...But I can't catch a break in life it seems.

kels and I were on the upswing.

I was being left busy, but not entirely burnt out. I was left tired, but fulfilled. I was doing things.

I have a good schedule for me.
kels has a job.

We've been looking to a brighter future.

I've been releasing TikToks almost every day, which have been performing bafflingly well--I expect about half a dozen to a dozen views, at most. I'm nothing remarkable, I expect zero visibility. Yet I'm getting hundreds of views. Not thousands, but hundreds. People are seeing my videos. I consider that a remarkable level of success, all things considered.

I'm making the content I want to be.

I got my Patreon off the ground, and am releasing content for it.

I've been streaming regularly and been doing great.

I've done fantastic, with everything going right.

Everything...except for one thing.

...we're at minimum $400 short for bills this month. Potentially, double to triple that. Realistically, we need $800 - $1200 to pay all of our bills.

And we need to pay them at the beginning of October.

It's September 26th.

October is one week away.

...How could we possibly get $1000 in one week???

Like...I have been listening as much as I can to my guides, of not pushing myself too much. I've ignore thoughts of "I'm moving too slow", because I've been accomplishing plenty! I made a new twitch emote, I updated a few more on both my twitch and my discord.

I've been creating content. Not high-quality content, but been creating it all the same.

I haven't been doing everything I want (this blog is included)...but I have been doing MOST of what I want.

And I feel like I have momentum!

I feel like I have a good start.

I don't want to obsess over numbers, but the numbers are actually encouraging. I'm getting ad revenue from Twitch. I've gotten really good at getting at least some amount of work done. My discord is nearly complete, with all the work I have done on it. My Twitch is getting improvement every day I work on it. My TikTok has momentum, despite my lack of quality. My YouTube is admittedly kinda dead, because all I've been doing is uploading raw unedited vods, but creating content for my Patreon and beginning to make some for my Ko-fi is a great beginning.

I know I'm not pursuing everything I want, but I am pursuing a great deal of what I want.

I'm doing, to the best of my ability, exactly what my guides are pushing me to do: content creation. TikTok videos and streams.

I know they also want me to write, and on that front I've struggled to make the time admittedly.
I think they also want me to make music and/or some of my more ambitious ideas like video games (I actually made the complete concept for an entire Danganronpa-style Visual Novel Horror/Puzzle/Mystery game with nine characters), but those do require some skills I need to build up to actually make.

I know one area they consistently do is "It's okay to ask for help", and that's one area I'm somewhat lacking in. I've asked for help, but probably not in the ways they want me to.

But still! It feels like if before 40 - 90% of the groundwork was there, now it's 60 - 99%. I'm so close to having my dreams all come true.

Kels is working, I have the groundwork for secondary income, my job isn't sucking my soul and is giving consistent, reasonable hours. We have everything we need going into October...

...Except the money to pay for rent, utilities, and groceries.

I was expecting to get paid on Friday with the amount needed to make rent.

I got paid on Tuesday with ~$400 less than anticipated.

And that's...the minimum amount we're short by.

$400 would get us within striking range of paying rent. Throw in a few extra hundred for utilities and then another hundred or two for gas and groceries, and that's the $800 - $1200 we're short by.

And we're not getting money.

So I'm just...kinda at a loss.

I was so sure that we had ~$1000 in the bank already, and that the paycheck would bring us up to ~$2000. Just enough to potentially scrape by. (All expenses in a month are ~$2500 give or take a couple hundred or so.)

...We have half that.

And I just...don't know what to do.

I'm already doing everything I can think of.

I know there's potential blood/plasma donations, if I can get my blood typed, but I don't know how to get that.

I'm investigating if I can become a driver for those services which involve driving around for food/items/etc.

Which would technically be a third job if content creation counts as a second job for me.

We technically can use a food bank, although the food they give is often 75% expired, usually by weeks.

And like...I don't know what to do.

How do I get $1000+ in one week? With it not having consequences down the line?

I know hundreds of people. I talk to dozens of them regularly. I'm well-networked. But I don't know how to use that network. I don't know how to have all the people I know be given ways to reliably support me, and quickly.

I don't have any ideas.

And I'm feeling pretty defeated.

I was already struggling with depression for the last week or so. Depression has been dragging me down.
But when I got the bad news back that I didn't have nearly the amount ready for the end of the month I thought I did...
...I've been left pretty broken.

I don't know what to do.

I need help.

I want to help myself, because it feels like if I don't help myself then nobody will actually help me. I have to put the work in. But...I don't know what to put the work in for. I just need...a little bit of a boost. And I'm not sure how to get it, but if I don't...then I don't know how we're going to make it.

We're so close.
We're so close.

We can't give it up.
We can't give up.
We have to get through this rough patch.

I can feel it. The breakthrough. The pursuit of life and happiness.
We're so close to having it all, where I am pursuing my dreams of making a living as a content creator.

I have good ideas, and they are close to being made real.

I just...need a small push in the right direction, a small bit of luck, a small bit of good fortune, a small amount of support.

I know I can do what I want to do before the end of the year.

But I don't have the ability to do it all right now, despite the need for it.

So like...I need help. I don't know what help. I need some of it tho. Because we're not well-off. And I'm sick and tired of not being well-off, of all the frustrations of not being able to live life fully.

I mentioned last time I blogged how I don't like rehashing what happened last year ad nauseum, don't like repeating it, don't like focusing on it to a detrimental amount, etc. You get the idea. It can sometimes be hard to believe that I legitimately am working on moving on given how it seems most of my blogs as of late have been revisiting the subject. But, something did happen which made me want to talk about it some more.

Last time, I mentioned that one of the reasons I considered going public was essentially for the benefit of a good friend. I didn't want that good friend to become a victim--they're also good friends with the problematic streamer. They might have called me a good friend, but the entire time, they were also good friends with the person I believe to be problematic. And I didn't want them to get hurt by that streamer.

I considered warning them about that streamer, as well as the ex-friends.
I even wrote a draft of what it'd be. Something along the lines of,
"Not an unban request because I know you won't believe me right now, more of a warning to your future self.

"Please do not let (problematic streamer), (ex-friend), (ex-friend's partner), or anyone tied to them gaslight you about anything you personally experienced. Never let them rewrite events, or put doubt into your mind.

"Never accept fault or blame yourself for anything relating to them.

"Never villainize yourself. Never think you are the problem, never believe you are to blame.  Never let them convince you things you know happened one way, happened the way they tell you it did.

"Do not let them emotionally manipulate you, especially not with anything regarding harm caused. Don’t accept being told you know what you did wrong, or that you have caused unacceptable harm to the community or loved ones.

"Trust your instincts. Not your brain or your feelings of what you want to be true. You will always want to believe everyone involved is a good person except yourself, and will be naturally inclined to blame yourself.

"Ignore those negative thoughts and, focusing on just your INSTINCTS, recall events with as much clarity as you possibly can. Not taking the accounts of others in. Just your own memory, as pure as can be.

"You will doubt it. Over and over. But try your best to listen and be honest. 

"And just know, if you ever fear that nobody will believe you...WE WILL. You will always have at least two who will listen and be on your side and believe your perspective and what you say.

"I know current you probably won’t know WTF this is about. And I mean it; I truly hope you never need to understand why I would send this to you. But this is for any future you, to hopefully remember if it does come to pass and you do need help. Best of wishes regardless of what your future holds."

I considered sending it to them, even if not going public. All because I don't want them to get hurt. I don't want them to be a victim. I don't want them to end up like kels and I did. I don't want them to be traumatized. I don't want them to be villainized. I don't want them to end up broken, shattered, defenseless, hopeless, feeling used, taken advantage of, abused. I don't want them to have to suffer like that. And given what I know about the problematic person, there is a very real, reasonably high chance, they are at a high risk of having exactly that happen.

