#weeb date

About a year into the relationship, this guy had completely fucked me up. I had to leave the pokemon page I was admining because he stirred up so much drama and shit, lost all my friends I’d made through the page (granted, we weren’t particularly close, but I was still nice to talk to some cool people with similar interests online, ya know?), tried to cut me off from all my real life friends by isolating me, and had me so emotionally damaged by constantly dragging me along, insulting me, calling me names and forcing all my friends away until I was dependent on him.

I would go into more details about the relationship (just to prove to you how fucked up it was), but, that’s not important to the weeaboness of this dude.

Remember how Alex and I met through a pokemon page? Okay, well, apparently all this dude did was sit on his ass and play pokemon or watch anime. He was fucking obsessed with Naruto, like, constantly watching, constantly talking and complaining about how I should watch it. He would say shit like how he and I were destined to be together like Hinata and Naruto or some shit. He would even send horribly traced images of Naruto screenshots and boast about how proud he was about it and then when I showed him any of my art (and granted, I’m still attempting to find an art style now, at 19) he would scoff and complain about how my style wasn’t anime enough. (I lean more toward a cartoonish style, and again, I was still only really starting out drawing seriously, so it wasn’t as though I was showing masterpieces, but still.)

 And while I’ve never had anything against Naruto, I just couldn’t get into it and when I mentioned this he would blow the fuck up and scream at me for not liking it. It was fucking insane and honestly, it’s made me wary of any fans of Naruto since then.

As well, he completely ruined pokemon for me for quite some time (though, I’m slowly getting over it). He always sent me pokemon fanart constantly (again, horribly traced) or screen shots of memes about pokemon and I was getting sick of it. He would even send me pokemon porn which I had asked several times not to do but he refused to listen and would often spam me with it. And on the pokemon page, my name was Butterfree (if anyone happened to like that page and remembers me, hi ^^). So, he would name any Butterfree he caught in any games Jasmine and would try and use that as a romantic gesture for some reason? Like…okay thanks you named your virtual bug after me…cool I guess?

But, the worst has yet to come.

So, during our relationship, I found out early on he had a very……large interest in lolicon. Now, while I don’t agree with it, I’m not going to hate on anyone for looking at art (and to be fair, some lolicon is just cute kids in nonsexual situations; that I don’t mind. It’s the sexual shit I get squeamish about). And, while being a bit uncomfortable, I didn’t say anything thinking it wasn’t THAT bad, at least it wasn’t real child pornography, right?

This guy walked a very fine line.

He would send me the most graphic, disgusting images of loli that made me so physically uncomfortable, and so gross I STILL feel guilty to this day about seeing them. I feel like I somehow broke the law looking at that stuff, and I feel disgusting and gross now seeing all that. Any time I spoke out against it, he would start a huge up roar. Screaming about how I was a bad girlfriend and how it was my fault for not being attractive enough and making him look at that stuff. I would just shut down and cry and it caused a lot of fights and caused me A LOT of stress.

I put it up with it until he joked about recreating some of the images with REAL children.

I noped out of the situation. I was done, I broke up with him, blocked him and was done. It took time, and I got a lot of harassing emails and messages, claiming to leak out pictures and such that I’d sent him. Eventually, I came back through black mail until he cheated on me a couple months later and I left again. For real this time.

Now, every once in a while I would get the occasional email or message from him, claiming he was sorry and how he wanted me back or how he just wanted to say hi. I would always reply, telling him to fuck off before blocking him. This went on and off, and for a time the messages would bring back up feelings of self loathing and such until recently with the past two years. I was over the entire situation entirely and just seeing him attempt to contact me just irritated me more than anything. I blocked any message I got and thought I was in the clear when I created a new tumblr (this current account) and blocked any way for him to find me on facebook through old accounts (I have a ridiculously long last name that was impossible for him to spell so I knew he wouldn’t find me.) I heard nothing from him (other than the odd email) for about 2 years.

All was going well.

Until I started slowly gaining weird new followers and friend requests on facebook.

Now, any of my mutuals on tumblr know that if they talk to me, I’ll happily reply. I always message back and I’m always looking for new friends. Of course, when someone followed me on tumblr and started messaging me, I happily replied back! I was excited to find someone to talk to and chat with. We’ll just call that account Ali.

Ali and I chatted a bit, not talking about anything specifically for a while. It was fine, but they didn’t really rub me the right way. I have a thing about people who text with little to no punctuation, maybe it’s my being a writer or something, but it always bugs me and makes me a little weirded out by the sender. But, I put it off as me being paranoid, and continued to speak to them.

And then they ask for my skype.

