my extended family there either except for a few people because some have also been disappointing in the past. My family hasn’t even been invited to our extended family’s parties because of corona virus and the more I think of it, even though my mom says they would come (it’s all her family), I doubt the people she’s trying so hard to impress would even show up. The fiance and I are now trying to decide if we’re going to host a small party at the original venue for us and my bridal party (except my sister) or drop the idea and just have a small ceremony in Las Vegas with the bridal party.
The thing is how to bring it up with my parents. My mom already shared my engagement news with her family (none called me to congratulate me) and the theme of the wedding which they were getting excited for because it’s fun. She can be the one to break it to them that the old wedding plan is not going to happen. I don’t care about the fallout but fiance doesn’t want to start off on the wrong foot with my family but will support however I resolve the situation. I want to just tell them that we have planned to elope with a few friends and no family. This would definitely bring bargaining like “we’ll have a separate party later” which I don’t want or blame “I can’t believe you wouldn’t have your family at your wedding”, to shame “you care about your little friends more than your family”. I guess this is the part I need help with.
TLDR: N family makes engagement so terrible I don’t want them at any ceremony I may have. Need help telling them that I’m done and they won’t be involved in such a way that they can’t try to weasel around. Or try to guilt me out of.

May 18th, 2020: nmwrites Interview

Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a lawyer by day and spend my off hours with my wife and wonderful rescue animals. I’ve been writing on NoSleep for a little over 2 years now and absolutely love the community. I previously served in the military for years, so I’m still getting used to life with slightly longer hair.
Can you tell us more about these wonderful rescue animals?
I can! We are currently holding steady with just one rescue dog but he has been complemented with some goats and horses and multiple cryptids including one that can speak to us but not using words.
What a wonderful sounding menagerie of animal/crytpid companions! So, when did you first become interested in horror?
As a child. I devoured books like Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as a kid before moving to more adult work that was definitely not age-appropriate. I’ve always read a lot and had a lot more freedom during my childhood over what I read than what I watched, so that’s where I spent a lot of my time (and imagination).
We grew up reading those too! Those books had such huge impact on so many children's creativity, and likely were a massive catalyst to many young readers love of horror. What were some of your favorite stories?
I always remember “high beams” and “the hook” as two that were terrifying to me as a kid. I spent years of my childhood concerned whenever someone driving behind us had their high-beams on! I grew up in a very rural area and there was just a lot of no one being around if something went wrong. I grew up wary of people in those situations, but probably not wary enough of the natural world around me.
Oh my, yes! We still check the back seat of our vehicles to this day because of that one! Some of those just really stick with you. In the same vein, what authostory made the biggest impact on you when you were young?
Stephen King. I've read his work since I was far to young too, and the man is one of the best American authors to have ever lived. I'm thrilled to see his work (and horror in general) get the recognition it is due. It's a great genre with a fantastic literary history, but people will pretend "A Christmas Carol" isn't a horror story because of their thoughts on genre fiction.
Was there a specific moment you knew you wanted to write in that genre?
I used to write a lot when I was younger, but had a stretch where very unsupportive people in my life got me away from it for a long time. I came back to it on a whim after years of reading nosleep, and once I wrote that first story it stuck.
I think we speak for everyone by saying we're so glad you got back into writing. One of your older stories, "Can I have some of your time?" puts a whole new twist on the horror that is telemarketing. Have you ever been on the transmitting end of those calls yourself? Did any particular incident inspire this sordid tale?
I did a few stints working for political campaigns during college, and I always found that after hours of calling people to donate money or come to an event or vote that it just gets surreal. I remember one election night where our phone bank connected to someone who sang the entire song “Over the river and through the wood” on their voicemail message. We put it on speakerphone in a completely empty phone bank office and must have called back and listened to it ten times, I’ve always wondered if they came home and saw a ton of missed calls and wondered who wanted them to vote so badly.
That story, however, grew me from a very short scary story I heard as a child about people who could steal time from others. For some reason the idea of some sort of “time vampires” always stuck with me. I’ve always been interested in things like the Milgram experiment, and how people justify actions they know are wrong. That all combined into the first story that got some attention on NoSleep, and led to me starting a writing account and posting more regularly.
Where do you find inspiration? Have real life experiences ever made their way into your work?
Everywhere I can. A lot of my writing is working through traumatic or negative emotional experiences and mixing in some horror. I constantly jot down ideas, sometimes it’s a news story or a dream or some interesting historical fact I think would make an interesting basis for a story. Real life emotions and fears have made it into my stories, though thankfully for me no real life experiences!
In your story, "I made it to school too quickly yesterday", your protagonist has become unstuck from time. It ended on a fairly ambiguous note, which you followed with a part 2, "I made it the hospital too slowly yesterday", throwing us back into the situation an entire year later. Had you always intended to continue the story, the time jump playing perfectly into the plot, or was it a spur of the moment decision to follow up on it after so much time had passed?
I had, this was a first version of an idea that maybe failed a little in the execution (no one is looking for Part 2 a year after Part 1!). I enjoy playing with things where the format of NoSleep can add to a story in a unique way. You could write a book where Chapter 1 has a date attached, and Part 2 has a different date, but I thought it would be fun to play with that in a way that reflected the real passage of time. I’ve got a similar idea coming that I think would work a little better, and if anyone remembers this story come November there may still be a part 3 on my cake day.
We will be waiting with bells on! In addition, that story also appears to tie into the Aunt's home that was briefly mentioned in "Grandma says we can't look out the windows". Do you have any plans to expand on that inexplicable world of odd family homes?
I do! This is actually the same world as my story Housebreaking as well as the story Wasps which is currently available in the Blood and Beetles anthology published by NoSleep’s own u/Bunnyb03. One of my current plans is both a series of semi-connected stories in this world as well as a longer connected series that is requiring a lot of planning (I’m very excited about it, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun for everyone).
That sounds so amazing! We quiver with excitement (and some fear). So can you tell us how you discovered NoSleep? What prompted you to begin writing for it?
I was living abroad (where finding english content to read could be challenging) and stumbled across a list of online scary stories, mostly classic creepypastas. I think I read the Russian Sleep Experiment and Ted the Caver first, and just kept going. I tore through the list and went looking for more, and found myself on NoSleep where there is just so much talent.
As for the writing, years later I was visiting the low country area of South Carolina and just felt moved by the spooky atmosphere to write something that incorporated it. I wrote 4600+ words on my cell phone and uploaded it, got a couple upvotes, and knew immediately I needed to keep going.
What NoSleep stories and/or authors have had the strongest impact on you?
This is the hardest question to answer in this entire interview! There are so many authors doing phenomenal work every day, and we could do a few thousand words here just on pieces I’ve enjoyed so the only way we’re going to actually end this interview is to pick a few and recognize that I’m leaving out dozens of super talented writers. There are people like u/EaPatbp, u/flard, u/Human_Gravy, u/mmkelley, u/Byfelsdisciple, u/colourblindness, u/Cymoril_Melnibone, u/Max-Voynich, u/Grand_Theft_Motto, u/rotsoil, u/nslewis, u/iloveallthebacon and u/tjaylea who are really pushing the envelope on content, and obviously others are noticing when you look at the book deals and film options, and not just for classic stories like Spire, The Left/Right Game, The Patient that Drove Me Out of Medicine, and Borrasca that are getting Hollywood attention (I’m not allowed to say more but a lot of NoSleep authors are getting the attention they deserve).
I’ve also enjoyed seeing a lot of people build close relationships with narrators, especially newesmaller ones, or getting into narration themselves. I hope that long-term that’s going to mean a very close and productive atmosphere between the two communities.
I’ve also got to single out a few folks.
u/Dopabeane - One of the all-time best, now out there running Soteira Press and putting out great work. The first story of mine that was ever picked up for publishing was by Soteira, and let me tell you, knowing she read something of mine and found it deserving is something I’m never going to get over.
u/PoloniumPoisoning - Polonium puts out quality stories constantly, I’m not sure you could find a monthly contest in the last year without at least one of her stories nominated. Her consistency and volume is just incredible, she’s one of the best and I’m so thankful for her support and friendship.
u/theworldisgrim - Grim can craft a dark tale and has written some classics, and is someone I’ve been blessed to work with on developing stories. Everyone needs a writing friend like him: a great writer who will tear your work to shreds when it needs it.
u/pippinacious - Pipp is the best. Of all time. I’m definitely not just saying this because I hope she’ll let me out of the dungeon. Please make her stop hurting me. Can anyone hear me?
u/Verastahl - The way Brandon’s worlds fold over on each other and expand and touch is just mesmerizing.
What is the most terrifying thing you have personally experienced?
I served in a combat zone overseas while in the military and that was a very scary time. I'm thankful to have come home intact, and the people who serve in direct combat roles are absolutely my heroes.
Have you ever thought about using those experiences you had in combat as inspiration in your writing, or is it something you prefer staying away from?
I have, and it’s probably something I will explore more directly at some point. I try to use writing to invoke the sense of looming dread that I felt there, and at some point I’m sure I’ll do some emotional work and plow through that, I’m still working on my childhood!
What are some of your biggest influences from media?
I still read a lot, and there are some horror authors out there that I can’t put down. One of the things I’ve tried to do as a writer is change the way I read, which has meant slowing down and really looking at how authors craft their stories. I’ll forgo another long list of recommendations but Laird Barron is my favorite writer and there are paragraphs I just look at in awe. Go read his stuff.
Other than writing, what are some of your hobbies? What other creative mediums do you enjoy?
I enjoy cooking and photography, both of which are enjoyable but probably not as creative as others can make them.
Do you ever explore writing other genres besides horror? If so, what other styles of writing? Which do you prefer?
I’ve previously written some fantasy (that was never published anywhere and has been lost to time), and I would like to try that again in the future, but for the time being it’s all horror all the time.
While we love all works in the creation of writing, "all horror, all the time" could be our motto. So, how much time do you spend writing in an average day or week? Do you have any rituals that help you focus?
I tend to write in the mornings before the day gets going. Once things start moving I’m not going to have a chance to really get into a flow, and my mind is going to be distracted by other things. In a good week I will write 2 or 3 hours a day almost every day, and I'm hoping to transition to writing a bit more full-time in the future.
When crafting a piece of fiction, do you generally start with an outline or simply begin writing?
Most of the time I start with an outline. I tend to play with stories a lot until I feel like the idea clicks and then start putting the words down once that summary is in place. Some stories flow very quickly (which is always preferred but rarely happens) and I will have an idea, start playing with it, and suddenly have a whole story. Generally I will start with an idea and sketch out a basic outline, and when I get stuck I’ll expand the outline to help get me from point a to point b.
More like point ahhhhgg to point scream.
Can you hear me? Are you in the room? IS THAT YOU IN THE CORNER?
Have any of your stories ever involved research? If so, what was involved?
Some of them do, I try to get details right and I enjoy working in little historical facts like the sinking of SM U-28 in The Thirteenth. I worked Biringan City into Forever, A Drug, and was thrilled at the reception from Filipino readers that noticed it. I’m a white, straight, cis male, so when I touch something like that I want to be careful about how I approach it and treat it respectfully, and I was grateful for the positive responses.
Are there any topics you feel are too controversial for you to address or that you prefer not to explore in your writing?
Sexual assault. I spent years working with victims in various legal settings and I don’t have any interest in revisiting it fictionally, not the least because I don't know that I could write it without drawing on real pain I've witnessed in a way I would find exploitative. Which is not to say that it cannot be done and done well, I think there are a lot of writers who can thoughtfully explore the topic, I just don't think I could. I also never kill animals in my stories. Spoiler alert: the dog will always live.
Thank goodness for that! Any story where the dog lives is a good one in our book. Your legal work also deals extensively with copyright law, and you're a moderator on /SleeplessWatchdogs, a subreddit for finding and reporting plagiarism and IP theft on NoSleep and similar subreddits. Why do you think IP theft is so prevalent on NoSleep? How has your legal background assisted you in trying to combat it?
I think there is a lot of misinformation about how copyright law works in relation to the internet and things that are posted online, nor were most authors versed in it enough to police their work. I’ve worked with IP a lot outside of the entertainment realm, so being able to bring that to the community and hopefully be a value-added is something I am thankful for.
I will also say that I think there is more attention being paid to this than ever before. NoSleep has a great mod team, and a very brave and controversial opinion to close down the sub for a week to draw attention to the issue resulted in more attention being paid to it than ever before.
There is still going to be a problem. Some people still won’t know, and some won’t care, but I think writers and narrators are working together to inform each other and look out for each other and that’s really good for the health of the community, and as a writer I will say that I notice the (many) narrators who speak out against it, and when I write stories now they're the ones who are going to have an opportunity to narrate them.
I also think there is a small subset of the narration community that still, after everything, doesn’t think this is a big deal. Just this week we saw a large channel (over 60k subs, monetized) that stole hundreds of stories from reddit. In response to being blacklisted we engaged in a conversation to let him know how to make things right, he seemed interested, and we sent our standard 90-day evaluation script over to help him get on track in terms of intellectual property (all of this is standardized, he got the exact same info everyone else does). He responded by attacking a mod, falsely claiming he had never used NoSleep stories, going on a rant where he declared everything he stole was awful anyway, and it ended with him or one of his fans posting a death threat on the sub.
I’m used to that response (sadly), and I was happy to see a lot of narrators speak out against it. However, there are a few notable individuals who, every time this happens, feel the need to say that drawing attention to theft is “witch-hunting” (and who have little or nothing to say about the theft itself or the harassment directed towards authors that frequently follows these reports). At this point, after a year of the watchdogs community being active, after the NoSleep blackout, after so many high-profile cases, I think people defending widespread theft are part of the problem.
The saddest thing about this situation was that this channel was upset about having 30 days to identify who wrote the works featured on his channel so he responded by deleting all the videos. Had he done that without the harassment and threats, it would have resulted in him having the opportunity to be removed from the black list, as removing the infringing work or getting permission for it is exactly what we ask for.
Do you have any advice for authors facing story theft, or tips on how they can protect their work?
