#very long and personal post. you can read it idc but its primarily about finding my father and there is a quick death mention Unrelated

[murdoc]

this is a weird post to make, but i dont really have many places to say it and i wanna share my thoughts Somewhere lol

so i found my dad after more than a decade of being out of contact with him (probably since 2010? at latest, very early 2011). or rather, after every few years of searching for a little while and coming up fruitless, he made a new facebook less than three weeks ago and i just happened to get Really lucky timing.

just before him i had also found my (former) step sister + mom, as well as my half sister (all sisters younger than me and previously i couldnt find), and.. its a strange experience to finally see people who used to be so close to you in your life show uo again, visibly older and doing their own thing.

its hard to explain.. its almost like youve woken up from a coma. you have memories and have had dreams of these people for years and years and during that time you never really realized that the image you have of them was one trapped in amber; even when youre cognizant of the passage of time, your mind just can't take into consideration the individualized process of aging, both physically and where the passage of time will take them and their relationships. you realize these people are now essentially strangers to you.

my (former) step mom has remarried again and has her own set of children (again), one of my step uncles ended up passing away, my step sister is no longer how i remembered her in 2007 from one of the few photos i have of her in my possession and is posting hippie white woman stuff on her feed, my half sister doesnt share my last name (paternal) anymore, nor her mother or new husband's, whom she is having a child with. i was able to figure out it was her because of the name and how she looks strikingly like her mom and has photos with my dad in them.

my dad himself has aged significantly since he's last shared a photo of himself anywhere. he used to always wear hats, but in a new photo he's got solid white hair despite being in his early 40s and is balding (HE did this to me..) and finally learned what glasses suit his face better LMAO. honestly, he looks better now than he ever did when i've seen him. which i think was one of the biggest shockers because god he looked so lame. this also gives me hope for myself B)

the thing i noticed the most though is how "normal" him and my half sisters turned out. granted, he was always so much more put together than my mother-- i'm sure thats why they didnt really like each other lmao. but, while im not sad about my life, even if it's definitely different than i assumed for my age, i can't help but wonder where i'd be if i had allowed myself to overcome the fear of my mother and went to go live with my dad like we had planned in 2008 or 2009.

however, just from how hard it has been to piece together the state of that side of my family, i don't think any speculation could even be remotely accurate. ive also never really been one to dwell on what could be anyway. at the end of the day i cant undo how horrific my childhood was, but i can make steps to grow from it and learn to love who i am and where i am now.. for how cheesy that sounds 😭

i am glad i finally got a bit of closure on this though. i knew my dad was still around somewhere, but not knowing anything beyond "he's alive" for so long left me with a lot of questions, now mostly answered. it's nice to know he seems to be doing good and that he's there for my younger sisters (not sure about my step sister, but i have an additional half sibling that i never met beyond a few times as a toddler and it seems she's fine too). i know that social media doesn't tell all and is usually finely curated to share the best moments, but i'm saying this in comparison to my mother who would never in a million years do what he seems to be doing.. down to having custody of his kids LMAO.

i don't think i'll ever reach out to any of them though. i know my dad still thinks of me once in a blue moon, as he's dedicated a birthday post to me some years ago on a now deleted profile, but if you can imagine.. i think my change in the last 13 years or so is a bit more drastic than just growing up. not to mention they have their own lives going on and it all seems just fine.

i guess if he ever does try to find me, he'll find out that my former step uncle (different one who is still alive) who teased him about only having girls was wrong LMAO. but i dont think he could ever find me unless he got in contact with my older sister who isn't doing too hot rn, or my mother.... and if it's my mom he goes through, i sure as hell hope he thinks finding his now son was worth it. i sure as hell wouldnt go through talking with my mom if i was him.

i dont think i ever made a post so long and detailed about my life on here??? if someone fsr actually read this... hi :) why did you do that? you are silly

[thegreymoon]

Hi I have been a fan of your work for a very long time and so I sneak into your tumblr from time to time.I counldnt help but notice that you post a lot of political/sjw stuff and I know it is none of my business but since I am probably absolutely opposite in my political views I can't help myself and ask: I understand that you are Asian, but you don't seem to be interested in real or imagined injustices in your country/continent and are mainly interested in USA, why is that?

Hi, anon!

First of all, I am not Asian and I’m very sorry if I ever did or said anything to mislead people into thinking that I was. It was unconsciously done. I have no intention of offending anyone or appropriating an identity that isn’t mine, so if I did something of that sort, please let me know and I’ll do my best to correct myself. I often reblog stuff about China because I think it’s an amazing country, I’m learning Mandarin (not making much progress, though), love their culture, nature, architecture and am a big fan of their historical/fantasy dramas. Also, the two fandoms I was the most active in (coincidentally) happen to be a Japanese anime and a Japanese video game, so I have a lot of love for their art and aesthetics.

I’m actually very surprised that you would ‘notice’ that I post a lot of ‘political/sjw stuff’, considering that I mostly use Tumblr to repost Merlin gifs, cast/crew news and fanworks. There is maybe one reblog on just about anything else for every fifty (perhaps even more) Merlin posts, so I really have to wonder which of the RL issues I posted about bothered you so much that you would describe them as ‘a lot’.

I may be misinterpreting the tone of your ask, so forgive me if I misread your intentions and am responding too harshly, but in my experience, ‘SJW’ is a term that is used to be dismissive when people are talking about real social issues, plus I found your wording of ‘imagined injustices’ very… interesting.

Also, I find it odd that somebody would unironically ask me why I’m ‘mainly’ interested in the USA.

