lavendertowerarchives

[lavendertowerarchives]

Various thoughts. Various feelings.

You've articulated something I've struggled to describe before. Being A. Autistic B. Technically minded and C. a programmer, I've given it the moniker "component-wise attraction" but "mosaicsexual" sounds much more catchy.

I believe we're thinking the same thing, despite my experience with the conundrum being more physically based. I will likely butcher your interpretation of the issue with my clumsy, derivative lust. I am a horny person. I'm sick of it, but I analyze it nonetheless. If I am to eradicate it, I need to understand it, and this observation of yours had already (conveniently) provided a structure for me to understand more.

"Doesn't capture nuance" is my constant complaint against any overarching mode of sexuality I've got. I can say "straight," but that doesn't explain the droves of androgynous people I'm attracted to. I could say "straight*" but "slightly not heterosexual" does not equal "heterosexual." I don't want to sound like I'm trying to "fit in with the straights." That just sounds like I'm trying to hide something or separate myself from a whole fucking group of people.

No label fits snugly. There's always some rule that makes me want to put a disclaimer next to it. Bisexual? No. Men are gross. Pansexual? No. Men are gross. Demi? No, I'm attracted to people I don't know or even dislike. There are too many rules to keep track of, and most of them contradict eachother. The various disliked qualities, preferred qualities, and hard yes's\no's create a sieve with too many holes in it to actually narrow things down. I'm still finding preferences and patterns I never noticed.

The closest thing to "constant" I get is "I like femininity and dislike masculinity," but the moment I try to elaborate I short-circuit with a thousand different societal observations, most of which I don't subscribe to. Is a woman a woman if she has a cock? People keep saying no, I say yes, but that's not very relevant to my attraction. It matters what else she has, and no, I don't know what else she has. If I like you, it doesn't matter what you're packing. It's already been decided and I had no way to change it. I've long since abandoned any patterns involving such obtuse generalizations as "whats the gender."

What's the anatomy look like? What's the chest like? Are they funny? Do they play games? Do they talk for hours? Are they short? Are they sweet? Are they mean? Are they timid? Are they loud? Do they have a phat ass? Do they have a good relationship with their parents? How long have I known them? Do they cuddle? Do they keep looking at me? Do they wear skirts or short shorts or thigh-highs or graphic tees or dresses or overalls or pantsuits? Any of these questions could be asked. If enough of them are answered favorably, the rest don't matter. Some critical mass has to be reached. Some ratio. Some arbitrary checklist. I have no way of knowing how I'll see someone (whether romantically or sexually) until I actually get to look at them for more than half a second. Additionally, if too many of them are answered favorably, I become uninterested. Perfection is boring.

There are so many criteria. I can't reiterate enough that I have zero control over this bullshit, and I'm just discovering more and more patterns. If I had any control I'd turn them all off.

Paradoxically, sometimes, there will be cases where every single physical attribute is seen as unfavorably, yet enough of the other criteria will be satisfied to make me want to kiss\fuck\cuddle them. This fucks me up, not because of who I'm attracted to, but because I can't imagine a single scenario where I'd want to engage romantically with them. I'm repulsed by the thought of kissing or fucking or cuddling that specific person (very important things to me). It grosses me out. I wish it didn't. I wish I wasn't attracted to anyone.

Complaints aside, the premise still stands. These arbitrary, discrete, nebulous criteria are subconsciously evaluated for every single person I meet. If enough of them are satisfied, lust and romance ensue. I do hope this is the observation you've described. It sounded rather familiar.

Regarding the original post, I do apologize for (probably) hijacking it with complaints and anecdotes. I am unfortunately so tangled in this web of sexual spaghetti that I have only rudimentary views from outside it. It's intrinsic to my description that I kinda don't know what's going on, and I can't exactly separate the conclusions from the pain caused by their synthesis. Whoops.

Micro-Blog: A New Sexuality Type?

Trying a new mode of blogging. Micro-blogs. I kind of want these to be open ended questions and ask how we feel about them. I have so many drafts 65 to be exact I never finished. So I want to at least publish something.

Synthosexual? Mosaicsexual?

My sexuality is bizarre. It has a mix of Ace, Demi, Pan, with a lean towards certain type of uhhh reproductive bits? But I don’t believe it captures nuance. Queer could be a good substitute. But I don’t think it's enough.

