:)

WIBTA if I don't want to contribute to paying for furniture for the house?

1/3/2024, Names changed. Sorry, this is a little long.

I (26) live with three roommates: Kay (22) who is my sister, Sam (22) who is Kay's high school sweetheart and fiancé, and Andy (25) who is Kay and Sam's best friend. All of us are autistic, queer, and neurodivergent in some way or another.

Background info; Kay, Sam, and Andy had had plans to move in together for several years with Andy moving cross country to do so. Kay and I both moved out of our parents house within a month of each other in Summer 2022, with Kay and Sam moving in together, and me moving into an apartment by myself. Early 2023 due to issues with my apartment and landlord and being unable/unwilling to stay there past my lease when it was up in six months, with some encouragement from our mother Kay asked if I wanted to move in with the three of them because Kay and Sam's lease was up around the same time mine was and they were already planning on getting a bigger place to live with Andy when he got here. Due to the aforementioned apartment troubles and having a hard time mentally living alone for the first time, I accepted. We found a small house and the four of us moved in Summer 2023.

Now we've butted heads a good bit the last couple months (especially me and Andy because we had barely known each other before moving in together and we have very different personalities), including a few very loud fights, but we have thus far managed to eventually talk it out and work it out and kept things mostly under control. I admit, there have been times where I was definitely the asshole in situations, but I've acknowledged that, apologized, and tried to improve my behavior since then. Anyway, this ask isn't about all those times.

A lot of my issues in the household stem from my depression and lack of motivation to get things done. A big contributing factor to that is that I am painfully aware I wasn't part of their original plan, and that leads to me not feeling wanted as part of this house. The three of them often do things without me like playing D&D, and hanging out/going fun places without me, while things I want to do with all of them just kinda never happens, like playing a video game or board game with one of them, or going out somewhere fun I want to go. Some of me not being included is completely justified like Kay and Sam's date nights, and some things while they do still sting a bit to be excluded from make sense why (like their D&D games that can get very NSFW, and I'm a sex-repulsed asexual. also being Kay's sister would make it extremely awkward regardless of my sexuality. I only found out about the NSFW nature of their games two weeks ago though), but certain things it doesn't feel like as good a reason for me to not be included or it's not actually communicated to me why I'm not invited to be part of something.

A REALLY big thing that contributed to these feelings I have was the day we got the keys to our house, as Kay and Andy were showing it to me, Kay told me "Just so you know, this isn't permanent. You're going to get your own place again eventually" with a soft deadline of two years because that's when another of their friends graduates college and might need a place to stay after. Over the last few months we have had several conversations about my feelings of being unwanted and Kay has apologized saying that what she meant that day came out wrong. What she meant by that statement was they all want to help me become more independent so that I will be able to move out and live on my own again one day when I'm ready since the first time didn't go so well. They were not/are not planning to kick me out, and the other friend moving in is just an idea that may not even come to fruition anyway. Even if it was partially a misunderstanding and there is no set time I need to be out of the house by, knowing that there is an end in sight has made it much harder for me to settle in because I don't feel like I can get settled since I'll just have to leave again at some point anyway even if that time is literal years away. Sorry if that doesn't make sense but that's the best way I can phrase it.

With all that background out of the way, I'll get back on track now. Kay and Andy have spent months planning on how to decorate the house and want to make the whole first floor (kitchen, living room, and shared craft space in the front room) themed like a medieval tavern. I haven't been able to give much input on how the house gets decorated outside of my own room. I've been trying to at least make my bedroom feel more homey since it's where I spend a lot of my time, but the common areas are much harder for me to feel comfortable and like I belong in because I don't have much control/input in how they will look. Which again, I know I'm not going to be here super long term, so it makes sense but it still sucks.

Now onto the actual situation here. There is a dining table set that Kay and Andy picked out that costs over $400 that Kay said on 12/25 she wants us all four to pitch in to get for the household for her birthday in a couple months. I am hesitant to contribute to this set, because I am not going to live with them forever. Obviously I pay my part to the household. I pay my fair share of rent, utilities, and food (though I will often make mini grocery runs throughout the week and I rarely if ever ask for money I spent back because I feel awkward about asking for money from any of them). I have already contributed towards furniture for the house but that is either things that are explicitly and exclusively mine despite household use (a tv stand I already had, a bookshelf I bought to display my things) and will come with me when I move out, or something that was a gift for someone else but still not ridiculously expensive (a $40 secondhand curio cabinet the rest of us got for Kay as an early Christmas present and various other small decorations for around the house).

There was another interaction today that has me a little upset. We've been thinking of getting a second TV for the living room so we can play online co-op games together. Who pays for the TV, determines who gets to keep the new one and who takes the old one when I leave. If the three of them want to keep the new TV, they're going to split the cost and I get the old one, however if I want the new TV I will have to pay for the whole thing myself. 1 person vs 3 people paying for something just feels unfair to me.

But the dining set feels different because it's a lot of money and I won't get to take any part of it with me when I eventually leave. With the TV I'd at least get to keep it. I feel guilty about not wanting to help pay for it, especially because Kay has said she wants it as a birthday gift, but if it almost feels like I'm just buying furniture for someone else's house. Honestly, I'll probably end up sucking it up and contributing anyway because I really don't like confrontation and tend to keep my feelings to myself anyway, but I just want to know other people's opinion on the situation.

Money has been a growing issue for me lately. I'm the only one with a stable, salaried job (barely pays above minimum wage though so it's not like I'm rolling funds), while Kay and Sam are hourly and Andy is between jobs right now. Like I said, I feel awkward about asking for money from any of them. Honestly I don't mind paying a little extra here and there to help out since I'm not much help with the cooking and cleaning, but the amount I have been contributing with no compensation has been eating away at my savings the last few months and I've been keeping silent about it because I don't want to make them feel guilty about it and make it awkward.

TLDR; I'm insecure and have trouble feeling wanted around by my roommates, and am expected to eventually move out. WIBTA if I don't want to help buy a dining set for the household because I won't get to take any part of it with me when I move out?

PS- If it's not too much trouble, could you please tag @aita-roommates-furniture so I am notified when this gets posted? Tumblr won't let me submit asks from a sideblog. If not, no worries! I'll just keep an eye out for it

What are these acronyms?

If you think that Joel was wrong, I don't want you anywhere near me.

Let's talk about the last episode.

I'm going to say right up front that I'm a parent, and I'm a survivor of medical abuse, so I'm not going to brook any bullshit or clownery in the notes of this post. I block easily and freely, and if what I say in this post makes you feel sad or defensive, I encourage you to sit with those feelings and interrogate why you're feeling so defensive, because to me, this is extremely cut and dry.

Joel was right. Marlene was wrong. There is no argument to be had here, because this is the Trolley Problem, With Zombies!

Let me be clear: there is no world in which I let them do anything like that to my child, but more importantly, there is no world in which I let them do that to Cat without her active, informed consent. That's where there's no argument to be had. That's where it is open and shut, no discussion, if you think that there is an argument you are just wrong.