I wanted to, for lack of a better term, "save" them, save them from the abuse before the abuse would happen, as it were.

A big reason for wanting to go public was for the chance it would be saving them, protecting them from harm, before the harm actually happened. And I wanted to warn them for the same reason. They called me a good friend at one point, and the feeling is mutual. I care about them. I worried about them, and still would worry about them if not for my guides essentially going "let it go. Stop worrying. You can't do anything. It's their battle to fight, their lesson to learn", essentially.

Every time I asked what would happen if I went public, the answer from my guides was overwhelmingly positive, because we likely would be believed and supported after we challenged the narrative the masses were fed and believed blindly. We have proof, we have evidence, of our innocence, or at least of not being guilty in the way we are thought, of the intentions behind our actions, etc. You get the idea. And it would do a lot of good, and prevent any potential future harm, especially to my good friend who is at risk.

...But ultimately, for numerous reasons, I decided it would be better to move on, and I promise we will be moving on largely, probably after this blog for good. This will probably not be the very last blog I ever write on the subject, because as I unpack thoughts I feel it's healthy for me to express them. Still, this will be one of the last blogs, and likely the last blog in a long while, on the subject of the problematic streamer and what went down last year.

Because we are moving on.

I did also ask if I should deliver the warning to that friend, privately, the only way I could. The answer was consistently "maybe, but only if it's for the right reason; what are you hoping to accomplish by doing this?", essentially. And, yeah, what I want to do is to protect a good friend from trauma and harm they shouldn't need to suffer through. They've already survived so much, so I don't want them to have to suffer more through yet another toxic relationship.

...But a large part of me told me that it's their battle to fight. Their lesson to learn. Their path to heal from. Their journey to undergo. And that they don't want my help. And that my help wouldn't do much if any good. They'd have my advice if they ever recognized they need it, but they might not recognize they need it, and would likely never have much use for it. By the time they would know they need it, they wouldn't need it. I know that sounds silly, but no, really. By the time they would need the warning, they no longer would need the warning. By the time they would believe the warning, they would have already overcome the need for the warning because the inherent ability to recognize the situation would mean no need for a warning about the situation. Either they wouldn't believe the warning because of not recognizing it or they wouldn't need the warning because they do recognize it.

...So, accepting that helped me move on a lot from the idea of going public, or warning people in general.

I feel like it is their lesson to learn. Back when I was still at my peak levels of despair, in December, January, and February? The message from my guides was always crystal clear. "It's their lesson to learn, not yours." That I had already learned and grown from my mistakes. The people who cut me out were the ones who would need to learn at that point.

And...it remains true. The people who cut me out because of the misinformation campaign against us, the people who cut me out because they believed I am a threat to communities? They're going to learn the hard way they cut the wrong people out and the actual threat is still there, poisoning the well to this day.

And that's what inspired my blog about the subject today.

Because I got the best proof of this recently.

​In the community of a cross-pollinated streamer who is close friends with the problematic streamer, there's a 90-95% community overlap. That community and the community of the problematic streamer are a Venn Diagram that's nearly a circle. There's some only in one half, but 90+% are in both. So what happens in this streamer's community is representative of the community of the problematic streamer, too. Especially since the problematic streamer regularly talks to the streamer this community is about.

I'm no longer in the community myself...but as it turns out, people still want to talk to me about that community.

​Even if they don't know the circumstances behind why I'm no longer there.

I recently had a conversation with someone who has absolutely no idea the circumstances for why I'm not in that community anymore...and despite them having NO IDEA, they STILL came to ME to talk about issues they were seeing. Issues that validate what I've been talking about.

They managed to intuit out that some of the people in this alleged safe space chat weren't good people. They had NO IDEA. They had no idea what I went through. They had no clue. They were afraid to namedrop the streamer, afraid to speak badly about that streamer and their community, because they thought I still thought fondly of them. They were afraid of souring *MY* opinion of the community, not realizing if anything it'd be the other way around.

They, completely separately from me, detected problems I had known about. Without any context, without any knowledge, they correctly picked up on toxic poison being spread, of gaslighting being done. They somehow knew that certain people were gaslighting others, without any prior bias, without any prior context. They couldn't have known. They deliberately avoid knowing that kind of thing for their own mental health. Yet somehow, despite deliberately avoiding it, they managed to pick up on that poisoning of the well, that poisoning of the community.

They knew, and became disillusioned. Without any knowledge of what happened to me. I've had multiple friends from that community who have become disillusioned with it. They mention all of the problems they had, and they had these problems before what happened to me, made worse and confirmed by what happened to me. But it's not just close friends who knew what happened to me. It's not people who were biased.

This is someone who had no idea what happened to me, who loved the community, and was baffled, confused, by the change, wondering if they were the problem. If the community had stagnated while they outgrew it, essentially. They found what the issue was, without knowing it. They said "I think it's my own feels", they said "it's surely nothing and I'm overthinking"...

...Except they aren't. They're right. They weren't even trying to identify the problem, they specifically were just trying to vibe as they always did, yet instinctively, they felt it. The change in the community vibes, because of the poisoned well. A well which got poisoned because of the problematic streamer and the minions of the problematic streamer who are our ex-friends. And the mistrust, the paranoia, the lack of understanding, etc., all which entailed from following their lead.

It affected an entire community, and they are still feeling the effects, getting worse with time. The source of the poison is still there, after all. Innocent, perfectly harmless actions, are now being viewed with suspicion and doubt, paranoia and mistrust. Actions which used to be people trying to connect with each other, converse with each other, are now seen as something that raises red flags in the minds of those who have been poisoned.

Friendships which lasted years, undone by that poison. By that effort to divide, sow the seeds of mistrust, to paint harmless actions as sinister. Innocent things meant to bond and to form a community are now in that community being perceived as malicious acts that warrant being tense about. That paranoia, that suspicion, is there. People are feeling a need to defend themselves, in ways they didn't used to feel the need to defend themselves.

And that is the poison which is spreading. Keep in mind, this is a community well-versed in internet safety. All of us thought we were staying safe and did fairly good jobs at it previously. Yet thanks to the poison...what was previously safe and a good job is seen as not enough protection. Walls go up. Divides are formed. The connection isn't being formed as it used to. All due to the community well being poisoned, and the poison not being removed.

​Again. The source of this is from someone who had no idea I already knew from first-hand experience. This is from someone who didn't know I was a victim. This is from someone who had no idea what had happened to me. And this person still managed to identify the exact problem, without trying to!

So, that leaves me thinking...

...My guess of this all resolving in or before 2026?

...I'm beginning to think that was a hugely conservative estimate.

The poison spreading this quickly and rampantly? To where someone completely unrelated can intuitively tell​ about it without trying? It's going to lead to people realizing what the problem was. Eventually. They are going to learn what caused them to change for the worse. And it's going to happen sooner rather than later. They are going to learn what burned them, and they are going to do digging into the root cause.

I think the community will bounce back from it eventually--but the damage will have been done. Many who leave in this process likely won't return. Myself among them. As much as that community once meant to me...I don't think I can ever trust them again, not unless they have a serious reform. They lost their ability to trust in others. I wouldn't feel welcome unless that trust in others was returned.

And yes. I get the irony. My trust in them was lost by their lack of trust. But it's the best way I have to describe it. The poison of a lack of trust infected the community thanks to the problematic streamer and the agents of the problematic streamer, the ex-friends who chose the problematic streamer over their friends, over doing the right thing, and continued to spread the misinformation about kels and I and poisoned the minds of my friends.

These people twisted innocent actions, these people took the portrayal of people at their weakest, most vulnerable, worst states where they were emotionally compromised, and portrayed that as the norm. These people turned love into lovebombing, turned sharing information/facts into harm/abuse, turned efforts to mend into efforts to hurt. They spread that perspective, that doubt, that questioning of character, and infected the minds of everyone in the community.

