sedna-integration

[sedna-integration]

I'm tired.

I'm emotionally and mentally exhausted.

I turned 30 yesterday and all day I only wanted to go back home and stare at a wall instead of doing my job. I didn't take my emotional state out on anyone. If anything I went out of my way to try talking to customers who seemed down. But I still need to air out what I'm feeling right now and why because I don't really want to talk about this with anyone.

I do want to preface by saying I have had good things happen to me and I'm appreciative of those things. But the bad is what is weighing on me right now.

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The past few years have sucked ass. I knew what my orientation was since before using this site in 2009 but never openly commented about it b/c I saw how weird people could get not only from knowing but also the way I can see people try to force ideological things.

The moment I offhandedly mention in in a relevant context that's exactly what happened. That same person went on to disrespect my boundaries and try to force a relationship on me despite explaining to them as politely as I could that I would never date them because of things that have been said/done to me by them. I can see they have grown/changed. But I still just can't. (This started from them learning my orientation.)

Moreover prior to the above: I came across a transwoman who was into some of the stuff I was into and we were just talking/hanging7 out. I think I mentioned one convo I had w/ her about social stuff he lashed out at me. "You're a heterosexual male invading a trans space".

1. I'm bi and was before I met this dude. 2. She and I quite literally hit it off over discussing social issues and Monster Hunter. 3. She actually decided to approach me; not the other way around. Aside from checking on her mental once I never pushed for direct convo before she did. Not that I was uninterested in doing so. I just didn't think she'd want to so I didn't bother.

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I've had two different people lash out at me and tell me my life is easy. I don't know the full scope of what was going on with them because neither told me. One of them had to deal with his parents divorcing. Despite doing what I could to be there for him by using most of what little money I had as a teenager to check on him weekly via public transport he rarely if ever went outside for over 6y after.

When he finally did go out in college he blamed me for not trying harder. He blamed me for not understanding because "you make friends so easily". I don't. People see I'm nice to people and try to use/abuse me. I give out help liberally (I'm mindful not to strech myself too thin) but none of those people were close to me and most of them did not care about my wellbeing.

He also insisted I had multiple relationships (not all at once mind you) because of secondhand and wrong info just b/c I was seen in the mall with different chicks over the years.

In truth? I was nearly fucked over socially b/c a woman tried to steal me from her supposed best friend and when I denied her advances she made false accusations. To make it worse she tried molesting me repeatedly and all her false accusations were things she tried to do to me. I was lucky it went nowhere. It still fucked me up mentally for 3 years.

But yeah somehow I'd been dating even though I was in mental disrepair.

The truth? I was hanging out in a group for every single thing he mentioned. I was just one of a few guys & there were always more chicks than us in college groups. None of them ever dated me. Some even, without my ever asking, said they'd never do so b/c I'm black so L M FUCKING A O.

I politely told him to never speak to me again. I explained his refusal to actually listen to what he was mistaken about, judging me based on assumptions, lack of attempting to find out what lengths I went to to check on him or anything like that made me feel he has no respect for me.

To make it worse mutuals tried to force me to hang out with him after this despite me explaining in greater detail why I refused to. I was made out to be "whiny", "unreasonable", "inflexible" etc. I put a lot of time and effort into checking on and caring for this dude not expecting anything from doing so. To be lashed out at for not trying hard enough when I put my own wants to the side to be there for him? Absurd.

Paying for the bus to go out to where everyone else lived was a sacrifice I made that prevented me from buying things I wanted to buy or going places I wanted to go because I was poor. I never complained about doing it. I'm not even complaining about it right now. But it's important to understand I actively chose to do that and got ragged on anyway. My prioritizing the wellbeing of a friend over my personal enjoyment wasn't something I had to do. I did it because I wanted to. I sincerely hope he is doing well but I never want to see or speak to him again. I am not tolerating that. Especially because he had months to rectify his misunderstanding or to talk to me about any of this before the day he wantonly laid into me about things he assumed.

The second was drunk off his ass and it did lead to us not speaking for a while but I've let it pass. I'm not really sure what to do with this situation but I've just decided to see how this one pans out b/c it never came up again aside from the 1 off situation.

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I had someone simply not properly read most what I say for the past 5ish years and assume I'm a misogynist because I speak about guys issues sometimes. Completely missing the fact that I have a better working understanding of social issues than they do and also speak about women's issue too. "Why did you always talk about guys issues to me" Gee I dunno you keep saying things I can't be sure are ignorant or misandrist so instead of accosting you I try to be educational about it. I do the same shit w/ women's issues and they have seen me do this repeatedly. Selective ignorance I guess.

