pastj-futurej

[pastj-futurej]

Now, everything changes.

Or so they say. I'm turning 21 on the date of my next post. August 17th.

Everyone tells me that your life changes at 21, because then you can go out drinking. Drinking isn't something that's really ever interested me though. Recently I've been trying some of the stuff Sawyer's had, and some has been okay, but there's not much I've really liked. Personally I've always been more excited for 25, because that's when my insurance rates go down, and I can rent a car.

But regardless, 21 is a good time to look back at all that I've done over the past 20 years. Unfortunately, that list is small. I have graduated College. I have a group of creative online friends. I have a fiance. I have a loathsome YouTube channel with over 1k subscribers. I've started so many projects. And I've even finished a few of them. I've helped my friends make projects, with more coming soon. I've done enough things that many people would be jealous of me, but I don't feel like I have ever truly been successful. Success of course depends on the achievement, and sometimes I fear the idea that the achievements I've achieved have only been half achieved.

But enough waffling, it's time for celebration.

How's being almost 22, FJ, and how was 21?

August 15th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

No one hates me

I don't think I'm necessarily an unhatable person. It would be cocky to presume that. But of the people that I have met me, I am not aware of someone truly hating me.

I think that has something to do with the way I am, or was raised. When interacting with someone, I feel like it's on me to make sure that person has a not bad time. It doesn't necessarily need to be a good time, it just needs to be not bad. And growing up, I was always told that I can not control other people, I can only control myself, so while I can't force them to have a good time, I can do what's in my power to make their time not bad.

That's also not to say that I haven't had people tell me that they hate me before. Usually it's a joke when someone says that to me, because I said something weird, off-putting, and a tad uncooth. I try not to make these jokes at other people because I know they can hurt, and I know that they do sink into the subconscious even if they are just jokes.

Hate, to me, is a very strong word. It is a word that means that you don't like something, to the point of actively wanting to, and working towards the goal of, destroying something. If that thing was able to be removed from existence with a press of a button, true hatred would not hesitate to press the button. Anything less than that can not be true hatred.

There've been a few times people have yelled that they hate me at me, legitimately too. I don't believe that they truly hated me. They couldn't have. They're people who were close to me, and just said it at a moment of high tension. Once things cooled, we were cool. I don't believe a true hatred could cool down like that.

There are things I do hate. They are nebulous, and hard to explain. I don't believe I could truly hate another of mankind, or our creations. Despite everything, I see the beauty in what we have built. Works of passion, works of skill. To hate another of mankind would be to say that we are all evil, and that there is nothing that can be done.

August 11th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

The Judah and Sawyer PowerHour: Picrew

So, if you don't know, Picrew is a website where you have a template, and a bunch of options and get to create characters, and people are able to make their own templates. Last night me and Sawyer got on call and made ourselves in a bunch of them. Here's some of the highlights.

Poicon Maker:

I really like how these ones turned out, it's so cute that we chose the same hair doinker and glasses

Aloha Sushicore:

This is such a cute Artstyle, I love how he included his stuffed bear! It's the one we got together on our Build-A-Bear date one time.

Sagravi Creator:

This one was a little bit difficult to work with you get my style, but I think it ended up turning out really well! I love how he has his string lights up in the background.

Alt Kid Maker:

This one is a prime example of don't judge a book by it's cover. Going through this one it didn't start to come together until over half way through, but once it came together, it came together amazingly! I love Sawyer's cow backpack, and I love the jacket I have.

Makowwka OC Maker:

We decided to make each other for this one, so I made his, and he made mine. He said he gave up on the hair part way through, because he couldn't get it to look good, but I think it looks great! It gives me such good gender feels all around! So good!

So yeah, definitely reccomend! Try them out! Hey FJ, do you want to do some of these to see how you see yourself now, vs then?

August 9th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

I saw my parents together today.

When my parents got divorced it tore me up. I could feel the tension in the house before that, but before I knew I was holding on to hope that they would pull through.

To this day, I don't know the exact reason they got a divorce. I doubt it was anything extremely serious, but instead it was probably a lot of little things that piled up and pushed them apart.

Ask them, would you, FJ?

I still remember my mom telling me that they were getting a divorce. It happened right as I was going into Middle School. I think it technically had already happened by that point, but they were still living together. She told us it wasn't our fault. I cried and told her that I didn't want them to get a divorce because then I would never see them together. She told me that they'd be together sometimes, but it'd just be more uncommon.

