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Aaaa why dont people get that the main appeal of tensura is the worlbuilding and fantasy politics and not powerscaling or a harem

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Making friends at the yarn show 🐑🐈

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Boots #1

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WTF IS WRONG WITH THE STEVEN UNIVERSE MAP: Pt. 1

An Broad Overview By Your Local Ecology Nerd & Cartoon Fan

I am once again thinking about the ecological implications of the Steven Universe map

Now I didn't watch Steven Universe until after the movie came out, so I have no idea if this was major discussion point during the height of the SU fandom. If so, I haven't seen any of it. But I can't help but look at this map and think about on how the world of Steven Universe must look completely different from ours outside of Beach City.

I also don’t have the time or energy to trawl through the entirety of Steven Universe or its wiki for every single reference to wild animals/plants for reference (and the warp pads make global travel so easy that it's really hard to guess where in the world any given location actually is) so the only real "canon" constraint I'm following here is that North America should roughly resemble real life (as the alternate worldbuilding in Steven Universe is rarely noticeable in the day-to-day life of Steven and the rest of Beach City)

(not gonna touch the potential differences in human history because frankly I don't know enough world history to speculate. tbh I feel like I don't know enough bio and ecology to be able to tackle this question to the depth it deserves but oh well)

There are two main possibilities here:

SCENARIO 1: the SU!Earth was just like ours up until the Gems arrived circa 6000 years ago and started terraforming the planet. Gem Terraforming was responsible for ALL of the differences in the map—the crater in Siberia, the presumed relocation of Western Africa (and parts of Central Africa) onto South America, the separation of the Americas, etc etc.

To put this in context: 6000 years ago, most of the charismatic Pleistocene (Ice Age) megafauna are extinct, with a few exceptions (namely the woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island and the Caribbean ground sloths). Horses might not've been domesticated yet but dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, cats, and chickens had. The Austronesian Expansion also hasn't happened yet, so humans haven't reached most of the Pacific Islands or Madagascar. Under this assumption, the world would've been pretty similar to ours, and we can probably assume the SU!Earth's biosphere was pretty similar to ours when the terraforming happened. My major questions/concerns are:

what the FUCK is up with Greater Afro-America. Unless the gems sterilized that half of the continent before they moved it, a lot of African wildlife are now present in South America. Who knows how this is gonna change the ecosystems—for starters, elephants will probably survive and thrive, which would radically change the South American landscape. I imagine other African wildlife without South American counterparts (gorillas and baboons come to mind) would probably survive as well. As for organisms that have African/South American counterparts, I have no idea what'll happen. Maybe lions and leopards and jaguars and pumas all find slightly different niches and coexist on the same continent. Maybe the old world vultures of West Africa will outcompete and displace the South American vultures. Perhaps none of the monitor lizards survive the exchange because they can't compete with tegus. I'm not gonna listing all the interesting African-American counterparts that would occur here because it'd take all day, but I am particularly haunted by the fact that the number of large ant-eating mammals has doubled (aardvark, giant pangolin, giant anteater, and giant armadillo) and the number of mid-sized arboreal ant-eating mammals has jumped from ~3 to 5 (anteaters vs pangolins, but treating the silky anteater as one species instead of a species complex).

The map in the screenshot doesn't show topography, which raises the question of whether smashing West Africa into South America created a mountain range in the Smash Zone, or if the Gems combined the two landmasses in way that didn't create a new mountain range (a pickup-and-drop strategy, perhaps). Regardless, I'm really concerned about South America's ecosystems. Did you know that the Amazon Rainforest is heavily dependent on windblown dust from the Sahara for nutrients? I doubt that system would remain unchanged even without a hypothetical mountain range on the eastern border of the Amazon.

North and South America are no longer connected, which is absolutely gonna fuck up the marine ecosystems. If we assume a reversal of what happened when the Isthmus of Panama first formed, the Pacific Coast of South America would warm up and the Caribbean would see a big influx of nutrients. Very real possibility that manatees would've spread to the Pacific Coast. Coldwater species on the Pacific coast like seals, sea lions, and Galapagos Penguins might've disappeared.

