#finally snapped

There are too many people that would rather lie about who they are and what they believe as well as abuse or cut off people that have done them no harm in order to be liked and to gain approval. Acting as if life is one long extended episode of black mirror where your social ranking matters more than empathy to a fellow human, where the echo chamber is god and what's logically right and wrong doesn't matter in the face of personal opinion and paranoia.

I'm too old, and too tired.

Fandom is supposed to be fun, not a nightmare of walking on broken glass and eggshells. I have my small handful of friends that have proven that they are genuine people that legitimately don't care about the nonsense that goes around and imaginary pitchforks that can make them more popular or gain them more friends if they were to follow abusive hate trends and ignorant accusation posts lacking concrete evidence. I feel safe with them and will keep to them, always.

I no longer have time to deal with the "misunderstandings" or "confusion" that happens so often in large groups playing telephone or with those that try to fit words to their own narrative and understanding without attempting to think outside their own preverbal box of preconceived notions and bias, and don't care to do so.

I will no longer attempt to clear up anything or try to be understood by those that honestly don't know me and don't wish to, and who clearly only seek a thrill in causing pain and taking their own projected hurts and frustrations out on someone.

There will be no conversations. Every single online stranger reading this now is free to think what they want about me, even the untruths if they're so inclined.

I'm done trying.

The internet is where the hateful and cruel strive behind an anonymous mask—one often disguised in kindness and supposed acceptance—and of which is the whole of their life and meaning. But it is not mine.

Them, and the internet at large, is not worth my time, health, or life.

When I joined this fandom after my mother's death a few years ago I signed up for an experience that could bring a smile to my face while I gave one in turn to others while I dealt with my grief. Not to be shoved into situations where uneducated youths and adults in their 30s-40 with the maturity of previously said youths go rampart with the need to harm others, either to get ahead or for their own benefit in manipulation to get something out of others.

I have steadily been pulling away more and more over the years because of this. Struggling with the overflow of depression and stress that it has caused me, in turn making me push away and withdraw from people who didn't deserve it in many instances because my own value and self-worth tanked due to the self-deprecating thoughts it caused me.

I am not a saint.

I've done my fair share of wrongs, some of which I will never personally feel I have accounted for properly. I stood silent out of fear of being attacked when I should have said something to help someone wrongly accused by supposed friends and mutuals, I hid in the shadows and didn't think to lend a hand to people I saw were clearly in need because I didn't feel worthy of doing so, and probably many other things that I am unfortunately not aware of because they were never brought to my attention.

Because most people online don't believe in actual conversation but rather in blocking and spreading misinformed assumptions, and in dreaded call out posts so as to earn brownie points for "exposing" (or the nicer form of saying it, but is still just as cruel because the posters know that it WILL lead to harassment regardless of evidence or truth no matter if spread in public or private, but wish to play ignorant anyways — "spreading awareness") of someone. Granted these wrongs were for the most part carried out in my early fandom days that doesn't excuse the fact that they happened.

I still did the exact same thing that was done to me. I unknowingly perpetuated a never ending cycle of hurt, both out of fear and ignorance and out of a naïve want to be loved and accepted.

But I refuse to let myself be a victim or to think of myself as one out of guilt for those wrongs and loneliness anymore, and I refuse to witness others be abused and forced to feel the same way I did over the most menial and redundant bullshit that goes around and is somehow supposed to define your character to the dumbed digital masses.

I'm done.

Plain and simple.

I will be permanently turning off asks and no longer responding to any form of DM unless it is from someone I have initiated a conversation with, have engaged with before, or shares a mutual friend with me that can assure me that they're a decent person, and that I feel comfortable with. I will still on occasion post about updates or share something for the few that may want to keep following, but my personal accounts will largely be silent.

Just because I'm silent won't mean that I'm gone though.

It just means I'm not willing to be poisoned any longer, and am content at looking in from afar, if even that.