And that paranoia, that doubt, didn't stay on just me, or just kels. It remains, with nearly everyone distrustful of nearly everyone, in ways they weren't before.

And that's poison.

I was never the problem.
kels was never the problem.

The problem remains, even after we have left, because the call was coming from inside the building.

​I wanted to believe the problematic streamer was a good person.

And despite everything, as fucked up as it is? I still want to believe the ex-friends are good people.
I've laid out, nearly as explicitly as I can without actually talking about the exchanges, all of the ways I know they're not. How they used emotional manipulation to try and get me to drop kels. How they outright gaslit me and tried to lie about events I remembered too well for their gaslighting to work. And so on and so forth. I have every reason to think they're horrible, with the only reasons I have to doubt it being...well, basically...

...a combination of remembering the good times when we were friends, hearing about them from people still friends with them, and my belief in most people being good but all people being flawed.

I want to believe they're good, despite all of what they did to me, and how their poison remains a plague that infected an entire community and sowed seeds of distrust that destroyed the vibes of connection previously present.

But really...I guess only time will tell.

Ultimately...it's not my battle to fight.
It's not my space anymore.
It was a found family, I truly treasured my time there...but I've moved on.
And that's again why this will likely be among my last blogs on the subject.

Receiving word about what has happened there from an unbiased source? Validated me. It's vindicating to know that the exact things which were things I said were problematic, are being seen as such by people completely unaware of my knowledge. They weren't biased by me. They found that on their own, because it's not just me.

It's healing. It's soothing. But it's not something I'm going to get entangled in. It's not something I'm going to continue focusing on. With the knowledge of the state of the community, I know that the explosion is going to happen sooner rather than later. People are going to want answers, people are going to ask, "What the hell happened to us? What happened here???", sooner rather than later. They are going to do digging, reevaluating, and revisit the past. I know it's going to happen, sooner rather than later, and knowing that is cathartic.

Knowing they will heal, they will learn, they will grow, after realizing the mistake they made in letting that distrust fester, in letting that lack of faith last so long. Knowing they let themselves be hurt by a nonexistent version of people, and that the threats they viewed were never threats. Knowing they will grow, they will figure out, what the real issue was and who caused it and how it happened.

That's all healing, to know it will happen sooner rather than later.

...But I have spoken my piece. So now I am at peace. It's not my place anymore, despite my fondness for it. It's not my fight. I already learned. I already grew. I already am healing. That healing would best be served by moving on, now that I have spoken as much as I can. There's a lot more I could say, to be sure...but I don't think it'd help to.

Fingers crossed from here on out we can all collectively move on.

I apologize for bothering you. And I am so sorry for having been this critical, this negative. I truly want to not be, and I truly hope to embody the very thing I think the community I was in had lost. I want to trust, as I wasn't trusted. I want to believe, as I wasn't believed. I want to see the good, as I wasn't seen for all the good. I want to be better than to ever possibly risk putting someone through the Hell I lived through.

I wouldn't wish my suffering on my worst enemy. Not the streamer I believe is problematic, not the ex-friends. I don't think they deserve that. I don't think they deserve to suffer. I don't think they deserve to be entirely cast out. To have the harm they caused be recognized, identified, and have communities correct for it? Yeah I think that's a necessity to happen at some point. But I never want to have anyone go through what we did.

I don't want to ever feel a need to be paranoid, distrustful, guarded, reserved. I don't want to ever put up walls. I don't want to ever spread poison. I don't want to ever speak badly of people I used to think fondly of. I don't want to think people are irredeemable, and should be condemned. I don't want to believe people are horrible enough where they deserve scorn. I don't want to highlight the negatives we all have. I don't want to focus on the bad.

So going forward...I hope that I can focus on all the positives. On all the learnings. On all the healing. On all which is good in this world. I truly wish you can have that strength, too. Thank you for tolerating my rants about my trauma. Thank you for bearing with me. Thank you for listening. And I hope that I can help you in some way shape or form going forward. <3

...Albeit because I feel like I want to put it here rather than in the rather obscure place it was.

I'll give some extra context.

Basically, I've been wanting to return to my art for months--not just the art for streams, like emotes, background art, icon art, stream overlays, etc.

I've been wanting to work on more personal art.

Drawing Chloe.
Drawing kat.
Drawing kat with Bastet.
Drawing other facets.

Revisiting past art.

And, yes...resuming work on my webcomic.

But, I know that realistically speaking, I have a lot going on.

Still, I've been inspired. Art friends from art discords encourage me with art, and I always feel guilty when they ask me for OCs and such that I have so little to offer them.

I recently went and looked at all the 22 pages of Red Hood Rider I made, scanned, and uploaded, but never finished past the fourth.

A lot of it is bad, but a great deal of it is passable or even great, even now. Can easily be touched up and fixed to be viable, usable, doable.

...Yet...despite my passion...

...I have other priorities.

So, I figured I'd fill the people in, the commentors I saw leave comments, by giving them this.

​A lot has changed in my life since I set out to create Red Hood Rider which has caused the comic to take a seemingly-permanent, definitely-indefinite-until-otherwise-noted hiatus. There were a lot of factors as to why.

Life stressed me out, in ways that I've since forgotten.

I was suffering from severe burnout, trying to do too many things all at once.

I was suffering from severe art block.

2016 - 2019 are largely a blur to me, and I genuinely don't remember what happened in that timeframe.

I'm pretty sure I began dating my former-girlfriend (who is still a good friend to this day) some time in that timeframe, and they became my top priority for the entire time we were dating.

Then the pandemic hit, and I lost my job.

I came out to my family in June 2021.

I landed a new job, as a Lead Lifeguard (now called Aquatic Lead).

I got very very heavily involved in the twitch stream culture, which pretty much consumed my life. I existed exclusively on twitch and discord, for years. 

Fast-forward to 2023, and in a (now-ex-)friend's private friend discord, I began to bond with someone I had known since 2020 in the streaming sphere. I became a good friend of theirs, and vice-versa. We ended up on said ex-friend's server getting dragged into something that I don't want to detail on this blog here, but to keep a long story short; we were trying to do the right thing, and I genuinely believe we were, looking back, more in the right than in the wrong.

Again, not going to go into the details, but I believe a streamer, the streamer we all met through, is a genuinely problematic person. Back in 2023, we caught a bunch of that streamer's red flags, but we believed the streamer to still be a good person, and were intending to do what we did to help them and the community. With all that happened, my belief that "most people are good, all people are flawed" has progressively been put to the test. I hold it true, but the benefit of the doubt I gave to the streamer being among the good-yet-flawed has eroded the more and more I learned by unpacking the events of 2023.

All throughout this year, I've been realizing that despite my belief...some people aren't nearly as good as I thought they were. Namely the streamer I genuinely believe to be a problematic person...but also the now-ex-friend and their partner. They KNEW everything that we did, and didn't do. They KNEW what we had on the streamer, and what we were trying to do. They KNEW we were trying to do the right thing. They KNEW someone wasn't guilty. But they chose their friendship with the problematic streamer over doing the right thing.

They chose gaslighting me over being truthful with me. They tried to manipulate me, gaslight me, and otherwise lied and became culpable in the problematic streamer's actions because they KNEW all of the bad things about the problematic streamer...and chose their closeness with the problematic streamer over exposing the problematic streamer's lies and misinformation. They chose to further frame and otherwise blame a victim of a misinformation campaign.

The problematic streamer abused their position of trust and authority to lie, manipulate, and gaslight everyone into believing that a would-be-whistleblower was problematic. He lied about his friendship with that victim, claiming that they had issues being parasocial with him when HE was the one who initiated friendship with THEM. And he used this to get them banned across our sphere of twitch overnight--with nobody, not a single streamer, listening to the other person, to see if maybe there was some kind of misunderstanding, maybe there was some kind of mistake, etc. Nobody gave them a chance; everyone believed the problematic streamer.

