This troper's life is so sad, I feel the need to try to elicit pity on an anonymous website!

One time when This Troper was in an RTC, a group of girls ran away, but a little bit later we saw one of them written as being in treatment in hospital for something. We didn't know what it was about; when she came back, she was puking up green stuff. Turned out the other girls betrayed her and left her to get gang raped so badly that her vagina was torn. She actually had to walk all the way back to us in that condition and was in the hospital getting surgery on her vagina. Keep in mind said girl was only ''thirteen'' at the time, so she definitely became TheWoobie for us (we spoiled her like crazy afterwards). Although, after she left, I heard she started doing things like setting her foster parents' car on fire and even before than she'd start riots in class, so she turned into more of a JerkassWoobie.

What do you mean by "RTC"?

I think it means "residential treatment center", but I'm not sure.

This Troper's brother is 16, and he has had Asperger's Syndrome since he was about 1 1/2 years old. He was always socially awkward, had to deal with obnoxious and persistent bullies, and struggled with his schoolwork, but had great mechanical and musical talents, as well as having the sweetest, most docile temperment, well, ever. Then, a year ago, my parents put him (and later, me, as well) on a gluten-free/casein-free (no wheat or dairy) diet, and he's made great progress, becoming much more social and doing a lot better in school (his last report card was all A's except for a B in English), and the best part is that everyone--our family, relatives, friends, and even his fellow marching band members and band directors--have supported and helped him and are really proud of him because of all of it.

Now I am too.

No, you're wrong. We all are.

You can count me as well.

Can I join in?

I propose a group hug!

This troper's wolf-dog Nanook. First off, his original owner had abused him and his arctic wolf partner Shiloh always takes a dump in his dish. Also, he got hit by a car recently and got a dislocated hip and a wounded tail. And he always has sad PuppyDogEyes and rarely barks, even before the car incident.

Strangest thing.... This troper was at a party recently and got the feelings Woobies inspire just from watching this cute boy who seemed to be sitting by himself a little distant from the others. She assumes it's because it inspired her to go up and talk to him (she's usually somewhat awkward in social situations herself unless other friends are around).

Come on. Hasn't everyone had bad days where they feel like they're the Woobie (or, if you're more pessimistic, a Butt Monkey).

This tropette has Aspergers' Syndrome, but my woobieness doesn't come from AbusiveParents, because my parents are good folks, even though they can be obstinate, especially my father, who I inherited A.S. from. No, the source of my pain came from JuniorHigh, where I would've been yelled at by a SadistTeacher dubbed Mrs. Anderson. She was so mean that I wished for her to be out of my life forever, but it didn't happen until the second half of 6th grade. Yes, I had to go through 3 semesters of what I would like to call "emotional rape", which is like MindRape, only with your feelings.

This troper's little sister has got to be the woobiest woobie who ever woobied. She's an adorable little girl with distal muscular atrophy (A form of muscular dystrophy), and she's always been in a wheelchair. Last April, she had surgery on her back, and due to complications, she stayed in the hospital for nearly two months and ended up with a tracheotomy, and her lungs were weakened severely. Now she gets laid up with minor illnesses because her trach gets clogged and she can't breath and has to be suctioned. Recently she saw a picture of herself without the trach and was reduced to tears.

This troper has not one but TWO incredibly woobie friends. One is a girl whose best friend died in a carcrash right in front of her, and first boyfriend beat, abused and nearly raped her. However, she always smiles and is very sympathetic and helpful to everybody else. The other's father, when she was a kid, was deeply alcoholic and sent to prison after accidentally killing a guy in a barfight. Afterwards, said friend was on the bus when there was a very drunk man who was getting ridiculed and shouted at. She then stood up and screamed at everybody to leave the drunk man alone and broke down into tears. She has many stories like this - the most heart-breaking thing? She tells them all with a comedic spin and a SMILE, and still loves her dad to bits and doesn't hesitate to say this at any point to him, her friends or anybody who will listen.

This Troper volunteers for a cat rescue, and when she runs into this sort of cat, they are ''hers'' to snuggle incessantly, and don't you dare raise your voice in their presence.

