So I don't really come on here that often already, I'm bad about posting to Newgrounds and for that, I apologize. One of the bigger reasons I've been away for a while is because my dad passed away last month. I've been dealing with the aftermath of all that by distracting myself with work and creative stuff. If I do nothing, I dwell on things too much.

That's basically the shortest summation I can give. I'm just not in the holiday spirit because of it. It hasn't felt like Christmas all month.

I don't really have much to ask, other than we do have a gofundme for the funeral expenses. I really don't ask for charity otherwise, I just feel awful about asking.

Dad's gofundme

I hope you guys have a nice Christmas weekend.

It all came in a bit late but I've finally wrapped up Sextober for this year! I'm glad I was able to get this one out, given that I got horribly sick most of this month.

I've also made sure to link all the previous/next day links correctly, please let me know if there's any that are wrong or missing!

Start from the beginning here!

So contrary to what people might believe, I don't really like wasting my time with clapping back at hate comments, from here or any other site. They're intended to be nasty and crafted to get a rise out of me, and it's just not worth my time to rant about every mean comment I get. However, this is one where I have to waste time (and brain cells) to discuss because this person gave me quite a bit to work with. I also have to defend myself over something pretty ridiculous, so...there's that.

This comment was left under my most recent drawing of Eros and Psyche:

Uh...huh...okay, there's a lot goin' on here. Now, yes, I did say this in the caption:

So I don't 100% follow the myth of the Golden Ass when it comes to Eros and Psyche, but I don't really care? If you cry "but the canon waaah" when it comes to GREEK MYTHOLOGY, I respectfully ask you to go to hell. I don't give a shit about an already inconsistent and hard-to-follow canon when I can make Psyche a dommy mommy milf. Fuck you. Respectfully ❤️

I put fucking whatever in my captions because honestly? Who the fuck on Newgrounds is reading captions besides This Fucking Guy? I have a theory that if I have a long caption, it's going to get rated poorly to oblivion just because I like using long captions. It's just funny to me that people get enraged over having to read on the Internet, which is why I do it. Also...It's pretty easy to see I'm FUCKING JOKING in this caption. I have an edgelord sense of humor. I still laugh at YTPs made in 2009. But I'm literally ending it off with a heart emoji! I don't use emojis when I'm serious! It's not rocket science to figure this out, on god.

I don't bash other people if they want to follow Greek Mythology to a T, actually (Which is fairly hard to do considering the "canon" is very inconsistent due to its age and the fact so many people were writing it without communicating with each other, they all tended to disagree, etc.). But, other people have bashed and continue to bash me for what changes I make. Like this guy. Literally the second after his overreaction to my somewhat edgy paragraph, he goes "Um....Psyche doesn't have a dick :/ what the fuck." "You do you" is also one of the most passive-aggressive phrases that exists. A certain abusive so-and-so said that to me quite a bit! It's quite rude, at least, in my humblest of opinions. Psyche can be whatever I want her to be because she's a fictional character. So can Eros. Ever think of that, genius?

Gotta love also how he says I'm giving people constructive criticism? I...am not...obviously, and I never said I was. I have no idea what other people do with Greek god public domain characters, nor do I fucking care. And...yet again, immediately after, he goes and gives me critique I wasn't asking for. Is this the best drawing of Eros and Psyche I've ever done? No, hell no. It was rushed to meet my deadlines for Sextober, I went into it without a plan, and I'll probably be redrawing something similar to it in the future. Hell, when have I ever even positioned myself as The Best Artist To Ever Grace The Planet? Besides never? I'm not really that good of an artist and I don't really have a high opinion of myself, so it's just odd that this guy seems to be drawing a conclusion out of his ass from a CLEARLY sarcastic caption.

Well, how can I "drop the attitude" when...it was a fucking joke? That you sorely missed? I dunno, dude. If anything, this is fueling me to have more of an attitude. Acting like you're my fuckin' father scolding me isn't gonna get me to go "oh no I'm so sowwy :'c" it's just gonna...remind me of my shitty father? It changes nothing when you act like this in my comments. It's a one-way ticket to getting yourself blocked, is all.

