#Hiriajuu Suffering

[polyamzeal]

“Polyamory In Anime” panel at ACen 2023

Over the weekend at my favorite anime convention, Anime Central (ACen), I attended a panel called, “Polyamory In Anime” by @hiriajuu-suffering​ . So I wanted to give them a signal boost and talk about my experience at the panel.

Anyone that knows my backstory will know that I was actually introduced to polyamory during a panel at an anime convention, Geek Kon 2015. “Non-monogamy in Pop Culture” is a panel that changed my life. So I toyed with the idea of doing a polyamory panel at an anime con as well. But I was skeptical about how much that would pull people in. Even though that panel at that small con was really full. I think I just figured that the world was very different in 2015 compared to now. So I ran a panel twice in the past year that has a section talking about non-monogamy in anime but focuses more on sexual orientations and gender identities portrayed. And in it I pretty much just assume by this day and age that all weebs know what polyamory is unlike me in 2015.

Hiriiajuu-suffering made a very different assumption about the anime community and I think he made the right call! He focused a lot more on the basics of polyamory and especially defining various different terms. Maybe I just have a good brain for memorizing vocabulary words because I never found polyam terms confusing but it is quite a meme that they are overwhelming. And from what I could tell, the audience was very interested in this and eager to learn. I realized that the mistaken assumption I made is that while yes a lot more people in 2023 have heard of polyamory than in 2015, most people are still newbies that just starting off and learning! I have been in my own bubble of non-monogamous weebs for so long that I kind of forgotten that most people have only heard lots of these terms in passing.

To back up these terms and different styles of polyamory, several anime titles were listed off and briefly talked about. Unsurprisingly there are a lot more negative examples of non-monogamy in anime than positive examples. But I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing since we touch upon where some of these shows went wrong and how they could have fixed themselves into more positive polyamory.

And then the shows that do show positive polyamory (which for me are Girlfriend Girlfriend and My Next Life As A Villainess) felt like so much of a triumph. I really enjoyed when we got to cite these examples. 

There were a ton of shows listed that i had heard of but never really thought of through a polyamous lens (check out my series) so that gave me ideas for future anime reviews on this blog. I never thought the list would be so long. 

If I had one gripe it would be that some of the definitions of those pesky terms and labels I personally disagreed with. So I guess I do see why people say they are so confusing after all. But they were explained well enough that I got the point being conveyed.

I think the more important part was the concepts and ideals. There was a lot of “why someone might want to be polyamorous” weaved throughout the whole panel and I think it was so good that even fully monogamous people could learn a lot of lesions from those ideals. It was really beautiful!

I wish there was more time at the end for discussion. I had a lot to say but I mostly tried to patiently wait until the end as I didn’t want to constantly be interrupting during it. And then even at the end I wanted to make sure that other people got their input in first since again I didn’t want to steal the show and already felt like I did say a decent amount during it. I was in the front row with part of my polycule so that alone felt like I was contributing to the visibility of polyamory people. Although I honestly wish my entire polycule could be at a polyamory panel at an anime convention together. New goals!

I had decided a few weeks ago that I want to take a break from running panels at all cons but this one really inspired me and got me thinking that maybe I would run a polyamory panel at a small Midwestern anime con and stay away from running at the big ones for a little bit. I don’t know, we’ll see. I am really happy that Hiriiajuu-suffering did this panel and put so much hard work into it. The community, both anime and polyamory, really need content like this.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Am I doing this influencer thing correctly? Happy birthday to me

The same as it always is

I need something to believe in my 30s, since my society expected me to have none in my 20s. help me realize what it is that needs to be.

[injuries-in-dust]

@hiriajuu-suffering oh sweetie, I think there are some things that we need to tell you about asexuality.

Man, I hope that girl managed to figure things out.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

I'm applying to host a panel on polyamory at these Texas conventions 06/17-18: YUMiCON in San Antonio (their communication was scummy, they sent out marketing for almost being sold out before sending panel denial emails out then sent my denial email out upon inquiry, don't go here) 06/25-26: Kyokai Con in Harlingen 07/02: Ba-Con in Alvin 07/08-10: Okashicon in Pflugerville 07/28-31: Anime Matsuri in Houston 08/12-14: Anime Houston 08/19-21: Delta H Con in Houston 09/02-04: San Japan in San Antonio

If you see me, come say hi

Catch me if you can

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Distortion

I keep losing track of my time and sanity. I've been dissociated for maybe sevenish weeks now and how this Thanksgiving holiday has gone has shown me I haven't pulled out of it much. Maybe this is where I need to be while I don't feel a purpose, but punting games and living through days where nothing gets accomplished is disheartening on the day-to-day. Full energy would be great but I have to compromise with how my head and heart are right now.

