“Engagement”

I have one Proton email account that I use to sign up for various services, never for messaging anyone. I’ve never experienced an issue with it. I still have it. I have not been banned. I’ve never received a notice. Proton has never contacted me outside of promotional emails.

I’ll say it one more time: I have neither need nor desire to seek engagement or connection with anyone. Not through opposing statement, criticism, baiting, tricking or subterfuge, harassment, or intimidation/threat. I’m not clamoring for anyone’s attention.

To adopt Liana Kerzner’s, and friends, rhetoric, individuals who only see interpersonal conflicts with me as me needing something from them, engagement, approval, validation, or worse, satisfaction, show everyone how important they think they are to everyone else and how much that isn’t reality.

Here it is, low-bandwidth, sans thesaurus masturbation: Any engagement with you was the problem in the first place. I do not want more of it. I do not need more of it. Your engagement with me is toxic and dangerous.

I don’t want you to run interference, and I never did. I don’t want you to protect me, and I never did. I don’t want you to not tell the whole story, or mitigate anything, and I never did. I am not embarrassed by the truth, and I’m not afraid of society’s consequences.

Telling the whole story, would be far better, even if it was all lies, than this pantomime of virtuous victimhood. You aren’t protecting me, you aren’t saving me except in your own mind. Your actions betray the complete farce it is.

Every time you broadcast an allusion, indirect reference, or anecdote involving harassers and stalkers, an unnecessary category you proactively placed me in, you aren’t protecting or mitigating anything, but instead twisting the knife in a socially acceptable, virtuous way.

It is not virtuous. It is self-centered, not self-serving, and if it worked before (it didn’t) it will not work this time. I do not suffer this. You could say I have a knack for not doing so.

I make no pretense of this in my statements. As your victim, I’m not here to protect anyone, or at least, not anymore than they’ve protected me, if I so desired. I’d much rather be friendly with people in the truth, but dishonesty has a way of not making that possible.

I want nothing from you.

I want you to leave me alone as much as you’ve demanded I do, and my responses, though not bound to yours, match how much you’ve reciprocated in doing so.

I do not accept your judgment of what’s healthy, nor your lawyers judgments of my actions, nor your insistence I let it go, especially when you keep bringing it up by virtue of having labeled me a stalker.

Specificity, that thing you don’t do to protect tragic folk like us, would actually protect me far, far more. It was never about protection, at least not of those you keep bringing up over and over whenever you need to be ~specia… ahem inexplicable and unique.

It was never about doing right by me, by Maus, by the backers, by Mitchell, by Song, by anyone. It was about doing right by you and your husband, protecting everything from everyone who might need to know.

It’s always about protecting the things you don’t tell people, for whatever reason, that end up hurting them: who you and your husband are; what you and your husband do.

If you’d have told me, I would’ve believed you the first time, and not pursued friendship. It is you who needs something from people, not me. Maus and I never needed your money. We’re not in danger of going homeless, hungry, or going to jail, thankfully, and we never were.

We never needed your ideas, your project(s), your supposed influence, or your infamy. The idea that you, of all people, of all the things you know and observed, would ever think, or let anyone else think, that I needed your ideas tells me everything I ever needed to know. In fact, we didn’t care about your infamy, and that was it wasn’t it? That’s why we were real friends, or so I was led to infer.

Your kindness, and generosity; your patience and understanding; your being a good person to a fault so much so you’re not narcissistic enough, all came with a costly string attached we weren’t aware of, because you didn’t tell us the terms; the cost.

Your influence, your worldview, your advice made our relationship worse, not better, and you have negatively impacted our lives more than anyone else not related to me. Yes, more than Nathan. Yes, that’s on you. The cost was the last sixteen months.

The cost was you using your platform, and your identity, to wrest control away from me over my identity, my beliefs, my history, and even what I say.

The cost was my external narrative, how people perceive me, because somehow people see you as an expert both on your thoughts, feelings, experiences, motivations, and interpretations by virtue of only you being you, and, on every one of your critics’ thoughts, feelings, experiences, motivations, and interpretations. In my experience, of which I have a lot in your chosen niche, that only results from a dehumanizing campaign of stigma. It doesn’t matter what kind.

