heart-lollipop

[heart-lollipop]

I feel lonelier than I remember ever feeling before. This evening, L cited a few recent events as evidence of my general negative attitude. A said I've been malcontent. I felt hurt, incredulity, and resignation, because a) this isn't new; I've been feeling this way for ages, b) I've been talking about feeling this way for ages, and c) they hadn't put it together at all that what they're seeing are symptoms of the bigger issue that I've already identified and talked about.

I've been in this job for over four years now. I'm currently in the middle of week two of my last two remaining weeks of vacation for this year. This job has taken over my life and it's been absolutely mind numbing. I talk about exhausted I am, about how much pain I'm in throughout, how much hypocrisy I have to endure, how much effort it takes me to fucking do this shit everyday. I talk about how I want a new job, for months. I talk about how I need to leave.

And like, whatever. I know i move slower than some glaciers. I know it takes me five millennia to make a decision and then another six to commit to it. But like lmao. For it to seem like it's a recent issue and not a long time coming? I'm appalled.

The only reason you think that it's recent at all is because it's only recently that you've been free enough to even look my way and notice something's off. You're both done with school now. You're at the best place in your lives you've ever been, and my unhappiness is polluting your joy.

So what do you want me to do? If you're asking me to shut the fuck up, I can do that. You only talk to me when you need something anyway.

Leave me alone like you have been. I'll stay in my compartment, while you stay in yours, and we'll all be happy.

Also, it's like every time I express an opinion, it's oh so surprising that it's not 100% positive or favourable at all times. What is that even about? I have never been mistaken for an optimist so where exactly is this impression from? When I'm excited or happy about a thing, it's discounted, but suddenly when I express criticism, it's just me being generally in a bad mood. Just two days ago, I celebrated and was excited at a concert. Last night, and nights before, I said that i had a lot of fun and I marveled at people's galaxy brain plays. So where is the discontent there?

Like I genuinely don't understand what it is you want from me. Why is it that every time I have a thought or opinion that doesn't seem to align, I'm heavily scrutinized for having it? Am I only not an NPC if my thoughts align with yours? Do I have to play the wide eyed ingenue forever? Like seriously what the fuck.

And let's not forget when someone talks incessantly about their home life issues, like why is that not a sign of general malcontent? Or it is, but we just won't challenge or criticize it because it's you and you're human so it's okay for you to suffer and talk about it. But if it's me, no fuck that, I have one role only and it's assuredly not to be human.

And god, like I'd rather be rejected outright, isolated socially, AS I HAVE BEEN BEFORE, than to be subjected to being the target of sympathy and gratification. Nothing can gratify me. I already see the double standard and nothing can be done to make me unsee it. Nothing reinforces my loneliness more than someone showing me "kindness" and "understanding." If you really did understand, we wouldn't have gotten to this point. Don't fucking bother.

[heart-lollipop]

so there’s this boy at work who may or may not work for the food industry and who may or may not be part of the pool of patrons at our establishment. last time i saw him was like maybe two weeks ago? def either just after my one-week vacay, or just before, and i asked him (to make small talk bc idc either way) whether he had gotten his initial dosage of inoculation and he had said he hadn’t and that he wasn’t planning on it. i said nothing of it, and finished serving him and that was that.

today, he was patronizing my coworker, and i was free so i greeted him, and he was so i booked my first appt of inoculatory medicine because of you and i was like WHOA I DID NOT SAY ANYTHING LIKE THAT WOW I ONLY ASKED IF YOU  DID and he was like, oh no! i was joking! actually my coworkers in the food industry are telling me to get it done. His face was like bright red and god i feel so bad for him because i keep causing awkward moments for him lmao.

another time was when he said hi to me (again patronizing my coworker) and i was like, did you need something? and he was like, oh. and i felt bad because that was so mean!!!! i didn’t mean anything by it, i just didn’t recognize him or remember him bc i’m so fucking tired all the time.

anyway, he’s cute and nice and i wish him the best of luck in all his future endeavours.

(today was rough, but remembering the awkward moment made me smile lmao)

[heart-lollipop]

Also, since i’m on a roll, two victories i won this weekend

1) I FUCKING FIXED THE HDD THAT WAS JAMMED INTO THE DRIVE BAY FACING THE WRONG WAY I SWEAR TO GOD THAT ASSHOLE;

2) I FUCKING REMOVED MY AIR COOLER AND INSTALLED A NEW LIQUID COOLER I AM A GODDAMNED GENIUS

[heart-lollipop]

Game recognize game, or: reasons he is a manipulative, controlling narcissist and how i can tell because i’m one too

1) he invited me to see Penguin Highway which was cute and I super enjoyed it, but he told me we would meet at this gaming store, which obviously was not my meeting point of choice, but it's just a point of gathering. He bought the tickets and so I kind of had to meet him to see the movie bc I e-transferred him instead of just buying myself a ticket, so allowing him to have control of the event in question. I confirmed with him multiple times when we were meeting and where, when we got closer and closer to the point. The day of, I asked him, where are you? I'm in front of the store, it's closed? And he finally responded that he was on the way, so I was like, fine whatever. Then he called me and was like, “where are you? We're at the theatre,” so he made it seem like I made them wait for me, but whatever, the movie was going to start, so I let it go. 

