#for context: i found one of my vent posts from 3 or so years ago in which i mentioned a bunch of people i used to friends with | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

peppermintbee · 3 years

Text

OMORI has poor writing (Part 1)

OMORI stans, just block the #omori hate tag now because I’m going to use it to vent my frustrations with this game. If you love this game, I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. I am glad you enjoyed it so much. I am glad it means a lot to you. I’m not here to take that away from you. I honestly wish I felt the same way!

However, if you are like me and finished the game feeling disappointed, underwhelmed, and maybe a little frustrated, then I am here to say you are not alone. OMORI--while having the right set pieces for an interesting game--is a narrative mess.

I’m splitting this into two posts. This first post is about problems with the plot. The second is about problems with the message/moral.

(Note: I use “OMORI” in all-caps for the game title, and “Omori” in title case for the character name.)

Spoilers and criticism below.

Part 1: Plot Writing Lies

There’s a book by Brian McDonald called Invisible Ink which is about how to write a compelling story (you can read this great book online for free here). There’s an explanation of the writing “lie” that I find myself frequently thinking of. A “lie” in this context does not mean something is literally untrue, it means something FEELS untrue, unrealistic, improbable, or unlikely. For example, if a character gets shot in the leg but manages to do parkour, this is a “lie” since it seems unrealistic for that to happen. If a character witnesses their beloved parent’s death and shrugs it off, it’s a “lie” because that reaction seems highly unlikely.

In OMORI, the plot is held together by multiple little lies that--try as I might--I just couldn’t bring myself to believe.

1. Sunny’s friends care about him, and vice versa

A major theme of the game is how friendship can overcome any obstacle. Friendship gets Sunny over his fear of heights, spiders, and water. Friendship is what Sunny remembers before the final boss fight, and allows him to face his guilt and defeat it (and prevent him from committing suicide). With the photobook and dialogue you are reminded over and over and over and over and over again that Sunny’s friends love him unconditionally.

However, I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it. The childhood memories are cute but shallow, boiling down to simply hanging out and eating treats. Plus, Kel and Aubrey fight constantly, with Aubrey even physically hitting Kel when he steps out of line. Hero and Mari behave more like babysitters than true friends to the younger kids.

But at least the other kids interact with each other. Sunny, on the other hand, showed nearly no affection or consideration towards his friends. He floats through the memories like a ghost--he could have been completely absent from all the photos and it would have made little difference. I was ready to accept this as Sunny being an unreliable narrator and not thinking he was a good enough for his friends, but this never contradicted. Instead we are given even more memories where Sunny just silently exists there being “cute.”

[Sunny enriching the lives of his friends by LARPING as a cat.]

Because of the lack of meaningful interactions between them, there was nothing in the game that made me think that these 12-15 year olds would have a strong enough bond that would survive 3-4 years of no contact after finding their friend hanged. In fact, that discovery only drove them farther apart. The only person who I could believe actually had a close bond was Basil, who almost literally filled that trope of being the friend who would help you bury a body (or in this case, help Sunny cover up the accidental manslaughter).

The writing fix for this would be simple: instead of showing us the same boring birthday and beach scenes over again, give the kids memories of overcoming some age-appropriate adversity together: heartbreak over an unrequited crush, anxiety over homework, sports injury, lost dogs, divorced parents, running away from home, bullying, etc. Set a precedent of the friends supporting each other through good times AND bad times. Without such backstory, Sunny’s friendships allegedly giving him the courage to overcome his guilt feels like a lie.

2. Sunny abandoning Basil in the bathroom scene

One of the most confusing moments in the game was Sunny’s negligence when Basil has his first breakdown in his bathroom. This part of the game is player-controlled, which is a strange writing decision because all you can do is click on Basil and various bathroom amenities over and over which completely saps the urgency out of the scene. When you try to leave, Basil begs Sunny to stay, but (due to a lack of player options) Sunny walks out without a word. With no option to talk to him OR get help for him, it makes Sunny seem exceptionally cruel to Basil. In fact, I was starting to wonder if the game was setting up for some sort of twist that Sunny DIDN’T care about his friends, which would fix some of the confusion in point #1. However, as we know, that is not the case. Therefore, Sunny’s negligence/apathy towards Basil’s pain feels like a lie.

The writing fix would be to make it MORE clear that Sunny is intentionally running away from Basil. Make it a cutscene, or, give a false choice such as “Leave Basil? Yes / Yes”. After Sunny leaves, Kel should make some remark about Sunny looking odd, “You look sort of shaken up, is there something you want to tell me?” then hit it home with Sunny shaking his head. This would make it more clear that Sunny is intentionally hiding Basil’s state, as opposed to just being a bad friend. As it stands, it just felt like a writing mistake.

3. Basil and Sunny working together to stage Mari’s death as a suicide

This is the plot hole that I see the most complaints over, but it’s so big I have to address it. Accidentally pushing Mari down the stairs I understand, but the rest is too absurd. Below are some of the “lies” that the writing tries to get away with:

That Sunny and Basil wouldn’t just claim she slipped and fell.

That either boy would even come up with this sick plan.

That they wouldn’t back out of this idea during the multi-step process (carrying her downstairs, outside, getting the jump rope, tying a noose, putting it around her neck, stringing her up, hiding the evidence... This is a series of multiple decisions, not one quick accident like the initial push.)

That it’s not the image of Mari’s death that traumatized Sunny, but the image of what they chose to do to her body that traumatized them. I understand the image of Mari hanging is more dramatic, but they literally did it themselves so why is that more haunting than Sunny killing her?

That Mari’s true cause of death wouldn’t be immediately obvious to the parents, the police, the friends, EVERYONE. (I’ve seen fans try to get rid of this plot hole by hypothesizing that the parents knew and covered it up, but the evidence of this is circumstantial at best. The father saying, “You’re not my son,” is unreliable since it happens in Sunny’s headspace. Divorce is common after the death of a child, and, at the very least, Sunny’s mom doesn’t show any evidence of knowing what happened. The way it is written, only Sunny and Basil know the truth.)

The ridiculousness of this twist is so extreme that it completely broke any immersion I had left. Frankly, the reveal that the happy, loveable Mari committed suicide is a far heavier and more realistic twist than a crazy murder-cover-up story is.

Additionally, it seems like Basil was only written into this scene in order to make Sunny the true victim of what happened. After all, Sunny may have pushed her, but it was Basil who came up with the demented cover up. (This is apparent from just the photos but the datamined Truth Album confirms it.) By having Basil come up with the plan, the game splits the guilt between the two of them to make the kids easier to sympathize with. It’s problematic because if Basil was not in the scene, there would be no way to justify what Sunny did to Mari. So why is what they did easier to accept when they worked together?

Fixing the writing lie: Sunny lies and says that Mari slipped. Remove Basil from the scene, and instead have Sunny confide in Basil which forces Basil to become a co-conspirator and burdens him with the terrible truth.

4. Sunny’s friends forgiving him and Basil for what they did to Mari

Last but not least, the story heavily implies that Hero, Kel, and Aubrey will forgive Basil and Sunny for what they did to Mari. I found this to be almost as unbelievable as the staged-suicide stunt.

It feels like a lie since the group’s friendship is never established as anything beyond shallow hang outs from 3+ years ago (see point #1).

It feels like a lie because this is hot off the heels of Aubrey being so distraught over Mari and the following fall out that in the last three days she 1.) attacked Sunny and Kel with a nail bat TWICE, 2.) Stole Basil’s photobook, and 3.) Shoved Basil in the lake. This trauma is still very fresh for her.

It feels like a lie because the complexity of the staged-suicide is so extreme, one would be hard pressed to forgive ANYONE for doing that, be it friend, foe, parent, sibling, lover, etc.

I’ve seen fans argue that the ending is not about forgiveness, it’s about telling the truth, and I want to believe that. Really. If the ending was about Sunny starting his redemption arc by telling the truth no matter what the consequences are, that would be a meaningful lesson. But the writing does not support that. The ending headspace segments are focused on assuring Sunny that his friends will support/forgive him no matter what. To do this, the game shows us the shallow photobook memories (again) to show how much they allegedly care about each other. Then, when fighting Omori, Sunny remembers these quotes from his friends, which directly correlate to their unconditional support:

KEL: Friends... Friends are supposed to be there for each other.

AUBREY: I hope you can find some peace... or you know... some happiness.

HERO: We made the mistake of leaving each other when we needed each other the most. This time... we’ll stay together.

BASIL: Maybe one day... things can go back to the way they were before.

The really direct evidence that this ending is about getting forgiveness is this quote from Basil in Sunny’s headspace:

[BASIL: “AUBREY, KEL and HERO are good friends. You have to trust that they’ll forgive us.”]

This is one of the last scenes before Sunny tells his friends the truth, proving that obtaining forgiveness from his FRIENDS is in fact the leading motivation for Sunny’s actions.

Fixing this writing lie is easy. Instead, adjust the writing to be about telling the truth, not about how much the friends will still love Sunny. Have headspace Basil say, “Even if they don’t forgive us, Aubrey, Kel, and Hero deserve to know the truth. It’s the only way to make things right... or close to it.”

Conclusion

OMORI is undeniably a cute game with a strong visual identity, and has a premise that could make for a very compelling experience. However, the sloppy plot and weak character writing cause the potential of this game to be squandered. There are other issues as well that I chose not to cover for the sake of time, such as the poor pacing of the dragged out dungeons and the bizarre, unrealistic behavior of characters in the “real” world.

However, there are a few more glaring problems with OMORI that I have to address: In part 2 of my critique, I break down what may be the biggest problem with OMORI’s writing: the message.

[ Link to Part 2: OMORI’s Message is Mishandled and Distasteful ]

#omori #omori hate #omori spoilers #review #words #fun fact i named sunny 'moony' so I had to consciously change all the moons to suns in this essay #suicide cw

205 notes · View notes

gossip-girl-of-middleearth · 3 years

Note

Hello! I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfy but I was wondering if I could get a bit of advice? From your recent posts, you said you left your home from toxicity and just bad things in general.

I’m in a similar situation, but my dad will be taking me away from my mom. And I just know it’ll be a shit show. And I’m absolutely terrified when we tell her and what the backlash will be afterwards towards my brothers and me and dad in general

How did you do it? How did you take the leap? Do you possibly have any advice on how to deal ?

Hello, friend!! ☀️

Thank you so much for reaching out, it means a lot that you value my advice <3

Hmm, okay from what I can tell of your situation, that is indeed a tricky one, but nothing can’t be overcome!

It’s important to remember, though, I was 19 when I left (now 20), so the way I handled things is going to be a lot different than how a minor can handle things (legally at least, feel free to replicate my insane stunts lmao)

Advice below the cut! (family violence trigger warning, I suppose?)

My entire family was and is extremely volatile, and I don’t speak to any of them anymore except for my older brother, but I’ll be cutting him off in 3 weeks too when I move.

Fortunately, my dad and brother were both kicked out of the house years ago due to violence, which left me with my mother, who’s quite insidious herself (just watch any Conjuring movie and that’ll give a good idea of what it was like living in that house lol)

I get the same feeling watching this scene as when I was around her in that house. Granted she didn’t try to change my gender, but the hatred for my father getting taken out on me is pretty accurate lol, paired with the immediate “motherly love” afterwards (she never hit me though, pleased to say — she wasn’t physically violent, just emotionally, financially, mentally and verbally. She did try to run my dad over once though, so, there’s that too)

youtube

Yikes…yeahh the same eerie feeling for sure, still makes all my hairs stand upright in memory.

(For further context this clip reminds me of my father and this one of my brother)

In the clip about my father, he definitely reminds me of Frank Gallagher, except he despises my mother instead of revering her. He’s a workaholic instead of a drug addict, too. But the mannerisms are the same. I always handled him in the way Fiona does.

Regarding my brother, I think everything about our family hit him the hardest, despite being the oldest. He developed a very violent streak, and has very poor impulse control. I love him dearly but he’s a snake in the grass, and has thrown me under the bus multiple times to get ahead in life. I mostly just pity him, since I know what our life was like growing up. But still, I can’t defend him forever, especially not at the cost of myself. Literally yesterday I woke up to a text from him asking me to come pick him up because he got arrested for starting a fight at a bar and smashing their windows.

When things started getting pretty bad with my mother earlier this year, I started to realise in my heart that there was no way I could go forth in life with her in it. I focused on the future relationships I would have one day when far away from this town — romantic partner, children, friends etc

I sort of realised one day I’d care about them a lot more than I care about my mother, because those future people would care about me. That in turn got me realising that I do deserve love, despite how my mother made me feel, and that I don’t want her to deprive another second of that in my life.

Something very unique that triggered this too was going to go visit an old family psychic, who’s basically just the Gandalf to my Frodo (ily, Chris <3). He very accurately predicted my birth years ago after my mother was told she was infertile — he got the date, year and time right three years in advance, and even knew ahead of time what my personality would be like, which he was spot-on about.

Well, I went and visited him a few months ago because I was lost with my direction, and he ended up pausing and had a sudden feeling, which led to him telling me that he’d just found out I would be having twin boys one day.

Normally I don’t buy into that stuff, but this Gandalf dude…well I knew he was right.

Knowing I’d have sons of my own one day took me from a scared daughter mindset and into a maternal mother bear in an instant, and I knew I didn’t want any children of mine around my mother or the rest of my family, for their safety alone, which made me realise, “Well, if I wouldn’t allow my own children near them, why do I allow myself?”

I started grey-rocking her in the lead-up to me leaving, which of course frustrated her (she’s a malignant narcissist), but it was a necessary step to start emotionally detaching myself from her.

It all bottled over one night after a pretty distressing argument (I had locked myself in my room to avoid it, but she was still at my door carrying on).

My cat, who’s been my best friend for years, was sitting on the floor next to me, and sort of looked up and I swear he spoke with his eyes, saying, “You know we can’t keep doing this, right? You know this abuse has an expiry date?”

I agreed with my cat and knew right then and there that I’d be leaving that night after my mother fell asleep.

Well, when she was finally done (with threats that there’d be more in stock in the morning, mind you) I went to bed early and set my alarm to 3am (was a little inside joke with myself, since that’s biblically the “witching devil hour”)

I started quietly packing my quilt and cat up (I’d already been secretly packing the boot of my car up with all sentimental and important items weeks in advance, except she caught on and took all my baby albums and more to her boyfriend’s house, so I don’t have any baby photos or information on me when I was a baby anymore, like first words, size and just general things I’d have liked to compare to my own kids one day, rip)

Once that was all in my car, I quietly said goodbye to the old family dog and cat (they weren’t mine to take, not that I could’ve anyways, since it was troubling enough taking Buddy, who’s actually my pet and not the family one). That was pretty heartbreaking, as I knew that’d be the last time I’d see them (I grew up with them and was the only one who took care of them — mother neglects kids and pets alike lmao).