Me, being the open person I am, say sure! I’ll happily chat with you on skype! I give them my name and they add me and start asking to call a whole lot. I was kinda weirded out, but whatever okay sure. I agree and tell them when I can and then they start begging me to cam. Now, I have my limits and told them I wasn’t comfortable with that (I hardly cam with any of my close friends either way) and they keep begging until I say no. Finally, they relent and we get in a call.

Low and fucking behold, it was Alex sitting on the other end, grinning the cat who got the cream.

So, the pure shock at finding the guy who broke my fucking heart, ruined my self esteem and made it so that it takes me way to long to completely and utterly trust a guy who shows any interest in me whatsoever just sitting at his computer and waving at me as though we were childhood friends made me sit there in silence for a moment. But, once my mind processed what the fuck was in front of me, my first thought was:

How the fuck did a hobo get to a computer? (No offense to any hobos)

Apparently, he’d finally gone full weeabo because his hair was long and disgustingly oily. It was tangled, matted and looked like he hadn’t washed it in weeks. His face was just as oily, looking like he was going through puberty again and he looked like he’d been rolling around outside in the mud. He’d obviously gained some weight as well, and that isn’t a bad thing, it was definitely something to note.

For some reason (probably as grace from god) my mic decided not to work at all. That coupled with my refusal to turn on my camera lead to me having to yell at an empty room for a good five minutes while he tried to explain himself. Finally, after calming myself down, I kind of sat there numb and confused. I just typed in reply to anything he said, and he was obviously trying to get back together, saying things like: “Oh, remember that gift I sent you!? It was great, right?” or “Yeah, I still have that Butterfree named after you!” and the one that set me off, “it’s like that time I called you the most beautiful woman in the world…” and kinda trailed off, looking toward the ground like a fucking anime character would.

I.WAS. SO. PISSED

I finally asked him how he found my tumblr and this creep admitted to having been following me through SEVERAL DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS. Turns out, a bunch of followers I had were HIM on different accounts! He’d also been trying to add me on facebook for a while, and even fucking stalked my underused twitter, found my fanfiction.net account and just periodically checked all of them too.

He’d been stalking me for a fucking while and I hadn’t even realized it.

So, being the awkward fuck I am, I make up some excuse that I have to leave, end the call, and block the skype account. I begin blocking any goddamn account I think might even be SLIGHTLY related to him in anyway whatsoever, block any facebook account I think might be his and now, I’m so paranoid, any time I get a new follower out of no where, I scroll through it and try to figure out if it’s him.

This creepy fucking weeabo had been stalking me and had completely ruined so much of my life despite never laying a hand on me.

Let this be a tale of caution for you children.

And one day, I checked out a “How to draw manga” book from the library and brought it to our lunch table. I took a few drawing suggestions until Tyson motioned for me to come a little closer. I obliged and he whispered his request into my ear. Mother fucking naked cat girl. Mind you, I hadn’t even turned twelve yet. I refused and he got pissed, but mainly just glowered in my direction and didn’t talk to me the rest of the day.

As the year wore on, it became glaringly obvious he was interested in me. I had “developed” early and he would make a point of staring at my chest. All the damn time. He would compare me to a loli, anime girl, cat girl, whatever the hell he was jacking off to at the time.

Luckily, I moved during the summer due to a flood and I started my new school. Seventh grade my weeb-ness was at kind of a low (because I was one of the superwholockians, but that’s another horror story for another time). Eighth grade, I got a boyfriend, became more obsessed with anime and mange, got dumped by my boyfriend, and met a boy who I’ll call Andy. Right after my breakup, Andy had consoled me with pocky and ramune. We both looked really similar (short brown hair, freckles, hazel eyes) and so I called him Nii and he called me Imouto. We went everywhere together and I of course called him senpai and all that shit. He got accused of selling drugs and was suspended for two weeks. About a week into his suspension, I got a midnight text proclaiming his love for me (In Japanese, no less). I was swooned for whatever reason and we started dating. He called me Koibito, I still called him Nii. I tried to say “kawaii”, “sugoi”, and “desu” pretty much every sentence. I made myself cat ears.

About two days before he was to come back to school, I was sent to a behavioral hospital for trying to kill myself, but I won’t get into that. Nine days after that, we were back together. Our first date was at the movies, watching the Avengers movie. We sat in the back row, playing the pocky game (oh god why) and drinking ramune. We would make out after school pretty much everyday and hold hands and all that shit. We got to second base (OH GOD WHY) and he would always say that he loved me in Japanese.

I was the greasy weeb that wouldn’t really bathe, that would cut, make shitty art. I would even try bring the fact that I’m really distantly Japanese into every conversation with anyone who would listen. I was into yaoi, I did shitty cosplays (even though I was overweight). We actually dated for three months before I dumped him on one of my bipolar swings.

He slept on a couch, had a katana, liked fedoras, was obsessed with chivalry, and learned Japanese off of google translate. He’s gotten into trouble with the cops several times and has tried to get me to fall for him through my spotify.