Afterwards, we talked about it, and he made me think it was my own fault for not having my shit together, that I was crazy and delusional and made the mistake myself, but I found receipts and was like, “wtf you made me think it was my fault when I tried to communicate, but you changed your plans and didn’t tell me.” And then he admitted that the plans were only changed last minute and forgot about me. Which like, wtf, because he was totally fine with dismissing me instead of trying to understand what was going on with me. 

He tried to blame me for a miscommunication that he was responsible for, and made me think I was being too rigid when I asked for accountability. 

2) He started a DnD group with two of his friends and me. He already had an existing DnD group with these two friends and some other friends of his. He didn't explain anything to me. None of them really explained anything to me. They kept talking about their inside jokes and their common topics of interest and their mutual friends, and I was there, and I enjoyed what I could, but I didn't really have fun. 

I definitely flaked out on them, but to be completely honest, why the hell was I even invited? He knew I was interested in DnD but that I knew nothing about it and nobody he knew. I was automatically an outcast socially since I didn't know anybody; he didn’t try to bridge the gaps between his friends and me, didn't explain shit about the game or the dynamics, and didn’t spare me any thought.

So like firstly, why did he even start the group in the first place when he already had a group with these same exact people? I wanted to be flattered, so I thought it was because he wanted to hang out with me, but really, he wanted to control me. I was an easy target since I came into the picture completely new, completely at the mercy of whoever was there. His friends he knew and trusted, so I was isolated from the get go. 

And like, I'm not so delusional to think it was all about me. I'm sure he definitely wanted a chance to roleplay a maverick type character which he has always seen himself to be; naruto-esque. I'm also sure that he hung out with these friends all the time, and orchestrating an activity where he had multiple people reinforce his self image was most likely a regular occurrence. 

3) He helped me build my PC: a) the cooler may be upside down, bc it's supposed to act as exhaust but the direction its facing is the other way; b) the HDD was jammed into the drive bay unevenly, so when he plugged in the SATA cable, it stuck out and prevented the case from being closed properly. 

I let it go for almost two years, and when I brought up b), he dismissed my concern and said that I should just get different cables. 

I figured out, BY MYSELF, that he had inserted the drive the wrong way around (the back facing the front) so when it's plugged in  the cables stuck out. With help and support and cheerleading from A, I was able to channel my rage into arm strength and brilliance and removed the tray, unclicked the drive, turned it around, clicked it into place, plugged in the cables and slid the tray back home. 

WITH NO HELP FROM THAT FUCKER WHO MAY HAVE SEEDED MY PC WITH PROBLEMS SO HE COULD FIX THEM HIMSELF, INGRATIATE HIMSELF TO ME, AND CONVINCE ME TO FUCK HIM 

OR HE DIDN’T GIVE HALF A SHIT ABOUT ME AND USED ME TO FUEL HIS EGO ABOUT BEING A GOOD GUY BY HELPING A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS WHO IS GOOD AT NOTHING ON HER OWN SO HE JUST PUT THE PC TOGETHER IN THE MOST SLAPDASH WAY POSSIBLE 

And I can’t decide which option is more heinous. Either one would certainly not be worse than a mixture of both. 

And like I'm mad at him and feel like I have a right to be. He's a slimy piece of misogynistic nice-guy trash who used me. Of course I fell for it because I wanted to use him too. I really only contacted him to build my PC, and am pissed i wasted my time trying to even pretend it wasn’t about that. 

I'm petty and disgusting but hey, he's no innocent either. I know he was DTF because I told him I found his friend attractive and he completely like got quiet and sullen with me. I'm so relieved that I thought he was too gross to sleep with and god, just the depth of love I feel for myself for having been unable to compromise on these standards will save me from hell lmao.