So synthosexual, mosaicsexual. Elements of an individual, 2 or more that create attraction. Be it intelligence, aesthetics, emotional vulberability, shared experience, gender, thought process, habits, interests. This could sound like demisexual? But I’m not sure. It's something that makes sense to me. And takes into account moments where I cant get attraction to someone no matter how hard I try because some element is lacking.

Thoughts? Feelings?

[lavendertowerarchives]

I've been hanging out with my partner and their roommate recently. We talk about random shit and play games together. I've had a blast, but that's a concern for a different post.

Their roommate, SZ, said something that irked me. We were on the topic of cosplay and were deciding what to do for next Sakura Con. She said "I'm not pretty enough to cosplay that character."

That's just bogus. I know she has self-esteem issues (I don't know if they're surface level or deeper or what) but not only was her argument bogus, the whole premise of the issue is bogus. "Not pretty enough to cosplay" is a poor excuse to not do cosplay. The usual rebuttals are terrible, no matter how much I believe them. They won't help. "Yes, you're pretty enough!" Now you've condemned everyone else potentially less pretty. "It doesn't matter how pretty you are!" To who? You? Get over yourself.

Why do people cosplay? To look like someone else, specifically to show themselves off. We take ourselves to conventions to show off to the public, to parties to show off to friends, or our rooms just to see ourselves. The spectacle is the focus. We do it to be complimented, to be recognized, to be seen. While it sounds a little counterintuitive, none of these are proportional to "prettiness," whether relative or absolute.

People are gonna see you if you cosplay. You're dressing up. You're deliberately standing out, and your own attractiveness doesn't change people's shock factor. That's not an issue, regardless of the people you're around.

The main difference between "just looking fancy/extravagant/different" is that you're dressing up as a certain character. There are features to emulate, clothes to match, props to hold... every aspect is another hint as to who you're pretending to be. Who you "really" are is irrelevant. I don't just mean that as in "anyone can cosplay," but the purpose of cosplay is to change explicit things about your appearance. The change is the focus. The transformation is the definition of your outfit.

To demonstrate, if you were cosplaying Hatsune Miku... and wearing a fedora, people will see Miku first and interpret the fedora separately. You just happened to have a fedora. Miku doesn't have a fedora. You do.

If you were cosplaying Monkey D. Luffy... and had a pair of huge tits, No one's going to say "No, that can't be Luffy, look at that rack." You're the one with the endowment. People are gonna see your cosplay, then they're gonna see you yourself. Those are two separate things, and you can't change that. Some aspects are going to bleed through, and that's not a failure. That's reality.

If you were cosplaying Rias Gremory... but you had a dick, no ass, and a flat chest, people will see Rias, and then they will see you. The people who saw Rias as "pretty" likely will not see you as "pretty." The people who saw you as Rias are still going to see Rias. If someone didn't know who Rias Gremory was, they weren't your audience anyway. You were recognized by those who could.

If you were cosplaying Kratos, the god of war... but your shoulders were smaller, your stomach was larger, your pecs were more flesh than muscle, and your nose was long and skinny, you're still dressed up as the fucking god of war. People would unfortunately probably agree that you are less pretty than Kratos, but the very fact that they're comparing you to him means you succeeded. You were recognized. It's understandable for you to care that people may think less of your physical appearance simply due to the noticeable differences between you and your target. People will do that anyways. This time, though, you have the same target of comparison as your viewers. It doesn't matter if we're cosplaying or not, we're always going to be compared to someone else by someone else.

I will note that my goal here is not to make you feel better about yourself; I don't have that power nor that skill, and don't trust myself to try. I'm trying to make you (dear reader) feel better about cosplaying.

Of course, all of this supposes "prettiness" is on your audience's mind at all. None of this reasoning accounts for the fact that many onlookers will be looking at you and not even notice or care how much they want to fuck you.

Recognition isn't predicated on prettiness. Compliments aren't either, though I have to limit my argument to the subset of "compliments towards your cosplay." Yeah, you're more likely to compliment someone you think is attractive. No shit. That will persist no matter the circumstances. I'm concentrated on the difference in perceived attractiveness between you and your outfit's fictional owner.

As I've reasoned above, the factor that people notice is the transformation itself. Step one of a compliment is that of recognition, and I've covered that already. Step two is to figure out whether/how both parties will benefit from the compliment. Step three is confidence-based and therefore out of the scope of this argument.