Somehow, the topic of ships came up, and B said she loved the pairing Itacest (Italy X Romano) and said “Isn’t it kawaii?” I told her I did not like incest pairings and shipped Italy with Germany.

B said that although GerIta was “okay,” Itacest was just so much more adorable! She decided to “prove it” by showing me various fanarts - thankfully not explicit ones, and then asked me “How can you not think these are kawaii?” I responded that they were only if I ignored the fact that they were brothers.

A few weeks later, B invited me to an upcoming con, and when I told her I didn’t have the money, she said “Oh don’t worry, senpai, I’m paying!” Either she didn’t know what “senpai" meant since I was a year younger than her, or she just thought I was older because I am really tall.  

"Wow, really?” I responded. I was extremely happy since I had never been to a con before.

“Yes,” she said, “but on one condition! You cosplay as Romano!”

Now, Romano is NOT one of my favorite Hetalia characters, and I actually own an Italy cosplay I have been saving to wear to a con. But hey, whatever. It was a free con! I shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

After I agreed, B lended me her Romano cosplay - which I guess she had just for an occasion like this, and started calling me a mix of “Roma-chan” and “Roma-senpai.” I told her those nicknames were annoying, but she wouldn’t listen. The costume was way too small for me, but if it would get me into a con for free, I could deal with it.

On the day of the con, she picked me up from my house and took me there, along with her little sister M who was around 11 and cosplaying as Belarus and her friend L who was cosplaying as Finland. As I expected, B herself was cosplaying as Italy. “Why couldn’t one of them been Romano?” I asked, and she said “You’ll see…” and giggled. I just sighed.

The first half of the con was great, even though I could tell that M was an EXTREME weeaboo. She kept squealing and taking pictures of everyone’s cosplays, and spent a fortune in the Dealer’s Room. Thankfully L stopped her from actually glomping anyone - though she tried a few times. We went to a great panel on cosplaying, and hung out with a few of the other Hetalia cosplayers.

After that, we went to a Hetalia photoshoot. M was going nuts and taking pictures of everyone - which was completely out of character, and B kept attempting to do all sorts of cutesy poses with me. She kept wanting to kiss me, and when I said “NO!” she said “Don’t be shy!” It was clear that she definitely had a crush on me by this point - and as you probably could guess, I had no interest in her at all.

She decided to leave the con early to go back to her house, which irritated me a bit since there was another panel I wanted to go to. This is because, as it turned out, the reason why I had to dress as Romano was because she had an “Itacest wedding!” planned for us. L was just shaking his head, sighing. M was totally for it, though, and took a zillion pictures of B and I wearing those dumb flower crowns. Thankfully, it wasn’t so much a wedding ceremony as it was just a photoshoot, so it wasn’t as painfully awkward as I thought. But in the end, she actually did kiss me - which in her mind made us officially a couple.

From then on, she would kiss me on the cheek in public, calling me her “waifu” and whenever I denied being in love with her, she just said “Awww, you’re so tsundere! Just like Romano!”

“SQUEEEEEEEE! CAN I TAKE YOUR PICTURE?” Waschbär and I whipped round and saw a girl about 18 or thereabouts in a shabby looking Umbreon cosplay running towards us, clutching her camera. I didn’t think much, we both posed a little and she took her pictures. She was pretty annoying from the start…. Pretty much everything about her was irritating; her voice, her shabby cosplay, her corny jokes about yaoi and whatnot, and her habit of pointing out the obvious at every single opportunity she got. As she walked away, seemingly happy with the photos she’d taken, Waschbär and I sighed with relief, and Waschbär mentioned to me how weird this whole encounter had been. I just shrugged it off, not thinking to ever interact with that girl again – I had never been so wrong.