There is no nuance on this for me, and that's probably because I am a victim of medical abuse, doctors doing things to me without my informed consent. I find it hard to empathize with people who think there's any nuance in it at all, however. You cannot build a new, just world on the abuse, medical rape, and murder of a child. You just can't. This is the Trolley Problem writ large, and the only moral answer is that the only way to do that would be with Ellie's informed, active consent.

There are decisions my daughter has made which changed her life forever, and made it (at minimum) much, much more difficult, and which might shorten her lifespan or kill her. I supported her in this because she made that decision. It was not made for her. So I have absolutely clear-eyed perspective on this as a parent, and I don't think there's room for another perspective.

Oh, so people might die if Ellie isn't at minimum lobotomized and at worst killed? Yeah, that's the same argument that forced birthers make. No one has a right to any part of my body or anything within it without my consent, and saying otherwise is exactly the same argument that the people who think that people shouldn't be able to get abortions make, it only differs in scale.

It reminds me of the old joke where a man asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars, and she agrees, and he says, okay, so what about five dollars? The woman gets irate and says "what kind of woman do you take me for?" And the man replies, "We've already established what kind of woman you are, now we're just haggling over price."

If generic-you think it's okay to take Ellie's body and use it without her permission to save a million people, you're the same kind of person who thinks it's okay to force someone to carry a pregnancy to term. It's already been established that you think that people don't have a right to their body if someone else "needs" it, so we know what kind of person you are. Now we're just haggling over the price. I know that's wording it very strongly and I stand by it, because I've dealt with exactly this kind of paternalistic nonsense, and it did almost kill me. No one is justified in making any decisions about my body but me. Period.

And before we have folx coming in here talking about vaccines, etc.? Listen. If I choose not to vaccinate myself, and I'm excluded from things as a result, then that's a decision that I have made. I don't think people should be physically forced to be vaccinated, but groups of people get to consent or not consent, as a group, via laws, about being around someone who will physically make them sick. The key difference here is about who is doing what to whom, and whether someone is acting upon another person. Walking past someone in public in a leather harness isn't going to modify their organs via pathogen; walking past someone spreading a pathogen that hangs out in the air for hours out of your gaping, infectious piehole is actively doing something to other people.

Joel was right. Thank you, goodnight.

Apologies, reasons, c-c-cancer?!?, future plans, etc.

HELLO FRIENDS, it's Mel. It's been a very long time since I've posted here, and I feel I owe all you lovely folks who supported me in years past an explanation (whether or not you even remember me because it has been years now) SO, let me tell you what's been going on (under the cut):

Back in 2017, my mental health hit an all-time low that resulted a suicide attempt and subsequent hospitalization. Thankfully, my time in the hospital set me on a path that led me to receiving the care and medication I needed! I started on a mood stabilizer that truly changed my life around. . .

But, because my period of positive self-growth coincided with staying offline and not drawing as frequently as I used to, a misguided part of my brain began associating these things with that awful mental state that almost killed me. I never, ever wanted to feel that awful again, so I started to shy away from sharing and making art until avoiding it completely.

Furthermore, many of my pieces had been fueled by pure mental anguish and, once that pain was alleviated by the proper medication, I found myself struggling to find the motivation to create anything. . . My mind was so much clearer and I could come up with concepts for stories and characters better than ever, but actually getting these ideas down on paper became difficult. For most of my life, I had overrelied on frantic emotions and the idea that my life was not worth anything beyond what I created whenever I made art.

Now that I've realized that yes, my life is valuable and yes, I want to live it, my old approach to art was rendered defunct. I became distracted by new hobbies, since I was able to actually Enjoy Things properly for the first time in my adult life. . . And also because I was avoiding art, which had become a source of frustration and embarrassment for me. I felt like I was a different person than I was before, and the old me was a mess but DAMN they could draw.

I believe it's possible for me to rekindle my passion for creating stuff and discover a reason to draw that isn't unhealthy! But it will require a LOT of focus and energy from me, involving a lot of aggravation and disappointment because FUN FACT when you don't draw for months at a time, you get rusty as hell.

Thus far, I haven't been able to manage the sustained effort required to remember how to draw because, despite being far more mentally stable nowadays, the the last six years have been very. . . Unstable. . . I've lost beloved pets and family members, had to support both parents with major surgeries on several occasions, deal with multiple drawn out court cases (one involving a police officer with a vendetta against my brother trying to get him put in jail, LONG STORY. . .), keep my house from falling apart without having nearly enough money to properly fix the staggering amount of things wrong with it, the persistent cold (and sometimes very hot) war between my immediate family members, and so on. . . My minds been so preoccupied with a constant stream of disasters in my household that it's been VERY EASY to justify a continuing avoidance of art.

I was hoping this year would be the one where I'd get back on track, but instead it turned out to be the year where the old track violently explodes and now I have to build a WHOLE NEW TRACK. So, for now, I have to focus on preventing the derailed train that is my life from jettisoning off a cliff.

Back in December 2022, I discovered a lump in one of my breasts. Considering my age and the fact that it was actually causing me discomfort, I figured it was a benign cyst. Got a mammogram and a biopsy to make sure! IT WAS NOT A CYST. I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, which tends to be the type of breast cancer that folks under 40 get. It's often connected to genetics, but I tested negative for all relevant gene mutations and no one else in my family has even had breast cancer. IT FELT LIKE A VERY SOAP OPERA-ESQUE TURN OF EVENTS AFTER EVERYTHING ELSE THAT'S HAPPENED, not very realistic plot progression on Life's part, 0/5 stars.

Triple negative is unfortunately one of the most aggressive types of breast cancer and, since the "triple negative" refers to the tumors lack of hormone receptors and the HER2 protein, it does not respond to most targeted breast cancer treatments. But because triple negative tumors are nasty, fast-growing little fuckers, Classic™ chemotherapy works wonders on 'em!

Thankfully, despite all the doctors suspecting otherwise, my nearest lymph node tested negative! Makes a huge difference in treatment, likelihood of recurrence and metastasis, and my chance of surviving this ordeal. The amount of chemo I have had to endure has sucked hardcore and will continue to suck. I finished 12 weekly infusions at the end of May, and I started the last 4 bi-weekly infusions in June. The last four doses include a very friendly, fun-loving drug nicknamed "the red devil". :’)

The silver lining of this whole mess is that I FINALLY GET THESE TITS TAKEN OFF AND I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO PAY OUT OF POCKET. . . As you may or may not know, I'm nonbinary. I've never had any desire for HRT, but god, GOD, my boobs have given me hardcore dysphoria since puberty willed them into existence. I'm not very comfortable talking about my identity with family and acquaintances irl, so the fact that I don't have to explain myself to nosy relatives now is a relief. WOULD HAVE DEFINITELY PREFERRED HAVING SOME AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS INSTEAD OF FUCKING CANCER, but at least I get some kind of reward at the end of all this.

