Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

(Granted, if I have to continue this metaphor, I'm moving in with @egypturnash --
a FUCKING DRAGONESS whom I've already joked is a goddamn mana well. :D We have some things to sort out about that part of our life, but we have a pretty good history of this stuff going pretty well between us. :D

Still. Having ONE source is gonna put a lot of pressure on both of us. I really need to find A Place. Preferably anonymous. :p )

That system broke down completely this month, and in response, I'm finding myself reverting to a lot of old habits from my teenaged years: introversion, clinginess, dissociation, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and especially, babbling far far too much information at people in a DESPERATE attempt to get some emotional telemetry.

That means silence right now is particularly painful for me, especially if I'm seeking reassurance, and I apologize in advance if I behave strangely because of it.

And it's even harder in a household full of people whom I loved dearly but were not always particularly good at giving nor picking up on social signals.

I rely on those signals, folks. I realized Something Was Wrong With Me socially, compared to the other kids, way back in elementary school.

And my solution was to police myself constantly, and watch for the subtle little gaps in the approving things people say and the not-as-approving things they actually do in response to me.

Both the current situation and my relationship with Rik went from "no, no, everything is fine, you worry too much" to "it's over, get the fuck out" EXTREMELY quickly... as far as I knew.

That's gonna fuck me up for a really long time. It was already pretty hard for me to trust people when they tell me things are okay. It's gonna be even harder from now on.

But even before that, it was hard for me not to assume there was a huge hidden gulf of pity and disappointment towards me out there.

Someone -- Val, maybe? -- asked me months and months ago what my fears are.

I can tell you exactly. We've been over the death thing before. I don't fear death, but I do fear the suddenness of it and the idea that I could fail my friends and family AT ANY TIME because of the previous 20 years of bad health and neglect.

But that's not what I'm really afraid of. I'm terrified of the gap between what my friends will tell me about how they feel about me, and what they won't "to be polite."

There's just no comfortable place to Do My Thing anymore. The best thing about leaving Transliminal is maybe I'll finally stop making futile attempts at making it happen there.

I should be putting all this into Parallax, anyhow. I have a whole world. No limits. I can make it do anything I want. I can channel all my love and bitterness into it.

Insert positive-thinking mantra here that I don't really believe anyhow. ("Alriiiiight!"</linda> :) )

Looking at tf art is probably a really really really bad idea right now.

It's not even our usual "god I wish I were this thing." Right now it's provoking feelings more like "I wish I were a thing."

It's not any species I long for being, it's... just being a shapeshifter in general. I needed a lot of mana and some very specialized circumstances at the best of times, my powers were already waning, and now my ley lines have been abruptly cut.

But this still really hurts. And the way it's all shaking out, it feels like I'm gonna get very little closure on some of my own questions about what really happened and whether it was fair.

This was pretty much how it ended with Rik, too, and I was still reeling from a lot of the questions *they* left me with, and a few unkind things they said on the way out whose impact has never quite faded.

I can't pretend things are actually okay, but I refuse to become angry at anyone but myself.

But it's been so painful just watching the household go on as normal, with several new-ish kink relations happening there that remind me constantly just what's been missing in my life, and just what the pursuit of that -- and the frustration and confusion at constantly missing the boat -- has apparently helped ruin.

I'm trying so damn hard to take the high road here. I've deliberately drunk down a lot of hurt, because the people on the other side of this have been nothing but kind...

There's this weak but persistent urge to just get home, pack up overnight, be moved out by 8 am with no assistance or contact, and just be... gone like people want.

Just maxx out the passive-aggression, do an "okay, you didn't want me? Kaboom, GONE, goodbye," and lay low in a several month hermitage until anyone actually misses me. Just to confirm that part of me was right, and nobody ever would.

I don't like this urge. I wouldn't be confessing it here, if I did, I'd just be doing it.

Still grumpy through. Not much at all here to distract me, so I'm sitting here ruminating about the day that got me kicked out. I've got a lot of questions that just aren't gonna be dealt with, and probably shouldn't be anyhow.

But in the absence of those answers, my brain is filling in "because you suck" as the default for every empty blank.

That feels unfair, and I'm trying to convince my Id that unfairness is totally self-generated, nothing to resent anyone else for really.

“Sometimes being a good dude ain’t about not dinkin’ it. Learn from your dinks.” -- unknown adventure time character because i've only read the review :)

Sudden utter moodcrash. Overexposure to the kink/poly/fantasy stuff I signed on for, have totally fucked up in keeping in my life, and apparently just keep alienating friends when I either ask for or complain about.

Just gonna crawl under my rock for a while and eat any other vermin who get in my way. *changeling hiss and hackleraise*

I need to get myself a PRIVATE place to rant about interpersonal things that are pissing me off. Maybe I'll get Laika a nice Dreamwidth to chew and piss on or something.

So far, Mastodon feels a tiny bit too much like a tent at a hippie festival with 200 goddamn people stuffed into it -- convivial, warm enjoyable, but what the fuck is privacy?! Everyone's kinda up in each other's business here.

Number of unkind rants swallowed For The Good Of The People today: six and counting, and you're welcome.

I can't offer much reassurance here, but I can at least say five out of six don't involve any of you directly, and the sixth is my own issue to deal with and something I know damn well ain't gonna get resolved anyhow.

The one nice thing about being stuck out here in Ohio is that it's muggy and humid as hell-- and because of it, my hair is OBJECTIVELY PERFECT. I look about 30 seconds of photoshop away from a Big Pretty Lion Man.

No, you still don't get photos. I really do not want to find out I'm wrong and still look dreadful as usual. :)

Oh shiiiiit. They've even assigned me to do the evaluations for the foreign-language raters. Like, the people who work exclusively with tasks in untranslated Russian and Chinese. Needless to say, I speak neither of these languages.

This is both very flattering and absolutely terrifying. Guess my Cyrillic comprehension's about to go up a level. I should write another nice note to the Google Translate team, 'cause I have a suspicion I'll be very grateful for them soon. :O

This is the only exercise in positive thinking that has ever worked for me. But it ALWAYS works for me. :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd0GwbyX5L0

#alriiiiiiiight #animistburgerdad #fundrunkmom

I am being so aggressively patient with my coworkers today, if you go to enter a smile emoji and it says "OUT OF EMOJI, PLEASE RESTOCK" that's probably my fault. I've used ALL the smiles today to reassure my coworkers they are good raters and pretty raters despite being completely unable to make fine distinctions between semantic categories. 😕

And another, from my very first "real" job:

8) The kind of "cool" boss who doesn't care if your coworkers sleep on the job will also be the kind of "cool" boss who won't back you up or follow protocol when one of those coworkers punches you in the chest for no particular reason.