Barely an hour later, we ran into her again in the dealers room, and once again, she started to squee and wanted photos. So we posed a little bit again, hoping she’d finally walk off and fawn over someone else soon. She didn’t though, she wanted this pose, and that pose, while going on and on and on about how hot and sexy I was, and the overall situation was getting more and more awkward with every damn picture she took. Then, after that whole shit was through, she insisted to give me her number. I thought, “Fine, what could possibly go wrong, I’ll never text or call you anyway”, so I made the mistake of handing over my phone and letting her type the number in – she did and instantly texted herself. I wish I had thought about what I was doing more. When I got home form the con the next day, I saw that she had somehow managed to find me on Facebook and added me. I added her too, not knowing it was her, thinking it was just some casual con acquaintance. The minute I added her, she messaged me via chat and started up a conversation. It was just small-talk at first, we exchanged names, age, our jobs and stuff like that, but then it became mildly annoying. Once again she went on and on about how hot she thought I was, and how hot William was, she started to spam me with hentai pics, instantly telling me about all her sexual fantasies, and every single shitty little thing that was happening in her life – which were mostly boring things. At some point, she asked me to meet up in my city, no, she absolutely insisted that we should, and after she asked a few times, I begrudgingly agreed to meet her at the station one afternoon. I should not have agreed to do that. I knew I’d made a mistake the minute I saw this twenty-year old woman (and let me stress once again, she was twenty years old, going on twenty-one) walking towards me at the station, dressed in clothes you’d think only fourteen-year-olds would wear, with that immature looking grin all over her face, and her hair singed with a flat iron to a point where it no longer looked like human hair….more like spray-painted florist’s wire.  She greeted me with a glomp and an ear-splitting squeal of, “Wirru-sama!”, cracked a million corny jokes about how happy she was to have a date with William T. Spears, and every time she called this thing a “date” I suppressed the urge to choke her in a Homer-Simpson-like manner. I had told Ashley I was in a relationship – which might be a long-distance one, but it was still a relationship that I was happy in and I had no intention of ditching Silkie because of some weird fangirl – and that was all she was to me. The afternoon passed, and I had somewhat of a decent time, but still I was glad to be rid of her that night. But I still didn’t get peace and quiet. The moment she was on the train home, she started texting me again. The day we’d first met she stated she didn’t even like Black Butler that much. But all of a sudden, that was her one and only obsession. It was all she’d ever fucking talk about, and soon enough she made a terrible Mary-Sue OC she paired with William, had countless idiotic ideas for cosplay skits, videos or photos that she also wanted to bring Waschbär into – and she wasn’t too happy about that, and not much later she insisted we start a RPG about it. In said RPG she was Grell, she made him a damn woman and, to make things worse, Grell soon turned into a complete Mary-Sue that everyone had to be crushing on. Apart from all that, I realised after a while that she thought I was the living incarnation of William and she now viewed me as her “husbando” or whatever who walked straight out of the anime to solve all her problems. She downright begged me for a while to let her be my Grell, and I agreed to cosplay with her one time so she’d finally shut the hell up. That very same day, she ordered the crappiest wig she could find on Milanoo and a costume to match. As time went on, she told me about her “depression” and how she’d been in a closed institution for a month. And this is the part where the real shit starts. She told me she’d been – and still was suicidal, and now she had all the more reason to be depressed. That very same day she told me she had a massive crush on me and she was so horribly sad because I was dating Silkie. From my point of view, she was still nothing more but a fangirl, and an annoying one at that. She pestered me until I agreed to meet up again and again, and at this point, I was afraid to enter my favourite sushi place in town because Ashley never failed to embarrass me with her babbling of broken Japanese. I had gotten to know her pretty well in that one month the both of us had been talking, and I knew now that she was a weeb who was of the opinion that Japan was the Promised Land where everything was perfect, couldn’t stress enough that she adored everything that was even remotely Japanese and liked to pretend that her life was an Anime. What made things worse was that she did not even WATCH said anime, she just watched a few clips, looked at fanarts and then made assumptions about characters and ships that she shipped – and that, of course everybody else had to ship. She obsessed over every anime she knew bits of and for each and every one of them, she had a horrible self-insert OC, and she would either pretend to be that self-insert, or pretend that she was some canon character she obsessed over, and of course, I would have to be her favourite canon Bishie to match, so next thing I knew, she assumed I was Gray Fullbuster who walked right out of Fairy Tail to hook up with her…on a side note, I don’t even like Fairy Tail and still had no sexual interest in her. Fast-forward to December of the same year. Ashley’s supposed depression was getting worse, and simultaneously, her obsession with her “husbando” grew stronger. Meanwhile, most of my friends had somehow become acquainted with her. Gupfinchen’s birthday was coming up and I was invited to her party. Ashley just bluntly decided to tag along and also spend the night at Gupfinchen’s place. While the party was still going, she happily embarrassed me in front of all my friends there, and each and every one of us was pretty close to just throwing her out the window, but the worst was yet to come. At about midnight, everyone else went to bed and left Ashley, Kuro and me in the living room as we had volunteered to sleep on the couch. First off, Ashley began to tell Kuro about all her suffering, her depression, and how much she loved me and what a cool sexy husbando she had. Knowing Kuro, I could tell that all this fawning over me was pretty much lost on her. Ashley saw that too, and being the attention whore she was, she began to feign an attack that started with something along the lines of, “Shut up Eric. You love Silkie and that’s that. Don’t mind me if I get up and go to the kitchen to grab a knife.” Kuro and I tried to talk her out of it for a while, and she dropped the idea of cutting herself with a kitchen knife, but scanned the room for other ways of self-harm, such as the glass door of the cupboard, the window or the empty glass on the table. It got so bad that Kuro and I pinned her wrists down and waited until she would fall asleep. We didn’t tell anyone the next morning, not wanting to ruin what was left of the mood. I’m guessing not only Kuro and I, but most of all Gupfinchen and her sister were glad when this was over. The following day, I drove across the country to visit my parents over Christmas. I was staying for two weeks, and Ashley just happily invited herself to my parents’ house. By that time, she had serious aspirations of controlling my life. She sulked whenever I mentioned the word “girlfriend”, Silkie’s name or the name of the city she lived in, and those two days Ashley was staying at my parents’ place, she pretty much managed to embarrass me in front of my family by acting like we were a couple and shit, and not being able to shut up for even two seconds. The worst part of it though was when she insisted on life rp-ing, which she took way too seriously. At one point, she came up and kissed me full on the lips. Of course I knew where this was going, and I put an end to it at once, but she would try again and again to get it on with me. By the time February rolled around, things had again gotten worse. Now we were at a point where everytime I mentioned the word “girlfriend”, she’d feign a panic attack. I had done everything to convince her that, no matter how much she wished I was, I was not and would never be the real William, mostly because Fuyucon was drawing nearer, and Ashley had talked me into cosplaying with her at that con. In the meantime, she had found out that I enjoyed writing stories and was writing a story that was set in Renaissance Italy. She had read bits of it and two of my characters were her new obsession. She was quick to make a crappy self-insert for my story and set up a love-triangle with those two particular characters and talked me into starting an RPG about it. I tried to see the good side of it as in, “At least she’s not bugging me about Black Butler anymore”, but I couldn’t bear what she did to history, to my characters and to my story. When I dropped this lousy excuse for a RPG after a few weeks, she feigned another anxiety attack about why I didn’t tell her how terrible she was being and that she was gonna go kill herself straight away. I just told her not to start so much drama because of that, and for once, she actually shut the fuck up about it. By now, I had at least shed the image of “Real life William T. Spears”, but she still thought I was some Bishie she summoned from anime-land and had to answer to her every beck and call. 

