Derpy waddles in, pushing a stack of Disney vhs tapes with a small duffel bag stuffed with donuts, cookies, and coffee beans perched on top. "Me too! I wanna go too!"

You know, I understand the motivation behind changing the lyrics of Savages, but the whole point is to show how bad it is to think like that, so making it more tame kinda messes with the intended impact.

Okay... so...

I wasn't sure if I should make this its own topic,
But I don't want to seem dramatic..??

If anyone wants to, I can make it its own topic if anyone wanted to discuss anything that is similar that has happened to them also, OR anyone can feel free to DM me about this because I feel strongly about this sort of shit and I HATE that this happens!

**TRIGGER WARNING**
tw; abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, etc
Please take caution!

Okay so...
I recently joined a discord server for survivors of abuse and trauma. I was invited by a close friend who noticed I was struggling a lot with abuse at the hands of me on-off boyfriend and he found this server and suggested I try it out.

So, I did that. And things seemed to go pretty well. I felt like I finally found a place where I could talk about what happens/ed to me and I would get encouragement and no judgement for the choices I make/made. Right? Sounds great?

BUT. This random man decided to DM me (I have screenshots and proof of all this shit!) and he said something to the power of, "hey there, talk to me, tell me what's going on". I didn't know who he was, but I did a search and learned that he was from the survivors server. So I asked, "hello, are you from the survivors server?" and he was like, "yes, tell me what is going on, I'll listen". So I shared how I was feeling, yada yada...

***Bear in mind, this guy turned out to be AN ADMIN of this server!

So I told him how I was feeling, that I was feeling terrible because I felt like I can never find another man who would love me like my boyfriend. And this man said, "Show me a picture of yourself"... and me, was like, "um.. ??? what?" But I sent a selfie and he was like, "you're cute, you shouldn't have a problem finding a new man" !!!! WHAT?! And then I told him, "I don't feel unattractive, I feel this way because my boyfriend tells me that I won't find any man who would love me like he does." and this disgusting man said, "You should post your picture on twitter and you'll see how many men will flock to you!" WHAT. THE. FUCK!!!! That's NOT something you tell a woman who has been objectified and assaulted! Telling a girl who feels objectified that she will attract guys because she is pretty is doing the EXACT same shit that the assholes who hurt her have done?!?! HOW THE FUCK DID THIS GUY GET TO BE AN ADMIN OF AN ABUSE SUPPORT SERVER?!

So I told him, "I feel fine about my outer beauty. That's not the issue"...

So me, being the stupid and naive person I am, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I kept telling him about how my boyfriend makes me feel... and this man basically told me that I should move in with him because he and his "friends" would "protect" me. Like, I don't fucking know you, you asshat! How the fuck are you going to talk to a woman you've only just met and tell her that she should move across the goddamn country to live with you because you want to 'help' her??? SERIOUSLY!?!

So I declined, naturally.

I told him that I have family, but disowned my extended family because they are terrible people, and he says, "Oh, so you can disown your own family , but can't leave an abuser?" ... WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK!!! How fucking condescending! And insensitive AS FUCK! It's so clear that this man has never been in an abusive or even a really healthy loving relationship.... or maybe he doesn't understand that family can be shitty. I don't know what he is thinking, but even to say something like that is stupid!

And then a few days later... he starts telling me that I am ruining my boyfriend's life by allowing him to abuse me. He says that I am making my boyfriend hate himself. That if I "really loved him" that I would force him to get help, or I would find him another girl...? That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me and I lost my shit! I told him, like I told him before, I DON'T NEED A HERO. I DON'T NEED A SAVIOR!

So I complained about this on another server, this one actually has staff and mods that care about their members... Turns out, one person in the good server was actually a mod in the shitty one. So I told them what happened and they were immediately like, "oh no, that's horrible, am so sorry this happened! Please tell me who said these things to you" So I sent them my screen shots (Which I am willing to share with anyone else who might want to see) and they replied after seeing my screenshots and said...