Once that was over, I looked around my house with my hand on the front door and was very melancholy, but knew Buddy was right: it had all reached its expiry date.

I left very quietly and drove to McDonalds for a coffee, as I had a long drive ahead (I had organised to be a nanny in this rich family’s house far away in the city — two hours drive). Luckily they were away on their country farm 4 hours away, so I had time to sneak Buddy in.

The nanny thing recently backfired horribly because they discovered Buddy, which led to more AM escapes with my car, but I’m staying with my older brother and his gf for 3 more weeks only. Something I’ve been working towards for months now is moving to a wilderness island to live in my country’s equivalent of Bag End — a beautiful country cottage, amazing job and fantastic study opportunities.

Best feature yet: it’s 60 hours away from my hometown by car, and then you’d have to take a boat for 10 more hours!! They shall never find me hahaha

One of my friends has also told me recently that my mother has started spreading horrible, defamatory rumours about me around town, but I don’t care anymore because I’m almost out.

So, although I can’t offer any practical advice (idk if you’re a minor or not, but regardless it’s great your dad is helping you!) this is the best advice I can offer:

Find a dream and hold onto it, one that doesn’t involve your immediate family. For me it’s moving to that island and enjoying all the fresh air. It’ll push you forwards and remind you of what you’re fighting for when at your lowest.

Remind yourself there will be other people in your life, whether a spouse, friends, children or even a dog! (I’m getting a golden retriever next year 🐾) And then remember that you deserve all of them and the unconditional love they offer you.

Remember that if you don’t want your mother/family screwing those people over by proxy of her/their relationship to you, then there’s no way in hell you alone should put up with it either, as I guarantee those future people only want good things for you ☀️

There is a good life after abuse, I’ve seen it, and I know you can achieve it, too!

Be prepared for tons of backlash and bullshit — it’s inescapable when dealing with people like this, but I recommend educating yourself on narcissistic parents and tactics to deal with them.

Finding a good therapist who deals in PTSD regarding childhood abuse is important, too. I found an amazing one in the town I’m moving to, who had nearly the same upbringing as me!

So while I’m still struggling with a lot of fear (scared my mother will find where I’m working and living one day) and guilt (I feel horrible about leaving the family dog and cat behind, especially when they need veterinary help, only to then go and get myself another puppy) I understand I’ve done the best I can in a very abnormal situation, and that I can only do better from here.

Also, this song has been a saving grace when going all angsty over wanting to leave your current situation:

It’s from my favourite Broadway Musical, “Newsies”, and lemme tell you — discovering this as a 17-year-old when I was just starting to realise the severity of my situation was pure divinity.

Jeremy Jordan, my beloved Broadway Bard <3

youtube

When I finally get my cottage, I’m getting a wooden plaque with the name “Santa Fe” engraved on it, and am hanging it on my front door.

I wish you much luck and love, my little anonymous friend! And please know my inbox is open any time you need anything — vent, advice, a laugh or something else, ANYTHING, it feels good to know my past can maybe help someone else’s present ☀️

Please update me, too! I’m following your story along ardently now! (Also, be sure to take your sentimental items and store them somewhere safe away from your mother — ie baby albums, birth certificates, other paraphernalia/memorabilia etc).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must hit the road. DESTINY AWAITS!

#ahh yes #Newsies my beloved <3 #and bless my family Gandalf #I’m gonna send him a gift next year from the small country town I’m moving to for his birthday as a thanks #also I’m torn between naming the golden retriever ‘Jaskier/Dandelion’ or ‘Glorfindel/Glorfy’ now #so happy that’ll soon be my only dilemma in life <33

20 notes · View notes

norcalbruja · 3 years

Text

Things are not ideal for me right now

What’s up, so I had yet another argument with my mom today. I had to go lie down and vent about it to the spirits. I ended up begging them to find SOME way to get my writing off the ground, so I could move into my own place by the end of the year. Then I can finally be alone and not get constantly reminded by people that I'm bad at housework, and remembering stuff, and all those “regular people” things that my mom and sister are just fine with.

Because LUCKY ME, I live in California where a regular fucking 1-to-2-bedroom house can cost a million dollars or MORE now. And while writing and theater has never been easy, it’s been especially bad with the pandemic.

I wore myself out a couple years ago by trying to get my writing noticed the regular way with social-media, and eventually I quit posting much about my work because I barely got any readers AT ALL, let alone people who give me feedback like I kept begging them to. (GUESS HOW MAD I WAS when I found out that literally all of the “standard” marketing advice is bullshit. I spammed Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook for nothing, isn’t that great???)

So yeah, while I vastly advocate trying mundane options before asking the spirits for help, I don’t know how I can get a writing career or earn a million dollars the “mundane” way, especially not in these times.

Which led me, in my “desperate / enraged” double-whammy of a bad mindset, to go and ask Laho the moon-eater for help.

This is not the first time. I asked him in February because I was just fucking TIRED of being stuck at home and having my writing going nowhere, and how asking the other spirits just doesn’t seem to be working.

---

So for context: Laho the Moon-Eater is a dragon in Filipino / Tagalog mythology. He causes eclipses by coming out of the deep ocean and trying to eat the sun/moon. He actively dislikes when I call him a “god” because he insists that the anito/gods have to CARE ABOUT PEOPLE, regardless of power-level, and he is a DRAGON.

He acknowledges that dragons frequently overlap WITH gods, especially in Asian / Filipino mythology, but he told me that it’s a case-by-case thing and sometimes dragons just identify as Level 10 Nature-Spirits. Which is kind of trippy when Laho constantly takes human form and looks/acts almost like Dark Bakura, what with his long white hair, his deathly pale skin, and his dickish and blunt personality. He also has a glowing “aura” that none of the other anito seem to have, even the actual sun and moon deities. I think it's either “deep-sea bio-luminescence” or “side-effects from constantly trying to eat the sun/moon.”

And uh. That comparison to DARK Bakura is not an idle one, because for me, Laho is almost on Loki levels of "Engage With Heavy Caution.” Loki and I barely get along after several years of not being able to stand each other, and after one piece of advice from Loki that went So Damn Badly, he told me we can have a do-over later on. Laho is just damn unpredictable because sometimes he comes over to tell me about stuff, but sometimes he drags me out of my meditation without even asking “hey are you busy??? I found something cool!” first.

On the other hand, Laho is not a proper “Trickster” like Loki is, so he’s not trying to curse me or anything. That involves caring enough about one random, half-trained spirit-worker to like... intentionally damage her, and Laho Does Not Care About People.

Keep in mind that while I am NOT doing formal “magic / spellwork,” thank the gods, general consensus from the other spirits is “Do Not Try This At Home.” Fuck, now that I've calmed down, *I* don’t even like asking Laho for basic goals, but... I don’t know who else I can ask.

The rest of it is behind the “Read More” heading for heavy desperation, depression, and Not Safe For Work subjects.

---

So today after my latest argument with Mom, I went to my room to lie down and get a grip on my Seething Rage And Desperation, but as mentioned before, I just ended up begging the spirits, “GET ME OUT OF HERE, PLEASE. I JUST WANT A HOUSE AND AN ART CAREER. GET ME OUT OF HERE, PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU.”

And my attempts to calm down didn’t work so much that Spirit-Me’s heart just... split open from the stress, apparently. The last time that happened was when I was high as hell on a whole weed cookie, and I started thinking the world was going to end. (Long story short, that was Loki’s Extremely Bad Advice. Yes, the spirits remembered that. No, they were not happy that I was sober this time.)

So there’s Spirit-Me, screaming and bleeding all over the damn place while Odin and the other spirits are trying to 1) stitch me back up and 2) assure me that I’m not a TOTAL failure, but I was not in the space to listen, so once I was mostly-not-bleeding, I just ran off to the spirit-ocean and found Laho.

Generally when I’m desperate enough to ask Laho for help, I end up having sex with him as a trade.

Because, at risk of repeating myself, I’m broke. In a lot more ways than “money.” I’m say I’m a half-trained spirit-worker, but if you count FILIPINO spirit-work, it’s even less. I barely even speak Tagalog, so I wouldn’t know any spells or high-end offerings to give the spirits. I don’t know what the fuck else I can trade for help, besides having sex.

I don’t even have an altar to put offerings ON, because my mom’s place has a Catholic altar and I sure as hell won’t leave food meant for pagan spirits there. I share my regular food with the spirits, and then I eat it after a few minutes.

But like... remember how Spirit-Me’s heart just split open from stress, and how I was about to have sex, which is generally Very Strenuous in both worlds? Yeah, not only did my heart split back open, I’m pretty sure me and Laho didn’t do anything resembling “spiritual foreplay” either, because Spirit-Me started bleeding down there, too.

And it’s like, Laho is not a good role model for the MORAL side of “a crying woman is asking me for help and trying to have sex,” but the Filipino spirits are extremely open about sex by itself. Even Laho prides himself on having REALLY good sex if someone comes up to him for it, because humans and involved spirits are the ones who mess shit up with “feelings” and “consent” and “maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

But he knows that humans shouldn’t be leaking gallons of blood, so once that started, he stopped. And then he assured the extremely angry anito that he only knows why I’m bleeding from ONE place, but he didn’t expect that much, and the chest wound is not from him.

Spirit-Me was now slightly WORSE than when I started—my chest hurt and my downstairs half hurt, and while I was flailing in a pool of my own blood, and begging the spirits for a steady income and a basic house, my mouth started bleeding, so now Orifice #3 Is Leaking Too Much Red Stuff.

So, I needed Freyja AND Brighid to come fix it. Brighid says that my issues are manifesting as “spiritual ulcers.” Freyja has gently advised me that given the shit that happened today, I should avoid spirit-intercourse for the next few days and seriously take it easy for other types of sex.

And weirdly enough, once everyone cleared out to give me a break from the events, the Morrigan came up and told me that she loved me, and I could ask her for help if I wasn’t too tired. She also told me that she is the goddess of sovereignty, and I don’t ask her for nearly enough things. So... yeah, I asked her for help with getting an art career and buying my own house, so I could help fix the damn planet by the end of this year, 2021.

See, the Morrigan is my patron goddess and she has been extremely hands-off in the past few years. While she DOES relegate herself to “spiritual bodyguard for the squishy writer,” sometimes she comes up and tells me she loves me, unprompted. Especially when I’m... not in a good space AT ALL, like today.

I wonder if my soul is dying, or in a LOT of trouble. Honestly, I’m not surprised. I told the spirits a while back that my soul will die if I’m stuck in this rut for much longer, where I’m not a successful artist, and so I have to live with my family, who I can’t really get along with.

I'm not good at anything besides art. Either my head just doesn’t fucking work properly for most jobs, or random shit goes wrong with basic tasks, or I end up hating the job and wishing that I could just DO ART FOR A LIVING.

The only way I can see to fix things is get an art career and move into my own place, so I don’t bother anyone and they don’t have to deal with my weirdness. But HOW THE FUCK am I gonna find a million dollars for a basic house, when I can’t even get enough people to read my stuff???

And that, followers, is why I'm up at midnight after exhausting Spirit-World shenanigans.

#spirit-work #Filipino mythology #long post #personal gnosis #unverified personal gnosis #paganism #irish paganism #anito

2 notes · View notes

onisiondrama · 3 years

Photo

(Note: I’m not repeating stories he’s told before and just putting them in parenthesis. I have a lot more videos to go until I’m caught up so that would save me a lot of time. If he gives details I never heard from him before, I will type those.)

“Should I Get A Divorce?” Speaks, Oct 6, 2020

- This video is weird. He’s trying to make himself seem smart and insightful about marriage because his marriage is “successful”, while most people complain about their marriage. - There’s one part where he says people don’t understand you don’t have to be lied to or cheated on in a relationship. Which is pretty ironic coming from him. He shows a clip of an upset wife asking her husband what he’s doing with a woman in a bedroom. The husband and the woman are getting dressed. The husband keeps asking “Who?” “What?”, pretending the woman isn’t there. Later he shows more of the clip where the wife is still questing him. He keeps pretending he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She looks in the bedroom again and the woman is gone. The wife looks confused. Love that gaslighting. Just like when Jamsey boi cheats. “I didn’t cheat. It was the other person who cheated on you, my spouse” “You said I can’t have oral or vaginal sex with your friend. You didn’t say anything about anal.” - In another part he says there are people who constantly complain about their s/o and they hide away in a man cave.. he says this while in his garage man cave. 😑 Which we know he spends most of his time in. Like, way longer than normal working hours. - He says he used to look angry in his old Speaks videos because of his marriage at the time. That’s total crap. He only shows clips from videos where he used his old militant persona for videos like his anti-meat videos. He made plenty of mushy Speaks videos talking about how happy he was with Skye back then too. 🙄 - I think he made this video during his short guru / advise phase.

“gotta say goodbye for a little bit” Speaks, October 8, 2020

- Tells his viewers they can listen to this video without watching it if they like to listen to people talk, like Kai used to do. [This is definitely meant to be another guru / advise type video. I can tell by his tone.] - Says he’s married to Kai for almost 8 years. (How Kai found James story) Says he married a fan and had children with them. He says they now have an awesome dynamic, but he knocks on wood because people who are together 18 years still get divorces. Says you never know, things can suddenly fall apart. - Says it’s cool because at the time he didn’t listen to social standards. Kai was 17 at the time, but lied about his age. Most people would have said don’t go for the relationship because Kai lied and the age gap, even though it was legal. He listened to the law and his heart and now he’s in the happiest marriage of his life. - “F society.” If he listened to society, he wouldn’t know where he’d be or what relationship he’d be in. Says you have to follow the legal system or your life is ruined. - Says he was an air force cop at one point because he believed in justice. He doesn’t think he wanted to shoot people, but he excelled in the cop program. He says he met Magic Johnson in the cafeteria at Lackland Air Force Base. He barely knew who Magic Johnson was, but he thought it was cool a famous basketball player was there. James asked him if he could take a picture and he said yes. He says he took a picture of him like a reporter and not a selfie. He still regrets that. - Says he wants to talk about the future of this channel. Some people appreciate he’s been uploading every day, but he wants to focus on sites that aren’t shadow banning people or algorithmically demoting people. He feels like Youtube is king in letting negative opinions prevail, even if it’s invalid. If the engagement shows people are mad at you, Youtube used to go the harsh truth route. He says that was nice. He says he once made a fake meltdown video in response to a video Leafy made about him. He says it’s fun for him to make fake meltdowns. - He says he and Kai took a quiz today and found out Kai’s IQ is 136 and his is 129, so Kai is smarter than him. - After the meltdown videos, Youtube algorithm didn’t favor him as much. He says maybe it was because he said they were fake. - He says he has been thinking about websites and how they treat users. Says Twitter is one the best because they don’t care about what your opinion is. They just care about their rules. Says if people don’t like you on other sites, they will shadow-ban you and you’re done for. He says his reaction video to Leafy’s video got 1/6th the views Leafy did, so there was a bleed over of traffic. Now when someone says something negative about you, YouTube will only promote videos that agree with that narrative. Says if you only want to hear negative stuff about Joe Biden, you’ll only see negative stuff. He says it’s financially productive, but it’s not ethically productive.