The removal of West Africa also leaves the Mediterranean a lot less isolated than it used to be—which will almost certainly cause a whole lot of extinctions. (Normally) the Mediterranean's only connection to the Atlantic is the Strait of Gibraltar, a tiny chokepoint that cuts it off from most of the Atlantic's business. Reconnecting the Mediterranean to Atlantic currents and tidal action will certainly fuck things up, but I frankly don't know enough about the Mediterranean to have any idea of what the specifics would look like

The massive fuck-off crater in Siberia really intrigues me because the only body of saltwater it's connected to is the Arctic, and I doubt most Arctic species would be able to colonize the warmer southern regions of what I'm calling the Siberian Sea. Without an obvious place of origin, I imagine it would be colonized by a random mix of adaptable Arctic species (like Harbor Seals and porpoises), salt-tolerant freshwater Siberian fauna (like sturgeons and Baikal Seals), and whatever saltwater species hitchhike a ride on migrating birds.

Not to mention how the crater would affect terrestrial ecosystems. The Central Asian Migratory Flyway is gonna get massively fucked up. I would not be surprised if the creation of the Siberian Sea somehow destroys the rest of the Eurasia's steppes, taiga, and tundra through the some type of large-scale disruption of climate cause-and-effects. Even if that doesn't happen, any species with a pan-Siberian distribution will be split into western and eastern populations.

What's up with the new archipelago(s) in the South Atlantic? They don't seem to line up with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, maybe they split off of West Africa when it got moved? Maybe the gems just dumped the leftovers from some other terraforming project at a different part of the planet? I genuinely have no idea what to expect here, but whatever ecosystem emerges here will probably be unusually impoverished for an island ecosystem on account of being only 6000 years old. It would probably stifle any Atlantic-Antarctic ocean currents, though

SCENARIO 2: The other explanation for this weird map is that at least some of these difference predate the Gems' terraforming efforts. This is probably a less likely explanation IMO, but it's also where the speculation gets really fun! I have no idea how and when these changes would've occurred, but we're probably working on the scale of tens millions of years at minimum, which gives plenty of time for life to adapt to these changes, so here goes!

To start, a lot of the previously addressed points are gonna have some major impacts. The Mediterranean is a lot more exposed to the Atlantic and would probably look completely different. The geographic changes to South America and Africa would probably mess up the distribution of rainforest and grassland habitats. Of particular interest to me is that the Siberian Sea would've stifled a lot of faunal and floral migrations between western Eurasia and the combined eastern Siberian/North American region, assuming it's deep enough that it doesn't periodically dry out like the Mediterranean and Bering Seas did. This would probably have massive repercussions throughout the Cenozoic—the Holarctic as we know it probably wouldn't exist without a continuous swathe of terrestrial habitat across the Northern Hemisphere. But TBH, the no-longer-called-West-Africa and Siberian Crater issues are such major changes to Earth's actual geography that I have a hard time reconciling them as anything but the result of Gem terraforming. Even aside from those, a lot of the "smaller" changes on the map (which wouldn't cause too many differences if they only changed 6000 years ago) are gonna cause some major differences if they're old enough to predate the Gems.

The new archipelago in the South Atlantic! If this is a relatively recent island chain created by an alternate version of the Mid-Atlantic ridge, its wildlife might be vaguely similar wildlife to those of other South Atlantic islands like St. Helena and Ascension Island. Rails are inevitable. Alternatively, it might've bfffffeen colonized by wildlife that rafted across the sea from Africa. Monkeys, rodents, and tortoises got to South America this way, so maybe this archipelago is inhabited by giant tortoises and not-capybaras in addition to whatever flightless birds end up there. I wouldn't be surprised if the island ends up with its own ratite, since those flew to every other major Gondwanan landmass before they evolved flightlessness.

Alternatively, the new archipelago could be an old remnant of Gondwana, in which case it'll probably have a fascinating assemblage of relict taxa in addition to whatever rafts its way from Africa. Whatever reptiles or amphibians can deal with the colder climate will certainly be weird and unique. The flora will probably be roughly similar to that of Aussie/NZ/SouthAmerica (Nothofagus and such). It probably has a lot of weird metatherians and marsupials too, maybe some weirdo crocs if we're lucky. I'm imagining a fauna with predatory sparassodont-like metatherians, and a megaherbivore guild consisting of giant tortoises, ratites, big marsupials, and endemic hystricognath rodents of various sizes; maybe even monkeys! Non-therian mammals like monotremes, multituberculates, and/or gondwanatheres probably held on until the rafters arrived in the Eocene and might've included the last surviving members of their groups, but probably didn't survive to the modern day

New Guinea is a lot further away from Australia than it is in real life. In scenario A, the southern half of New Guinea was probably an unfortunate casualty of Gem Terraforming but in this timeline I'm gonna assume that the Australian Plate/greater Australian continent was just shaped differently. With the increased distance between Australia and the Southeast Asian archipelago, I doubt there'd be any substantial interchange between Asian and Australian wildlife. New Guinea would be part of the Indomalayan Realm instead of the Australasian—no cassowarries, no echidnas, and no tree-kangaroos in New Guinea. Perhaps rodents (including the "Old Endemic" Hydromyini) never make it to Australia, and their niches are instead filled by a family of possums or bandicoots.