So, the month passed in a rush and Fuyucon was here. That’s where Ashley’s jealousy comes in.  Remember, she’d talked me into this partner cosplay, but with a partner like that, I wasn’t too thrilled about this idea. Sure, Waschbär would be there too, cosplaying Grell, but having Ashley tagging along with me all day wouldn’t be worth it, and I was so glad that I had other plans for the first day of the con – plans that did not involve Ashley. Kuro and I had gathered a small One Piece cosplay group of four people that included the two of us as Sanji (me) and Zoro and two mutual friends of ours as Luffy and Nami. Ashley and me arrived to the con pretty late, she had spent the night before at my place and had really taken her time to put on that damn suit and wig in the morning (she was supposed to be the young version of Grell that day). My mood wasn’t all that good to begin with, as the night before, Ashley had somehow gotten hold of my cigarettes and destroyed all of them with a cheeky grin on her face because no, her husbando is not allowed to smoke because smokers are evil and shit – I mean I do admit that it is a bad habit I have, but the thing is, Ashley was six months older than me, so apparently she now thought she had to educate me. But have I mentioned that I was twenty at the time, and fully capable of making my own decisions, among others the decision of whether to smoke or not?

Of course she refused to buy me a new box after that. As we arrived, my cosplay partners were already waiting for me. We hadn’t seen each other in months, and I was happy to see them there, so I gave each of them a hug, much to Ashley’s dismay. Part of the group or not, she had decided I was still her husbando and she would bug me all day. She totally cracked up when my group and I went outside for a quick photoshoot and then headed for the Pizza place across the street. Ashley was back at the con, annoying some other people – from the looks of photos she showed me afterwards, she had found some new victims in Waschbär, Unicorn and Mary - and calling me, literally, every five minutes asking where I was, what I was doing and when I was gonna come back. By the time we did come back to the con, she instantly appeared out of nowhere, going on and on about how much she’d missed me and that I couldn’t just leave her there or whatever. Yes, I fucking COULD leave her there, you’d think a twenty-year old would survive an hour on her own with a bunch of other people to interact with, right? Besides, I felt sorta bad for the other’s Ashley had been annoying while I was gone, mostly Mary as the photos were full of Ashley unnecessarily invading her personal space, and in all of those photos you could clearly see that Waschbär was not too pleased about the whole situation, and Ashley’s favourite pastime was showing off her photos to….everyone. She had already showed off her stupid photos from Akicon to Unicorn like…a gazillion times.

Now, Fuyucon is my favourite con of the year, for one reason: It’s basically like…a camp. Everyone just brings a sleeping bag and sleeps right at the con, everywhere, in the stage area, in the basement, in the hallways, people just roll out their mats and sleeping bags and kip wherever they please. All day long, Ashley went on and on about how she wanted to sleep next to me. My answer to that was “yeah, whatever”. That night, Kuro, Sasu and I decided to go out and have a drink or two. Thank goodness, Ashley didn’t tag along to that since she’d been wandering around the place in her pyjamas for an hour and was too lazy to get dressed again. So we headed out without her, but still, she would call every ten minutes to ask when I was coming back. I simply turned my phone off after a while.