As someone that's been (physically lol) healthy their whole life, this has been a difficult journey. And, this is wicked cheesy, but the amount of strength I've been able to scrounge up? SHOCKING. I'm proud of how I've managed to grow as a person since 2017. Back then, I could've never pulled this shit off. 2023 MEL IS THE MOST POWERFUL MEL YET, BUT. . . THIS MEL NEEDS TO CHANNEL THEIR NEWFOUND TEMPERANCE INTO THEIR ART AFTER GETTING THROUGH THIS. . .

I actually had this fairytale idea that I'd draw during my chemo sessions and ~rediscover my passion~. . . But I qualified for a cooling cap program (helps with the hair loss, trying to retain as many follicles as I can cuz they play the lead role in my physical presence ok!!!) and the headache you get from encasing your skull with ice is not exactly conducive to productivity.

SO, for now, I need to focus on beating the shit out of cancer and recovering from the treatment beating the shit out of me. But because this experience has made me hyper aware of the fact that we do not get an infinite amount of years to do all the things that we want to do in life, I WILL RETURN. . . Because I have stories to tell! With shitty characters that have shittier lives! I didn't devote 30% of my grey matter to this stuff just to take it with me to the grave, man!!!

ALSO, A REMINDER: if you ever feel like there's something off with yourself, health-wise, do not hesitate to get yourself checked out by a doctor. Whether it's a tiny lump, a persistent dull pain, or anything else. . . Find out what, exactly, it is. I caught this cancer right in time! At this stage, the survival rate for triple negative breast cancer is a little over 90%. Had I waited to get checked out, had I given it enough time to matastize to a distant part of my body. . . My chances of surviving would've dipped to about 12%. That period where I was waiting on tests to confirm whether the cancer had gone anyplace else was absolutely terrifying. SO PLEASE, DON'T FUCK AROUND WITH YOUR HEALTH (OR YOU MIGHT FIND OUT).

Why I Dislike Rei Todoroki.

_______________________________

Ever since my last post I've been debating on whether or not to give my in depth opinion on Rei Todoroki and why I don't particularly like her, and I decided that I wanted to get it out there and hear others opinions!

___________________________________________

Alrighty! Anime Hot Takes. Though some of them may not be "hot," this one is. Many people have hard opinions on this, and I'm going to preface this one with this: 

This is NOT saying that any parent is perfect. This is NOT saying that other MHA parents are without flaw! I have bones to pick with all of them (except Inko, she's a goddess), but the ones I have the most negative views on are, of course, Rei and Enji Todoroki. Agree or disagree with me. This is just my opinion, and in my opinion, Rei Todoroki is not a good mother, and Shoto should not have forgiven her.

I understand that what preceded the actual event of Shoto being burned led to the over bubbling of emotions, and as a result, Shoto was the unfortunate, undeserving victim in the Todoroki household in its entirety.  That's not to say the others aren't victims and that Touya's demise is anything less than horrible, but Shoto ended up taking the brunt of the damage.

I understand that what happened was influenced directly by Enji's actions, and his misguided horrible handling of his adult life, and his inability to process his own emotions without anger and violence.

However, regardless of how horrible her husband is/was to her, it does not justify causing irreversible damage both mentally and physically to a child. Especially not the one that is already being abused by the other parent. I know it is her own experience with abuse that led to this moment of her mental break, or her slight mental break rather, but Shoto was a five/six year old boy being forced into intensive and abusive quirk training. 

I know she couldn't handle facing her abuser, which I understand to an extent because her husband (abuser) was the number 2 hero at the time, and I probably wouldn't go up and throw burning water at him either, but putting that blame on a child is cruel. I don't care how much of Enji she saw in him. He was an innocent child, he did nothing and she threw scalding hot water on his face because she was having a hard time, and as a mother of four children she should have been capable enough to know when she needed help and to step away.

I know how hard that is to do when you're alone and have no adults to turn to. I know the feeling of hopelessness that you feel when you have no family or friends to call when you need help, but I still was able to get myself help, and she, at the time, was older than I am not by much, but enough to where I know that she knew she needed help, professional or otherwise.

Do I agree with Enji sending her away? No, not particularly. Would I have done the same? I can't really say. I definitely would've gotten her help, and I know she needed away from that house, maybe not her children, necessarily, but she needed away from Enji, and honestly it might've been for the best. Don't get me wrong, Enji is a massive POS for EVERYTHING he did. He gets zero passes here. I hate him for a multitude of reasons, but that is not what we are here discussing.

Even if I don't focus on the 'incident' with Shoto, she still ended up neglecting her other children. Touya just needed someone to stop and get him help to just look at him and show him love, and she stood by, afraid of her own son refusing to help him. Natsuo, basically the forgotten middle child who hates his father, yet fears for his safety, and he needed his mom when his older brother 'died'. Fuyumi has a very askew view on what a family is and just wants everyone to be happy even at the expense of herself. She worries all the time even as a child she had to grow up so fast because Rei was so busy with Shoto. Which was Enji's fault 100% for keeping him separated from the others because of the mistakes he made with Touya, but still while Shoto was in 'training' she could've done more with the others, but she was shutting down ever since Shoto was born, and again not entirely her fault, but that does NOT mean she gets a pass.

Rei admitted that Shoto had every right to hate her for what she did because she knew it was her fault and that what she did to him was 100% wrong. She partially blames herself for Touya becoming 'Dabi' because she knew she could've done more if she only stood her ground more firmly and forced Enji to be a 'real' father, snd face his children.

She's doing all she can to make up for her wrongs because she knows she didn't do right by any one of her children. She didn't protect them. She didn't raise them. She didn't teach them that she'll always be there whenever they're having a hard time. 

She is no angel.

She and Enji are NOT good parents. They are BOTH atoning for their sins, and while Rei is doing a, seemingly, better job than Enji, they are both trying to make up for how they wronged their children.

Again, this is not to say all MHA parents are amazing and perfect. They aren't.

Except Inko Midoriya. She is perfect in every way. If you disagree, I'll see you in the parking lot because your opinion is wrong and you aren't welcome here, and neither is Inko slander.

I can't stand Enji or Rei Todoroki. They're both terrible parents, and the shit they put their children through, in my eyes, is unforgivable. However, I'm glad they are putting in the effort and if Natsu, Fuyumi, and Shoto all end up happy and okay, I think I'll be able to look past Rei's faults a bit more, but still abuse is abuse no matter how you look at it. For whatever reason.

And yes I do blame Enji's behavior/actions for all of Rei's actions, but I'm also mature enough to understand that her actions, regardless of cause, were her own decisions in the end, and they are choices she has to live with and I'm allowed to not like her for those reasons.

Please sound off in the comments! I love hearing other people's opinions on characters! Even if it's just "you're wrong," but if you love Rei, please, please, please tell me why you do. Maybe it'll give me and others another perspective on her character as a whole, and please be respectful of others' opinions.