Strip individuals of their moral value, their identity as full conscious humans, and turn them, and every one of their actions, positive or negative, into bad people, and bad person territory, through aggressive victimhood-laden rhetoric reinforced at regular intervals—and it doesn’t matter if their actions qualify or not—and you get an advantageous result: a spoiled identity, you can now shape and control.

They can no longer stand, independently, for themselves, as they are themselves, for anyone’s consideration. They can only be interpreted by you.

You become the interpreter of every action, every expression, and even every interaction, not them, and, in the best interests of everyone and their safety, of course, you tell everyone what it all really means and why they should reject all considerations, and doubts.

Beyond that, they look to you for what to do, seeing as how you know the real danger now, and you tell them what to do: don’t engage, don’t read, don’t bother, don’t feel bad about it, don’t care. Just convince everyone you do, and you’ll be fine.

I can’t make it any clearer. This is textbook mental ninja dark psychology. I know this because I have the book Nathan used, or a copy of it, after discovering it one day by accident twenty years ago. And besides, it’s basic Social Predator 101 anyway, that and doing it out in the open as if it doesn’t really matter if it’s being done for real or not.

This is one of the things it tells you to do to consolidate group power, like a cult leader. Create the spoiled identity. Vilify, scapegoat, cast out. Exactly like a cult leader.

And that’s just it. I was angry for a long time. Angry that someone I fully believed was a close, intimate friend, that really understood my spirit and resonated with it, with me, someone who featured me on their show to help others, who thought I was brilliant (allegedly), who I thought knew how dangerous all this could be for vulnerable people, how abusive people with an agenda could be to us, to the point of getting us locked away and forgotten…

That someone like that would betray all of that just to save face for getting in over their head and being unable to finish a project. And you did. After seeing what was happening, which Maus only showed me much later, you were phoning it in. You’re not the only one with project management experience, no matter how stressful it was for me.

On that note, do not have your lawyer explain the disabled, neurodivergent, mental-health-struggling work experience to me again as if I had no idea. Are you shittin’ me? This isn’t Gen X, bullshit, it’s just classist, self-involved, condescending abuse.

Who the fuck do you people think you are? I know it was your personal crowning achievement, but, somebody failed to tell you that…

Stepping in front of a camera doesn’t make you an expert on the experiences of everyone around you, just an expert on framing them.

Seriously, BOSSFIGHT: Song of Sparklemuffin seemed like it was starting to be a classic case of, Oh no, I [Maus] gotta save this for the community, I better do all the work so it gets done because it has to be done…

But see, Maus already understood that, no, nothing has to be done, not like that, because he listens to me. This was not a lesson you were giving him an opportunity to learn in all your grace.

There is nothing there for us to learn from you in that regard. We already know. You just thought we didn’t because you don’t really know better.

Maus knows that he is not responsible for minimizing damage by making up for abusive people’s lack. So he didn’t like a consistent, rational person.

And this is what you decided to do.

THIS?

As I’ve been reminded from your fans, but not by them, of this, I remind everyone else: part of being an adult is learning to sit with the disappointment of your shortcomings and failings, taking ownership, and then doing better.

Things don’t work out. It’s life. Not one part of my life has worked out, mostly because of me. But not this.

This was you, Liana Kerzner, intentionally or not, taking the nearest, most vulnerable person, the partner of one of your closest friends (allegedly), someone who’s narrative you knew you could easily hijack, and tossing them to the wolves, hanging a dark cloud of bigotry and violence over him, forever (you hope) tarnishing his future chances, and offering a chance for other, more important, useful people like yourself to use it against him whenever he needed to be put back in his place.

YES YOU DID! That was you. Everyone will have the opportunity to see that was you now, and that could happen to them too, and they can finally, FINALLY, make an informed choice, and, in the process, know the truth about me you were too cowardly to tell.

And inevitably, that dark cloud you installed, that dark cloud everyone thinks they see, that storm that supposedly brews over me due to my self-loathing, my lack of looking inward, my avoidant rage, my self-imposed misery, that shoots lightning through my brain and onto everyone else?

Well, it proceeded. It proceeded for sixteen months. It was a dark cloud proceeding, and boy, did you make the biggest one for me yet. For me, because you whipped it up and put it there, not me.

It obscures my shadow crown. And so, it has to proceed. Only way to get rid of it.

You know, there’s being quirky, exotic, and different, and then there’s being Different. I wrote a whole thing On it. All about Being the other. When I was 18. For my friends. You could consider it a gauge, a barometer.