When the three of us waltzed back to the camp in highest spirits, I was a little drunk and pretty tired and actually had plans of going to sleep, but Ashley foiled my plan once again. I walked into the stage area where I’d left my stuff, just to find her lying on my roll mat, cuddled up with a complete stranger, both fast asleep. It took all my power to hold back and not beat both of them up out of the room. I just picked up what was left unoccupied of my stuff to go look for a new place to sleep – far away from Ashley and her antics. Kuro and Sasu followed suit. We ended up spending the night in a storage closet backstage and I didn’t sleep a wink.

When I crawled out of that storage closet at eight in the morning, with eyebags that made L from Death Note look healthy in comparison, feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, I had but one desire: Get some coffee and a cigarette to help me avoid losing my cool and beat the hell out of every person who dared so much as to look at me. So I tried to get outside as quickly as possible, but before I reached the exit, I was tackleglomped by a certain weeb once again, because she needed me to fix her this, her this and her this and that, and she needed to know if she looked okay, and she needed me to stick by her all day. Then I remembered, this was the day I was supposed to cosplay with Ashley. This was going to be a bad day I knew it from the start.

We both got dressed, and I refused to wear this damn William cosplay that had started the whole mess in the first place, so I spontaneously decided to be Eric from Black Butler for that day, I had the same hairstyle as him at the time. Once I was dressed, I went to the café across the street to get an espresso or two to make it through the day without going completely nuts. Waschbär tagged along with me, and much to our annoyance, so did Ashley. She spent all morning clinging to my arm and cracking a bunch of corny yaoi jokes and going on and on about her Sue-OCs, as usual – and besides that, she kept hitting on me and was just being loud and obnoxious as ever. I’m guessing it was quite obvious how irritated I was at this point, and I could tell Waschbär was having a hard time too. My mood had hit rock bottom from the moment I’d seen her, so by now if I talked at all, it was something along the lines of, “Just shut the fuck up.” The day passed slowly, and all day, I did my very best to get rid of Ashley and have some peace and quiet, to a point where I literally ran away from her. She had tried a lot, she’d even made some half-assed attempts to buy my affection with merchandise.

It was then that I met my saviours. I still know it like it was yesterday, I still see her standing there in front of me, shorter than me by at least a head with a smile on her face, saying, “Eric, can I get a hug from you?” I said “Yeah, sure” and gave her a hug. The next thing I heard from her was, “God, your hair looks fucked up.” That was Chibi, and next to her was another person, who grinned at me, and offered me to help me with my hair. This was Mochi, Chibi’s best friend. I took her up on that offer, and we grabbed a hairbrush and a few rubber bands and went to find a place to sit and fix my hair. I was still hoping that I was finally rid of Ashley, but it didn’t take her very long to find us there, on a park bench outside the con. Chibi and Mochi had noticed how annoyed I was with this girl, so while Mochi was helping me fix my hair, Chibi distracted Ashley by engaging her in conversation – in which, of course, Ashley bragged about her depression, how lonesome she was and about her awesome OTPs and shit. After Mochi was done with my hair, I started a conversation with Chibi and I guess you could say that was… bromance at first sight?

Meanwhile, Mochi took it upon herself to distract Ashley and disappeared into the dealers’ room with her. To this day, I couldn’t thank these two enough to finally get me some space to breathe.

An hour or so later, Chibi and I went down to their tent that they’d set up in the basement. We fooled around in there for a while, revelling in our new-found friendship, until Mochi and Ashley came to join us. Seeing how well I got along with Mochi and Chibi, Ashley instantly got drunk on her jealousy and did her very best to screw herself in and keep me away from the other two. At some point, she pinned me to the ground and proceeded to “tickle” me. I pushed her away and told her to at least let me breathe, and she sulked and left – god, finally! For the rest of the day, I had a blast with Mochi and Chibi, and finally, no more running away from Ashley.

