#empoletrons shit

[pochqmqri]

I am seeking some advice regarding a landlord situation.

I've started a new job that has me relocate to a different part of the state about 2 hours a drive away, thus I needed to seek housing in the area.

Last month, I went through several choices and decided on one, after touring the property. The landlord and I agreed to have me move in on August 8, and she asked for the deposit in advance, so that she could "hold" the room and not continue to sell it to other people. Not knowing better, I paid the deposit in full, which was just one month's rent, however, I should have asked to her to have a proper lease ready to be signed.

After the payment, she promised to have a lease ready to sign, but kept kicking the can on it, despite me reminding her multiple times. Eventually, she does, but as a poorly written and formatted text message that has yet to be finalized.

But leading up to that, over the next few weeks, she texts me saying that the move-in date is "August 8-10," which doesn't make sense, and she had said otherwise previously. Apprently, it was because the outgoing tenant wasn't sure on what date they would move out. That dint exactly work for me because I started working on July 29 and my benefactos provided me on-campus housing up to the 8th, if I moved in on the 9th or 10th, I would have no place to stay in that gap. The landlord then says that she would provide me temporary housing where I could stay for a rate per day. It wasn't ideal, but I decided to go with it.

Then, she next texts me saying the move-in date is the 20th, the reason being that she wants to have the roof and carpet renovated between the 8th and 20th. She did not disclose that to me when I paid my deposit, and when I told her that, she said that I would have temporary housing for those 12 days, which, from what she described, was just staying on a couch at one of her other properties with no Wi-Fi, for $20-25 per day. This was also around the point where I looked up her info on Google and found out that she's part of a seedy realtor company, which she didn't disclose, but it became apparent when she had to "get back" to me on certain questions.

Going back to the text message lease, she writes on it that my move-in date will be the 8th, like normal, and when I asked about all the date pushing back she did earlier, she said that the renovators were going to reschedule for a different unspecified date, and that I "might" be able to move-in on the promised date. But that didn't make sense, because if they rescheduled, it would likely happen after August 8, meaning I'd move in but then quickly have to relocate to a temporary location, and that was, much more trouble than worth.

A few days later I tell her I'm no longer interested in signing the lease, to which she says that I made her hold the room for me and the deposit is nonrefundable, despite the fact that she told me when I paid that it was, to which she responds that spits refundable onlupy when the lease ends. One, she didn't clarify that when I paid the deposit, and two, the lease never started if I didn't sign it. I then tel hr that she made me pay under false pretenses due to the surprise renovation, and that I no longer trust her to keep her word. She then responds that "to make it simple and easy," the renovation isn't happening at all, which confused,p me, because she said the renovators were rescheduling and that she'd soon learn the date Ina few days. That was when our conversation ended.

Regarding my deposit, I'm thinking about taking this matter to the state. Maryland has a consumer protection agency, and I believe I have the standing to file a complaint against her for misleading me, especially when I have text message evidence. However, as it currently stands, the lease as she has poorly written it states my term begins on August 8, which is what was initially promised, so I'm not sure I have standing anymore. I never told her I plan to file a lawsuit yet, because if I do, it would irreparably damage my relationship with her, so I amt to be sure this is something I can get my deposit back on.

Another option came up though. When I told her I wasn't interested in signing the lease, she, in what seemed to be an act of desperation, said that I could instead change the lease length from six months to just one. I passed this up as I was insistent on no longer moving in, but if I do take it, I could eventually get my deposit back assuming I don't damage anything in that short stay. the monthly rent is also not that different from the other options I have been looking at. The issues are that, I still am not certain she's keeping her word on me not having to temporarily relocate if she has renovators come in, and I fear our working relationship already has cracks in it so I might run into trouble with her during my one month stay.

[pochqmqri]

A week ago I finally quit my shitty job of about a year, and I'm so relieved to be out. I only stayed as long as I did because I didn't have another job to exit to, even though I had been applying to numerous jobs while working and got rejected by most of them, or ghosted.

The only things I'll really miss working there are the higher pay, as I recently got a slight raise by a dollar more back in April, and the benefits that came with the job. But even those weren't enough to outweigh the fact that, I'd been working a very laborious job taking apart and cleaning rodent cages, and myself and the other people in the cagewash department had unreasonable expectations placed on us by those up in management.