Only a certain kind of person thinks the entire thing is schizo-babbling nonsensical tripe. That the words don’t really mean anything. They mistake their ignorance and depravity for the ability to make it not mean anything, but it never blows away the dark cloud proceeding.

It’s hard to silence that kind of thing. It’s really difficult to eliminate or kill off that which no one can quite know, no matter how many witch doctors they consult, how many crystals they buy, how many times they pray, or how many times they curse others.

I don’t do any of that. Not because I’m an atheist, which I am, but because I don’t need to do any of that. I’ve never had to do any of that. All I need is what I am.

Bet’cha didn’t see that one comin’!

That’s how it goes, right?

People say that all the time, that all they need it themselves, but I always wonder if they know everything it means.

Heh. Listen to me; I sound like a narrator in a stupid play.

You can’t exploit the gnarled tree. It’s not useful to anyone or anything. It’s able to bask in the glory of not ever getting to the place most other trees go: as tools, as furnishings, as servants. All that’s left for others then, if anything, is its shade. Its darkness.

And that’s why I’m not that angry anymore.

But who wouldn’t have been? It’s asinine, and very abusive, to expect anyone confronted with their entire presence being overwritten by someone with something to lose otherwise, to do the work.

The work of what? Never bothering anyone? Never having any impact? Never existing so long as someone else can’t avoid caring?

That’s not the work. That’s a dysfunction people internalize because people who can’t bother to pay attention have told them it’s better to not bother paying attention, which causes you to have to rely on guilt to get by.

Not paying attention means you might get it wrong the first time, even though you shouldn’t have to, and so an apology is necessary. You flail around, hurting others, unintentionally, of course, and then show respect by saying sorry and learning.

That’s not respect. And you know this, Miss I don’t want sorry, I want better. You do know that applies to other people too, right? Quoth the raven, I guess.

That’s an excuse, a permission structure if you will, to hurt other people and get away with it, at least once.

The dark cloud doesn’t care. It didn’t care when it was put on me, nor did its creator, otherwise, why would it even be there, and so, as it proceeds back, it still doesn’t care. Probably should’ve thought of that.

That and the fact that I can’t even kill myself, you think cursing me with the magic words of misogyny, transphobia, and pedophile are gonna do it?

You don’t see me fail to put rings of salt around me because I’m an arrogant asshole. You don’t see it because I don’t need to do it.

I am the salt.

The Work™ is full actualization. Full adulthood and beyond. It’s never finished, and I’m still going.

But man, I gotta stop just fucking around in my head, because nobody ever sees what’s in there. You, the self-appointed mental health advocate, and people like you, make it even harder, because you know what’s in there.

And that’s just it. Again.

I’m not so angry now, no matter how much you write me as such. I’m not nearly so miserable and self-loathing, terrified and unable to deal with these overwhelming emotions as you pen, and which I never affirmed.

You couldn’t just live with my gratitude for your kindness.

And that’s because it’s very human, it’s very important, an exquisite sublimation, to be angry. To be everything.

You clawed at my relationship with your disappointment and resentment in yours, something I don’t need to confirm as if you extended me the benefit. shakes head This is apparently a new experience for you, or something, so I hope you’ll take advantage of it.

You redirected my husband from working with me, on my dreams, during a precious time where I was best able and ready to work on them.

And since then, like a banshee that will never know love, you’ve ridiculed and shamed me for asking him to do so; for asking my own fucking partner to be help me feel real, and seen, even after it had zero impact on your phoned in project.

And later, you insisted I filter my communications with him for you, and that I don’t show him my screen when you were talking to me, for your benefit, because boundaries of all things! Mitchell Jura’s therapist was right, this is undeniably controlling behavior. It ALL is! Thank Lucifur I am actually mature enough to not let you set the terms of my marriage. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

But you did, because of course you did. What else would you do?

I just don’t know my place do I?

I needed to be taught that huh? I needed to learn that lesson?

Everyone needs to learn how important The Plastics are, or else.

You’ve hijacked my online identity, my narrative, and my future prospects both in friends and opportunities, as well as my husband’s for sixteen months.

The friends part is the most cruel transgression, whether you intended it or not, because you know it isn’t a problem of personality, or fascination, but one of opportunity, one of getting past the fog.