[heart-lollipop]

i saw a tweet talking about how wn dropped a bomb on jc and walked away and i can’t reply bc i don’t want to fight, but i gotta say my piece. 

yes, ok, maybe wn resents jc bc jc is bumbling around being angry and blaming wwx and not standing up or defending him or anything. jc is being a dick. but in all fairness, in jc’s eyes, wwx is the one who ditched him first. 

wwx promised to be yunmeng heroes with jc, to help build lotus pier with him. jc always thought they were family, and family stuck it out. jc is very lawful neutral; he has always kept his nose out of other people’s business as long as they are not family. he has been taught by his mother not to stick his neck out for other people, bc over and over again when he tried to defend wwx to her, she punished it. she would say he is not good enough, while teaching him with her behaviour that he shouldn’t stand out, but standing out is bad. 

but that was ok, bc family is the most important. even tho his mother never recognized wwx as her son, his father did, so they are brothers in all the most important ways. lotus pier is their priority. their sect is their priority. those are all things jc has been taught growing up, being trained to be sect leader. 

so when wwx leaves to defend the wens, putting lotus pier and the jiang at political risk after having just been freshly rebuilt, jc is like, wtf?!!?!? we’re your family and you leave to defend some randos??!! sucks for them, but we’re family?!?!?!? 

but even then, wwx still kept in lowkey contact with him after getting to the burial mounds. it’s during the siege at the burial mounds that jc is like wtf wwx, jie died bc of you!!!!! you couldn’t help yourself, you put our family in danger and you probably killed the peacock and now jie died for you even tho you killed her husband and we are the only ones left and i hate you bc jie died!!!!! even tho jc is like that, he still cannot kill his brother. his last remaining family member that is not a baby. his brother, with whom he grew up together, with whom he trained day in and day out. the brother he looked up to and tried hard not to resent (but couldn’t bc his mom taught him too well). the brother he watched become a stranger.  

i don’t quite remember the sequence of events in cql, but i’m pretty sure when wwx came back he was like, fuck you we are not friends, i am definitely not risking my sect for whatever shit you’re on this time, i’ve been burned before. also let’s unpack my unresolved issues about me almost causing your death, but you then killing yourself anyway, and how my only living family member now is my nephew whom you orphaned. 

the reason jc acts like a dick is bc jc doesn’t actually know anything! wwx never told him! and continues to refuse to tell him shit. the biggest wedge in their relationship started with the secret core transfer. i don’t think jc would’ve felt as betrayed if it didn’t already feel like wwx had changed when they tried to rebuild lotus pier. ofc jzx and jyl still died, so he would’ve been upset regardless and it wouldn’t have fixed things between them, but he would’ve known that wwx did and always has considered jc family. 

and for wn to be the one to advocate telling jc the truth is not so much him trying to cause jc pain, but more trying to spare pain. yeah he dropped a bomb; this secret was kept for like 20 years. but it’s not fair to spin jc as the villain when he has always just been a neglected little brother and very much a child having grown up in an abusive household. (also, there was a tweet that was like you can see that wn is the only one who really considered jc’s feelings in this regard and was like, lowkey shipping wn/jc which is a very interesting pairing bc cql shows no instance of them having spoken outside of the bomb dropping). 

also, there was a tweet way earlier like a few months ago that discussed this plainly: jc never consented to the golden core transfer. his feelings of betrayal and resentment towards wwx are justified bc wwx took away jc’s choice and autonomy in this matter. it’s jc’s own body, and wwx arranged for invasive surgery to be performed on both of them, with no consent, and no knowledge on jc. like i get that this act was self-sacrifice on wwx’s part, but that’s always been a thing right? when madam yu would start to tell jc how inadequate he was, wwx would jump in and take center stage. but jc also tried to defend wwx as well. jc deserved a chance to make the right choice for himself. hell, jc deserved a chance to make the wrong choice for himself. any choice at fucking all. wwx took that away. 

like i love wwx, for all his goodness and kindness. but it doesn’t do anyone favours when he decides to disregard other people’s bodily autonomy at his own expense at his own detriment without anyone asking. 

[heart-lollipop]

I am having an amazing christmas day. My christmas has never been so good wow. I played acnh for like 4-5 straight hours, and basically farmed balloons and got all the festive diy recipes possible before actual toy day (it’s dec 22 on my island). Redd was on my island selling THREE (read em and weep) pieces of real art: Man Made of Veggies, Terracotta Soldier, and White Creature in Top Left Corner. I bought terracotta soldier ofc. i farmed all the balloons. THEN GOD BLESSED ME WITH SHOOTING STARS AND I WAS ECSTATIC. i felt like maybe i had drunken felix felicis or some shit. 

THEN CELESTE APPEARED ON MY ISLAND BECAUSE I’M THE LUCKIEST BITCH ALIVE. So now i truly believe in god (tm) and his grace. whatever. idk. 