You own your work! It is yours! I would recommend all authors look on youtube and google for places their work has been used without permission. If you find it you can approach the person using it and ensure you’re credited in a way you are comfortable with, or you can just file a copyright claim (it tends to vary for me based on the situation). It’s your work and I don’t think there is any right or wrong answer for every person or every situation. Also don’t do anything with your work you’re uncomfortable with. When I started writing some narrators were very pushy with terms that I felt were exploitative in terms of credit for authors, don’t be afraid to say no!
You were also one of several authors embroiled in a situation where a prominent YouTuber was narrating stories from NoSleep without permission, resulting in multiple DMCA strikes against their channel. Though the narrator ultimately apologized, there was fallout and discord between some of their fans and some readers and writers on NoSleep. Can you tell us more about that experience?
That was one of the ugliest experiences I’ve ever been involved in, which is unfortunate because I think everyone involved understood it could easily turn into an ugly situation and the writers involved all tried so hard on the front end to reach out to that individual and his team and got ignored.
In the end, I felt it was a situation with few good options for outcomes. One of the authors (who was a victim of copyright infringement trying to protect his work) had his real name doxxed to millions of people who were making threats towards his job and family. On one hand I wanted to ensure things got better for him (and spent the next few weeks after things died down writing to people and asking them to delete copies of the screenshot that were still floating around). On the other hand, you don’t want to create a situation where a big channel is incentivized to create a dangerous situation with scary personal and professional consequences for authors to gain some leverage.
I’ll say that I remain impressed by the way our community handled it, including some healthy discussion and disagreement about how it was resolved. We’ve got a fantastic community of authors who want to protect each other.
In the end it’s a situation I’m still upset about, though I’m thankful that “Nick Moore” is a pseudonym and the worst I had to deal with was a deleted OOC account and some ugly messages.
What are your feelings toward NoSleep's immersion/believability rule? What impact, if any, do you think the suspension of disbelief format may have when transitioning your work toward a mass audience unfamiliar with NoSleep?
I like the rule, I think it creates a unique atmosphere here that sets the community apart. I also think a lot of authors are finding ways to push the envelope right now while still adhering to it, and I think that is fun and interesting to see. Trying to write more work for commercial audiences has meant getting more acquainted with third-person viewpoints, but many of the lessons of writing here are going to transition well: ensuring you have a good hook, writing well, managing the pace and atmosphere of a story, etc.
Do you have any favorite reader reactions to your writing?
A lot of people reached out after I posted Forever, A Drug with stories of battling addiction. It really touched them and I was so happy the story meant something to them (it was a very emotional writing experience and the fact that the story was so well received truly meant the world).
I also love when people play along in the comments. That’s some of the most fun that NoSleep can be, and I enjoy how we blur the lines between fiction and reality. I’ve had many people read comments and reach out personally to see if a story was real, and when that happens I feel it’s because both I and the commenters have worked together to create a really great scary atmosphere.
Speaking of "Forever, A Drug", it won Best Single-Part Story of 2019. Congratulations! It's very well-deserved. This poignant and terrifying story resonated with so many readers who have struggled with addiction themselves. What was your inspiration for such a touching tale? In your line of work have you been involved with people suffering from addiction?
This story was inspired by my own struggles with depression and going through some very negative times involving setting some healthy boundaries in my life that I needed to heal. It came to me very suddenly almost fully formed. I've seen a lot of people battle addiction, both in my personal life and professionally, and it gelled very well into the story. I didn't write an outline, I just wrote it all at once (I really wish all writing came that quickly!).
You also won Best Story Under 500 Upvotes with your story "There is a serial killer that everyone else thinks is dead", congrats! Were you surprised to win two of the largest categories in the year-end contest? Did the success, or the degree your works resonated with the readers, come as a surprise?
What an unexpected week of awards that was. It feels cliche to say but I was so honored to be nominated, but I really was. I never imagined I would win one—let alone two—of the awards. I'm constantly blown away by the talent here, and to be recognized like that was really unbelievable. There may have been some tears involved. Multiple times. Let’s move on.
What story or project are you most proud of?
Forever, A Drug, was a very emotional writing process and I was very unsure about posting it. I dd not know if anyone would read something that felt very raw, let alone enjoy it. It wound up being my second-most-popular story ever, won monthly and annual contests, and blew me away with the reaction.
I’m also going to plug the Serpent of Woodsfield, which you can currently only read in an anthology, but it was my first piece that was ever accepted for publication and set the stage in many ways for some of the projects I’m working on now, both in terms of writing and in terms of the themes I was dealing with.
What's the most valuable lesson you've learned since you began posting to NoSleep?
Don’t put too much stock in upvotes, just try to improve. There are a hundred reasons why stories "work" or don’t, many of which have nothing to do with how good the story is. It’s nice when a story gets a lot of upvotes, but the goal is to keep creating and improving. If you can get some readers who will look at things critically that is great too, honest feedback from someone whose advice you trust is priceless.
As a successful author on NoSleep, do you have any advice for new contributors?
Keep writing! My first story got 37 upvotes and a handful of nice comments. I was truly overjoyed, and it’s something I try to remember every time I write. It’s a treat to have a platform with so many dedicated readers, and a lot of talented authors are competing for those eyeballs. Having even a couple people enjoy something is such a joy, even if the story doesn’t get thousands of upvotes. Some stories will not get a lot of attention for various reasons, and that’s fine too!
What are your short-term and long-term writing goals?
Short term I’ve got a lot of stories cooking, I’m hoping to be posting more frequently in the near future (life has been in a bit of upheaval lately, for us all, and it has definitely affected my output).
Long term I’m working on a collection of stories that I’m hoping will be available by the end of the year, though it’s my first collection so I really have no idea how long it will take.
I’m also very interested in finding ways to push the medium. I’m outlining a long series that would include some real-life interaction that I’m going to float to the NoSleep mods for approval before I really get started on the writing. I’m very interested in ways to really use the unique platform that is NoSleep in a way to drive stories. I’ve experimented with building in long delays between pieces because the story demanded it (which did not work) or continuing the story in the comments (which also didn’t really work) but I’m fascinated with ways to try to leverage the medium. I think Correspondence (on NoSleep) and the Mother Horse Eyes Interface series (on Reddit) really use the medium in exciting and new ways, and I’ve got some ideas on other ways to try that.
Community Questions:
From NSIMods: What is your favorite animal?
Definitely foxes. I once heard someone describe them as dog hardware with cat software. I love animals though, nature is something I derive a lot of peace from.
One might say that you're as weird as a fox...one might say that, but that seems like a better question for an alter ego of yours, if you had one. peers at you over our detective notebook Ahem. If you did have an alias, what would it be?
Definitely not a fox. And if a fox, it would not IN ANY WAY be a weird one.
But an alter ego. Maybe the proprietor of a small-town microbrewery, one eye on the horizon, haunted by his past. That sounds like a life. Maybe people in town start disappearing? Oh this is going to be good.
Submitted anonymously: Which of your stories has been the most difficult to write, and why?
It's actually not one you can read yet, but I'm working on a story with the title "The turtle that eats sorrow." A lot of my writing is me working through some past pain, and that one hits it all: small towns, corruption, secrets coming to light, lies, saying goodbye to your past. Look for it in the near future. There is also cosmic horror and a cult (of course).
Submitted anonymously: If you had to live in the established universe of any of your stories, which would you choose and why?
So many of my stories are just horrible terrifying worlds! Why can't I just stay here with the (checks notes) murder hornets and global pandemic... oh I see... well then... I think I'm going to have to choose Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. There's a giant beast hunting people, but at least it's one with a sense of justice.
From ByfelsDisciple: What do you think is your most underrated story? Your most overrated?
My most overrated is definitely My Mother-in-Law was poisoning me then I found out why. It was my most successful in terms of upvotes, and realizing why it got that attention was important, but it is neither my most interesting nor my best writing in my opinion.
My most underrated I think is The Black Cloud. It’s a fun little story that came from a facebook prompt (someone asked why we never have a werewolf apocalypse instead of a zombie apocalypse) and turned into something I really enjoyed researching and writing (the name and the facts at the beginning come from a real situation!).
From Colourblindness: What is your favorite idea that you have never finished?
I've got an idea for a story based on a cult that recruits and communicates via a facebook group. I've even created fake facebook posts to intersperse throughout the story, and I love the plot, and I love the concept, but I haven't managed to get the writing quite right. I've been playing with it for at least a year now, but you'll see it at some point.
From rotsoil: How do you name your stories, and do you prefer clickbait or not?
I do not prefer clickbait, but I've experimented with both and I think there is a definite difference in the traffic a post gets when you use it so it might be something you see more of from me.
From Cephalopodanaut: I don't feel right not asking this question of everyone I meet. If you were moseying down to lock yourself in a bunker in preparation for the apocalypse and could only bring 1 movie, 1 album, 1 book, and 1 game, what would you bring?
Movie- The Shawshank Redemption. No doubt about it. Legendary performances, great story, uplifting ending.
Album- This is a tough one, but I'm going to go with "Chronicle, Volume 1" by CCR. "Best of" albums always feel like cheating in questions like these but I'm not sure there's a better one.
Book- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Absolutely incredible storytelling, writing so beautiful it will hurt your heart, perfection in book form.
Game- A pack of cards. Simple, but gives you a lot of options, and as we're all learning right now, variety is a very good thing.
Submitted anonymously: Who is your favorite NoSleep author? And why is it u/nocturnalnanny?
All NoSleep authors are tied for #1 in my heart, you're all beautiful and talented and the best. The one exception is my sworn enemy u/nocturnalnanny, who is in 10,000,000th place.
From Poppy_moonray: Which of your NoSleep peers would you most like to challenge to a decathlon to determine ultimate prowess—the events are: arm wrestling, juggling, spontaneous limerick writing, baguette baking, spinning in a circle really fast and not falling over, eating the most pudding, naming the state capitals, light saber dueling, bubble blowing (with gum, not a bubble wand), and petting the most puppies. Who would win?
I would do all of these against my sworn enemy, u/nocturnalnanny. I wouldn’t just win, no that would be too easy. I would demolish her in every category. Her arm would fall off, her limericks wouldn’t rhyme, her baguettes wouldn’t rise, she would become dizzy after two spins and fall over, she would eat no pudding, she would say New York City is the capital of New York, I would skewer her with a light saber, she would choke on her gum, puppies would run from her.
The aftermath to this competition will be brutal. Her children’s children will shudder when they hear my name. People in faraway lands will sing songs about the time she challenged me and was vanquished from the earth. I will salt the fields around her ancestral home. I will play “The Rains of Castamere” at her wedding. NocturnalNanny delenda est.
In reality, despite trying for my entire life I have not been able to ever juggle or blow bubbles with gum (I have tried much harder on the latter, the failure haunted my childhood). I will take all comers in state capitals and puppy petting though, I’ve been training my entire life for someone to challenge me on those.
Submitted anonymously: Would you/have you ever collaborate(d) with anyone else on nosleep? Is there anyone you'd like to work with?
I have! I took part in the Return to Serenity Falls collaboration as well as the recent 26 Cards collaboration, (both available on amazon!) both of which were a lot of fun. It's a great way to see how a lot of different people write and put their ideas together. I've also discussed collaborations with u/tjaylea and u/poloniumpoisoning in the past and I hope to make both happen in the future.
From Colourblindness: As a lawyer have you ever had any cases inspire your stories?
None of my cases, and that's a personal choice. I think lawyers often end up in situations where they're privy to a lot of emotion and details that are extremely personal and I don't want to abuse a position of trust, those aren't my stories to tell. That said I do look to public information on cases to draw from, and the "Michael" serial killer who has now featured in two of my stories has drawn from a bit of several cases I've read about. Michael is still out there too, waiting.
From Poppy_moonray: What fruit do you empathize with most strongly? What fruit fills you with an unbridled fury?
You can’t help but feel for kiwis. Beautiful and tasty but they look like little brown balls next to all the other colorful fruit. They're beautiful on the inside. I whisper that to them when I walk by in the store.
Okra, though, oh okra and I can battle. It should be a vegetable but it has wormed its way into the fruit family, which might be forgivable (I’ve made my peace with tomatoes), but then it has to be slimy too.
I will note I once saw a sign that said “Stop Peaches” and have spent years wondering what they were trying to stop them from doing.
From rotsoil: What is your favorite breakfast food? Meal? Pizza topping? Vegetable? Color? Movie?
Breakfast food- bacon. Meal- Chinese. Pizza topping- pepperoni. Vegetable- Brussel sprouts (which if you don't like you are not preparing correctly trust me on this they get a bad rap). Color- Blue. Movie- Shawshank.
I think you now have everything you need to reset all my passwords. Follow up if you also need my high school mascot.
Submitted anonymously: Favorite guilty pleasure?
Ben and Jerry's ice cream. One of the ones with the flavor core. I just need a spoon.
Submitted anonymously: Favorite song lyric?
I've been listening to a lot of John Prine lately (RIP John) who was one of the best songwriters ever, and while there are so many of his to choose from I'm going to go with "your flag decal won't get you into Heaven anymore."
From Poppy_moonray: Favorite Greek myth?
I'm going to cheat and say that my favorite Greek play is Euripides' Medea. One of the greatest plays of all time, with themes about feminism and war that are still relevant today, told against the backdrop of the two titans of Ancient Greece preparing for war against each other. Horrifying in an approachable way that has made it still regularly performed.
Submitted anonymously: Best dream you've ever had?
I've dreamed of some loved ones that are no longer with me that I miss terribly, and those are always the best.
From EaPAtbp: Why are muffins so much better than cupcakes?
They're not.
Submitted anonymously: Why do you prefer cupcakes over muffins?
I see the muffin community has decided to attack me with their lies and fabrications. I won’t stand for this abuse. Cupcakes are better than muffins. It’s a tiny cake. Dessert you can hold in your palm. A handful of joy in a desolate world. #TeamCupcake
From ByfelsDisciple: We're writing a book. Do you want to write a book with us?
I DO. Let me plug this one again, because this story is a thrilling one and it was so much fun to be involved in. The premise is great: 13 characters whose tragic backstories were recently shared on NoSleep, and then a 13 part story available in the book, with each chapter a POV from one of the characters, as they navigate through a dark and twisted and murderous Vegas underworld. Don't sleep on this one (what am I saying, this is NoSleep! None of us are sleeping on anything, ever).
From Poppy_moonray: What type of dog do you think you're most similar to and why?
A rescue. No one knows exactly how old I am or what my background is, but I’m thankful for everything I have and love my family fiercely.
Submitted anonymously: What question did you want to be asked that didn’t get asked?
I really hoped someone was going to ask if I wanted some tea and a snickerdoodle.
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Candlenights Dining Guide

Hey since a lot of MBMBAM fans are going to be visiting Huntington for this weekend's show I thought I'd put together a list of dining options for those of you who are looking to get a bite to much (SQUAD!) before or after the show. Thankfully Huntington has a pretty awesome variety of restaurants in the area to choose from.