Except me.

Because I was there.

I was one of the eight people involved in exposing the problematic streamer's problematic traits. I was there, so I remember what went on. The ex-friends were two of the eight, I was a third, and the friend I got close to in 2023 on that server was a fourth...

...And that friend needed me. When all of this went down, I knew they would need a friend. I was already in love with them, but I wanted to make sure they survived. They had a close call, having written out a suicide note and planned out how to unalive, but I saved their life with my persistence.

And we further bonded.

And eventually, I confessed my feelings, and they confessed they reciprocated.

So we started dating as of August 16th 2023.

I spent the majority of 2023 gaslighting myself about the events above. I genuinely believed we were in the wrong until this year, until midway through 2024! I thought we were problematic, we were the issue. At my most kind, I thought "everyone involved was a good person, their flaws just interacted in a horrible way that left the situation exploding in the most ugly way possible". But at my lowest, I thought myself a monster, and nearly took my own life in December of 2023 because of that belief.

But, a lot of healing has happened since. The friend I first met in 2020, who I bonded with starting in 2023, who needed my help, who I fell in love with, who I started dating on August 16th 2023? They moved in with me on November 3rd 2023. They proposed to me a month later, on December 3rd 2023 becoming my fiance. We moved in to a place of our own on December 4th 2023.

It's been a struggle. They moved from Michigan to my state of Washington in order to be with me. They haven't had a job, despite searching. And I don't make enough to support two people. Finances have been stressful, life has been stressful, and my job has been soul-sucking, draining the life out of me. I've been burnt out and otherwise unable to have much in the way of free time.

...But...

...The good news is, we are on the upswing.

I am getting married on October 31st 2025 to the love of my life.

Now, I am going to be busy prepping for the wedding until then.

And there's other things I want to pursue and achieve.

I've become a Twitch Affiliate. I've gotten a place with the love of my life. I've gotten a better work schedule. My wife-to-be has landed a job. Things are going well for us and we are going forward...

...But I am going to be too busy for the webcomic for years.

...Yet Red Hood Rider WILL return. Eventually.

I want to pursue writing my novel. A different novel than the one in 2016 (I lost that one when my flashdrive got corrupted, crushing me), but a novel nonetheless.

I want to pursue content creation.

But...when I am married, living with the love of my life, with my novel closer to being made...

...I am planning to return to Red Hood Rider. My goal is before 2028.

I know, that's a 12 year wait for the webcomic. But, with luck, if all goes my way, then I will be in a position where I can finish what I started, over 8 years ago. Here's to hoping!


Now, for readers of this blog, this is nothing new. I've been talking about these events ad nauseum. This blog through all of 2023 and 2024 chronicles  my journey  remarkably  well (especially  later  on as I became  more comfortable), with discord and social media detailing the rest. Blog readers are probably tired of me rehashing the same thing over and over again. You know what went on by now.

And, for that, I do apologize.

But, I felt the need to explain it again.
I'll likely only talk about it going forward for the purpose of therapy, new revelations, things I feel I need to say. (For instance, there's one thing I want to touch on regarding someone who once called me "a good friend", and how I genuinely believe that person is in danger of becoming a victim of this streamer and/or our ex-friends. I want to talk about that more at some point, but not today.)

I've mostly aired out my thoughts. You've likely read them, repeatedly, or at least skimmed them. You don't need me to rehash it again and again and again. So you'll see me talk about it less and less, until I'm not talking about it at all. Still, I apologize. I'm not yet at the "not talking about it at all" stage, which means you once more get exposed to me talking about what went down.

Again, the basic summary as quickly as I can put it chronologically;
An ex-friend had a private friend server for their friends which both myself and my fiance were members of in 2023. Its members all met through a streamer I now believe is problematic.
An artist and vip in said streamer's chat had a rant on March 19th (I was wrong about it being on the 20th, 21st, or 23rd, the screenshot verifies it was on the 19th) and was joined in by a couple of other longtime regulars. To prevent the chat from dominating the venting thread it was in, the server owner (a now-ex-friend) created a subthread for us to let our frustrations out. Eight people ended up involved. The server owner, their partner, the art friend, a couple of other long-time community members, myself, my fiance, and another person not really part of the community.

We collected a long list of problematic traits. We believed the streamer to be a good person at the time, so when we collected these things, we were trying to do so to help the streamer and the community improve, because we wanted to help everyone improve, better themselves, etc. 

Separately, on that server, I fell in love with my fiance for the non-venting-hangouts, completely without involvement to the problematic streamer.

Midway through the year, on my birthday, the streamer found out my wife-to-be had been ranting about them. They abused their authority to get my fiance completely removed from basically every space they were in on twitch. They lied, gaslit people, and turned the love of my life into a pariah, when they were a whistleblower who was in the perfect position to expose the problematic streamer as being problematic. It wasn't just that my wife-to-be was a mod for the streamer. It was their relationship beyond them being a mod.

We had all of the information, back in 2023, to expose the problematic streamer as being problematic.

But in our naivety, in our idealism, in our optimism, in our blind faith, we genuinely believed at the time the problematic streamer wasn't problematic. We thought the streamer was human with flaws we could help them with, not realizing just how bad they actually were behind the scenes. Our closeness, our fondness, for the problematic streamer blinded us to how the streamer was in fact problematic.

When the streamer poisoned people's minds and turned the public against my fiance (not a single person heard out my wife-to-be except me, and that didn't change until late 2023 and heading into 2024 when more people began to hear us out), our ex-friends (the server owner and their partner) chose their closeness and friendship with the problematic streamer over being truthful, over trying to do the right thing.

In fact, they knowingly and deliberately tried to gaslight me. They lied to me, they tried to manipulate me, they used every emotional manipulation tactic in the book to try and get me on their side. I made the mistake of believing them unaware. I made the mistake of believing they didn't know what they were doing. I made the mistake of believing they were being accidental in the malice of their actions. I made the mistake of thinking they could have unintentionally been biased.

But they knew.

Jumping ahead a year later when I showed the conversation to my fiance, they pointed something out to me that I hadn't noticed previously, hadn't noticed in a full year of having had the conversation. They pointed out a contradiction which could not have been accidental. They pointed out what was in hindsight, a deliberate lie on the part of the ex-friends who lied to me and tried to cover it up by being vague and not talking about the specifics which would reveal the key contradiction.

They knew it was a contradiction. They didn't care. Because they valued the problematic streamer over their friendship with my fiance, and they valued defending the problematic streamer over honesty, over doing the right thing, over pursuing the truth. They gaslit me, and presumably encouraged the same thing the problematic streamer did, encouraging people to ban my fiance.

They knew everything I did. They chose to lie and protect the problematic streamer and further the problematic streamer's abuse rather than honesty and accountability. They are just as culpable as the problematic streamer. And when the problematic streamer is exposed as such, these ex-friends will probably not instantly be exposed for their part in the problematic streamer's crimes. But let me tell you this, here and now.

They knew.

They KNEW.

Just as kels and I know.

Now, I want to be clear. It took kels months before they realized the problematic streamer is problematic. It took me until this year to. In fact, I didn't think the problematic streamer was assuredly problematic until midway through the year. We had all the information back in 2023, but I wouldn't blame them for having not realized it.

kels didn't know what we were working on exposing. I didn't know. The ex-friends wouldn't have, either.

But they still knew what we were doing, and deliberately propagated the lie that has become widely believed by the masses. They deliberately furthered a lie they knew to be a lie, deliberately gaslit people, deliberately misled people. They chose the problematic streamer over my fiance. And they, by virtue of having remained close to the problematic streamer, have had one of the best positions to realize they backed the wrong horse.

They have had over a FULL YEAR to realize the problematic streamer is in fact problematic. They have had a full year to reexamine and reevaluate events. They have had a full year to question their actions and what they did. And in that time, they have only gotten closer to the problematic streamer, more trusted by the problematic streamer.