Misinterpreting of what I type here has been a source of extortion for those who disenfranchise me in the past but withholding information from enemies I'm on equal footing with behind a paywall isn't something I'm interested beyond making malintent disincentivized, so this is the first personal stream of consciousness post without post+ in awhile. Take that for what you will.

Is it too late for me to stop chasing dreams? I know 29 is not too late for everyone, but is it too late for me? I had a dream of projecting my methodological voice to genuine public domain, I was told I couldn't create an image appealing enough and I've been seeing more truth in that as I get older, again disheartening. I had a dream I could make my personal relationships line up to a cookie-cutter vision of happiness then started to see every interpersonal flaw in my microcommunity and now I'm sickened by that sort of existence. I had a dream competitive success could help me move forward with the mundanity of human life yet I was denied those opportunities whenever I saw a window regardless of power position. I had a dream of being for someone what no one was for me, but the systemic barriers in education and the lack of trust by authority in my identity requires putting my ambition aside. Now, I just have this really tapered dream of genuine adventure and human connection and even that feels out of reach.

My family is convinced all I need is normalcy, normalcy drove me to suicide. I have no friends with an open two-way channel: partially because of my own shame and partially since I disdain the compromise of my time no matter how much of it I waste.

I'm distorted. As much as I like the clean five-blurb way I express myself, bring myself to do that has been a task and a half. My entire first semester of graduate school was a slog and who knows it's going to be finished properly or competently. I can't afford mental lapses like this anymore but carrying on while I'm constantly in survival mode is strewing my will right out of me.

Wish my mind into clarity, please and thank you

- Nicholis P., Sivart : Hiriajuu Suffering

[hiriajuu-suffering]

I’ve Given Up

I’ve given up on the idea maybe one day I’ll find happiness. My entire life is a series of signposts that indicated to me I’m paying for sins I didn’t commit to in this life.

I sought the normative life early on. I was told being smart, being a unique and critical thinker is an asset to one’s personhood. Instead, it got me ostracized from my religious community and prevented me from fulfilling the social goals to help me fit in. I was the centralizing force of my social circle in elementary school, and then all my friends drifted away in a matter of 3 years as I was further dissociated from suburban life. I wasn’t even invited to my childhood best friend’s wedding. Then again, how should one expect a group of 12 and 13 year olds in 2004 to empathize with a depressed friend that seemingly had a great life on the surface? I miss how pure and unfiltered those relationships were. In adulthood, it’s all about functional utility...and it’s sad.

I tried to fill the voids in my need for belonging with competitive success, but I always fell inches short of the goals I set for myself. I wanted to be section leader my last year of middle school, I never came into my own. I wanted to feel as if I could make a place for myself in high school, instead, I was shoved into a corner and almost bullied out by my teammates. I wanted to belong at my new school, my new teammates resented me for my competence. I started to see the contempt for my identity. I doubt WE even still stalks this blog, but he has no idea how much he ruined my life. I set my sights at breaking at state, when I failed to do that, no one had a problem abandoning me completely...and he had the nerve to say he was doing it for my own good. I committed more to the team than I ever had in my life, and he deluded himself into thinking tearing me away from that would be good for me instead of destroy me thoroughly. I buried myself in TCGs as my only choice, and I couldn’t place high enough to gain notoriety in that community either in spite of so many tops.

I took chances on people thinking they wouldn’t have contempt for me naturally, but I had no idea the identity I had no control over was so repugnant to people. Being told I could never have the right look to be successful in music stung, but I never knew how real those words were until I started seeing adulthood through. I can’t even count the amount of times people accused me of being a pedophile as a teenager because hearsay whisper and crushes from girls I unrequited totally. Then, for all the wisdom I had in adhering to those arbitrary age distinctions, the same girls would never grant me a basic level of trust to make something happen the right way. Why is me being romantically happy so offensive to people when I show more restraint than anyone expects of any other desi, Muslim, or man? It can’t be straight prejudice because I know others of my exact ilk found happiness. Am I just that personally repulsive that everyone has to see me drown to not break their reality? I changed my tag to Hiriajuu Suffering because I’m constantly between intersections that I can’t ever seem to garner empathy from.