As the con ended, Ashley, Gupfinchen and I got into my car and drove back to our city. I dropped Ashley off at the station and drove Gupfinchen home before going to my own apartment and enjoying this peace and quiet I finally had. When I went on Facebook, I saw both Mochi and Chibi had added me and Mochi had already messaged me. I started to talk with her for a while, also started to chat with Chibi, and after a few days, they invited me to their place over a weekend – they both lived in Vienna. Fast-forward to one month later. It had gotten so bad with Ashley that I could not bear seeing her anymore. We had met up one time after Fuyucon. She was a goddamn mess and all she did was piling on the agony. She whined to me about how I wasn’t hers, how I never did anything she wanted to do with her and how all of this wasn’t her fault – that’s what she told me curled up on my couch, sipping on a bottle of Eristoff Ice that she wanted to “drown her sorrows” in or whatever, crocodile tears rolling down her cheeks. Online, she had made more attempts to blackmail me with her depression, had told me about how she was self-harming every day now and counting the days with cuts. To top it off, she had made up her mind to move in with me – to which I said no immediately. I told her that it was definitely not my fault either and that she should seek professional help, that I was not the perfect Anime-land Bishie she thought I was, and that the purpose of my existence was not being her husbando who just appears out of nowhere to solve all her problems and make her happy for the rest of her life, and that things just couldn’t go on like that. Soon I also found out what Ashley had been doing those few hours without me at Fuyucon: Apparently, she had spent this time flirting with pretty much every male at the convention, thus she had a whole bunch of new Facebook friends, among them being Macho-man, a guy I knew from some other con and who was a bit of a jerk, and Mochi and Chibi. Ashley whined to all her new Facebook friends about what an asshole I was, and among those, mostly Macho-man and Mochi. I was gonna meet Mochi and Chibi in Vienna the next weekend, and I was looking forward to that except for one thing: Ashley was going to be there. Once again, she had invited herself. I arrived a few hours before she was supposed to arrive, and Mochi and Chibi picked me up at the station. We went to a café to have a drink, and somehow, conversation shifted to Ashley. Mochi then looked at me, and told me about a few things Ashley had said about me, asking if that was true. I asked what she’d said, and Mochi showed me the screencaps of the conversation on her phone. It started off with Ashley bragging about the RPG she had with me, then went to some bashing of Sebastian from Black Butler. The next few caps were about the meeting that weekend where Ashley said some quite obscure and unworldly things along the lines of, “Don’t worry about me if I go outside and walk off into the forest for a while, that just means I need to be alone”, as if she couldn’t bear seeing me have a good time with someone that wasn’t her.  Suddenly, out of nowhere came the random question, “Are you and Chibi dating?”, to which Mochi said yes (they actually were dating at the time). Up to there, everything was just mildly annoying compared to what came next. Ashley started her usual whining of, “You see, I’ve been in love with Eric for the last half year, he’s the love of my life but he has a girlfriend, and he cheats on her with me all the time and he told me he’d leave her for me, but now he said he never had any feelings for me! He only uses me to vent his lust, he’s abusive, he treats me like shit and gropes me all the time, and he just dismisses it as a joke! It hurts but I love him so much! So I wrote a long letter to his girlfriend and I’m gonna send this to her so she knows how much of an abusive dick he is! I self-harm because of him and if he won’t stop, I’ll kill myself! I already told him that but he won’t help me! He probably thinks it’s fun to abuse me!”

By the time I finished reading this, I was not only deeply offended, I was furious. Now, up to this point, I had been a very patient person, but to this day I can pinpoint the exact moment my patience snapped forever. It was the precise moment I realised that Ashley had taken it upon herself to ruin my reputation by making me look like a sex offender to pretty much everyone I or she knew.

When we left the café I called Ashley to give her a piece of my mind and told her to just stay home cause if I’d seen her that night, it would have ruined my entire weekend. She sulked, just like that day at Fuyucon, and reproached me for not telling her earlier because she had already bought her train ticket, but I didn’t give a shit. I knew that I never wanted to see this girl again in my life. She didn’t show up that night, she didn’t text or call me, nothing. I felt like I could finally breathe. I had a blast this weekend, knowing I was finally rid of Ashley, and the moment I got home, I unfriended her and blocked her on Facebook. But the story isn’t over just yet. A few weeks later, I heard from Sasu that her and Ashley were dating. I warned her then, but Sasu didn’t listen, I still don’t know what she was thinking. At that time, Ashley started to pretend that everything was just love, peace and harmony again and tried to reach me through text, asking when this and that con was so she could order her new cosplays off Milanoo, but not before thoroughly rubbing my nose in her new relationship – which I didn’t give two shits about, in fact, I was ready to accept bets on how long Sasu would put up with Ashley’s absolutely cringe-worthy nature. I told her to go jump in a lake and just google the two cons, and mentally laughed at her fruitless attempt to provoke jealousy from me.

She tried to reach me through text a few more times again but I never reacted to that, so eventually, she stopped, and the moment Sasu told me that she had ditched Ashley because her patience just broke, my lips curled up in this satisfied grin of, “Didn’t I tell ya?” 