They knew what the problematic streamer did...and they chose the problematic streamer over exposing the problematic streamer's problematic nature and telling the truth.

So when the problematic streamer is exposed as problematic...these ex-friends will likely try to initially distance themselves, to protect themselves, to save face, to try and make themselves look innocent, or even look like victims.

They aren't victims.

They are accomplices.

They knowingly and deliberately aided and abated the problematic streamer and helped the problematic streamer get away with spreading a lie, with gaslighting, with abusing their authority. They helped gaslight and spread the lie. They helped him, every step of the way, choosing their friendship and closeness with him over doing the right thing.

​I can't give them the benefit of the doubt, just as I can't give the problematic streamer the benefit of the doubt.

I know that the individuals aren't scum of the earth. They're not completely horrible people. They're not wholly terrible people through and through. The problematic streamer has merits and isn't a complete and total monster through and through. The ex-friends are by all accounts good friends to those they choose to remain close to. They're not horrible altogether.

But they aren't good people either.

The problematic streamer is still problematic.
The ex-friends are willing knowing deliberate accomplices of the problematic streamer.

Mid-2023 both me and kels reacted badly and made mistakes. We're not blame-free. But we ended up gaslighting ourselves into thinking we were horrible. We thought ourselves monsters. We thought ourselves to be terrible. We thought ourselves to be absolute garbage who did horrible wrongs, didn't deserve to live, were monsters, villains. We talked ourselves into thinking we didn't deserve anything except scorn, and deserved to be banned.

A belief which lasted even when we began to romance each other.

And in 2024, we've begun to heal.

We've began to unpack the events which happened.

We've begun to see how we were always good people, wonderful people, who were trying to do the right thing.

And with reflection, we've managed to look at the actions of others and see..."hey...wait a minute..." regarding what they did, and realize we had been giving them benefit of the doubt where none should have been given. We thought them good, and time has shown how they very much aren't.

And we're healing. We're moving on. We're rebuilding our lives, together. I still maintain my belief. "Most humans are good, all humans are flawed". I just have shifted where I believe the problematic streamer lies on the spectrum, as well as the ex-friends.

But ultimately, it doesn't matter. I believe they will be exposed with time. Even if they aren't, even if they end up getting away with it...it doesn't matter to me. I'm going to succeed in spite of their efforts to sabotage our lives. The ex-friends orchestrated a campaign of misinformation which nearly drove me to kill myself, twice. Both in December of 2023 and this year. They didn't succeed, and I am resolved to make sure they never do.

That despite their efforts, I will build my happiness with my wife. We will live our lives together, happy, content. I'm going to focus on my novel and art, my content creation. I intend to have the stability and success that by 2028, I'll have gotten into a space where I can pursue picking Red Hood Rider back up, and continuing my work.

It's been a long, difficult, hard road, and our journey is nowhere near complete.

But I have full confidence in myself, my future, and my wife, that we will achieve the success and overcome all of the obstacles thrown our way.

We're not out of the woods.

But I truly believe the worst is behind us, that the times ahead will be better than the times behind, that our future is great and that we are going to have a wonderful life together.

I'm manifesting it.

So, thank you for reading this and for giving me this support. I hope I can give you something in return for it. <3

...So I will make another cheater blog.

I wanna say I am so damn proud of my wife-to-be, my fiancé, my love, Kelsey Marie Cousins, who is the love of my life.
They have been looking for a job for over a year and a half.

They've been searching in Washington State for a job since shortly before November, as they began looking when we were planning to have them move here.

And now...they have finally, a full year later, scored a job, at their dream location for seasonal work--which will get them through the door in opening up future work opportunities. They also have the very realistic chance to land work at our local gas station, which would be a more permanent source of income, too!!!

​I’m riding on a bit of a high wave emotionally.

Currently in the red, but a return should take us out of it and allow us to scrape by until my paycheck comes through. 

Kels got their dream seasonal job.

It’s looking like it perfectly fits into our schedules seamlessly.

They got a job application for our local gas station, which potentially offers long-term employment and income. 

Even if they don’t land that job, by having gotten their foot in the door and leaving a favorable impression, it’ll make landing things they apply for all the easier with a favorable recent job reference. 

My job is giving me hours and days more favorable.

I've improved my previously decaying relationships at work.

I’m passionate about my ideas, and ready to pursue them.

I’m just feeling so damn optimistic about the future.

My wants are nothing remarkable. Of course, I lot a lot of things I want are things that I know are impossible, at least in this lifetime. For instance, I would want to live forever. I want what amounts to worldwide peace, prosperity, and love. Where there's no genocides being committed, where everyone has a home and makes a livable wage, where healthcare is a human right, where everyone can receive what they need, especially trans people, and so on and so forth. You get the idea. A lot of my wants are impossible.

And even if they aren't, they're improbable.

So when I say I want to talk about my wants...I'm mostly talking about my strongest wants, my strongest desires, my strongest callings.

I want to marry the love of my life, Kelsey Marie Cousins, on October 31st 2025.

I want to build a life with them.

I want to have a home together, which we own, which is ours for lifetime. Not as an investment, but as a place for us to live the rest of our lives together.

I want to have pets, around two dogs and two cats.

Kels and I have talked about this more and more recently, but more and more we're beginning to think we want to raise children. We both feel, to a certain extent, we would never be ready, but we both know we never would be ready. The level of care needed for humans is insanely high, and it's a huge commitment of time. It's a 24/7 commitment for a minimum of 18 years, and you have to do everything. You have to teach them, help them, educate them, etc.

But, I think at the end of the day, we wouldn't need to be perfect. Nobody is. We'd just need to be "good enough". And I think we could be. Our life is on the upswing. We've gotten better and better at life skills and we're progressively getting closer to where we want to be.

I want to fully transition. To have my name changed, on everywhere (both legally and on birth certificates and such.
I want to have bottom surgery as well as hair removal.

I want to have voice coach lessons to more feminize my voice. I don't want to sound like the stereotypical "gay guy" voice, either; I want to sound more obviously feminine.

I want to have work done to make it more obvious I'm a girl from a distance. Maybe facial feminization surgery, but basically people clock me as a guy and I want to have people not.

I want to learn to apply makeup to myself and to do it every time I will be seen and have it look pretty but also natural.

I want to get in shape, where I'm physically fit, as fit as can be, but not in raw strength, more towards endurance. Time/number over raw weight, as it were, while still able to handle exerting myself.

I want to be eating more healthily, to where I have a good diet that doesn't have nearly as much junk food.

I still want to effectively naturally grow bigger breasts tho--I want them to be visible from a distance and be unmistakable as being booba. At least a C.

I want to learn how to cook, as well as to do all the chores associated with the house. To be able to know how to wash clothes, to dry them, to put them away neatly, to do the dishwasher, to clean the appliances. to know how to use the stove, toaster, microwave, blender, you get the idea. Even if I'm not the one responsible for all of the household chores, I want to be able to handle them, from mopping to vacuuming.

I want to have a steady job which doesn't seriously tax me, which is accommodating towards my various needs.

I want to have a steady income, to be in a place where I can both set aside money for the future but also have enough to spend in the present, on things that are not needs but are wants, are luxuries, are ways to enhance and enrich life but not strictly necessary.

I want to have those moments of happiness. To have a focus on it, in fact.
I want to never need to sacrifice happiness. If I am forced to make a choice, I want it to be a choice between two different forms of happiness that cannot both be done at the same time. For instance, the want to play two different games. Obviously I can't play two different games at the exact same time, so I would always have to pick one, but both would make me happy.

Instead of having to sacrifice happiness in general (say, not playing either game due to a need to work overtime), I want to choose the greatest source of happiness in the moment.

