Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

I really depend on having friends who will grant me a 30-second rewind on anything stupid I say. I mean... I think I have _neurological_ obstacles to applying the brakes any faster than that.

And I try to extend other people the same offer. I can't deal with people who will hold something I blurt against me for all time. I may be a bitey pain in the ass, but I think I have a pretty good record of accepting sincere apologies from other people who bite me.

There's a VAST fucking difference between me and my hindbrain, and while I realize it can be a lot of effort, it really means a lot to me when people acknowledge the difference.

You can always blame me for not doing proper amends. You can always blame me for not trying to fix the way we communicate so it happens less and less. But if you ask me to never get upset, never say anything I don't mean, and never react with panic when I feel cornered... you're asking me to do things I literally have been attempting for decades and _still don't know how people do it._

I don't think I can simply turn that off, any more than an autist can simply "turn on" the second-order empathy, or a depressive can simply "cheer up."

So it's either stop existing, or try accommodate myself as best I can. I've chosen the latter, and intend to continue, but man, it's been hard sometimes this year.

@coyohti I can totally understand that! I had a friend back when I was doing audio transcription, and she was a court reporter. I found those keyboards they use absolutely fascinating and have always been sorely tempted to take a few classes in 'em...

@coyohti @anthracite I have similar dreams, actually! I've always had a mild, unexplored _thing_ for alternative keyboards, especially funky chording models...

@Soreth Even for you?

SORETH YOU'RE SO GODDAMN *NICE* THO. D:

@coyohti @anthracite Speaking as a confused observer? It looks hella neat. :D

@catoxis@snouts.online @Oneironott Oh dearie.

@Thaminga @Oneironott Preach. It. Sister. ✊​

@Thaminga @Oneironott

> the social whore-madonna complex

Quote of the Year, Mx. Vesemxoq. I will be cribbing that for my own nefarious uses. That NAILED all my current issues with queer leftists. It's like... dammit, we already TROD all this philosophical ground in the 1960s, and they were WRONG THEN TOO. :)

You can NOT fucking get away with lazy, simplistic, comforting generalizations *and* simultaneously build something lasting and humane and good. Trauma is inherently NOT A SMART FORCE, and building a body politic around trauma, while sometimes necessary, is not a real good long-term strategy.

I wish I had a firearm that could shoot the entire contents of Erich Fromm's Art of Loving and Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man into someone's forebrain and MAKE THEM LISTEN. >:D

@Oneironott @Thaminga Also, honestly...

Can I just say it?

Lenin sucks. And some of my friends were REALLY starting to sound like the Earnest Young Leninists from some of my favorite old anti-Soviet satires. Or the really SCARY leftists from my 1960s counterculture influences, the sort of people who raised underground papers with guns and bats for being "indoctrinaire."

Some queer people are pretty fucking doctrinaire and pretty willing to see evil in ANYTHING that contains a potential symbolic threat.

And I'm a fucking Discordian.

The fights were probably, in retrospect, quite inevitable. I get REAL fucking nervous when people start putting little post-its labeled "GOOD" and "EVIL" on things. Tigers have GOTTEN the "evil" post-its before, and all we did was eat a few hundred people! D:

@Oneironott @Thaminga I've been quiet about that stuff because my tigery presence has a tendency to... um... not de-escalate sensitive sociopolitical threads. *opens maw, touches sabery fangtip* ^_^;

But for the most part, I am on your side here. I've only got an anthropological interest in most of those kinks myself, but I would defend their morality and psych functionality to THE HILT in 99% of cases.

@Thaminga @Oneironott

um how much trouble would i get into if i wondered aloud if certain tenets of current queer leftist political culture might not have had some role in our problems too >___>;;

not about to switch teams here, but... i could rant for hours about how dogmatic some people were starting to get, especially with the US vs THEM bs

@Thaminga @Oneironott Honestly, that's really comforting because it means it Ain't Just Me. :) I used to pride myself so much on the delusion we'd be more socially and emotionally intelligent than The Mundanes, but... it just doesn't work that way. We're ALL just broken, overevolved monkeys.

There's just no way out of this, and sometimes that is a *bit* comforting in that Philip K Dick "at least there are stars" sort of way.

@Oneironott I think that's exactly what we should be doing. Just go off and use what we learned.

The most important thing the Church of the Subgenius taught me is that it is absolutely VITAL to schism with your church as soon as you feel comfortable doing so. Any church that was worth attending in the first place will wish you luck as you go.