But anyway, i played salmon run with L and we got paired with some of the best players i’ve ever experienced in my life. at some point, i killed a hat trick’s worth of maws in a row. i fought in a cohock charge with some kind of genius marksperson (who contributed 26 of the boss salmonid kills in the whole 3 waves). we won almost all our rounds of salmon run, and the one we didn’t win, we at least got to wave 2 so we lost nothing. it was amazing.

also, i ate so much food today (like unhealthy shit as well as healthy shit) and i didn’t get sick over it at all. truly the best christmas i’ve ever had. such a glowing feeling within. 

i know that everyone else had a shitty christmas because of covid but i’m different. (it’s a meme i swear)

[heart-lollipop]

i have so many tender feelings for jc and i will never be over them.

he’s like akito, in that he was always told that he was special and chosen and born to be loved. born to be important and strong and skillfull. born to protect his sect and his family. 

imagine his surprise when wwx comes into the picture, this interloper who is suddenly the center of all the attention. that isn’t necessarily bad, except wtf, why does jc have to get rid of his puppies? those puppies are family!!! jc’s family!!! he has a responsibility to them, and this random kid just comes in off the street and suddenly no one cares about the puppies???

and then cue his mom’s projection and insecurities about jfm treating wwx more like a son, and it starts becoming clear why jc is so fucking possessive and protective of his family. 

the real kicker though is that even as spoiled as jc must’ve been, he still was taught to have empathy for wwx. he fully could’ve just let wwx go into the forest alone at night and pretended he didn’t know anything about it. at this point, jfm had probably never disciplined his child ever (so jc wouldn’t have been scared of his reaction), and it’s not like yzy would’ve stood up for wwx. but he fully went to his sister and admitted he messed up. he made sure wwx felt welcome enough to come back, and to stay.

and let’s not forget wwx felt enough loyalty to jc to try to shield him from yzy, even though obvi he had it harder from her. so jc made sure to include wwx into his very short list of what is included as family.

so wwx’s casual disregard for his own life/importance is offensive and painful to endure for jc, who would kill for his family. whose every action in inter-sect activities is either to promote his own sect, or to keep it irreproachable. wwx who involves himself in other people’s squabbles would be seen as dangerous and puts their sect at risk. it makes sense that jc would be so naggy about wwx’s behaviour during school.

wwx choosing to defend other people instead of protecting his sect, his family, is like wwx saying his family is not a priority. ofc jc would take offence to that, since his every action and thought is to preserve his family. he was raised to be sect leader, so he has to think about the consequences of every action. the only real time jc threw caution to the wind and did whatever the fuck he wanted was when he went back to lotus pier and got his core crushed.

but god, his relationship with wwx, so much of it was hero worship and admiration, resentment and comfort. even though wwx seemed untouchable, jc would’ve known that wwx wasn’t, and he would’ve been able to sympathize and respect him. he wouldn’t have been able to help being bitter, but he also wouldn’t resist or reject wwx trying to soothe his ruffled feathers. 

jc just always wanted someone to choose him over anything else, and the one time anyone chose him, it had to be wwx. wwx, who everyone else chooses first. wwx, who always chooses other people first. wwx chose jc over himself, and how could jc forgive/be ungrateful for it? jc loved wwx, and wwx would never choose himself. it was easy for him to choose jc. jc would never have wanted to be chosen first this way. 

and honestly, jc was robbed of an opportunity to grow, so i think jc’s anger is justified. the one choice he made for himself (that ended with him losing his core) incurred literally zero consequences to himself, and he went on to choose the sect forever. there was no lesson learned here, and after the dramatic reveal that everything he ever built on his own two hands was still due to his amazing brother, he still has nothing left. 

it’s infuriating and painfully sad to realize that jc’s growth was forcibly stunted in this way. jc deserves more than that, and i want to read every fic that redeems him because my god, he deserves to be free from the sect for gd once. 

he deserves to be the rogue cultivator travelling the places!! he deserves to hang with his now-undead brother, shooting the shit. Hasn’t he done enough by now?!?!!

i just really love jc. i wish him so much better. 

[heart-lollipop]

I was rereading the posts I made here and realized that there’s a really significant gap between the post I made about practice teaching (which was like 2017) and the post I made about playing Hue with L (which had to have been 2018-2019). So like between that time, my mother’s old friend W who is a branch manager called me to ask if I was interested in working at a bank. 

I wasn’t sure wtf was going on, so I reluctantly agreed to “seeing the branch,” fully thinking that was going to be my like interview. I went to see the branch, and he made it clear it was not an interview, and he was prepping me for an interview lol. So he prepped me, and i felt super anxious and unready for it, but was also like, well, i’m basically a shoo-in if he bothered to prep me lol.

So I went again for the interview and felt like shit about it. I couldn’t answer any of the interview questions about what makes me a good employee and what are my faults (because everything is a fault and if i could turn it into a quality, i wouldn’t have been there in my unemployed state after finishing my tesol program and not doing anything with it). Or how I see myself in five years because lol, i don’t see myself in three months, let alone five years. 

I felt sick to my stomach, had nightmares, prayed with all that i was that i wouldn’t get the job because it felt like rejection would just be sweet sweet relief (like i supposed suicide would seem if i was ever pushed to that point), but W actually hired me and asked me why i thought i wouldn’t have gotten the job. My answer was just that my interview was bad and that’s it tbh. Idr if he had said anything in response, it was way too long ago, but I felt gutted.