This troper worked with a girl who was a definite woobie - to the point that she was a widow at ''sixteen years old.'' She was one of the nicest and most adorable girls he'd ever met, but behind that was some seriously screwed-up personal, family and relationship issues.

This troper's dog is a Woobie. She's a rescue dog found tied up outside a service station. A man originally came in to claim her but when he found out he'd have to pay to get her back, he left her at the dog's home. She's a German Shepherd, but you wouldn't think she was nearly 5 years old due to stunted growth from malnutrition (she looks more like a 1 year old puppy). She's skittish around men, and is especially afraid of things being swung... such as ''golf clubs''. Of course, this doesn't stop her from being the most overprotective ''thing'' ever seen; she once forced a fully grown Mastiff onto its back, whimpering like a puppy, because it charged at my mother. Hackles raised and everything.

If you happen to want more Woobies than God, go to the TroperTales page for AwfulTruth. Make sure you bring blankets, cookies, and hot cocoa.

But ONLY if you're there to comfort them. Otherwise, get out. We do not need your kind here.

This troper is in love with a pale and scrawny bloke who has two full-time charity jobs (plus university) and somehow manages to give PuppyDogEyes even when smiling or laughing, which is no surprise since he's lost two friends to the police at a protest against cuts in funding for state schools. Oh, and he also happens to be diabetic and allergic to everything.

I have a German Short-haired Pointer named Suzie. This creature is a living example of Woobie. She not only has the natural sad eyes and droopy face, but you could tell she was abused in a past home. Add in her fear of gunfire and storms that causes her to shiver, hide, or jump in your lap, and you can't help but feel the pure woobieness radiating off her.

This Troper has a Chihuahua. It was the only long-hair of the litter, and the breeder didn't do a good job with vaccines, so he had worms at 3 mos. Not to mention that the poor thing has had so many surgeries, from neutering to getting chipped teeth removed to getting ''anal glands'' removed. This dog has led a poor life. Which only makes him more lovable when he runs around and plays.

This editor has a black lab whose life is something like a black comedy. Seriously, every other person I tell it to laughs at how over the top it is. Jerks. He's picked on constantly by our other dogs, he started getting seizures at three years old (black labs are known for this, but rarely at such a young age), has gotten attacked by coyotes and hit by trucks. And in an incident like something out of a DeadBabyComedy, he was run over by my mom while he was in the middle of a seizure. (he lived, don't worry.) ''And he is the sweetest thing ever.''

This troper's maternal grandmother. She grew up in the American Midwest during the GreatDepression in a poor, rather unstable household. When she was only 10, she was asked to "assist" her mother in an amateur abortion (the family was dirt-poor, this was ages before modern birth control was available, and about 40 years before Roe vs. Wade)...and her mother ''died'' in front of her. As a result she had to drop out of school in the 5th or 6th grade to take care of her family. She got the hell out of there when she was 18 and only returned about twice more in her life. My mom says she always drank a lot of milk because it barely ever available to her as a girl. And then she died of a stroke at age 57, two years before I was born. "Sniff".

This troper used to know a girl who was about 10 years old. When she was very young, her parents died in a car crash and she had to live with her grandfather. He was extremely strict; he wouldn't even let her to go their next-door neighour's house.

This troper knows a family with a rescued dog. It was very badly abused by its former owner; it has no bottom teeth because the former owner pulled them out. It is terrified of men, cats, and even much smaller dogs. Whenever this troper looks into those big, chocolate brown eyes, she feels like she is about to burst into tears. It's almost as if the dog is saying "I've been hurt, so I'm scared of people, but will you please give me another chance? All I want is to be loved."

This Troper is friends with a very quiet, very sweet Tanzanian girl. She stresses a lot over homework and grades, but is fluent in French, English, and Swahili. She can also cause some major DissonantSerenity when she talks about her past- she used to go to a really horrible private school, and though this was thankfully the worst thing that happened to her from it, lost a grandmother ''in the Rwanda genocide''. (She once mentioned that she knew a girl who ''watched her parents die'', adding that said girl had gone a bit nuts ever since.)

My Sister is really a half sister. Our mother and her father spilt up when she was in primary school and she lost a childhood best friends/boyfriend at an early age. Was sexual attacked by my father's best friend while she worked for him. Went through my parents seperations, Our Mother stopped talking to her on occasions and just about everything else I suffered as well.