I want to have cuddle time with my wife-to-be.
I want to spend time watching them, just admiring them.
I want to spend time just vibing with them, watching things together, doing things together.
I want to experience all of life together with them.
I don't really like to travel, but I want to be pushed outside my comfort zone by them, the way they do when they take me on our adventures. So despite how I usually prefer to vibe at home, rest, and recover...they make me want to go on adventures with them.
I want to be happy with them, no matter what life throws at us.

I want to vibe with friends.
I want to be able to give my love and support to all of my friends and spaces.

I want to create the numerous ideas I have in my head. Namely, I want to write a lot of my novels. I have hundreds of ideas, I want to have written at least a couple dozen of them. I want to have my poetry/songs be published/made. I want to compose music. I want to make my silly jokes and have my life take off as a content creator.

I want to give advice, as a mentor, as a healer, as a teacher, as a supporter.

I want to share my life experience.

I want my ideas to be made real, and for people to find comfort in my works, for them to resonate with what I made.

​I want to explore my plurality and get to really know my mind, my system.

I want to pursue my spirituality, and become more enlightened. I've mostly let go of my negative emotions, particularly anger. I don't get angry anymore, not really. I want to be content with my life, and to also be able to be that voice that is always calm, caring, and compassionate.

I want to be able to spread, to show, my love to the world. My passion, my belief, my philosophy, my interest, my love.
I want to be understood.
I want to be seen, truly seen.

I want to be supported, by those I love, and even by strangers I would love to love.

I want to leave a lasting legacy, of kindness, caring, empathy, love, support, creativity, joy, and positivity.

I want to entertain.
I want to heal.

I want to be loved, as I love others.

That's a lot of wants.

To want that all is often seen as greedy. But you know what? I actually think I can do it all.
I know it seems greedy.
But I think I actually CAN have it all, or at least, most of it.

I don't need to sacrifice time with my fiance for this. I don't need to give up on things in order to pursue those other things.

I genuinely think we can have it all.

And even more ambitiously...I feel like we can achieve most of these at or before 2030.

It will require work, to be sure. But I don't need to burn myself out or give up on friends or sacrifice time with my fiance. There will be small sacrifices right now due to not quite being there.

I don't have the financial stability and network and work done to have all of that laid out for me.

But...I think I am close. And that I can achieve all of these. It's actually somewhat a humble goal, but I have my whole life to achieve them. I want to get them done before 60 largely, but I think I can get a lot done by 36, and be almost or entirely complete with them all by 50.

I believe in myself. It might not be a lifetime of being a big celebrity, but I don't need to be a household name. I just want to have lived a fulfilled, happy life, to have left it better than before, to leave things after I am gone, and to have my ideas passed on as it were.

And I think those things, despite how greedy they can seem, are fairly humble and doable overall. I'll do the work. Here's to hoping it pays off. <3

Namely, it's the decision to move on rather than to go public with the events of last year and the followthrough into this year.

And basically...it boils down to the illusion of choice.

There's only a few possible outcomes, and most of them lead to the same basic things. To run through the possibilities;

Possibility One: We go public about what happened. Nobody believes us. And down the line, nothing comes to light. Nobody comes forward. The people we believe are problematic are never shown as such. I don't believe this would actually happen.
After all, I've been believed by everyone who has actually asked me for my perspective. If I went public, there's a good chance most people would. I've got a long history displaying my true character, as well as a fairly decent amount of evidence, not to mention, numerous people who can collaborate my perspective. That, aside from the fact that every time I asked about going public in tarot readers, I got told I would be supported and good things would come from it. So this possibility is rather unlikely.
But if it were to happen...if nobody believed us...and nobody ever does...then why bother? It wouldn't do any good.

kels and I want to focus on healing, on moving on, on building our lives together. We want peace and prosperity. To live happily, to live content, and to just move on. Going public is dwelling in the past, and in this possibility, it wouldn't do any good.

Possibility Two: We go public about what happened. Initially, nobody believes us. However, down the line, things come to light. The problematic behavior we knew about in 2023 is later revealed at a later time. In this case, the information revealed down the line has no relation to us bringing our information forward. So for all intents and purposes...our information adds nothing. People wouldn't have believed us. People believe the later information coming forward, but the later information comes forward completely on its own, completely separately from us.
In this case...it's identical to the first. We don't matter. We add nothing. Coming forward does nothing. We go through all of the same hassle as the first and in the end the results are nearly identical. Nothing we did contributes to the individuals being exposed, because nobody believed us.

And as above, that's just...not worth it. My wife-to-be and I both want to focus on healing. To move on. To rebuild our lives together. We want to get married next year, on October 31st 2025. We want to have a house. We are talking about potentially raising children. We want to focus on gaining the stability and security of having enough of an income to not just survive but also live. And that is best accomplished...by...not wasting the time on going public. After all, it does no good. The people coming forward still come forward regardless of our involvement, and get believed, regardless of what we do. That means we don't need to contribute, and we can instead focus on that.

Possibility Three: We don't go public about what happens. Nobody comes forward ever, and nobody would have even if they saw us. In this case, it's identical to possibility one. There's nobody to come forward and be believed, and they wouldn't come forward even if we had. We just don't come forward in this case. It's identical to possibility one in basically every way, except we never bother to come out with the info. So like...it's the same, just with less hassle.

Possibility Four: We don't go public about what happens. And later down the line, someone else does. The problematic people are exposed as problematic. It's essentially identical to possibility two, just without the extra hassle. We didn't need to come forward, so us having done so would be a waste of time, essentially. The only difference between this and possibility five is the timing the problematic people are exposed. Here, it just happens later.

I actually believe this is exactly what will happen. I believe the problematic people will be exposed as problematic without us needing to be involved. And the reason why is because we're in the grand scheme of things? Not important. We don't matter. We don't matter for exposing problematic people as being problematic. Their problematic nature will be shown by others. While any single individual might be unimportant, collectively as a whole it will be shown. Basically, kels and I aren't important for exposing the problematic people. If everyone believed they weren't important, then the problematic nature of them never comes forward...but in this possibility...that doesn't happen, someone comes forward eventually, and the truth gets exposed and then story after story comes forward exposing the lies and misinformation which had been believed en masse by the streaming community as a whole.

We aren't going to be the only victims. There will be more. And they will eventually share why they are victims. And when they do, that will make everyone question everything.

Possibility Five: We go public about what happened. And we are believed. There's actually a really good chance this is what happens, but in many ways it's identical to possibility two. Anything *WE* can do to expose the problematic people, other victims/associates can do down the line, too. We'd just be accomplishing it sooner. It's effectively identical to possibility two, except instead of someone else being the ones to expose it, it happens to be us.

If we were to go public, this is what I believe would happen. I believe we'd be believed. We have good evidence to back it, we have the character to back it, we have witnesses who would back us, and our perspective, our stories, would inspire others to come forward with theirs. Ours would be the first of many, and eventually, the nature of how the harassment campaign against us began would be fully exposed. We would get great support, we would have done great good, by being the ones to expose the problematic people by having the bravery to come forward.

...Which...is fine and all, but...while I believe this is what would happen if we did come forward...it's essentially identical to possibility four. The only difference is us spending time and effort in the past, effort/time that aren't us moving on and rebuilding our lives. And...while that would certainly be noble...it's a level of sacrifice I don't feel like making. Trying to do the right thing, trying to do the greatest good, is how this whole mess started back in 2023. We thought we were doing the right thing back then, and the result of it was kels almost killing themself (twice), both of us losing almost everything we ever cared for, and continuous harassment from the resulting campaign of misinformation demonizing us both. It caused me to gaslight myself badly into genuinely believing all of the horrible things about myself I always thought (depression + anxiety-fueled self-loathing), and to think everything we did was wrong.