And so it was a really rough few months. Starting Wednesday, March 14, 2018 up until maybe September or October of the same year, maybe until even winter, I had stress dreams and felt like I was on the precipice for a long long time. The worst of it was during probation, because I always felt like I was drowning and not good enough and it was inevitable that I would make a mistake. We weren’t fully supported until cyj came in late May, I still had dreams long after.

Hue definitely helped me put my mind out of it, but I still can’t remember when I played it, since I would’ve gotten a switch Aug 2017 and subsequently would’ve have played botw then. It must have been either late 2018 or early 2019 that i tried to get L to play it.

[heart-lollipop]

Oh yeah, so basically the entire point I was sort of going to make about wangxian fanfiction was that even though the romance got me through the door, it was self-destructive tendencies that wwx often displayed in the stories that really made me keep going.

Every story does this differently ofc, but the general running theme is the same: wwx thinks he is absolute garbage and is unworthy of anything resembling credit or goodness and like even just general lack of suffering. This must be a theme inherited from the novel because the drama itself doesn’t express it. Their version is more like: wwx does not think he is garbage, he is more just like, no one is fighting for these ppl and it’s not fair so i will, oh shit i made it worse. 

Like sure, a lot of his self-confidence is bravado, but it’s also like, “i shot at five targets blindfolded, try to tell me i’m not hot shit” and also “su she you should be glad you weren’t in jiang sect bc i would’ve made sure you knew you were beneath me lol” and “who tf are you? why would i use a curse on you when a) idek you and b) if i wanted you dead, you fucking would be?” Like wwx in the drama knows he Messed Up (tm) but also chooses to die on that hill and did. Wwx in fanfiction just is a Hot Mess (tm) and highkey needs therapy.

Which is like, a good reason why I keep reading wangxian fanfiction because like, i need therapy. Especially the ones where wwx has super intense impostor syndrome and will do self-destructive things like take the fall for stuff that isn’t his fault because nothing matters and he is garbage anyway so he might as well have done all that to begin with even though there’s no possible earthly way for him to have even imagined doing it let alone actually doing it. Like, i might not ever take the fall for something i wouldn’t do bc anyone who knows me will know i will never even take credit i do deserve let alone blame lmao, but i do strongly relate to the “i’m garbage anyway and so i might as well have” line of thinking. That even if the impact was not that negative or big, my emotional impact should be so I can prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again because everything is the worst (or could’ve been) and it’s all my fault (and could only ever be).

The contrast between competent!wwx in the drama and impostorsyndrome!wwx from fanfiction is jarring. but i mean, i’ve only ever seen the drama. i never read the novel or seen the animation or anything, so i don’t actually know which wwx rings more true. i can only keep reading fanfiction to search for the truth bc idc that much about the other characters, except jc. 

Also, idk, ofc it bothers me a lot that the only 3 named female characters that had like actual characterizations exited super early. the first being mm, then wq, and finally yl. ofc yes, we see mm again, but it’s not like we see her being badass fr. the relationship between wwx and his shijie will remain forever frozen in amber, and there will be no growth and i don’t accept that. there needs to be more fanfiction about their relationship. i’m like mildly satisfied by some jc redemption stories, but yl deserves more time than just being generally away with her family and kid.

also wq. god she deserves so much more. i’m just really fucking glad wn got to tell jc and emphasize that his sister who is the best gd doctor in our whole medicinal branch of the sect saved his worthless career. just chef’s kiss vindication man.

[heart-lollipop]

So basically I read wangxian fanfiction before watching the actual drama. It seemed to have a lot of characters and like a complicated social hierarchy that would have already been explained by the show (or better explained by watching i guess instead having to glean the unspoken but already understood context) so I started watching it too. I stopped watching after like 5 eps, because it seemed more plot than romance, and I'm really only anywhere for the romance.

And then i totally dived headfirst into the fanfiction, which proceeded to tell me everything i really needed to know about the show, except it wasn't enough! I had to see for myself the moment when lz got drunk and when they basically got ritually married and then NEVER TALKED ABOUT IT AGAIN or the moment when wy asked lz to his face if he was jealous and if it was because he liked mm when all evidence points to lz being high key gay for wy. All just very moe-rich moments okay. My fangirl heart can't handle not seeing it in action.

So I kept watching, then reading, and reading while watching, then i stopped watching because i only had five episodes left, but at that point, the fanfiction wasn't as quickly forthcoming.

But like basically, i fell in love with their dynamic in fanfiction first. People in the fandom remix the events and allude to the subtext or the explicit text in the novel (i wouldn't know which) and it's sweeter and unpacks to satisfaction and beyond all of the implications of the above-mentioned romantic events.