This troper has a friend who, even without woobieness, is adorable and lovely, but a few evening ago the two of us talked from 3 AM to 8:30 AM about our fucked up lives and now every time I see her I just want to give her a great big hug. I don't feel comfortable saying anything about her situation, because both of us were explicitly telling the other this stuff in confidence, but to give perspective, this troper is an aspy and occasional depressive with an abusive father and a suicidal mother, and she still came out quite a bit worse in the greater scheme of things.

This troper's dog was also a woobie. When he adopted it, it was only 10 months old, and it had been abused by its master's wife (the master himself loved him, apparently he reluctantly abandonned him and broke into tears when he left it in the refuge). When this troper found it, it was always curling itself into a ball, trembling like a leaf when you'd try to pet it, even wetting itself as he was so scared... And yet at the same time licking you and "gluing" on your legs, as if saying "please, don't hurt me, I can be a good dog". This little furball had a miserable childhood, and yet, instead of growing bitter like many other dogs which went through the same thing, it became sweeter and sweeter, only asking for love. Now, it seems to have somehow overcame its trauma, and is more or less the absolute incarnation of the cute, sweet and love-giving dog this troper always dreamed to have since childhood.

I fell in love with a girl, in my first year in college, in the dumbest and most idiotic way possible: at first sign. She is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, but sadly, I'm just way too shy to even ask her the most mundane thing (like the time); I didn't see her for 4 long years, and I never knew what happened, and I guess I moved on about that silly feeling, but then, in my last year, I could see her again...on a wheelchair; I really felt bad for her, and the worst part is that I can't even get the courage to ask her what happened, or if she will eventually walk again...

This Troper's best friends all seem to be like this; one has been in several abusive relationships, but still seems to be attracted to people who are bad for her. The other was that kid who I befriended cause he was the one who nobody likes and most people pick on him, and then we got to know eachother and he is one of my best friends. He has loads of problems when it comes to interacting with others and I am his first ever friend.

This Troper had a golden axolotl when she was at boarding school. She's had a few axolotls. Most of them were normal - docile, inquisitive, content to be handled as long as food was involved. But this one! He'd been bullied by the other axolotls in the petshop aquarium; he was covered in scars and he had missing toes and gill-stems. Whenever someone moved near his tank, he'd dash away. He wouldn't even come out for food unless the person feeding him stayed absolutely still. He was so timid and pathetic and beaten-up that all the other girls in the boarding house developed a real affection for him and would come into my room just to coo over him as he hid yellow-ly in his hollow log. Let me tell you - when a houseful of squeamish teenaged girls falls in love with a nervy, scarred, abused axolotl, you know this trope is in full effect.

My cousin has gone through a lot. When he was younger, he walked out with his dog, followed it around the corner, and saw him dead on the street. His parents are divorced, his mother is bipolar, he and his father fight a lot, and he currently lives with his elderly uncle. The uncle has continual trips to the hospital and could die. On top of that, people at his school mess with him. Does he go around acting like a jerk? No, he's a funny and happy kid. Even though he's somewhat rough and likes to wrestle and pull crazy stunts, our family gave him the smallest of our dog's puppies, and they both love each other. I've only seen this kid really depressed about once.

This troper met a shy goth girl a few years ago who was one of the worst woobies I'd ever seen. She didn't talk to really anyone, lacked close friends, and had a history of bastard boyfriends. I (a nerdy cloud cuckoo lander) introduced myself and less than a year later where once stood a woobie was now a perky goth.

This troper has come across many Woobies in her 20-something years. First off is my pet Shetland Sheepdog, Skylar. My mother tells me that Skylar's mother rejected her entire litter and wouldn't raise them, leaving the puppies in the care of their older sister. We adopted Skylar several years ago, but unfortunately, my family has been too busy to take her to get trained. As a result, Skylar is still very rambunctious, to the point that my mother wanted to get rid of her as well. I felt for Skylar, so I told my mom I'd take her under my wing. So, Skylar will get a happy ending!