"Oh... yeah. This guy was just trying to be helpful and nice. He can come off as an asshole sometimes, but thats just who he is"

It's obvious that this poor mod can't do anything about the situation because they are just a mod, and this creep is an admin. He should NOT be an admin if he feels like he can give unsolicited advice to women who NEVER asked for it. And the mod was like, "he was just trying to help", "he's not wrong in saying your bf needs help"

That's NOT the issue. The issue is that I DID NOT ask him for his opinion, I DID NOT ask him for his judgement. He took it upon his own self to go into my DMs, calling me "love" and "hun" and then having the GALL to tell me that I should move in with him because he'll "protect" me. This is all sorts of FUCKED UP and this shit needs to stop!!

He's an admin, so he's the boss, I get it. But I hope to X'hal that this doesn't happen to any other impressionable and desperate victims. He feels like a predator to me. He has the mods all quiet because he's an admin, and everyone excuses that behavior. It's so obvious that he has never been in an abusive relationship with someone he really loves. And I wasn't going to mention it because I don't know how age, but I know he is an adult and his "girlfriend" is a minor. (She's 16) I'm hoping that he is 18, because any older than that.... He's a fucking creep.

Sorry I went off on a tangent like this,
But this kind os shit needs to stop! People shouldn't abuse their power like this.

@ Coda: I agree.
@ Ava: I recently tried a group therapy thing for trauma victims. It wasn't ANYthing like that! 8C In fact it was all women, and nobody was rushing to find out what's eating you or asking you to talk with them either. >.>; Maybe I know why now...I'm sorry that happened to you Ava. <n> It's really upsetting and likewise kind of sketchy sounding to me. <:/ I hope you find a better more professional and respectful person to talk to in another place. Being in a controlling, abusive, shitty relationship is not ideal, but it isn't easy to get out of either...

Actual shout: <n< Some crazy old dude was talking me to death at work today that I was screaming internally for about a good 3 minutes. It's awful because he wasn't even mean or rude, he was just going off about how he made movies with Elvis and Muhammad Ali and was a retired boxer, and that God is "The Triangle". 8{ Then he compliments me for just telling him about senior discounts, saying I should be employee of the month and do commercials for Michaels because I remind him of the boxing girls he used to train that were small but strong...like,
dude. ;n; Just please buy the fake flowers in your hand, take it up with the cashier, and let me go back to NOT talking to people I can't ever relate to! 8'( I can't stand around and have a conversation I never wanted in the first plaaace!! <x'( Where do these people come from???? Whose batty uncle is this???

You know what happened... ?

I vented to this mod about what I was experiencing, how I felt.
And you know what? This person actually got this admin removed from the server somehow!
They are gone!

I'm... I'm flabbergasted!
But at the same time, I am incredibly relieved!

I am relieved because for the first time, someone heard my complaints and did something about it! For the first time, I didn't just have to sit back and "deal" because of someone abusing their power! For the first time, I've been HEARD.

X'hal, like... I feel... I feel so relieved! I can't even put it into words how I am feeling right now..
But I know that I am glad that this man will not harm or harass any other women. And hopefully this server will thrive with staff who actually care about their members' wellbeing.



@Merskelly
I think you're brave to work in retail! Talking to people and making small talk is super hard. It's definitely a skill that is built up over time, (at least in my opinion O_O ) Do you enjoy Michaels? I used to really want to work with artsy, creative things like at Joann's or Barnes & Noble. ;-;

I have been considering going to a group therapy for survivors after the lockdown ends. I'm likely going to be placed into a schizophrenia group therapy because I can't really afford to see my 1 - 1 therapist anymore, and the only "cheap" or free CBT groups in the area are group therapies. :( I have been in some group therapies for schizophrenia before and they were great, but I was too prideful and I didn't want to be associated with schizophrenia groups. But I've grown since then, and I think I'm ready to allow myself to be helped.

<3

Are you staying safe?

yeah, no, that man absolutely reeks of predator.

on a separate, server-based note, i've set up a discord server for Don't Starve with separate adult and minor spaces. there's also a space where the both of them can talk.

i'm only in the minor spaces for the purposes of moderation and have them muted, since i'm eighteen.

How's your new server coming along, Voidbarker?

My shout!:
So, this disgusting admin who said these shitty things to me was banned on accounts of pedophila... Unfortunately, it has sewn discord between the members in the server. I had left immediately after reporting this creepy man, and even though I am very glad that he was kicked off the server, especially due to the nature of the server, I feel bad that there's been drama and that the situation has gotten more and more apparent since I reported this behavior...