I have very little enthusiasm for reading anything else. I also finished the drama, and there is so little closure in it, even though i knew the ending long before i actually finished it.

This post is a mess of feelings and whatever, but basically i wanted to talk about wangxian because they are just really Pi-Pe dom love match. Like obvi wy is hardcore Ne dom. Lz is obvi Pi, but if he's Ni dom, idk, but he reminds me a lot a lot of Darcy and I just can't.

Also i will always love jc. He's so dumb, but he's dumb like the reflection of my soul. He is a lawful neutral youngest child who had all his family's hopes pinned on him while always being told he wasn't good enough to live up to them. He is a spoiled brat who didn't have to grow up because of his kind and gentle sister and his fun and strangely overly responsible brother. I love him like the helpless unconscious way i can't resist loving myself, even though my self-hate can usually override it.

The fandom wrote out their reconciliation so many different ways that the drama feels so lacking in comparison. Fandom presented every possible iteration of wangxian ending up together that the last scene honestly feels fake and unfinished. Fandom was the reason i got into this show to begin with, and fandom is the reason i can forgive its shortcomings and make my graceful exit.

[heart-lollipop]

ALSO LET’S NOT FUCKING FORGET THAT THE OTHER BRANCH ALSO HAD NO FUCKING PROBLEM WITH ME DOING THEIR JOB

[heart-lollipop]

I felt betrayed at work today.

In late March, I went through my coworker S’s drop-off folder because he forgets to give me any paperwork he’s done for coworker A’s files, and I found a mortgage payout request. I checked all the avenues I knew to see if it had been processed already and it hadn’t. The closing date was the next day, so I processed it myself and asked S why he didn’t do it. S said that the mortgage is actually from our sister branch and that he’d already emailed R - who does A’s role in that branch. A has always taught us that we can forward payout requests to the home branch but that we have no obligation to process the request ourselves. I checked that S had sent that email, and he had, in a very timely fashion, sent her the email and scanned the official letter. She hadn’t done it and she would’ve been fucked because when i was finally there to follow up on it, the closing date was the NEXT DAY.

Thinking I’d fucked up, I called R to ask if she wanted me to cancel my order so that she can process the request herself. She said no, and that it was absolutely normal to process requests for other branches. She said that it was in the email that our RVP sent around. I asked her to forward that email to me. I’d read that email the first time around and understood it was only processing the payment, not the actual request itself. When I read it a second time and confirmed that there was no such information, I asked her if I was missing something because that information wasn’t in the email. She did not respond.

I double-checked with one of our branch advisors to corroborate this supposed common knowledge, and J - who had worked in that role previously - agreed that whenever the request was urgent, they would just process it themselves even if it was for another branch. 

I acted on this knowledge two weeks ago for another branch and informed them that I processed the request, and they were fine with it. Today, R received the payment from the lawyer and noticed that the property address and the address on the official letter provided by the lawyer did not match. She asked me about it, because she saw that I was the one who processed the first request. I told her I just processed it and informed the home branch to follow up.

She told me to ask our branch manager about it tomorrow if he showed up at our branch. I answered that I will, and then she said that he said we were not supposed to process these requests ourselves and to forward it to the home branch.

So she threw me under the bus and now I have to answer for this, which:

a) you were the one who told me it wasn’t a big deal so what the fuck;

b) a SECOND SOURCE confirmed that it wasn’t a big deal so who am i even supposed to trust;

c) i TOLD MY BRANCH MANAGER THAT R AND J HAD TOLD ME THEY DO THIS ALL THE TIME MAY 8TH SO WHAT THE FUCK;

d) if he shows up? If there’s an actual real problem, he WILL show up, so get off my back, fucker.

I told S that this is why I hate R, and S said that she’s not like that. She’s chill and she’s really nice apparently. I know that she can be nice, because she’s been nice to me. You can be nice and also passive aggressive as fuck. 

If I point it out again that R AND J both told me to just do it, it will look like I don’t know how to make my own decisions. If I say that R had absolutely no problem letting me cover her ass when I processed her branch’s request, and she is letting me take the blame now for what she taught me to begin with, i will look insecure. If I slash her tires, I will have to find out what car she drives in a non-suspect way.

Either way, time proves again and again that I should never trust other fuckers. I know best how to do my job and they don’t know what they’re doing.

Isn’t it sad when this is a lesson you have to learn over and over again? Especially when everyone always tries to teach you the opposite.