In any of the scenarios above, people would either compliment you on the quality of your outfit or the attractiveness of your own self. Looking like a character does not automatically make you more attractive (and for the few exceptions, the people who are now suddenly into you are complete outliers and therefore not worth pursuing). The two premises of this hypothetical compliment are independent from the difference in attractiveness. If they think you're hot, they're not seeing your cosplay in full. If they like your outfit, they're never going to be thinking "Well, I wish you were hotter." I know that's one hell of a blanket statement to lay down, but I think I've written all I can about the various assumptions people (myself and yourself included) have. There will be arguments I've missed. There will be scenarios I didn't think of. You can probably find some hole in my argument and poke the strawman underneath. I'm still going to tell you, personally, that if anyone (stranger or yourself) has some "ideal" version of your cosplay that differs in sexiness\hotness\prettiness\cuteness, they were gonna do that shit no matter what, and are therefore not worth catering to. I don't care how pretty you are. You're pretty enough to wear that outfit.

[lavendertowerarchives]

People talk about the problems they have in life. That's normal. I want to talk to people and reach out. That's normal. The problem between those two is that I don't think I can talk to someone without trying to help them with their problems first.

This is separate from (but tangentially related to) wanting validation from helping people. The thought that pervades my mind when I'm trying to obtain the courage/method/wording to approach them with is "I can't just ignore it and I can't just acknowledge it." I just feel... gross for acting as though nothing is bothering them.

This is a double standard. I do not expect people to come to me with solutions or attempts before coming to me with anything else. It's not as though I generally present my issues to people unprompted (this account notwithstanding), but regardless of how much pain I'm in, I would be devastated to find out that not only was there something that prevented them from talking to me, but it was my fault that I required it. I would never mandate any sort of prerequisite for any solicitors.

I can't say anyone has ever put up a roadblock and asked for help when we plan to hang out, but I can say there haven't been any occurrences important enough to remember (there have been roadblocks but I'm never told until weeks or months afterwards that something happened). There have never been any explicit or implicit requests for help. I have no reason to expect\assume that people require or even want my help. There is no external reinforcement of this pattern.

The reinforcement is all internal. It's confusing. I don't know exactly why I force myself into this pattern whenever a friend is goin through some Shit. There are smaller reasons, but those are more defenses than actual justification. I don't know what they need or want, so I assume they don't need or want me.

I've realized that maybe I do hold this mandate against other people. Maybe this isn't a double standard, I'm just enforcing it stupidly. Any problem of mine can be either solved, alleviated or postponed just by someone's interest or presence. That is always the fix. Therefore, my requirement for talking to me while I'm... "Sad" is to... Talk to me. That's self-satisfying and useless, but becomes a problem when I apply it to other people.

I don't know if this is actually what's happening. I really can't tell why I need to Play Doctor before I see a friend. I'm no stranger to neurotypicals expecting a gift when they go to a friend's house (what the fuck, man, that's asinine). Maybe this is the same terrible reasoning. Maybe my presence isn't enough, so I "have" to bring with me an offering. Maybe it's all of these things.

This wraps back around to being an issue of "Lavender believes the only interest people will take in him is that of free use." Oh nooo, whattya know, I have low self-esteem, who'd've thought. I'm not retreading that here. TL;DR people have demonstrated clearly that they do not need me nore seek me out, the only presence I have in their lives is that of coincidence.

[lavendertowerarchives]

Semi-urgent

Who knows how to conceal\explain\ignore a slight wound on the inside of your elbow

I caved a couple days ago and I'd rather not let my partner get any ideas (at least, not the right ideas)

Like yeah its deep but it was from pliers not a blade so its small

Help is appreciated cuz my cover stories are shaky at best

[lavendertowerarchives]

My pleas for death will only ever get less coherent. I've said it all before. I don't want to say it again but the distress of experiencing it all never really left.

"I'm all alone-" Yeah, no shit, my social anxiety spikes hard when I'm faced with the prospect of asking someone to hang out. I feel like the entire experience is my responsibility. I know that's not true but that doesn't stop me from believing my own lies in the moment. Even just invitations to chat online have numerous consequences associated with them.

"Nobody understands me-" I dislike engaging with or even mimicking cringe culture, but this one genuinely makes me wince in disgust. It's true, yes, but it's not like understanding me is impossible. I just haven't explained myself to people I know. This stupid fucking account has held onto almost every grievance I've had in the past couple years. I want to present these to people to help them understand that I do love hanging out, I do love talking, I just have... internal issues. I can't show someone one post without inevitably showing them all. It's not a secret that I'm suicidal on here. It is a complete secret in all other aspects of my life.