Even when I was finally truly on my own, I went back to a team that otherized me for things about myself I couldn’t control. SS was the only person, at first, who saw me as worth anything. Then LA, TM, CG, CI, and EK eventually saw it, too. But LL, ML, MH, BW, R, NC, JB, I could just feel their contempt. If it wasn’t for MA, I would’ve resented my Bobcat family as much as my Ranger and Tiger families. I can’t thank WK enough for eventually putting faith in me, because I know JH never did. I never felt the need to be a leader there like I did in high school because I lost faith in my abilities to lead, my scars on that team scared people away from rooting for me. I didn’t realize how hopeless I already was because I still had competition to bury myself into. The day I had to leave San Marcos, the day I walked on stage for graduation, I couldn’t maintain a genuine a smile, because it represented the death of my ability to pursue the unknown.

I adopted myself into a community on life support and held it together and it resulted in my own social death. I did everything I could my family asked of me for two and half years, at the delay of my own personal goals in life and I’m still spit on and abused by them as a fully grown person. I tried so hard to chase something to quench my thirst for adventure, depending on my competitive integrity to get me there, but I always fell short. I always failed. I never gained a single soul’s respect from trying to make a real point. The only thing that held me together was the prospect I might still have the ability to create my own family to rectify the wrongs done to me with my offspring, but even my path to do so evaporated during the pandemic.

I tried so much to be the person I needed to help me when I was a teenager, as an educator, and my existence was so detested I wasn’t allowed to be that. I took a gamble on the very campus that destroyed what little reputation I could catapult myself into a role for myself, and they found a way to use the same overdrawn interpretations on the abhorrence of my identity to sever me again, so I went to a place I thought I would be valued. Instead of being valued, I was overworked and overstressed to the point I couldn’t meet my bear minimum though I did more than no person should be asked of in that position. I tried so hard to be that person, no one would let me be that. I put every ounce of capability I had in the job itself and no one cut me slack for the world going to hell and stopping me from holding onto that little space I made for myself. I’m loyal to the students and teachers at my last school, but the administration didn’t want me around...I didn’t represent the puppet they wanted because bad timing gets no sympathy, no leeway.

The pandemic practically made me lose every little thing I had built being forced to be back “home” and I just wanted to escape, but the places I wanted to go to didn’t see me as worthy. My heart just kept sinking when one rejection letter came in after another, knowing it’s another door that closed to appease my sense of adventure. I’m stuck with a life I’ll be unable to enjoy in this mentally abusive household for the sake of a few numbers in my bank account for any foreseeable future. No one sees any potential I have left, so why should I? I’ll go to graduate school in hopes I can numb myself to where I won’t wake up one day wanting to kill myself again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying my new school represents hopelessness because I’m glad the one institution is able to believe in me in some capacity, but I’m not in an environment where I can thrive. Where I’m even allowed to be human. I’m actually heading to the campus shortly to try to at least believe in class in August. I’m not confident this next two years should give me the future I should have, but I know it would force me to be overqualified for what I tried to be the past few years, making the prejudice against me less justifiable if I can find a place to exist.

I’ve given up on the idea of ever having a sense of belonging, ever feeling I’ll have a space to call home, ever knowing what it means to be at peace. No woman will ever see me as a worthy partner, no labor entity will ever give me faith, no society will see me as a member of value, I am destined to be an emissary of suffering and bear the burdens of being so fucking ugly no one will ever treat as human enough to be worthy of tolerance. My soul’s already saved, but this vessel isn’t treated as worthy of a place of humanity. I’m just waiting for the embrace of death, waiting for my suffering to end, hopefully making my ripples minimal enough to where I don’t leave anyone with the grief my grandfather left me with. I always thought the opposite would be true of my life, I would make a real impact on the world and be valued for something. But I can say with relative certainty it won’t happen for me, I’m doomed to the mundanity that hardly makes my life worth living, especially since my realism says definitely I will never be worthy of love to anyone. If I was born asexual, born without moral inclination or the need to improve the existence I live through, I wouldn’t loathe life as much as I do now. Maybe that’s why no one treats me humanly, because I hardly am. I wish I could forget my ethics, my heart. But something above my lowly position keeps me from doing so, so I continue to feel this steeping pain.

I hate life. The only reason I’m still trying to live is I’m angry at life and want to try to spite it, but it will always get the best of me and I can’t see myself winning anymore. If I’m able to make a place for myself I can perish smoothly, that will be an accomplishment on its own because that’s how low the bar is right now. I’m going to miss deluding myself into thinking I had anything to look forward to.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

I love you. No matter how little you're able to love me back, I love you. No matter what our future holds, I love you. Even if our relationship is never accepted, I love you. Even with everything life brings, the only thing that matters is I love you.

Hiriajuu Suffering

how I’ve loved in vows all my life