#also also I guess the theme of this blog is random tumblr shenanigans then one and done essays about an extremely specific topic yayyy

[inke-ri]

After giving the Ithaca Saga a few listens, I'm surprised by how much I loved the ending. All along, I kept wondering how they'd tie up Epic with the whole slow arc of Odysseus becoming a monster, would the story "reward" his behavior by giving him his family back?

Spoilers below!

I cant be sure since the animatics aren't out yet, but the feeling I got from the "Just a Man" part in Would You Fall In Love With Me Again is that it really hammers home how Odysseus didn't become a monster by choice. He didn't *mean* to do it, the gods messing with him (and poor decisions from all of his crew, himself included) essentially forced him to do it to survive. I'm not absolving Odysseus of the blame here, I think the fact that he compares his castle being sacked to Troy symbolizes that he paid for all the pain and misery he caused and he didn't get off easy (if the crippling trauma doesnt make it obvious).

But at the end of the day, he was always someone carrying an extreme amount of guilt due to things in and beyond his control, and there always *was* compassion in him, there was always this inherent desire to be a hero bc he wanted to do good, not bc he actually WANTED to be ruthless.

Most importantly, there IS a big distinction between Odysseus and all these monsters to me. And that is that even when Odysseus finally abandons every shred of self restraint and becomes a "monster", down to having his own track titled after him, Odysseus never *revels* in it the way Poseidon or Polyphemus or Zeus did (unless the final animatics prove me wrong, which would feel very OOC to me).

Even before finally snapping and poking a hundred holes in Poseidon, he still *tried* before. Even as he did it, it felt more like he was venting 20 years of misery instead of enjoying it. He just sounds tired when he lets go of the trident. And when he kills the suitors, he's just *angry*. When he chooses himself over Eurylochus, he was broken and miserable. When he chose to leave Calypso, someone who *kept him prisoner* for 7 years, he still chose to do it in as kind a way he still managed.

Compare it to Scylla, who's having a blast comparing herself to him. Compare it to Poseidon, who was so cocky in Ruthlessness. Compare it to Zeus in Thunderbringer, strutting around like the cat who got the mouse.

I think that by the time Odysseus sees Penelope again, especially after seeing how different he and Telemachus are (Telemachus clearly being positioned as a mirror of his younger self), after telling Athena there's no hope left for him, only for those that will come after... He faces Penelope and well and truly believes that he's exactly like the monsters in his journey. He lists his sins like charges in a tribunal, like he's fully expecting her to never take him back, because how could she? He's no longer himself.

And then Penelope asks him about the bed.

With how the song is clearly revolving around love, Penelope's challenge in Epic seems less like she's testing to see if it really is Odysseus like in the poems, and more to see if he's still the man she fell in love with. Would he be willing to let go of love, of their memories, of who he was when they first met under that olive tree? He's different now, right? Surely love doesnt matter to him all that much so long as the "victory" of getting home, just as winning meant all to Zeus and Poseidon, just as relishing in the deaths of the trespassors in his land meant to Polyphemus and Scylla.

And sure, Odysseus doesnt reply the way we'd expect from him at the start of the saga. He doesnt plead with Penelope or falls to his knees and begs like he did with Zeus in the very first song. He's *angry*, he HAS changed. But despite the changes, he hasn't let go of love. He REFUSES to cut through the roots of it and throw the bed away. And so Penelope matches him blow for blow, and forces him to accept that he's still her husband and that she'll love this broken, scarred version of him just the same. Even as he seems to choke out her name, almost begging her to leave him because he doesn't deserve it, her voice overpowers him until he breaks and just. Accepts it.

And then the Just a Man theme I mentioned at the start of this text wall finally kicks in, which to me feels like the story reminiscing on Odysseus' journey and, well, accepting it, just as he does... That while his sins ARE sins (again, not absolving him of any of it!!), he never did them out of hatred or pride or just because he enjoyed it, he did it because he was, well, just a man who loved his family so desperately that he'd do anything to see them again.

He finally lets himself breathe, realizes that it really has been 20 years of his life attempting to shape him into something different, and even though it succeeded at that... for all it did change him it did not change the love that was always at his core. And so he can allow himself to perhaps never be fully free of that guilt and anger, but at least finally, finally rest.

[yuurivoice]

Tumblr’s Day of Reckoning Approaches...

The 17th is upon us, here is what you need to know.

On the 17th of December, Tumblr is banning adult content from the platform. This means a great deal of content will be hidden from you, posts and blogs will very likely be wiped in this process. While I can’t say for certain what will happen to this blog and the content within, I can tell you that I’m going to be focusing my efforts elsewhere in a big way, regardless of what things look like in the coming weeks. 