I know my sense of humor, content, personality, etc. can be too much for some people. I put a lot of people off, but that's just...not really my problem. I don't care about pleasing anyone or even at this point being uwu positive niceboi all the time. I'm just fully embracing the villain arc of my persona at this point. I'm also playing up a character, especially in videos, which I think people tend to forget. I assure you I am much more normal and tolerable in real life. I am also more tolerant of people that show respect to me first, hmm! Curious...

If you are gonna comment something critical or hateful on my pieces, at least be funnier than this guy? Maybe don't remind people of how their parents are abusive? Just maybe, just a thought.

I have blocked this user cause I just don't wanna entertain this weirdo anymore. I've got a lot going on in my real-world, personal life that needs to be tended to (which, by the way, this past month has had me locked in Purgatory, I should recap that too some time). I am...telling him to touch grass in other words.

So in conclusion, I guess, whatever you're doing is better than this guy trying to waggle his finger at me for saying naughty words online. It's 5 in the morning, 'tis my bedtime. Goodnight. Also, if you get anal about long descriptions on Newgrounds, you're the weakest link. Respectfully ❤️

That was a relief to say.

Already? It doesn't even feel that long, time really does fly by!

I'm happy to have found a place on here; I was originally inspired by the infamous Tumblr NSFW content ban to post on here and, well, I haven't left yet

I'm glad that Newgrounds has survived this long, other sites I'm on can't exactly say the same. For instance, DeviantArt is a hollowed-out shell of what it used to be because of the shitty site changes, poor moderation, and just never listening to its userbase. I'm glad to have at least one space left to post my uncensored work, it just seems those are dwindling in recent times :'D

Very pleased to still be here and have other people I can share the stuff I enjoy with!

Yeah I know, the title isn't the most clever nor my best, but I think it's the best descriptor of what I'm gonna talk about tonight.

I don't think I've really made it that much of a secret as everything about me is almost always going to become public knowledge, but I am a LaVeyan Satanist. If that's your first time learning this, welcome. I won't go into huge detail about what that is, The Church of Satan is carrying that torch for me just fine, but in a nutshell, LaVeyan Satanism is an atheistic religion (though religion is used very loosely, I'd call it more an anti-religion than anything) that uses the figure of Satan as a symbol of the core values of the practitioners. I follow the Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth, the Nine Tenets of Satanism, and though I don't have the Satanic Bible, I'll purchase it in the future as it's a $10.99 paperback. Might even get the sick CoS membership card later on in life as well.

That's a very cursory explanation of what Satanism is and I'd be more than happy to provide more information, but that's not the focus of what I'm writing about now. I'm talking about what I can only call Satan-shaming. This is a goofy term I coined for what I've been experiencing from not only ill-informed strangers, but from my closest friends as well. In essence, Satan-shaming is a phenomenon that occurs when I bring up Satanism in any context, and without fail, someone I know will either make a quip or an extensive rant about how LaVeyan Satanism is nothing but edgy garbage.

While I understand that yes, there are other Satanists that - I'm sure - go out of their way to harass religious people and they might be reeling from that, I'm a bit at a loss as to why I get thrown under the bus so hard. I never have time to explain why I chose this religion, why I like the rules and tenets, I just get bombarded with the sentiment that Satanism is edgy bullshit.

Like I said before, it's one thing to hear this from strangers who are just, to put it bluntly, dumber than a box of tacks, but it's a total other thing to hear Satanism is the religion of those with a low IQ from people I consider friends. I'm going to get a bit personal here and fill you in on some backstory about me and why I chose to follow LaVey's teachings. I've gone into this before; my parents, especially my mother, are abusive people. They are also very hardcore conservative evangelical Christians. To condense the two decades I've been alive, I became jaded and distant from Christianity, not only because of the bigotry and abuse I faced from my parents, but because I was taking issue with the Bible and Abrahamic religion in general. If you've been raised Christian or even religious, you're gonna know what I'm talking about when I say that I wasn't allowed to question anything. I wasn't allowed to have philosophical debates (which is something I actually like to do), I was just supposed to believe in something without question and blindly believe in something that I couldn't see. It got worse when I was institutionalized in 2017 and I peaked in my "I'm so sick and fucking tired of hearing 'just pray!' when I literally have a mental disorder that won't go away because of sky daddy" beliefs. I was already on the road to being an atheist already because I just couldn't agree with the religion in good faith (no pun intended)...and then LaVeyan Satanism shows up.

