Just call me Dei

flowerfell ended in disaster from all sides. a story i, the friends i made along with it and worked deeply with during it all, held very dear for our own reasons. be it to express the hardship of survival, to cope with the progression of loss, or having hope in finding small things to live for and learning to find love in friendships, family or otherwise that we couldn’t have in life. it was a big story for everyone, and i understand not everyone got the message. people have not been kind. i’ve seen equal sides of good and bad come from it.

i won’t argue about the shipping aspects. people are right in believing i liked what i liked, and whether or not they hated that was up to them. i had my personal reasons and i never intended for it to be a malicious thing, but i understand people’s headstrong thoughts on the canons or otherwise. I didn't like to go out of my way to shove it in people's faces, which is why i scrapped later stories that were pressured to be frans related and instead made them into personal characters.

it’s fucked up seeing people get chased and hurt over fictional things. things that aren’t physically harming anyone, at least when they’re contained properly. things you shouldn’t be actively looking for if you don’t like it. things that people may actually be doing to cope with their own trauma. i watch so many people looking for hate, or reasons to be angry. i think that adds to much sadness overall. i can’t say much for those who don’t go about tagging things properly for those who don’t want to see things other than "please work on that."

when i played undertale, i lived vicariously through frisk as i played. they were quite frankly, a blank slate. i was able to self-insert in a way. due to story aspects, i felt the monsters were like... old old. like ancient beings that lived lives unfathomably long beyond the human lifespan. beyond the passage of time.

i fell in love with characters and aspects and ideas it gave. i fell in love with it’s world, the possibility of other worlds like it, and exciting wacky hijinks. i took interest in others making au's and thought about how i could make my own. what my own life lacked or couldn’t give me. the family and friends i found through it. 

toby really kicked everyone’s ass with this one, and i hope he does it again and again. and i pray he continues to succeed. because he made something beautiful.

now for what i had to deal with, during the failed attempt of making my story…

i have had to process a lot of neglect from family and home in recent years. though i’m older now, it still hurts. things still linger and sting harder than they should. they say it gets better but it really sticks and comes back in many ways that make life so much harder than it should be. it’s only made harder when people want you to be better, but it takes time to get there. sometimes people can't be with each other because of it, which is something i've had to learn over and over again. it takes so much time and it takes it away from everything you hope can be good and great in your life.

growing up was a nightmare. i’ve had to grow up with abandonment from my mom. neglect from my dad. i've had to deal with them trying to reach back out and my feelings on whether or not it's deserved. or if i'm even ready to handle it yet. many times i'm not.

i’ve had to deal with surgery to fix my body from disgusting and life ending deformation as a toddler which still leaves scars on my body today. my family has told me i’m lucky to even be alive. sometimes i almost wish it took me, because the world is cruel. but at the same time, i want to live so, so badly.

i’ve had to deal with manipulation and rape from someone almost ten years older than me in household when i was just a child. from five to nine. threats of being compliant and not to speak up or else my life was in danger. being physically trapped for hours while my body was a tool. later this fell onto another child of a caretaker for my sister, which is the only reason i got away from it. so i never got the chance to speak up myself and that effects me to this day. i was told years later this same thing happened to my older, severely autistic sister prior. someone who literally cannot verbally communicate or function without help from another. my grandmother telling me she left before because my father didn’t believe her. this all meaning, this is something that could have never happened.

i've had to handle my grandmother’s physical and verbal abuse for the rest of the those years after she came back to take care of my sister. my sister didn't escape abuse either. i would be stuck listening to her convince me as i got older and barely making it out of school that wouldn’t ever survive on my own. that i would never make it. that i would never find love. that i’d be eating fucking “saltines and ketchup” on the streets. i’ve had to deal with eating disorder because of her and various other disgusting shit i don’t want to add that the fear had made me succumb to. i didn’t leave my room for days at a time unless i was forced to. i didn’t sleep properly, to the point of passing out for minutes at a time. anyone who used to come to streams would know, i used to fall asleep while drawing with my brother. in many ways, my grandmother has made me so functionally stagnant, which is so hard to combat now.