Speaking of Australia, the Western half looks like it's isolated from the rest of the continent by sea, and will probably have a lot of unique species not found in the Eastern half. Two species of emu (western and eastern) perhaps? I don't know enough (any) Australian geography to know if Western Australia would still be mostly desert. They were probably connected during the Ice Ages, though, but if that's enough time for the SE Asian island wildlife to speciate, it's certainly enough for the Australias to do so.

The southern third of the Indian Continent is an island! This could mean that Southern India never collided with mainland Asia, but the island's proximity to mainland India makes me think it's more likely a New Guinea/Sahul situation, where the island connects to the mainland during the Ice Ages. The Western Ghats are already a biodiversity hotspot that houses a lot of relict lineages from the days of Gondwana, so if insular South India remained separate from the mainland most of the Cenozoic it probably retained even more unique wildlife.

There are a couple other minor details—the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean appears to be a single island, The Philippines are really close to Borneo, Sardinia and Corsica are once again a single island (or perhaps never disconnected)—that might just be due to the limitations of drawing a map for a kids cartoon, and thus might not reflect actual differences.

And saving best for last:

South America still isn't connected to North America! I am a big fan of South America's native Cenozoic fauna, so this is absolutely huge for me. I'm actually splitting this part off into a whole 'nother post because I have that many thoughts on the hypothetical ecosystems that would evolve on an alternate, isolated South America and I want to skim a few more papers to make sure I'm up-to-date on my understanding

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Diary Entry 11/13/24

Goddamn, life is sit. Why is everything so terrible all the time?

I had my first couples therapy session in a long while with my former best friend, and jesus fucking christ i don't always realize just how hurtful he can be.

i said in session that the last couple of months while we haven't been doing therapy, i've grown increasingly frustrated with how little effort he's putting into our relationship, and how the last few weeks we haven't seen each other at all because i grew curious what he'd do if i stopped initiating and he just never fucking reached out

when the therapist asked how he felt about this, you know what his fucking response was?

that he feels resigned. that hearing this is adding another thing to his to do list, something else he just has to check off

I'M A FUCKING CHECKBOX TO HIM

he used to be my best friend

i could talk to him about anything

and THIS is what he has to say about this??

what the actual. goddamn. fuck.

i want to punch him.

i felt like i cgot punched in the face

and i don't know what to do

i didnt even mean to bring any of this up in our first session back. it was supposed to be an easy "how have you been these last coupel of months?" and i wasn't supposed to say anything about any of this

but no, i just had to go and be honest

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

and everything he said aggravated me

that it's easier to give me distance than try to figure out what boundaries i want? BITCH WE ESTABLISHED BOUNDARIES. I JUST WANTED TO KEEP DOING THAT. WHEN I DO ASK ABOUT BOUNDARIES YOU DON'T FOLLOW UP

"you mentioned wanting to spend the night regularly but then didn't bring it up again so i didn't ask"

DIDN'T ASK?

boundaries are a two way fucking street. you can't complain about me not setting boundaries and then refuse to communicate with me you absolute fucking cunt

i'm so mad

i'm so frustrated

it makes me want to give up almost

almost.

almost almost almost.

ugh it would be so much easier if i could just give up on my relationships, but despite it all I WANT to heal our relationship. i WANT him to be my best friend again. i just want him to get the stick out from his own ass, or just SEE me as a real person

not a tool, not as a "member of his community" or whatever the fuck

as a person

sigh

i love him. i love him so much. i want him in my life. i want to play board games and hand out and spend the night and cook for him and hear about his book and talk about worldbuilding and cuddle and care for each other

but i just need him to do the same for me. to be there in the ways that i show up for him instead of just saying "it's easier to keep my distance" and do nothing

is it easier to keep your distance? is it really? or is it easier to just take and never give back. if you're going to insist on keeping your distance, maybe you shouldn't take me up on my offers of taking care of you? why is it easy to keep your distance when i need you but you're perfectly willing to break that rule when it's the other way around

i just

i just want you to try

i want you to care about me

i want you to put in the work

i want to be more than another item on your list

i want to be your best friend

because despite it all, in my heart, you're still mine

[superlintball]