It'd be powerful if I could say something like "I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've seen them together since then", and then go through listing them, but that would be a lie. I've seen them together anytime we have a big birthday party, or a concert, or a sports game or something important like that. And it's nice. In the years since their divorce I've come to terms with the fact that they weren't the right people for each other. And they moved on.

That doesn't change the fact that today was weird.

Today Dad and MJ (and Audrey and Benji), came over to Grandma's for lunch. There was a lot of people there. If I hadn't been focused on keeping Sawyer from having a panic attack, I probably would have had one. There's something about seeing my parents in the same place that just skyrockets my cortisol levels.

They were there for Avrah's birthday, and it was weird how well they fit in there. It was like nothing had happened. It was like it was 2012 again. It was like time had turned back 10 years.

I got sauce on my shirt as I was sitting down to eat and I think I did have a panic attack actually. I quickly rushed to grab a new shirt from my car, as people were yelling at me to come back. I needed to get out. I told people at the time that I needed to make sure my shirt didn't stain, but I think that was a lie, I needed to get out of there. I needed to calm down. It hurt. Everyone saw me get sauce on my shirt, and like, people laughed. Normally I would too. In fact I tried to do that. I couldn't, and I needed to get out of there. I changed in the bathroom and scrubbed the stains out with a bar of soap.

I left that shirt at Grandma's.

7th, August 2022

[pastj-futurej]

Double XP PJ Weekend

Do you ever think about the flaw in the system I created? About half of the months end in an odd number, and all of them begin in one. That means that every once in a while, I, PJ get two days in a row where I have to post. I knew this would happen going in to this, but man it sure did sneak up on me.

When Josiah became old enough to get shotgun seating in the car, we fought about it a lot. Until we came up with this as a solution. I got odd days, and Josiah got even, that way our birthdays fell on the day we were in shotgun in the car. He got so mad when he realized that I had days in a row, but there was nothing he could do about it.

So I knew this would happen, but still shocking.

August 1st, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

Sometimes...

Every time I hear the word "sometimes", I think of the Jeff Rosenstock Lyric, "Sometimes, I want to take my car out on the road, flip it in to park, and smash myself into a million little pieces". And every time I think that, I think, "Wow, that's dark, I probably should mention that in therapy whenever I go, to see why I focus on that line so heavily", and then I remember that I'm not in therapy yet, and I should probably work on that, but then the thought passes and I go back to doing what I was doing before.

July 31, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

Have you watched The Rehearsal?

I'm not specifically talking to you FJ, I'm talking to whoever is listening. The Rehearsal is a show about Nathan Fielder helping people through life events while also trying to figure out if he wants to have kids. He also makes insane recreations of these events for people to experience.

My friend Rusty Pepper put Nathan Fielder as her favorite TV Antagonist on her version of the meme I posted a couple days ago, and everything in this show seems to back this point up.

Light spoilers for The Rehearsal incoming.

Nathan Fielder is visibly older in The Rehearsal than he was in Nathan For You. And this age makes him look more sinister. I feel this is intentional, as they could have easily done things to make him look younger, but didnt.

While Nathan For You was a story of a lonely, yet well meaning man, with ideas that tend to be unorthodox, The Rehearsal is a show about a liar, who positions himself as if he is a god, manipulating people to help them, but removing their choice in it.

Episode 1 displays this with the man Nathan is helping, by having him subtly learn the trivia answers in day-to-day life. When the man finds out that Nathan has done this, he goes on a rant about how awful a person he is. I can see both sides of this, as Nathan did not give him the chance to prove himself, and he feels hurt because of it. But also, I can see why Nathan would do this; it is his goal to make everything go right, no matter the cost, and sometimes that cost is morals.

Earlier in the episode the man compares Nathan to Willy Wonka, and Nathan misunderstands the comment, painting Wonka as a villain. The episode ends with Wonka's "World of Pure Imagination" song playing over the credits, painting a pure sign above Nathan's head, saying that he is a villain.

Episode 2 begins full throttle, with it seeming like Nathan is stealing a baby. We find out soon after that no, that isn't what is happening, but we are left with the unease, as the episode continues, as he continues with the facsimile of parenthood, eventually implementing himself into it. In this way Nathan has decided himself so important that he must be there. The kid's name is even Adam, and Nathan, his Father. How much clearer can it be that Nathan is trying to paint himself as a god.