(Update 12/18/19: Added a couple more restaurants and some food trucks in the area.)

In Walking Distance The Keith-Albee
The Old Village Roaster
https://www.yelp.com/biz/old-village-roaster-huntington
Locally owned coffee shop that roasts and flavors their beans in house. They also make caramel corn and roasted nuts. Sells a lot of gift baskets for anyone looking for a last minute Candlenights gift. They're usually closed on Saturdays but I have talked to the owner and they will be open before the show.
Rio Grande on 4th Avenue
https://www.facebook.com/rioon4th/
Mexican restaurant with a fairly wide assortment of tacos, burritos, fajitas, etc. Keep an eye out for their margarita specials.
The Bodega
https://www.facebook.com/TheBodegaMarketandCafe/
Sandwich shop with a little marketplace and beer & wine store. Menu changes seasonally and they have brunch on Saturdays. I recommend their meatloaf and Cuban sandwiches.
Marshall Hall of Fame Cafe
https://mhofc.com/
Sports bar and family restaurant. An awesome selection of beers and a fairly wide variety including burgers, wings, pasta, salads, and nachos. Great place to watch some early bowl games.
Back Sheep Burrito & Brews
https://www.facebook.com/blacksheepwv/
A gastropub that specializes in burritos with non-traditional ingredient. They also have sandwiches, tacos, and salads plus they own a brewery called Bad Sheppard in Charleston. Serves a great brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.
Jim's Steak & Spaghetti.
https://www.facebook.com/jimsrestaurant/
A classic old fashion diner and a piece of Huntington history. John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton have all visited here. The spaghetti and coconut cream pie are classics, though the steaks honestly aren't that great. Be sure to ask the staff what deserts are made in house.
Austin's At The Market
https://www.facebook.com/AustinsAtTheMarket/
Second location of a legendary ice cream shop in the area with dozens of homemade flavors. They just rolled out a seasonal selection of flavors including “Eggnog” and “Chocolate Covered Cherry.”
Quicksilver Arcade Bar
https://www.facebook.com/quicksilverarcadeba
A new addition to Pullman Square. A bar and retro arcade with many classic games that you can play for free. Hotdogs, beer, and an assortment of cocktails with names like “TMNT: The Secret Of The Booze.”
Backyard Pizza & Raw Bar
https://www.facebook.com/BackyardPizzaandRawBa
Gourmet pizza, salads, and seafood. The owners also have a microbrewery next door. Serves a special brunch menu each Sunday.
The Peddler
https://www.facebook.com/The-Peddler-389850314486735/
Brewpub with gourmet burgers and house made beer. Special brunch menu on Sunday with House Made Donuts.
Surin of Thailand
http://surinofthailand.com/location/surin-huntington/
Thai food with over 60 dishes! Part of a regional chain.
Taste of Asia
http://www.tasteofasiahibachi.com/
Sushi Bar, Hibatchi, Thai, and Chinese food under one roof!
Navarino Bay
https://www.facebook.com/Navarino-Bay-385706381868524/Greek restaurant offering a variety of traditional dishes and house made pastries.
Le Bistro
http://www.lebistrowv.com/French fine dining and lunch. They also have a tapas room downstairs for cocktails and classy parties.
Roosters
https://roosterswings.com/locations/view-all-locations/huntington/Ohio based chain of Sports bar specializing in wings. I recommend the Korean BBQ wings.
Peace Love Little Donuts
https://www.peaceloveandlittledonuts.com/locations/huntingtonTiny donuts in a wide variety of flavors including maple bacon!
Hibatchi Japanese Steakhouse
https://www.hibachijapanesesteakhousewv.com/
Not to be confused with Taste of Asia. Huntington's original Hibatchi steakhouse and sushi bar. About a block away from the theater.
Club 21 At The Frederick
https://www.21atthefrederick.com/
Upscale dining including streak, pork chops, and seafood for the fanciest of Candlenights celebrations.
Sunset Grill
https://www.sunsetgrillwv.com/
Brand new restaurant that claims to offer a seasonal menu with upscale comfort food with locally sourced ingrediants.
Paula Vega Cakes
https://www.facebook.com/paula.v.cakes/
A daily assortment of cupcakes, pie, cookies, and other pastries. They cater!
Butter It Up At The Market
https://www.facebook.com/butteritup/
Coffee shop with a small health food market. The owner prides themselves on having a gluten-free menu so it's ideal for people with special diet needs.
Dang Good Cinnamon Rolls & Waffles
https://www.facebook.com/danggoodrolls/
They serve cinnamon rolls, waffles, and an upscale take on the classic West Virginia Pepperoni Roll.
Fuel Counter
http://thefuelcounter.com/
Another restaurant featured at "The Market" an indoor shopping center. Custom made sandwiches, pizzas, and wraps. -
A short drive away:
Nawab Indian Cuisine
https://www.nawabwv.com/
Indian restaurant with a lunch buffet.
Bahnhof Wvrsthause & Biergarden
https://www.facebook.com/BahnhofWV/
Modern German fusion restaurant featuring a wide variety of house made sausages as well as both local and imported beers. I highly recommend trying the homemade cream puffs. Owned by the same folks as Black Sheep.
Rocco's Little Italy
https://www.facebook.com/RoccosLittleItalyofHuntington/
Classic diner famous for their hoagies and chili. Also offers pasta from Rocco's in Ceredo. Open late on Friday and Saturday nights.
Nomada Bakery
https://www.facebook.com/NomadaBakery/South American themed bakery with locally roasted coffee as well as empanadas, pastries, bread, and miniature cakes.
Huntington Ale House
https://www.facebook.com/huntington.alehouse/Local pub famous for their burgers and mac & cheese. Awesome variety of beers and they're open late.
West Tenampa
https://www.facebook.com/Wtenampas/
Mexican restaurant on Huntington's West End which expanded last year to include a margarita bar. I recommend the Burrito California which is actually a different thing than a California Burito.
Tudor's Biscuit World
http://tudorsbiscuitworld.com/Probably West Virignia's most famous fast food chain specializing in biscuit sandwiches. Several locations throughout the city.
Buddy's All American BBQ
https://www.facebook.com/buddysbbqwv/Bar with barbecue. Famous for their pulled pork nachos and smoked wing Wednesdays.
Camden Corner
https://www.facebook.com/camden.corner.94Convenience store located on the far west end of town. Sells fried chicken and some of the best donuts in town.
Jolly Pirate Donuts
https://www.facebook.com/JollyPirateWV/
Regional chain with coffee and a wide variety of donuts served 24 hours a day! The Huntington location is fairly unique in that it has a small Greek deli.
Cam's Ham
https://www.facebook.com/ClassicCamsHam/
Classic 50s Diner most famous for their sugar-flaked ham sandwich.
Christopher's Eats
http://www.christopherseats.com/
Gastropub near Barboursville offering classic comfort food, burgers, and flatbread pizzas. Has a nice brunch menu.
Midway Drive-in West
https://www.facebook.com/MidwayWest/
Classic drive-in specializing in hotdogs (locals like them with mustard, onions, chili sauce, and slaw) and milkshakes.
La Famiglia
https://www.facebook.com/LaFamigliaDeli/
Family Italian dining. Pizza, Pasta, and many other classics.
Griffith & Feil Soda Fountain
https://www.facebook.com/gandfsodafountain/
Restored old-timey drugstore with a restaurant/ice cream shop. Located in Kenova a short drive from the airport.
Rocco's Ristorante of Ceredo
https://www.roccosristorante.com/
Fine Italian restaurant hidden in the middle of Ceredo. Not to be confused with Rocco's Little Italy (though they have some manner of business arrangement. Their lasagna is delicious.
304 Pho Noodle House
https://www.facebook.com/PhoHouseOn3rd/
Pho U & Mi
https://www.facebook.com/PhoUMiWV/
I'm putting these together because one of Huntington's many quirks is that they have only two Vietnamese restaurants and they're next door to each other. I prefer the soup at 304 Pho but Pho U & Mi has better sandwiches on house made french bread.
Fratelli's Italian Restaurant
http://www.fratelliswv.com/
An Italian restaurant located in Barboursville. This one has a desert case that always seems to be offering something new.
Kustom Kreams
https://www.facebook.com/kkreams/
Family owned Thai Rolled Ice Cream shop. Just introduced Egg Nog flavor.
Tortilla Factory
https://www.facebook.com/tortillafactorywv/
Mexican restaurant with an imported gift shop near the mall in Barboursville. Some fairly unique menu items and they sell lucha masks!
Jewell City Seafood
https://www.facebook.com/jewelcityseafood/
Seafood market with a restaurant that features a regularly changing variety of specials and a few Cajun dishes.
Calamity J
http://calamitygrill.com/
Bar and grill based on the "Calamity Cafe" a bar that occupied the same space 18 years ago serves. Quirky place with a Tex-Mex influenced menu.
The Union
http://theunionpubandgrill.com/
Oldest continually owned bar and grill on the campus area. Burgers, sandwiches, wings, and a wide selection of Kentucky bourbons. Open late.

Pax Cafe
https://www.facebook.com/PAXCafeWV/
Sandwiches, Soup, and homemade cookies.

Cicada Bookstore
https://www.facebook.com/CicadaBooks/
Used bookstore with a coffee shop and a variety of pastries. Located in West Huntintong's antique store district.

Food Trucks (Location may vary):
Southside Sliders
https://www.facebook.com/southsidesliders/
Food truck that serves up an ever changing variety of tiny burgers. Recently took over the kitchen at The Union.
Abby Shae Bakes
https://www.facebook.com/Abbey-Shae-Bakes-1626573904326470/
Cookies and pastries. Specializes in macrons.
Truckin' Cheesey
https://www.facebook.com/TruckinCheesy/
Cheeseburgers, Grilled Cheese, Cheesesteaks, and nachos.

