#oh shit is this my first work since AUGUST?? thats crazy. but also makes sense.

[bisexuallsokka]

Sokka has always looked forward to his birthday fishing trips with his father, and he thought that excitement was no different for his 30th birthday, but this is his first birthday with his baby girl in his life and it tugs at his heart to be away from her even for a few hours. He allows himself a few more moments of peace as he watches her sleep, then somehow finds the strength to drag himself out of there. (or, Sokka is struggling a bit with fatherhood, but his friends and family are there to remind him he is loved)

a birthday gift for @marriedzukka!!

[fuck-customers]

Fuck managers! I scheduled a surgery for mid june in mid april, plenty of time in advance. Also not for anything serious, but definitely something thats been bugging me for almost the entire year so far and has already caused me to miss work, so my supervisors at least vaguely know about it. Also something that will definitely take at least a week or two of recovery so I had to take some time off for it. Our time off request system is online and tells us what days are blackout days and can’t be requested off. Usually that’s reserved for holidays. The days I scheduled said nothing and didn’t seem to be blacked out which was why I picked those time in the first place. You can see where this is going

Fast forward about a week, I’m at work and one of my supervisors asks me to look at the schedule real quick, and she goes “so I denied the vacation days you took in June for father’s day weekend and the blackout days around it, but the rest are good to go :)” Now my managers are actually pretty understanding, and again I had completely forgotten that I had scheduled it over fathers day which was definitely on me, but again there was nothing indicating it on the request system either so I figured they would be fine! I work in a bakery so holidays do tend to be busy but...not fathers day. Most people get their dads steak and shit like that, not fruity colorful cakes (although they definitely should). I’ve worked there for nearly 5 years and fathers day has NEVER been especially notable in terms of sales.

So assuming my boss would be cool and help me work something out if I told her, I was like “oh, I actually scheduled surgery for that time.” Again, usually they’re cool and understanding and actually work around you very well.

Well not today! She was kinda just like “yeah?” and stared at me blankly. So kind of taken aback I was like “uh...I’ll see when I can...reschedule it for I guess?” To which she was like “sounds good!”

Now I had picked the days I did specifically because I’m going on a work trip in mid may and won’t be back until the 31st. Fathers day is the 20th of June and I scheduled surgery for the 11th. So I asked her “I won’t be back from the work trip until May 31st and the only other available surgery date was June 4th...instead of my current date y’all think you would be okay with me just...being gone for a whole month? Or back for a couple days between the 31st and 4th just to leave again?” And keep in mind, literally EVERY time I’ve taken time off in the last year, they’ve asked me to either just not do it or have texted or called me trying to beg me to come in. Every. Time. I know this won’t be any different, and I don’t wanna toot my own horn but I do good work and they STRUGGLE when I’m not there which is exactly why I asked this. But of course she was just like “no yeah that’s fine, hell, just take the whole month off!”

It kind of just ended there but the more I thought about it the more pissed I got. Like the schedule is already out until mid may and I’m not ?? prepared for surgery like right now even if that was an option. Then the work trip, and then doing the surgery on the 4th might not even be enough recovery time before the fathers day blackout starts! I’m not gonna be in pain and risk my recovery for that shit! Not to mention doing it after is out of the question since 4th of July follows so soon after and that’s DEFINITELY a much busier holiday for us. I don’t want to keep waiting to fix this problem and the date I picked really is the best option without pushing it out until almost AUGUST when it’s been bothering me since JANUARY. And I do feel bad for scheduling it over a holiday but again I got no indication that it was blacked out! It’s hard enough already to schedule anything longer than 2 weeks without accidentally doing it over a holiday, at least this holiday isn’t all that busy!

Not to mention the fact that that kind of behavior is on brand for her. She acts super nice and like I said is actually really cool and understanding and is totally cool with working with you with this kind of stuff...unless she’s in a bad mood. She’s very much the type to take shit out on us and sometimes she’s super weird and stubborn and vindictive and it’s just dependent on her mood and how shitty she feels like being to you that day. And since she’s a supervisor she just gets away with it. Earlier that day even my bf had texted me like “hey, (supervisor) is in a bad mood jsyk” and when I come in what does she do? Use her authority to be weird to her employees! She’s always been like that and I have stories on stories about her, this just really rubbed me the wrong way.