In addition, in my older Sheltie, Bailey's last days, he became this, too (he was in a lot of pain and could barely move, even to go to the bathroom), as I suspect most very old dogs get near the end.

My baby (9-year-old) brother Alex, even though he's more or less a male version of the GenkiGirl, has some attributes of this, too. He doesn't have many friends at his elementary school (he's in third grade), and always feels left out when my other younger brother (who's twelve) goes to play with his pals and won't let him tag along. Sometimes the 12-year-old will even tell Alex flatly that he doesn't like him. True, Alex can be a bit of a pain at times, but really, I think it's just because of this.

The fourth and final Woobie I will talk about is a girl I met in third grade. She was new to the school, was somewhat plump, somewhat slow mentally, and, as I found out when we became friends, her dad wasn't nice to her. To make matters worse, the kids in the class picked on her every day, making me the only person in the class who would stick up for her (even our teacher couldn't have cared less). I'm not sure how all of this affected her though, because I recently found her on Facebook, and despite everything, she seems to be doing well.

My father. His dad died when he was 14, and his mom died when he was 18. His brother and him drifted apart. Then, when dad wanted to introduce us to his brother, it turned out he married a bitch that didn't allow anyone to see him. So his brother died of cancer, and that was the only time dad got to see him.

This Troper's Dad is something of a woobie. His (Dad's) own father was abusive and unstable, to the point that he left and then threatened to burn down the house-he never actually did. Two of his sisters (they would've been my Aunts) died, one when she was ten and the other of kidney failure. In between, my Dad helped his Mum with her detergent business, helping to mix the detergent and then delivering it to customers, which caused a wrist injury later in his life.

The other day a four-month old colt appeared at our boarding stables. He was about to be put-down because of an eye problem but was rescued by a vet. student. However, the rescued foal still managed to lose his mother, eye, and balls (gelded) all in the same day. No horse has screamed ADOPT ME more than that baby!

This lurker's best friend/soul sister is a ''massive'' one. Her parents divorced after her mother cheated and moved apart. Seven years later they moved to a new house with the man she cheated with and ''married'', and two years from that the man cheats with another woman and another breakup ensues. They might even be losing the house they've basically ''just settled to''. Her father is overcontrolling bastard (my phrasing, not hers) who believes in the Spartan Way in bringing up his kids, and her mother is emotional to a fault, and can't keep her own depression in check, which would be just as well except my friend is an ''empath'' who is heavily affected by what people around her feel and has no control over it. This has led her to become a ''very'' soft-spoken StepfordSmiler (which is why some people think she's just a haughty bitch who treats other people like they were below her) who rarely shows dissatisfaction or joy or anger or any other human emotion because her father has conditioned her into being a "perfect" daughter (again, my phrasing, not hers), even belittling and insulting her when she was in a deeply depressed state. She's currently recovering from depression, but with her mother being broken over the breakup, it's slow and tedious, especially because her family are a bunch of idiots who keep blaming their own bad feelings on her behaviour, just because she never protests, never realising how hard it's hurting her. Didn't really help that she's only in the past few years learnt to tell her ''friends'', leading to some massive Me Bastard realisations. But not only this, she's also a FriendToAllLivingThings who has the habit of gathering friends who are in some way just as broken as she is, if not more, and then coddling and worrying over them when she herself can barely keep it together. And the worst thing is that ''she never considers herself'' or listens when we, ''her best friends'' tell her that she needs to lay off and take time for herself, or tell us if we're being neglectful of her (we're all {{Nerds}}, so it tends to happen even and ''especially'' when we don't mean to). And even after she has seen how other people need her help she ''never'' lets us help in any way. ''Ever.'' Even when she was heavily depressed, when she ''herself'' admitted she would've needed us, ''just because she didn't want to "be a bother"''. I would go on record to call her a InnocenceVirginOnStupidity, but she's far too GenreSavvy ManipulativeBastard DeadpanSnarker to fit it proper. I kind of want to hug her and then smack her on the head for being such a dumbass. In fact, I frequently do. If anyone else touches her, though they're ''dead.'' (In fact, messing with her is pretty much a BerserkButton for everyone who truly knows her. She's ''that'' good of a person.)