I know I did the right thing. A predator like that should NEVER be allowed to be an admin for a server with sexual assault/abuse survivors, or survivors of any trauma for that matter.

But I guess it has brought up many negative feelings and hard conversations for the staff. But I hope that this only improves the server and makes it a better, safer place for survivors.

Online classes are weirding me out and my mind is snowbound in my thesis and I'm also trying to sew and my body is screaming at me to continue doing yoga because I'm not used to being so sedentary and stuck-

date for the phone call to try and confirm my identity with the documents has been moved over to monday.

sighs. i'm guessing they want to get it done quicker, which will be a lot less stress on both me and the workers. i don't like phone calls much.

I've never worked this hard in my LIFE! @~☆; Thank goodness for caffeine and breaks!

argh! this lady was making bouquets and stuff for a wedding (i think she said it was her daughter's wedding) as i found out later from one of my co-workers (who was my younger daughter in this case!) she'd said that she was laying out all the flowers on the "back counter" (the framing counter) to see how they all looked, but left the ones back there she didn't want... hey, at least she'd told someone they were there, right?

so she comes up to my register and i ring everything in - it's like $120 or something - and she stands there, shakes her head, and says "this is a bad idea." i tell her no, it's not, she can return things if she ends up not using them. she repeats it's a bad idea, they says "i'm sorry" and then leaves! i have to void out the transaction. really? you take all that time for me to ring you up, and then you decide nah? and it's 10 minutes until closing too!! gah!

I hate when people do stuff like that!

We used to get one woman in every few months to return over $100 of floral stuff every few months. Like she would come in, buy a cart full of flowers, then return all of them a couple months later.
We suspect she was decorating with them, but leaving the tags on so she could bring them back.
But she would always come in like 10 minutes before we closed so we were always late closing up because that much floral can take forever to return because our machines are slow and we couldn't just hit "select all" in case there was other stuff on the receipt that she wasn't returning or she had kept some stuff.

oh yes, floral returns are totally a pain in the you-know-where.

I have made an important discovery today.

The drink cooler at work keeps the water at the perfect temperature so that if I smack the bottom of the water bottle against the heel of my palm, it'll form ice crystals in the water (but not go full slushie). Refreshing!

worrying about the future.

and a friend.

not sure what to do.

Wooo! Playing with resin! Well....experimenting actually.

On Disney+ they altered a scene in Lilo & Stitch when Lilo originally hides in the dryer, but now they changed it to a crate with a pizza box instead, so that kids don't get ideas of hiding in dryers as it could be potentially dangerous?
It's not that big of a deal, honestly. The scene only lasts like 10 seconds lmao.

I don't have Disney+ yet,
I own pretty much all the classics on DVD or blu-ray by now. I'm not sure if it's worth spending money each month only to see one or two new movies or remakes. :/

Everyone says Hamilton is good.
But I'm on a limited income, so I can't spend loads of money for a monthly subscription just to watch ONE movie. :/

Do you guys think it's worth it?
I am definitely going to get it when the new Loki show comes out. Or even the animated What If? show.

there's specific sites that have disney movies on them.

ngl, the streaming industry is getting rammed into the ground because all the big monopolies want their own platforms for extra money and profit.

by the way, if you're visiting those sites, make sure to have an adblocker and a VPN, as well as a half decent antivirus. ESET's free version should be good enough, and Malwarebytes is tolerable.

If you like some of the old Disney shows, I think it's worth it. A lot of them are on there already.

If I hadn't run out of swatch sticks again, I probably would have finished my nail polish swatches today. XP

I'm done with today. /T_T\
So tired.
Wanna write.
Wanna play.
Need to do intro homework for tomorrow morning.
Why oh why
did my body
wake me up
at 4 in the morning for??? ;_;
Rip me...

did math to see if I could drop/quit 90% of my museum job. The simple answer is not yet.