Let me break it down for you, links included.

YouTube

This is going to be my bread and butter moving forward. Not only are a bunch of old audios uploaded to the channel currently, you’re going to be seeing a whole slew of new content as 2019 begins. We’re talking original characters, new artwork, new themes and all sorts of goodness. NSFW audios won’t be on YouTube, but previews of them will be! 

Twitter

This is where you’ll get convenient links to fresh new hotness, as well as all the interaction and shenanigans you have found here. Twitter has already been my go to spot to share my random thoughts since people here love to whine if I post too often and clutter their dash...so...y’know. Let me clutter your dash on Twitter too, I guess. 

Patreon

The engine that makes this whole machine work. This is where the full NSFW audios will be (on the $1 tier) and there are loads of other goodies in the higher tiers. Not only does your support keep me going, I’m looking at doing things like Patron polls for voting on new original characters and their traits, special offers, and plenty more. 

Twitch

It’s ya boy, but playing games on the interwebs. Follow me on Twitch and join in on some fun adventures, live interaction, and fun times in general. There’ll be a LOT more of me on Twitch in 2019, I’m aiming to hit a 3 streams a week minimum ASAP.

Pillowfort.io

This is the work in progress of the bunch. Pillowfort is currently in beta and is a really neat blogging platform hybrid with a bunch of neat features. As the site develops I will be migrating my content over there and seeing how things go from there. Currently it’s a pay to sign up deal, and they’re also closed for the time being as they upgrade their servers and get more features in place. It will be free to sign up eventually, with paid memberships for expanded features to keep them from having to sell out to corporate overlords...not that any blogging platform would EVER do such a thing...

So...what happens next?

We pour one out for all the NSFW blogs, artists, sex workers, and people who just wanted a place where they could look at smut without feeling like they were sneaking into some shady back alley where viruses, gross ads, and other unfortunate aspects of less reputable websites lurked around every corner.

My content isn’t ending, this is far from goodbye. Putting my content on YouTube has been great thus far, and I’m incredibly excited about what is in store for 2019. I’m actually feeling incredibly optimistic about everything, with a dash of sad feels for what Tumblr was and should have been. 

I hope you’ve read this and you’ve followed me wherever you could. If Tumblr lets me continue to operate here on Tumblr, then I’ll be here, sharing my new posts, staying active, and keepin’ on. If they don’t let me, then Tumblr can kiss my rosy red cheeks. 

I’ll be spamming this over the next two days, I apologize for the mess on your dash, but y’know...that’s how it goes in the Tumblr apocalypse. 

[pastelcourage]

My (probably too personal) discovery of Asexuality

Hum... I shared this with an Ace Blog... but then I thought about it and decided I'll just post it on my own blog... it's not like I shared it anonymously and... nothing said I couldn't post it on my blog... plus they might not post it anyway... (its a little edited from what I shared with them but essentially the same) and I guess I'm just stalling... 

“Asexuality is a neglected side of sexuality that I wish I’d known about when I was much MUCH younger.“

Anyway I want to share my experience... if that's okay... 

WARNING: Mentions of sex, light mentions of masturbation and molestation

I was 26 when I first heard the term Asexual. I wish I’d heard it sooner… When I did find it though it was such a relief. I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t broken.

When I was growing up I loved the idea of falling in love. I saw the princes always was happiest after finding her prince. The happy always came at the end when everyone found their true love.

Not only that but there were messages everywhere about not wanting to die alone- about how pathetic one is if they can’t get a boyfriend/girlfriend. How incomplete life is without love.

I never thought about it too much beyond wanting to fall in love and wanting to have a family… I guess I should have known something was a little wired about me when my focus was on getting a good job so I could support "future family" and not on what kind of father would I want my kids to have…

I guess I figured I’d fall in love and that would sort itself out- because I figured the first part of finding love was falling. I didn’t know there was more to it than that… kids media gleefully skipped over any and all things regarding sexual attraction- and when I did watch more adult themed shows the concept flew over my head. It just looked like people found each other through some force of nature. That they kissed and they just new… (Might blame Back to the Future for that one…)

When I was in middle school I remember, while sitting in the library during lunch (as I spent most of my time during that period of my life) I was suddenly surrounded by a group of girls. “Who do you like?” One asked me. (She was a bully to me but contrarily often stood up for me when others would bully me… it was a strange thing) I blinked pulled from my book- I don’t remember which book- but I remember looking at the eager faces. Not really understanding why they were all there… now that I think about it I’m lucky they weren’t looking to pull one of the stunts of forced confessions or fake mutual attraction. My sister told me of how a group had told her that one of her crushes liked her and when she went to talk to him his response was not kind. 