She (also MTF but different from the person mentioned above) apologized and even said she'd betrayed me. This is when they finally asked questions like the above and said "oh you responded in a way I didn't expect you to, that's good". I replied via the discord reply function to show I said most of the exact same things I answered her questions with that night years ago.

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Another friend lashes out at me because she keeps reading things I say in the most negative possible light. She asked me to do some stuff on an account of hers. The HSR RNG manipulation stuff. While I'm looking over her items I record my doing so to explain what I'm doing as I do it. TLDR: it's a lot of pattern recognition stuff.

I tried to see what the current pattern was likely to be then I looked for items that had worthwhile stats based on what the pattern would likely upgrade. So if top down the stats are 1 2 3 4 and the pattern was 2424 I'd be looking for items with stats worth boosting in both the 2 and 4 slot. When she watched the clips of me just quietly thinking her assumptions were all about how I was prolly thinking her items were shit. That was nowhere remotely near where I was mentally.

When I ask "why did you do x" I ask because I'm trying to understand what her aim was. What she was trying to find. What she was aiming at. I CAN understand that could be taken in a more admonishing way.

But when she makes it clear to me that's what she thought I was doing and I clarify "nah, I was just trying to understand what you were aiming at/looking for" then insists "no you were insulting me" or something similar? I don't think the issue is so much what I'm saying as much as how you're choosing to read it.

Because I heard you. I understood what happened. I tried to rectify things. Hell maybe you need space and that's fine. But you're choosing to disregard the clarity I'm giving and double down on insisting I was trying to do something I wasn't.

I'm made to be accountable for her emotions.

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I get mad. A lot of what I've spoken about here pisses me all the way the fuck off. But I still sit and process and mitigate and talk through things. I compartmentalize my emotions to a degree even w/ arguments b/c I think focusing on the topic at hand to resolve it is the main thing that needs to be focused on.

I do this b/c I've come to feel if I don't the other party won't. Learned behavior. And honestly? I'm starting to believe it just lets people think they can fuck me over b/c I have a higher tolerance. The tolerance I built up is so I can hopefully work through a situation others can't. It doesn't mean I'm letting you get away with more. I will mention after the main topic whatever you said that hurt and how/why it hurt me. I'll even say it doesn't need to be addressed in the moment but I want to come back to it. And so often people want to sweep things aside and call me out for not dropping things. I drop things when they are something that happens occasionally. If a behavior is consistent it needs to be addressed. If you're gonna blatantly disrespect my feelings/emotions but expect me to value yours?

I shouldn't have to tell you how hypocritical that is.

I have not wanted to poof out of existence this much in a long time.

I'm tired. I'm angry. But I'm not allowed to be angry. Because it's my fault. My phrasing. How I speak.

If I don't assume the worst of you 24/7 why do you assume the worst of me? I understand self-esteem issues being a factor. I understand you had a rough couple years. But the way you treat me is not okay and is something that predates your recent struggles. And now I've shifted to typing this as if I'm talking to you even though I'm 99% certain you won't even see this.

I'm so fucking tired.

[sedna-integration]

Just you wait fucker

Dont mind me omw to make an Invoked Myutant deck to reunite my favorite baniship

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Still bothered by the US cultural idea that men can only be non-romantically intimate with one another in war-like or competitive circumstances.

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I spent ten years building up a following on Tumblr. I had 30k+ followers, great engagement, it helped my career thrive like nothing else. I could quit my day job and live off the fan base I’d accrued.

Then, their policies changed. Half my work was no longer allowed. People left the site in droves. I left too, for awhile. I came back to a ghost town. I still have 25k followers, but I don’t think more than 10% are active anymore. I’m followed by ghosts. Same with DeviantArt, although I was never quite as big there, and I’ve been gone so much longer.

This disallowed half of my work was never allowed on Facebook in the first place, or Instagram, but their algorithms are such that my stuff rarely makes it to anyone’s feeds, and if I post a link to where people could actually pay me for my content, it’s hidden unless I pay for it. Patreon swept my work away to a dark corner where no one could see it unless I personally guided them there. Twitch is so strict you can’t even show bare feet. The death of Google Reader means nobody follows RSS feeds anymore, so I can’t direct people to my own site.