"Everyone leaves me-" Did they leave, or did they get bored? Did they miss seeing my last message, or did they decide one day to ignore me? No one has ever terminated contact with me. Contact just dried up. Contact was left in their inbox. Contact was never returned to me. I have found no correlation between the various absences in my life. On this account alone, I can assume that I typed too much, or that I kept trying to help, or that they never saw me as an acquaintance in the first place. It's happened several times with several people and I don't get it. I have no concrete data. All I have are hypotheses that I can't confirm without risking a forceful rejection (which would most likely send me spiraling). Do I try to reignite? Do I ask "why did you leave?" Do I ask "what's up?" Do I ask "What's up with me?" I need social contact to live. I am dying. I keep repeating to myself "It's not their fault that they didn't find you interesting enough." I keep having to acknowledge "Well it is a little bit their fault that they never said goodbye."

"I can't take it any longer-" Yes I fucking can. I can survive past this bullshit. I have many times before. This is not out of strength or resilience. This continued survival is accidental. I'm too scared of failure. I can't just slit some vein and lay in the bathtub for a while, I need to know which vein and for how long. I can't just tie a belt around my neck, I need somewhere to suspend myself from, preferably privately. I can't just take a bottle of tylenol or oxy, I need to know the lethal dose and how long it takes. I'm just not motivated or desperate enough to properly research or test these things. I also can't test properly since I have a partner who routinely sees me naked, so I can't just hide whatever wounds I give myself, I have to be clever. Every half-assed suicide attempt I've... well, attempted so far has been, uh, half-assed. I couldn't go all the way. I needed a guarantee I can't find.

"I have nothing-" Fuck that, I have many things. I have a room to myself. I have a cute, loving partner. I have a bachelor's degree and I'm gonna get my Master's soon. I have sour skittles. I have clean drinking water. I have Minecraft and Fallout 4 and The Binding of Isaac. None of that fucking matters. I'm too focused on what I don't have and what I have to do. I don't want to have to find a job, that's frightening. I don't have any friends who just... talk to me anymore.

"I want out-" Finally, something true. I always want out. Every time I push back the date, the reasoning is always "not yet." Just postpone it. Nothing has changed to make the future and present any less painful. The past can't become any less rancid. I will gladly take a relatively painless death, any second of any day. I will never stop idolizing the day when I no longer have a heartbeat. I want that day to be today. Always. I know this contradicts some things I've said in the past (and probably future) that state that I sometimes am not suicidal. To clear up any misconceptions, I want you to know that I am easily distracted. My mind can be brought to euphoria with a single text message, and in the middle of processing that message, I could be distracted again with the prospect of death and I will not hesitate to take it. Euphoria is temporary, and I am dependent on others to obtain it.

I'm done, man. I'm fucken done. This isn't like a "last note" or any shit like that. Every post could be my last. My mind is just overwhelmed right now. I really, really, really don't want to see tomorrow. I don't care how much fun I know I'm going to have, my responsibilities will catch up. I don't want to face them.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I'm a Computer Science major. I'm working on my Master's program. Almost everything in my life is digitized, though very rarely is anything automated. I have good reasons not trust The Computers, but that's not exactly relevant.

Because of my rampant digitization, I do not have a "suicide note." I have a suicide email. It's addressed to everyone who meets the conditions of "I have their email" and "do I care to explain anything." It's been ready to fire off for more than a year now, scheduled one week in the future juuuust in case I fail and come out alive. I trust myself not to back out. I don't trust myself to put together a competent rube-goldberg scheme to eventually erase my consciousness.

The shorthand for the two above criteria is "are they my friend." Since its inception, the list of recipients was clear. It was everyone I was in classes with, both now and in the past. Whether or not we had talked recently, I still put them on the list.

Now I don't know exactly who I'd send it to. I have like four people I'd definitely send it to (my partner, JH, AH, AK) but I don't know who else would care. I figure people would probably hear about it just from information osmosis (I'm not that forgotten) and maybe some would even end up here. No one's reading 200+ posts of my whiny, horny, lonely garbage. That's not a judgement on my friends or the quality of my posts, it's an observation about their quantity and content. It's just a lot of work. I have trouble dealing with all of me (thats why I have a suicide email in the first place), I won't expect someone else to deal with even a sliver of me.

The only new people I've met since my friends all fucking graduated have been online, and they've been wonderful. Unfortunately, I'm forced to assume I fucked up somehow because I haven't heard anything in a month. It's always the same pattern of just... I respond, and they don't. My school friends, my hobby friends, my online friends, my long-term friends... The last message sent is always from me (the only exceptions have been one-word reactions or that one (1) high school friend I ghosted because I panicked). It's been like this since middle school.