[I just want to pause here and vent a second. Yes, James fell out of the YouTube algorithm, but he’s had plenty of chances to sweep back into it. Like when he was getting tons of views on those fake meltdown videos in January. The reason those viewers didn’t stay is because there is nothing good for them to watch. His Speaks videos are boring, long, rambling messes. He repeats himself, contradicts himself, talks about the same topics over and over. These videos are mind-numbingly boring. His comedy videos are extremely outdated. The characters, topics, and humor he uses are not going to get him anywhere anymore. Like is the Death Note fandom really that strong in 2020? That anime came out 14 years ago for Christ sake. His music is not particularly good or interesting. On top of all this, his reputation is complete garbage.

People just don’t want to watch Onision. If the algorithm tried promoting his Speaks videos, I guarantee most people are actively choosing not to click on his videos. The non-subscribers that do click probably regret it. He’s made ZERO effort into making interesting or engaging content. He’s ONLY been making Speaks content that either fuels his ego or defends himself using the same old arguments he’s used 100+ times before. He’s got to be in some kind of deep denial if he thinks his Youtube views are down because of the algorithm.

There used to be a saying that whenever Onision’s fans grow out of him, there will always be a crop of young teens that start watching him. That’s not happening anymore. It’s not cool for the alt / loner kids to watch edgy Youtube videos anymore.]

- Says people only want to hear things they agree with, people want to take what he says out of context, blah, blah. I’m only 1/4th of the way through this damn video. - He asks why he’s busting his butt when there’s no chance for him to prevail on Youtube or anywhere. He says he’s on TikTok, OnlyFans, Twitch. [This video was from before his partnership was taken away on Twitch.] He says those are slightly less problematic because they are driven by human beings and not drama. - He says when you see him posting less to Youtube in the future, you’ll understand why. He says he wants to wait you guys out, 2 years, 20 years. (He tried to call out Shane story.) He says he had to wait a year or two until people admitted he was right about Shane. He says he has conflicting feeling about Shane because they had a personal friendship. Says Shane told him they were friends. - He says you guys seem to drive your narrative and agendas by emotion rather than science and facts. He can’t reason with them unless he picked a greater evil and wages war on that. You would have to join forces with him because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. He says he wouldn’t do that because he’s not interested in being a professional wrestler and making fake drama. - In time you will feel passionately about other things. You don’t actually care about anyone involved because none of you are consuming yourself with anything that is not pop culture. You’re only interested in things other people are pretending to care about. None of you would care if someone found three bodies in a basement. If they were not celebrities you wouldn’t care. You only want justice for things that will get you attention. - If someone builds their whole platform about anti-person they might get bored and become anti-you. That’s why you don’t want to be friends with dramatic people. - He says he was dramatic about things, but that’s because he did care about those things. He wasn’t talking about 3 bodies in the basement either. - Says a long time ago when a celebrity died, he pointed out 30 people were murdered and washed ashore in another country. No one was talking about it because they probably didn’t hear about it. Nobody actually cares about human lives. If you did, every second that a human dies you’d be tweeting about it. - (Sarah blackmail story.) He says in a number of words Sarah said she wouldn’t ruin his life if she slept with him, then went back on it. [Wow. He really morphed his original story. It used to be: One time she jokingly said she could ruin our lives. Later we wanted her to sign an NDA and she said only if she gets something out of it, meaning sex. James said it was “good vibes” that day and he perceived that as her being kinky. She also said it was just a joke in the “proof” clip he always uses. They signed the NDA, then James pressured / tricked Kai into having sex with himself and Sarah. Then Sarah later came back and he decided they should have anal while Kai was out of town because Kai didn’t say no genital to butt. He only said no genital to genital and no genital to mouth before he left.] He says he decided to no longer sleep with Sarah because it was toxic and he decided he would rather be ruined than be with Sarah. [I have a theory he stopped sleeping with Sarah because he was afraid of Kai finding out. If he was truly afraid of Sarah ruining his life, why did he make those videos about weed smokers and BPD that would piss her off? She didn’t speak about their relationship publicly until he started bashing her through those videos.] Says Sarah went ahead and ruined his life and you fell for it. - He keeps mentioning Joe Rogan. - He says others have said he built an empire, uploaded thousands of videos. He gave so much of his life entertaining people and making them laugh. It was so important to him. He changed a lot of lives for the better. Says if you look on Twitter before the drama, you’ll see a lot of people thanking him. Says he was a positive influence to millions of people. That’s a fact. It all came crumbling down because people lied. They’re all criminals he kicked out of his life. He tries to play hero and he was only right with Kai. Kai wasn’t playing victim, he was on his way to college to be a surgeon. Once he was in the process of having kids, he lost the taste to be in a surgery room. Instead he got a bachelor’s in psychology. Kai’s diagnosis of James is aspects of narcissism, but says he doesn’t meet the qualifications to be a full blown narcissist. - He is investing a lot of time in people who don’t listen and don’t appreciate his content. Social media is a drug that tries to take up as much of your time as possible to make advertisers money. He doesn't create content that lies to you or brainwashing you into thinking your opinion is valid. He doesn’t pander to you to make money. Says when he says he’s one of the most honest people on Youtube, the bar is low. OnisionSpeaks is snake poison because snakes don’t survive on this channel. They aren’t going to have a voice that isn’t questioned. Most snakes on Youtube don’t even know how to activate charities on their channels. - Says he had a conversation with Kai about someone who said they vote for the economy over people. Humans are divided between helping their neighbor and helping themselves. - Says he was never taken to court because he never did anything. He’s still posting to places that he thinks is beneficial to himself and his family. Why would he stop because people have a bad idea of him? You shouldn’t alter your life just because people have an opinion of you. If you quit it makes you look guilty. If you quit you’re either guilty or incapable of dealing with it. He says he’s used to dealing with abuse since he began social media. - He wants to create content and help people and make them laugh. He wants to be socially capable and experienced. His ambitions are aligned with what he’s doing. - He says he can’t forgive his father if what people say about him is true. Everyone else he can forgive. If you are at odds with him, he doesn’t have any hate for you. He understands people can hear the wrong narrative and make mistakes. Says we are both imperfect people and have gone through different things. Says if we went through the same experiences, we’d think the same. Says we aren’t so different. - Says he’s going away and he hopes you watch all his videos so you’ll know a little bit about who he is instead of listening to what Youtube manipulates you into watching. Says his advise is to quit social media. He wouldn’t quit because he’s passionate about it.

7 notes · View notes

tentacletherapissed · 5 years

Text

Public Callout: Paradox, Blue, Jay, Bird

This is a public callout post for users Paradox (@rushifaas -- previously @mournins ; @beliisms), Blue (@divinebetrayed ; @halcyonfought), Jay (@loyalbetrayed) and Bird (@soulsbetrayed). They are active in the fandoms Persona, Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Danganronpa, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Sentai, Power Rangers, and Kamen Rider.

Never in my 15 years of roleplaying have I met a group of abusers and enablers so toxic, and this post is a PSA so that I can hopefully keep others from falling into their hands. Please blacklist them ALL for your own safety, however, DO NOT ENGAGE THEM WITH HARASSMENT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Keep in mind, Paradox’s actions are so egregious, he is already getting charges pressed against him by two different people he abused so far, and more may be on the horizon. The rest all enable this behavior and defend him despite all that he’s done to harm them and people they previously called friends. While this callout has snapshots of receipts proving our claims sprinkled in at the mention of them, for full transparency, the full comment chains will be uploaded at the end so that context for everything will be supplied, with censoring only provided for those who have nothing to do with the conflict and wish to be left out of it.

Strong trigger warning for mob mentality, mental and emotional manipulation, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, transphobia, pedophilia, ableism, and a lot more. Details under the cut. (7,300+ words, be mindful)

[Gdoc link in case Tumblr’s formatting is unreadable]

OPEN ALL LINKS AS NEW TABS, I’M SORRY TUMBLR SUCKS AT THIS

Note: Paradox claims to have Dissociative Identity Disorder, and claims to have many alters which are sometimes go by the names of Abel, Vic, Nikki, Hebel, Cain, and Ana in some of these screencaps. I will not be arguing the veracity of such claims in this callout, but for simplicity’s sake, I will be referring to everyone in his system solely by the name of “Paradox” since there is a considerable amount of confusion based on who said what and it’s not entirely clear who’s supposed to be talking in a lot of these screenshots. He also claims to have several other mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and BPD, but regardless of anyone’s mental illness, they should treat those around them with respect and kindness, which is why this callout has been made.

________________________________________________________________

MAIN EVENT - Early September 2018 / June 10th

Paradox is the ringleader of this little cult. A few months ago, he was dating my friend Nael (occasionally called Arin, Ciel, Naoya or Hevel in some of these screens). I first got alarmed about the health of their relationship during an incident in early September 2018 where Paradox threatened to commit suicide over a conflict having to do with RPing and prioritizing one blog over one he liked. [September Break Up: Singles] They broke up, but after a lot of guilt tripping from Paradox and others in his group, my friend Nael decided to get back together with him. Even though I had a lot of misgivings about the situation, I told Nael that I respected their decision and wouldn’t pressure them either way. [Scout and Nael: 12, 13]

Months went by, and I didn’t hear much due to specifically asking Nael not to tell me about their significant other and that group of friends, but things were going downhill. There were many more fights over roleplaying and shipping, some of which Blue and Jay expressed concern about privately, especially since it seemed Paradox himself was ignoring his other lover Kieran for Nael. [For Me: 13, 15, 16]

Paradox’s behavior continued worsening until it came to a head in mid March 2019. Blue and Nael were getting invested in an rp campaign I was running on a private server. When Nael showed off a picture they drew portraying their character, Paradox became extremely upset at them. After a solid week of enduring abuse from their lover [Abel Suicide: 1, 2, 6], it eventually culminated in Paradox apparently trying to take his own life after Nael attempted to break off their relationship. [Abel Suicide: 22, 23, 24] Nael was able to contact their mutual partner Kieran (sometimes called Kie or Vampy in screens) so that he could send the police to Paradox’s home and he would be rushed to the hospital. [Nael: 11]

Nael has multiple health issues that include heart disease and problems with their brain, and was so traumatized by the experience, they had to go to the hospital themselves [Nael: 19, 20 ; Before / After Suicide: 43]. Because I was terrified at the possibility of Nael dying from the escalating nature of their toxic relationship, I urged them to go through with the breakup. Nael decided to take my advice and broke up with Paradox and Kieran on a group chat while on a screenshared call with me and another friend who wishes to remain nameless. [Before / After Suicide: 46]

Blue was at first on board for the breakup and supportive of Nael’s decision [Blue Agrees: Singles] but at the persuasion of Jay decided to believe Paradox’s story when he said Nael had misrepresented what he said when he told Nael he would probably drop Blue due to the breakup. [Copy of Group DM: Full] Keep in mind, we have the FULL attempted suicide dropbox [Abel Suicide: Full], and the breakup conversation including Paradox’s abusive behavior before the attempted suicide attempt. [Before/After Suicide: Full] Much of what Paradox says are blatant falsehoods. In addition, Kieran (Vampy) no longer agrees with the things he has said to support Paradox’s argument and says he was pressured to agree with everything, even if it didn’t feel right.

So instead of making it clear to either of us that Blue no longer considered us friends, she instead gave us the silent treatment and leaked what I vented to her in confidence to Paradox behind my back. She only admitted to doing this when I confronted her after finding a vague post Paradox made that used the exact same wording. [Scout vs Blue: 1, 3, 4] I was extra furious with her because Paradox was making it sound as if it was Nael saying those words when in fact they had no idea what I said to her and was highly distraught when they found out about the vague post. Her excuse was that she didn’t think we would find out. [Scout vs Blue: 7, 9]

This is a common theme with their relationship that shows the extent of how complicit Blue is with Paradox’s abusive behavior. Due to her once close relationship with Nael, she often served as the “bait” to bring Nael back, agreeing that the relationship is unhealthy at first [With Blue: 12] only to go back to heaping abuse on Nael for leaving and trying to persuade them to come back [Nael’s Last Conversation with Blue: Full].

By then, Nael had already blocked everyone else in the cult-like group except Blue due to a promise they’d made to her, and she abused this trust right away by pulling Nael into a group chat so that everyone could yell at them. [Scout vs Blue: 10, 11] IF YOU BECOME A PART OF THIS GROUP, THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN LOOK FORWARD TO. If you do anything to provoke Paradox’s ire, you will be subjected to a firing squad full of people yelling at you for whatever you did. You will not have a chance to defend yourself, only grovel for forgiveness until they decide they’re through with you. Nael and other members of the group have been subjected to it many times.

Unfortunately, there are no surviving screencaps of this particular dispute, but I do have the one I was involved with. More on that later.

Eventually Nael left and blocked Blue so that they couldn’t be added back to get yelled at more. For the sake of our RP, we agreed upon a peaceable way to continue the server RP [Scout vs Blue: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16] but Blue eventually exited that too [Scout vs Blue: 17]. During the three or so weeks they were split apart, Paradox vagued continuously about us, copied our behavior and prior ships he had with Nael with others currently in his cult, and sent Nael threatening and unstable messages [“Goodbye, Nael”: Single]. While behind their back, he was privately making light of the situation and even made bets with his stooges about when Nael would return [Betting: Singles].

Here’s where I have to put an important disclaimer: During Nael’s time away from the main cult, we both would snoop on his and Blue’s blogs to see if they had mentioned us. Also, during the period immediately after Blue sold me out to Paradox, I became enraged and sent him a pretty angry message [Scout Loses Their Mind: Single], commented on one of his posts, and indirectly threatened them with my popularity compared to theirs in the community I was in. All of those things were the direct result of piss poor decision making and I apologize for my behavior, because it was simply not right to do, no matter who I thought I was defending. Though the blog snooping continued, I thankfully sent no more harassing messages to anyone from the group once Blue indicated she wanted a clean break from us, and no vaguing messages were made on either of our blogs.

Worse still, I privately speculated if this latest suicide attempt Paradox had gone through was “real” or not, which is totally unacceptable. Though I was just concerned about my friend and worried that this might have been another attempt to manipulate them, all threats of suicide should be treated seriously and the proper authorities contacted, PERIOD, regardless of how “serious” the threat might seem. I definitely agree with Nael’s decision to contact the authorities as it was happening, and I’m relieved to know another life wasn’t tragically lost, no matter what my situation is with Paradox after the fact.

Now, with that out of the way… Eventually, Paradox was able to get through to Nael by convincing them that I had lied about a certain mental disorder he was assumed to have. This is all despite me never having said he didn’t have it as I do NOT have the medical condition described and am NOT a medical professional. Paradox willingly passed medical records through a mutual friend [Consent: Single] that Nael initially found convincing but has recently come to doubt. Note: PLEASE NEVER DO THIS, OBVIOUSLY.