I had been off-and-on again with Satanism up until, I'd say...2018? I had already been distancing myself from Christianity, I stopped being forced to go to church (thank..Satan?) and when I re-read the Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth, I cemented that this was going to be the set of beliefs I wanted to maintain for my life going forward. It was a very personal decision and a very cathartic one. I felt like I was really discovering myself and I was finally able to choose something to follow for myself, as opposed to being forced into a belief that was, in my eyes, a shield and fall-back for discriminating against others and prejudice against marginalized people.

When I get told my beliefs are just edgy poser shit, I take it more personally than I honestly should. It's something that really gets to me considering how close I want to follow these rules and tenets, and I really hate that even my friends want to shit on me for it. I know it's probably that I'm just too sensitive about something that doesn't matter, but I really do wish my friends would stop assuming shit about something that's very personal and dear to me in my journey as a person. I really wish they'd sit down and just talk with me about what I believe and why instead of insulting my intelligence or laughing at me. It's starting to wear me down and honestly? It really hurts.

Lmao as a joke I wanted to see if you could rate your own pieces so I hit 5 star on one of mine and I didn’t realize it at first but that was the one vote it needed to show the rating

Turns out y’all thought it was middling

Hey guys, it would mean a lot if you watched this video real quick, it regards my YouTube channel and it's a very important announcement. Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH5NYvhmi_M

Yeah it's gonna get really heavy, and it's really long

So I'm having a rough time, though I'm trying to deal with it the best I can. The last thing I want is to sink any lower and let everything else in my life slip.

I've been experiencing what I call the snowball effect, maybe people with Bipolar disorder or mental illness know what I'm talking about, but because of a continuous series of negative events in my life, it's bogged down my mental state and it's making me regress into some old habits. One of these events is a current and ongoing situation that I'm not really at liberty to talk about, out of respect for others involved and just for my own sake too, and I probably won't mention anything about it for another week or so. Just know that it's really majorly affecting me and people I'm close to. There's been some other things that have been compounding on each other that I can talk about though, one of those being when I got sick with the sinus and ear infection. I believe that the ear infection either hasn't gone away or wasn't cleared up with the medication I was prescribed. I think I may have built up antibodies to Amoxicillin because I get ear and sinus infections really frequently and I always get prescribed that. That, or something else is going on. I was thinking of getting an appointment to see an ENT (and a gastroenterologist too) but I don't think I can fit anything into my schedule before March when my insurance runs out. My family is switching to the insurance provided through my mom's employer and I technically won't be insured again until April.

I also haven't been able to see my therapist for several weeks now. I have tried to call every Monday with my work and school schedule availability to see what my therapist has open, but he will usually not have any openings when I'm available.  I'll likely not be able to fit into the spot he last left a message about for this Monday either. It might be obvious but I have to reiterate that my therapist is really important for me to have access to. There are things I've told my therapist that I haven't told my parents. My therapist knows about me being sexually assaulted, my parents don't because when it happened, they were wrapped up in news stories of women falsely accusing men of rape, and I didn't think they'd believe me. I've even been guilty of minimizing what happened by saying things like, "oh, well I wasn't raped, so it wasn't that bad," or, "he did back off after I pushed him off, even though it took a bit, so I can't claim it was assault." But I know how uncomfortable I was even in the moment and I remember how dirty and used I felt afterward. I know how apprehensive I felt when I had to sit in class not even a yard away from the guy who assaulted me. I remember how he pressured me over text after I went home to go further.

I don't know if I'll ever tell them. I don't see the person that assaulted me around anymore since I moved and I'm not even sure how I'd break that news to them. I felt so comforted being able to tell my therapist what I went through and I couldn't get that from my parents. I can't really tell anything to my parents in confidence because I'm constantly concerned that they'll not keep it private. My mom especially has a habit of gossiping about me to her friends and I have no sense of privacy or confidentiality with her, or my dad even.

That's also why I haven't let them know about what's on my mind. They've been out of town and I've been taking care of the dog and trying to take my mind off things, but it always comes back to what's eating me. Last night, I had an intense nightmare where I witnessed people that got shot and for whatever reason, I couldn't call 911. I got in the car with my dad and he berated and yelled at me and called me stupid for not knowing how to call 911. I've never once been thankful for my alarm going off in my life, but I am so glad it happened this morning. I don't remember my dreams often and they're often very strange and incoherent, but this one was so vivid and frightening that I can still remember it pretty well. I'm all torn up as I'm having dreams that stress me out now, the one thing I can usually count on to not terrorize me is becoming unsafe.