cutting out all the general silliness and nonsense i would make just to smile once in a while, my art and flowerfell was an escape for me. it was a way to express my pain and hope that there was some sort of out. that there were friends to be made and love to be had. family to be found. that if you’re strong enough maybe you can be redeemable and make it to the end. frisk was hope. sans was strength. and all of the friends they were supposed to make along the way were support.

but at the same time, i clearly wasn’t able to handle the scale of what it became. i wasn’t ready for the crowd, i wasn’t ready to make a coherent and straight story, and was too giving and lenient. i wasn't ready for the "godlihood" people were pressing on me when i was just a normal person. it made making real friends a hassle. i didn't know who was honest or using me. many people have used me.

i was scared after it fell apart and got toxic. that people can take and twist and hate no matter how hard you try. i didn’t understand a lot of things back then or how to defend myself. i didn't understand how to combat theft, i didn't understand fiction kin, i didn't understand self care or boundaries for others and myself. i didn't understand a lot of things. i try really hard to understand now.

for all intents and purposes, it was getting septic. i was getting septic at that time and for some time after. and because of that i lost not only my story, but my friends and my sanity. i wasn’t able to keep it together for them or myself. i was hurt and hurting others by proxy. and i am so sorry for it. all of it.

i was only saved by finally being taken away from home by someone who actually took a chance on me. someone who made time for me even when i was getting reclusive. someone who loves me through all of that even if i hurt them terribly in the process, and may even still in all the faults i'm working on. despite everything, they're still with me today.

to this day i find flowerfell hard to look at without feeling various stages of grief. i have many degrees of anger and sadness, at times hopeless acceptance. not necessarily towards anyone anymore, but that i was unable to finish it. or felt i was unable to. that i'm unable to surpass it. that i was so fearful of loss and parts of myself being taken away when i already felt i had so little. how it blinded me to what good i had at so many times. how it’s destroyed my ability to create and fall in love with characters i like or make, and their worlds. no matter how hard i try now. that it’s taken my ability to trust, communicate, and form steady relationships with people. how it effects even those who have stayed and try so hard. that it’s taken my ability to share and feel safe doing so. even with people i'm close with today.

even situations on how helpful it’s been for people over the years, and deeper connections to self or others they’ve found in the progression of time because of it. i’m not unhappy for those who have, i’m grateful that people have found their hearts in it. it was made with unfathomable love and there’s incredible pain on having given up continuing what could have been more. what else people could have connected with or felt. there was so much i didn’t get to share, and got too angry and scared to give.

i grew to believe people didn’t deserve it anymore because of what i and my friends at the time were going through. i no longer wanted to feel hurt. i no longer wanted my friends to be hurt. and i violently took it away into myself, which has hurt me even more over the years.

i want to believe people would have liked the ending, and anything that would come after that. it was going to have a good ending.

later i would find the fear of parts being taken would be connected to discovering plurality in myself, and recently finding out in therapy i’m probably not too separated from my sister in being on the spectrum, adding to all of that and more. i’d have to process that feelings became separated and another struggle to deal with. that i was dissociating from everything so hard these feelings are expressed as their own apart from me, but still with me. that this was my way of not being alone with what i had. it is not a kind thing. while they're like family to me, it is also a cage.

it would take me years to actually discover what this was properly, having to go through a whole ordeal of manipulation and problems from that alone. i would have to deal with them also being stolen and taken advantage of due to complacency and misunderstanding. which has made every bit of fear with what came before twice as difficult. however, i've also had good people along the way, and i hope they stay with me for a very long time.

because of this i’ve learned a lot about systems and kinships and reasons why these exist. how these things can make people feel at home. i have changed a lot of views on it and how these things help people, even if they’re strange at times… i’m not mad about it anymore. if it helps people it helps people. other people are trying to survive too. i just ask people be respectful about it.