I created a detailed timeline for season 9 of RHOBH Part 3

So I reached the max characters for my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd timelines, so now I have 4 parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 4
Part 1: March 2018 to August 2018. Part 2: August 2018 to September 2018. Part 3: September 2018 to March 2019. Part 4: March 2019 to present.
After LVP's stops filming I don't think my updates to the in season dates will be as detailed. The part of the season when LVP was filming is the most in dispute/controversial, so that's why it will remain the most updated/detailed. * * * SEPTEMBER Fri 9/21 LVP and Denise meet up at Tom Tom for birthday drinks. LVP invited Denise. On her way their Kyle tells Denise to send LVP birthday wishes from her and hopes that may be the meet up will bridge the gap between LVP and the group. Denise arrived at 6:36PM.LVP showed up at 7:50 PM.LVP invites Denise to stay for the longer festivities, but Denise tells her she’s got to run to dinner. Denise tells her that she “feels bad that there is so much discord” LVP replies that “it’s devastating “and she “ feels worse” LVP says that she “doesn’t want to drag her into it” and Denise replies that she doesn’t “want LVP to feel…” and LVP finishes the statement with “under attack” SHOWN IN EPISODE 9 OF RHBOH
Fri 9/21: West Hollywood dinner at Beauty and Essex to celebrate Densie’s wedding.Rinna, Kyle, Teddi, Dorit, Camille, Denise (no LVP or Erika- she had tour rehearsal).
When it was just Rinna and Teddi, Rinna tells her about her text exchange with LVP regarding the pill cupcake tweet. Rinna says when she got a sense that the tweet would be taken the wrong way she texted LVP in which she made it clear that it was for fun and we joke and that LVP responded that “she was very glad that it was not intended another way because of her brother.”
Camille says she hasn’t spoken to LVP. When Kyle tells them that Denise is having drinks with LVP, Dorit expresses shock because she feels she should have been invited.Rinna says that it’s great that Denise is there talking to her and Kyle hopes they are making progress.
When Denise arrives they ask her how things went with LVP.They wonder what happned that made her cut everyone off because previous to Kyle going to Villa Rosa she was speaking to everyone. Camille tells the group that she used to be dental assistant and is really particular about teeth. She then insults LVP’s teeth prior to her getting her teeth redone.SHOWN IN EPISODE 9 OF RHOBH
In Teddi's episode 9 blog, she reacts to Camille:
"Once the rest of the women arrive at Beauty & Essex, it’s not long before Camille is on a roll. Half a cocktail and out of nowhere she goes too far about LVP (you don’t even see the worst of it). As I say in my talking head, it was next level. I don’t know how you can go back from that. I would just say let’s remember this dinner for when Camille starts coming after someone else for being a mean girl (as we saw in the season trailer)."
On 4/10 Camille tweeted Teddi’s blog claims that more was said that wasn’t shown is “not true” and agreed with fan who wrote that Teddi was “already plotting Camille’s demise”
Sat 9/22 Teddi, Erika, and Dorit go horseback riding and to a Mexican restaurant. SHOWN IN EPISODE 5 OF RHOBH
Sun 9/23: Rinna on QVC
Mon 9/24: Erika spills tea on E! Daily Pop appearance confirming the LVP photo shoot drama and implying that LVP doesn’t view the show as an ensemble cast
Wed 9/26: Kyle & Mauricio eat at LA restaurant. Kyle tells Maricio in the week since the fight she has not spoken to LVP. Kyle says despite having this fight before, she still loves LVP. Maurico says the way Ken spoke to her was unacceptable.Kyle says “She just makes it so hard to ever repair things because she shuts down and she holds her friendship as ransom” SHOWN IN EPISODE 9 OF RHOBH
Key scene; date unknown Dorit goes over to Denise’s house. Denise asks about PK’s relationship to Ken and LVP. Dorit tells her that the wedding was the last time her and LVP spoke. Dorit tells her she firmly believes LVP is behind the ROL article. SHOWN IN EPISODE 10 OF RHOBH
Fri 9/28: Kyle hosts Camille’s bridal shower. Rinna, Dorit, Teddi, Denise, and Faye attend. (LVP was horseback riding, Erika had a concert in New Jersey) Kyle says that she is speaking with her sisters again after her show got cancelled. Camille wonders why LVP didn’t attend since she doesn’t have beef with her. Rinna and Denise say that just because you have beef with other people doesn’t mean you punish others that you don’t have beef with by not showing up. On Kyle’s urging Camille says she’s gonna send LVP a text that says you were missed.SHOWN IN EPISODE 10 OF RHOBH
Sat 9/29 Dinner with Rinna’s mom Lois. Kyle, Dorit, Teddi, Denise, and Camille attend. Kyle asks Camille if she heard back from LVP. Camille says that LVP replied back that she wasn’t invited to the bridal shower. Kyle says that that is not true and she doesn’t like liars. Kyle shows her the texts she has sent to LVP prove it. Kyle asks what Camille what her response was. Camille said she just put that she didn’t know anything. Kim Richards was also at the restaurant. Rinna waved to her. Rinna hadn’t seen her since the bunny at the reunion. Kyle went to greet her. Dorit asks Rinna how she feels about seeing Kim. Rinna says fine. Kyle sees Camille crying outside of the back dinner room after a heated political discussion. Kyle gave her a pep talk. Camille asks Kyle to be one of her bridesmaids. Kyle then runs into her other sister Kathy on her way out. On her way out the restaurant Kim tells Camille congratulations on her engagement. Rinna and Kim pass by each other, but don’t exchange words. SHOWN IN EPISODE 10 OF RHOBH * * * OCTOBER Mon 10/1: LVP hosted an anniversary fundraiser for the Vegas shooting at Pump (not sure if this was filmed for VPR or RHOBH; I don’t think any RHOBH women attended/were invited)
Wed 10/3: LVP at VPR main title shoot
Wed 10/3: Kyle, Rinna, Erika, Dorit, Teddi, and Camille attend the Boy George concert: Scene from traileteasers include when Kyle tells Dorit “I’m losing my friendship with Lisa to defend you guys” and Teddi tells Dorit “I’m sure it was very annoying that I made a good point”
Fri 10/5: Reality Blurb article about Kyle and Ken’s fight from the trailer “GOODBYE KYLE!” The article also mentions that LVP is only willing to film with Denise, despite many attempts by other cast members to reach out.
Fri 10/5 Teddi confessional blue blazer redux
Fri 10/5 Erika’s concert in Dallas; Leanne Locken attended
Sat 10/6 Dorit filming Beverly Beach stuff
Sat 10/6 Denise was filming with someone one on one at a restaurant (onlookers didn’t get to see who)
Sun 10/7-Tues 10/9: Rinna on QVC
Tues 10/9: Erika worked as red carpet correspondent at the American Music Awards. Kyle and Mauricio attended the show.
Tues. 10/9: LVP hosts a Celebration of LGBTQ Progress in India event at Pump (not sure if this was filmed for VPR or RHOBH; I don’t think any RHOBH women attended/were invited)
Wed 10/10 LVP and Dorit confrontation at one of LVP’s restaurants. LVP says “I love you.” Dorit “How could you say you love me” LVP “Actually I don’t.”
Thurs 10/11: Teddi’s house was the starting point for the RV trip (Edwin’s company owns the RV) to the KOA campground in Santa Paula, CA. (Everyone minus LVP attended, so 7 ladies total)
Thurs 10/11: LVP announces she is stepping down as editor-in-chief of Beverly Hills Lifestyle Magazine
Sun 10/14: Erika’s concert in LA (Kyle/Mauricio, Teddi/Edwin, Dorit/PK, and Rinna attended
Tues 10/16: Lisa and Ken spotted out in WeHo shopping for art
Wed 10/17: Teddi and Denise spotted at an LA restaurant
Thurs 10/11: LVP announces she is stepping down as editor-in-chief of Beverly Hills Lifestyle Magazine
Sun 10/14: Erika’s concert in LA (Kyle/Mauricio, Teddi/Edwin, Dorit/PK, and Rinna attended
Tues 10/16: Lisa and Ken spotted out in WeHo shopping for art
Wed 10/17: Teddi and Denise spotted at an LA restaurant Thurs 10/18: Kyle, Rinna, Dorit, and Teddi hop on a flight to Hawaii for Camille’s wedding
Fri 10/19: Erika’s concert in Vegas
Sat 10/20: Camille’s Hawaii wedding; Kyle was in the bridal party
Sat 10/20: LVP attending an LA Dodgers game to throw the first pitch
Tues 10/23: Erika performs on The View for Meghan McCain’s b-day
Sat 10/27: Kyle hosted a Halloween costume themed 30th birthday party at her home for her daughter Farah; Kim and Denise get into per the trailer (all the ladies minus LVP attended)
Tues 10/30: Teddi launched her All In by Teddi website; had an event that Kyle, Rinna, Dorit, and Denise attended
Wed 10/31: LVP attended Pump’s Halloween costume party
Wed 10/31: Erika confessional pink cardigan redux * * * NOVEMBER Fri 11/2: Kyle confessional gold glitter blazer redux
Sat 11/3: Teddi confessional blue blazer redux redux
Sat 11/3: Denise and Brandi have dinner “Hello, Kitty cat”
Tues 11/6: Kyle and Erika spotted filming together
Thur 11/8: Kyle attended the opening of Rebag Los Angeles Store in WeHo. In an ET interview, she addressed the LVP drama. She talked about how she was hopeful they could reconcile and defended the cast against rumors that they purposely were not inviting LVP to events.
Fri 11/9: Ladies jet off for the cast trip to France (Kyle, Rinna, Erika, Dorit, Teddi attend) “We are in Europe, Dorit” Camille and Denise were scheduled to come, but couldn’t bc of the fires. Camille had to call producers that she couldn’t make it as she was evacuated.
Sat 11/10: Camille’s home was lost to the fires on Saturday night
Fri 11/16: LVP interviewed by TMZ about whether reports are true that she is leaving the show (both by camera guy and then she appeared on TMZ Live)
Fri 11/16: LVP hosted the Vanderpump Dogs Gala (none of the RHOBH cast attended (yes they were back from France)- When asked Kyle said that only two cast members had been invited- she didn’t name names; VPR cast attended); LVP was asked several times on the red carpet about RHOBH; she seemed concerned for Ken to be answering RHOBH questions alone w/ reporters
Mon 11/19: Rinna on QVC
Fri 11/23: LVP announces that she will be opening Vanderpump Cocktail Garden in Vegas
Tues 11/27 LVP goes on The Talk and discusses RHOBH drama
Wed 11/28: The ladies were at Kitson to support Dorit’s Beverly Beach collab (PK, Kyle/Mauricio, Rinna, Teddi/Edwin, Camille, Erika and Denise attended; The ladies had dinner afterwards- Scene from trailer Dorit says “You’re a little snake!!” to Camille
Thurs 11/29: Finale filmed at a party for the Agency in Downtown LA (everyone except LVP attended) Erika and Rinna wore wigs. Teddi was heard recounting a pretty dramatic encounter with someone to Erika and Rinna in which the person told her “I can’t even waste my time on you”. The ladies talked about someone wanting protection. Erika says “You don’t need protection” (IDK who she is referring to) Dorit responds “Exactly” Camille and Rinna had that intense convo from trailer “Let’s figure out who the mean girl really is” Camille and Kyle also seemed to have a pretty intense convo in which Camille says “Well I know she’s not crazy about Vanderpump” * * * DECEMBER Sat 12/1: Erika’s concert in Atlantic City
Sun 12/2: LVP attends VPR premiere party
Mon 12/3: Vanderpump Rules premiere
Wed 12/5: Rinna puts out tweet saying “Listen. What we do is not that hard. We film for 4 months. We laugh, fight, we make up, whatever. We make a tv show. We are so blessed and so lucky to have a job. For those who watch, Thank you”
Sun 12/9: Erika’s concert in Ft. Lauderdale
Mon 12/10: Erika’s concert in Orlando
Tues 12/11: Erika’s concert in Atlanta. Kandi attended.
Fri 12/14: Teddi new confessional look (white glitter dress)
Fri 12/14: Erika’s concert in Nashville
Sun 12/16: Erika’s concert in in Charlotte
Thurs 12/20: RHOBH Season 9 trailer and cast photo released; Kyle films the WWHL OG special
Fri 12/21: Erika’s concert in Brooklyn * * * JANUARY Wed 1/2: Dorit’s stolen property recovered
Mon 1/7: LVP on WWHL; gave Andy baby present
Tues 1/8: Erika new confessional cheetah
Fri 1/11: Kyle’s 50th birthday party in Mexico (Teddi attends)
Fri 1/11: Rinna confessional filming
Tues 1/15: Kyle, Erika, and Dorit film 'Isn't It Romantic' commercial
Tues 1/15 Teddi confessional silver top
Wed 1/16 Kyle 50th b-day karaoke party with friends in L.A. (Teddi, Rinna, Erika, Dorit, Faye, and Kathy Hilton attend)
Thurs 1/17 Kyle, Rinna, and Teddi film WWHL
Fri 1/28 Dorit new confessional pink top with black mesh
Tues 1/22 Rinna tweets that viewers should do their homework ahead of the premiere by watching the season 4 Puerto Rico episode; Also insta stories watching season 4 reunion
Thurs 1/24 Kyle new confessional red dress
Sat 1/26 Andy's baby shower. (All the BH minus LVP attended.) Kyle was the main og hostess. LVP did not RSVP to Kyle's invite, but skyped Andy during the shower from Las Vegas to send her regards. Rinna took over has party hype women. Rinna was apparently avoiding Camille at the shower. Camille and Dorit got into a fight, but were told to save it for the reunion.
Tues 1/29 Erika on WWHL
Thurs. 1/31 Kyle has run in with paps who ask about Andy's baby shower. Paps suggest LVP was holding out for money to attend. Kyle responds at the joke by wondering if she really would have needed to pay LVP for her to come. * * * FEBRUARY Fri 2/1 LVP does an interview with TMZ Live about why she was absent from Andy's baby shower; disses Kyle's pap comment and says that she's too busy to trash her co-stars "too concerned with dogs than bitches"
Fri 2/1 Nene Leakes accuses LVP of dissuaded her from buying the property that LVP would would later buy to build Pump on Jenny Mccarthy's radio show
Tues 2/5 Kyle on Kelly and Ryan says that her and LVP are not speaking, but would hope to get back on good terms with her considering their long friendship
Thurs 2/7 LVP hints on E New Daily Pop that she may not attend the reunion
Thurs 2/7: Kyle, Rinna, and Teddi on WWHL (pre-taped)
Thurs 2/7: Erika has launch party for her make up collaboration with Too Faced (Rinna and Teddi attend)
Sun 2/10: Kyle, Erika, and Dorit's commerical for 'Isn't it Romantic' drops
Tues 2/12 Season 9 premiere of RHOBH (episode 1 titled "Lucy Lucy Apple Juicy); Every cast member minus LVP wrote a blog about this episode.
Tues 2/12 RHOBH season 9 premiere party (LVP, Kyle, Rinna, Dorit, Erika Teddi, and Denise in attendance) According to the red carpet reporters LVP showed up early, and left before the rest of the cast arrived. The other ladies did the traditional red carpet premiere night cast picture. Kyle, Teddi, Mauricio, and Edwin had dinner together after.
Sun 2/17 Denise's birthday; Kyle, Rinna, Dorit, and Teddi post birthday wishes on social media
Sun 2/17: Dorit throws a birthday party for Jagger and Phoenix. Teddi, Edwin, and their kids attend.
Mon 2/18: Teddi appears on “Everything Iconic” podcast. She reveals that her brother no longer works at Tom Tom because he got a full time job elsewhere. She reveals that after a major incident happened, LVP stopped coming to events and communicating with the cast. She admits in the dog situation “I’m not innocent in that whole thing. There is gonna be more that bubbles up. I am not. I’m not claiming to be.” She again disputes LVP’s claim that her and John Blizzard were close friends when she only ever saw him at Vanderpump Dogs events. She questions why she was the cast member told about the dog situation. * She claims that because of her experience this season, she has finally gone back to watch old seasons of RHOBH for the first time as “research” and has noticed a pattern with LVP. She points to situations in which LVP claims to be fine about something or has already cleared the air with someone off camera, and then decides to have a go with them on camera. She uses the Kyle Daily Mail fight and the Dorit dog situation as examples. According to Teddi, Dorit and LVP had already worked past the issue, prior to the scene we saw at Vanderpump Dogs on episode 1. Teddi basically says one of her big takeaways from the LVP situation is “No matter if I’m grieving or not grieving, it is never an intention of mine to try to make my friends look bad and I think you see two cases of that happening at Vanderpump Dog (Kyle and Dorit) and I think that is…now that I’ve gone back and done a little bit of research…there seems to be a pattern" “There are a lot of things that go down this year because of things that have happened before” * Teddi did finally get a dog, but not from Vanderpump Dogs. She also states that “we all have our personal issues (with LVP), there is not like one group mentality here and the way I feel is everybody’s personal relationship with somebody is on them. I am not one of those people that if I’m not getting along with somebody, I want everybody to not get along with somebody. I really don’t care. I’m really about my personal feelings. I’m pretty good at…I can coexist and I can be cordial and I think Lisa and I did that once together.” Teddi also questions why she was the cast member that was told about the dog situation.
Tues 2/19 Episode 2 "Eat Your Heart Out" airs (Rinna, Erika, Dorit, Teddi, and Denise wrote blogs; LVP and Kyle did not) In Dorit's blog she notably takes issue with LVP's confessional comment that Lucy ended up in a kill shelter. Dorit claims that LVP knew it was not a kill shelter and that Vanderpump Dogs was alerted one hour after Lucy arrived at the shelter.
