You work to get over your anxiety and open up an askbox for your account to try and allow yourself a chance to socialize with others. Does anyone ever send anything in there? No.
You write up a post voicing your concerns about the growing racism issue with the "Amazing Digital Circus" fandom and express worry about fans taking things too far and trying to shoot down theatres once the "Last Act" film releases. Does anyone respond to that, agree with your concerns or try to reassure you that maybe you're just making a mountain out of a molehill? No.
You repost Mana's webcomic "Datamined" on your account to spread awareness of it since she didn't upload it on the tumblr side account she made dedicated to it, and that was just one of many thoughtless things you did that ended up ruining her webcomic to the point that she deleted said account, leading you to delete all of the reposts on your account out of acknowledgement that what you did was disgusting and wrong even if you gave her full credit in those posts. Does anyone hold you accountable for what you did and call you out for ruining her passion and her spirit and her life? No.
But you make ONE SHOWTIME POST BASED ON A PASSING THOUGHT!
Why am I even bothering? Why do I keep fooling myself into thinking anything I say would be of interest to others? I have nothing to offer, all I do is blab on and on about things nobody else cares about, make unfunny jokes and annoy everyone.
And if I'm not doing that, I'm spreading agitation shooting my mouth off over a worst case scenario I can't prove, and people rightfully know not to plug into it because it's just paranoia from someone who can never understand other people.
I need to stop lying to myself into thinking I can move on and be better. I can't ever be better, I just keep repeating the same mistakes with others over and over again. I keep hurting people, because of who I am.
I'm nothing special. I don't have the affluence to make positive changes in other peoples lives. I can't reassure anyone, or lift their spirits when they're down. I'm not strong enough to help them with their problems, or to find a way to calm down when they feel upset and lost. I can't offer anything that'd interest anyone else or that they would be curious into checking out themselves. I can't help make anyone's dreams come true. Because wanting to support others like that? Wanting to be a kind and supportive person? That's not being kind for the sake of being kind. Mana taught me that.
It wasn't right what I did to her. No amount of excuses or telling myself that "it's all in the past" or "I need to move on" will ever justify what I have done. I hurt her, and Kira, and their friends and fans, and so many people who over the years I considered my friends. I've always been thoughtless, inconsiderate, and yet for some reason I keep trying. Keep trying to set up a change for myself on Social Media when I always know how it's going to end. With me screwing up, and doing something unforgivable.
I can't keep running away and ignoring my sins forever. I need to be held accountable.
I've come to a revelation about "Datamined" and my feelings about it;
The recent posts I've been making about it were made out of shame and self-loathing for what I did. My biggest dream was to be someone who could help other people make their dreams come true, and when I saw what happened after I ruined Mana's Plushie Campaign it gave me the sense that I wasn't capable of doing so. That it was wrong for me to want to do that. That doing so actually hurts others instead of helps.
I chose to give up on my dreams since then. Believing that it was the right thing to do. That after how I've hurt Mana in this and many other ways, it was better for me to let her go and move on. She and "Datamined" never really left my mind however, all I was really doing was suppressing how I felt. And anytime I tried to change my mind about it or talk about it with anyone else, it ultimately ended with the same conclusion that I should just let go. Then after other things went wrong for me personally in other areas this issue just came bursting out.
I realize now that I don't want to let "Datamined" go, and I don't want to forget all of the good things I've gotten from Mana's content. I kept looking for a sign that it was okay for me to feel this way, some outward sign that it was okay for me to still like the content without feeling ashamed for doing so, without emotional baggage of the past weighing me down. But no-one else and nothing else is ever going to give me that validation. I need to set that peace of mind for myself.
I've always wanted to talk about "Datamined" and how it makes me feel, but I was afraid of doing so. I worried what would happen if Mana or her fan community saw me talking about it, after I publicly declared never to come back to her content again. That they would all hunt me down and hound me for it. But I've realized, she and a bunch of others have already blocked me. So they're likely not going to care if I did talk about it. There's no reason to make myself rigid and uptight for the sake of people who've already made it clear they don't care how I feel.
So I want to talk about "Datamined" on my account. Not obsessively or to the point where it takes up the majority of my account, but I want to share it with other people. I want to be able to make fan-content inspired by it and talk about the parts of the webcomic that speak to me, because I honestly believe that Mana made something really special.
And I want to go back to who I used to be before I ruined her Plushie Campaign and webcomic. I want to do what I can to support other content creators to the best of my ability, even if my approach may be over the top. I've been telling myself that it's wrong to want to be this way, that being kind to online content creators isn't being kind for the sake of being kind. But having that mindset just made me feel empty and miserable.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still not going to forgive myself for what I did to Mana and her plushie and her webcomic. I'll always be angry at myself for that. And I'm not going to just follow her again. She's already made it pretty clear that she never wants to see me again, I wish to respect her boundaries.
But I want to stop suppressing the positive feelings I got from her work just because of my guilt. I want to stop pretending that she "never meant anything" to me. I want to go back on my path of becoming an entrepreneur in the entertainment industry, with the goal of helping others make the entertainment works they want to make.
Mana gave me hope in this desire of mine, and for years I overthought how I was making her feel with my interactions and told myself it was wrong to view her in such a way. Even with all the criticisms I still have to myself for how those interactions went, I don't want to be ruled by fear and shame anymore.
Mana is my biggest source of inspiration. Now it's up to me to actually put that inspiration into practice.