The complicated answer is: I would theoretically be able to do it once I drop all/most of my credit card debt, but my budget would be very tight (as in my job at Joann would only cover my full rent each month if I were able to work at least 5 more hours per week) unless I picked up another small income source like a highly successful Etsy shop or another very part time job (10 hours per week or so) or teaching loom knitting and/or chainmaille jewelry classes perhaps (which I actually want to do) so at least until I could figure out something else, my budget would be kind of how it was when I first got my job at Joann and wasn't working very much where both jobs paychecks were combined to make rent and groceries consisted primarily of ramen and frozen veggies. But it would almost be possible right now if it wasn't for covid making things complicated and decreasing the hours I get to work the desk.

._. Currently writing a new beginning for my OTP...it's sad. I'm sad. But it sweet. ;_; so sweet. <3 My heart!
It needs work tho. But it's already 28 pages long. TT_TT I need to wrap it up for academic's sake.

mmmmmmm.

brief rape m?

Windows Defender is entirely sufficient as an antivirus. It's got detection rates comparable to almost all competitors, and it does so with less overhead slowing your system down.

it doesn't catch everything, though, hence the recommendations for those edge cases.

mind you, it works well enough and, if you're on windows 10, has updated virus definitions.

Kinda want to haul ass and make a cute dress tonight with some Starry Night themed fabric since I'm getting roped into helping out with the art auction tomorrow, but idk. I'm not sure if I'll have the patience to get it done. Plus for the actual auction helping, I'll probably need to be sticking to black or dark cors anyway if I'll be helping on camera (which I'm hoping I'm not), so I'd need to bring a change of clothes anyway. XP
Would it be worth it?

Also want to try to get some artwork inspired nail arts done too...

Derpy waddles in, proudly holding up a couple photos.
"I caught a shark and a ceawocanf!"

https://i.postimg.cc/4nkcJLN7/20200831-212139.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/ZY9D5W54/20200901-080030.jpg

Ohman now I wanna go play Wild World again. ;-; Buuut my villagers are probly mad at me for not checking in.

Also when did it become September?!

Derpy gently pats your ankle. "Go pway! Your viwagers miss you!"

((Also, Derpy is totally a fishing pro. Our museum is only missing 6 fish, and they're not in season until November & December.))

BLAAAAAAAAH. So tired. Too much work to do, went several days without my medication because the pharmacy was out of stock, my wife has been out of town for two weeks, and my car tags are three months expired because of COVID-19 and a snafu with my tax assessment (I paid it but the DMV thinks I haven't).

"Doesn't catch everything" perhaps, but still catches the vast majority, and it catches nearly all of the stuff that's in active circulation. You absolutely don't want to turn off Windows Defender in exchange for some other monitoring system, and you don't want to run two monitoring systems at the same time -- that can in some circumstances CAUSE more problems than it prevents. If you want to have another virus tool hanging around, use it for on-demand full scans only.

yep yep.

the videos where two antiviruses catch each other, while hilarious, can have a lot of ram usage involved.

also i think malwarebytes had a memory leak a while back.

other stuff, but the main thing i've had to learn is that i can't solve every problem, and that's okay. if i can make the bad days a little less bad, then that's good.

I don't know how even with a mask, strangers who see probably over a hundred faces a day still remember me and specific details. Like my weirdness oozes out too much despite trying to be invisible.

I wish more people would wear masks out in public. There's still people who aren't..... x(

I wish people wore masks over their FRICKIN' NOSES!! >8{
>X[ Brush your teeth and bite the bullet people! Your nose is the GATE of your respiratory system! And you're leaving it WIIIIIDE open!

i get this! i had a fun interaction with a customer over the weekend. so we're allowed to gently remind customers that the mask should cover their nose too.

me, pointing to my own (masked) nose: i think your mask slipped off your nose again
her: i'm trying to breath here
me: i read in a few places that studies have shown the virus enters in through your nose more than your mouth....
her: *shrugs and finishes the transaction*
me: *sighs*

CB<
Ohhh, I woulda been all,
"I donated half of my left lower lung, and I can breathe fine."
x'D

Ahhh! I wanna spend $250+ on a Halloween costume that literally no one will see because I work the museum that day and I doubt we'll have many/any visitors, but would still be really fun to wear....
>.>

hahahah! that's brilliant XD

oooh, what costume?
i think this year i might be a witch. we look like everyone else... XD