So there’s Twitter I guess, where I can post whatever I want, but again, algorithms. But more than that, I don’t have the energy to build up a following once again on a site I don’t own that can delete my career on a whim. The thought of spending time jumping around through hoops for attention just to have it taken away again has stripped any motivation I had to try.

The internet has been gentrified. All the small cute houses and mom & pop shops have been shut down and replaced by big corporations that control everything. I’ve been making webcomics for twenty years, and at the start, the internet was a beautiful wild place. Everyone had a home page. It was like having a house and people came to visit you and you would visit other people in their houses. Now, we don’t visit each other in personal spaces anymore. It’s like we have to visit each other in the aisles of a megamart. Everything is clean and sanitized and the weirdos who made the internet what it was are no longer welcome. No space for freaks anymore.

People still ask me for advice on how to break into comics, and I don’t have any wisdom because I don’t recognize the internet anymore. I don’t feel comfortable working within its boundaries which seems to be getting smaller and smaller and smaller. None of the tools I used when I started exist anymore. They’ve been replaced by things I don’t know how to use. I don’t think I could break into comics today. 2002 had so few barriers compared to now. You might have started on Keenspace, but you could reach a point where you could break away to your own site and people would go to it. Now, you start on Webtoon or Patreon and I guess you just stay there? It feels so much like owning a hardware store for years and then having to go work as a cashier at the Home Depot that put you out of business. I’m looking at my career trajectory and it all points to being a Wal-Mart greeter with uncontrolled arthritis.

I don’t want to make “content,” I want to make comics, I want to make art, and I want to do it in a space that is mine. I’m not sure there’s a place for that anymore.

[sedna-integration]

this is so funny

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If you haven’t already checked out https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ there are some mind blowing discussions & insights on there

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like if people could focus on applicability > emotionality just once that would be lovely

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People often mistake “your feelings are valid” with “your reaction based on your feelings is ok”

Which isn’t the same thing

You’re entitled to how you feel. You’re not entitled to behave however you want based off of those feelings

[sedna-integration]

one of my history professors has been trying to point out why 'cancel culture' is toxic for almost 2 semesters now and i kept rejecting his arguments because i still thought canceling people had some tangible benefits despite sometimes hitting the wrong targets or going a little overboard, i insisted there was room for nuance and it could be 'done correctly' and that it was actually about ~holding people accountable~, but watching lindsay ellis be forced to publicly relive her rape because a bunch of strangers on the internet demanded she suffer in the name of Wokeness has finally broken me. we're retraumatizing queer women and for what.

[sedna-integration]

I just think we shouldn’t hurt people on purpose and every single day I grapple with how upsetting and angering that idea is to people. 

[sedna-integration]

if you ain’t bitter, you’re blind.

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now that florida legislators have legalized child molestation because they hate trans people so much, i think its long long past time we bring back political assassination.

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Hot take: Actual literary analysis requires at least as much skill as writing itself, with less obvious measures of whether or not you’re shit at it, and nobody is allowed to do any more god damn litcrit until they learn what the terms “show, don’t tell” and “pacing” mean.

[sedna-integration]

Diminish: A Grave Game for One Player

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From the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Handbook [pdf]

[sedna-integration]

turkey and azerbaijan are attacking armenia right now, and it’s 1915 all over again because the world is distracted and people are too busy wondering if they’re gonna live or die, and who gives a shit about my country anyway? my mum told me to tell my friends and explain to them what’s happening and that we are the victims in this war because azerbaijan is spreading lies and people are believing their lies and i told her, what good is that going to do? do you think anyone’s going to come to our aid? is russia going to help us? is america? is england? erdogan said they will finish what their ancestors started, and he means genocide. he means ethnic cleansing. he means to massacre every last one of us. and in doing so admitted to the very same thing turkey has spent 105 years denying. i don’t know who to tell and what good telling people will do because we’re a small, insignificant country, and we have nothing to offer to the people in power, the handful who rule the world. so i sit here with my pain and i feel helpless. i know there’s twitter threads and links to petitions and people being urged to contact their senators, and sorry if im being pessimistic, but azerbaijan has been attacking us for the last 22 years, and though we defend ourselves, we can’t do anything to stop them. they’ve violated ceasefires (and geneva conventions) multiple times. i don’t think they’ll rest until every last one of us is dead.

we just want peace. we just want to live peacefully. we’re not asking for a lot here.