It's alright Dalinar, babe, he got this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- image description: A loosely scribbled and coloured comic page with several panels in four rows of the scene in Words of Radiance in which Kaladin joins the duel in the arena. The background in the panels is painetd very patchily implying the seats of the arena with half roofs offering shadow from the sun above. The first row has two panels, on the left we see an agitaed Dalinar, in his blue uniform with gold and white trimmings, as he leans forward, hands on the wall of the dueling pit in front of him, calling out "What happened to us?", "Where is our honor?". A smaller speechbubble to the side contains the words "Honor is dead". The panel to the right depicts Dalinar looking to the side to see who gave that cynical commentary. Kaladin stands there not far behind him, also in captain's uniform holding his spear and looking very grim. The next row has two smaller and on medium sized panel, they all show Kaladin from the side in profile – as Dalinar would see him. He inhales like he is fortifying himself for what comes next. On the exhale he looks down into the arena with mix of resignation and determination and utters the words "But I'll see what I can do." The speechbubble for it is already in the next panel, in which Kaladin is gazing towards us with a mournful expression as he says "If this goes poorly, take care of my men."

The third and fourth row are both each one long horizontal panel. The third row shows Kaladin as he vaults himself over the wall in the foreground. Dalinar stares at him seeming very shocked. The panel in the last row is a top down view into the arena. Kaladin stands in front of six people, four of them Shardbearers in full plate all now turning towards him. On the far left is Relis in his black plate holding a big shardblade. Adolin kneels next to him in the sand of the arena holding his broken shoulder. To his right stand Elis with a shardhammer in a grey plate, then Adrobar in a orange one with a blade. Further to the right is Jakamav in his green plate and the king's blade, Renarin standing blade- and plateless next to him.

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Lovely view, isn't it?💖

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Hellaverse Miku!!🎤😈🎶

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Diary Entry 7/19

I don't feel attractive.

At all.

I've been on estrogen for 3.5 months now and the ONLY difference that I've noticed is that I've started growing tits

So now I'm just a man with tits

Which is,, an ostensibly less attractive man

And I already didn't feel particularly attractive before, but now I feel less attractive than I used to as a man, and I feel outright ugly if viewed through the lens that I'm a woman

I don't think I want to quit E but I don't know what I do want

The last, possibly only time I've ever truly felt hot was when I dated my ex back in September '22. It's not my partner's FAULT that they're demisexual but it means they're literally incapable of making me feel attractive because I know that they're only attracted to me because of their emotional attachment to me

FUCK

Maybe hooking up with someone would help but I HAVE NO WAY TO DO THAT

I have no desire to pursue a hookup with someone I don't think is attractive, which means the vast majority of horny posts on lex being from people without profile pics are all off the table

A lot of the other ones are from people I don't personally find attractive

Sometimes I do get people off lex in my DMs but then you run into the fact that they don't actually know what I look like

Only my face in makeup and nothing else

So then do I make my own lex post? But what if I don't get any responses that would be terrible

Do I make a dating app account? Absolutely the fuck not I look like a man which means dating apps would just be an exercise in experiencing rejection which I absolutely would not be able to handle right now

So then all that's left is meeting people organically except I'm a fucking coward who can't strike up conversations with strangers and I LOOK LIKE A MAN and men don't get hit on

FUCK

I hate this I hate me I hate everything I don't know what I want fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

I wish estrogen did more

Instead all it does is give me tits, make me self conscious about my appearance, and make me increasingly terrified of hiding my identity from all the people in my life I'm not out to yet

Sigh

Goodnight

[superlintball]

At the gate for my flight home from visiting friends and there's a woman here with a service Shiba Inu. No pics because he has a Do Not Disturb vest and taking pics of strangers is illegal but I need to stress how ON DUTY this animal is. Ears up. Eyes doing Lazer scans of everything. Examining everyone who passes within 10ft like a security guard. Ass planted on her feet. I have never seen a dog with such intense chivalric guardian energy before. He has tiny eyebrows and they are FURROWED with concentration.