Paradox then convinced Nael to pretend to be my friend for a little longer so that he could lure me into a groupchat under the impression that I was defending him from all his former friends. Here is the entire chat almost in its entirety (a few glitches in captures results in a few repeats and nearly 4 minutes straight of lost content), with screenshots proudly taken by BLUE [Her Discord Drop: Single], who played an instrumental role in helping it happen. While I would encourage everyone to read it in its entirety, please be warned that the amount of abuse I endured is very troubling. [Scout Trap: Full]

Please note that Nael (Hevel), Kieran (Ghostie), and Dave have all come to me and personally apologized to me for their role participating in that group chat and we are friends now. But at the time due to this traumatic experience, my friendship with Nael was officially ended. Even though I was worried sick about them, I knew they couldn’t be saved until they saw Paradox’s abusive behavior for what it was on their own. And of course, after a brief honeymoon period, the abuse started again. (Keep in mind, I wasn’t in contact with Nael or anyone else for most of these, so I’m not as familiar about what happened and when.)

The first sign of trouble started on April 16th, not even two full weeks after I had been "defeated". Once again, it was over RP drama, where Paradox became upset at his two lovers Nael and Kieran for shipping with anyone besides him [Initial Ship Drama: 6], even though he usually continues multishipping on his blog with certain people when he pleases. [With Blue: 2] He complained about this endlessly. [Random Paradox Screen]

He continuously gaslit Kieran for about a week, cycling between saying he was going to leave forever [Initial Ship Drama: 9], telling the Kieran to take care of Nael [Initial Ship Drama: 10, 27], giving conflicting directions [Initial Ship Drama: 22, 38], putting himself down so Kieran would feel compelled to console him [Initial Ship Drama: 30, 41, 58], and asking them not to try to pursue romance with him [Initial Ship Drama: 12, 13, 32, 63], only to flip around and say that the idea of romancing them makes him feel “happy”, so he will [Initial Ship Drama: 45, 46], then become upset when either one of them indicated they might need space to either think or just live life like normal. [Initial Ship Drama: 53] Really, the entire thing has to be seen to be believed. [Initial Ship Drama: Full]

Eventually, Paradox’s behavior got so bad that once again, Blue expressed dissatisfaction with his behavior [With Blue: 4], but apparently it wasn’t enough to dissuade her from luring Nael into yet another trap to be yelled at barely a month later on May 17th. [May 17th: Full]

Confusingly, the reason behind this collective thrashing was that Nael actually overcorrected too much and tried to do more stuff with Paradox, only to be called clingy and possessive when they did. Then, when Paradox told Nael he didn’t want to RP with them anymore, Nael tried to respect his decision and not get involved with group RPs that Paradox was involved with so there would be no pressure either way. This was then held up as an example as to why they were “isolating” themselves from the group. Paradox showed the screencaps to others in the group with very little context to get them riled up and angry at Nael so that they’d be on board to yell at them, again showing his willingness to twist someone’s words to make them a convenient villain, no matter what they do to try to appease him.

Then on May 24th, there was the supposed “death” of the alter “Abel”, (who has since returned yet again). [Paradox: 2] The source of all this drama was that Blue simply mentioned a ship that she was continuing with Nael during a period of time Paradox wasn’t at all receptive to the idea of them interacting. Blue freely admitted to being the source of this conflict in private [With Blue: 21], but had no problem letting Nael take the brunt of the abuse. Once again, she is complicit for enabling actions she knows are wrong and hurtful, judging by the way she expresses concern about them, as long as she’s not the one in the eye of the storm.

Following this conflict, Nael started having serious second thoughts. After getting yelled at yet again about something they didn’t even cause, they had to go to the hospital for a near suicide attempt due to all the stress of being repeatedly attacked by someone they thought they could trust.

After they got out again, they were pulled into a smaller group chat with the newly formed “Paradox” alter as well as Jay, where it was demanded he answer for the wrongful death of an alter that has since returned. Multiple times, Paradox held up the incident from September, (which was over 9 months prior!) as to why Nael was to blame for Blue’s actions this time. [Paradox: 8, 10] Paradox even told Nael, someone who had been in the hospital just a few short hours ago [Paradox: 5], that their “suicide held no meaning to him”. [Paradox: 32] All of this despite the fact that they had talked about the very same ship on May 6th! [Proof Abel Knew: 10 total]

This was also supposed to serve as yet another “My heart is telling me not to get in a relationship with you” conversation -- a breakup convo, and one their third lover, Kieran, hadn’t even initially been invited to. [Paradox: 59] It was mostly just Paradox yelling at Nael with Jay usually only chiming in to agree with or heap praise on Paradox. [Paradox: 67] Several times, Paradox made confusing reversals, at one point musing “another alter might come and love you again” [Paradox: 49] to going back to insisting they could never be together again [Paradox: 70], then accusing Nael of saying they don’t love him [Paradox: 45, 46]. You might remember this erratic pattern from his conversation with Kieran back in April. This is gaslighting in its purest and ugliest form.

Clearly after this, Nael was rattled and eventually decided to leave. Instead of making any sort of formal goodbye, they just decided to delete their old Discord and make a clean break so there was no way they could be dragged into another group chat and yelled at. The group quickly fell into chaos once again. Paradox quickly began pumping out venting vague posts on his personal and RP blogs, sometimes pitying himself over the way Nael had apparently treated him [Single: Singles], and sometimes outright wishing death on them. [Paradox die: Single] Before long, he cracked and started sending desperate messages to Nael directly despite Nael obviously not wanting to talk. [Paradox Desperation: Singles] And when that didn’t work, of course Blue was deployed to try to persuade them to come back. [Last Convo w/ Blue: 22 pages] Luckily Dave warned them beforehand. [Thanks, Dave!: Single]

To try to convince others in the group that Nael was the bad guy and needed to be stopped, Paradox began feeding lies to his followers about bad stuff Nael was apparently doing. Paradox told Dave that Nael had been badmouthing him behind his back. But when Dave went to confront Nael about their behavior, Nael provided proof that was in fact Blue saying bad things about Dave. That’s when Dave decided to leave, too.

More chaos happened within the group. Soon after, Kieran the supposed third in their relationship got tired of Paradox constantly saying how Nael was “the only person he could ever love” as well as the constant torrent of irrational behavior and abuse. [Paradox Flipping Out: Single] So he left, as well. Aside from many, many more aggressive venting and vague posts, nothing much new has happened as far as group dynamics.

So far Paradox has been mostly fixated on Nael’s absence, but without the contributions of everyone who left, this callout wouldn’t be possible, and they should all be commended for their efforts and their courage for coming to me to apologize personally for their part in the abuse I and others have suffered.

As terrible as Paradox’s behavior has been in this retelling of events, mostly centered around Nael’s situation, it’s really only scratching the surface of how toxic this group is. There are many smaller details and other people he’s hurt that couldn’t fit in this brief recap, so here are a few more things you should know about that will hopefully keep you from this toxic group of friends.

First I’ll talk about the accounts of people who used to be in the group and go into detail about all the people who are still backing Paradox up despite everything he’s done.

________________________________________________________________

PARTIES INVOLVED

- Other victims -

Kieran:

While Nael took the lion’s share of the abuse from Paradox, it’s important to remember that he was involved with two different people and treated them both badly. Paradox is an outstanding example of what NOT to do when in a polyamorous relationship.

While there was a brief month long period where everything seemed fine after they started dating on October 23rd, Paradox began heavily playing favorites towards Nael, a pattern that only seemed to get worse over time. Kieran was subjected to long periods of neglect from his lover with Paradox only seeming to remember he existed when he was trying to use Kieran against Nael. Even Blue and Jay noticed this when the relationship was just starting out and rightfully called it out, though only in the safety of a private chat. [For Me: 13, 15, 16]

Several times during their relationship, when Nael would mess up or try to leave, Paradox would say that Nael was “the only person he could love” (he even wrote a diary about it!) [Copy of Journal: 2 pages] and break things off with Kieran as well. Most of the time without even telling him. However whenever he was trying to condemn Nael about something, he would hold up Kieran to say “What you’re doing is hurting US”, often without Kieran’s consent.

Of course, Kieran was still subjected to the same amount of lies, gaslighting, emotional blackmail, and mental instability from Paradox that Nael had to endure, but the fact is that he was also basically used as a weapon against someone he cared about by someone who was supposed to care about them both EQUALLY.

Ruby:

Ruby is someone who’s been fighting a personal battle with Paradox for years, starting with a dispute that happened, of course, because of an argument about a fictional character. For the past year and a half as of writing this (the harassment started Nov 2017, it is currently July 2019), Paradox has been stalking her blogs and harassing her over this perceived slight. He lied about her to all her friends in an attempt to alienate her from the public, and we have a confession from Nael that says not only was Paradox guilty of sending tons of anon hate towards Ruby even after they had each other blocked, he would send other people (Nael included) to send anon hate after her.

I briefly intervened during this dispute on Nael’s behalf in November 2018 because during that time we were both lead to believe that Ruby was targeting both Paradox and Nael. This is despite the fact that the post Paradox was upset about wasn’t even about him and she barely even knew Nael even existed. Thanks to my help, I was able to negotiate a brief ceasefire that lasted a few months up until Nael’s separation from Paradox in March.

The stalking and harassment started up again as soon as I had been branded an enemy, and eventually it got so bad that Ruby was the first (but not the only) one to announce she is going to try to press charges against everyone still remaining in the group. Although we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and she’s done and said things that were unintentionally hurtful, she has been very receptive to feedback and has made great pains to change for the better. I support Ruby wholeheartedly in her endeavors to make the ones abusing her pay for what they’ve done. If you want to know a little more about her conflict with Paradox from her perspective, visit her page. [Ruby’s page of Receipts: Full]

- Part of Paradox’s group -

Blue:

Out of all the people on this list, Blue is the most disappointing aspect of all this, seeing as I considered her my friend even before Nael came along. We’d been friends for more than a year by the time the March Madness started, meeting somewhere around February 2018. She was the one who introduced me to Nael in the first place, and Nael was so close to her they called each other their long lost siblings.

Unfortunately for all of us, Blue can’t stand up to a bully who insults and abuses her friends, even if she knows what he’s doing is wrong. We have multiple screenshots showing instances where she admits that Paradox is in the wrong or being annoying or excessively guilt tripping others based on trivial matters. However, whenever she’s personally on the hook for getting targeted by the ones she calls her “friends”, she quickly falls into line.

The second Paradox asks her to jump, she asks “How high?” She’s been willingly used as bait to rope Nael back into situations she knows and has even admitted are super unhealthy for them, all because she’s too afraid of being the next one everyone turns on. The only time she shows any semblance of “courage” is when she’s backed up by the rest of the hivemind. She’s too afraid to speak for herself, often parroting what others have already written in a desperate attempt to show external strength and total fealty for her master.

I have to wonder what exactly it is that keeps bringing Blue back to him, even though we have an entire folder showing times where she has come to her own conclusions that Paradox is unhealthy to be around [With Blue: 24 total] and has a penchant for blaming her whenever his relationship with his two lovers ever took a downwards turn. [Paradox blaming Blue: Singles] It’s not my place to speculate, but it’s safe to say that with all the times she’s personally let me, Nael, and others in our group down, there’s no way in hell we’re giving her another chance. She has made her choice to stay with someone she knew to be an abuser and emotional manipulator -- someone who hurt her and her friends -- and she will have to live with that decision.

Bird:

Ruby’s situation with Bird is very much like my situation with Blue, made all the worse by the fact that they were actually dating at the time. Bird purposefully sold Ruby out to Paradox while claiming they weren’t in contact, all the while she was feeding all of Ruby’s words and private thoughts to him. This is a common theme with this group and why you can’t be friends with just one of them if you don’t want to be involved with the cult as a whole.

Eventually she was found out and hasn’t really bothered to hide the fact that she’s on Paradox’s team ever since. We also have screenshots of her calling Nael a brat and useless during conflicts Paradox started, like the shipping drama in September. [Misc Bird Folder: 9 total] [Ruby and Bird’s Breakup: 16 total]

Jay:

Now we get to the biggest sycophant of the entire group, Jay. She’s been the one by his side the longest -- for a whopping 4 years -- and one of his most ardent supporters and biggest enablers. While I didn’t know much about her at first, seeing as she was largely absent from what I affectionately call the “six-person beat down”, she’s an invaluable member of Paradox’s cult and basically functions as his right arm and messenger.

If you have a problem with Paradox and want to talk things over with him, he’ll usually insist upon bringing Jay as an “impartial judge”. Not surprisingly, she usually just ends up agreeing with whatever he says and pushing his narrative, all the while insisting she’s being unbiased. She will lie for him, rope cult members attempting to leave back with excuses for his inexcusable behavior, and always swallows whatever lie he has to say wholeheartedly. If he needs a message from Abel passed on to someone trying to persuade them to come back, she’ll deliver it gladly. But if you need her to send a message to him, she’ll curtly tell you not to have her “fight your battles.”

She tried to send an entire drop box of “evidence” to Dave attempting to prove Nael was manipulative and evidence of the alter “Hebel's” existence. In it, Paradox (or rather, his alter Hebel) admitted to trying to spur Nael to kill themselves so that “Hebel” could apparently take over and get Kieran all to himself. [Potential Manslaughter: Singles] All of this was sent as proof that NAEL was the bad guy BY Jay, which is truly mind boggling and shows how far gone she is with regards to him.

There is a woman in prison the very moment that I’m writing this for spurring her suicidal boyfriend to take his own life [Article], and yet Jay thinks this behavior is okay? And before anyone tries to say that Hebel is “technically” to blame for attempting to push Nael to suicide, this argument hasn’t worked in the courtroom since the 1970s! [Article] IF PARADOX’S ALTER IS A DANGER TO NAEL AND CAN’T BE CONTROLLED, PARADOX HIMSELF IS ALSO DANGEROUS. PERIOD.

This isn’t even mentioning the multiple times she’s seen Paradox himself or his other various "good" alters (everyone in the group has seen, in fact) tell Nael outright that he “wishes [they] would die” [Abel Vent: Single] and that their suicide “holds no meaning to him” [Paradox: 32]. Jay was supposed to be “mediating” the very conversation where Paradox -- not “Hebel” or anyone else -- said that to Nael! And she said NOTHING. Her silence is complicity and she should take the blame for being such an ardent supporter of his abusive behavior.

Amazingly, there’s even MORE awful things that this group (particularly, but not exclusively Paradox) that I didn’t have any space to discuss in the callout itself, but they can’t go unmentioned. I know this is already super long, so I’ll try to run through them all as quickly as possible, and then we can get to the large wealth of screenshots we have linked at the end, where everything is in context for you to browse at your convenience.