Being a red shirt on the info literacy and empathy front lines.

This is a bit of a meta post and by "going there" I'm really just trying to generate more of the sort of "you are seen" genre for whomever it has meaning. If it has a whiff of "look at me, I'm an ally, I'm helping by yelling into the void" then I don't know really know what to tell you, maybe it is and if it is, feel free to keep on scrolling, I am not consciously demanding your affirmation, just rambling about the role of sci-fi in my life in getting me to this point ethically and professionally.

I am a red state millennial librarian. Don't feel as sorry for me as you might reflexively think I want you to. I'm not a public librarian or a public school librarian, I'm an academic librarian. Moms for Liberty hasn't directed its Eye of Sauron at us (yet.) Thus we're able to keep stocking LGBTQ literature without too much worry of people screaming at us. For now at least.

Why does this matter?

Well through a little loophole we are officially an academic library that provides services to young adults and the public in addition to formal college students without being a public or school library. I'm reluctant to share too many biographical details, but suffice to say you might be surprised at what is part of your nearest academic library collection and it may be easier than you think to access that collection.

Individual institutions are going to have their own policies, however because we are part of a broader consortium that all shares resources, we offer reciprocal services to every member of that consortium and their patrons if those patrons come to us with a valid library card from one of the member counties or a peer institution.

So if your public library has been gutted, take a peak at local colleges. They are more likely than you think to have queer literature, including queer and diverse literature in the YA genre, as well as inclusive children's books even picture books. College libraries know many of their students are either parents or are intending to go into public education (god help them) and thus have some very infrequently utilized special collections that they would love to see circulate so they can justify buying more.

This being a nerd blog, let me just speak briefly of the role of sci-fi and fantasy allegories in my development. I could very easily have been one of the people that I fear may come for my job. The people we have done workshops rehearsing how to respond professionally, empathetically, but also forcefully to formal challenges to what's on our shelves and informal challenges - i.e. people intent on making spectacles.

I don't say that I "fear" these people lightly, our head of DEI initiatives was sacked after the program was expected (and ultimately) was defunded. This person was not offered a job in a different department. I'm not super in touch with what goes on outside my department but I'm told that this person was broadly respected and other than their job title, was never involved in anything controversial or had any interpersonal disputes.

So we who are heteronormative don't get the luxury of putting our heads down and assuming this will blow over. We can't actually know with any certainty how many degrees of separation are between us and the ire of the Christian Nationalist fever that has swept the nation.

Anywho, Handmaid's Tale isn't exactly the sci-fi I meant to talk about (although boy howdy did it scare the bejeezus out of me the first time I listened to it and that was - I think - pre-2016.)

I grew up in a very rural area with minimal diversity. My exposure to diversity and later queer representation was almost entirely through media. Star Trek was a big one, but also Roseanne which ironically makes the comedian's red pilling more heart breaking than JK Rowling - its a xenniel thing, I was in my edgy ironic full of myself no time for childish things teenage years when Harry Potter came out.

I'm sitting here in 2023, and I can see the absurd falseness of the rhetoric of grooming discourse. Riker's fling with an androgynous alien or Jadzia Dax's open pansexuality didn't make me queer. It de-stigmatized being queer and left me open to taking seriously the self expressed experiences of people who I was open to befriending. As an adult, while I've found Discovery to be frustrating in many ways, one of the things that keeps me coming back is Culber and Stamets. Their performances and arcs have been a consistently solid part of an otherwise very messy production.

Much as Culber and Stamets are simply decent human beings just trying to get by and overcome crisis after crisis, so too are the queer people I've befriend. Their sinister agenda is to walk in public with their partner without people walking between them not thinking they're actually together or being harassed. Some of them are parents of developmentally well adjusted children.

I'm not looking for ally virtue signal points by praising these storylines, I'm just recognizing them for what they are: pieces of my development as a person. Which makes me happy to be in a place in my life where if nothing else, for now I get to make available a wide variety of experiences and perspectives for people to be exposed to. Its not my job to force anything on anyone and I order plenty of straight forward murder mysteries, romances, and swashbuckling epics that don't require a lot of critical thinking, but I like knowing that something I placed on the shelf might make someone accept themselves or accept someone else.

hey, i hope life's treating ya well this week! i finished y6 yesterday and came to share some thoughts if you don't mind :)

i think kiryu tried to project on his kids what he wanted kazama to be like as a father, but ultimately kazama'ed all of them, especially daigo. i found the ending of y6 very touching, but that's because i like daigo in all of his bland npc glory, and i agree with a lot of criticism of that ending being somewhat weird, especially when we had so little interaction with haruka, who just. you know. woke up from a coma. i wrote this already in my blog, but i'll repeat myself: that ending would've made much more sense if we had just more of daigo in general amd/or saw his transition from his y2 version to his version later in the series. like, we know haruka and kiryu are close, and we assume daigo and kiryu are close too, but i'd love to see more evidence of it in the actual text. that one substory in y0 clearly wasn't enough. i wish we could have more of haruka, MUCH more of haruka, too. the lack of her agency in y6 after y5 felt frustrating

i did enjoy the game, though. i really liked the callbacks to the previous games. as for side activities, it never seizes to amaze me how the eroge minigames are become just more and more unhinged. but all the missed storytelling opportunities, man

(it's also v funny that daigo's sr card code in clan creator is kiryusavemepleaz. i don't speak japanese and therefore haven't played rggo, but i know about a story where majima lets daigo win him on purpose or something? also the situations daigo's often put in (which are mostly near death experiences), him never getting any kind of resolve with ryuji as well... i think yokoyama kinda hates daigo lmao)

Heya! I sure love thoughts and I sure love talking about Daigo :]

On the note about 'Kazama'ing his kids, I'm going to be ugly and take a minute to interpret what that means if you don't mind.

When it comes to what Kazama did to his kids, he allowed Nishiki and Kiryu to join the yakuza despite knowing the dangers of it at their insistence. Ergo, we see Kazama prioritize the yakuza, telling Kiryu to leave the Dojima situation in Y1 alone. Moreover, despite Kazama lacking faith in Nishiki's abilities as a yakuza, he still expected him to be able to lead a family by himself while he took care of Yumi in hiding.

As for Kiryu and his kids, it was evident Kiryu wanted to be able to parent the kids at Morning Glory- to speculate, maybe as a way to atone of Kazama's messy paretning without outright admitting Kazama had faults. However, his bond with those in the yakuza inevitably kept him coming back, especially in regards to Daigo (who, of course, we find out he sees as a son. In this, it's a case of Kiryu still wanting to be a good parent, but the priorities aren't exactly there). In this (and I've discussed this in a post prior), Kiryu's attempting to spread himself thin when it comes to his family: he wants to help the Tojo, if not predominantly due to Daigo's presence there, but he also wants to father the orphans at Morning Glory. Unfortunately, since Kiryu can justify leaving the kids as Okinawa's a safer setting and he's admittedly at his best in a fight, he ends up leaving for Tokyo every time action's needed.