The episode ends with him on the phone with the parents of the kids being used to create the simulation, using a flowchart to guide his conversation, allowing for every possibility.

I don't know what this all memes. I can see the points, but I don't know how to connect them.

July 29th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

I am not depressed

So, I struggle with depressive episode sometimes. I wake up more tired than ever, with no motivation to do anything, and I walk through the day like a zombie, every moment that I'm not distracting myself my brain pelting me with socially self destructive thoughts. These are the times that I end up throwing myself into Minecraft and craving copius amounts of Taco Bell.

Usually there's 3 or 4 days like this a month. Nothing too serious, I wake up the next morning feeling great. I don't have enough depressive episodes to be considered depressed (I believe the standard is you have to have depressive symptoms for at least 2 weeks, and excluding the time after graduation, right as Covid hit, I haven't had any depressive episodes nearing that length).

However, for the past 3 days I have been in a depressive episode. It sucked. I played way too much Minecraft and felt guilty for it; I couldn't focus on any DnD things I went to; My brain kept telling me to break up with Sawyer because he's costing me too much money. This sucked. But I knew I was wrong. Finally the episode broke. And here I am now, feeling good again, after a nights sleep. Things are on an upswing again, and I feel good.

I'm not depressed, and I feel good.

To anyone who is depressed, I'm so sorry, it must suck so bad, and you are so much stronger than I am. I could not permanently live my life like that. I can't tell you for sure that it gets better, because I don't know you, and I don't know that, but I can tell you that no matter who you are, or what you've done, the world is better with you in it. You still have experiences to share, and stories to tell. So keep fighting, not for me, but for you.

(Technically written the next morning but shhh)

July 27th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

Is this getting to me?

I think I had a phycotic break. But first some context.

There's a meme on twitter recently where people will say something along the lines of "I can't believe people are still a fan of [celebrity] after there were human remains found in their house in 2015". This is a riff of someone who said this about Anna Kendrick, because they had gone off their meds, and had a psychotic break.

So I was in bed last night, thinking about Will Ferrell, and how he was in a movie costaring with Mark Wahlberg. I realized thinking about Mark Wahlberg that it was funny that he was in so many comedies, since he takes himself so seriously, even going so far as to infamously state that "9/11 would have gone different" had he been on those planes, implying that he could have stopped 9/11.

I then remembered this information, that when he was younger he had beat up and harassed an old Asian man, with his friends, and he had served some time in jail for it. I believe there was a few times he did this too. This counts as a Hate Crime against Asian people. The old man ended up being interviewed and forgave Mark later, but said something along the lines of "it's not just up to me to forgive him though".

This to me very much feels like the joke about having a phycotic break where someone has done something horrible, but actually it's not real. I really find this space I'm at right now interesting. I'm not sure if this thing that I think happened is actually real. I think that FJ, you should look into whether or not this actually happened, and let me live with this mystery.

Thanks,

July 25th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

A Divide

I feel divided between two worlds sometimes. I feel it's most obvious in my bisexuality, where while I am as a whole bisexual, I am attracted to men, and women, (and everyone else), and in that way I am "too straight to be gay", and "too gay to be straight".

This is not a new observation, I think it's something every video I've ever watched about Bisexuality has ever said. But where I want to take this is an observation about other divides in my life, and whether or not my bisexuality had any subconscious influence on them.

Gender is weird. I guess that's probably why the term Genderqueer exists. Throughout my life I felt pulls towards masculinity and feminity, that go beyond the normal ones that everyone experiences, (this may also be due to my extended contemplation sessions of myself staring in a mirror analysing all of my imperfections). When I was a small child, I had long hair. I didn't get my first haircut until I was 2, and at that time I donated the hair, if I remember correctly. But there was many times that people would think I was a girl, and apparently I would pipe up, and loudly tell them that no, I wasn't a girl, I was just a boy that had long hair, and that the same went for Josiah too. Even Past-er J was so secure in his gender at the time. I think gender is one of those things that for me, changes over time. As I grew older, I had more instances of pulls towards traditionally feminine things, I felt jealous of my younger siblings forcing each other to wear dresses, I wanted to watch My Little Pony, and tried to convince Avrah to watch it with me so I would have a cover (they did not want to watch it with me, and so to this day is still haven't seen past the first 13 or so episodes). I felt a traditionally masculine sex drive, feel comfortable in traditionally masculine clothes. I grew my hair out again, this time not stopping to correct people who say I'm a girl. I've come to the conclusion through this that likely I'm genderfluid of some sort. Sometimes I'm scared to diagnose myself as anything more feminine than that, because that would be a lot of struggles that I don't want to go through, and also where I am at now is fine. I want to be skinnier, clean shaven, softer, and have long hair; none of these require being a women. I want to wear suits and ties, and have gay sex; none of these require being a man. This is an interesting divide, that has gone on many tangents oops. But also, gender is a complex experience and to simplify would not do it the justice it needs. This divide has allowed me to look back and forth, again existing in another liminal space.