So I wanted to type this out as an apology for the last post I made.
(I do want to let you know that on this post I get seriously personal and talk about some heavy topics, so reader discretion is heavily advised! Please don't push your emotional for my sake!)
When I made it I was in an incredibly negative headspace. For months I've been carrying guilt and shame for what I did to Mana and "Datamined". I've been trying to distract myself all this time, focusing on other things, but that had always been at the back of my mind. Then a bunch of incidents being topped by another stupid, insensitive thing I did elsewhere just caused it all to bubble out.
When I saw that only my one Showtime post that was just a silly observation was getting a lot of activity when everything else was ignored, I snapped. I was expressing my worries about the racism issue in the "Amazing Digital Circus" fandom and how that could potentially affect "The Last Act". I pushed through the anxiety I felt opening up my askbox and even publicly announcing it so that I could try to shift my focus away to talk about other topics. And yet this one dumb comment I made is what gets all the attention?
That's not an excuse for my behavior though. I was ingrateful and let my emotions get the better of me, and as such I let myself flagrantly express agitation, the last thing I ever want to do. I recognize my mistake, and fully-own and apologize for that.
Awhile after what I did to Mana I thought that maybe I could try being a bit more active here on tumblr, with the intention of starting over. Opening the askbox was part of that. But I got nervous, and stalled doing so for months. Then when I finally went ahead and did it, just as a way to calm down after ranting about the "Amazing Digital Circus" fandom...no response. It made me feel insignificant. Like I wasn't interesting enough for others to want to talk to, like I had nothing meaningful to give other people. These were just feelings exemplified from other interactions I've had on Social Media over the years.
Now I'm going to talk about something that's hard to mention; When I made that post, I wrote it with the intent of it being the last post I made before taking my life. The only reason I'm confessing to this now is because I don't know if anyone caught onto those implications, but if anyone did I didn't want to leave any implications that I was doing the asshole thing of lying about it to fish for sympathy and followers. No, I made that post fully intending to end myself. I couldn't go through with it, and I'm not going to now...yet at the same time, a part of me wishes that I did.
I just can't forgive myself for what I did to "Datamined". For all these past months I've been enraged with myself for what I did to Mana, dealing with these turbulent feelings all this time. I've had the desire to punish myself because of these feelings, so I was planning my end for a long time. Part of that is because I still love "Datamined", I still love Mana and her work, and I want to share it with other people. But after what I did, it feels wrong to want that.
In trying to share "Datamined" with others, I made a fanmade Archive Masterpost and reposted it on my account. I promoted her plushie campaign constantly, and then tried to fully-fund it myself when I saw that it was making no progress. All this, on top of a bunch of other over-dramatic things I did for her as a fan, freaked her out and destroyed her spirit. And after she blocked me on Twitter for what I did, confirming to me that she hates me and never wants to see me again, I now fear what would happen if I publicly admitted I still love "Datamined".
I'm scared that if I try to discuss it or make any fan-content for it, she and her friends and fans will get angry at me for it. Because I've already crossed the line with her, and I don't want to make it worse. But I SO BADLY want to share "Datamined" and talk about it with other people. I want to talk about the characters, how much work Mana put into it, create superfluous headcannons and AUs and such for it just for fun. I would love if me sharing it with others would peak anyone else's interest in it so that they can check it out for themselves. But because I've alienated Mana's entire community, I'm scared of what could happen if they found out I was drawing attention to her work. What should be recognized as her work and hers alone.
I can't talk about Mana with anyone. Everytime I bring her up with my friends and family, it always ends at the same point that I should let her go and move on. And look, I recognize that that is solid advice and see why it would be suggested to me. But I've tried "moving on" from her for years, and it never worked. I've always thought about it, everyday. And it's not just some hopeless crush and me being a lovesick puppy, it's much, much deeper than that.
Mana inspires me heavily. She's like the type of woman I've always wanted to be; Creative, strong-willed, and inspiring to a lot of people. As someone who used to dream about being an entertainment entrepreneur, Mana was someone who gave me a sense of hope. Because I was questioning my dream at the time, in her I still saw myself and the passion I had and struggles I went through. So I figured even if I can't make my dream come true, I should at least put in the effort to help out someone like me. That's why I decided to support her.
But I'm not Mana. I never was, and I'll never be like her. I'm not influential enough to lead a following like Mana does, and even when I do bring people together it's always because I did something wrong. That's why I've been having these feelings of making myself pay after what I did to Mana. Why should I try to move on after I've made her suffer? Why should I make my dream come true after I ruined hers? Why do I deserve a happily ever after when I shoved her into the mud.
And again, I get why everyone tells me to forget her and move on but...I can't. And I don't want to. I don't want to forget all of the positive things I got from my experience with Mana. I don't want to forget how her work made me feel. I don't want to forget "Datamined". Even if tainted with bad memories, I don't want to toss away the good memories from it all too.
But I have to accept reality. I ruined Mana's life, I destroyed "Datamined", she hates me and has every right too. I got blocked by her and I fully deserve it. I want to be respectful of her boundaries and not bother her anymore. But I also want to talk about and share her webcomic with everyone, and the fact that I still feel this way is why I feel like the only way Mana can be truly happy is if I am gone for good period, not just from her accounts.
I know I shouldn't be talking about any of this to a bunch of strangers on a Social Media Website. I know that doing so is a terrible idea.
But I just...I just don't know what to do anymore.