Tues 2/19 Rinna on WWHL; She addresses the pill cupcake controversy.
Tues 2/19 Teddi launches her first line of "ALL IN" gear
Wed 2/20 Announcement that Denise has joined the cast of "The Bold and the Beautiful"
Thurs 2/21: Rinna on Kelly and Ryan, Strahan and Sara, and The Jenny McCarthy Show radio show, and on QVC * On Jenny’s show: * Rinna reveals that she had already heard the Nene-LVP story 4 year ago because she used to have the same manager as Nene. * When the topic turns to LVP filming while mourning Rinna responded to the direct question of whether she could imagine not showing up for two months to a job Rinna answered “ Okay this is what I am going to say first and foremost I understand that everybody’s grieving process is different and our hearts have gone out and we feel so deeply for Lisa Vanderpump and what she went through. In saying that..what I’m the most disappointed in is the fact that she did not reach out to any of us..you know I’ve known Lisa a long time and the fact that she didn’t reach out to me and say you know what I am in pain and I am suffering and I’m gonna need to take a medical leave of absence, go heal, and every single one of us would have said you know what go heal, go do what you need to do, but to not show up for work and to not contact any of us for two and a half months, I’m just so disappointed in that behavior because I would have imagined she’s got 400 employees, I couldn’t imagine if one of her employees did that, they’d be fired, so the fact that Bravo took no..there was no consequences. She was able to just do that. And I guess the problem I have with it is I’m raising 2 teenage girls and Harry and I have raised them to, you show up, you are professional, you are on time, and I don’t care what you are going through, you show up for work, and if you can’t then you say to somebody I am in trouble, help me, so that’s what the most sad about and disappointed because I feel like it’s a really bad example of women in the workplace.” * She replies “I do” when Jenny asks her if she (LVP) gets treated differently by Bravo. They agree that the reason why is because LVP has another hit show on Bravo. Rinna says she is “disappointed in all of them (the honchos at Bravo)” Rinna says that “She (LVP) did half of a season and then guess what we do another half of a season Jenny that is unbelievable” Jenny predicts that LVP will probably still be the topic of conversation for when she is not around, Rinna says “No guess what. You don’t. Cuz out of sight, out of mind, so that’s just the truth of it. We go on to make a really good kick ass show without her” * Rinna says that if she had done what LVP did when Rinna’s father died, she would have been fired. Jenny and Rinna both think that the scene at Vanderpump Dogs was orchestrated by LVP to get the story out there, without it technically being LVP who got it out there. They both point out the LVP is the boss and if you are the boss you tell your employee to shut up or be fired. Rinna claims that LVP fans are sending the cast and their family death threats.
Thurs 2/21: Teddi and Kyle hanging out at Teddi’s house
Sat 2/23: Rinna, Harry, and Nicollette Sheridan get in a Twitter dispute over Rinna's comments in episode 2
Tues 2/25 Episode 3 "Sun and Shade in the Bahamas" airs. (Kyle, Dorit, Teddi, and Denise wrote blogs; LVP, Rinna and Erika did not)
In Teddi's blog, she flat out accuses LVP of directing John B to call her about the dog situation in an effort to use her as a "pawn to get the story about Dorit and the dog out there while LVP can pretend like she had Dorit’s best interests." She admits that in reaction to John B.'s "dramatic" story she said "crappy and shady" things that will be revealed in next week's episode. * In Kyle's blog, she points out "When Dorit called Lisa to tell her what happened and that she had to find a new home for the dog, Lisa seemingly understood Dorit’s position and never asked for the dog to be returned to her or Vanderpump Dogs. To me, that indicates that Lisa V was OK with the dog going to a new home at that time, which makes sense. There are a lot of dogs that need homes, and it’s not always easy to find the right fit. It only became an issue when the dog was left at a shelter by the woman that Dorit thought was giving the dog a good home. It's safe to say that everyone was blindsided by that. Now, the issue has become more about why we all found out about this in the first place. If Lisa knew that Dorit had no ill intent, then it should have been a private matter." * In Dorit's blog, she calls out Kyle "Since Kyle spoke with Teddi about the Lucy situation in their room ahead of drinks and then continued the conversation with Lisa V and Lisa R, it seems like she was the only one who didn’t want the story to die down. Watching it back felt like two mean girls gossiping about me under my nose. I’m perplexed as to why Kyle asked Lisa V if she was still mad at me when Lisa V had done nothing but assure me that she wasn’t. Was Kyle digging for more or simply trying to keep the story’s ﬂame ablaze? Yet, what hurt the most was how Kyle made light of the situation with an insensitive joke about me being allergic to dogs. Watching them talk behind my back and then act normal to my face felt catty and hurtful." * Dorit also calls out LVP "When Lisa V tells me "she doesn’t believe for one second that I’m guilty" and follows it with, “however, it all went wrong,” she is wrongly insinuating that Lucy was in danger. For the record, Lucy never ended up in a kill shelter. She went from our loving home to another loving home and, unbeknown to me, ended up in a non-kill shelter. The shelter was told that Lucy originated from Vanderpump Dogs, so the owner scanned her microchip and contacted Vanderpump Dogs within an hour of Lucy being there. Lucy never suﬀered or was in harm’s way or, god forbid, in danger of being killed." "The woman who wanted Lucy initially came at a time when PK and I were contemplating giving her back to Lisa V’s center as she was becoming more and more aggressive with the kids. When the opportunity arose for Lucy to go to a beautiful home (which is ultimately the goal for rescue pets) rather than having to go back to the center and wait for someone to adopt her, we took it. It was never about hiding that from Lisa V as I told her immediately. Not even Lisa V could’ve expected this to happen, otherwise (I’m sure) she would’ve done a home check, which she never did." * "This brings me to the second part of what she said: “You should’ve given the dog back to me.” Why didn’t she tell me that she wanted me to bring Lucy back to the center and that it was a violation to re-home a dog when I spoke to her? I would have happily brought Lucy back to Lisa if that was her wish. In hindsight, knowing what I know now, I wish I had just given Lucy back to Lisa V to begin with and not try to do what I thought was right for Lucy. Maybe then the series of events wouldn’t have been twisted into a story about me abandoning this beautiful little puppy that my family and I loved." * "In conclusion, Lisa R telling Lisa V, “This wouldn’t have gone out there if you didn’t want it out there” is undeniable. Judging by what Kyle and Teddi are saying, Lisa V may have counted on Kyle and Teddi (with whom I’ve had differences with in the past) to carry out her plan of either punishing me or simply trying to make me look bad. But I guess that remains to be seen."
Tues 2/25 Dorit on WWHL. Regarding the dog situation: Dorit claims LVP always knew that Lucy was going to a new home as Dorit called her the next day to tell her. She said LVP didn’t ask for the $5,000 penalty when she told her about Lucy going to new home nor did she request that she’d rather Lucy be brought back to Vanderpump Dogs instead. Dorit claims that those issues were only brought up by LVP when they started filming. Dorit says she didn’t take Lucy back to VPD because her and PK thought the woman was a better solution than Lucy being brought back to VPD and having to wait to be adopted again. The woman was someone who knew PK through a business associate of his. Dorit addressed the fake robbery conspiracy theories by stating that the guy was caught.
Tues 2/26 In reference to the previews for episode 4 in which Ken shows LVP texts between Teddi and John B., Teddi tweets "I hope next week Ken doesn’t leave out the part in those messages that confirms Lisa set this up... neat thing about texts is I can print them out as well."
Wed 2/27 Erika shares an example of a threatening tweet a RHOBH viewer sent her which said "Erika Jayne has someone shot your son yet? You could probably care less since you didn't raise him. Maybe he's better off dead" Kyle had also been sent a tweet saying mom dyed because she was finally sick of loving her.
Thurs 2/28 Brandi Glanville tweets about the condolence drama "I would take a sincerely handwritten note over someone’s assistant sending flowers every day all day"
Thurs 2/28 Teddi make an Instagram post addressing the vitriolic messages sent to the casts and asks for people to basically calm down. She also responds to those asking for the cast to post the receipts they claim they have on LVP by saying "I know I chose to do a TV show and I know there is freedom of speech but I am asking you to be mindful of the fact that we are also real people, that your words hurt and that we aren’t allowed to speak about upcoming episodes to defend ourselves or apologize for mistakes until after they air."
Thurs 2/28 Kyle, Rinna, Erika, Dorit, and Teddi have dinner together at Craig's * * * MARCH Fri 3/1 In a response to a comment on her Instagram that said “Vile human being you make me sick. Hope you shrivel up and die Teddi. You only famous for your father. Fat, Teddi responded “Everyone is welcome to say their opinions about the show but wishing someone death is not ok. Enough is enough.”
Sat 3/2 Rinna instastories a scene from a previous reunion in which LVP is lecturing Adienne Maloof about taking responsibility for the actions of her employees
Sat 3/2 Rinna on QVC
Sun 3/3 In an insta Q&A Teddi said that "As soon as I am allowed to show them you will see them" she will post the full text conversations between her and John B.
Mon 3/4 Teddi and Denise hang out in NYC as they are both in town for press
Tues 3/5 Episode 4 "Bahama Drama" airs. LVP, Kyle, Rinna, Teddi, and Denise wrote blogs.
In Teddi's blog she admits she played a role in setting Dorit up. "I am now angry at myself for going along with something designed to hurt Dorit, especially when the dog's well-taken care of. I am also angry that LVP would play against my hard feelings with Dorit. That is why this has become about something other than the dog. Had Vanderpump just admitted she was upset with Dorit and wanted the story out there, this would all be put to rest."
In Kyle’s blog she agrees with Camille that the messy situation wouldn’t have happened if Dorit had just given the dog back. She says the dogs story being “put out there” at Vanderpump Dogs seems like a “passive aggressive” move on LVP’s part. Kyle says that the entire matter could have been resolved sooner if LVP had just been upfront that she was upset with Dorit instead of being wishy washy about her feelings and saying that others at Vanderpump Dogs were mad at her.
In LVP’s blog, she says that despite dealing with depression, she tried to commit filming this season. She says her experience filming caused her depression to deepen. LVP admits that she ended her relationship with Kyle because Kyle didn’t believe LVP when she said she wasn’t lying. * LVP blurs the truth of her dog clothes business partner lawsuit by saying her and Ken were “vindicated”. (They settled out of court instead of facing a ruling, and the business partner’s company was shut down not because of their fight with Ken and LVP, but because it lost its non-profit status because it was selling merchandise) * LVP shares her frustrations that Dorit’s run in with Jasmine Leonard was not brought up on camera. (side note: I think all RHOBH fans completely agree with this sentiment- would have loved to have seen this play out on the show) * She claims the women didn’t inquire about how the dog was doing. (This despite Teddi and Kyle having previously seen in person that the dog was fine, and the women being aware that the dog was being what they could only assume well taken care of at Vanderpump Dogs.) * LVP justifies the John’s actions because they are saving lives with the work they do and claims that they did what they did because they were emotional, but then seemingly contradicts herself by implying that the people at Vanderpump Dogs wouldn’t do something to bring attention to the Dorit dog issue because it would put the organization at risk. * LVP insinuates that the environment at the Kemsley household “young children can terrorize a dog” was a possilbe reason Lucy could have been biting because she had no previous history of it as she was not a rescue with a traumatic background, but instead a dog that was birthed at the center. She also claims that Dorit actually never mentioned the biting as a reason for giving Lucy away when Dorit called to inform her that she had given her to the woman. * LVP slams Kyle and Teddi for doing what one would think is a solid by filming at one of her organizations Vanderpump Dogs, thus giving it air time. “I was told that they were there for grooming and Instagram pictures. Kyle even forgot to bring her dog – she must’ve had something else on her mind.” (Teddi and Kyle have no Instagram photos posted from that day (mind you Instagram photos help promote Vanderpump Dogs and LVP has the cast of VPR take them there all the time; Teddi didn’t have a dog at that point to groom; don’t know what Kyle’s excuse was) * To end her blog in her trademark innuendo style, LVP refers to her cast mates as bitches and cunts. * Tues 3/5 Teddi live tweeted episode 4 and posted more texts between her and John Blizzard with additional context in response to the texts Ken showed LVP: Text Teddi shows at table, which Teddi claims implicates Ken More texts that Teddi claims show LVP and Ken's involvement and foreknowledge Teddi shoots down the idea that Rinna was trying to turn her and Kyle against LVP. Teddi calls BS on the idea that LVP doesn’t really know John Blizzard as LVP suggested in the episode
Tues 3/5 Denise on WWHL; Denise says that she agrees with Erika taking a picture of the condolence note because she's learned that it's important to have receipts.
Wed 3/6 Teddi’s interview on the Jenny McCarthy Show
Notable quotes
“I know in the end, I have a clear conscience. It’s gonna be rocky to get there, but I know and there is not a doubt in my mind that the truth will prevail.” * In response to Jenny saying that LVP is known for manipulation “I kind of took her nightly calls (during Teddi’s first season) as like oh she’s checking on me, but really I was pretty much getting groomed. There are a lot of things that I’m like you know I fell for this, I made the wrong decision, I’m not a dummy, why did I do this, and I’ve made mistakes…I say in all my blogs I’m not clean in all of this” * In response to why she went along with the plan to make Dorit look bad “You want me to be real frank? Because I was new and the main housewife called me you know like had somebody call and say Lisa wants you know to put you out there.” (Editorializing here, but one of the texts that Teddi sends John B. when he tells her that Ken and LVP are in disagreement about spreading what Dorit did “Lisa is the cast member so her word rules” is supportive of this idea that Teddi was enamored by LVP) * In response to if LVP could come back from this aka repair her relationships with the group “Here’s the thing…All she would really have to say for everybody to you know is ‘Guys. I’m sorry. I let things get too far. I should have just said Dorit I’m upset with you and you know what I was not in a good place and just you know what all of us are understanding people especially in this setting you know I’m not saying she needs to like be like I’m so sorry (in a groveling way) but like you know what I let it get out of hand” In response to why LVP has such a hard time owning up to her faults/mistakes “Because then she wouldn’t be perfect and then she can’t be admired and the queen” * “I only just know how I personally handle things, so even last year when Dorit and I were not in a good place and we’re required to write blogs and then people would like attack Dorit. I would post on Twitter like guys cool it like we are all doing the best we can even though I’m writing this in the blog…I’m required to say how I’m feeling, but she doesn’t need those types of attacks. If you notice, that’s not happening this year. Lisa is not saying hey guys you know this is all it’s fine to have favorites and blah blah blah but let’s not go to death threats for my cast mates.
Wed 3/6 Faith a former VPR cast member tweeted “I believe her (Teddi). I’ve have first hand accounts with Lisa trying to manipulate a scene or story line” and later followed up with this “No shade Lisa is just a great producer!”
Thurs 3/7 Teddi confessional silver top redux