Let's rapid fire a bunch of other divides! My parents are divorced, and I tried to stay neutral on it; my job is both white and blue collar, seeing as it's a desk job on the production floor, being looked down upon by elitest office workers, and the manual laborers doing twice as much work as I am; I'm don't really get energized by social situations or being alone, it's more nuanced than that, and I consider myself abiverted; I'm a Christian who is highly critical of the church; I live in a rented room that's not really a house, but also not an apartment complex; I know enough about the internet that I could be famous, but I don't have the motivation to grind that hard; I'm smart but I never did amazing in school.

I don't know what any of this means. It might mean nothing. It might mean that humans are very good at seeing patterns, and are even better at hindsight. It might mean something though, that my life has been filled with divides making me feel like an outcast.

July 23rd, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

An Escalation

So, in my last post, I posted a meme about my favorite games, and things have escalated.

It started with someone in TMV posting this to fill out, and I racked my brain really hard to fill it out with as many Anime that I've seen as possible; it turns out I haven't seen a ton. I had to throw Infinity Train and Ninjago on here just to finish filling it out oops.

I probably should watch more Anime, but I'll go into that rant later.

Anyways, after that, this was posted

So I'd filled it out. This one was a lot easier, because I've seen a lot of movies. I will say, I tried very hard to limit the amount of blockbusters I had on here, because while I like Blockbusters as fun, I don't feel the substance behind them is always there.

Anyways, as you can imagine, the natural conclusion of this is a TV Shows one; however no one sent one to the chat. I had to take things into my own hands

I ended up changing it to have Favorite Show of All time at the end so these be less anticlimactic.

Shockingly the hardest one to figure out a show for was the "Worst Ending" one, as I don't think I've finished many shows. Like, 11/23 of these shows I never ended up finishing. That's just under half! Ben 10 is probably the one on here that I haven't finished yet, that I most want to actually finish, but like I'm probably never going to watch the last season of Brooklyn 99, I'm never going to catch up with Rick and Morty, I'm never going to watch Stranger Things 4+5. I just don't care about them.

I also really want to finish Kid Cosmic, everything I've seen about it looks amazing, and the first season was so good.

Anyways, have these updated FJ? I know you probably hate the homework, but y'know I like making sure you have stuff to talk about.

July 21st, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

Am I a gamer?

So, I like video games. And I filled this out last night.

But I also wanted to make one where you can only use each game once.

This on it's own is interesting as it is a look into my soul, but also, the fact that I've played enough games to be able to fill this out. I never feel like I've played that many games, but there's 23 that I've played (with the exception of Hitman, but that's on there because I've watched enough content about it that it might as well be my favorite active franchise especially because most active franchises I don't feel comfortable putting there, like Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, ect).

Has this list changed at all FJ? I think you should fill it out if it has.

June 19th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

I went on vacation with Sawyer for his birthday! It was tons of fun! We went to see the OKC Science Museum, and Factory Obscura. Both were so much fun! Hey FJ don't forget to check out the next Factory Obscura exhibit, it will be ending soon if you haven't yet.

I don't have much else to say honestly.

July 17th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

Why is the Umbrella Corporation so Disproportionately Idolized?

In media fandom (a fun play on in media res?), you will always find people saying that "Actually the villains are the good guys 🤓", whether it be Star Wars fans saying the Empire did nothing wrong, or Marvel fans saying that Thanos did nothing wrong, or Kartate Kid fans saying that Kobra Kai did nothing wrong (Wow, all of these movements have "did nothing wrong" prominently featured in them, I wonder if there's a real world movement that these things are parodying, but at some point they lost that?).

But seemingly more than any other fandom, proportional to it's size, I see people idolizing The Umbrella Corporation from the Resident Evil games. It seems like every day I see another car with it's logo on the side, another piece of merch for it at my local game store, another person with their logo as a profile picture, and I've just got to ask, they're the villains, right?