Coming forward would be a lot of time, effort, and hassle. People would believe us here, but there'd be all of the stress and anxiety of them potentially not. We'd face retaliation. Our friends would, too. Maybe even our family. We would be scrutinized and even further villainized, because the problematic people and all people acting on their world-view would try to expose us as liars and monsters, and we would face all of that hatred just for the crime of sharing what we went through. And...while I have faith that we would be shown right, while I have faith people would ultimately side with us, while I believe people would believe us ultimately...in the interim, it would be Hell, and make rebuilding our lives nearly impossible.

I...don't think we can do that. I wanted to, for a time, because of doing the right thing, and believing coming forward could genuinely prevent potential future victims from ever being victimized. Our silence has the potential consequence of people down the line being hurt who wouldn't have been hurt if we came forward sooner, and that weighed heavily on me, because I wanted to help them by stopping the problematic people from having the trust, access, and influence to further victimize people. Particularly a friend or two, who are at extra high risk of becoming victims down the line.

I wanted to protect them, and a part of me still does...but at the same time...I don't think I have the strength to do this. And even if I personally did...kels does not. Kels cannot handle it. They've made that clear. They cannot handle anything more than what they have already gone through. So for them even if nobody else...I cannot do this. It would be hell for me, it would be hell for them, and while the results may EVENTUALLY be worth it...the interim period never would be.

​So...there's only one real possibility which would warrant coming forward.

Possibility Six: We come forward, and aren't initially believed...but down the line, someone else who wouldn't have come forward without us, ends up having the courage to share their experiences. The problematic people get exposed because someone broke the silence, and it was only possible because of us inspiring the real dealbreakers. Our experience wouldn't be believable or notable or big enough to make an impact, but we would inspire the actual smoking gun whistleblower with our experiences, and they come forward directly because they know they are not alone and can count on us.

Which is in many ways just a variant on possibility five, just with a timing difference behind when and how the problematic people end up exposed as such.


As far as I'm concerned...all the possibilities, and their variants (you could argue there's also a seventh possibility where we come forward, aren't believed, and the disbelief of us prevents people from coming forward who would have come forward and been believed had we not been disbelieved when we came forward, for instance, but I lump that in with the others), all are an illusion of choice.

They all lead to essentially the same destinations.

Kels and I are left needing to heal no matter what.
Kels and I need to move on no matter what.
Kels and I need to rebuild our lives regardless.
​Kels and I need to focus on securing our future rather than dwelling on the past no matter what.

The only real variable--which is entirely out of our control--is whether we are believed, or whether we aren't. Whether the problematic people are exposed, or if they aren't.

And that is something we have no control over whatsoever, because we can only control our own actions--not those of others. We can only hold our own perspectives and beliefs, not shape those of others. Thus? Illusion of choice. There's six or so possibilities listed, but when it boils down to it, there's only two for kels and I, and they both lead to much the same place.

We come forward, then try to rebuild after.
Or we focus on healing and rebuilding now, and trust in the universe.

Those are the only options, and they both lead to the same place...just at a different pace. So even this singular choice, isn't actually a choice. It's still an illusion. ALL roads lead to the same place eventually, no matter WHICH path we travel.

We always need to start a life together.
We always need to heal.
We always need to pursue our future rather than living in the past.

​The how differs between the possibilities. The need remains regardless.

And that illusion of choice is a huge factor in why we're not coming forward, and not likely to at any point honestly.

With the stresses of life, with how on the edge we are living...we don't have the time/energy to come forward. Instead, we are focused on just surviving and trying to turn surviving into living. We want to pursue our happiness NOW, and to secure our life NOW, so do the work for that in the present, not in the future. As we are able to, as we have the energy to.

And that means we cannot afford to look to the past. No matter how noble it may be, our life circumstances just...don't allow it to be something we can really handle. COULD we do it? Well the reading I got says we'd be protected and we'd be supported...but that path would be much, much harder to travel. So as selfish as it may be...we are taking the easier path. The path of not coming forward. It's easier, but easier is all we have the energy, time, and finances for. We don't have the luxury of trying to do the most right thing. We only have the ability to handle doing a right thing.


I might be a bit rambling, and that concept may be a bit hard to vocalize. But to put it as best I can...often, there's no singular "right" thing to do. There's not a binary right/wrong choice to make, where there's one correct and one wrong decision to be made. Most of the time, things do not work that way.

Instead, there's more a level of...optimal paths, as it were. Many paths diverge, but then merge down the line again. "All roads lead to Rome", as it were. All roads in time lead to the same place, it's just some are better than others. None of them are right, none of them are wrong, but rather...it's more a case of some being more right for some people and some being more wrong for some people.

When it comes to doing the right thing, it's similarly so. There's the thing that is most right for the collective of humanity. There's the thing that is most right for the individual in the present. There's the thing that is most right for the individual down the line. There's the thing that is most right for a family in the present. There's the thing that is most right for a family down the line. There's the thing that is most right for a community in the present. There's the thing that is most right for a community down the line.

All of those are equally entitled to the title of "the right thing" to do. They're right in different ways, despite largely being mutually exclusive with each other to some extent. There's something of a spectrum. A balance. To live your life at one extreme leaves you not living it at all in the other, but if you live more in the middle you are not living your life to the furthest it possibly could be in at least one area. I hope that makes sense.

And that's what I mean. The right thing to do is mostly a question of "what is right for YOU to do, in the moment?", and to that...the answer is often very fluid and situational. I never know for sure if what I am doing is the most right thing for me to do in the moment, but I try my best to listen to my instincts and pursue it to the fullest.

And if you're wondering how we know what's right to do in the moment...well it's largely following instinct, but it's also considering what is most important to you. What do you value most? What do you most want? What is your goal, what is your objective, with all the options laid out in the given moment? What are you hoping to accomplish? What are you hoping to achieve? Both in the now, and in the future? What is what you most treasure? What is what you least desire? Where do you fall on the spectrum of individual versus group, of self-enrichment and community-enrichment, of self-needs versus humanity needs, of needs versus wants, of the present versus the future, and so on and so forth.

What, who, do you value most? And from all of that...feel out what actions seem like they will get you to the best balance of where you want to have gone, essentially. Nobody gets to do everything they ever want to have done. Actions, and inactions, both carry consequences both good and bad to them. So you have to choose, and your choices matter for which path you walk, even if the paths end up reconverging down the line. Which path you walk has a ripple effect, and affects you and the world in little but meaningful ways.

​That choice leads to none being wrong per se...but there will always be paths that feel more rewarding to have walked down than the alternative paths.

And for me...that's why when I listen to my instincts...when I try to pursue the path that is most right for me in the moment...I see the focus on building my life with kels.

Kels is my greatest treasure. They are the best part of my world. They are what I value most. They are my other half. I want to be together with them forever, for the rest of eternity, to be tied together and to be a part of each other. I never want to be left without them in my life. And I want them in my life as much as they can be. (Well...within healthy reason.)

​I have more values than just kels, of course.
I value my friends, especially those who have demonstrated they value me.
I value my spaces, my communities.
I value my creativity, and pursuing my talents.
I value my skills as a teacher and healer, and hold the desire to mend others, to educate them, to help them.

​But kels is the thing I value most of all. They are my wife-to-be. They are the most important thing in the world to me.

So as far as I'm concerned...it's kels first, and all of the others are second, in balance with each other.

And when I take that into account...what's right for me to do in the moment? Is often to cherish my time with kels. To love them. To dote on them. To shower them with praise and affection. To give them gifts. "What you want...you get." is what I tell them. If they want something, they shall have it. Giving them my love is the right thing for me to do because I love them.

Building my life with them is the right thing, because they are my other half, and at this point I genuinely don't think I can live my life without them in it. I need to be there for them. I need to not feel like I have wasted my time with them. I need to not feel like I could have spent more time with them. Because I need to be there and experience life with them. That is the right thing for me to do, above all other things.

