I'm Just Sort Of Soup, Really / Stream Of Consciousness
This post contains discussion of rape and abuse.
I haven't written since the 1st, which is um. Too long.
Well, technically, I have. I've been writing daily logs semi-consistently over at my new Obsidian Publish garden, agnes.today. I just haven't been writing what I feel is "legitimate writing" (and oh, the usage of that phrase at all within me is a whole other post, dear reader! Trust me, I hate that any part of me at all validates that term even against my will!! I hate it too!!). I have started some of my erotica work and even started building a gallery for my NSFW art / preg kink art, but it's hard to find the inspiration to Write or Create beyond web projects lately. I have been drawing my Star Trek OCs though, so that's something. Just working on a group reference pic, but still..
I just haven't been really with it for a while. This past week I was supposed to see Cupcakke - who I have listed on my canon page as one of my biggest writing inspirations in the world - live in my city. And no one ever comes to my tiny Michigan city!!! I was so excited!! But.. she got confused about the time change from Chicago and came on 2 hours late, and by that time I was in severe pain from standing so long, sweating to death from hot flashes, and also drunk as fuck. I ended up leaving right before she came on because I couldn't stand anymore :( I felt so bad. And worst of all I was the only person there alone. That was the beginning of a perpetually shitty week. I failed my first test ever the very next day lmao.
I really wish I could write a good/meaningful/interesting blog post, but I just wanted to update, I guess. I feel like I've been heavily dissociated from the world this past week and I'm just floating through life like a nervous system/basil garnish on tomato soup. Uuugh. (Remember the Ava's Demon update (Drawn gore in link CW) where Prudith gets put in the machine with Ava, and Ava watches Prudith be stripped down to her nerves and brain? Yeah, picture that on some grotesque Panera Bread monstrosity served up to Alex Kurtzman. That's how I feel.)
I am sort of just floating here. I'm not even delicious like soup is or anything, I'm just, like, a great big waiting thing. And it's so tiring to be a waiting thing! I do not know how to be anything but. I am to my core a thing of waiting and contemplation; rarely yet have I been a thing of having and experiencing in the moment. It feels great to have goals and finally be working toward them, less great when those goals feel so far away you can't even predict when they might possibly happen, though I guess you can apply that unpredictability to all of life in a way. But really, I just want to be in the future with my lover and our child and my bird, chilling and happy, and I feel the absence of that kid so very horribly. You don't even exist yet, baby! How can I miss you? But I do. I so very much ache to hold you - now - that I can barely stop myself from crying when I see children in public. It hurts less knowing you'll be here at some point. But baby dearest, I am so not patient! I suppose the thing about children is that they teach you patience...
I've been trying to focus on that future and not the alienation I feel from my fandom community, but it's hard. I'm giving up interacting in the Starfleet Academy fandom because I realized that by being the kind of shipper I am - someone who is interested in things beyond the cute and fluffy - I inherently do not fit in. The people I thought were my friends/liked me only tolerated my presence at best and secretly were judging me for the content I thought up.
I can't help that I am obsessed with depictions of abuse in media because what happened to me warped my view/experience of the world so horribly I can not disentangle living from abuse. I see it everywhere - and in Nahla and Caleb's relationship it is blatant, but I'm a terrible creep just for daring to explore that. It hurts my heart that no one considers my experience with these things - my trafficker was my teacher, so. I have experience with it, but I shouldn't have to say that in order to be not seen as bad or creepy for exploring the imo-subtextual - it hurts my heart that people see my obsession with finding my story represented in fictional characters and treat it as either a suspicious thing or a pitiful thing... I just don't want to feel alone.
I feel like I am disliked in this fandom for not being the perfect victim - the kind of victim who goes toward avoidance and fear of abuse instead of obsession with reliving it. I find it interesting also that the most acceptable way to be an abuse survivor in society is to not talk about or depict abuse at all lest you disturb other survivors. What does that accomplish, except for shame? Except for ensuring continued silence - which only aids abusers? What exactly does insisting abuse must never be depicted or spoken about in any way beyond the cookie cutter "I was raped and that was bad and now I am broken forever/I am #StrongBuyMyBook" story fucking accomplish beyond making people not speak up about what happened to them? I was not sickened by my rape to the point of silence. I was sickened by my rape to the point of screaming and yelling and thrashing. I cannot put my rape - my rapes, see the plural - I cannot put my rapes down. My rapes are in several forms of rotation - a best selling page turner to many, an eye roller for others, and a slithering serpent smoothing itself in coils around my throat to choke me dead. I think I'll call the snake Richard. I cannot be the good survivor because I haven't made it to the label of survivor at all. Yes, I am sad to admit I still live there, in that voidplace I can't piece together beyond blurry background snippets of purple paint/pink smiling pig cartoon wall decals/rainbow alphabet posters/skin/eyes/body. I did not survive. I simply ate the me that was raped — except you can still see the outline of the little me in my throat, like a snake, or like Tom with his cheese, so everyone knows what happened and she just won't go down. I am rambling.
My point is that I was buried alive and I woke up with all of the dirt and all of the Earth in my lungs, and then I sat up in my coffin and walked out of it alivedead. I am obsessed with my abuse. I think I would rather be treated like a rescue puppy than treated like a bad dog that's definitely going to bite one of these days they're sure of it so it's fine to let it starve, fine to let it go unpet, lest one day it lash out and hurt someone! I am not a ticking time bomb! I am a person. I don't even growl anymore.
But back to fandom. I am seen as a weirdo in it because I dare to interpret an abusive-but-simultaneously-caring relationship with the complexities it has. I think it's honestly better than what the rest of the fandom does with them, which is treat it like a fluffy mom & son thing when… she arrested his mother just for trying to feed him (and clearly doesn't view herself as his mother) (which the writers have said explicitly ). Like, sorry, she takes away his autonomy at every possible moment. How is me interpreting it for what it is worse than erasing the complexities of it in favor of a dynamic that completely flattens every single thing about what makes them interesting, and in the process of doing so ignores many of the societal themes and implications involved in those complexities that I think are important to acknowledge when discussing them at all? Like, how??
I am kind of done with doing fandom around others. I've said this a billion times but I really mean it now. I can't keep deluding myself into believing I am anything beyond tolerated by anyone who doesn't also enjoy the same dynamics I do. So my heart hurts a lot today. But whatever. I'm going to focus on the friendships I do have—if I can ever get myself out of this dissociative haze—and try and make new ones.
Speaking of, I got invited to a Gen-Z Friends hangout at meeting, and I'm also making some jewelry and baked goods for their holiday charity fundraiser!! I'm really enjoying getting involved with them. I love having found a religious community that makes me feel truly welcomed.
I just need to get back to ketamine treatment, I think. I skipped it last week for the Concert from Hell and that was a mistake. I just need to get back to Spravato, I keep telling myself, and I will be okay.
I am going to be okay.
….In other news, I made another archive, sort of based on the above situation? It's an archive for people who only want their work to be seen by people they link it to; it's an archive I'm intentionally not promoting anywhere or linking to publicly, allowing it to spread through word of mouth alone if at all. If you want in, shoot me an email.
I'm working on some more posts and I hope to have less depressing updates soon. I'm just trying to take it easy. I bought a lanyard and keychain bag so I'm going to carry my XTEINK X3 (which I actually like better than the X4) (that's another post WIP) around with me wherever I go and read whenever I can. I'm sending my beloved a care package. I'm working on getting my life together. I will succeed because I am insane.
I will succeed because I don't have a choice.