My friend. Her mom died when she was one, and she was made to believe her stepmom was her mom; she didn't find out until she was 15 from her social worker that she wasn't. They were Korean so they were very strict and authoritarian and she was beaten for the smallest things like not getting A's. Her and her family moved around a lot and later her dad started sexually assaulting her; she tried to tell repeatedly and no one listened. When she was fourteen she found someone who'd listen; she couldn't prove the physical parts, but he admitted the sexual parts and he was arrested in front of her. Her stepmom and family didn't believe her and pressured her to say she lied, and she ended up running to her friend's house and getting sent to foster care. She developed anger problems and went to around 30 foster homes/group homes, and lockdown centers and was often jumped for being Asian (she lives with black people). After she got out she lost her job and started working as a sex worker; once she was kidnapped, robbed and raped. All of that happened to one person by the time they were 19.

This Troper had a cat named Sophie. When my mother and I went to the animal sanctuary to adopt a cat, we were told that there was a viral infection recently, and all but a handful of the cats had to be put down. Sophie was one of the few that survived. The first thing we noticed about her was that she only had half a tail - the sanctuary worker who was with us told us she was severely injured and in poor shape when she was brought into them, but had managed to make a mostly-full recovery. We took her home with us and got very attached to her and her shy but playful personality. Then, one day, she became sluggish and unresponsive. She wouldn't eat and seemed to be having a lot of difficulty walking, having to pull herself around with limp hind legs. We brought her to the vet, who spent a long time examining her, then concluded that we should take her home, see if she feels any better, and bring her back if she doesn't seem to be improving. Her condition seemed better for a brief while, but pretty soon she became unwell again. We brought her back to the vet, who, after much testing and analysis, admitted that she had never seen something like this before. Sophie spent the next few weeks limp, half-blind, sluggish and incontinent. When she was brought to the vet again, it was decided that her condition would only get worse, and the kindest thing to do would be to put her down. Sophie was less than a year old when she was put to sleep. This Troper, who finds it difficult to even get misty-eyed, cried his eyes out all day in memory of her.

This 17-year old troper's high school friend, who's 15, may more or less qualify for this. She's adopted, her foster parents are divorced, her mom treats her like shit (she talks about how strict she is practically every day), her sister's best friend recently died, and she has ADHD (thankfully, it's medicated). Oh, and she looks like she's 12 years old. It helps that she greets her close friends, including this troper, with hugs on an almost daily basis.

This Troper's elderly Basenji/Sheltie dog has gotten to be this way. She's diabetic, nearly died on us twice in the last few months, is terrified of thunderstorms, is completely blind, and looks slightly emaciated. But, she'll still get up and try and play with us and has an adorable habit of coming and standing between your legs and looking up at you when she wants attention. She used to have the biggest, prettiest brown eyes you've ever seen, but now they're covered in white cataracts and that just makes her all the most Woobie-ish.

This Troper's grandparents, particularly the ones from my mother's side. They lived in the time of the WW2 on Balkan. At the time they were dirt poor, there was no food and no good hygiene. My grandma lost her first three young children because of those reasons. It all became worse when my grandfather was captured by the Nazis and was forced to work for them, like doing messenger jobs and driving traitors from one place to another and then watch them get killed right in front of his eyes. Even my grandma wasn't spared and daily, she had to see people getting hanged and then left them rot right beside the road. As hard as it was, she held on not only for herself and for her children, but also so she could see grandpa again. Luckily, he came home a year later, but then he joined up with the Yugoslav Partisans so he could fight against the Nazis. In the meantime, she worked in a factory and many times would the Gestapo come to her and ask her where her husband was. As many times she said no, they knew she knew more than that. Because if she said anything, she would've been killed. However, my grandfather became a BadassNormal; he became a Commander of his own troop, he could run really fast and his favorite lullaby was the sound of a machine gun. Imagine what happened to him when the war ended... he was offered a full-time job at the military, but he refused. He just wanted to go home, yet it took about 15 years to recover. He was still known to get into fits of rage if someone even mentioned the SS.