I tried to have a good day with my aunt and grandma, as I always try to make time for my aunt when she's visiting from California. Things went well until I was leaving the mall area and a pickup almost rammed me when I was about to cross an intersection. When I pulled up to the stoplight to turn left, he honked at me and when I looked over, he was screaming profanity at me. I tried to ignore him and just drove up to Hobby Lobby because I planned to go there. When I parked, who else but asshole pickup man pulls up when I'm getting out of my car. He yells at me that I needed to stop at the intersection, which I obviously did because I was stopped before him and I stopped as he was speeding into the intersection. I just ignored him and my face read pissed off but inside I was panic central. I went inside and immediately told one of my coworkers what happened and asked her to watch for the guy. I felt so unsafe and shaken up and I tried to blow off some steam by shopping there, but the feeling didn't leave til I was safe at home, car in the garage, home alarm system on, and a knife close by. I used to carry pepper spray when I worked at McDonald's but stopped when I didn't feel like I was in harm's way anymore. Now that I don't feel safe going to where I work (that is, a job I love) I need to carry that and maybe a switchblade again.

On top of everything, I have school and work stress going on that I'll have no matter what, and as it gets closer to midterms, there's more pressure to perform well in a concentration of a major that I don't even want to do anymore. I need time to talk to the professor I need to about switching my concentration but it's something that vexes me to think about, even though I know I'd be so much happier in the painting concentration than graphic design. At work, there's the overhanging audit that is forcing me and everyone else to be on our best behavior. Because of one of the medicines I take, Lithium, I get dehydrated very easily, and if I get dehydrated, my Lithium levels could spike to toxic levels and it could be fatal. Because of the audit, I can't keep my water bottle out of sight under the framing counter as it means points off. My only hope is to get a doctor's note to show to my managers that I literally need to have water on me at all times. There's just a lot of pressure at work when it comes to working in the framing department, one more thing to add to my stressor list.

The only thing that're keeping me going are my friends, mostly my best friend, Mil, and my dog. I owe that kid my life. It sounds dumb, but last night, I put on Starshopping by Lil Peep. That's a song that always calms me down and makes me feel like everything is gonna be alright. I broke down a bit and Lexi (my dog) came and laid down by my side while I curled up on the couch. I think that's when everything kind of hit. I'm not even sure when I'll be in a better headspace, as my baseline without all these stressors is still not great. I've just been trying to throw myself into homework and taking care of Lexi (she's got pinkeye again and putting that medicine in her eye by myself is almost impossible). Funnily enough, I told my professor a couple weeks into the school year that I felt like things are gonna fall apart. And look at things now. It's only a matter of more snowballing and time before I take a leave of absence from school and maybe even work. I feel like if things continue as they are I'm not gonna make it to the end of this semester, let alone the year. I feel that pretty soon, I'm gonna run out of things that keep me going. I'm sorry to disappoint everyone that thinks I'm strong, or a role model, or anything. I'm not able to handle anything.

I feel overwhelmed and I'm at my limit. I started breaking down again writing this out and yes, I did put Starshopping on again, on repeat. I want a break from everything so I can just come back normal again but Spring break isn't until mid March. I just don't have the time. The one person I know would be able to give me professional advice is my therapist and I'm being cut off from that. I don't know how or if I'll try to explain this to my parents. I'm very scared to reach out to them as they've been very dismissive of anything pertaining to my struggles with school or work or my mental health. I just want everything to be over. Very tempted to go full on dissociative fugue and start a new life in another country under a new name. The pressure is too much and I just want it to stop mounting.

Drop a 🙉🙈🙊 if you read this entire thing. I'd be genuinely impressed if you muscled through it. I revealed a lot of myself and what I'm going through. Just know it's cause I haven't been able to dump this on my usual guy because of all my dumb scheduling conflicts. It'll be like toeing around in a minefield, but I'll venture talking about this with mom and dad, if I even feel like it tomorrow.

I feel miserable. Goodnight. Feel better than me.