Of course, it's rude to everyone who's moved on to accuse them of finding me uninteresting or weird or whatever. Shit happens. They stop being online, some tragedy happens, they get in a relationship, they move away... All these external factors can apply to their intermission of contact. I understand that. I've gone dark for weeks with no warning, and I can't expect any special consideration just because "oh I have autism and don't know if they like me" or "oh I have social anxiety and reaching out is almost impossible." We all have lives to live and we can't broadcast everything all the time, even if we wanted to. The reason I maintain my observation that everyone's quietly severed contact is that they don't come back. Most people don't come back. The few that do make hollow offers to meet up and just... Never schedule anything with me, with my input or without it.

Severing contact is something I've never had to do. It's never been done to me. No one tells me what I did wrong, suboptimally, or strangely. Taking a broader look, they tend not to explain whatever happened in their own lives to cause whatever intermission I'm tearing up my skin over (it happened just once, I can't thank you enough, dude).

Despite all this, my "note" is just icing on the cake. I may never send out my whiny explanation of my death's circumstances. I might not have the chance. If I see a chance for a quick, guaranteed death, I'm taking it without hesitation. I honestly don't care what happens after I die. By definition, I will not care, I will not exist. Regardless of it all, everyone here on tumblr will probably be the first to know.

[lavendertowerarchives]

talk to meeeeheeeheeeeee

i dunno why people keep leaving me but i need more dataaaa

im finally feeling better but at the cost of literally every friendship i had (or at least thought i had, i have no way to tell)

[lavendertowerarchives]

It's like playing "red light, green light" where all the signals echo seconds or even hours after they're said. Hearing "red light" means you should have stopped some time ago, hearing "green light" implies that you were given leeway for something good, but you don't know when or what it was.

To add more rules for no more reward, they've somehow never told you which direction to start walking. When they catch you for running the red light (which you still can't see or hear in realtime), they expect to watch you walk back to where you started while still yelling out their signals.

It's even worse when there aren't any signals to hear. Are they playing this game? Do they know you're trying to play with them? Are they lost, too, or are they hearing signals you didn't send?

I haven't found a way to win. I don't understand it, if I haven't made that obvious enough. I can recognize that patterns exist, I just can't see them.

I don't have any strategy except "not lose." I just do the social equivalent of shouting "green light" as loud and as often as possible in an attempt to show friendliness and eagerness to engage. I assume I just come off as desperate, clingy, and loud. My disdain for the game itself is clear in my complete disregard for the challenge it's supposed to present.

All I can do is stand still and try to get people to come to me. It's not like that works very well either, but at least I'm not losing.

Rules of effective conversation with people that I've learned over time:

Don't speak while someone is speaking, you'll interrupt them

Don't stay silent when someone is sharing something, but interact with them, be an active listener

Don't look around or avert your gaze while someone is talking to you, you're being inattentive

Don't look at the speaker too intently, you seem like staring and that's rude

Don't speak slowly, everyone does off

Don't speak fast, no-one understands you

Speak at just the right pace, there's a common ground

Everyone has their own pace of understanding, adjust accordingly

Don't talk a lot, it's annoying and can be intruding

Speak more often, you need to develop communication skills

Speak clearly and audibly

Dont be loud

Don't be shy of being open about your feelings

Don't overshare, people are not interested in your lament

You should be quick witted and crack your own jokes

Adding humour to conversation is not the solution

[lavendertowerarchives]

hey woah go look at this shit

I spent a fair bit of time on this. I've been working on it for over six months, but I've only put in around thirty hours of actual writing. It's just an issue of energy, motivation, and stress. I'll be releasing my next works chapter-by-chapter so I can stop hating myself for having nothing to show for my work. I have like six more stories half-written or just started and two that haven't even been written down yet that have been in my head for too long (one of which, this is a prequel to. It has been in my head for over a year. I wrote this to focus on two minor characters in it that I liked the dynamic of. If I live long enough to finish it, keep an eye out for two tattooed elders of some village).

Copper, Leather, Sand

Finally finished. The past six months have been rather full of writing, but this is one of only two works I've completed.

Two soldiers have been stranded in the desert. Neither of them are keen on letting the other live, but they're more concerned with their own lack of options to care whether the other lives or dies. It's definitely not enemies-to-lovers, and not really enemies-to-friends, either. They're just less hostile.