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Diary Entry 7/6/24

I don't know where I'm planning on going with this but I haven't written in my diary in a few months so I might as well, y'know?

I'm currently sitting at a wine tasting with my family and I mean I hate alcohol so I've got nothing better to do so let's chat.

Where do I even start?

I think being with my family I just,, have no idea how to feel

Yesterday my mom lectured me for not making an effort in growing my relationship with my brother but I don't WANT to

I don't dislike him, I really don't. But there's a difference between "not disliking" and wanting to have a relationship. I don't think me not wanting to respond to his snaps or his texts means that I dislike the guy, just that I don't care

He abused me as a child. So much of my emotional suppression and trust issues stem from the guy. He's changed now, but why would I want to be close to him?

He's never apologized

He's never even acknowledged it

Sigh, I just have no desire to sit the guy down and be like, "hey, you ever think about how terrible you were to me when we were kids? Yeah, that fucked me up real bad and now I don't particularly want to be friends with you"

THAT'S ROUGH TO BRING UP

also to be like "and our parents didn't care or do anything about it so I don't feel comfortable telling them anything. Throw in the whole trans wrench and I feel like that should explain why I keep our family at an arm's length"

Sigh

I don't know what to do

I think it's hilarious how every one of my friends hates my brother and I'm just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think I need to tell him eventually, or get over it, but I don't want to do either of those

Idk

Anyway let's talk about my body image issues?

I can't eat

I don't want to eat

I hate my belly, and I feel fat. I don't think I actually am but that's how I feel. And every time I eat anything I feel so fucking guilty

But I know I need to eat! I want to eat! And it's fucking terrible and I hate everything

And that's not even touching on the queerness

I WISH I LOOKED LIKE A GIRL

I wish people clocked me as queer

I wish I had clothes I felt good in

I wish I had dyed hair and tattoos

But instead I'm just here and I hate myself and it's all terrible

Why am I even on hrt

I don't deserve hrt

I'm not good enough

I need to voice train and get clothes and wear makeup and fix everything

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

And that's not even touching on my hangups about my social life, wherein I want more friends

But I also want to hook up with people and have an active sex life

But I also want to know what my future holds

Why is everything terrible

I just want to die it'll make everything so much easier

Sigh

That's it for now, who knows if I'll say anything more later ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[superlintball]

Charlie: "Ever wonder if everything is better in Heaven? The ice cream, the cookies, the sprinkles..."

Vaggie: "Definitely not the company."

Charlie: "Hmm. Do you think the kissing is better??"

Vaggie: "Than this? No."

Charlie: "It'd kinda make sense if it was-"

Vaggie: "It's not."

Charlie: "Aww Vaggie~ Are you just saying that because you can't imagine anything better than kissing me~?"

Vaggie: (sweats in im-actually-an-angel-but-also-gay-and-a-shit-liar)

Vaggie: "Uh..."

Charlie: "??"

Vaggie: (panics in how-do-i-answer-without-saying-used-to-be-a-murder-angel-up-in-heaven)

Vaggie: "....nothing is better than kissing you, Charlie."

Charlie: "AWWWW!" (smooches gf)

-vaggie later, alone with spear-

Vaggie: "That's one truth bullet dodged. Just the... whole rest of our lives together spent lying to her to go. I'm really earning my place in Hell now, huh?"

Her Spear: (is a spear)

Vaggie: "I could tell her about the Exorcist thing. I could live with her hating me..."

Her Spear: (is a spear)

Vaggie: "Yeah no I couldn't."

Vaggie: "No it's not just because she's a phenomenal kisser shut up."

Her Spear: (is a spear)

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The thing about Jonathan Sims is that he isn’t at all stupid, in fact he’s quite the opposite.

Take the Coffin for example, the idea of using an anchor is a logical and honestly quite clever one, however, where this idea falls apart is that while Jon may be intelligent, that does not mean he has common sense, or any sense of self preservation for that matter, and so he goes straight to cutting off his finger, and then continuously trying to cut it off despite the fact his body’s healing factor is clearly winning here.

And then, to top that off, he immediately decides the next reasonable choice of an anchor is his own rib, and actively gets not one, but two of his ribs removed by the walking embodiment of body horror.

Jonathan Sims is not stupid, but he is stupidly impulsive and should not be trusted with any actual plan ever, because while his initial idea may be the most ingenious thing you’ve ever bloody heard, I promise you he is going to ruin it with the most unhinged, god-awful follow up known to man.