It's actually Kiryu's constant leaving that had me assume he was writing his letter to Haruka at first during Y6's ending, specifically when he was talking about how he lamented not spending more time with her. On the subject of Haruka, Y6 really did her disgustingly: as soon as she was of age, she becomes a mother and, on top of that, she gets hit by a car and is in a coma the majority of the game and doesn't even get to properly spend time with Kiryu before he vanishes. I genuinely wish and- foolishly- hope one day Haruka can actually get the respect she deserves after having been such an important, prominent, and interesting character throughout this franchise.

To talk about Daigo and Kiryu, the main subject of this ask I feel, I think RGG did as much as they could when it came to demonstrating Kiryu and Daigo's relationship. In Y5, it's revealed that Kiryu believes that people who become close to him suffer (and in this scene in particular, he's referring to Daigo after he gets shot on the roof)- how long he's had this mentality I couldn't definitively tell you, but I wouldn't be surprised if this has been a thought since everyone's deaths in Y1. Because of Kiryu's fear for others' well-being, it can be reasoned that Kiryu might have wanted to keep his distance from Daigo as much as he could lest something go wrong (but of course, he also feels responsible for protecting others, leading him to take action where he should probably leave things be). In Y4, we can see the buds of Kiryu regretting not being there for Daigo when he needed him most, outright apologizing to him for putting him in the position of chairman without any proper training or time. Considering all of this, Kiryu's letter to Daigo aligns with what we've seen: even if Kiryu wasn't able to be close to Daigo and properly guide him like he should have, he still confesses that Daigo was incredibly important to him and he regrets letting that fear stop their bond from deepening.

Daigo on the flip side, we become very aware that he values Kiryu immensely. To return to Y5, at the end of his taxi ride he tries to reassure Kiryu that he's able to carry himself without his help (i.e. 'I'm trying my best to walk this path' after Kiryu kicks him out of the car). Daigo's need for Kiryu's approval is also evident in RGGO: the story with Majima you're talking about is one of his character stories where he first becomes chairman. In this story, Daigo struggles to understand what Kiryu's intention was entrusting him to the Tojo Clan, but once he realizes it, this is his turning point to stop being the brute he was in Y2. To extend on RGGO shining light on Daigo's feelings for Kiryu, during his initial meeting with Mine in Mine's story, he lets Mine know he was so ardent in watching the Tojo at first so he could make 'the man' who put him in that position proud, and later during their bar conversation in another one of Mine's stories, he lets Mine know that while he doesn't consider Kiryu family at this point, he still considers him someone incredibly close to him (and as we see in Y6, Daigo will do a hard 180 on this and proudly call Kiryu his father). To jump back to Kiryu for a second, we can argue that Mine's whole 'what could Daigo see in a man like you' line could have contributed to Kiryu's want to distance himself from Daigo. Because what if Mine had a point: what WAS there to admire in Kiryu? What could Daigo POSSIBLY like about Kiryu, and would it not just be better if he wasn't in his life after- inadvertently- getting him put in a coma? To end this segment on a goofy note, Daigo's clan code being 'kiryuhelpmeplz' is super funny with the father/son lens: Daigo's gotta call his dad to help him out </3

EDIT: In regards to the RGGO story I mentioned here, I misremembered the exact quote and that drastically changes the scene and meaning I'm referencing, and significantly portrays the relationship between Daigo and Kiryu differently from what I've said. For the correct quote and sentiment, please refer to this ask here (x)

In all of this, it's reasonable that RGG couldn't expand on Kiryu and Daigo's relationship, but that's what makes Kiryu's letter so significant. We see from Kiryu and Daigo's sides individually that they saw each other as family, but neither of them were able to confront that fact directly for one reason or another (Kiryu, again, with is fear of hurting those he loves and his general inability to express his emotions perfectly. Daigo might have thought seeing Kiryu as his dad was inappropriate, especially after having had to believe he killed his actual dad). Kiryu lamenting the bond they could have had wouldn't have had the same merit if Kiryu and Daigo were actually able to bond more, but because they didn't and we see they still cherish each other, the impact's there.

My long ugly ramble aside, I'm glad you still enjoyed the game! I don't know if you have any more of the games left to play, but if you ever get around to them I hope you enjoy them!

ok so i get what 'food is good' and 'health at every size' mean now but i just grew up learning about the food pyramid and 'junk' food and fat people beint told to 'lay down the cake' so it's surprising to hear about it, and the thing i asked about 'so its ok to eat french fries every week or a whole chocolate bar at once' are things i would like to do but my parents dont like when i have 'too much' candy, and i see how those tv shows about fat people are like the modern equivalent to 'freak' circuses, but the thing is your body lets you know when you're full, so i find it hard to believe one would get to several hundred pounds from overeating, in other words, i think 'obese' people are fat because they're sick, not the other way around

“also my mother has been commenting positively on me losing weight when she knows it happened bc i was so sick i couldn't drink water without throwing up, and now that i can eat and hold down candy again she acts almost upset about it(?)”

In this fight against fatphobia, this fight to prove to the world that we as fat people are worthy of respect and care and love, it can feel very tempting to try to justify ourselves to those who look down on us.

We often want to bring up health and whatnot and try to tell the fatphobes "Look! Here's proof that we can be healthy too!" We often want to determine what makes us the way we are. We want to distance ourselves from people who are not the "right kind" of fat. We want to tell the world "See? Here's another way we conform! So that's yet another reason not to hate us!"

The thing though is that just by being human, we deserve respect and care and love. We shouldn't have to prove to fatphobes that we can conform, that our bodies meet their standards, that some of us fat people are okay compared to the rest. I often fall to this myself. I very often point out to people how genetics majorly determine weight, how a lot of fat people are healthy. But we let fatphobes win by trying to justify to them our bodies. Why someone is fat honestly shouldn't matter. Will I keep pointing out genetics? Probably yeah since the world is still so full of fatphobic myths. But no matter the cause of someone's weight, that doesn't change that they deserve to be treated with humanity. If we focus on who has an excuse for being fat, we are doing more harm to ourselves. Yes, most of us are fat due to genetics. Yes, weight loss is not possible for over 95% of people long term. Yes, weight can be determined by disabilities and socioeconomic status and food desserts and and and...

But why I'm fat should not matter. I am fat. That is probably never going to change without starvation and suffering.

Spending my time and energy and effort on excusing my fatness just tells society that being fat is something that needs an excuse, a reason. Trying to figure out why someone is 400 pounds does neither me nor them no benefit. Fatphobes want us to justify our existences and determine who is acceptably fat. Someone who is 400 pounds, 500 pounds, what have you, has just as much of a right to exist as anyone else, and their body and health is no one's business but their own.

Fat people, just like any other oppressed group, do not need to justify our right to exist.