Let me know what tags I should add. I have no idea what to tag it or even where else to host it.

(cw su1c1dal ideation, gore)

Copper, Leather, Sand

[lavendertowerarchives]

Today was my birthday. I had no party, no celebration, no cake, no gifts, no fanfare, no messages from any of my friends. It's a step in the right direction, it's just a larger step than I anticipated.

I usually dislike all the celebration that comes with becoming a year older. I didn't become a year older, I became a day older, this day just somehow holds an arbitrary amount of importance to others. I understand people's fixation on certain dates as "important," but that doesn't mean I share the fixation.

I've usually used people's fascination as a means to gather them in one place. Yeah, I throw birthday parties, and I have for almost every year since starting high school.

I dislike gifts in general, so I have to let everyone know to please not give me anything when I see them. It doesn't stop some, but it works for most.

I like cake. I just like cake. I can buy a cake whenever I want. There's no need for an occasion.

I dislike being the center of attention if it's for something I didn't do. In this case, I didn't make it another year. That shit's hard. I made it another day. Three hundred and sixty five decisions, almost every day, maybe more than once per day. I never said "no" to the question of "should I wake up tomorrow?" I keep saying "hold on, not yet, gimme a minute" and then get distracted. I'm not gonna lie, it's almost every day that I'm faced with the decision.

This year, I got zero gifts. I honestly expected one from my partner since they have done an Art for me every year, but this year in particular they've had absolutely zero energy to do anything. I know that's a phrase that's thrown around a lot, but I do mean that the little energy they do have is spent making/buying food, then they get exhausted and go back to sleep. The fact that they only sort of acknowledged my birthday is the best gift I could receive.

I did not have a celebration. I do not have anyone to celebrate with, and I did not have the motivation to make people care.

I got only five birthday wishes: My mother (ugh), my dad, my brother (eugh), my partner (yay), and my partner's roommate (appreciated but irrelevant, she was likely notified by my partner). All but my partner's were over text.

The social aspect (or lack thereof) is bumming me out, but it was unrealistic to expect people to remember my birthday. If they did remember and made a conscious choice to not message me, that's indistinguishable and honestly I'm too tired of wondering which people are really my friends. Everything else is honestly great. I spent the day watching youtube and twitch as well as finishing up my "latest" barrel of fiction. Hopefully I'll finish tonight. I'm almost done.

Tomorrow is the start of spring quarter. Let's see if I make it.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I am in the unique position to observe myself under the conditions I normally blank out on. My anxiety is spiking harder than a volleyball player and all I can do is just... Sit.

I'm at my local game store to play MTG for the first time in months. I'm sitting at a table, alone, waiting for people to come to me because I'm absolutely paralyzed. People have sat down, but not at my table. Some other ginger has sat at the table across from me. They probably don't care. They may be doing the same thing as me. Instead of focusing on myself, I am instead fucking concentrating on everyone around me.

I'm doing my best to reign in my overanalysis. As of writing this, a high school friend has taken the last seat at the aforementioned table and I have said nothing. My excuse is that the table seats got filled within sixty seconds, but honestly, if I cared that much about it, I should have joined the table before it became a crisis.

I'm sick of this. My disgust is normal, my panic is not. I've spent the first half of the day talking to my family (eugh) so I should have been sufficiently ramped up for social contact, but evidently that is not the case.

I just want to play some MTG. More than that, I want to talk to people. My own ineptitude has prevented both of these things. Hopefully, its only temporary.

I would like to blame many things for my lack of prowess and composure. Chief among those is my decision to write this whiny shit instead of sitting down at the damn table just across from me. What matters more is my position, I can take apart my circumstances later (if at all). Fuck me, I guess. I haven't even succeeded in turning this into an opportunity to observe.

[lavendertowerarchives]

Has there ever been a scenario where you noticed someone's been liking your posts and then you decided to dm them about it? Like I really hope to be proven wrong, but this is a trap I fall into a lottt where I think "I'll let them notice me first," forgetting that I am half the equation and have already noticed them.

It keeps happening. I routinely manufacture scenarios in my head which make sense only because I'm eager to imagine the successful path. When I flip the positions as a sanity check, I'm forced to realize "what? No. Why would I do that? That's never crossed my mind."

Also, just to be sure in case I'm wrong, I want to give you a conditionless "go for it." If they were going to message you eventually, you can move the process along faster. If they weren't, now they might.