________________________________________________________________

OTHER OCCURENCES

Transphobia: Paradox is a terf, and there’s not much else to say. [For Me: 2] Ironically he said this in a group chat with one of the only two people who identify as trans in their group, his then-boyfriend Kieran. Here’s him heavily fetishizing a failed attempted Corrin muse that he described as intersex, too. [FE Abel Problems: 5 pages] (In parenthesis is a user attempting to check their work. He makes a bit of an error concerning outrealms and dragon gates and whatnot, but please forgive him for those small errors considering how much he had on his hands.)

Abuse victim blaming: Paradox would often tell his two lovers, who are survivors of various types of abuse, ranging from mental, physical, and even sexual, how it’s their fault for letting their past traumas affect them. [Victim Blaming: Singles] Please note that these screenshots were taken in May, nearly a month before they separated from him fully, so they would have no reason to lie to each other about the things he said or needlessly malign his character before they left.

Promoting infighting: Paradox enjoyed watching his underlings tear each other apart for his amusement or to influence their behavior by saying their actions affected “everyone” despite him using false pretenses to get them to fight in the first place. He lied to Dave about Nael comparing him to a user that he wasn’t fond of when it was really Paradox and Blue that had done it. He also lied to Kieran and the entire group to get them all to yell at Nael in a group chat about Nael trying to isolate themselves from everyone when it was really done to please Paradox.

Ableism: Nael is unwell and has brain conditions they don’t feel comfortable with sharing. Instead of being understanding and supportive of them occasionally not understanding things or forgetting things, Paradox would immediately use it as a weapon against them. When “Paradox” first surfaced, Nael claimed that it wasn’t fair to them that the “Abel” alter yelled at them for forgetting about their ship with Blue. Paradox immediately countered that he Nael would no longer be allowed to use the excuse that they forgot things to AVOID being yelled at for minor things. [Paradox: 21, 22] He would constantly do things like this while they were together.

Copying and stealing OCs: Besides stalking the people that left and that he’s grown to hate, Paradox also has a peculiar habit of copying their activities on his blog with the few remaining people in his circle. For example, back in March when Nael’s Grima muse began interacting with a Reyson rper I introduced them to, Paradox made Kieran pick up his abandoned Reyson muse so that he could ship him with his Robin. (This hasn’t been linked to protect the identity of the second Reyson.) Worse still, Paradox has even outright stolen characters and backstories from those that leave. Here Kieran tries to ask Jay to tell Paradox to stop using some of his stolen OCs and she questions why it “would matter” to Kieran before promptly telling him to basically take a hike and blocking him. [Jay: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Racism: This group seems to relish in their own ignorance when it comes to matters of race. Here are screenshots Dave took where he discussed Paradox saying that Japanese people are white. [No, seriously: Singles] (Please note the dates -- it was back in December, so he has no reason to lie.) Here’s Nael recounting a time Paradox told them that, because they were partially North African, they had to distance themselves from people of their race because other people would only see them as a terrorist. (No caps of that since it was in a call, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.) Here’s Blue telling me, a black fan, that unintentional racism in a game I enjoyed but was put off by “didn’t matter” and that there was no need for me to “get so salty about it”. [Scout vs Blue: 19, 20] While I don’t think they’re going to any Klan meetings over the weekend, it’s still a bit concerning and something POC muns should be aware of because they can be startlingly insensitive at times.

Pedophilia: Probably the hardest one to talk about for me personally, but definitely one of the most serious. While I must stress that we haven’t noticed any sort of untoward behavior with underaged USERS thus far, Paradox shows an almost unhealthy fascination with underage MUSES that might be off putting to some people and may spell danger. This actually isn’t the first callout someone has made about his behavior. In 2018 while he went by the name “Vic” and was in the Pokemon fandom, he wrote a disturbing post where a 14 year old girl was killed by a literal penis monster that was saying “penetrate” as it ran her through the middle.

Though the mun was fine with their muse dying, the obvious sexual connotations of the post left them feeling uneasy. When they went to approach him about this, instead of apologizing, he got defensive and said that because it was fictional, it didn’t matter. Later he made a bizarre case arguing that because the girl was 14 and thus had presumably experienced puberty, it couldn’t TECHNICALLY be considered pedophilia. [WTF: Single] Which, while correct on only the most technical of terms, flies in the face of all reason. Here’s the full PSA about him back then [Paradox PSA], and screenshots he was booted out of for his terrible behavior. [Paradox Booted: Singles] (His then-lover initially tried to defend him, but his abusive behavior eventually drove them away as well, so care was taken to keep them anonymous.)

Most disturbing of all, though, is a smut drabble that he made this year concerning one of his newer muses, Momo. On his blog, he describes Momo as someone who is “physically” 18 but “actually” seven due to the circumstances of his creation. That would be fine, except he will often portray Momo as also being mentally seven years old even though he continues to write him lewdly. In the smut drabble, he even goes a step further and constantly refers to him as a “child” and constantly fixates on his underdeveloped genitals.

DUE TO THE HIGHLY GRAPHIC AND POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING NATURE OF THIS DRABBLE, DO NO CLICK UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED. It’s honestly not for the faint of the heart and makes me queasy from the first sentence, but there’s no other way to describe the severity of his awful nature unless you experience it for yourself. [To Endure a Fiend’s Heat: full 6 page drabble]

While some would say it’s okay to experience triggering material in a safe environment to potentially help ease the pain of past trauma, Paradox has already shown himself to be unreliable when it comes to respecting the mental health and safety of others, and though we don’t have any screenshots of this, Nael has recounted several times where Paradox said he was sexually excited by RPing his childlike muses having sex with the adult muses of others in the cult. Here's him once again emphasizing the child like element with one and then drawing them in a suggestive "pin up" pose immediately after. [Vector: Singles]

________________________________________________________________

Finally we are at our end. Once again, my purpose behind this callout is not to shame anyone with a particular mental illness or unique set of challenges. Paradox is dangerous to any community he’s in because of his view of other people as simple playthings that he can use and throw away as he pleases. He treats life as an RP, living people as muses, and his apparent mental illnesses as an excuse to do away with any sort of accountability for his actions, and it is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE. Please protect yourself and others by reblogging this -- I feel as though Nael is very lucky to have escaped this situation with his life. Informing others might save another’s.

Complete, unedited list of references, roughly in the order of mention:

(Please note that anything labeled “Single(s)” will not have an entry here, as those are the only screenshots we have about them. We got better about capping things as time went on.)

[Scout and Nael Convo: 13 total] When Nael decided to get back together with Paradox the first time in September 2018, I let them know my concerns, but told them I respected their decision, no matter if I agreed with it or not. Looking back, parts of this conversation feel almost prophetic.

[Didn’t Feel Like…: 9 total] One of Kieran’s first conversations with Paradox. Watch closely how he characterizes the incident in September. He also mentions that his trauma and BPD makes him a sexual fiend, which… idk how others in the community would feel about that.

[For me: 16 total] A loose collection of screenshots Kieran took that shows quite a few odd moments during his time in the cult. That includes Paradox being a terf, Paradox insisting that Kieran to stay with Nael if they broke up (which is something he criticized Nael for suggesting in the March break up, even though Nael only said it once), and Jay and Blue expressing concern for Kieran when Paradox was starting to neglect him back in January. PLEASE MIND THE DATES! They vary page to page sometimes!

[Before/After Suicide: 88 total] A few screenshots showing the tumultuous times immediately before and after the Paradox suicide attempt in March 2019. Afterwards, Nael breaks up with both Paradox and Kieran in no uncertain terms due to the trauma he faced.

[Abel Suicide: 33 total] Paradox’s infamous suicide attempt.

[Nael: 34 total] Nael and Kieran talk as Paradox’s suicide attempt is in progress, and Nael tells Kieran to get the police. Sensitive information blotted out for obvious reasons.

[Scout vs Blue: 25 total] A collection of the conflicts I’ve dealt with in regards to Blue since the incident in March. Also includes her racial insensitivity and back when she agreed with me and Nael before Paradox lied to her.

[Initial Ship Drama: 93 total] Kieran endures like 5 days of nonstop gaslighting from Paradox. At the end (Around page 88) he manipulates Kieran into sparking a confrontation with Nael, telling him to “be assertive” about fixing a problem Paradox caused with his erratic behavior.

[Proof Abel Knew: 10 total] On May 6th, Nael discussed with Paradox or one of his alters about the ship that triggered the May 24th meltdown. Paradox also says that having any ships, including ones that he doesn’t even have to see is unacceptable simply because they exist. He then blames Nael for something Blue brought up. Again. While asking Nael not to blame him for something Blue has done.

[With Blue: 24 total] Kieran talks with Blue about the aforementioned shipping drama, and she immediately expresses frustration and anger with Paradox blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Later she also expresses annoyance with the May 24th incident of the alter “Abel” “dying” due to even more ship drama.

[May 17th: 13 total] Once again, Paradox whips his followers up into a frenzy over Nael, who’s really just trying to do what they were told and prioritize their lover. When they’re told the amount of attention Paradox literally asked for is stifling, they back off, only to be yelled at for it once again. It’s not shown here, but Blue once again acted as a lure to bring Nael into a public flogging.

[Paradox: 72 total] Nael is blamed for the “death” of an alter that has since returned because the alter “wasn’t around” for something they discussed on the 6th of May. This is the introduction to the “Paradox” alter, that I’m assuming now has assumed a fronting role. I don’t really care if that situation has changed since I started writing this.

[Jay: 12 total] Just some screens of Jay kind of being a jerk (mostly in the first set). She won’t tell Paradox to stop stealing someone else’s OCs and stop improperly using Nael’s last name, which is considered legitimate identity theft in France, where he lives! Mind the dates.

[Last Convo w/ Blue: 22 pages] Blue reprises her role as the bait to try to drag Nael back, but they’ve wised up to her game by now. It’s not going to ever work again.

[Jay’s “Evidence” Folder: 122 total] All of the things Jay sent to Dave in order to convince him that Nael was the bad guy. None of it accomplishes that goal. In it there’s a lot of doting between Nael’s alter “Naoya” and Paradox’s alter “Abel”, before Paradox showed the exact same abusive behavior and drove Naoya away as well. Then Paradox’s alter “Hebel” tries to explain his existence. He also admits to attempted manslaughter. So. (Please note: some of these are out of order, and we’re very sorry about this, but it’s not our doing, sorry!)

[Ruby and Bird’s Breakup: 16 total] Ruby tried to get Bird to intervene on her behalf to get Paradox to stop harassing her after she tried making an apology post. Bird totally flaked out, probably due to her dual loyalties to Paradox himself. This spurred a messy breakup between them both.

[Misc Bird Folder: 9 total] Some more random stuff showing Bird and Ruby’s relationship, including her take on Paradox and Nael’s September breakup, where she calls him a “brat”. The entire time during these screenshots, Bird was secretly feeding information to Paradox against Ruby’s will, breaking her trust when she found out. She even told Paradox, Ruby’s abuser, about the new blog Ruby made in order to escape him. That’s why she’s on this callout.

[Discord Server Chat with Blue: 23 pages] The complete chat about the Fire Emblem Heroes event that left me feeling upset about the handling of race in Book 2. While the rest in the server try to be respectful or change the subject, Blue insisted on devaluing my feelings and saying I was accusing her of racism, which was, of course, untrue at the time. Currently, I’m not feeling so generous. (Note: My apologies to fans of Heroes’ Nifl -- I say some strongly worded things here which may be unflattering, but I felt it was important to get the entire conversation down.)

BONUS: [Paradox Guilt Tripping on his birthday: 16 total] In case you needed more evidence of Paradox’s gaslighting behavior, here is him guilt tripping them because Nael, who is not a native English speaker, didn’t understand one video he sent. If this is all it takes to trigger a breakdown, he is probably not ready for a relationship.

212 notes · View notes

number9robotic · 5 years

Text

9-24-19 Update

The long-awaited sequel to my 9-22-19 Update!

(plugging my newest pic as an artist tax)

Short version: I’m in physical danger right now.

Long version: My relationship with my parents are breaking down significantly because changes to plans of my living situation, my inability to cope with my depression, anxiety, and other mental/emotional compromises, and the resulting inability to do anything outside my comfort zone like finding a proper job/source of income or going to school.

As a result, my mom over the course of a few days have been physically threatening me (in public, no less) to send me back to my home in Vancouver while also shaming me for ruining their lives, and I feel legitimately unsafe being in my own home because I don’t know what they’re gonna do to me. All while this happens, my ability to stay motivated as a creator is really being tested.

Fuller version is below this line because I don’t wanna flood the feed and my account with walls of unpleasant text:

Please read my 9-22-19 Update for full context and backstory, there’s a lot of text and I don’t wanna retype it all.

1. THE REAL-LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES GOT WORSE

Yesterday as I was in my weekly therapy appointment, my parents had a renegotiation with each other about that plan I mentioned for my dad to come here and basically repeat the process of my legal anchoring to LA away from my home in Vancouver. Even though I responded with a (resigned) “sure, I’ll do it for you,” suddenly my dad made a conscience decision and told my mom that he changed his mind, because he’s really concerned about my mental well-being and the complete stagnation of my life because of my time here in LA.

This... didn’t go well with my mom, because as usual, this is ultimately about her, I guess. Later that evening, she took me to a Starbucks because she wanted to talk with me about something important, partially as a result of her indeed getting her travel permit document that day. She told me she also talked to her lawyer earlier that day, who said that as it stands, while the case isn’t expected to be finished until April 2020 at the earliest, I’ve technically done all I need to do to be declared a resident of the US, and my job is effectively done. Combined with my dad’s newfound desire to not keep me here any longer, I was told that I could return home.

buuuuuuuuuuuut

She was VERY clearly not happy about this. Despite being the one who decided to talk about this publicly, she had a very loud meltdown as she was explaining this and decided to erupt all of her frustrations not just with herself, but also of me.

To summarize her very long and confusing tirade, she started to outright force at me “JUST GO BACK TO VANCOUVER! GET A TICKET AND MOVE BACK TOMORROW! JUST GO!!!!”, yet was simultaneously also venting about how much damage this would do to HER and her career; that my lack of presence is a sign of failure on her part as a parent, because she hasn’t been able to get me to go to school or a “real” job or even learn how to drive. Keep this one little bit of info in mind.

A third argument she was trying to convince me of is that the return to Vancouver for me is only going to fuck ME up, because she doesn’t believe that me returning back to a comfortable place where I’m familiar with and am actually able to get around using public transit (which is so much better than LA, it’s not even a fair comparison) would be better for me and my personal health. She also said that Vancouver’s ability to help me with my mental health is so much worse than that of LA... which... that’s incredibly laughable on so many levels, the least of which is the fact that we spent a several-month assessment process to apply for job assistance because of my autism, only for the result to me to deem me and my autism diagnosis as invalid, but whatever, I guess...