A Tale of Two Florida Franchises.

For this one, I’ve decided to try a different approach, rather than just writing about one team, or one player, I’m going to write about two teams, specifically the Panthers and Lightning. As we all know the Lightning are considered to be pretty good, while the Panthers are considered to be, pretty bad. From the Rat Trick, to Quenneville signing, the Panthers have seen a lot, but so have the Lightning.

Expansion, Expansion Never Changes.

Lightning

In the late 80’s the NHL was hungry to further expand, and they selected, Tampa Bay, San Jose and Ottawa. San Jose was a no brainer, as North Stars owners Gordon and George Gund had been trying to move the North Stars to San Francisco for years, San Jose was given to them on the condition they sell the team to a local owner(Norm Greed), while the new Senators would be in the heart of Canada’s capital, they were a shitshow from the beginning, while the Lightning…. oh boy that’s a can of worms.
So to begin with, there were two groups here bidding for the St Petersburg, Florida. One group owned by Peter Karmanos and Jim Rutherford, looked to be the more stable, while their opposing group was led by the Esposito Brothers, Phil and Tony Esposito, who in turn had money coming in from The Pritzker Family(Too many things to list, they’re rich), who in turn backed out at the last minute, leading Kokusai Green, who...we don’t know shit about, to come in as the new investors for the Esposito Group. Kokusai Green were a group of masked people, who managed a golf course / resort. It looked like Karmanos / Rutherford would be the winning bid, but the Esposito Group were the ones willing to pay the $50 million expansion fee up front, because even back then, Karmanos was a cheap bastard.
For their first season, they played at the Expo Hall of the Florida State Fairgrounds, so obviously not an arena built for hockey. It was tiny(11K seats), but it was fine for the first season, before they moved to play at the Thunderdome(Tropicana Field now), until the Ice Palace(Amalie Arena) was built. In their first season, they had goaltender Manon Rheaume play a pre-season game, making her the first and only Woman to play in a NHL game. She stopped seven of nine shots against the St Louis Blues. It was a publicity stunt, obviously, but she wasn’t awful. She played an IHL game too.

I really cannot go into depth on who the bloody hell Kokusai Green are, I have no idea. So here’s 2ndprize ‘s post explaining it. Basically they were Yakuza, but there is so much more to this that I really don’t think I can do a good job explaining, without getting a lot wrong.

Panthers

December 10th, 1992 was a promising day for the NHL. The Walt Disney Company had announced they were bringing a new team to the NHL, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim(based on their movie series), at the same time though, Blockbuster owner Wayne Huizenga was also announced as bringing an expansion team to the NHL, the Florida Panthers. Huizenga was no stranger to sorts, he had purchased a 15% stake in the Miami Dolphins and their stadium, Joe Robbie Stadium(now Hard Rock Stadium), Dolphins owner,, Joe Robbie had recently died and his family was struggling to keep the team afloat. In 1994, he bought the remaining shares for around $115 Million, changing the name of the stadium soon after, to “Pro Player Park” due to a deal with Fruit of the Loom’s “Pro Player” brand. He also owned the Florida Marlins, who had yet to play a game at the time of this announcement.
There was an initial concern of territory infringement, but the NHL shrugged it off. For their initial few seasons, the Panthers would play at the Miami Arena, sharing with the Miami Heat of the NBA. Huizenga had the name “Panthers” since 91, since he bought it off a group trying to get a MLB team in Tampa. Huizenga was great for the Panthers for the most part, he had money, he spent it on his team and he didn't meddle.
For their first few seasons, the Panthers had shared an arena with the Miami Heat, at the Miami Arena a still relatively new arena at the time(single digit age), but it was clear early on this would not be able support pro sports for long, it only held around 14K. It was good arena for its time and people showed up at the least.

New Teams, New Struggles

Panthers

Obviously the first few years for these teams sucked, expansion was designed to make the expanding team awful, especially with how the rules were set up. But the Panthers were the exception, it took them two seasons of missing to make the playoffs, where they went to a cup final, only to lose to the new Avalanche(formerly Nordiques). This playoff run was accompanied by the now famous “Rat Trick”. The prior season during the home opener, Scott Mellanby had killed a rat with his stick in the locker room and proceeded to score two goals that night, with goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck coining the phrase. Fans loved the idea and would flood the ice with plastic rats, after every goal. In the 96-97 season this was changed, so that the home team would be penalized if the fans disrupted a game(see Flyers fans throwing bracelets onto the ice, during Ed Snyder’s memorial). The Rat Trick carried on though, with fans throwing thousands of plastic rats onto the ice, after the Panthers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, to capture the Prince of Wales Trophy, punching their ticket to the 1996 Stanley Cup Final. Coincidentally, it was also the Chinese Year of the Rat, which helped things too.Fun fact, the team brought on Orkin as a sponsor, so ice crew would come out to clean up the rats, dressed as Orkin Exterminators, great marketing if you ask me! Area supermarkets even sold cupcakes with rats on them, to show support for the team.
That was the first, last and only big playoff run for the Panthers unfortunately, as the following season they lost in the first round to Gretzky’s Rangers(who got their shit kicked in by the Flyers in a Conference Final 4-1, who in turn got swept by Detroit.). 97-98 was also..bad, this time they missed the playoffs. During that season coach Doug MacLean was fired after going 7-12-4, with GM Bryan Murray taking over his duties and leading the team to an even worse overall record of 24-43-15, even worse during 15-game winless streak, John Vanbiesbrouck was shelled by the Blackhawks, playing his final game in a Panthers jersey. He walked in free agency to sign with the Flyers. To replace him the Panthers had a bit of a three-headed goalie monster going on as Mike Vernon, Trevor Kidd, Mikhail Shtalenkov, Sean Burke and Richard Shulmistra, all played in 99-00.
Stability came back in that offseason as they acquired franchise legend Roberto Luongo, from the Islanders, due to GM Mike Milbury being a fucking idiot. Milbury hated Luo and previously criticized him for apartment shopping on the day he let in 7 goals against the Bruins. Luo had two stints with the Panthers before retiring this past offseason. He's set so many franchise records and is set to have his number retired on March, 7, 2020.

Lightning

While in this same timespan, the Lightning had broken 30 wins only once. The Lightning rebounded in season 4(95-96), just barely knocking out the defending champion Devils, by a single point. They went onto face the Flyers in their first playoff series. They had just barely squeaked into a playoff berth, taking the final eastern wildcard spot, with a record of 38-32-12, or 88 points. They had split the first 2 games at the Spectrum, bringing it back to the Thunderdome, with a record crowd of ** 28,183** a record that stood until 2003’s heritage classic. Right away, Tampa was crazy for hockey even if the team wasn’t that good. The two teams split games yet again, but ultimately the Flyers won the series 4-2. It wasn’t bad though, for their first playoff berth the Lightning were building something good, but had they advanced to a Conference Final, we could have seen the battle of the Florida teams, unfortunately the Hockey Gods are cruel and that series has never happened.
The draft that year for the Lightning wasn’t great, their first rounder Mario Larocque never played a game for them and most of their picks were traded away, although they did draft Pavel Kubina, who stuck with them until 2006 and then again from 2010-2012. Unlike the Panthers, the early Lightning didn’t find much success on the ice, it didn’t help that they played in a baseball stadium, rather than a proper hockey rink. But it could be worse, they could be mismanaged like the future Thrashers were. Plus Daren Puppa was nominated for the Vezina, but lost out to Jim Carey of the Capitals.

New Millenium, Same Struggles.

The 90s were coming to a close, but there was so much more craziness before that century ended:

Panthers

The Panthers finally moved into their own space, the National Car Rental Center(BB&T, soon to be Truist), but that came with an instant problem. It wasn’t in Miami, it was in Sunrise, which wasn’t really a sports town.
The Reason Huizenga went to Sunrise instead of staying in Miami with the Heat was a few reasons:
There were early talks about the Heat and Panthers sharing a new arena, but Micky Arison has vehemently said absolutely not to sharing with the Panthers. Being as Arison is the owner of the Heat(has been for decades), it’s never happening. Plus renovating AAA(soon to be named something else) would be a nightmare. As it is, it’s not built for hockey, so you’d have another Barclays / Talking Stick Situation. I’ve seen a lot of people saying “Sunrise is perfect for hockey”, but unfortunately the attendance says otherwise.
Couple that with the distance from Miami and the fact there’s nothing to do before or after the game near BB&T. You got a large mall and some shitty restaurants nearby, while you look at Vegas as a good example of actual life around the arena. The team would be better suited to build a new arena in Hollywood, Downtown Fort Lauderdale or go back to Miami Dade and figure something out. Combine that with Cohen coming in and gutting this team financially, fans quit showing up after the “new stadium” effect wore off and the Panthers didn’t get much better. The Panthers(in my opinion) can’t succeed in Sunrise, they’ve tried their damndest to build a fanbase, but the on-ice product has been awful and nobody wants to support a team that’s been in a perpetual rebuild since Dale Tallon took over almost a decade ago. Attendance wasn't an issue at the Miami Arena, but the problem was that it was so small despite only being around 8 years old, when AAA opened. I don't know if games were "sellouts", but they were doing fine in attendance.

"Can't they just work something out to share AAA now?"

Obviously not, it's built for basketball, has no ice plant, awful sightlines and the owner doesn't want them.

Lightning

A lot to cover here. The Lightning were bad, they were bottom of the league because Kokusai Green(Maybe Yakuza???? / Primary Owners) didn’t carry about the Lightning, they are losing money at an incredible rate and Kokusai was forced to transfer money to keep the lights on. There’s a lot of blame here, first off:
The NHL, these idiots got scammed by John Spano years earlier and didn’t do their due diligence again with Kokusai Green. NHL didn’t care if any checks cleared, they wanted that sweet, sweet $50 mill is all, hell the Lightning could be playing beach hockey and as long as they got the money, they’d look the other way.
Hillsborough County, had agreed to build the Lightning, the Ice Palace but the question remained, Who The Fuck Is Takashi Okubo? The Answer will surprise you, because nobody knows. NHL President John Ziegler never met “Okubo'', Bettman never did(though he tried), nobody from Hillsborough County or Tampa met with “him”, but apparently(?????) Saburo(Steve) Oto(Japanese-Born, he was the team executive) and Chris Phillips claimed to have met him. Is he real? Who the hell knows!? Was Kokusai Green, Yakuza? Who the hell knows!? Two things are for certain:
(There is a lot more to this, but I’ll let y’all read the 3-parter for this, plus these news stories)

The NHL was still run by fucking idiots. You’d think John Spano’s saga would teach the NHL to do its due diligence and that’s, where you’re abso-fucking-lutely wrong! The NHL never met with the mysterious owner of the Lightning and didn’t really try to.

The Lightning desperately needed a new owner who wasn’t possibly a figment of our imagination. Which is where Art Williams, comes in. Williams was a motivational speaker, not much else to it. It looked like Pistons owner William Davidson was going to get the winning bid, but it turned out to be Williams. Williams was for lack of a better word, an idiot, he knew nothing about hockey, spoke with a thick southern drawl and was a fundamentalist christian. But he pumped $6 Million into the Lightning’s payroll and cleared away most of the $102 million debt(thanks to Kokusai Green). His first move was to “assure” fans, that the Espositos wouldn’t be going away, but then 2 games into the 98-99 season? HE FIRES THEM INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO! His next move was to give Jacques Demers total control of Hockey Ops, making him Coach & GM!, which was a shitshow.
Williams didn’t know much about hockey and the other owners hated him as a result, giving him the nickname “Jed Clampett”(Beverly Hillbillies) because of his thick southern accent. It didn’t help that he quit attending games by Spring of ‘99, because "this team broke my heart". They lost as much money in one year as they could have lost in five($20 million), which is not a good sign, especially when you’re doing worse than a brand new expansion team(Predators).