First of all, the global market is oversaturated with American media, American products, American news, American movies, TV series, music, you name it. It’s everywhere. Of course I’m going to know more about it than, say, Lichtenstein. The exposure of American public figures is insane and it just happens that the stuff that appears on my dash is most often related to the USA because that is what the people I follow also follow (and for the record, on Tumblr, I mainly follow the Merlin fandom and to a somewhat lesser degree, various artists, baby animals, Chinese traditional outfits, Buzzfeed and NASA news). I absolutely do reblog pure evil, injustices, hypocrisy and intentionally inflicted misery in other countries too when I see them, but I don’t actively go looking for them on Tumblr, just like I don’t actively look for the USA posts either. The USA posts are simply there, without much active input from me, while other countries are not. An important point, of course, since we are having this weird discussion about why a random person outside of the USA is consuming so much American media, is that English is the only foreign language I am fluent in, so when it comes to foreign content, I am primarily going to read and interact with posts in English. And which country creates the most content in English? Yup, you guessed it!  

On a similar note, everything that happens in the USA affects other countries too. Nothing that goes on there takes place in a vacuum and the USA has made damn sure that it has its fingers in each and every single pie all over the world. Everything, the good and the bad, spills over and trust me, we feel the effects acutely in my unstable, politically fraught little country. The economic and cultural implications are enormous, so you can bet American issues are very personal for me, even if I don’t live there. My country’s government consists of puppets in the hands of various world leaders playing tug of war with actual human lives. My literal paycheck depends on the stability of the dollar. The survival of the entire human species hangs on how we deal with climate change right now and that ignorant, illiterate orange shitstain Americans voted into power is now standing on a global platform, spouting nonsense that is barely one step removed from Creationist bullshit and Flat-earther conspiracies. And you seriously ask me why I’m interested in the USA? 

The USA loves to dub itself as ‘the leader of the free world’ and ‘a global superpower’, and has managed to stick its nose into everybody’s business everywhere (usually with no good intentions), but somehow you question why the rest of us are now going to be interested in what is going on there, not to mention critical when the US government spouts absolute rubbish not just on a domestic, but also global scale? So, yes, I am personally invested in what is going down next in the USA and am sitting here, half the world across, cheering Americans on as they fight to have that shame they elected removed from power and, hopefully, incarcerated, along with all his corrupt cronies, advisors and family members. I’m going to be genuinely celebrating here when he finally goes down!

Secondly, I come from one of those countries that the USA and its allies have destroyed for their own gain and where they have ruined countless lives over multiple generations. I have every reason to notice, take a personal interest in and comment on the hypocrisy, the grandstanding and the false moral high ground that is assumed by the USA (and any of its bootlickers) when I see it.

For any of my USA followers here, I would just like to note that I am perfectly capable of distinguishing between ordinary people and disgusting government policies enacted by corrupt or incompetent politicians. I realise this post sounds angry, but I wish only good things for you all, people are people everywhere and the stuff I’m talking about is way above the average person’s paygrade. I also realise that the USA has screwed over so many of its own citizens; including its war veterans, PoC, minorities, the poor, the weak and the disabled. My heart goes out to you all, truly, and I love you all!

(BTW, I intentionally have not said which country I’m from because I’ve stopped publically stating my location online, simply because it makes it too easy for malicious people to identify me IRL that way. I don’t necessarily hide my RL identity if I have a valid reason to reveal my true name and location, but please forgive me for not stating it outright here, on a public platform, to satisfy the curiosity of an anon ask. My country is misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to all who are non-conforming and my job prospects are hard enough without my online pseudonyms being generally known in my RL circles. I used to be much less secretive about it, but have since learned the error of my ways and am now taking the most basic of precautions.)

With that said, yes, my country has issues! And, fyi, I have ranted and raged and cried about them before online, IRL and in private. I have posted about my country’s political problems everywhere, including here, when I was just too angry to hold it in because I’m absolute shit at being careful even when I make a conscious effort to be. Most recently, I raged about our elections which were a punch to the gut. If I was to start typing about the corruption, injustices and absolute evil going on around me, I would never stop, but I’m not going to do that because that’s not what I come to Tumblr for. This is primarily a fandom space, mostly for fandom stuff, where I come to look at other people’s things and almost never create content of my own. Just about anything political has been reblogged from someone else because it showed up on my dash and touched a nerve. Very little of that is stuff from my own country because nobody creates and reblogs posts about it in the fandom circle I mostly interact with.

I’m now trying to think back to what ‘SJW’ issues (as you put it) I reblog the most often and how any of them are ‘imaginary injustices’. Off the top of my head, the ones that usually touch a nerve are about the oppression and discrimination of women, patriarchy, sexism, various kinds of abuse, sexual assault, overworking, capitalist brainwashing, mental health issues, LGBTQ issues, freedom of speech, resurgence of Nazism, the gap between the rich and the poor, climate change and criminal religious institutions regaining power in society. I can assure you that none of these is ‘imaginary’ and the negative ways in which they affect me and the people around me are very, very real. Also, none of them is unique to the USA, which is what you seem to be the most concerned about, and even if the post is from or about the USA, these problems definitely overlap with things that I, and countless people around the world, are personally experiencing and have a lot of feelings about. The only social issues ‘unique’ to the USA that I often reblog are the ones related to the particular US brand of racism and the appalling, still-ongoing genocide committed against the indigenous people there, and how can you not empathise with that when it’s so egregious? I will reblog them every time they cross my dash to spread awareness since the US government is actively trying to stifle it and rewrite history and idc who is uncomfortable.

With all that said, I’m open to corrections and have no problem admitting to being wrong once I realise I’ve made a mistake. So, this goes for all the people following my blog: if any of the posts I shared are about ‘imaginary’ issues (just… wow at the use of this word) or contain false information, please feel free to let me know and I will take it under advisement. I’m always willing to learn.