Help an indecisive rock out

Should I dm the person who I followed, or should I wait for them to notice that I am liking a decent amount of their posts and dm me?

[lavendertowerarchives]

Have you had anyone say you were like a fictional character? And if not, what is one fictional character you'd like to be compared to if the situation arrives?

Naw, I can't say I remember anyone ever doing that. On the rare occasion someone talks to me, the topic is usually never "media we consume" because our tastes are always different. It's not like I have niche interests, I just don't consume much besides youtube and a couple manga series.

I thought for a damned while about who I'd like to be compared to, and again, I'm comin up empty. It's not like I aspire to be like any certain character. They're usually caricatures of aspects the author's bestowed upon them or they're in circumstances I'd never be in. The character I find most relatable is Denji from Chainsaw Man, and he's... Not the best.

I figure that that's why I like to write so much. I can make characters that aren't meant to be liked. There is no redemption for them, not because they're irredeemable, but because I don't care about them "looking good." Their good qualities aren't important because everyone's too busy dealing with their bad ones.

I know people struggle to not have self-insert characters, and I do too. I just committed hard and made every character a self-insert character. Almost all of them has some part of me in them. The ones who don't are usually inspired by other people I know.

"This one's autistic, this one's lovesick, this one is scared people will leave so he never stops being funny, this one pushed himself too hard in school, this one is only vulgar to get people to listen..." There's a lot of shit I dislike about myself. Surpriiiiise. If I isolate little bits and surround them in a different context, maybe I'll be able to ignore them.

So, yeah. I make my own fictional characters to be compared to. If some noticed a similarity between me and one of them, I'd be pretty happy. If I can't be "admirable," I'll settle for "interesting."

[lavendertowerarchives]

Some unnecessary tech jargon as context:

For my quarter-long group project, I had to do various things all up and down our tech stack. I was assigned to do frontend work, which I hate. I don't like frontend. I had to remodel my teammate's strange attempt at a webpage and server to serve that page (among other periphery). I had to re-learn javascript, and learn HTML for the first time.

I, somehow, enjoyed writing in HTML. It gave visual feedback the moment I reloaded the page. I was able to shift things around, googling what I needed and just... Having the answer be so simple was nice.

Now that the project is done (well, we didn't finish, but we turned it in), I've learned HTML and CSS on my own time. Over the past two days, I have constructed a website and hosted it on github (as well as my shitty private server I contact with localhost:). It's barely a skeleton. It has nothing on it. It will get bigger, but the fact that I'm proud of it now confuses me.

Now that I know the basics of web dev (like, the very very basics), I can use Inspect Element to peek at how other pages work. It's been fun, learning techniques from other, more developed sites.

It's broken the fourth wall, though. The pages no longer look just like pages to me. I see the elements behind the text, the containers, the styles, sometimes the .js responsible for the fanciness, and I lose my sense of wonder. It's been made very clear to me that these pages are not connected to anything happening outside my computer. Sure, I contacted the DNS and it sent the page back, just how everyone gets their webpages. But once it's sent to me, it's dead. Not many websites I'm on have dynamic content in the page, communicating back to some server. The ones that do usually use it for texting and shit.

It's unreasonable to see these pages as dead. I can't unsee it. I hate it. I feel more cut off than ever from everyone else. I don't regret learning but I do wish I could keep my analyses to my own projects.

Maybe it'll pass.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I feel more human. I don't know how "human" I felt three weeks ago, nor do I know how to describe "feeling human" without listing things that aren't going wrong.

I no longer have assignments to do. That's the main part of it. I'm no longer stressed out about all the shit I have to do because there's so much less of it. They don't take up all of my mental energy by sitting directly in front of my attention.

I no longer feel so alienated from my hands (or the rest of my body but I never really feel too attached anyways) and fingers. I can instantly recognize that those are my hands grabbing those things in front of me.

I finally feel more comfortable letting myself think. I don't panic whenever my headphones aren't blaring just because I'm worried the Bullshit (tm) will pop back in and send me spiraling or even just plummeting. I've entertained entire ideas for games, posts, scripts. I have inspiration again, finally.

I don't keep searching for a way out. I won't be finding them as often. I have many "ways out" of things, and yet I always default to taking a bath with a toaster. Well, things aren't as dire anymore. I still want out, don't get me wrong, I just don't want to Leave as badly.

People will start hearing from me again. I don't want to let this spring break go to waste.

[lavendertowerarchives]

Anonymity? On the internet? No fucken way! Who would have thought it possible?