​And then when I look at all of the other things I value beyond kels...none of them involve coming forward about what happened last year. I don't value "doing the right thing" in the sense of preventing potential future or current victims from being further victimized. That would be altruistic. That would be selfless. That would be noble. But while past-me may have been of the mindset of pursuing that as the only right thing to do...now I know better. And as selfish as it may be...I care more about my future and present with kels. Which makes the right thing to do, not coming forward, because while it would potentially help others...it does nothing to help kels and I build our future together.

The right thing for me to do feels like to focus on that. On my future with the love of my life, and all who are still a part of my life.

If I were to come forward, then a lot of the people who previously cut me out of their lives may potentially want me back in their lives again...but if I'm being honest?

...In our current state, neither kels or I have the time/energy to handle the expanded network we used to have. We are in far fewer spaces than we were in a little over a year ago. (Well, it's getting closer to a year and a half at this point.) But a year and a half ago, we were both living at home with our families, basically not working, with a ton of free time and energy, and far fewer responsibilities. We had less to worry about, we had less we needed to do just to survive. We had the safety net of our families and the security to spend our time and energy more freely on others.

And right now?
...We don't.

We don't have that time or energy to spend on others, as we used to, because we are barely surviving as-is. We need to spend the extra time and energy we previously were spending on the people and communities we're currently no longer welcome in...on us.

In that sense, coming forward and being believed...would actually be WORSE for us than not being believed or not coming forward. Not being believed or not coming forward both has the same result: our circle of friends and spaces/communities remains much smaller than it previously was. It allows us to have both the time to focus on ourselves, AND the time to focus on our remaining friends and spaces.

​Basically, with our current situation...we need to spend some time and energy on ourselves, to secure our future. A year and a half ago, the time and energy we are currently spending on ourselves to secure our future was free to be spent elsewhere; now it's not.

Essentially...imagine there's a pool of 99 energy. 33-66 energy is needed for securing our future. 33 energy is needed for the current friends and spaces. 33-66 energy is required for the spaces we are no longer in. A year and a half ago, we were spending 0 energy on securing the future, leaving that 99 energy all for the friends and spaces.

​But if the friends and spaces we no longer have were to suddenly re-enter our lives right now...there would be a 33 - 66 energy deficit. We don't have the time/energy to handle the additional life responsibilities of securing our future (absent from last year), plus our current friends/spaces, IN ADDITION TO the friends/spaces we lost.

Which is why having lost those spaces is, while we are working on securing our future, a blessing; it allows us to have the energy we need to secure our future while not causing us to neglect our friends/spaces and still leave time for everything and everyone in our life right now.

...And since I believe we would be believed...

...That means I believe we would be welcomed back into at least some of the spaces we currently are not. Maybe not all! But at least SOME would welcome us back when they learn we're actually the victims and their actions were helping the perpetrators further harass us and drive us to the brink of killing ourselves repeatedly.

In that sense...in the here and now?

...It's actually better that they currently believe...well, whatever they believe.
Maybe they believe we're delusional--they believe we genuinely believe we've been harassed by problematic people, but they believe we're delusional and that we were problematic and the problematic people aren't problematic, essentially.

Maybe they believe we're problematic people--that we're actually just lying, and that we were never harassed, that we deserved everything which happened to us, that we aren't the victims but are perpetrators, that we know the problematic people aren't and are telling a lie.

​Maybe they believe it's somewhere between those two.

Maybe they believe the truth is more complex and that it's somewhere between what we have shared and what the problematic people have shared. That nobody is problematic, but believe the other 'side' to be more worth keeping in their space.

​Who knows what they believe. But whatever they believe, their belief is currently that I and kels are not worth associating with, are not worth having in their lives/spaces. For whatever their belief, the end result is the same. They don't want to be a part of our lives right now.

​And that's actually for the best...because if they believed that I was worth welcoming back into their life in any capacity...I'm not sure I'd be able to handle it right now.

Kels and I are struggling as-is to balance handling life and friends/spaces we still have.
Adding more people/spaces would lead to a greater struggle. I'd either end up neglecting life stuff or neglecting spaces/friends in ways I'm currently not.

​So...it's for the best for kels and I that they currently believe we're not worth having around, because we wouldn't be able to handle having them around despite efforts.

Kels and I are both chronic People Pleasers. We are both Empaths. We have the same habits/tendencies to devote all of our time/energy and then some to places we cherish and love, leaving us neglecting our personal lives. We want others to be happy. We want to help. We have that altruism, that love. We love people, we love spaces, we love communities, and give our heart and soul to them just out of that genuine love and support...

...So if someone wants to be in our lives...we let them be in our lives.

...And because every person/space in our lives takes time/energy, the more people who want us around...the more energy/time we spend on others, and the less we spend on ourselves.

​That's why I believe getting canceled was a blessing. It cut 90% of the people/spaces I was in, out of my life. That meant all of the time/energy spent on 90% of the people/spaces was suddenly freed up, to focus on me.

​And you know what...

...I trust in the universe, in my guides.

"All is as it should be."

Including those people currently being out of my life.

I genuinely believe that, down the line, when I have more stability in my life, that I will suddenly have the extra time/energy I once had--and when I have that extra time/energy back, I believe that's when the people who were once in my life but currently aren't, will begin to come back in.

That's why I feel like the truth will come out circa 2026 or sooner. I feel like kels and I will have successfully built a life together in that time. Gotten married, settled down, began a life. I feel like the problematic people being exposed as problematic will happen after kels and I have already rebuilt our lives, healed, and no longer are spending all our time/energy on just surviving.

When we are ready to accept more people into our lives, we will be allowed to, as it were. Friendships ended could be rekindled, should they so choose, because kels and I could handle it on our end and they would be willing to try on their end.

That is what I feel, deep down, at least.

So long as I am doing my part, but don't push myself too hard.

​Of course...all that said...

...If any of the people who aren't in my life read this blog...

...Please don't think it means you shouldn't try to become a part of my life.

"All is as it should be" applies to YOU as well!

If you are reading this blog...then trust there is a good reason for you to have read this blog.

If you are reading this blog, then the chances are the reason WHY you are reading it is BECAUSE you are ready to have me be a part of your life, and vice-versa.

Don't think that I won't have the time/energy for you.
Don't think that the time isn't right.
Don't think that you need to wait.
Don't think that you would be unwelcome.
Don't think that you would be rejected. (I will happily accept you.)
Don't think that me accepting you will cause me to overextend.
Don't think that you will be the straw to break my camel's back and cause me to overexert myself.

No.

If you are reading this blog, and if there is any interest in starting or rekindling a relationship with me--beit associate or friendship--then trust you were led here because it is your guides and the universe's way of telling you that you are in the right place and the right time to do exactly what you desire.

You read, or at least skimmed, this blog. You cared enough to spend the time/energy on it. You wanted to see some part of my life, at least in some small part. And if you did that...then you SHOULD be in my life, and I'll tell you why by letting you in on a little secret:

Everyone currently in my life? Once hadn't heard me out. Everyone who is currently in my life, once had a time when they hadn't listened to me, hadn't accepted me, hadn't told me they were welcome. There was a time when they hadn't done that...but once they did? They became, or remained, a part of my life, with a bond deepened by that trust, that reciprocation.

Your past actions don't matter.

Your fears about the change in life/circumstances don't matter.

Your worries of me being better off without you are exactly that. Anxieties, born of regrets and doubts.

But trust me. If you read this? You are worthy of being my friend, and if you want to be my friend, you can and SHOULD pursue it. It's the right thing for you to do, in the moment. And it will be a regret if you don't. I'm a catch. I'm growing into my greatest self yet. My journey has continued, and I'm even better to know now than I was a year and a half ago. You can watch me grow at any time, but I would love to have you here.

You just gotta have a little faith, that you're not going to weigh me down, that you're not going to be a problem, and that you will be welcomed and accepted. You are where you belong. And given the chance...I will love you. And that will not be a bad thing, because it will be the least you deserve. <3