I'd like to follow that question up with, no, I haven't played the games or seen the movies, my interaction with the Resident Evil series extends to reviews of those; but like, my awareness of these is that Umbrella Corp. created the Zombie Virus in all of these, and constantly tries to cover it up, something that judging by how many games there are, was a bad idea.

But like, proportional to how big The Resident Evil Franchise is, there are a shocking number of people who celebrate Umbrella Corp, compared to the amount that celebrate Thanos, or The Empire.

Anyways, all of this is to say that I'm going to try and keep track of the Umbrella Corp logos that I see. Like, the one on the car in my workplace's parking lot. Or the one I keep seeing in Claremore.

July 15th, 2022

[pastj-futurej]

My Obsessions

I'm a digital hoarder. I horde as much information as I can. Not because I specifically want it, or think it will be useful to me, but because it could be useful to someone, and I don't want it to be forgotten.

Anytime anyone deletes anything from the internet, it scares me. Sure there may be archives, but where are they, and how accessible are they? Experiencing that post is something I am then unable to ever do again.

A similar thing is frightening about truly lost media; The movies they burnt, the shows they deleted, and the games that remain unfinished. Experiences to never be had. That makes me extremely uncomfortable, that I will never even have the option to see these things.

The internet is rotting, before our eyes, yet no one notices, and those who do can do nothing. Every day I find more links that are broken, more websites that are forgotten, and further still things are challenged, I wonder every time if I too will end up like them. Will people be reading this a year from now? Two years? 5 years? 10? Will I be remembered long after my passing? I don't know, and I scare myself with that thought. And so I work to remember others, to archive what I can, so that they won't be forgotten, and when the time comes, I won't be forgotten.

July 13th, 2022

(P.S. While writing this up, I accidentally posted it, and had to delete the post; ironically making it Lost Media for the past year. Lol lmao)

[pastj-futurej]

Continuing the Trend

A while ago, I watched a series called Past Bing, Future Bing, by Chris Bingham, and it was inspirational. Due to the fact that I'm unsure of how to do anything but remix what has come before (see: SibLight), I figured I'd give this a shot in Blog format.

Anyways, happy July 11th.

So, where am I, in life at the moment.

Well, I'm 20, soon to be 21, working a data entry job, making 17.50 an hour. I have a fiance, who is slated to move in with me soon. I consider myself bisexual, and really need to start working out more. Recently SibLight crashed and burned due to my laptop being unable to export videos, and I spent about an hour earlier trying to figure out what specs I should have on my new PC. If everything goes according to plan, you should have that around now, FJ.

We have a one-eyed cat named Cyclops, who is amazing, and our newest Sibiling is on the horizon, happening sometime in August (Potentially even sharing a birthday with us? That would be the funniest slap in the face I've ever received).

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I have hopes and dreams that scare me. I want to make a movie. I want to write. I want to understand everything. I want to make puppets. I want to grow old. I want to live fast, die young. I want to experience as much as possible. I want to live a stable life, with nothing crazy happening.

Sometimes I'm scared I let my friends down, and have to talk myself in circles to make sure what I am trying to say is clear.

Sometimes I feel like I have circumstancial evidence for everyone I love secretly hating me. Sometimes I'm okay with that. Sometimes I'm not.

I don't think I can technically call myself depressed. For that you have to have week long depressive episodes at least once a month. I chart my depressive episodes, and if I didn't, I would probably consider myself depressed. But because I have evidence of how I'm feeling, how often, I can't. Usually it's just 2-4 days a month that are marked as depressive episodes. Never in rows longer than 2. Usually these days are listed as depressive episodes despite only lasting a couple hours.

I probably have an iron deficiency. I hate to admit it. It feels like my toes, cheeks, and ears have a hard time regulating their temperature with them always being cold. I also eat things that I'm not supposed to. Recently I've been eating copius amounts of toilet paper while in the bathroom at work. I've always had problems with eating paper. Did you know syrofoam packing peanuts taste like Cheetos mixed with glue? Did you know that I could probably give myself tetnis from eating rocks? Did you know that metal doesn't really like passing through the body?

I hate that I do this, and would love to change. But deep down really do i? This has been a problem for so long, and if I really wanted to change I would have by now. FJ, what do you think?

I think I need therapy.

July 11th, 2022