I responded by telling how incredibly irrational she was acting in her hysterical state (again, in a very public area) with her a bunch about what I felt would help me through this, which I’ll talk about later. Reason not now is because she promptly forgot about it and this morning, SHE DID THE SAME THING AGAIN. This time she invited me to talk at a different Starbucks, asked me about my future, and then had ANOTHER very public meltdown screaming about her and my life problems, but this time it was at a time before McDonald’s stopped serving its breakfast menu.

Once again, she slammed me in my inability/refusal to try anything that would apparently help justify me being here in LA, me ruining her life no matter where I go in the world, and also threatening to send me away to Vancouver. This time I just had to outright leave the conversation because she was getting violent this time; I’m currently typing this in a library and she hasn’t found me yet. This isn’t an entirely new feeling, but currently I am legitimately scared for my future and physical safety.

2. EMOTIONAL HEALTH AND PARENTING

I (re-)explained to her that my problem with all of these personal development hurdles -- my inability to try anything where it feels like the failure of which will be utterly emotionally devastating -- is because I flat-out do not have the ability to deal with it. The entirety of grade school and post-secondary have collectively been the most emotionally devastating times of my life to me, I failed my written exam that’s the first step to get a driver’s licence 5 TIMES, and I have a smattering of emotional, communicative, mental, and physical hinderances preventing me from finding work.

And here’s why that affects me so much: my parents are not emotionally supportive. Mom and dad have outright admitted that due to “Chinese parenting”, “it’s just not my personality”, “I don’t know how to help reassure you” they don’t wish to help me with my emotional problems directly, often times finding it to be the job of others they can then shunt that duty off to, such as therapists, psychologists, counselors, or others. This ignores the fact that my meetings with them are weekly, whereas my greatest exposure to other people come from them, my supposed “loved ones”. I feel like I should be able to go to them for emotional strength. I do not, either because they aren’t capable of or just simply don’t want to be that.

Just to note how little they care about my feelings, I came out to them as nonbinary a few months ago, explained to them what that actually means, that I don’t like my pronouns or birth name at all, and asked for them to respect that. They have yet to comply despite me broadcasting my discomfort constantly, because they simply won’t “get it”.

Yknow... as someone who’s failed a lot in life... I can safely say that the resulting emotional wreckage isn’t fun.

The thing about being emotionally wrecked is that without any reliable source to go to like family or friends, my only solution is to just wait for my depression to pass... which if anyone knows anything about it, you’d know it’s super-unreliable and can take either a week or a month for me to feel better again, and is incredibly destructive. What I’ve recently realized is how much it utterly fucks with my perception of time and continuity -- depression cuts off my ability to feel anything significant or optimistic, including my ability to perceive a future worth looking up to. As a result, I feel like I’ve wasted A LOT of time in the last few years because nobody has been able to help me with that, at least in my actual time of need.

I’ve made this point to my parents many times throughout the year, and I’ve been desperately trying to communicate to them that the easiest solution to my mental trauma? To actually be there emotionally as loved ones; to help me through that potential sense of failure that I’m so afraid of experiencing again, and for them to comfort me as their child.

This request has pissed off my mom on multiple levels: the first I established already is that she’s constantly claiming she doesn’t know how to/isn’t capable of doing it because “it’s just not me” or “I’m not white mom” or some other crap. The second however is where things got super-confusing: she was also offended that I would ever think that she doesn’t support me on that level, and shared me a bunch of wechats to our extended family supporting my minor hobbies, even though they’ve been sucking really bad (again, please consider my patreon, this is a super-hard time to be motivated as a creator)

So I was like... “You ARE capable of being emotionally reassuring! I want to actually hear it myself!” because she almost never expresses positive emotions; it’s either complete ambivalence or negative frustration. She continued to express negative frustration at this, and at that point I just gave up because at this point it struck me that she just outright doesn’t want to help me with it because she felt like she can shunt the duty to someone else... even though she’s pissed about having to pay them therapy bills to do so. Ugh...

3. EVERYTHING BITES

To summarize: this entire breakdown and my future is emotionally fueled not about my needs like my dad wished, but about my mom’s, who believes that it is far more simple for me to be sent back to Vancouver at her blatant behest, and for me to just “get over” my depression and anxiety to do all the shit she expects me to do which she also believes me to be incapable of doing, than to just... be a caring parent who expresses positive feelings.

And during all of this, she’s also shaming me as a failure who ruins her life no matter what I do.

I am... so exhausted... and it’s super-difficult to stay motivated as a creator these days as a result of it. Fuck, I barely feel safe returning home either in LA or in Vancouver, because I know my mom hates me for it.

I still don’t have friends, and I still have depression and anxiety... and I can’t even ask my mom to be there for me in my time of emotional distress... thanks.

#vent #art #artist #need help #artists on tumblr

6 notes · View notes

like-twilight · 4 years

Text

I’m jus’ gon do this cause why not I stole it from Here.

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

According to my last.fm in the last seven days: 1: ATEEZ: Wave 2: ATEEZ: Illusion 3: ATEEZ: Win 4: TxT: Run Away 5: ATEEZ: Precious 6: ATEEZ: Say My Name

Guys. I like Ateez.

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

My sister.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

Well I ain’t standin’ up so here’s line 17 from page 23 of Vale which is on my computer.

““Well then, Your Highness,” I say and crouch down, trying to get a look of her face”

4: What do you think about most?

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad things.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

From a real person that’s not an automated message from a bank or a website it’s from my co-worker from October 26th that says “Ok I’ll do it, print it then I’ll replace it”

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

Well. PJ’s are clothes so.

7: What's your strangest talent?

I don’t think I have any.

8: Girls... (finish the sentence); Boys... (finish the sentence)

Girls not allowed. Boys also not allowed. Leave me alone. (My nb friends can come tho.)

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

If I did then the creator didn’t tell me :”D

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

I... can’t recall.

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

Frogs.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

Maybe as a baby?

13: What's your religion?

I don’t belieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve.

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

I’m not outside. But I’d probably be going to work or the store or the post office.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind.

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Ateez!

17: What was the last lie you told?

“I’m okay!” #deep

18: Do you believe in karma?

god no!

19: What does your URL mean?

It’s a quote from Ateez’s Twilight.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

I’m very depressed. Strength is probably that I’m still alive? Idk

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

Idk. Find a lot of famous people attractive I-? I Don’t have just like The Celebrity Crush. Jeong Yunho’s cute tho.

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

No.

23: How do you vent your anger?

I throw a temper tantrum.

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

Just a mason jar of my tears. Also every Ateez album released so far.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

Neither! Fucking email me, bro.

26: Are you happy with the person you've become?

God no :D

27: What's a sound you hate; sound you love?

Ambulance sirens hate. Fuckin... panflute I love.

28: What's your biggest "what if"?

What if I was a... giraffe.? Or a tardigrade.

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

I believe in things we can’t perceive scientifically or whatever. Not ghosts per se, like souls of dead people or whatever. Also yes to aliens.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

Nothin I’m jus sittin on my bed. If I move my arms up and down a bit then my blanket and a bottle of water.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

Nothin. Is just my room.

32: What's the worst place you have ever been to?

Uuuh a cemetery?

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

In America? Idk which is less racist in general?

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

What’s an “opposite” gender? I know you mean male but I refuse to give into the cISSEXIST SCUm.

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

I have no idea what that means.

36: Define Art.

the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

37: Do you believe in luck?

Yes. But I’ve never been the lucky one unfortunately.

38: What's the weather like right now?

Uuuh I have to google it. Clear. 8°

39: What time is it?

21:30

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

No. But I probably would.

41: What was the last book you read?

Pfssssshhhh, one that wasn’t written by me? Fucks me, dude. Fault In Our Stars? The Death Cure? I can’t remember, it’s been years.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

Yeah!

43: Do you have any nicknames?

Tia.

44: What was the last film you saw?

Uuuuuuuuhhh... UUUUHHHHHHHHH How to Train Your Dragon 3, it was nice.

45: What's the worst injury you've ever had?

Had a bleeding spine! Kinda miss it tbh.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

I probably haven’t tried, I’ve just tried to get them to land on me.

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

Uuuh I’m into Ateez these days.

48: What's your sexual orientation?

I’m byesexual.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

Yes.

50: Do you believe in magic?

Again, I do believe things could exist we can’t scientifically explain but idk. Not in the Harry Potter magic way.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

No, cause I believe everything is my fault.

52: What is your astrological sign?

Aries.

53: Do you save money or spend it?

I save money TO spend. I think I found a healthy balance.

54: What's the last thing you purchased?

A fukin... bike. That’s like in your room. Not by accident but because it’s meant to be there.

55: Love or lust?

Like.. in what context? Love? Idk.

56: In a relationship?

Love.

57: How many relationships have you had?

None relationships.

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

I can’t.

59: Where were you yesterday?

Like on average? Or 24 hours ago exactly. Cause I was at work for eight hours and then I was just on my bed.

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

Yeah, my phone case.

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

Ye.

62: What's your favourite animal?

Cat? Idk.

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

:DDDD If I had any then people would like me.

64: Where is your best friend?

????

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

I... I dunno? The ones I follow?

66: What is your heritage?

I don’t know what that means. Like what I’m gonna be remembered by? I whined a lot!

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

Cried.

68: What do you think is Satan's last name?

Choi.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

Why would I lie about masturbation. Yeah I did.

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Fuck no.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Save the dog, fuck off.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

a) I am telling everyone. b) Be paralysed by fear and waste all of it. c) Yes, very much.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

I feel like that’s stupid.

74: What's a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

Illusion by Ateez these days.

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

4153

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

I wouldn’t know, buddy.

77: How can I win your heart?

Just be nice to me and I’ll probably be emotionally attached to you for life, sorry.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

I don’t think insanity is the cause for any creativity. If an insane person is creative then they would be creative with a sound mind too.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Got into kpop, that was nice.

80: What size shoes do you wear?

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

“Balled 2 hard lol”

82: What is your favourite word?

There are too many words.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Kokoro.

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

I don’t think there is one.

85: What's the last song you listened to?

Treasure by Ateez.

86: Basic question; what's your favourite colour/colours?

Pink and yellow.

87: What is your current desktop picture?

A picture of.. Ateez... sorry.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Donald Trump.

89: What would be a question you'd be afraid to tell the truth on?

Uh, I think I’m p truthful, yeah. Ask me anything.

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren't really doing anything, they're just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Scream. Maybe scramble on the floor and push past them if I can.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Immortality!

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Oh geez. I was on a carousel in Italy once, that was awesome.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

The one that gave me depression idk which one it was but can it go away?

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

Ehh, I don’t want that. Like... I don’t know those people, they could be Awful in bed or just in general too. Like I need an emotional bond first and they don’t even know me and I only know the persona they show to the public. Plus it could potentially ruin the music for me later on, it’d be weird, no thank you.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

UUUUUHHHHH I DUNNO Lyon cause Grenoble doesn’t have an airport. Well, actually my sister isn’t in Grenoble right now. Hm well if I grab my card before I go then I can just find a hotel there until she comes home.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

I don’t think so?

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

I had to throw up in a car and then asked the driver to stop the car so I can throw up outside the car.

98: Ever been on a plane?

Yes. Seven times. SEVEN TIMES? Yeah, holy shit.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Someone help me, I am so so so incredibly in need of help, please. Please. Thank you.

#about me #personal

1 note · View note

leech-hearts · 5 years

Text

hello friends, today I would like to talk to you about something very serious.

I would like to talk to you about somebody called Uwusenpaichu. Someone who has been stalking a discord I am in, and has been harassing some of our members.

Here is a post they made, a couple of hours ago now

Here’s a live link to that: https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/uwusenpaichu/180254956953

Uwu you seem to have this problem where you take screenshots out of context so it can fit your narrative that you're a victim (while simultaneously implying that you superior to everyone else), so let me provide the full screenshot of what i said;

Now I know why you didn’t share the top part of that screenshot Uwu, because if you actually went to my blog and looked in my links, you would see I am in fact 20 years old. An adult. Not a minor. Not a wittle butthurt babby minor uwuwuwu who's just putting themselves into danger by talking to you.

I am an adult who has shared real, rational concerns with you (this post will be the 3rd time now iirc, the first being when I replied to your original p4r0dy post, and the second time was in that screenshot)

Okay let’s get on to talking about some of the things you’ve said in your post;

(for context the Miky I mention throught this post is tumblr user Mikyantsu, a 17 year old who is the owner of the discord and the one person Uwusenpaichu has been relentlessly bashing on their blog)

1a. "“they’re lucky the yandere community didn’t do worse”, which is true, they could have gone beyond what they did"

Uwu may I remind you that you are talking about an event where a child with mental health issues who was bullied off this site by the very community that made them feel unsafe. What happened then was unacceptable behaviour that we don't need to be repeating like you are now by harassing Miky, and it was also not appropriate in any way for you to make that comment about p4r0dy in the first place.

1b. "Yet you people can make actual death threats?"

There is a difference between saying something when you are angry with someone online (in discourse and vent channels where things usually do get heated), and getting someone's location or other personal information and going into extreme details about the horrible things you would do to them.

No one on that server has said anything close to that, and the things that have been said were said by people who have been stressed by the situation. They are tired of it, and I am also tired of it

Miky tells me that you have been tagging her in discourse posts since the 3rd of November, that’s an incredibly long time to be chasing after people like this, and it can be incredibly stressful for people Uwu.

1c. "You say my blog is wrong for posting he tai on a “minor associated site” but it’s not just minors which is a big thing you’re talking about."

I didn't say your blogs were wrong for posting hentai on a 'minor associated site'. Nowhere in either of those screenshots does it say that. What I was saying is I found it quite worrying that you push yourself to be an 18+ blog, but you are the one who keeps initiating arguments with these minors.

I don't have a problem with you posting hentai on your blog, what I do have a problem with is you baiting minors into talking to you/talking about you by continuously churning out these 'callouts'.

I also have a problem with how you keep almost obsessively targeting Miky for these 'callouts' when you know she is 17, and you have known she is 17 for a long time now. And presumably you have not blocked her and are not trying your hardest to stay away from her because she tells me that you have been reblogging from her blog.

1d. "I’m responsible for myself, not others, I’m not your parents. Learn to be responsible yourself for your actions"

Miky and the others are trying to be responsible by warning other minors about you and the content of your blogs. That post you made earlier with the screenshot that was so conveniently chopped down like mine was? That was Miky informing someone who hadn't been here from the start about what was up with you

Here is your screenshot Uwu, when you complained that Miky was still talking about you and whatever;

the post is viewable here: https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/uwusenpaichu/180240578713

and here is the full conversation that happened;

2. “And finally, I’m not going to stop talking about a bunch of underage kids that shouldn’t be near blog keep talking about it and being childish about who posts what and who says this.”