And, given you were my closest friend by the end (because I have others Aileyn), or at least I felt that way, you know how important they are to me, even if I’m not effusive about much of anything emotional.

Unless… you misremember that one too?

When will it stop Liana?

…

But, what use is it, in the end, to be angry at a rock for being a rock?

That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be done. That the rock no longer exists, or isn’t in the way. That the rock isn’t to get wet when the dark cloud opens up and dumps everything held inside it for so long; everything you put there and hung over me as a sentence.

After all, water drips through stone.

Or, you might remember what I do with rocks whenever someone wants to argue that reality doesn’t exist. Or not, your memory is pretty shitty when it’s not something you can use against someone.

The nice thing about being human, instead of a rock, is that we’re granted a will. We can change what we are, what we do, and our existence.

But, we can’t do that for others any more than they can do it for us, and some of us just don’t want to have to deal with more dysfunction than we got.

And we’re not going to pretend we do just so the rest of you can feel better about yourselves.

No, this isn’t a “you can get better too” power-of-friendship after-school-special ending where I become the bigger person just because I’m not angry anymore. Please, for the love of all things real, leave your fandom tropes at the door, sit down, and listen.

Stop using your will to control others so that you can feel safe. Reality isn’t going to feel sorry for you, and you’ll only destroy yourself trying. For fuck’s sake, do The Work™ already!

In the meantime, stop narrating my life. You will never capture my interiority anyway, you are incapable, just like you were incapable of finishing the game at that time.

And that’s okay! Like your highly professional lawyer wrote to me (or maybe it was you…) it’s a fairly common experience. Sorry this seems to only have popped up now, weirdly, but, you’ll get over it.

I did!

But what’s not okay is grabbing the nearest person less fortunate than you and using him as a scapegoat.

That’s really not okay.

I don’t like that. It annoys me.

It annoys me a great deal.

If I were you, I would stop repeating falsehoods, stop letting others invent things in your safe moderated space, like entire conversations that didn’t happen, that you know are false, stop talking about your stalkers and harassers (you keep bringing them up in public broadcasts. WHY? That’s engagement, and connection as if you didn’t already know), stop involving others in your faux-feminist sexual power fantasies without their knowledge, in public no less.

You know how I feel about that; and what I do about that.

Stop fucking with other people’s lives and more importantly their mental health (you… are a peer counselor), and;

Stop fucking cursing people goddammit.

You deal with forces, you play by their rules.

That’s how it goes isn’t it?

Like you have a choice anyway. I wouldn’t want to be your friend right now because I know who they are. If you don’t look for it, you’ll find my shadow crown is back.

Stop protecting me. Stop feeling sorry for me.

I never wanted your fucking pity, I wanted your friendship you pathologically self-involved wacko.

Stop making shit up about how bad I am or criminal activities I’m doing (I’m not).

Stop ridiculing a caricature of me you’ve made up.

It’s annoying, and I don’t like being annoyed.

In unusual fashion, I must point out here that, in usual fashion, I’m being the King Of Understatement. I normally wouldn’t point that out, ’cause it’s a thing I do quite a bit, but my identity has been so overwritten that people won’t know that.

Instead, they’ll most likely believe, already filtering things through the woman-victimized-by-a-gross-man lens Liana provides, that I’m saying this was all a slight inconvenience that’s beneath me.

That’s not what I’m saying.

But I’m not going to change how I say it.

I’m not going to become something else because my abuser decided to replace what I am with a lie. That’s not how social correction, or, ahem correcting course, actually works.

Those are the same thing by the way, at least, the way Liana Kerzner tries to passive-aggressively bring them about.

The Good are the ones that are the norm: the ones that do what she says.

And so, with that, I will uncomfortably relate that the effects of her behavior are far more than annoying.

They’re dangerous to me, and to others.

What is annoying, is her false construction. That I’m enraged because she wouldn’t give me something. That I’ve become a crazy person because she cancelled a game I felt entitled to, despite not even being involved. That the empowered woman said, “No” and I couldn’t handle it.

That’s truly annoying. But, it’s just annoying. None of it is true, and none of it has caused (and listen up all of you)

The implosion.

Of my.

Entire.

Fucking.

World.

You.

Terminally.

Online.

Trolls.

To think, you could’a just cared.