Whatever their intentions I answered honestly. “I don’t like anyone.”

“Lier.” Was my bully’s blunt response.

For some reason that really hurt. More than any of the teasing I got back then. It was the start of me questioning myself. Wondering what attraction meant… and why I wasn't… I ended up just naming someone random and they giggled and teased me before running off. I was flustered unsure of what had just happened.

Another incident I remember not too long after this was with my sister. She was super into The Backstreet Boys because her friends were into them… she had a huge poster and everything. One day she pulls down the poster and drags me over. “Who do you think is hotter?” She asks. I stared at the picture.

They were all guys and all dressed very similarly. By this time I’d ruminated on the incident in the library… because being an anxious child I worried about everything constantly. I had a good memory for conversations and events. I would run the days conversations over and over in my mind before I fell asleep agonizing over how embarrassing I was or how horrible I was. 

So yes, I’d thought about that incident more than once. So as I looked over the poster I mentally told myself I just need to pick the guy I think is cutest. I got frustrated and my eyes fell on Nick. He was the only blond one. He stood out. I was about to point to him- because at this time I didn’t know any of their names- when my sister put her finger on him and said. “You can’t pick Nick though, I like him.”

I frowned. Well, that got rid of the easy choice. So I went with the guy with the gages in his ears because I thought they were cool looking. She told me his name was AJ. Honestly… I never could, no matter how many days I stared at that poster, I never could figure out who I thought was cuter.

I thought maybe there might be something wrong with me, but we had had those classes. The ones that talk about changes in your body and I’d remembered that in the video we’d watched that it said that as we grew older that our bodies would change and that our way’s of thinking of boys would change. “I’m just a late bloomer.” I thought. “I’ll like boys someday.” 

I kept thinking this… and then I focused on school. “I’ll worry about boys when I graduate. I won't have time to think about boys when I need to study. I’ll have time after school.” I thought this as I started college. Telling myself I was being responsible. Telling myself that it was reasonable. My aunt bought me a box of condoms saying I'd need them in college and I ended up giving them to my younger brother…

In actuality, these thoughts of I’ll deal with boys after school was just me dodging the growing panic of “I’m older- my teen years are coming to an end and I’m still not finding anyone hot.”

I liked a few people aesthetically- but I always was attracted to the hairstyle or the clothes… I knew that I wasn’t attracted to the person… no matter how much I tried to force it.

I was able to play this “I’m being responsible card” for a while… but as I got deeper and deeper into my twenties I started to freak out more. I still wouldn’t admit to myself that I was freaking out… but I was. Women, even late bloomer’s, development, as far as I knew, stopped at pretty much age 22(and I was pushing that mark to the oldest I could rationalize even if I refused to do the research to verify it). I was not finding any boys attractive.

I hadn’t known about gay attraction until high school. My sister had some gay friends… I’d learned that one of my cousins identified as a lesbian… but my family overall was not very kind to the idea. 

Now my mom was fine with it… I’ve never heard her say anything negative about such relationships. Helk, even my stepdad was awkwardly accepting of my sister's friends. My cousin's aunts and uncles on the other hand… not so much. That cousin I mentioned- other than having other struggles was often ridiculed for her love interest. (She was my favorite cousin growing up- and learning that about her did not change my opinion on that- even if I didn’t really know a lot about what it meant. Love was love.)

So I decided if guys don’t catch my interest… maybe girls might? I’ve never really looked. Much shyer on that side of things… and much more hesitantly I started to question whether or not I may be lesbian… I also just wondered if I just needed to experience sex first. This was what people my age did.

The only problem… I wasn’t really interested in doing it with anyone. Hell, I even started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t that I didn’t find anyone attractive but that maybe I just found everyone attractive. (Trust me… I probably would have had a much harder time focusing if this were the case) I felt like I needed to know someone if I wanted to try sex though.

Income the ex-boyfriend from High school. Now our story is crazy so I won't get into it… but I love him even now… I’m just very bad at showing it and I’m pretty sure he probably thinks I’m crazy now…

Why?

Well, he knew I was shy. He knew I was a bit adverse to sex… and he knew a few other things about me… that I may or may not touch on later. See… this was like our third or fourth time dating… I get a little confused with how to count the high school shenanigans… but I decided this time I was going to do my best to be a good girlfriend. I had developed an emotional attachment to him. It was the closest to an attraction I'd ever gotten.

So I did what I thought I was supposed to do. “We’re adults.” I thought, and I’d come to learn that marriage was just paper and stupidity so I wasn’t hung up on that like I was when I was a teen… so I thought "I need to have sex with him."

I forced myself. I probably gave him blue balls more than once… I was awful. I tried so hard, but I just could never actually get that far… The further we went the more I just closed off.