One thing that sticks out to me was how, in the lead up to inspection day at the building, we never had fans in the area we worked in, despite it getting hot due to all the steam cleaning machines. Yet they finally added fans just to "look good" for the inspectors. And once we passed, they took them away, under the guise that the air was "interfering" with the rodents the caretakers handled, even though I know for a fact that was complete bullshit.

The rodents lived in cages hooked onto a ventilated rack, how the fuck could that be possible?

There were many other things management pulled that pissed me off, such as how they promised that on July 4 we'd get an early dismissal (as was standard for "major" holidays), but then the day came, and they never gave us a notice, only skirting around the issue until it became apparent that we were working the full day, in contrast to other buildings on campus.

Later this month, I'm starting a new job, a lab-based research job with a state university. The location is a bit farther out from the usual place where I live, so I'll have to rent, and the pay is worse, with no benefits (so far), but I'm so glad to be fucking out of that hell hole.

[pochqmqri]

I paid ~$600 in taxes total

[pochqmqri]

Target rejected my job application because my availability doesn't "match" their needs despite the fact that I selected basically all days of the week at all times, which should show how seriously companies are taking hiring people.

[pochqmqri]

This weekend was Katsucon, and I had a really fun time hanging out with friends and wandering around.

I didn't cosplay since I had no real good ideas, so one friend told me that I should still "wear something cute," which gave me an idea.

Most of the people at the con are in costume, people of all different genders wearing various costumes. If I wore feminine clothing and presented myself as my actual gender, even for just a short bit, I won't have to worry about being judged.

Until now, I never really presented myself like this in public, so it was a bit nerve-wracking at first, but I'm glad I did. Rather than a sense of gender dysphoria, I felt moreso, euphoria, you could say. I wore two different outfits for two of the three days of the con. I would have done three, but my wig didn't come in until Friday afternoon.

I wish I could have shown off my full face more, but I'm extremely dysphoric about my facial structure, and while I have been on laser for several months now, there are still parts of my face that I'm conscious about at the moment.

This year marks about a decade since I came to the realization that I'm transgender. I haven't really made much progress for most of it, not coming out to many people publicly, almost getting outed to my parents in late 2017, and the pandemic making me slack on my physical appearance. But in the past year, I've started to make more progress. I hope to go out more like this soon!

[pochqmqri]

At my job there's an opportunity to do overtime for five hours at a nearby building for the next couple of weekends and, I'm thinking about doing it (once Katsucon is over next week) so I can make more money, since i don't really have much of a social life most of the time.

I'm starting this weekend and I just know that I'm going to hate doing this, I already don't like this job but the reason I haven't really left is because they pay well and the job hunt has been mostly turning up unsuccessful.

Relatedly, I've spent way too much this month on frivolous shit like the ticket for Katsucon, a bunch of stuff I'm importing from Japan, clothes, and who knows what I'll buy next weekend. I might have a spending issue now, it may not be that big of a deal because I have a lot of money and I still live with my parents, but I still feel guilty, especially when I see my friends around me struggle to make ends meet. In any case, I should show more self-control in the next couple of months.

[pochqmqri]

In January of 2023, I snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef.

So my year peaked early on.

...but, that doesn't mean the rest of my year was bad in general.

I stopped accepting unpaid internships and started working for pay, even if I applied for about 50 different jobs and got rejected/ghosted, I managed to secure some part-time work for most of the year, earning money, and then by August, I managed to start working full-time, earning even more money, that I could spend on stuff I wanted to buy.

I promised myself after last year, that each year, I would take more steps in my transition, and this past year, I started seeking laser hair treatments on my face, neck, and legs. This coming year, I will continue to keep my promise.

This year was a lot of work, and I don't really expect that to change, but it has been the best one I've had since 2019, really.

[pochqmqri]

Fuck STEM jobs honestly, there are barely any entry-level jobs here that don't require at least 1-2 years of professional experience, and those that don't refuse to respect your time wrt getting back to you on applications. Since this year begun, I've applied to at least 30 different positions, even interviewed for a few, and less than half gave me a direct rejection.

I'm not going back to school, I should just bite the bullet and go back to food service honestly.

[pochqmqri]

I'm thinking about the laser hair professional I consulted on Thursday who said that their business was having a 50% off sale until the end of June, so I had really only one day to decide on whether I wanted to begin treatments with them, only I was very hesitant because I would be doing monthly payments of about $250 per month for the next 36 months (since it's the usual reduction + unlimited lifetime touch-ups afterwards) which would total to more than $9,000 by the end.