A year has passed since, then and it’s been the best year I’ve ever had. I’m still happy with Silkie, and I’m recovering from that experience with the help of my best friends – and now flatmates – Mochi and Chibi. I’m still not completely over this whole thing just yet, I am still pissed off at Ashley for soiling my reputation like that, and to this day, Macho-man gives me this shrewd grin as if to say, “Hey there, Super-sadist” every time I walk past him at a con. I still have Ashley’s number, I dubbed her, “Don’t you dare answer!” but she never called me again after she broke up with Sasu, and I’ve never seen her at a single con since. Still, I will never completely forget her. Every time I hear the song “Gives you Hell” by All American Rejects, I think of her.

So Ashley, if you’re reading this, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re doing worse than I am. I’ll send you the bills for my anger management sessions, I hope you’re enjoying your time knowing that your precious “husbando” is having a great life without you, and when you see my face, I hope it gives you hell.

Also, it was rare he would watch anything I suggested. I really wanted us to enjoy things together. But when I brought up an anime I’d wanna watch he would say ‘it’s not as good as the old stuff’, or, ‘nah that’s your thing.’ He was very elitist about his anime and it bugged me. I sat through so much of his 80’s anime, a lot of it adult themed with half naked women getting molested in dungeons. It made me uncomfortable so I started suggesting other things.

Our relationship ended (thank god) via a facebook message! I hadn’t heard from him in a few weeks and was horribly worried. I had known he was having family issues. But then in the middle of work I get this message. My boss comforts me and tell me he’s a coward. S comes by after work and cheers me up, takes me out to eat and plainly lays out why she didn’t like the guy. ‘He was a coward. He talked high and mighty and his facebook wall was full of weird anime clips and supposedly higher minded shit’ (things we would now know as fedora talk) I was feeling better and in fact realized I couldn’t stand the weeb and all his shit.

A week goes by and S calls me. My ex has sent her a message asking her to talk to me about taking him back and how he made a mistake losing a girl as cool and special as me. By that point I had figured out he had put me on this special ‘oh so perfect cool girl anime waifu’ pedestal. I was having none of it. I told S to ignore him. 

Later I get a message on my dA account. He created an account, the name of which even said my name and how sorry he was. He had actually drawn a chibi of himself with an apology letter. I was horrified. I was so embarrassed. He had posted this thing in a public place where I spent a lot of my time with my name and links plastered everywhere saying he lost his waifu. I told him to remove it and to stop contacting me.

He instead contacts my mother on facebook asking her to talk to me. I tell her to ignore him. Come Christmas time he has sent me a gift (i forget what now but it was embarrassing).

I later make a post about having a hard time finding a new show to watch. He then sends me this giant list of anime and links to watch as well as saying he will torrent them for me. 

Close to a year after our break-up he asks my mother if he can send me a birthday gift he bought me. My mom wasn’t thinking and said sure. He sends it to my house. He had gotten my address some how. The shirt he sent he said was of my favorite pokemon. What it was was the meme of Haunter flipping the bird. I hated it. It was not something i would wear.It wasn’t even something i found remotely funny. I shoved it in a corner for the longest of time.

I stopped going on facebook because he was tracking me. Commenting on how my evolving hairstyles looked like certain anime characters. I was always worried he’d show up somewhere I was.

It’s been sometime now and I thought I was rid of him. But when B got a new job she noticed one of the people she worked with had a Monty Python poster and said hi. The guy’s first words to her are ‘Your H’s friend!” He had never met B. I rarely post photos so there were none of B anywhere on my facebook. He continually asks B about me and laments how he wishes we were still friends and how ‘cool’ i was. 

Of course, L and G spent time to strengthen their friendship. Since L liked anime, too, and was a guy with a great personality even though he looked like a hobo, G decided that once L settles in our school, she’d introduce her best friend and boyfriend.

We expected M to be all cool with it, like he had been with my cousin’s other guy friends.

But during the whole introduction, M acted all calm and friendly but his smile seemed… off. The other two never noticed the difference but really, it was subtle, but I could tell.

It wasn’t until a week later that L came to school with a blackeye and G refused to talk to M. That made me think. What the hell happened and why has the cliche lovey-dovey couple in my family seem to have fallen apart?

I confronted my cousin and her best bud about it, and what they told me blew my mind.

Remember when I said L looked like a hobo? Well, the accurate description would be is that he has messy black hair, pale skin, wears plain T-shirts and faded jeans, eyes big enough that you wouldn’t think he has Taiwanese blood in him, and eyebags caused by his insomnia as a child.

In short, he looked similar to L from Death Note, hence, the alias.

And M disliked the character and anything associated with L, the antagonist from his favorite show. Including cosplayers and look-alikes, go figure. He even shouted at my cousin for hanging out with the hobo (we referred to L as such, but that’s just a joke) and that she should not be friends with guys WHOM WERE MEANT TO DIE.

Who knew he was a closet weeaboo? Definitely not us.

I couldn’t even begin to describe my irritation at M, much less G’s ire at him. I wasn’t surprised to hear that G broke up with him in an instant.