And Commenting on someone’s weight is a very shitty thing to do. I’m sorry she did that with you and tried to encourage weight loss, especially when it was happening in the first place due to sickness. You being able to hold down food again is a great thing!! No matter what she says, it is good for you to not starve. It is good to have nutrients from food and enjoy the food you eat. The next time she acts upset over you not starving, try to remind yourself that she has been influenced by our culture of disordered eating. You know what your body wants and you deserve to eat. I’m proud of you for continuing to nourish yourself despite her reactions.

-Mod Worthy

_____

Mod squirrel:

Obese is an arbitrary label, those people on the TV show from the episodes I've seen do over eat because of trauma a lot of the time. Thing is the emotional work and recovery from those eating disorders aren't the focus it's the surgery, which is the flaw of the format. Some people do push themselves and over eat because of EDs/trauma. Because the show is so toxic I'd hesitate to reference them all but tldr I'm not obese because I'm sick, so I'd avoid thinking all obese people exist because of illness. Often illnesses cause weight gain but there's so many factors in the human body it's just important to keep possibilities in mind there's no one reason a person is obese.

You can have your sweets and your body will let you know when enough is enough. You have permission to enjoy French fries or a chocolate bar. Or both. You sound like you live in a shitty household so it's going to be hard to unlearn fatphobia and toxic food behaviors. It's sicking your mom would act like that.

In fiction there can be one dimension but in the real world there are no good people there are only people that are actively trying to be good and people that aren't trying, don't want to try and don't care about what their actions do to others.

You can shift from one position to another at any point in your life and mental health and circumstances around you makes it more difficult to change position but not impossible.

That said, this doesn't justify you hurting others and if you do you deserve to live with the consequences of your actions, you are not owed forgiveness from anybody, even less from the people you did hurt.

People have the right to defend themselves from you if they know you actively do or did something to hurt others and don't want to associate with you that's a valid choice they are making for their life, they are safeguarding their own mental health and well-being and every human being has that right.

Maybe this doesn't help your "healing journey" in your opinion and it makes you mad that you aren't immediately accepted into the group, but that's also how society survives- other people are not inherently responsible for your healing unless they are being paid to be, only your parents were responsible and they failed.

You will always find people that are kind and have that much heart to forgive you if you are actively trying to do better. They exist and many times they have done some shit themselves in the past so they are more prone to give opportunities to others, there are also people that give opportunities by looking at how you act day by day without completely trusting you, keeping up healthy boundaries for themselves.

There are also people that have trauma themselves that makes them too accepting and too trusting and see things too positively because they are not educated in mental health and believe that humans are fundamentally good and "even if they hurt me I can take it because who am I if I don't help them when they have suffered in the past this much, I have not so I should give all that I can give to help them or it means I'm bad"

( I was one of these people lost in that narcissistic and delusional "good Samaritan" mentality for 25 years of my life, giving so many second chances to others that I lost myself, burned out all that I had and after being forced to put up a wall to literally not die myself, is in the process of trying to reconstruct outside of that identity, with healthy boundaries, went to therapy for it and all... and it takes YEARS to dismantle that toxic thought process and it's a lonely as fuck journey! Still, I'm not going back, I will be giving respect, not forgiveness. I am trying to reach and keep being in the middle ground.)

Other people don't have to associate with you but they are responsible for how they treat you, like for any other human being, in the sense that they should not harass you with verbal or physical abuse.

Mental health should be looked after by people that are not connected to what you did, that are well rewarded for doing that job and that are protected by someone looking out for them so that you don't hurt them if you fall back on your pattern like many people with mental health problems do often.

Humans have also the right to feel anger towards people that hurt them or have hurt others that they love and they should be able to express that anger in healthy ways, one of the healthiest ways is through fiction... where if you're rooting for the villain that is fixed on his path of wanting to hurt others and likes the feeling that hurting others gives him, to die suffering, then you should be allowed to do it without that automatically meaning that you are wanting to hurt people in the real world.

How you act in real life is what's important.

But also in real life you don't have to necessarily have empathy for people that do bad shit like abusing, raping or killing someone, you don't owe them anything except the bare minimum of respect that it means you don't abuse them back. They can give you empathy and understanding and many will, not everyone will and they are allowed not to have empathy for you and if you're really in a healing path you will understand that.

At the same time if people are punching you first I will always encourage you to punch back, you will not find me on the "give the other cheek to be slapped" side of that spectrum, you will not find jesus in my blog.

I don't cry when abusers die, I am happy that there is one less abuser in the world. Does that make me "not good" ? Free to think that, I don't think it does.

I think that if you can't stop them from punching you punch back until they stop.

You should have the right to defend yourself when you don't have any other means to stop them and if you do something like killing them because you were defending yourself I will definitely forgive you more easily, you still need therapy and to be watched over for a while so that you can go back into society after all that trauma you just experienced, but I will not be as distrustful of you as I am of someone that hurts random innocent people to satisfy a personal urge inside of them even if I can recognize it's their poor mental health making them do that.

Experiencing trauma in the past can explain why you become a perpetrator in the future even to people that have done nothing to you, but it doesn't justify the abuse you are doing and keep doing day by day, and it doesn't grant you forgiveness by others that need to defend themselves from your violent impulses.

i have the rest of the week off work because my parents are going out of town and i don't drive. (yes, i could technically find a ride amongst my extended family each day, but i don't want to.)

i won't be totally alone--my brother is stopping by to hang out--but i'll have some time to myself for once.

first on the agenda is making a bunch of appointments i've been putting off because they make me nervous and my parents just make me more nervous about them so i just don't say anything and avoid the problem until the last minute. which tbh has already passed for my pelvic exam appointment, which i was supposed to schedule before i get my next depo shot. but fingers crossed they'll let me get the shot if i have an appointment for the exam on the books.

but yeah. there are lots of things i avoid because my parents bugging me about them makes me more nervous.

i should probably mention that in therapy on friday lol.

my parents also expect me to clean my room while they're out of town (like the kind of cleaning where they'll have to take several boxes of items to the local goodwill for donation). i will definitely do some cleaning and organizing, but i'm afraid it won't be up to their standards and we'll just wind up in yet another argument. guess i'll just have to wait and see with that one, unfortunately.

but of course the primary thing i'm planning is to just exist quietly alone in a space that is not my bedroom. i don't get to do that often. usually when i'm alone in the house, it's for a couple hours max, and i spend half the time anticipating my parents' return, so i can't really relax. being able to actually, like, do projects that require more space and listen to music without worrying if it's too loud and not have to justify my choice in entertainment at random is quite a luxury.

tl;dr i'm finally getting some actual quality alone time, and i'm jazzed about it.

