#ryfvents

You know something that makes me sad in a very bitter way? Finding out someone you followed for their wonderful fan creations, stopped making those specific things because the drama got to be too much.

I've seen it way too many times. It sucks! And yeah, I'm not gonna lie and say that the fan content itself isn't a big reason why (I mean DUH). But there's something so, SO much worse. It's that their enjoyment, the passion for something they loved was just... stripped away. All that enthusiasm, all that energy they put in to sharing something they found joy in. Just dead in the water.

It hurts to see that. It hurts to think about all the times I had something similar happen to me, and to understand what it's like to give something like that up.

I think that's part of why I try so SO hard not to let my own mind drag me into indulging with the drama beyond acknowledgement. I'm already sick to death of being unable to enjoy thing as much as I once did due to depression. Why would I ever want to let someone else, on their own or in a mob, take that enjoyment away, too?

I think that's also to do with my own regret of not letting myself enjoy the things I like for fear of being judged harshly by my peers, past and present. It's why I kept my enjoyment of Sonic and (to a slightly lesser extent) Pokemon so close to my chest for so long. It's also why it took until Sonic Forces came out for me to finally let myself create something resembling a Sonic OC. I'm trying to finally let myself indulge and have FUN again.

I guess in a way it's a sort of projection? It's hard for me to give a real answer.

All the same, it just... it hurts to see a community member go.

I wish I could help them rekindle their enjoyment.

 I resent my mother as well (though not as much as my biological father, for sure).

I remember I got into a massive argument with her when I was 9. It sparked because she wanted me to turn off the TV, even though I was in the kitchen and she was in the living room... right next to the TV. After I made a passive aggressive comment about how she could have turned it off herself, she grounded me for the rest of the night. This hadn’t been the only time she had me doing something for her that she could have easily done herself, and definitely not the last time. So I yelled at her, I called her out because, in my words “All you ever do is treat me like a servant.” Her response was the same as it always was: “Bullshit, I’m your mother and you’re the child, you listen to what I say.”

I’m almost 21 now, and I still feel the same way. I can’t even go upstairs anymore without my borderline senile mother asking me to do something for her. If I’m not getting her food for her, I’m grabbing her phone for her, or her laptop, or I’m doing her laundry again. Hell, I’m still turning off the TV for her when she’s the one with the remote! And I’ve had to learn not to say no to her; that’s a one way ticket to a slap and then angry silence. It’s always the same approach: “I’m the parent, you’re the child. I’m in control.”

All I can ask is “Where were you to raise me, then?”

I already know the answer, and It’s not going to just be “work”. That’s her go to, but it’s as much a lie as her dyed hair. True, she had a lot of working and commuting... Unless, of course, you’re talking about after she finally transferred closer in my early-mid teens. Her commute went from an hour both ways to 20 minutes, in addition to having a shorter work schedule and an extra day off in her last few years. Otherwise, she was at AA meetings and... god knows where else. She was anywhere but home until way late most days. When she was home, she was in her bed, watching TV. Asking myself and my siblings to bring her drinks and snacks (she still does btw).

Hell, there even came a point where I had to keep a fireplace going all by myself for an entire winter, wood and all, and I was still A expected to do all the chores for her (even the folding of clothes, which she promised ahead of time to do but only ever did half of it by the end of the winter) and B called lazy because I slept for so much of that winter (I was dealing with hauling cut wood down stairs, maintaining the fire, keeping the cast iron pot filled with water to keep the room from getting too dry AND putting up with the ashes and sawdust. WITH. ASTHMA.) Hell, I didn’t even mention keeping the dogs fed and watered.

For a long time I considered myself lazy and useless around the house. But my god the past few DAYS even have been an eye opener. I had to replace broken sprinklers and repair them out of my OWN POCKET (I still don’t have a job, so it’s a miracle that I even managed to have pocket money at all). I also had to buy milk and bread during that, and then I also had to dig the holes, use a wet/dry vac to clear debris and dirty water, get it all put together and reburied properly, make sure it worked, mow the lawn, trim the trees and a few dutch elm starts... and I still haven’t even touched on doing MY chores yet. from the first year after Leonard died to now, I had to pick up and learn a lot of this myself (or RELEARN, in the case of lawn care sorryleonard). I had to learn how to budget soap and money alike, I had to learn how to cook my own meals, I had to learn how to saw wood, to shovel and move dirt properly for banking, to tear down fix parts of an ancient ass deck, and I even had to pull apart a GODDAMN REFRIGERATOR. And I did so much of it on my own conviction. Hell, I TAUGHT HER SHIT. I did that all on my own and I could not give two shits how lazy she thinks I am.

And you know what? It all kinda comes full circle. Because under most circumstances I could say something “wasn’t always like this”... but not with her. She has ALWAYS been off to a meeting, or off to work 20 minutes away, or out with friends or by herself to watch a movie, or in her room/ the living room watching tv. Before Leonard she was that way. After Leonard she was that way. Hell, even with Leonard alive she was that way (though I never noticed it unless he was really hurting from his construction/plumbing jobs, even Leonard wasn’t immune to the room service treatment or the passive aggressive tone).

But as for me... I can see at least in part how much I’ve grown. I can even feel it sometimes; I couldn’t lift some of my own furniture two summers ago, but now I can lift just about all of it alone. And you know what, I did most of it on my own. Once I get a job, I’ll be that much closer to being free from her.