I’ll just leave this here because it speaks for itself, but these are either children or they aren’t Uwu. They’re not ‘kids who need to be babied and spoonfed but at the same time should be extremely mature and sensible when they are talking to/about you’ or ‘young adults with sensibility who should be age restricted and monitored at every turn because they can’t be trusted’

They’re either kids who you shouldn’t keep trying to interact with because you are an adult and you think it’s inappropriate (something you’ve said in the past), or they are people with critical thinking skills who are have seen what you have done in the past and are voicing their concerns

3. “Who cares?”

I care Uwu, so do all the people in the discourse chat who are having their comments screenshot and their PMs to you posted on your blog. I care because it is extremely draining, and I don’t like to see others hurt.

4 “ Nothing I do is harming others.”

That’s where you’re wrong, every day you post a new ‘callout’ with screenshots from a server you are in you are prolonging drama, which can and is having a negative affect on the mental health of the people in this server

That’s enough for today (it’s 3am lol), take this post as a little warning if you didn’t know about Uwusenpaichu, and you’re a minor, then stay well away.

#discourse #uwusenpaichu #feel free to blacklist these tags if something else comes up #yandere #leechy's talking time #long post #im sorry

54 notes · View notes

onemillionfacepalms · 5 years

Text

TW: some stuff i guess, whatever, guess ill do tags.

Ok so, personal post thing, might be long might not. No idea how to do an under the cut thing, maybe itll do it automatically on long stuff, no idea.

So im not sure how to start this out... im really just trying to get this noise out of my head. Im fairly recently on meds for bipolar depression and yeah they seem to be doing ok, i dont really have mood cycles anymore but stuff seems to still trigger down episodes, although not really as severe anymore. Its hard to deal with them though because im not really sure how to handle them, i mean before they just sort of blurred into the background sad and didnt really get noticed but now theyre their own thing and im kind of tripping over myself. A few of my friends from uni have said that i can talk to them about this stuff and family has too but i honestly dont feel like i can... im genuinely terrified that theyll see/treat me differently once they see how broken i feel like i am, rationally i know they wont but i dont want to take the risk. So i guess this post is my vent? A way for me to talk about it without talking about it?

So in like 3 and a bit years ill be 30. That scares me cos at the moment i live with my parents, i did live on my own for a few years but moved back cos of house stuff (non issue) and my plan is to go back to uni this year, in like two months, (context; i had a big breakdown about a year ago and kinda stopped going to uni and spent all my time alone and couldnt function properly, which led me to seek help for my issues, hence the recently medicated status) and the idea of going back scares me real bad. I honestly have no idea if i can do this and i dont know what im going to do if i fail, again, cos i have no idea what id do for work, hell im not even sure i can work well enough to not get fired. Im slow, like physically slow, i dont type fast, i dont move fast and tasks take me longer to do than most people, so physical jobs like packing shelves or warehousing stuff will not do well. Also i know a lot of my family and maybe some of my friends think im bright and smart or whatever but im really not, im a straight up idiot, i just put on an intelligent front and i mean yeah ill retain random trivia and can wrap my head around really abstract concepts but even when i was doing well at uni i was still struggling to understand. I mean fuck, what if i succeed? What then? I have no idea. Ill still be 30 and living with my parents, and that is not where i want to be, ill still feel like i failed somewhere. How do people honestly expect me to be able to just sit down with them and drop all this on them? How am i supposed to tell someone that ive been thinking about killing myself for the past two years, like seriously thinking about it, because im terrified ill never be anything more that a failure. Dont get me wrong i do appreciate my freinds saying theyre there for me and if i need to talk theyll listen but they all have their own lives, their own shit, most of them are in relationships too so taking on the weight of my stuff isnt fair to them.

I often try to imagine myself in an ideal future, which for me is married and living in a house with my wife and kids. Funny thing is whenever i try and picture it it feels so alien, like its beyond what ill ever be able to reach. I havent dated in like 10ish years, i dont see that changing soon either, i really just dont feel like im good enough for anyone. There was one exception to that actually, one girl who made me feel normal, like i was actually good enough to be someone. Ive had feelings for her for like 3ish years and she was the one person i actually felt like i could talk to about this stuff. She and her boyfriend split mid year i think and i thought id wait a bit and then ask her out. True to form i waited a little too long, i was going to ask her out at our uni group christmas picnic but there i found out that she had asked out on of our other friends a week or so before. Hes a really good guy, like, i want that on the record, super nice guy. But i felt like id been stabbed. It hurt so bad but i had to keep a straight face. Im still super conflicted about how im supposed to feel about it, like on the one side im really crushed, and angry, not at them, at me, im angry that i waited too long, angry that im more focused on me than i am on being happy for them and angry at myself for being angry at all. Make no mistake i am really happy for them, i think theyll be good together and im sure theyll both be really happy, they deserve it. I dont really think i have anyone i can talk to about this stuff though, she was usually who i went to.

Look, i get this was a long post. Feel free to just ignore it and keep scrolling, i wont think any less of you at all. This is not a suicide note. At all. To me suicide is like a multi million dollar mansion at the top of a hill, god itd be great to live there and ill fantasize about it but the reality is i dont think i ever will its out of my realm of possibility, so dont worry about that. Like i said at the top i just needed to get this out of my head.

#TW: depression #TW: suicide #only briefly mentioned mind you #personal post #dont mind me #not dying yet #no real plans to

3 notes · View notes

beauty-grace-outer-space · 6 years

Text

Pardon my rant post, but I need to vent. Some triggery stuff under the cut.

For context, my grandmother is bipolar. I believe she also has narcissistic personality disorder. I think my father may also have narcissistic personality disorder.

Nearly 3 years ago now, my grandmother and I were talking when she told me she was having trouble affording her anti-depressants. I offered to pay for them, and to schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist to get her dosage confirmed and her prescription renewed. I told her I’d take care of everything.

A few days later, when I called to tell her I had an appointment scheduled for her, she told me not to bother and that she’d decided to kill herself months prior and had actually been storing up her pills to do so. She told me my grandfather knew, and they were making arrangements for him to go on without her. She kept me on the phone for over an hour, in hysterics and hyperventilating, begging her not to die.

I got my mom and my aunt involved (since I was pretty young and had no idea what to do) and we were able to get her to meet us at a nearby place; we had paramedics waiting to evaluate her.

Despite 4 nurses and 2 doctors saying she was a danger to herself and should be kept for a mandatory 72 hour hold, she was released less than 5 hours later by a county representative.

Thus began months of emotional and verbal abuse. She told me she hoped no one would ever love me, because I don’t deserve it. She told me that “the way I am” must be “the result of my warped upbringing” and that she hoped my friends “saw who I really was”. Etc. etc.

In the midst of this, I found out that when she had called me and told me she was going to commit suicide, she was already back on her pills. I can only assume she wanted an emotional response, but never thought I’d actually try to get help involved.

Four months later, she decided we were going to pretend it never happened. She went back to being a loving, cheerful grandmother-- though still making snide comments here and there.

But our relationship has changed forever. I don’t trust her, and I see when she’s being manipulative. She decides who to call-- of me and my cousins-- based on who’s most likely to give her the reaction she wants.

Two months ago she had a series of small heart attacks. Upon her release from the hospital, she and my grandfather temporarily moved into my aunt’s house while my family and I set to work trying to clean and declutter her home. She’s an extreme hoarder, so this has been quite the task.

This weekend was the last weekend of cleaning. She and my grandfather came and sat with neighbors while we worked 11 hours a day cleaning, and I overheard her making comments.

“I don’t have a single person I’d call family.”

“No one cares about me.”

“I guess we’ll just go to a shelter.”

“My ‘family’ never does anything for me.”

Things like that. For two days.

I was already worn thin from the cleaning, the fact that in taking care of things for her I haven’t seen a single friend in over 3 months, the fact that I haven’t had a weekend, or a bit of free time in 3 months. And then I hear her being manipulative, lying about us, about me...

That’s how Saturday and Sunday went. Then comes Monday.

My father has always had problematic tendencies. When he was younger (20s and 30s) he punched holes in the walls when he was mad. When his father died when I was 4, he disappeared without a word to my mother for a week. When he gets mad he throws things, he kicks things... just... a whole host of things that I have only realized with a lot of therapy are not ok.

For the past several years, he picks fights with me over political differences. I have begged him repeatedly not to bring up these topics because we don’t agree and no matter what I do, he ends up yelling at me how stupid I am.

If i walk away or stay silent, I’m too stupid to form an opinion.

If I try to have a calm discussion, he pushes until I’m no longer calm, and then tells me that I don’t have opinions, I have emotions, and this is why no one can have a conversation with me.

If I tell him I don’t want to talk about it, he continues to do so anyway.

He’ll push me to the point of tears, yelling at me that I’m stupid or uninformed, but if someone else enters the room, he switches topics mid sentence. All cheer.

It hit a point where my mom had to light into him to get him to back off by saying, “You have to stop treating my kid like this.”

He realized he was being an asshole, and actually apologized, and things... calmed down for a while. The only conversations we’ve really had are, “You should find a nice Christian boy and get married”. Which... yeah right.

Monday night, he picked a fight with me at a restaurant, yelled at me all the way home about how I don’t listen and only hear what I want to hear, and then once we got home, acted like nothing was wrong. All smiles and cheer in front of my mom.

I went to my room in tears, and he followed me and knocked on my door. I ignored him. He knocked again. I ignored him. He came in anyway and proceeded to tell me that I’m emotional and misinformed and if I would just listen to him, we’d agree.

I told him we don’t agree and I do listen, but I’m not going to agree because of the things he was saying.

He asked for examples and I gave him some from the “conversation” we had just had.

His response was: “I don’t know where you make this crap up in your delusional little head. I NEVER said that, I’ve never said anything like that!”

And it pushed me over the edge so I just sat on my bed staring at my comforter and sobbing, “I don’t want to talk about it. Please just leave me alone.”

He finally huffed out, “FINE!” and left my room.

My therapist phrased it well when she said it was a “torrent of emotional assault”.

I’m exhausted, and that’s why I’ve been sad/vague posting. I’m so worn out. I’m so tired. I just want to cry for three days.

I don’t know what I was hoping to achieve with this post. I just... needed to rant.

#it speaks #personal #delete later #not trek #abuse tw?#idk #emotional abuse #verbal abuse #sigh #i'm so f-ing tired ya'll #i need a hug

14 notes · View notes

pierrehardy · 4 years

Text

Philippine Peso x COVID-19

Two years ago, my parents planned to sell some antique gold coins to fund a new car. They asked me, “when is the best time to sell gold?” I told them, “during a crisis.” They wanted a car back then and didn’t have the patience to wait for a crisis to roll by, so they went ahead and sold their coins.

Two years later and here we are, in a pandemic crisis and news is blaring that gold reached an all-time high of almost $2000 per ounce. On the one hand, I was smug about giving them the right advice. On the other, it’s hard to overlook the opportunity cost. We could’ve had a third more money if we waited.

It’s funny how we fretted for years because of the bull’s decade-long run. Almost a decade of economic growth with no signs of stopping. We kept worrying about how we’re headed to a crisis, and these kinds of things tend to be self-fulfilling, but the bull was hard-headed. We kept guessing, damn, what would kill this bull? People were so confident it was going to be the Sino-American trade war. But surprise! It’s a pandemic. Literally, nobody was able to foresee that.

Now we’re in a crisis, which means that everyone is running to stash their money into safe assets. The example above is a classic one about gold. Another will be the American dollar. The world runs on the dollar, after all. So during this time of crisis, we expect the demand and thus the value of the dollar to grow. This would mean that the value of every other currency will weaken against it.

So imagine my surprise when I heard that the Philippine peso barely weakened against the dollar. Hell, the peso’s value even grew. I compiled the rates myself and plotted it alongside its regional neighbors (Figure 1). I made every currency start from their value against the dollar from January 29, 2020 then plotted its change until July 21, 2020. I’m basically trying to see its progress from the start of the pandemic. The graph is also inverted, so higher up the graph the line is, the stronger the currency is.

Figure 1

The red line is the baseline. Any currency below it means their value weakened from the start of the year, and any currency above strengthened. As you can see, most currencies are down since the beginning of the year, which is the expectation. Only four countries in the region were stronger now than when the pandemic started: Australia, New Zealand, China, and the Philippines. The first three were understandable since most people were impressed with how competently they handled the virus. On the other hand, the Philippines is a head-scratcher at the start, especially when reception on its handling of the outbreak was mixed.

Now for the note: This article is focused on the economic aspect of the COVID-19’s effects on the Philippines. More specifically, only on the country’s currency and its implications. In other words, it’s very macro. I have my own personal set of criticisms on the government’s response, but that’s not for this blog post. Today, the focus is on studying why the peso kept its value and how it affects the country’s economy.

Why is the peso’s buoyancy surprising?

If you look at figure 1, you can notice that the biggest dip in the pesos’ value was when the community quarantine was first implemented in Manila. In retrospect, it’s clear that there was a quick rebound, but the outlook was grim during that time. Even the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) was stressing nonstop regarding the economic damage that the quarantine will bring (Figure 2).

Figure 2; source

That’s from the speech of BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno, and he’s right. The governor has been doing all that is necessary to ensure an economic rebound for the Philippines. Or at the very least, economic stability. You can see in figure 3 that the BSP has cut interest rates to give the economy a boost.

Slashing interest rates is a common move by any country’s central bank when it needs to boost the economy. It’s like stepping the gas a bit if you’d imagine the economy being a vehicle (and raising it is like stepping on the brakes a bit). The basic idea is that the central banks make it cheaper for businesses to borrow money, making investing and growing the business more attractive. This also entices normal consumers to borrow and spend more, which is good for the economy.

Seeing that the country’s credit rating didn’t get downgraded, I’d say his efforts worked. Indeed, Capital Economics even thinks that this monetary stimulus helps compensate for the lack of fiscal action. In other words, it’s supplementing the inadequacy of the government’s response to the pandemic (you only need to scroll through Philippine Twitter to see people vent their frustrations about this).

Figure 3; source

Figure 4; source

Also worth noting for those not very economically well-versed that the BSP is independent of the government. At least it should be, but currently, there are no signs of politicians interfering with the central bank’s independence.

It is typical that when a country cuts its interest rate, its currency’s value will tumble. There are a ton of ways to interpret the interest rate, one of my favorite ways of seeing it is that it’s basically the price of money, roughly speaking. What dictates the value of a currency is how much foreign investors want it. The more they want it, the higher the demand, therefore the higher the price, and so the higher the value. If you cut the interest rate, which is basically the rate of return that investors can get from the peso, usually, this becomes less attractive to them. So less demand means lower prices and so lower value. This is quite simplified, but that’s the basic idea.

But as you saw in figure 1, the peso’s value didn’t go down. Besides the BSP’s negative outlook and the cuts in interest rates that usually mean it should go down, it didn’t. Why? This is what I tried to find out.

The reasons behind the PHP’s stonks

If the peso is up, that undoubtedly means that foreign investors like our currency, and our question is why that is the case. I found four possible explanations.