[heart-lollipop]

so yeah. i got a car and have been driving to and from work for like three weeks now. i think i’ve just become way more tired than before? which is hilarious because i was tired from taking the bus also. 

i’ve also taken to sleeping on my brother’s mattress because my mattress is complete shit. it dips in the center and i don’t have money or energy to fix it (as in find a new one) so i’ve just been avoiding the problem, but my father is coming to stay for a week in like two weeks, so i think i’ll have to go back that. obviously if i were in a better frame of mind or had more energy or just wasn’t so goddamn tired i might steer this post in a more proactive direction, but well, we all know if that actually were the case, i wouldn’t be here to begin with.

i’m on that bts bandwagon btw. i have been since like, end of september? baby army ftw. but like, noona army. i don’t know, i don’t think about it because it’s not like it will matter. but anyway.

relationships are difficult to maintain. i’m having a hard time remembering how to be a person when i’m not getting paid to do it, but also i have never really gotten the hang of socializing, so pretending is like extra draining on my already limited resources. i don’t know how to be friends with people who’ve been my closest friends for years. i don’t know how to talk to anybody.

just about the only thing i actually like to do other than basic life functions like sleeping and eating is play bts world, and driving. i hate driving, but when i actually do it, it focuses me. i’ve never been good when left to my own devices.

whatever. it’s ten pm. i’ve been yawning all day. i’m going to let myself go.

[heart-lollipop]

I bought a car last week. 

I booked a test drive, and when I went to the dealership, he sat me down and started talking about the price first. We basically talked for like half an hour, maybe longer, and then finally i actually drove the car. Then he talked for a long time, or made me wait a long time, and started talking about pricing with me.

I just let it happen honestly. He showed me to the finance manager who went through some additional products, basically like add on protections or whatever, and i actually agreed to most of them, and signed everything. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get a copy, but anyway, he saw me out of his office, and i turned back and asked the receptionist when i picked up the car how they would know it was me, and she said i could say my salesperson’s name (which i didn’t remember) and she reminded me what it was, then said as a last resort she could use my phone number. I was relieved and left.

Then I told everyone at work about it and they were all varying degrees of like, what the fuck. Work Mom was like, the interest rate is crazy high (she’d told me the story of how her son leased a car the week before and how his interest rate was some unheard of decimal barely at the hundredth place), both Work Mom and Work Dad agreed that the car would run at least 300k km. Work Dad congratulated me on taking my first step towards personhood, but also was like, you need to cancel that warranty. No one else really said much else about it, except that i could’ve gotten a lease for a newer model at a lower percentage, but my constant reply was just that i wanted to keep my minimum monthly payment low.

Anyway, I couldn’t back out of anything because I’d already signed everything. They hadn’t given me a copy, which i know for sure because i had to ask the receptionist how they would know it was me. 

Then I went to a party thing, and some of them said the same thing, that they had people who knew people, and I should’ve said something or did research or something, anything. 

I told my excoworker M and my other excoworker R and they were both super happy for me. Exco-M said that there were a gajillion options, that i could pay it off or whatever and i could trade it in later, that i’m not shit out of luck or anything, that i’m okay.

I didn’t tell bff M until I saw her at the party thing. I only told K today, who was always more M’s best friend than mine. I told L after i started feeling like it was a mistake. She made me feel worse, and then better about it.

Just now I picked a fight with M about it. I said that she would’ve talked me out of it. She said she would’ve supported me, that she wouldn’t have discouraged it. I said she wouldn’t have had to. She was upset that I didn’t give her credit. I’m just upset in general.

The car is shittier than i thought it was. I drove it off the lot and felt every single uneven surface of the road. It’s wider than anything. My mother is wracking her brain trying to fit it in our communal driveway with our neighbour. There’s a cigarette burn in the driver’s seat. I still have to get winter tires. I still have to drop it off next week at the dealership again. 

I’m upset that i did this to myself. I’m upset my mother made me feel like shit all day. I’m upset that she was right about everything that made me feel like shit. I’m upset that I’m too broken to be happy. I’m upset that I don’t feel free at all. I’m upset that I have to work tomorrow. I’m upset that I’m lonely. I’m upset that the money i saved isn’t going as far as i thought it would. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t hate myself this much, that if I wasn’t so goddamn pessimistic and broken, I would’ve been fine. But I’m not. 

[heart-lollipop]

I have a lot of cognitive dissonance about many issues. Some of that CD was in my last post, with this initial premise: true appreciation comes from devotion and commitment and practice. In other words, you can’t truly say that you love something unless you have like, metaphorically bled and sweated and cried for it. 

The conflicting premise is this: the reason anything appeals to you (superficially or not) is because it reflects you. Some of the best content reveals a part of you heretofore unseen or unacknowledged by you. It brings it to the surface and you are reborn (cue catharsis, etc. etc.).

So basically, L has always loved the legend of zelda series but has never played through a single game. According to the second premise, her love for the series, as well as others’ love for the series, shows how brilliant the creators were for making something so universally relatable, across cultures and countries and time. There must be something fundamentally human found in the series, and game completion is not necessary for anyone to find ti enjoyable.