This troper, who volunteers at an aged care center, knows a little old woman in the dementia ward who has this most adorable, incredibly woobie-ish smile, nervous but sweet. She's sinking fast, but one look at her and this troper just wants to wrap her in a blanket and reassure her that everything will be fine . . . even if she is, technically, old and dying. Her best friend at her old school also qualifies, so she seems to be attracted to this sort of person. When they were in year ten, they had to go on an 'adventure camp', in our case, canoeing (chosen on the basis that the teachers couldn't really make us canoe uphill). This troper loved it, but her friend wasn't really cut out for physical exertion, being very delicately built, with tendon problems, asthma, and flat feet. Even worse in this case was her phobia of banksia cones (for anyone unfamiliar with Aussie flora, they're a bit like pine cones). Odd, yes, but she was absolutely terrified of them. At one point we had to go for a ten kilometre hike . . . through an ''entire forest filled with them''. She was very brave, despite wanting to run away and hide, and this troper maintains a steadfast grudge against the people who forced her to endure that. As you can probably guess, this troper spent quite some time looking after her.

This troper's mother had AbusiveParents, was molested by her father, had to move out at age fifteen, saw one of her friends murdered, saw another friend commit suicide, and just generally had a fucked-up life before she met my dad. Now she lives in constant pain and there's nothing the doctors can do about it. Despite all that, she still manages to be a great mom.

This troper met someone about three years ago on {{DeviantArt}}. It was rather normal at first and we got along well. About a year after we met, he had to undergo surgery for an heart condition (and had to get an ICD (some sort of pacemaker) installed). A few months later, he suddenly disappear and even later, his brother sends us (me and his fellow artists a message to tell us that his condition has taken a turn for the worst (he had to undergo surgery again and spent the entire Christmas time in coma). As if it wasn't enough, he suddenly caught a pneumonia during spring, shortly after waking from his coma and had to stay another few months at the hospital. We were truly overjoyed when he came back and this is when we finally started to exchange emails (and converse more). Unfortunately, the symptoms of his heart condition came back and he had to make frequent long trips to the hospital. As a results, I end up emailing his brother many times to get any news (if he can respond) on his condition. The tones in his email makes me picture his as a StepfordSmiler (he's really not the type to whine), and at times, I really wish I could give him a hug (He lives in the US (in New Jersey, I believe) and I live in Québec, in Canada).

On a more happy note, in one of his email (and my friend confirmed it), his brother told me that he considered me one of his best friend. (Keep in mind that we've only been able to contact each other sparingly for these past two years).

This troper's dog has made an art out of woobie-dom. She has a lame leg and is really old, so she limps about all the time, yet she gets really excited when people pay attention to her (and when she goes to the beach) and the master of PuppyEyes. She's also really quiet and docile, and this troper's cat likes to cuddle up with her. Aawww.

My best friend. Her real father didnt want anything to do with her life, she hasnt seen him since she was 9. Her mother was an alcoholic who didnt care about her, but they finally managed to make up shortly before her mother died. She witnessed a murder at age 7. She was bullied a lot in school, and she had a friend who helped her through it, cause she was going through the same thing herself-but she committed suicide due to bullying. She was trapped in an abusive relationship for years, and got pregnant but lost the baby cause of things her evil bastard boyfriend did to her. She finally left him, but then her next boyfriend cheated on her. She thought she had found the perfect man on the internet, but it turned out that he was a joke made up by some girls who were mean to her. The same girls are now friends with her...sort of, they really hate her and talk about her behind her back. Life is a little bit better now for her now though, and somehow shes survived all this and is a very sweet and happy person.

This tropers mother was molested/raped by who she ''thinks'' is her father. She doesn't even know if it her real father. Her mother was ''worse''. Her father did rape her, but her mother beat her and constantly told her of her 'worthlessness'. She also forced her to get a job and took her paychck so she couldn't run away. (now, I'm aware that some people will say the rape is worse, but she feels more damaged by her mothers actions than her fathers.) Unfortunatley no one belives this, and the police just ''ignored it'' when she reported it. Her mother fucking bribed the police out of it. (Damn. Ths sounds ridiculous now that I type it...) She isn't a horrible person, but she has her bouts of rage.