First is the simplest one: this is how foreign investors are saying that “despite the falling interest rates, we still trust the strength and resilience of the Philippine economy.” If they kept holding on to their Philippine investments even during a crisis, it means that they find our interest rate to be more attractive than other countries’ depressed rates.

The second is regarding remittances. The Philippine economy is built on remittances by an army of overseas Filipino workers (OFW). So much so that we dub them as the “modern-day hero” back home. So during the pandemic, everyone was worried that nobody was safe from the risk of losing their jobs, at home and abroad. Everyone expected remittances to take a hit (Figure 5).

Figure 5; source

However, OFWs’ makeup has a secret superpower: a huge chunk of them work in health care. With the worldwide crisis being a pandemic, those OFWs are needed more than ever. This helped soften the epidemic (figure 6) since our remittance decline was only 2-3%, less than the predicted 13%.

Figure 6; source

Reason number three is the drop in oil prices. I wrote about this with more detail in a previous blog, in an appendix. But basically, the decline in oil prices happened even before the pandemic. It started when Russia and Saudi Arabia had a stand-off and went on a “how low can you go” battle over oil price. Sadly for them, the pandemic collapsed the demand for oil, further depressing the price. Now that they are working together again to save the oil price, their supply-side controls cannot lift oil prices up due to the demand-side pull. No one needs oil if planes can’t fly, and people can’t go around freely.

Luckily for us, Filipinos, a fall in oil prices means a lower import bill. In fact, the Philippine Star even reports that we have a surplus of oil (figure 7), meaning we don’t need to import more.

Figure 7; source

The last reason is the Philippine’s recent good track record for financial management. I know Twitter (and some webinars I’ve attended) might make you believe that literally, everything in the Philippines is a mess right now, but hear me out. The first measure we’ll look at is the debt of the Philippines.

I’ve heard plenty of misconceptions about debt. The narrative is that we are “baon sa utang” or buried in debt. First of all, debt is not a bad thing, as long as the country invests it and proves that it can pay it. Second of all, seeing numbers in billions is very tantalizing. Still, any interpretation you can make is basically meaningless if you don’t put it into context. The economy is in trillions, after all. So it’s good practice to put debt into context with a measure called “Debt to GDP”, which is basically framing the number to the economy’s size.

Now, standards for debt/GDP are different for emerging economies and developed countries. Rich countries have debts bigger than their entire economies, and everybody shrugs like that’s normal. Figure 8 shows the Philippines’s Debt/GDP from the year I was born until today. It is important to note that this figure is before the pandemic, so we expect almost every country’s debt to rise after this crisis (Figure 9).

Figure 8; source

Figure 9; source

As you can see, in recent years, the government has been doing an excellent job of whittling away at our debt by being thrifty. The point of me bringing this up is to explain the investors’ trust in the country’s prudent financial management. Despite the unpredictable nature of the president, Mr. Rodrigo Duterte, it’s public knowledge among investors that he is hands-off regarding the country’s economy. He mostly delegates economic policies to someone more capable (figure 10). Investors notice this, so despite being a bit turned off by his crassness, they’ve mostly held on.

Figure 10; source

The last figure I want to mention is the BSP’s record stash of foreign currency reserves (Figure 11). Having a stash of foreign currency is a safe way to preserve a currency’s value if it falls too fast. If your local currency is being devalued too quickly against the dollar, you can release some of your dollar reserves to equalize this imbalance by increasing dollar supply and lessening the local currency in circulation.

Figure 11; source

So, the next question: is this a good thing?

Do we really want a strong currency?

On the surface level, the knee jerk reaction would be: of course! The stronger, the better, right? If strong money signals a strong economy, why wouldn’t we want it?

Well, the reality is more complicated. In truth, the best is a balance. Pragmatically, we want our currency’s value to be low but not too low that people think our money is worthless and our economy hopeless. Let me explain by presenting two clear implications that affect most of us.

First is the competitiveness of our exports. In world trade, almost everything is denominated in dollars. So if our peso is healthy, that means that each peso is worth more dollars. In other words, each dollar is worth fewer pesos. So if you’re a foreign buyer seeking to buy goods in the Philippines, let’s say that your one dollar is equal to 50 pesos, which will get you 1 burger. If the peso gets strong, that might mean that one dollar is now worth just 25 pesos. So now, you need 2 dollars to buy only one Filipino burger. This makes Filipino burgers less attractive to foreign buyers.

This is why most countries accused of manipulating their currencies usually try to devalue their own money to make their exports more competitive worldwide. So in practice, a stronger peso will hurt our local businesses.

Second, a stronger peso means that remittances will be worth fewer for them. In the same example above, change the foreign buyer into an OFW. Every dollar you send to your family will just be worth 25 pesos instead of 50 pesos. To everyone who is already being financially squeezed by the pandemic, a stronger peso is an unwelcome development.

So, in the end, while a stronger peso is a sign that our economy is resilient and deemed desirable, it has its drawbacks. A strong peso is of little comfort to those who actually need it the most.

#Economics #International Business #Current Affairs #Philippines

0 notes

prophetkristy · 7 years

Text

slayer of stars

Twenty years ago today, I came down the hill from my History 101 course with my brain a-whirring, made my way to the computer lab in the dungeon basement of my dorm, logged onto Usenet [1], and posted the following to alt.fan.wedge:

Subject: SW and animism From: Kristy <…@uidaho.edu> Date: 1997/08/28 Message-ID: <[email protected]> Newsgroups: alt.fan.wedge

Okay, I just got back from my History of Western Civilization class, and I have to vent. It’s no secret that GL got his ideas from other cultures and traditions. So it wasn’t too surprising when my teacher(who’s pretty awesome, IMO) was explaining animism today, he used SW as an example. (it sure made taking notes a lot easier. ::g::) Animists believe that the universe is alive, i.e., the Force is there. And they have shamans who are basically Jedi knights. I identified with evrything he was saying until he got to explaining their general classes of gods. Here’s what they have: the old father god, the young warrior god, the young goddess of war/love, and the trickster. There were parallels here to SW: trickster=Han Solo, wise father=Obi-Wan, goddess=Leia. But my teacher went on and on about how the young warrior was the coolest of all, he went off and fought battles and monsters and all the cool stories were about him. So who else would he choose for the SW parallel but Farm Boy. Bleah! I _almost_ went up to him after class and protested. Farm Boy isn’t the coolest warrior! _Wedge_ is, of course!

Yet another example of the oppression Wedge fans suffer at the hands of Farm Boy…. ::sigh:: Well, he’s guaranteed I’ll remember _that_ part of the lecture.

How about: Vote Wedge. He’s the true animist warrior god.

Thank you for listening, you’re the only people who would ever understand. :-)

–Kristy [2], off to an astronomy lab

Palpatine’s dead. Vote Wedge. –Antilles/Celchu ‘00–

From such humble [?!] beginnings was the True Animist Warrior God movement born. (Some time later I printed out a post signed with the TAWG [3] campaign slogan and taped said slogan onto my history notebook.)

This was not to bag on the history course. It was only the second day, as far as I can tell from my notes [4]. I had wanted to take the honors section of the course, but it wouldn’t fit in the schedule of other classes I was taking [5]. It turns out that I don’t regret this, as I very much enjoyed the class. It was actually taught by a graduate student, IIRC, and he was very good; he described many events in a human context with the emotions and motivations of the players. [6] Really, the worst thing about the course was that it was at 7 am—a less than ideal way, shall we say, to start college [7]. (Oh my TAWG, I’m going absolutely berserk with the footnotes! My brain keeps going off on tangents, but I don’t want to interrupt myself all the time. wheeee!)

(Interestingly, the next semester I continued on with Hist 102, which this time was taught by a professor. Who wasn’t nearly as interesting as the grad student!)

According to my heading for the Animism post in the Classic Threads section of the AFW website [8], I previously linked Star Wars to the Sumerian epic Gilgamesh–where Farmboy was Gilgamesh, taking all the credit, and Wedge was Enkidu, doing all the work. I think now this might be a little revisionist history. I can’t remember in which course I read Gilgamesh, but it’s likely that it was Lit of Western Civ that same semester (high school Senior AP English was British lit, where we watched every Jane Austen movie Ever Made *gag*). The earliest post of mine I can find referencing the two was actually the *next* week or so, in the midst of the Epic, Historical “Fantasy Toys” Thread, in response to Quiara:

> We understand you, dear. Where else could I admit to writing a Hero > essay about him in the same year that I did a book report on Rogue > Squadron?

I really want to write my Lit of Western Civ essay on the parallels between Gilgamesh/Enkidu and Luke/Wedge, but I could never get four pages out of that and have my teacher actually like it. ::pout:: [9]

Both of these posts were commenting on what I felt (still do feel, to some extent) was a sad state of affairs in being a WedgeFan. Namely, that Wedge was a lot cooler than most people give him credit for. (And, underlying that feeling, a WedgeFan’s natural disdain for Luke “Farmboy” [10] Skywalker.) This would reach its fannish culmination in the Book of Wedge, but had real-world significance in the woeful lack of a separate carded Wedge Antilles action figure. As well as the lack of Wedge awareness among those who weren’t huge pilotfans.

Despite that, 1997 was a fantastic year to be a WedgeFan. Maybe if you weren’t Quiara, Brett, or myself, it was different—we three were quite chatty—but I never heard anyone complain. ;-) [11] It wasn’t actually our most active year, but it was the beginning of what I think of as the “golden years” of AFW. The first four X-Wing books (by Historian of Wedge Michael A. Stackpole) had been released by January 1997, and Mike actually lurked and occasionally even posted. I joined in the spring of 1997 as a senior in high school (with a very embarassing post which will not be reproduced here). Quiara was in high school. Brett wasn’t being challenged too much by work or life, because he also apparently had a lot of time on his hands. Somehow the three of us had some mojo (and also probably high blood sugar content) that just led to wacky hijinks. Quiara declared Wedge’s candidacy for President in April, a story which would last well *past* the 2004 election. I declared him TAWG in August. The Fantasy Toys thread was started earlier in August, thus cementing me into the AFW madness and keeping me frequently posting even when I probably should have been paying attention to college. (eh. I gradutated.) The “the world is falling down…” thread was that year, too.

Of all the Internet friends I have, interestingly it’s Quiara and Brett whom I’ve never met in real life. I actually haven’t heard from Quiara in years; she dropped off the radar at about the time she started college, I think, thus proving her work (study) ethic. ;-) I can’t say I really knew her all that well—AFW was almost exclusively the limit of our interaction—but I still consider her to have been an early partner in crime. I still hear from Brett occasionally, and I actually can’t believe I haven’t found myself visiting his city before now. Brett holds a special place in my memory not only for being such an integral part of that first crazy year on AFW, but also for scoring me the Wedge action figure I like to call “biceps Wedge”–the one from the Milennium Falcon carrying case, which his comics store was selling loose for some reason.

Resorting again to Google Groups (we never know, when we’re making history, that we are doing so, and as such fail to keep track of these things), it looks like I first styled myself Prophet Kristy on October 8, 1997, in a short thread titled “Random Thoughts.” [12] Quiara, bless her heart, actually accused me of being humble:

> –Kristy, Prophet of the Great One

Just a prophet? you could make Cardinal at least, if you wanted.

(Yeah, maybe I could have—I am Catholic, after all—but, y'know, “Prophetess” works better on the back of a kickball shirt that “Cardinal”. “-ess.” Er, see what I mean?)

One month later (AFAICT) I first signed a post as “Prophet Kristy”–and the rest, as they say, is history.

I could go on and on with the AFW nostalgia——but I should probably get to work on actual, you know, work. And this is getting LONG. However, I do want to mention one other thing in relation to the TAWG / Prophetess thing.

The Book of Wedge was my default icon on LiveJournal—a little cartoon made by terrathree, originally for Terra Group, that she kindly made 100x100 when I started LJing. I didn’t actually come up with the idea for the Book of Wedge—the document I wrote was largely an adaptation from “The Adventures of Wedge Antilles” written by Mike Scorsch and posted on his late web page Corellian Bloodstripes. I’d always been greatly amused by the idea of revisionist SW history with Wedge being the person behind *everything*–especially having Wedge actually blow the first DS as well as the second. Having declared myself a Prophet, I also felt it was only fair that I write a Holy Book. Thus was born the Book of Wedge, wherein Wedge not only blows up both Death Stars, but also shoots Greedo, fights off the Slave I with a blaster, and generally saves the day. In it, I declared Quiara and Brett to be Apostles of Wedge along with Jim and Marji, two others who were in the thick of AFW in late 1997. And generally had a blast being silly and fangirly.

Quiara followed this up with the Book of Quiara, a short history of the campaign and other silliness. And much later, terrathree expanded on an observation I’d made about the constellation Orion looking like an X-wing and wrote the tale of the Hunter of the Sky.

These are only a few of the many, many tales of Wedge spawned by AFW, but they are the Holiest. So sayeth the Prophetess of the Great One, Wedge Antilles, the True Animist Warrior God. *makes the Sign of the Exploding Death Star*

I imagine our old IRC chat server probably doesn’t even exist anymore (is IRC even still a thing??)–Feast Days used to always be Chat Days–but have a good Feast Day of Wedge, won’t you all? Do the Ewok Dance, drink some Ewok Juice, bag on Farmboy, and revel in the glory of the Rebellion’s Greatest Starpilot.

[1]=Yeahhhhhh, Usenet. Back in the day. [2]=As you see, I didn’t self-identify then as Prophetess; that was to come later. Wow, I’d forgotten I used to use my fanfic Knave Leader and the ASCII parked X-wing in my .sig. Nifty. [3]=I’m almost positive that Morwen was the one to coin that acronym. Once again showing us all up with her mad language skillz, especially considering this isn’t her native tongue. [4]=yes, I’m enough of a nerd that I’ve kept my freshman history notes. [5]=probably this was a good thing, since I was taking the honors sections of Chemistry 111 AND English <memfault—Literature of Western Civilization>. [6]=I haven’t been able to turn him up by Googling, but I hope he found himself a faculty position somewhere; he deserves it. [7]=I cordially loathe all those students who boast of arranging their schedules to never start before 10 or 12. I was never able to do that—there was always a class I needed that was a 7:30 or 8 or 8:30. Pout. [8]=Yeah, I know it’s gone. It needs a new server space. And its webmistress needs to pay attention to it. I’ll just have to link to Google posts here. [9]=It looks like I had dropped the Knave Leader by this time, but was still not calling myself Prophet Kristy. [10]=How much do I love that Mara always calls him Farmboy? [11]=Oh, no, that came much later, spurring the Project Boussh Polite Flame War of '01(?). [12]=this was also apparently the thread that spawned the phrase “rakish rebel scum”, which Brett quickly hailed as a great band name. And it was only a 7 post thread! aaah, for the time to just read and relive the posts of those years.

#feast day of tawg #afw #alt.fan.wedge #usenet #copypasta from livejournal #wedge antilles #star wars

0 notes