i don’t hate fanart or others trying to make stories anymore. as someone who struggles now with even a fraction of creating any amount of work i used to, i’m more glad than not that it’s encouraging people to improve and move forward. but i won’t ever accept discredit because at the root it is mine still. i made this for myself before i made it for others. it will always be a part of me, even if painful now.

i’m just tired. i’m tired and i hope over time i’ll be able to rest.

sigh.

to kaze, your document is faithful and i won’t argue that any of it is wrong or malicious. there was a lot missing from that video that could and should have been added. it wasn't just about shipping, but a lot more. i hope people will leave you and others alone about flowerfell and ship nonsense at the end of the day. especially when your stories were wonderful and aren’t hurting anyone. while we’re not on good terms, i do wish them a very "fuck off and move on."

however, i will not accept the statement that you were helpful to my mental health, or to others involved to begin with. trying to be, maybe, but it faltered.

apart from encouraging anger towards the fanbase either on my or by your own hands, flipping the switch between telling me to keep going and giving up. you fully took advantage of the complacency i had to go through at home to survive and had to unlearn for many years prior. you weaponized your problems at home onto us. this compiled everything, probably for both of us. this would only continue on to my system in many ways.

you actively encouraged suicidal behavior within the group, provoking my brother into a pact at his lowest. you took advantage of me and my brother mentally and sexually. knowing full well of our issues and my own csa, you still crossed lines. doing or sharing things without warning or prior consent and conversation, at times even within public groups. fighting back or saying something about these things were difficult because everyone was sensitive at the time. even if things were jokes at times, it didn't always come across that way.

i watched blind fight so hard for you in many ways even when they were struggling so badly with their own physical health, even staying in the end. i don't know if they're doing well or are still there now which is another string of worries.

what hurt the most is that for years you blamed me for an attempt because i “didn’t love you enough to talk to you or be honest” and held it over my head instead of explaining until the very last second before i left that it was because of home. you continued to comment in ways up until that point, then deleting things as if i couldn’t see logs. every single day i thought you were going to just be gone in an instant without warning. that i and others would lose one of our best friends. i grew so afraid of talking to you because of this. i was scared to hurt people more in anger of that. it is still something that terrifies me to this day.

flowerfell wasn’t the break of our friendship, it was the inability to handle the weight of taking care of someone who was unwilling to work on themself on top of all of that, while being unable to take care of myself at the same time. not being enough. that nothing of what little i could give would ever fix what was happening, and that i was being used as an escape method. much like my brother was. we weren’t good for each other anymore. and while i wanted to keep holding on, many people told me i had to let go and they were right. i'm sorry that it wasn't completely by my own voice that i let go.

i don’t even hate you anymore, if i even ever really did to begin with. the most i get is mad and i may say the word "hate" in anger, and that is entirely my own fault for checking in once in a while to see if you’re still breathing or getting better. because i cared a long fucking time and i think parts of me still do. i can’t say there weren’t fond memories or good times and i still have gifts i won’t throw away. and i won’t discredit that i do see you trying really hard for yourself now, which is a hopeful feeling and all i and others ever wanted. even if we may never speak directly again, because i don’t think that would be good for either of us, i hope it keeps going well.

but i don’t think you have the right to say i’m a bad person as if you weren’t just as bad yourself. you effected me and others just as badly.

we don't have to forgive each other. but i do hope, after a long time, we can forgive ourselves.

-

just a last little edit:

before you start congratulating someone who added to the entire severity of literally everything, understand this:

we were not driven by her or her alone. this is not her fucking win. this is the result of friends and good people saying we should speak up and needed to be heard for years. this is because we have support we actually feel safe with and finally decided we're fucking tired. we didn’t speak simply because she put out some silly little document. she only added to the fucking misery that everyone else has brought on about this!