Yet another sale:

Williams sold the team to Detroit Vipers(IHL) and Pistons owner William Davidson, the same man trying to buy the team just a few years ago, for only $115 million, $2 million less than Williams bought the team for. His first move was to bring on Tom Wilson as Team President, who fired Demers and brought on Steve Ludzik as the new coach, it wasn’t enough though, the damage from the Kokusai Green bullshit was done, even transferring everyone good from the Vipers(this is what helped kill them) didn’t help much.
Despite all the craziness from the last few years, in 1998 the Lightning drafted Vincent Lecavalier, who went onto become the franchise GOAT. His first few seasons weren’t that great, but 00-01 is when he turned it around, despite a leg injury. In that same draft, they had taken Brad Richards, who became another big core piece. In 2000, the Lightning brought on Martin St. Louis, an undrafted player who the Flames bought out. Fredrik Modin was also brought in, via trade with the Maple Leafs. These moves helped establish a future contender and a core group going forward.

Mismanagement Galore.

Panthers Or: How to Mismanage a Franchise. Because jesus christ this section is rough.

The new millennium brought with it new challenges. Huizenga finally sold the team in 2001 to a group led by Alan Cohen(owner of a Generic Drug Company), Cohen was...pretty bad for the Panthers, he led their slide into mediocrity and into being forgotten by everyone, but he did pump a shitton of money into them, to keep them from moving. I won’t sugarcoat it, Cohen ruined this team, he got fans to stop caring, by making moves or lack thereof. Sure he saved this franchise from moving, but ultimately it’s his fault that the Panthers became a joke. As soon as they were sold to Cohen, the decade streak of no playoffs started, it’s obviously unfair to blame the start on him though.
It wasn’t all bad though, they drafted Jay Bouwmeester at 3rd overall, who was about as good as you could expect from him playing for a franchise that squandered everyone. This was so fucking stupid though, the Panthers were given 1st overall and what do they do? They trade it to Columbus for 3rd overall. Why? I don’t know! They wanted Bouwmeester and could have got him at 1st overall if they wanted, Nash would have been available to Columbus at 3rd, it’s just another case of Florida throwing away their Firsts. Not only that, they had to give 2 picks to Atlanta to make sure Bouwmeester would be fucking available at 3rd. In return, Florida got to swap picks with Columbus in the 2003 Draft, but because they got 1st overall AGAIN, they didn’t exercise that right surprisingly.
What did they do in 2003? Well they TRADED 1ST OVERALL AGAIN, this time to ** The Fucking Penguins** because they wanted Nathan Horton at 3rd overall, rather than first overall. Who was 1st? Marc Andre Fleury a literal cornerstone of the Penguins franchise for over a decade and now a big piece of the Golden Knights. So you could tell that management was literally pants on head stupid and seemed to not know what they were doing.
Head Coach Mike Keenan had this to say about the 02 blunder: "We shouldn't have done that ... Jay would have been number-one if we'd kept that pick." Well no fucking shit sherlock. I don’t blame Keenan for this, it’s all ownership and GM Rick Dudley who...came from Tampa. That’s right the last team he was an executive with was the Lightning.
Say what you will about Edmonton wasting 1st overall picks, at least THEY KEPT 1ST OVERALL. Florida traded it twice to draft people who they got rid of, through sheer incompetence. Bouwmeester and Horton won a cup, with the Blues and Bruins at the least.

Lightning Or: How to Also Mismanage a Franchise.

While the Panthers were playing with fire, figuring out “how do we make this team a cup contender, without spending a dime?”, the Lightning’s new ownership spent money, they made sure this team could be good. And with a core consisting of Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis and Fredrik Modin, you better fucking believe they were good. They were early bloomers, in the best ways possible. They just squeaked into division winners, by 1 point, securing a playoff berth for only the second time in franchise history. The division winners looked awful in the playoffs though, going down two games to the Capitals, before making an amazing comeback in Washington, winning both games at MCI, before heading back to the Forum, where they beat the Caps 2-1, following that with the series clincher in Washington. The Lightning had gotten some mojo going and they looked hungry, unfortunately that hunger was quickly fed as the Devils came in and utterly kicked their shit in, winning the series 4-1.
Next season(04-05) was even better. The Lightning went from barely winning the Southeast Division, to winning that and the Eastern Conference, showing that crushing defeat to Jersey wasn’t all she wrote. They entered the first round playing the Islanders, swatting them like a fly and winning 4-1. They moved onto face the Canadiens who...fell flat, as they got swept by the Lightning, who won it in Montreal, just to pour salt in the wound. The Conference Final was different, the Flyers weren’t rolling over and dying like the Islanders or Canadiens, this series to all 7 games, winning the Prince of Wales Trophy at The Forum!, so not only was it a sweet victory, it was in front of the loyal fans who stuck with them from the beginning, that expansion team that looked to be going nowhere fast, had secured a ticket to their first Cup Final, against none other than the Calgary Flames.
The Flames weren't a joke, they’d won their previous two series 4-2 and their first one 4-1, they were strong and looking to bring The Cup back to Canada where it belonged. The Lightning had a challenge ahead of them and it showed. Both sides seemed evenly matched, splitting a game at home and on the road, it was definitely a match for the ages. Game 6 was a controversial one by far. Late in Game 6, the puck had deflected off of Martin Gelinas’ skate, at the same time, Nikolai Khabibulin kicked his pad to deflect the puck. Issue is, in replays(with one select camera angle) it was shown to have crossed the line, which would have given the Flames a one-goal lead, possibly avoiding double overtime. Instead the Refs ruled it as no goal, because they didn’t see it cross the line and they didn't review these things. The teams went to double overtime, where Calgary lost thanks to Martin St Louis. There’s controversy here as the NHL reviewed it later, via a CGI video analysis, showing it did not in fact cross the line, funny enough though, the company that did this was based out of Calgary. The ABC Replay backed this up, but with no goal line tech this shits hard to tell.

Did the Flames get robbed? Maybe, but they still lost Game 7.

The Lightning marched onto Game 7, returning to a packed St Pete Forum, ready to give the Flames a good slapping. Late in the 1st period the game was scoreless with 6:29 remaining, when Ruslan Fedotenko scored a beautiful powerplay goal, giving the Lightning a lead late in the first. Fedotenko followed this up in the second period with another goal, to give him his 12th of the Postseason. The Flames meanwhile..they kind of had no answer for Khabibulin, Nilson got his revenge and got one past the goalie and it was legal this time, but that...that was all she wrote for the Flames. The seconds counted down and the Tampa Bay Lightning had won the Stanley Cup! Even better THEY DID IT IN TAMPA!
The Lightning had done what the Panthers couldn’t, they won the cup. To commemorate this wonderful season here’s all the trophies:

Tortorella won the Jack Adams
Marty St Louis won the Hart and the Lester B Pearson Trophy and also tied for the Plus/Minus Award.
GM Jay Feaster won Executive of the year
And Brad Richards won the Conn Smythe.

It was an unbelievably historic season for the Lightning, they became the Southernmost team to win a cup and it only took 12 years of pain to do it. From being(allegedly) Yakuza-owned and their owner(allegedly) not existing, to being sold to an idiot, to finally getting Lord Stanley’s Cup. The Lightning did it and it was sweet.
Unfortunately shit happens. 04-05 didn’t happen due to a lockout, so they had to wait to defend their title. And when they did? It was bad, oh so bad. They got their asses handed to them by the Senators and then the Devils the following year, signaling to everyone it was time for a rebuild. 06-07 had a funny ending though, the Panthers were awful but they beat the Lightning who were in a tight race with the Thrashers for 1st in the Southeast. Thrashers won their game and got 1st, while the Lightning had to settle for 2nd / 7th Seed in the East.(Awful division that year, but it usually was)

Enter Doug MacLean

Yes that Doug MacLean, the now former Sportsnet Host had previously coached the Panthers(weird how they’ve shared staff like this) and was now leading Absolute Hockey Enterprises, a group led by MacLean to buy the Lightning from Davidson. For his time, Davidson was a great owner, he didn’t meddle, he had money and he had someone smart in charge, while he just sat back approving trades as needed. Unfortunately, the deal was called off, because Absolute Hockey didn't make the required $5 Million fee and were plagued with inner turmoil. So instead, Palace Sports sold the Lightning and their arena to OK Hockey, who were anything but OK!

Late 2000’s:

Somehow the Panthers aren’t the worst run team in Florida?

Despite what the title says, they were still awful. Cohen was not willing to spend and they were losing money like crazy(so normalcy). On the ice it was much worse, as they got rid of Roberto Luongo in the worst trade I’ve ever seen, at least 1 for 1 made sense.

Possibly the worst trade in the history of trades:

June 23, 2006, The Florida Panthers trade Goaltender Roberto Luongo, Lukas Krajicek and a sixth-round draft pick (Sergei Shirokov), to the Vancouver Canucks, in exchange for Todd Bertuzzi, Alex Auld and Bryan Allen. Luongo was in the prime of his career and was traded because once again Florida was run by idiots, who wanted immediate help. Because Cohen was a goddamned moron who ran this into the fucking ground.
That wasn’t the only Luongo trade though, there was a proposed one for Jumbo Joe Thornton himself.
Obviously Thornton wasn’t happy in Boston and got traded to San Jose, where he’s become a franchise legend. There was a proposed trade that was allegedly ready to go to the NHL Offices, the catch? Alan Cohen was a cheap bastard(tale as old as time) and didn’t want to take money back. Luongo was on a $3.25 million AAV one-season bridge deal at the time and Thornton had just signed a three year, $20 million contract in the summer. So to help his franchise he’d have to take back money which was an instant “go fuck yourself”.
So as you can see Cohen was and probably still is hated by Panthers fans and rightfully so. Not only did he not spend on them, he made them worse and alienated every fan who still gave a shit.
There’s not much else to talk about with Cohen, he ruined the team, but unlike the Lightning, there wasn’t much bright spots, so here’s a list of big trades they made:

June 22, 2007. The Florida Panthers trade a 2008 first-round pick, a second-round pick in 2008 and a conditional second that could be used in 2007 or 2008 to the Nashville Predators in exchange for Tomas Vokoun. That 2008 first(7th OA) was traded to NYI, along with Florida’s 2008 second(40 OA) at the 2008 Draft, which landed NYI Josh Bailey(Current Alt Captain) and Aaron Ness(Currently plays for the Hershey Bears of the AHL). Florida management was never smart about their 1sts.

June 20, 2008. The Florida Panthers trade their captain Olli Jokinen to the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for Keith Ballard Nick Boynton and a 2008 2nd round pick (#49-Jared Staal). It was as usual a fire sale for them.
November, 2009. The Florida Panthers announce majority owner Alan Cohen is stepping down and allowing minority partners Cliff Viner and Stu Siegel to take over. The era of cheap-o Cohen was finally over, the remaining Panthers fans would be cheering.
Why did Cohen do that? Well it’s pretty simple. He ran them into the ground and had lost up to $100 million on this team. Hmm...I wonder why he lost so much money? Cohen had been around much less over the years while Viner and Siegel had cared about the team at least. I don’t know if they did much of anything, but they sold to Viola, who has saved this franchise.

Lightning

Exit Doug MacLean and Enter Oren Koules and Len Barrie

If you’re like me and wondering “who the fuck is Koules?” turns out he produced the Saw movies. As for Barrie, he’s a former NHL player and Tyson Barrie’s Dad. Funny enough Koules is a former WHL player and tried out for the Blackhawks.
I’ll skip the formalities. Koules was absolutely the fucking worst. He ran the team like it was his fucking fantasy roster, he had no intelligence to run a team, his partner was a lying sack of shit, who’s biggest contribution was nixing “Vinny to Montreal” or so goes the rumor. Let’s go over what he did:

The LeCavalier Contract So he deserved money for all he did for this team, but by 08-09 when he signed this, his play was trending downward. (Allegedly, as I can’t find a source besides a Reddit comment) LeCavalier didn’t even want the 10 year, $85 Million Contract. It didn’t matter, this idiot signed a guy trending downward to a long term deal that would quickly bite them in the ass. He wasn’t the same player he was during that magical cup run, 5 year ago, aging had taken its toll on him, plus injuries. He was still good, but he wasn’t worth the deal. To make it worse? OK Hockey(the group that made hockey anything but) couldn’t afford the deal, but Barrie being a fucking idiot signed him to it and immediately wanted to get rid of him. Barrie is a big part of the blame here. They fucking turned down Montreal wanting to give up P.K. Subban, Carey Price, Max Pacioretty and a 1st in exchange for LeCavalier. They were beyond fucking stupid and deserve ridicule.
Trying to trade Stamkos in his first season.

So once again, Barrie is shit for brains. Midway through Stamkos’ first season? He wanted him gone. The talks started IN OCTOBER and picked up around American Thanksgiving. The list of potential players coming back were Michael Del Zotto, Evgeny Grachev, Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky or Dan Girardi. Barrie was asking to choose two or three of these guys. It was so done that they shook on it, but Koules not being the fucking idiot of the two for once, vetoed it. Barrie didn’t like Stamkos and argued with the coach on how he should be developing Stamkos.
Getting rid of Boyle after signing him to a new deal Fucktards tried it with Vinny and failed and then turned around and did it with Dan Boyle. He had just re-signed to a Six-year $40 Million Contract, which wasn’t bad for a guy like him. Problem? They wanted him gone. He was given a full or limited NTC(unsure) and they basically told him “accept the trade to San Jose or we’re waiving you and Atlanta is going to take you”. So he accepted it and got away from this horribly run franchise, that was trying to burn money. The value for Boyle a #1 Offensive Defenseman was...laughable. A prospect who didn’t pan out, Matt Carle and Ty Wishart. Wishart then got traded for goalie Dwayne Roloson(oldest active player and last born in the 60s, while he played). These idiots didn’t know what they were doing, that much was clear.
Coach Barry Melrose...or not? They hired Barry Melrose as the coach for the 08-09 season only to fire him 16 games into the season, because they were incompetent. He left his job at ESPN to work for these idiots and got rewarded with the boot. That team was hot garbage and Melrose wasn’t a good coach. Whodathunkit?

New Owners, New GMs, New Everything!