im having trouble getting my parents to understand how difficult driving is for me. The very idea of driving sets me on edge, my heart starts beating faster and my breathing gets all out of whack. I want to be able to drive wherever I want; I want to have that freedom and usefulness. But the anxiety is so overwhelming and debilitating. My mom just writes it off as me being lazy, while my dad understands my fear but can’t let me put off driving forever. I don’t want to be this way and I know that dealing with stressors often requires a “leap of faith,” but it would be nice if my parents could be understanding and let me breathe without shaming me for not feeling up to driving on most days. Because it isn’t just driving for me. I’m having to wrestle with the nerves before and during the drive, as well as successfully drive around town, and be constantly aware of everything on the road and with my car, and it’s fucking exhausting. Most days I’m just not ready for that massive energy sink, not to mention the emotional toll. And even on days I do drive, I’m usually just told that I have to drive even more or my parents give me some “I told you so” sentiment, as if I haven’t completely drained myself. And if my dad is kind enough to agree to not let me drive some days because my heart feels like it will explode, I still get snide remarks from my mom and sometimes my little brother will get in on it too, because he thinks he’s funny and neither realize how much they’re hurting me. It’s so hard to stand up to my parents. I just want to avoid the mental and physical wreckage of driving some days because I know it’s too much for me, and I’m penalized for it and am put through mental anguish anyway because my mom feels the need to scold me under the guise of lighthearted joking (as if I can’t feel her annoyance with me). I can’t even put up boundaries to protect myself because she’ll punish me mentally for it. And she thinks this is all justified behavior on her part. I can’t go at my own pace and feel free to make my own decisions and grow because my mom is always trying to force experiences on me. She complains when I disagree and acts all high and mighty when I agree. I feel trapped and she’s got everyone fooled into thinking she’s a good parent

WIBTA for pulling my younger brother from his bedroom for "sleepovers" in the living room in the middle of the night?

I hate how clickbaity that is, but it really is the most succinct way I can try to paraphrase this. I have submitted here before for similar reasons, so this setup may or may not sound vaguely familiar, but this is pretty self-contained as a separate issue, I think. Quick preface- I am one of four siblings. Ages aren't particularly important for this, save for the fact that the oldest three are within a handful of years of each other, while our youngest is several years our junior. I was 11 when he was born, for reference. We'll call him C, and the two middle brothers A and B.

We somewhat recently (within the past few years) moved to a new house with a few more rooms, which shook up our previous sleeping arrangements. Now, instead of A, B, and C sharing the same room while I had my own for gender-related reasons, A gets his own space while B and C continue sharing a room. This means that my room no longer immediately across the hall from all three. A has a bit of a history of being loud in the middle of the night and getting mad when others ask, request, or tell him to be quiet, so this was a relief.

However, my new room is still just a few feet away from B and C, and now B is doing loud enough things to keep me awake- mainly playing video games and either not using headphones, constantly humming loudly along to the music playing, or saying something about the game. As a "bonus," he insists that C has to watch him play the entire time.

Even though this runs well into the early hours of the morning most nights.

And C still has early-morning school to worry about.

Previously, I'd just resigned myself to shutting up, jamming earplugs in my ears each night, and dealing with whatever weirdness is making one of my ears painfully itchy on a daily basis as a result. However, recently our parents started giving C flak for staying up late. They also made sure we knew they wanted B to stop keeping him up, but I'm not sure B actually knows or cares.

C and I did a bit of kvetching about unrelated topics today, this subject came up, C told me he doesn't enjoy being kept up that late either, and I had the idea that, should midnight come and go without B quieting down, I would interrupt whatever they're doing and "ask" C if he wanted to come sleep in the living room with me. I'm putting "ask" in quotations because I voiced this idea almost immediately, and C agreed this would be helpful just as quickly; me asking would serve solely as a way to have me interject into whatever B's doing and give C a quick way out.

At the same time, B can get touchy if he thinks C is brushing him off or I'm "butting in." I mean, C and I kinda will be doing both those things if we wind up needing to do this, but B seems intent on monopolizing as much of C's time and actions as he can get away with. I don't really think they need to fully stop interacting, but maybe B needs some time to himself instead of constantly wringing attention out of the baby of the family.

Then again, B is an adult. Like, legally. He'll be able to drink in a few months. He doesn't need to act like I'm interrupting his playtime with his favorite action figure whenever I remind him C isn't required to pay attention to him 24/7.

Idk. As far as sleeping arrangements in the living room would go, there's enough furniture to go around. I'm just not entirely sure if butting in would be an asshole move. Justified? Almost certainly, I think. An asshole move? That, I don't know. Whatever the case, I'm hoping these things work out quickly enough that we don't lose much more sleep. We're tired of finally managing to get to sleep at 3 AM.

What are these acronyms?

i will never be tired of my own narcissism bcuz that hurts literally no one and i am my own #2 fan (bug is #1). however i *am* quite tired of being antisocial.

the trauma i have been through makes it almost impossible to relate to 99% of anyone ever even though i really do like other people, i truly believe most people (and all life) are inherently good or neutral at worst, and i do as much as i can to be someone other people can rely on without sacrificing my own need to rely on others.

i don’t really suffer often from ailments such as embarrassment or severe social anxiety etc because i don’t care to that degree what anyone thinks about me. if i like who i am, i don’t really need anyone else to. but that’s not true, is it? because everyone needs someone else. humans evolved to need positive social reception and i got literally none of that at all as a kid.

of course i do actually want people to like me but i mostly find myself wanting that in a broader, grander, shallower (cough narcissistic cough) sense. i want to be an Artist or Activist someone with a Voice that is amplified and amplifies others with quieter voices. but i LOOOOVE being unknown irl except to a handful of my ~special chosen besties~ also i want to have done good for the world at large by the time i die. and i want to be able to host huge family parties on holidays. i want 10,000 adopted children. so that’s all extremely specific to ask for lol.

mostly i want the peace and safety to make real friends, but it is so very difficult for me due to disability to keep up any relationships because i never have spoons to type or call or play games. and i can’t truly open up to anyone because i just don’t. idk, even. there’s just Something Wrong.

my trauma informed (disordered) genuine (split) personality feels too severe, and too much for anyone including myself. i locked parts of my own brain away for years and punished them relentlessly until they began to punish back. of course we are much better about that now as an adult, but it still happens, and it’s not fair that i feel so pressured to do that just because they remember what happened. my parents abused sa’d and tried to kill me and i am expected to be normal? to be capable of anything remotely like a normal life? it’s all a joke to me honestly but i don’t go wild batshit insane because i am aware of my privileges (as i should be).

but my default is this: i am so angry and i feel so justified in my anger and anyone who isn’t as angry as i am is Literally Wrong. get angry with me, or get the fuck out of my life because if you aren’t fighting with me you must be fighting against me. i, and many other marginalized people, do have every right to feel that way…

but i can’t turn my fight/flight response off EVER and i always pick fight so i force myself to avoid potentially contentious social situations in general… which becomes all of them, becuz how am i supposed to know what is and isn’t acceptable as a visibly trans traumatized autistic dyke bitch?

and so adding antisocial to all of that is like seasoning a bag of salt and vinegar chips with a cup of soft pretzel salt.

CW: suicidality

I'm not going to lie, as someone who has struggled with their self-worth for as long as they can remember, this AI shit feels like an existential threat to me.