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You can never have a one-on-one conversation with your hate boyfriend without beating the shit of each other and destroying all nearby buildings within a 100m radius

I spent a ridiculous amount of time on this, so I hope you guys like it!! I don’t do proper lineart like this much, so there was a bit of a learning curve. Theres a couple lil references I stuck in the bg, see if u can spot some! Some are a bit more noticeable than others… :-)

No blood ver + Close-ups under cut

No Blood ver:

Some random close-ups:

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some tieflings :) (second sheet is based on 2e tiefling traits sheet, some of them are my ideas, most of them arent)

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So Charlie totally inherited Lucifer's forked tongue, right?

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Diary Entry 2/7/24

Dear [qpr],

What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

I just.

What?

You sent me a letter detailing how you're in love with me and also hate my partner and closed it off with telling me how you know that you've just touched on my biggest insecurities and it's okay to hate me.

But... you didn't.

Yes, I'm angry, but my immediate and most pronounced emotion was, frankly, bewilderment.

In the immortal words of one of my favorite YouTube videos, "Good lord, that's remarkable. And completely wrong. Everything you said. Was wrong."

Jesus fuck, every single assumption and every single guess you made in that letter was completely incorrect, and I'm just bewildered. Clearly, you don't know me as well as you think you do.

Honestly, apparently you don't know me as well as I thought you did.

Twas wild.

Let's go through the whole thing, shall we?

First, let's start with me.

You are in a committed, functionally monogamous, relationship

No? I'm not? You do understand that the whole point of a QPR is that it's a platonic relationship that's just as deep as a romantic one, right? Like that's the definition of it. Yes, I only have one romantic partner, but I spend half my time at your place. That's not monogamy, you fucking dumbass. Genuinely, it took my partner a while to come around on you, entirely because our relationship is so deep. So fuck you for that one, I guess.

And beyond that, the only reason I'm not dating anyone else is just that I'm lazy. You know that right? Like I've been thinking about making a dating profile for a while, but I don't want to deal with the awful experience of dating apps. I tend to ghost anyone who wants to hook up on Lex because we start talking about logistics and I just get tired. That's literally it. [Partner] is the same way; I'd love it if they hooked up with someone but they just aren't up to it either. lmao

My guess is that you “cheated” on [partner]. For months. With [ex]. My guess is you either didn’t tell [ex] about [partner], or [partner] about [ex]. Or both.

This is where the genuine bewilderment comes in.

Because... no.

Also side note: why did you put quotes around "cheated"? Do you think it's not cheating if you personally don't like my partner? The fuck is that about?

Anyway.

Do you know what my deepest fear is? idk if it counts as an insecurity but it's definitely my deepest fear.

My deepest fear is losing the trust of someone I love. It's having someone that I care about decide I'm not as reliable as they once thought, or that they can't always believe what I say, or that I won't keep their secrets. It's the idea that they can't trust me anymore.

Trust is the most important thing in the world to me, so much more than love.

So the idea. That you. A person whom I thought knew me pretty fucking well. Would think. That I would lie. To my partner. For months. Is FUCKING INSANE.

I was gobsmacked reading that.

You're not wrong in that I did cheat on [partner] with [ex], but it's not how you think. Because I convinced myself that I wasn't.

There was never a point where either of them didn't know about the other.

My relationship with [ex] was completely platonic until I had a long conversation with them and also [partner] and we decided to try it out. Because I'd known for a long time that I was polyamorous.

The problem was that I could tell that it was hard for [partner], so I didn't give them details. That was how I cheated. [Partner] wanted us to go slow, so I didn't tell them how fast [ex] and I were moving. [Ex] wanted us to move quickly, so I didn't tell them how slowly [partner] wanted us to move.

And I convinced myself that this was okay because I was just protecting their feelings by not giving the gory details, so I didn't technically do anything wrong.

Was I wrong? Absolutely.

But at the end of the day, what happened was that I failed to communicate and hurt both of my partners very deeply in the process.

[Ex] and I only explicitly dated for like, maybe 3 weeks. At some point, [partner] asked me point-blank for all the details, and I, having convinced myself that I hadn't done anything wrong, told them everything, because I would never lie to them.

And they looked at me and said that I had disrespected their boundaries and gone much further than they were comfortable with. That that was cheating.

And I was like "well shit. Yeah, you're right."