Panthers

The biggest move in 2010 for the Panthers was a no brainer. Dale Tallon had been relegated to Assistant GM of the Blackhawks, he built most of that championship squad only to be replaced with Stan Bowman. So on May 17th, 2010, the Panthers announced their new GM to be Dale Tallon. He tried to do a rebuild process similar to what he did with Chicago, trading off everyone he could, almost immediately. Two big names to go were Keith Ballard and Nathan Horton. The Panthers may have been a bigger challenge than the Blackhawks, previous ownership had gutted this team and didn’t really allow talent to build, because they kept trading away picks. His efforts helped...briefly. The Panthers won the Southeast Division in 2012, where they ironically were eliminated by former coach Peter DeBoer's Devils.
Tallon was nominated for GM of the year, for his team making the playoffs for the first time in 12 years, but this would be the only other playoff run in Tallon’s tenure, so far. I don’t know if Tallon is 100% to blame for the lack of success, but they’ve been 6(7 if you count DeBoer, but he was there already) head coaches since Tallon was appointed, he deserves a share of the blame.
September 27th, 2013, the Panthers announced Vincent Viola has bought the team and would become the new owner. I have no idea on Viola, but as of late he’s spent more on the Panthers, with the hiring of Q and acquiring Bobrovsky. Due to the damage that Cohen and associates did, the Panthers had to give out free/discounted tickets early on, because nobody wanted to go to games, the team on the ice had one good season and went back to bottom feeding.

Re-Enter Luongo:

He came back home to Sunrise, after being traded by the Canucks, during the 2014 trade deadline in exchange for Jacob Markström and Shawn Matthias. He came back and set even more franchise records, because of course.

The Panthers briefly decided to make Tom Rowe the GM, “promoting” Tallon to an executive position, where he would still be overseeing hockey matters. The big things that happened that season(16-17) are firing coach Gerard Gallant(who has gone onto coach the Vegas Golden Knights) and then exposing Marchessault in the expansion draft(and trading Riley Smith, to make sure Vegas would pick Marchessault).

Lightning
There is a lot to cover with the Lightning and it’s a lot of good news! Firstly: The Sale!

The Tampa Bay Lightning announce that OK Sports has sold the Lightning and control of Amalie Arena to Jeffrey Vinik. Vinik is THE SAVIOR of this franchise, he has literally pumped as much money as he could to not only save them, but to turn them into a perpetual cup contender. OK Sports was anything but OK, they were awful at everything, so I think many Lightning fans were shocked when Vinik didn’t move them or further destroy them.

A day after the 2010 Season ended, Vinik cleared house, firing GM Brian Lawton and Head Coach Rick Tocchet. Who was the new GM? Red Wings Legend, Steve Yzerman. Vinik had lured him away from the Red Wings front office, which...wasn’t hard. The Red Wings had made it clear Ken Holland was going to be the GM for the foreseeable future, there were no plans to replace him. Can’t blame them, since the Red Wings were still good. Yzerman's impact was felt pretty quick, "trust the Yzerplan" was a common theme with Lightning fans and would you know it? Trusting the "Yzerplan" worked.
Their next move was letting Yzerman bring in a new coach: Guy Boucher. He was what this rebuilding team needed and it worked..for a season. They made the playoffs, running off to a Conference Final in their first season, before they fell to the Bruins. Unfortunately with Boucher comes hell. They missed the playoffs the next 2 seasons before Boucher was fired on March, 24 of 2013, the 1-3-1 has a short shelf life, go figure. Jon Cooper of the AHL’s Norfolk Admirals, the Lightning’s AHL Affiliate was brought in as the Lightning’s eighth head coach in franchise history, coaching his first game not long after in a 3-0 win against the New Jersey Devils.

What was going on, on the ice during all of this? Can’t skip over this, because Stamkos proved his worth, tying for the Rocket Richard Trophy in 09-10, while there was(slight) chaos in the Office. Stamkos was an incredible player and it showed in just his second season, in which he had scored 51 Goals, a feat in which he would beat 2 seasons with 60 Goals. End of the Lecavalier / St. Louis era:

On June 27th, 2013, the Lightning announce they will use one of their two compliance buyouts to buy out team captain, Vincent Lecavalier. There’s no sugarcoating this, LeCavalier was past his prime, but it was a good move. OK Hockey made awful moves and this was by far the worst. If the trade rumor that Montreal wanted him was true, they should have taken it, but again, OK Hockey wasn’t very smart. Lecavalier went onto sign with the Flyers, where he played 2 ½ seasons, before being traded to the Kings, where he finally retired.
On March 5th of 2014, The Lightning announced a trade: The Tampa Bay Lightning trade Martin St Louis, along with a Conditional 2nd-round pick in 2015(Oliver Kylington) to the New York Rangers in exchange for Ryan Callahan, a Conditional 2nd-round pick in 2014(Later given to the Islanders) (Josh Ho-Sang), 1st-round pick in 2015 (Anthony Beauvillier) Conditional 7th-round pick in 2015 (Ziyat Paigin). St Louis had begun his NHL career in Calgary, though his tenure in Calgary was short, he made a name for himself in Tampa, he had won The Cup and so many trophies over the years. The Rangers brought him back for his final season in 14-15, where he scored 21 goals

Epilogue / Final thoughts.

Should the Panthers be moved?
This is a topic I see brought up often and...maybe? Unlike with the Thrashers they have a good arena and an owner who isn’t looking to sell. The Panthers arena location sucks, the biggest issue is there’s no nightlife, there’s no life around it at all. Look at Tampa, Amalie is in the heart of Tampa(ish?) there’s plenty of goings on around the arena, while BB&T has...nothing. Sunrise isn’t a great location for an arena, but they have a sweetheart lease, meaning they’re safe from relocation at least and while people will complain about the Panthers existence, they have an owner who wants to make this right, even if he is a little meddlesome.
A lot of this was Lightning-Centric and that’s more because a lot of their mishaps are easier to research in depth, while it seems like the worst thing that happened in the Cohen-Era, was he just didn’t spend and let the GM do whatever.

I kind of glossed over the over “Possible Yakuza” thing but it’s a long story that I felt others would be better suited to telling, because it's a long complicated mess.
The Panthers look to be rebounding and if this season is successful, it could lead to attendance rising. But there is no danger of them relocating, they'll most likely rebound and finally become a success like they were meant to be. Whether or not it's in Sunrise, it probably will be.
Are they rivals?

..Kinda? In the sense that they play in the same state, but there's barely any hate. Lightning are good, Panthers aren't and they've never played each other outside the Regular Season. I hope that'll change, these fanbases need someone close to hate. And hockey is more fun with a heated rivalry.

AITA for resenting my friends because my bachelorette party wasn't a big/road trip?

I'm sorry for the length! I don't know how to cut it down.
2 best friends since childhood - Victoria and Ella. Over the years we have been on MANY little weekend trips to nearby destination cities. Mostly one popular spot where we split the hotel and pay roughly $100 each, soak in a hot tub and walk the sights.
I enjoy planning and investing time and money into elaborate, crazy and extremely thoughtful gifts/events for my friends.. usually for a birthday. I have surprised friends with scavenger hunt birthdays, created thoughtful scrapbooks/memory slideshows, etc., or asked everyone to pitch in for a nice piece of jewelry for the birthday girl. We have gone on those weekend trips for each others birthdays, etc.
I'm usually the creative and the planner, taking lead. My friends had reciprocated with similar sort of scavenger hunts, etc. for my birthday in the past, but Ella sad it was too much and from now on no more gifts or anything. She will attend a dinner if the birthday girl chooses a restaurant, but that's it. I was a bit bummed, but getting older meant less time and money for silly things or gifts and it made sense. We'd still do some local weekend getaways once in a while as a group. We even did one a year ago for Victoria's boyfriend's birthday where we surprised him and cooked him dinner, etc.
Anyways, we're at that age where we're all getting married. And of course, we get to plan each other's surprise stagettes. So I'm excited about planning something amazing!! Like my birthday ideas on steroids! Or like a REAL trip where we leave the country. We're in our 30's and have always wanted to go on a big trip and have yet to do so, so my thought is this is a good excuse to do it!
Ella is the first bride. Victoria and I are on the same page but Ella's sister is maid of honour (aka: in charge) and says because she has a kid at home we're staying near home. So we went to the same old nearby destination we've been to since we were teens. Ok, so since it was out of our hands I took the lead in making decorations, hand-made games, buying games, etc. Victoria was happy to help. We made a penis cake by hand, we made themed cookies to decorate. I called the popular booked solid spa EVERYDAY for over a month to get a massage appointment for the bride and was finally successful. I also offered to help the bride and designed her invitations and did a ton of research into where to source the paper as well as bridesmaid gown materials and saved her TONS of money. She happily took my help and asked me to do the menu, programs and more. Yes, this is within my industry but I wouldn't dream of charging my best friend. I admit I was unemployed and used her wedding as a distraction from how badly job hunting was going. But I really cherish opportunities like this and I wanted to support my friend any way I could and my boyfriend (now husband) and I could spare even some money if the stagette was a real trip like I wanted all of us to have. Ella said she would definitely help me with my wedding planning when it was my turn.
2 years later and I'm the bride-to-be. Ella is working on renovating her home and it's a big shitty experience so I didn't bother asking her for any wedding help.
I did not choose a "maid of honour". I loved my sister and friends and just couldn't choose 1 person over the others. However the 3 of them bickered and fought about my stagette plans from the beginning and they couldn't agree on anything. They knew my dream stagette was a trip to New Orleans. I knew it was a tall order and was hoping for maybe Portland (5 hour drive).
Everyone agreed my dream destination was too expensive. I said I understood, but I'd like something different and I really just didn't want to go to the nearby town where we just walk around. I mentioned a couple of destinations, like Portland, but I didn't realize a weekend there wasn't possible either. I just kept hearing that they were fighting so I asked them to include my then fiance to help guide them and they flat out refused. I said I could pay for myself. We could stay in town if we did something unique.
In the end, my friends and sister fought too much, money was tight and there wasn't enough time during the stagette weekend to go very far. So they ended up just taking me to that same destination where we walked around. Exactly what I asked NOT to do. What made things worst is there were no stagette games planned, no penis cake, not much of anything. They decorated our hotel room with some New Orleans beads and masks. I saw cupcakes I guess we were going to decorate but no one initiated anything. They didn't even bring the games I bought or we handmade for the last stagette which my friend was in possession of. Apparently she BROUGHT the game, but it never happened. And one of the main reasons is because we were only there for ONE NIGHT. There was no time for anything to happen. Also, they wanted to go to the free club instead of the club I wanted to go to. At the club I kept saying I wanted to go to the other club but everyone literally just danced and ignored me. It was like $5 entry each person!!! They had more than 6 months to plan and instead bickered until they just went with the plan I didn't want. At that point, the spa we loved was booked and I got a massage at a hotel that my work covered with insurance and we hung out at their plunging pool with a bunch of kids splashing around.

The reasons they settled for the destination I didn't like was:
- Victoria had just graduated from University and wasn't going to apply to jobs until after summer so money was tight. But she went to Europe with her family and boyfriend, and Mexico with her boyfriend within about a year before graduating.
- The ONLY long weekend that could work, Victoria's parents wanted her in town to help decorate for July 1st. She always does what her parents demand and I'm upset that we could have had a long weekend if she only just told her parents no.
- Ella had been renovating her home for 2 years, so she went to Europe for a month as a break so she only had 1 week of vacation time left which she booked off to actually move into her new home. I felt like 1 day out of all of that time could have been doable. Maybe take 1 day from the moving week she booked? They lived rent-free at her parents house, I get the rush but I think it's doable.
- Ella doesn't think it's appropriate to ask people to go on a big trip for your event. But she's currently planning to go to New York right now, and has been on big trips with some friends. I don't see how going for someone's stagette differs.
- My sister wasn't easy to work with because she chose things I wouldn't want like a cabin in the woods, and then when they settled on the usual destination she demanded we go to an expensive restaurant thinking I'd want that. Her heart was in the right place, but she doesn't know what I'd want like my friends do.

After my stagette, it was the end of summer and Victoria applied within her industry. She got 5 offers in a week, and got a great job. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Victoria and I were always on the same page from the beginning. We both like to go big, but she goes crazy. I wanted a normal trip with stagette themed stuff. She always said she wanted Las Vegas penthouse suite! We told her she's dreaming. Ella told me while planning for my stagette, Victoria decided she wants Thailand for her stagette!! Ha!
Now I'm not sure what the plan is because Victoria is now engaged, Ella is probably still against big trips for stagettes, and Victoria is wanting a US city or something more doable I think. Victoria asked me if it would make me happy if she chose New Orleans for her stagette because I want to go there, or if that would step on my toes. I said both because I still want to go and we always talk about going, but it hurts to think we'd all go for her and for me it wasn't even possible to do something different than the usual.
Also, neither of my friends helped with wedding planning, decorating, etc. Now I just feel resentful and I feel like an asshole for expecting so much. Am I an asshole for expecting a real trip? They DID take me somewhere, so I feel like a spoiled brat to be upset. I think Victoria thinking we're going on a big trip for her is an asshole move, but ignoring that.. am I an asshole?

Edit - TLDR: Friends always want to go on a trip somewhere, but when our stagettes are a good opportunity to go on a trip together, I think their excuses are lame (money when they had money for other trips, no time off when they spent the time off on another trip, no time off when they reserved a week off work to move homes but their current home is free so losing 1 day would probably be fine, and long weekend wasn't possible because friend's parents wanted her to stay and help decorate for July 1st). I feel like an asshole for expecting more, but I do so much for them. They took me to a destination I asked not to go to and they didn't organize any games or anything.
Edit2 to add: I forgot to mention that there was NO expense for our wedding party to be in our wedding. No travel expense and we covered costs of outfits for the guys and I chose dresses in the ladies' closet. I know people hate the idea of wasting money of other people's weddings.

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12 Amazing Cupcake Decorations You Can Try At Home - YouTube

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vegas themed cupcakes video

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12 Amazing Cupcake Decorations You Can Try At Home - YouTube