Anyways this story does actually have a happy ending! I continued my day and had just resolved to having to reschedule surgery and figured I would exact revenge by leaving for my trip and just staying away as long as I possibly could, when my team lead comes RUNNING up to me and goes “oh my god, do NOT reschedule your surgery jfc” and I was like “oh but I can if y’all really need me to?” (I’m too nice) to which she goes “NO!! That’s crazy!!! Thank you for even CONSIDERING doing something like that but no absolutely not. You’re not fucking around at home doing nothing for 2 weeks it’s SURGERY.” And ended the conversation by walking away so that was that lol. I’m very glad one of them actually has some sense.

Oh, and other supervisor came up and did this thing she likes to do when she’s wrong where she doesn’t apologize but DOES find a way to just brush off her wrongdoing. This time she comes up to me later in the day and was like “haha yeah I told (team lead) that you told me the time off request that I denied was actually for surgery and she stopped what she was doing, shook her head, and IMMEDIATELY came up to talk to you lol” like yeah no shit dude?? Oh the team lead was disappointed that you’re being a bitch and had to clean up your mess?? And is also actually reasonable and didn’t expect me to literally cancel getting my body cut open to come work a stupid holiday that’s not even busy? Real shocker lmfao

TLDR boss tried to make me reschedule a much needed surgery bc I scheduled it on blackout days that no one told me were blackout, other boss comes thru and is like “wtf thats fucking crazy please don’t do that jfc”

[scummy-writes]

Stupid and Sappy post

*waves hands* It’s time for Scum to say bye to MM under the cut! (This is very stupid jhfbjhf)

I can already feel people rolling their eyes at me for this, especially folks who keep like, vague tweeting me and shit over my opinions about this game, but guess what bitch is gonna write this anyway! Me! sfbjhdf

(This post is going to be incoherent at places, like as I am as a person, but also! I talk about heavy subjects like suic*de, so if that gets to you, please don’t read!)

To start it off seriously: even though recently I’ve had a lot of issues over this company with their lack of warning over heavy triggering content, and their very blatantly bad customer service, I still love the original game a lot. Not in the “Oh this plot is beautiful” way, but like. This game helped me at a time when I was extremely lonely, and was dealing with a lot of heavy shit at home.

If you guys have followed me since the beginning, you know know I started this blog just a few months after downloading this game. Like riiight at the beginning of Jan 2017, I made my first post on here- this blog is two years old! I started out as a HC blog and stayed that way for a while, and I think after I hit 1k followers I finally brought up the fact that I had an AO3 account- and folks realized I had started writing fics in oct 2016 for this game! So, a lot of people know that, wow! This game inspired me a lot creatively and helped me hone my writing skills a bit more after a while not being in a writing class! (And yes, my early fics I absolutely refuse to look at because I hate how I used to write JHBJSBFS).

What a lot of folks don’t know, is that at the very beginning of august, I had gotten out of a ward after coming very close to doing something pretty bad to myself. 

Granted, I didn’t have to stay in there long- I had put myself in there so I could also leave whenever I wanted (as long as the docs deemed me safe to leave as well) but I kept myself in there for a good bit so I could do a lot of critical thinking and not stress so much about my job at the time.

Afterwards, I got out, while I wasn’t still at That Point, I was still struggling pretty bad mentally. Home life was rough, my mom was battling with a terrible boyfriend at the time that lived with us, and I was still dipping back into some pretty bad thoughts.

Then, a friend I’ve had for a while now, introduced me to this game! And, well, I already covered that it helped me a lot in the creative process, but it also helped distract me a shitton from the bad home life I had.

A lot of people probably also remember that a month after having this blog up and running, my mom tried killing herself.

Everything is still really vivid in my memory about that- because like. So many things could have gone wrong. My little brother could have fallen asleep earlier before he found her, I could have picked up that extra hour for my shift at work, this, that- but long story short she’s still alive.

But it was a terrible year for me. Probably, arguably, all of 2017 was the worst year I’ve had in my life so far. So many things happened with my mother, she was mentally unstable, and after a lot of threats against me I even had to move out until she was more stable and, you know, not threatening to hurt me/break my shit.

And, a lot of you know, while I was constantly dealing with my own mother threatening me and trying to disown me, I was also being harassed on a constant basis over juz*n bullshit. Words cannot describe how laughably stupid that whole situation was, but it was completely, utterly, ridiculous bullshit. 