I was so upset- and I was also divided between him and school… and I think I was confusing him… So he broke up with me… and I just accepted it… I didn’t fight it… which I’ve played the scene over and over and I just wonder if I’d fought it… would he have… stayed with me?

I think he’s happy now with the girl he’s with now… though I haven’t really talked to him in years… and I haven’t even checked their social media…

I ruined one of my best friendships and the closest thing I’d ever had to a real relationship… because I was trying to fix myself…

I know now that I was just hurting myself. A relationship is about more than sex… I hear it’s got a lot to do with communication… I haven’t really had a relationship sense though so what do I know.

After we broke up I was in denial on a lot of fronts after that. In denial about how much it hurt that we didn’t work out. In denial about how I felt about all of it. Still trying to figure out what was wrong with me… until one day months later I found a post on Tumbler talking about Asexuality.

I immediately had a feeling of… whoa… this is me. I quickly started digging and learning everything I could about it. At the time there was a lot of hate going around on Tumblr about Asexuality not being apart of the LBGTQ community… about them not being oppressed. I didn’t know anything about any of it… so I had no say.

You’d think finding the community would have made me better… would have left me feeling like “Yes, I’ve found my people and I’ve learned to accept who I am now.”

No. 

Yes, I felt this feeling of acceptance in me and this realization that maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with me… but then… I began to wonder if I really knew…

It was just a continuation of the same self-doubt and uncertainty I had from before. If only I actually had succeeded in sex maybe I’d actually know… 

I read a lot learning about all sorts of sexuality's not just asexuality- that made me feel more confident about being asexual though. Even the fact that you don’t have to have sex to know… and freshly new to the title and still wanting a second opinion I turned to my dad. Because he knows a lot and I see him as fairly knowledgeable.

He’d never heard of Asexuality… so I tried to explain the little that I knew and he said. “Why don’t you just claim celibacy then?” I don’t know why but this statement really offended me…

“I just… It’s not about not having sex-“ I wasn’t able to explain anything… the conversation ended with me feeling frustrated and still uncertain…

I continued to read… I found some frustrating articles like one that did a study on rats saying that Asexuality was a sign of overpopulation… and basically saying its a sign of social sickness… This did not help me with how I still felt like I was broken... even if knowing I wasn’t alone was helping with that. Then there were common statements that sex will fix it. Continued arguments over whether or not Asexuals are oppressed. I don’t know if I’m qualified to say that it is or isn’t… but it sure is overlooked… which is a form of neglect.

If anything… From my experience, I think I can say without a doubt that sex has nothing to do with it at all. Even if I do reach a point where I am confirmable with sex it will never fix my attraction issue. I’m just not sexually attracted to others… 

I liked to think if I found the right partner and sex was something they wanted that I would be able to provide it- even if I don’t personally enjoy it…(and yes I’ve tried masturbating- and even though it seems to release stress I’m not really a fan) Overall, I’ve come to the conclusion that I just might not like sex, and that’s okay.

Now… I came across a lot of “Who hurt you stories.” The counter-argument being no one had to hurt me to be this way… and honestly, that whole thing got to me too because… maybe it was because I was hurt… 

When I was very young I was forcibly molested by a fellow student. I wondered a lot about whether this had anything to do with being asexual but the more I think about how I grew up and the lack of attraction and how hard I’ve tried to force it-- because that’s what’s expected of me-- because sex is supposed to be this great thing… the more I realize that it wouldn’t have mattered. With how much I wanted to run away and get married as a kid- with how many boys I kissed even after the whole ordeal with the jerk- I would have… if I could have…

I know I have a capacity to love. I love my family I love my friends… I am pretty sure I’m demiromantic and I’ve recently learned about cupioromantic and that might be a possibility as well… but it’s just… so disheartening to know that my childhood built up this dream that I just can’t follow… maybe… someday I’ll find someone who’s fine with just cuddling and maybe I’ll grow to be comfortable with being closer… but right now I just can’t help but wish I’d stumbled across Asexuality sooner. That I’d known it was a thing. 

It’s such an invisible community… I was 26 before I found it… and I’m turning 29 this year, and I’m starting to accept it as apart of who I am. I’m still learning about what it means to be asexual, and how I mesh with others and what this means for dating…

So to sum up. Asexuality is a neglected side of sexuality that I wish I’d known about when I was much MUCH younger. Asexuality has nothing to do with sex itself. And I’m super glad that I’m not alone… I know this is kind of a blunt and very open story… but I felt like for this community… I haven’t seen anyone talk about the sex vs attraction in a way that clearly separated the two… and I thought… if I could share my experience… maybe… it might help another lost soul…