As I love to do, I'm gonna slam down a massive disclaimer first to explain an important shortcut I use.

I have nobody to impress. I have nobody to show off to. I don't have any reason to pose or sanitize or shape myself to look "better" in any way. That said, I'm about to claim I've done a lot of things that make me look good. I'm just some stranger on the internet, if anyone ever ends up reading this. There is every chance that I can just... lie. I might be lying. I might be enhancing the truth. I might be omitting some stuff. I have no collateral and no evidence to prove anything. If someone's gonna start doubting my honesty, they better start at the beginning of my 200+ posts. This account is nothing more than a crash log of my eventual death and an outlet to talk to similarly plagued individuals who I hope call me a friend. Any clout I gain is irrelevant. I hope you can trust me, dear reader. I understand if you don't.

Recently, I've been submitting anonymous asks to people. An innocuous task. I try to help them. A noble goal. I succeed.

Something veeery relevant to this concept is the realization of (what I'm calling) my savior complex, which I unraveled not long ago. I see someone in a dire situation and I sometimes get an idea of how to get them out of it. I only construct such a solution in such a short time because I've probably been in their position or something resembling it. I detail it, add my disclaimers, and submit it anonymously. Whoosh. Off it goes.

The bewildering thing I've discovered is my success rate. One hundred percent. I'm not kidding. I've shot off like six or seven of these at least. That sort of rate will give a guy confidence, which I need to dismantle quickly. I'm amazed that my help is appreciated, after my base self-confidence prohibits me from understanding that people like being talked to for the thirty minutes it takes to write. I'm simultaneously not surprised, since I spent so long on like just twenty lines of text. I put everything I have into that shit. I refuse to half-ass my attempts at assistance. I know what that feels like.

As for the anonymity part, the fact that "no one will know it was me" is always as exploitable as ever. In other circumstances, anonymous asks are easy routes to harass someone without facing consequences. It would prevent an attacker from being identified. It protects them from the victim. In my case, it protects me from myself by establishing a contract: no one will praise me to my face. Ever.

This restriction is mandatory. I will never forget my fucking failure of a reassurance I had when I did reveal myself. Once. It happened once. (I'm not counting these in my successes, don't worry) I submitted something. The user said they wanted to give me a hug. I submit again. They thank me. I message them directly, we keep talking about the issue, and I fuck up. I got praised. That went to my ego. I assumed too much, gave a bad comparison, and made them feel worse. I haven't messaged them since. I don't think they want me to.

The purpose of the restriction is to prevent any clout from ever being gained. I can't risk texting while I'm drunk on approval. That's the only reason I use anonymity as my fragile bravado. If they don't know who I am, then they can't try to praise me. I desperately want to be praised for my help, or anything really. I know how desperate I am. That's exactly why I can't subject someone to the aftermath.

As a small disclaimer once more, I understand how easy it is to shed failure when I'm anonymous. If my advice doesn't help someone, it's all too simple to just... not take responsibility. When that happens, when that day comes where my help is not appreciated, I accept it. I won't come out and say "hey, it's me, I'm sorry," since I don't want to do that to a success, but I will add it to my tally. Again, there is no reason to trust me on this.

I've been praised as "cutthroat," (yes, he clarified it was a positive remark) and that made me realize my style of "help" differs from normal reassurances. I am not gentle. I am still fearful that I will tip someone over the edge, I'm still paranoid about making someone's day worse, I'm still frightened that I might trigger someone. However, I understand that I, some rando, will probably not outweigh the positive influences in their life. I can afford to be pessimistic. I can and will fight you.

I know as well as everyone else does that if someone offers you pure happiness, promises nothing but bonuses, or ignores downsides, they are naive as fuck and will not be helpful. They've likely never hurt themselves on purpose or booked their own funeral. I will gladly tell you that things are shit, they will be shit, and they will keep being shit for a while. The key difference is that I know how to make that shit smell less awful. I know how to plug my nose. I know how to find the hideaways where the concentration of shit is lesser. I want to convince people that it is not their fault for being in a shit-stained world.

TL;DR there is no summary. I said a lot of stuff that kinda doesn't connect. This is word-vomit. I just needed to get all these ideas out of my head so they stopped fucking annoying me.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I forgot how fun it is to fuck with powerpoint

Sorry, I still ain't back yet Sorry, still isolating, consciously or not Sorry, I still don't know what the fuck is going on No, I still can't fucking draw hands Yes, I'll respond as soon as I feel human