@Oneironott I mean, I'm so burnt out on social RP, I'm going it solo after a lifetime of being too ADD to focus on conventional writing.

So I definitely think you're on to something, and I'm glad the Next Gen is already thinking in terms of "OK, this is obviously winding down, what the hell do we do next?"

I feel so responsible for letting that energy dwindle, and responsible for so much of the drama that started separating us. I did what I could.

I keep trying to tell myself we're still big... it's just the Internet that's gotten small. (And increasingly hostile to Unreal things, which is a FUCKING TRAGIC reversal of the original spirit of the Net.)

Not to mention the question of "is it REALLY normal/OK/not hurting your opinion of me if I show up in your mentions now and then asking for emotional support?"

Everyone says yes. Not everybody actually _acts_ like it's OK in the moment. And I also don't know if my friends know the converse, which is that YOU ARE WELCOME TO IMPOSE ON ME IN THIS FASHION.

I wouldn't do it if I thought friends didn't have the general right to lean on each other. That is SUPPOSED to be reciprocated, and tbh, having my life degrade from "constantly being asked for chaplain services" to "nobody comes around anymore, guess I'll rake the chapel grounds again" has been really painful too...

Really? I just wanna see a goddamn scoresheet. I want to know if it's normal to have had this much drama in my life... if the ebb and flow of friendships over the years is normal or something wrong with me... if it's really possible (or even standard) for a well-intentioned person to fuck things up this badly.

I have no idea what par is. I've been stuck in the assumption that I basically did terribly with my 20s and 30s, managed to sabotage almost everything and everyone I cared about. But I've also been depressed long enough to know I can't trust *that* narrative, either.

I don't know. I'm so exhausted from not knowing. I just want to be patted on the head and told I'm all right... except that I don't trust THAT anymore either, and I'm (hopefully) done making people have to basically fight my inner demons for me.

I dunno. If anyone's reading any of this, thank you, it was genuinely not expected or required. I just have an awful lot of built-up emotional slag to dispose of somehow, and I really don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do with it.

@eredien Sure! Sorry we've been quiet but OH MY GOD MOVE.

Afterthoughts, though: some of you have been just amazing support over the years, especially in proportion to how well we've gotten to know each other.

Now that I've had time to ponder, no, I'm not scared of EVERYBODY. And usually, I'm chasing after the esteem of the wrong people, not the ones who have actually been there for me.

I'm so sorry about that, and that's one of the things on the list for Rez 2.0.

@kobi_lacroix "And I didn't say watch out for Karl Popper. I said watch out for Karl. He's about to pop you one. Get 'im, Karl!"

I'm just so tired of the social guessing games. I'm so tired of not knowing where I'm wanted and where I'm not. I'm so tired of never knowing if silence is just Seattle Freeze, someone drifting away from social media, or being done with me.

It sure didn't help to be told repeatedly by certain people that I'm fine, everything is fine, only to be told things were NOT indeed fine years later... and having the blade in my back be the first sign of it. >_<

I really don't know anymore. I'm skittish and afraid of... most of you, to be perfectly honest. I keep fighting the urge to run and hide, especially for fear of just redoubling someone's impression of me as a flake, someone who does this stuff for attention.

Honestly? I do it for the hope of some STABLE affection. It's not "oh my god, please invite me back." It's "it's safe over here in the dark and I can maybe wait it out until I get some clear signal from someone."

You can imagine what it was like for me in a household where, no matter how convinced I still am that everybody was doing the best available to them, the signals were NEVER clear.

And now, every time I go to talk to a friend, I'm just WAITING for that dead, awkward silence and another round of wondering if I should approach and try to be friendly, or take the hint and run screaming.

Right now? I'm dealing with it mostly by reverting to old version of myself, that dealt better with solitude. And taking refuge in Anthracite and her Zen-like draconic indifference to most of the stupid things I do. <3 <3 <3 And I'm petting more cats. And I'm learning love work and writing and stuff. And I've been persuading myself, "Well, you can always fade from social media, ghost everybody, and start a new life."

But dammit, I don't WANT to. I just want to feel secure and safe again, and not spend EVERY social interaction wondering "Is this person trying to give me secret 'fuck of' signals? If I haven't heard from you in three months, should I just assume I fucked something up and you hate me now?"

I miss you, I miss storytelling, I miss the old friends I lost (or at least, the old versions of them that are gone forever?), I miss being able to approach you with my head held high, and I miss that sense that I had a truly reliable source of Changeling Chow. *hangs head*

But I can't play these guessing games anymore. And I'm up for ANY suggestion for a way out.