Most of this troper's family is full of woobies. Where to begin...Well, for my mother, she was the second of eight kids and her father was abusive and strict, beating her and her older sister while trying to learn how to spell at the age of 4-years-old. She suffers from depression and endured cruel bullying due to her strabismus. My father lost his father when he was eight years old and was shot in the eye with a BB gun while playing with his brother, leaving his left eye blind and prosthetic. Both grew up very poor and lived on the streets for a while. My grandparents on my mother's side never had fathers and my grandfather was abandoned by his mother and was force to participate in the Vietnam war. Two of my aunts have mental illnesses that have them delusional at times and one of my uncles was in the Gulf war and was taken out after getting incredibily sick with a respiratory disease he still has today. Not to mention his wife cheated on him and divorced him, only allowing to be able to see his kid for a week once a month. My sister has Asperger's syndrome and endured alot of bullying when she was younger. My brother of all five of us, is probably the only non-woobie of the immediate family. Dysfunction Junction indeed.

This troper's teacher could qualify. At my school, he teaches 10th grade chemistry, and he truly seems very passionate about it; he wants us to be sure that we're learning, not just for the class, but for the rest of our lives, as well. As someone who aspires to become a teacher, myself, you can imagine how admirable I find this. He's also a very quirky, friendly sort of individual; as long as you're not a complete idiot, he's pretty easy to get along with. Now, this is where the Woobie part comes in; since he started teaching here (an art school in Philadelphia), he'd told us one day, he's been enjoying his job a lot less. Not too many of his kids are doing well; it's not that they're struggling, but most of the kids with poor grades just aren't handing assignments in. We're always so loud during classes, in addition to a lot of the kids complaining about... well, everything, really. All he wants is for us to at least try to do well, and for this school to live up to what it's supposed to be. But he's not seeing that. While we're far from a poor-performing school compared to most high schools in the city, sometimes it seems like these kids have nothing to do but complain. For a teacher so passionate about his job to see something like that... it must be pretty soul-crushing. I've wanted to just give him a big hug since he told the class that.

This troper had a dog named Ol' Red. He was an Irish setter possibly mixed with a Golden retriever and was as old as dirt when this troper found him. He was walking around our fence while my dad and I were getting ready to go see LawAbidingCitizen. I went outside to get him and saw he had trouble walking, his back legs were bowed, his fur was matted, he so thin you could literally feel all of his ribs and his collar barely fit him, and his legs were rubbed raw from sleeping on hard surfaces. He also, we assume, had doggie Alzheimer's because he always looked as if he was unsure about where he was and he would sometimes get a little violent. For the few months he had him, loved him, and took care of him. He was almost exactly like a previous dog this troper had and somewhat filled that little bit of emptiness with his sweetness and quiet demeanor (however, one of his confused rages may have led one of this troper's other dogs to lose an eye...). This troper's father, a few times, thought about giving Red away but we ultimately kept him until he had to be put down.

This Troper's old reading teacher, at first. She was the only Middle-Eastern girl at her school, and was bullied a lot because of this, as well as the fact that her family wasn't as well off as most others. Her father died when she was ten, and most of my class hates her. Mostly because we found out that she was lying through her teeth about her entire childhood.

There was this mute girl in my English class in junior year of high school. Another girl in my class knew her since they were in elementary school, and she apparently used to be really talkative until one day, she just stopped talking and hasn't talked since. No one ever found out what happened to her to make her that introverted all of a sudden. One time there was a class project where we had to split into groups of four to give a presentation on a subject. We were in the library doing research for class time and she wasn't in my group, but her group including the girl she knew in elementary school was at a table right next to mine, with the mute girl herself sitting alone at a table way in the back of the room, just staring at a blank sheet of paper. The GSKIES went over there and asked her if she felt like doing some things in a kind tone of voice, but she just silently shook her head at each suggestion. Not even the teacher knew what to do.

This Troper's cat. Before being adopted, some of her tail had been lost somehow, she must have been abused, and she was abandoned in an apartment without food by her former owner. She had two years of (hopefully) happiness before she was diagnosed with mammary cancer. She spent the last few weeks of her life undergoing major surgery and having to live in a crate, only to die only a few days after being allowed out from a combination of the cancer and infections. Her woobieness was only increased by the fact that she was the sweetest, cuddliest, most patient cat this troper has ever encountered.