So yes, I did cheat. But no, it was not a form of self-sabotage. No it was not for months. And no, I did not explicitly lie to my partner for months. What the actual fuck.

God, I have so many fucking thoughts.

No, [partner] is not taking advantage of me.

How DARE you accuse them of that.

What are you even BASING this off of? The fact that you've met them all of FIVE TIMES? The fact that for over half of the time we've known each other, you've completely shut down every time I mention them? WHERE ARE YOU MAKING THIS ASSUMPTION FROM?

Or maybe it's your trauma? It's the fact that you have experienced being wildly mentally ill and disabled and yet still forcing yourself to keep going and find a way to make things work without asking for help? You can only fathom someone finding that help as doing so maliciously?

It's fucking bullshit.

I had to fight to get [partner] to let me take care of them financially.

They refused.

For years, they refused.

And I watched them suffer for it. They have no family at all, no safety net. They tried to force themselves through college, and failed. They tried to force themselves to work, and broke their body doing it.

It was miserable. I couldn't bear to watch.

And at every turn, I asked if I could help. Please, dear god, let me help you. Let me in. Let me be someone you can lean on.

And finally, slowly but surely, after 3 years of dating and 4 years of knowing each other, they let me be someone they leaned on.

How. Fucking. Dare. You. Accuse them of maliciousness.

They would be out there. Right now. Continuing to break their body to pay half of our expenses if I hadn't fought tooth and nail to convince them to let me support them financially.

I've spent so many therapy sessions dissecting my relationship with them. I've talked with them so many times about it.

We've worked through it. You tell me that you can pass judgment because you were homeless while dating a doctor?

What if I said that YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN.

This isn't me saying that you should have asked for help. This is me saying that your partner should have seen that you were homeless and found a way to help you. To convince you that you could lean on them, could let them in and let them support you. That you didn't have to go it alone. That your worth is not connected to your ability to work. That they should have fought to make you as happy as they could.

But we already know that I hate your exes, don't we?

Anyway, when everything exploded with [partner] about [ex], they broke up with me.

I don't think they'd have done that if they were using me for my money, would they have?

I fought so hard to earn back their trust.

That was what got me into therapy.

For the better part of three months, every therapy session I had was working through my emotions, figuring out how I felt, why I missed them, whether I wanted them back, all that shit.

So yeah, I know exactly how I'd feel if we broke up.

And I promise that yes, I would actually miss them.

And also that I'll be okay. Losing [cat] won't be the end of the world. Yes, it'd suck, but I've already experienced the idea of her not being in my life, and fun fact: the idea of [partner] not being there was a lot worse.

Another fun fact: I actually am not insecure about whether or not I can find a romantic partner.

I have absolute confidence that if [partner] and I were to break up tomorrow, I wouldn't be alone for the rest of my life. Even if I hate myself, even if I think I'm ugly, I've managed to internalize that inexplicably, people find me attractive.

I know I'll be okay if we break up.

Relationships aren't transactional, but to be clear, what do I get from them? Joy. I get to see them smile, and laugh. I get to know what they're interested in and what they're listening to. I get to eat their cooking and share in their culture. I get someone who will teach me about plants and lean into my stupid bits. I get someone who makes me laugh. I get to be in love with my favorite person.

Also fun fact: they do a lot more emotional labor for me than I do for them. Also what makes you think I send them thousands of dollars at the drop of a hat? I've literally never done that. They've never asked me to. They never would. They feel so guilty about every cent I spend on them.

Sigh.

Every single guess you made about me, every single assumption and claim you made about [partner], was completely and utterly incorrect.

And I'm extremely angry at the way you perceive [partner].

They have tried so hard to develop a relationship with you despite the fact that you refuse to engage with them. They send you gifts and recommend things through me. They ask about your cats and how you are doing. They try so hard to care about you JUST BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOU. And they trust my judgment in people, so if I think you're the shit, then that's all they need to like you.

Why can't you do the same?

How dare you hate them, based on no information whatsoever

HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT THEY DESERVE WORSE THAN TO BE CHEATED ON FOR MONTHS.

I'm done being passive about this.

I was hoping that slowly but surely I'd be able to develop your relationship so you could be friends.

Clearly, that's not going to happen.

I'm not going to cut you out of my life. I'm not going to give you an ultimatum.

But I can't be your best friend if this is how you perceive my partner, who's done absolutely nothing wrong.

You need to fix this.

Fucking hell