Then, as the month changed to July just now, their "Summer 50% Off Sale" now says "until July 31st," which is kind of funny, but at least I have more time to think this through.

[pochqmqri]

It's honestly kind of ridiculous how much federal jobs don't respect you enough to even send you back a clear rejection letter or anything, so you just have no idea if your application is being considered or not. I applied to several entry-level positions on USAJOBS over the past couple of months and haven't heard shit back.

[pochqmqri]

It has now been a full year since my ex broke up with me, after "no longer having any romantic feelings" for me. The same ex who had been so dismissive of my sexual wants in our relationship, that she would never give the time of day to even look at or compliment any of my nudes because she was asexual now, that she didn't feel horny anymore to engage in sexting, but would continue on the side to do those activities with random strangers on her 18+ accounts. The same one who, on the day of the breakup, just before it, asked to see my nudes to "test something," since she was "feeling horny again and wanted to check against something [she] knew she wasn't for," only to break the bad news after, and then criticize my nudes because she only likes "full body shots" despite constantly sharing tummy and dick pics of other random girls. The same one who said that when she reblogged posts about girlcock, she said it was "only in jest" and didn't mean that she was sexually attracted to me, that is, I was being fetishized by her. I'm not going to say another trans woman is a chaser, but she was showing chaser tendencies. The same one who would engage in sexting with other members of the polycule server I used to be in, but when I brought up that I felt left out, she said there was nothing she could do about that. The same one who refused to be there for me emotionally during our relationship, such as when my own native country was being coup'd, or when my friend's mom died after a driver hit her, that she didn't have "the spoons" and would consistently pass it over to our other (an another ex) partner or ask if I had a therapist to talk to, treating the polycule like she could designate tasks she didn't want to do with me to other people.

It's also been a full year since I last talked to her, the last thing I said to her being that she had gaslighted me too many times in our relationship, and her last thing trying to deny it, ending with, "seeing all this, i feel like you were only looking at my sexual side as if you were trying to isolate it from the rest of my self but in doing so failed to understand key things about myself as a whole, hence your confusion as to why i would interact with sexual content that i wouldn't theoretically like." I have several regrets of that relationship, such as spending an exorbitant amount on Canadian shipping to give her gifts for her birthday from Japan, which she felt no real remorse for in our breakup, but one regret that sticks with me was how I should have called her out on her hypocrisy and been more rude about it. I was stupid for letting her get away with so much, and she was thus able to get away scot-free thinking that she did nothing wrong (technically it was a centrist both-sidesy "neither of us did anything wrong uwu" thing).

Directly following the aftermath, I had to set aside my emotions, because I was in the midst of finals week for my last semester of university as an undergrad. If she had been waiting about a week and a half to break up with me, I would have appreciated it if she waited a little bit longer until I was done with school. Nevertheless, I persevered and maintained a 4.0 GPA.

Over the summer, my ex would coax her partner (also my ex but broke up with me a month earlier) to move in with her across the country. They had planned this for a while now. I was a bit envious, two trans girls in an online relationship finally moving in together, that's the dream isn't it? Looking back, it was funny that my ex, who when we started dating, was in a polycule dating four other girls including me, then proceeded to lose each girl one by one with me as the second-to-last one. It's almost like I was just a "test." I spent my summer looking to get hired, though I had little luck being a bio major with barely any experience. I had to settle on unpaid internships for a while, where I was treated like shit and made to do menial tasks.

I wasn't doing well, even a few months after, I was lonely. I still had my online friends, who stuck by me, but I realize that after my horrible experience in an online relationship with her, I no longer wanted to go headfirst into something like that again. I didn't want to "e-date," and I wanted to make more friends IRL. After graduating, I lost touch with a bunch of people, including my work friends who I cherished a lot, and I was back to my reclusive ways. This all stems from my insecurities of being closeted IRL, how it's hard for me to create a "fake face" to make and keep friends, and even that I'm ashamed to date if I haven't even bothered to come out as my true self, because I'm lying to everyone including myself. Yet still, I made the effort to reconnect with a few friends in person, even one who I had not talked to for about four years. I'm still working on that though.

My fortune that year turned around towards the last few months, when I went on vacation to visit my relatives in Australia. It was the first time I left the U.S. since early 2018. I enjoyed my time there greatly, I got to see and do so many cool things, such as snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef. It definitely helped take my mind of my ex.