Of course, I pretend the second premise is my main view, while repressing my other views which are based on the first premise: 

1) her love cannot be genuine love since she has never committed herself to finishing any of the games, nor has she truly experienced all that one game, any of the games, has to offer. It cannot be real love if there is more to the series to be loved and she hasn’t made it a priority to discover it.

2) in saying she loves the series, she is trying to pretend to be a gamer in order to represent the female minority in gaming. Since there is no validity behind her self-proclaimed gamer status, the only reason she would even make a self proclamation would be to increase her social clout since gaming is trendy. I remember her once calling Link Zelda without noticing her mistake. This was long before I tried any legend of zelda game, so the fact that even I knew she made a mistake stuck out to me.

Here are some reasons why these fucking godawful views are so backwards and nonsensical: 

1) despite my holier-than-thou sense of superiority, I also to this day have not ever completed a legend of zelda game. I have played breath of the wild, but have not collected a single divine beast. I have basically been playing animal crossing in the breath of the wild game. I have also only made it past two or three dungeons in ocarina of time. By the first premise, If anyone had the “right” to profess their love for the series, it sure as hell wouldn’t be me. 

2) if L is a gamer girl, I am the same type of gamer girl. The exact same type. I have also called Link Zelda. I caught myself right after, but I did in fact do it. Also, the games I mainly play are non-combat. Although I refuse to espouse the belief that “true” gamers play shooters or fighting games only, I do think that if you play like, animal crossing only and nothing else, you are not really a gamer. You are an animal crossing savant. You worship at the altar of nook and that’s it. 

Which would be me because a) i am living for the day animal crossing new horizons is released on the switch b) i spent like ten straight months playing only animal crossing on nintendo 3ds c) i pretend to play games like overwatch and starcraft ii, but have i ever played any of these games alone? no. have i ever tried to improve myself and practice hard to get good? no. am i actually committed to these cognitively demanding games? fuck no.

My point is, after all of this bullshit, L and I are the exact fucking same by my own idiotic premises, my brain is full of trash, and it’s about time i started cleaning house.

While my first view is based on my functional alignment (Te/Fi and all that), it’s a super warped version based on my childhood. My views are dichotomous because I am schematic and had to defend every claim I ever made about myself. This lesson shaped how I expect others to behave as well, and is the way I understood how anyone decides their priorities.

I know now it is unfair to project those views onto other people, especially since these views are based on my own constructs and not on actual real concrete stuff. I should probably apologize to L honestly. I probably won’t, but I should.

I don’t know if she’ll even admit anything happened tbh, not that that should affect whether or not I do. I’m probably not going to either way.

[heart-lollipop]

I have this thing where I’m like a really smarmy asshole when i think i’m better than them. Like, it’s smarmy enough to think you can be better than someone, but it’s doubly so when you start to act like it out loud also. I don’t even have the decency to pretend that i think we’re equal. I want you to know that I know I’m better than you.

Case in point: three nights ago when I hung out with L, who never really got fully into gaming for reasons unknown to me and to her lmao, was like unwilling to play this cute 2d platformer about colours and perception. She was having trouble with the jumping across spaced out platforms and I think she was kind of just done perceiving. 

I was like straddling the line between smarmy and decent when I was like, do you want to try again one more time or do you want to play something else? 

But like five minutes before that, I was needling her for not wanting to continue until she beat the level. I said stuff like, “so you only want to do things you’re good at?” and putting it into the context of her phd, because she wouldn’t give that up. She took it well, and she really didn’t have to (and shouldn’t have), because she said that gaming just wasn’t important enough to her to keep trying. 

I continued being an asshole, saying something like, "if you kept trying it could come to have value,” but I did eventually let it go.

I haven’t had the courage to tell anyone, and I haven’t spoken to her since that night.

[heart-lollipop]

I'm going out of my mind with anxiety. I start practice teaching on Monday. It's a lot better than it was Friday tbh, but I'm getting a lot less sleep surprisingly. From what I can tell, he really doesn't seem to care what I do with the class? I think each class might be a different topic, which is more relieving than I thought.

I do want to do a class where it's just full of speaking activities. Just like chatting kind of, or getting to know people. I could get them into groups, or have them ask me questions and I'd just answer them. Obviously I couldn't do that for the whole two hour class, but maybe for ten minutes? Have them come up with questions they want to ask in groups.

I don't know. I think he's so chill, and I'm so not that I'm like dying. He can definitely tell I have no chill, and I'm wondering if he thinks I'm super high strung and annoying. He didn't give me enough information to go on, and honestly, I don't think I know what to ask him, because I only just figured out he may do a different topic every day.

I already closed two shifts this weekend, and I have to close tonight again. It's only 3.5 hours, but god, I'm never saying yes to a third closing shift again. This anxiety coupled with my low arousal is killing me. I don't think I felt this badly even in grade twelve, bc I could definitely still sleep through the night then.