Add that onto me dealing with the IRL struggles with my mom, some of which are somewhat starting to repeat even now- to the point where I’m going to be moving out again soon- well. Shit! It sucked, lol. It sucked a lot, and there were many times where I wish I was back in the hospital or worse.

But, and yes I’m gonna say exactly what yall are expecting, again- this game helped me out a lot. I constantly felt alone and worthless- my own mother was abandoning me- and these voiced sprites made me feel less alone. Gave me the attention I wish I had IRL.

And, well, a lot of my 2017 year is easy to summarize. Constantly harassed, bullied, and dealing with stupid fandom wank. But, also, filled with wonderful messages and support from you guys. 

I’ve preached before how follower counts are ridiculous to base your self worth on- and yes I still agree to that, please don’t base your self worth on follower counts. Or anyone’s! - but some of you have literally followed me since the beginning, or for a Very Long Time, if not. I may be terrible with names, but I still recognize you guys and all the kind words you’ve sent me, and I hope you guys know you helped just as much as MM was helping me.

I’m getting incoherent, but a lot of what I’m trying to say is that, this game has helped me out a shitton. That’s probably why I get so vocal about issues concerning the company- not out of a sense of ‘they owe me’ (they owe me absolutely fucking nothing), but just. It sucks seeing a game that used to be so wonderful in its prime, go so fucking downhill so fast. Customer service used to be wonderful, I remember accidentally putting down my old address for the VIP package and messaging them right after I ordered explaining I needed a change of address, and a Live Person getting back to me within the hour and fixing the issue.

Comparing that with, you know, the Four Fucking Months it took to speak to Someone Successfully about the saeran daki bullshit- then you know...Well, yeah you guys know, I’ve went off about it before.

Now it’s apparent that they’re more money hungry, with how you had to pay 900+ hgs with the recent AE stuff with V, and...hoo boy, I’m sure everyones heard enough at this point.

So, backtracking a bit because I’m chugging coffee and all incoherent, this game has brought in a lot of positives in my life. You guys, healthier distractions than what I used to do to myself, friends, creative outlets being brought back to life again. I think thats why I get so upset at the fandom, at people snapping at me for not liking some of the recent things cheritz has done- people fucking vaguetweeting me, for fucks sake, and getting so personally angry at me over how I got upset at Cheritz. Like, I’m not shitting yall, I literally lost friendships  over my opinions on cheritz.

And it sucks! Not gonna lie, like it sucks because it’s so fucking stupid. But then you take a look into the fandom- with the ongoing and constant harassment over contributors in charity zines, constant harassment over people if they like a character you don’t or vice versa, the harassment against artists concerning repostings or, god forbid, them drawing a ship you dislike- and it’s just. 

How did a game, focusing on the message of how kindness and patience can help out in so many ways, create this rabid fucking fandom?

Even content creators fight against each other. I cannot explain the bullshit I’ve seen over people being mad that they’re not on someones personal “recommended blogs to follow!” lists, over people going out of their way to harass folks because they didn’t make it on a zine, over people trying to use a follow count over why they’re much better than so and so- It’s just...Bad. All of it.

And, well. Combine Cheritz rapidly making their own game worse, in ways we all have heard about me (or others) complain about, and this terrible fandom, I think that perfectly explains why I’m uninstalling and pretty much being done with the fandom once the other stuff I’m involved in finishes.

This game brought a lot of happiness for me, and even with my recent grievances with this game, it (laughably) hurts to uninstall it. I know its ridiculous, god trusT ME i know, but it still sucks saying goodbye to something I still love, but can’t stand being around anymore. At this point, the fandom feels like an abusive ex-friend/whatever and the game used to be what good the ex had left. And now that thats getting worse...orz

I’ll always treasure the doors this game opened up for me- how it allowed me to meet amazing people, some of which I can happily say are my friends, and how it helped me become creative again, how I’ve been able to be on zines to help charities, and how I’ve been blessed to hear my writing impact people in positives ways- but here’s my sappy goodbye while I try to scrapbook the positive memories and bury the negative ones in upcoming therapy session.

If you read this far- bless yoooooou I know I sound like the damn. Crazy image of the dude with papers pinned to the wall, but I hope I made some sort of sense. Thank you!