When I came back to the U.S. earlier this year, I had to hit the grind on job hunting again, and I still wasn't very successful on that, especially since I promised to no longer work for free again. Luckily, at that point, I was working part-time as a babysitter for a family friend's child, being paid pretty well. Around late March, I went back to one of my internships (one that treated me much better) and did a paid internship with them, of which I just completed recently.

As of my ex, I learned back in April that she debuted as a vtuber, with a live rig and such. I knew she was considering it a year ago, and though I don't care about that subculture, I would have supported her had we been still together. What's peculiar is that she wanted to study to become a pharmacy tech, and that she would get a stable income from that to become a vtuber...I guess she got that "stable income" rather quickly, since live rigs cost hundreds of dollars. It's really suspicious to me that she's able to sit on her ass pretending to be a "nekomata slime girl" (who's actually white) that can speak Japanese, playing video games, while her current partner since moving in with her last July, has made several donation posts asking for money due to her struggling to find a job. It feels extremely selfish to me.

I thought about if I should call out my ex, with all the receipts on what she did to me, along with her seemingly not helping her partner pay the bills as a no-name vtuber isn't making much anyways. For the receipts, I thought that they were too personal and people would see it as stuff that "should stay in the DMs" so I stalled on the issue. Not to mention, because she's no-name and doesn't even have 100 followers, I thought it would be cruel to even target her.

Over the last couple of weeks, I settled on a decision. I'm moving on. That doesn't mean I forgive her, or that there's a chance I will at this rate, when she rebranded as a vtuber, she unfriended me on Discord (of which I never messaged her since the breakup but kept it open in case there was an opportunity to talk again), which probably makes it clear that she wants nothing to do with me anymore. I don't want to get "revenge" or even with her anymore, because I already have the best kind of such, which is the way I currently live. I could do better for sure, but looking back at the past year since the break up, I'm much happier without her, I've experienced a lot of new things on my own, met new people and reconciled with old ones. I spent time streaming anime with friends again, hung out with a friend downtown, been making and saving up money, and there's so much more ahead for me. I haven't come out publicly and transitioned to be my truest and fullest self yet, but I know that will happen eventually, that I will have the courage to do so, even if not to my family, in stealth. I want to maybe go on a trip by myself to see friends who live far away, I want to go back to being my pre-pandemic self. I don't want to be tethered to her any longer, I want to take more risks in my life, stop feeling too comfortable.

[pochqmqri]

I’m thinking about the time when I was still in a toxic polycule last year when I publicly lamented (and still do) the fact that a lot of Japanese girl idol games/series are terrible when it comes to character diversity in skin and body type. Like, across the entire Love Live franchise, there’s only one girl that could reasonably be considered “dark-skinned” and she’s only just a side character, Aikatsu has like one background character, and Bandori and Project Sekai have like none. I can never really get into those series because of how little and effort they do, no matter how much gay shipping there is. So, to get back to the point, when I did, my girlfriends agreed it was bad, but tried to justify/handwave it off like it was just because Japanese isn’t as “racially diverse” or “progressive.”

And like, I think it’s funny how one of the people I dated in that relationship is a white woman who has never really left her 90+% white ethnostate of a Canadian province, acting like she knows a damn thing about Japan besides the shit she learned from her animus and mangos. Now she’s a VTuber who calls herself a “nekomata slime girl” and tries to act like she knows Japanese, it’s pathetic honestly. So you say Japan isn’t as racially diverse then? Ok, well that’s funny, because the Eizouken author said otherwise when recounting his experiences of growing up in high school, and even criticized anime and manga for not reflecting that diversity. So you say that there aren’t more trans characters in anime/manga because Japan isn’t a “progressive” bastion? Compared to what? The US? Where I am subjected to a daily news cycle of politicians wanting to strip me of almost all of my human rights? That’s not to absolve Japan of any of its many wrongdoings, but the fucking nerve and gall to talk as if you know everything. 

[pochqmqri]

fuck me, i crashed so bad after work i almost fell asleep multiple times on the drive back home, and once i did, i crashed until 11:30pm

[pochqmqri]

Since the yen was weak, I decided to do another import splurge from Japan. Although, maybe I overdid it this time haha...

[pochqmqri]

God fucking help me, my ticket out of Australia back to the US takes about 60 hours, with about a day layover in Fiji, then another day layover in San Francisco. This is what I get for choosing the cheapest option.

[pochqmqri]

When I get back to the US I need to make a serious decision on whether I want to come out or at least transition soon, I’ll never forgive myself if I keep pushing this into my 30s