I just recently started actually liking myself and nurturing my love of art and writing, caring for my body and mind. I keep telling myself that I still have value as a human being, especially in my job as an educator. Yeah, AI can generate lesson plans and explanations that are differentiated but unlike AI I have the benefit of being able to curate a human relationship with, and being a model human adult for, my students - things no AI generator can do. I'm not even worried about my students cheating by submitting AI-generated essays - it's their loss if they can't defend or understand their work in discussion; that's already been a thing for a long time what with students submitting work their parents did for them and myriad ways to cheat that predate the internet and AI.

But this fear keeps creeping up, clouding my thoughts and feelings: what if that's not enough to justify my existence? As AI becomes more sophisticated, who needs or even wants me to write or draw anymore? What if no one cares about having me or anything I can do for them anymore? I mean yeah, sure, I can still "create for myself," but I crave validation and attention from other humans for it. That's normal. I need my existence justified to shut the voice that keeps telling me that life isn't worth living up, and seeing those reasons stripped in the space of less than a year is life-ruining, actually. If I only have one reason left to live: being a warm human being capable of some empathy (with effort because I have autism), that seems really fucking shaky. How long before that's gone, too? How long before I'm nothing but a useless entity consuming resources, content, and space while creating pollution but bringing nothing of value to anyone else?

My entire self-esteem and worldview came crumbling down when I asked ChatGPT to write a version of my honors thesis and it copied sentences from my actual thesis without citations. My years of hard labor and study chewed up and spat back out at me in seconds. I'm not joking when I say that shit makes me kind of want to die.

They're making it more and more sophisticated so that the plagiarism/AI generation detectors can't keep up. I remember being told that AI would be in the future, probably in my lifetime, and the only way to not become obsolete was study coding and create the AIs and AI generators. Yeah? Well, ChatGPT makes functioning code now too. I'm fucking terrified, angry, and sad all at the same time.

If I became completely obsolete I don't know if I would be able to fight off the suicidality anymore.

Sober thinking sucks...

19 days. I looked because I thought maybe it was something I should be prepared for. Which turns out to be a good thing because in my head it was like 26-27 days. 19 is not a lot of days. Especially when there's so much going on inside my head. So maybe if I work out some of it then I'll feel better. Maybe if one day someone else struggling with leaving an abusive spouse sees this and it helps them go work out their own thoughts, or maybe find some help in my ramblings.

1. I need help. We need help. Basic care has been neglected for years with this toxic codependent relationship. Especially mental. Even if he's right and so much of this is my fault and I'm the bad guy, I need help and I'm not getting it here. I'm not able to get it here. I can't take care of myself, the children, and be everything he needs. For all my faults and things we've done wrong, he's not able to take care of the things I'm struggling with either. I can't fix me and him. I can't continue being with someone who justifies every wrong thing he does with it being because I'm not having sex with him. That's not how it works, right?

2. Chances have been given. It's been a year of begging to end things together and go our separate ways with united co-parenting. I know, it's wishful thinking. I don't want to fight, I don't want to drag our kids through petty and hurtful court proceedings. Which legally it's going to be a nightmare sorting this all out. I think we'll have support. I think he's poisoned our thinking and that maybe not everyone hates me like he's made me to believe. I want to hold onto hope that once we're free that some of these relationships will be mended. Mostly my family. I think there might be more support out there than we realize and remember most of the time. But we've been united in telling him how unhappy his treatment makes us, how uncomfortable his entitlement to our body feels. That's not love, or passion, or anything that makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

3. This is NOT a "grass is greener on the other side" instance. He keeps telling me I'm going to leave and find out that I had it so good here. Which on the surface it would seem that way. There's no man I'm looking to shack up with, no rebound set up like he thinks. We really, mostly, want to learn to survive on our two feet. Without a man, or feeling like we owe anyone for simple necessities. I don't want to feel like I'm obligated to have sex with someone because they bought me something. But breaking it down more into his comments. "You have a stable roof over your head." Yes I do. But I have no place in this apartment. I'm only allowed to be upstairs around our stuff sometimes. Which is where all my art supplies are. Most of the time I'm tethered to the kitchen in a fold out chair or cleaning something. When he's asleep I use his computer. But I know better when he's awake. Truthfully when he's awake I try to be as invisible as possible. That's no way to live. I know that now. "I pay for everything." Yes he does. He also spends a substantial amount of what he makes on pot and as many times as I've begged for us to stop, to save, to enjoy life, we're still broke every week. He still points out every single penny spent on us. Literally. "Your sandwich cost..." "I picked you up something, it cost..." And he says it's so I'm aware of the budget and how much is being spent but that does me no good. Eva's told him that if he wants help with the budget and more involvement then we want an itemized list of monthly expenses which he conveniently is "too busy" to ever put together. The way things are in my head, we can't hear things and understand them well. It has to be written down in front of me. That's why there are so many scribbled notes around. I don't understand something until I can see it. "If you want something you just need to ask." Pfft. I've asked for a lot. Mostly I've asked for him to let me go. But for this some other examples: we've asked to visit OUR family over 10 times this year. Each time has been a no and a list of excuses why. Yet we've traveled hours away to see his family several times and at every holiday. Zoe cried at the last one talking about how much she misses home. Six years we've begged to go to the Zoo. Bowling. Roller skating. We've been to the movies once in 10 years. Concerts. Festivals. The beach. The only reason we were able to go to the carnival last year was because TK had OF money rolling in. I don't think this is me leaving because I think the grass is better somewhere else. I think leaving is because the grass here stopped growing and started withering away.

4. Stuff is just stuff and can be replaced. Mostly. I know I shouldn't worry so much about things but I've carried my whole life with me since being tossed out at 18. I have family memories, a lot of pictures. I know I need to save some things. My mom said she'd pay for a small moving truck. God I'm not okay with the idea of driving a truck or leaving my kids in a car with her so hopefully we cement that plan out better. Things can be replaced. Things can be replaced. These years can't. The thing is when you become so lonely and cut off from the world you learn to surround yourself with stuff to fill those lonely holes. I'm not a hoarder, but I need to get rid of some things so I can focus on the important stuff. It feels so wrong upping and leaving him like this without warning but I've tried to work this out with him we all have. I'll probably have no electronics which will be super hard, especially with the kids. I think Hayli has a burner phone. We'll have to wipe this one and give it back. A gift is never just a gift from him. It gets held over and used as blackmail. "I'll take your phone. I paid for it. So it's technically mine. I'll just wipe it if you won't do what I say."

5. Surviving in the real world. This one is the hardest to wrap around. Mentally I don't know if we can handle a job right now. The idea of dealing with people fills me with anxiety. All I know is customer service and that's the last place I think I could function right now. I keep trying to tell myself that maybe it won't be so hard. Maybe being somewhere else will help. Maybe I'm not as broken as I think I am. Or that he's told me I am. That's all I have for now. I've been thinking nonstop today and really need to take a break.