When I look back on my forum posts I realize that I always have zero luck fostering supportive discussion. I can't tell if this is a problem with me anymore, as I have a problem with my warped perception already from being gaslighted and living in an abusive home, but I'm slowly starting to think it's not. I've heard people say over and over that DeviantArt is a really toxic place and that the community sucks, and I really didn't believe it since I always had such positive experiences on here. That is until I started going to the forums. Let's just say I would rather have 20 more years of closed species and kin drama than ever go to the forums again. It's kind of a shock to me that the community in that part of dA is so uncaring and volatile, and that I barely hear anyone talk about this problem.

This might seem out of nowhere to some so let me fill you in on what went down last night. Last night I created this forum post after a really terrifying incident with my dad. It's completely detailed in that post but the TL;DR version is that my dad blew up on me, yelled in my face and backed me into a corner and made me feel like I was going to get hit, only because I said I didn't want to upgrade to the latest iPhone. I didn't even say that I didn't want it in a demeaning or nasty way, he just lost his temper and made me feel unsafe. I really needed to get that off my chest and out of my system because I don't really have anyone I can talk about this with IRL and I thought that sharing that to the forums would make me feel a bit better.

I have never been more wrong about anything in my life. I checked the replies to the thread today and I was absolutely assblasted to read what people had been saying. Everyone in the comments was berating me, telling me I was an ungrateful brat, and that I should just suck it up, even though my dad threatened me and made me feel unsafe in my own home. Out of all of them, I only read one, one comment that was in full support of me. It felt like people just didn't read the part where I said that I felt suicidal because I felt trapped and I felt like either killing myself or running away was what I had to do to avoid another situation like the one from last night. To those people: Just say my dad should've beat me and go.

It's heartbreaking to see everyone jeering and laughing at me in the comments when I posted something from when I was so vulnerable and afraid. Even when people were commenting "don't kill yourself," it felt so backhanded because I knew these same people would tell me to do a flip off a bridge because I'm apparently so spoiled. You wanna know something? This isn't about the iPhone upgrade anymore. I legitimately don't care about anything tech or Christmas related or what have you. My main issue is that my dad screamed me into submission and made me have a breakdown over something so stupidly minor. Worse yet is that my dad made a non-apology to me today where he said he was (allegedly) sorry for yelling at me but not sorry for why he did it? He made a bunch of excuses for lashing out at me, as abusers often do, and I don't feel like he said sorry to me at all. I truly don't think he'll even remember he blew up at me, but I'll remember it til the day I die, whether that's by my own hands or not.

I've learned my lesson about this, then. The forums are full of toxic, vile people who will side with my abusive parents because they take away that I'm a spoiled brat. I'm absolutely not, I don't ask for jack shit, I was even prepared to have a phone with a non-functioning camera and shattered screen for the next millennia. I always buy my own things when I want or need them, and I really think of myself as a humble person who doesn't whine or complain like other people do. I always do the chores my parents ask of me without backtalk, I do everything they say, and I'm grateful they put me and my brother through college and that I can still live at home while I go to school. The thing I don't appreciate is the permanent psychological damage I've received from them and people saying that I should just let that shit happen because I deserve it. I formed a mood disorder at the hands of my parents and it's something that's used in their mind games and manipulation, what do these sick people have to show for themselves? I'm done with people justifying my abusers and I want to find a community that doesn't allow this kind of vile derision.

I got so worked up I started sobbing as I type this up, I feel like such an idiot for trusting the forums in the first place. I've made the decision that I won't be posting in the forums again, for anything ever, and I'm going to work more on boosting myself on my own page and my other social media that haven't turned into vacuous holes. I feel small and insignificant again, and tomorrow might be different, but for now, I'm still reeling from the fact that the majority of dA forum users would say I deserve to live in fear of my abusive father.

Anyway, you can go in the forum post and shit all over me too and call me an entitled and selfish brat too if you want. I have no self-esteem already so it probably won't hurt more than it already does.

Also this might be my last vent on Newgrounds since it didn't go over well with people here either. Thank you for your input.

I have something really upsetting to say and it sucks to talk about it because I don't have anyone close to me IRL that I can reach out to about these things so ofc I turn to people I've never met face to face for strength and reassurance 

I implore you to read the whole thing, as I know this might come off as me being a spoiled child, but it's got more to it than that takeaway 

So I've been asking about getting a new phone for a while, my current phone, until recently, had a broken camera and a completely cracked screen. I could live with the screen and I barely notice it now (come to think of it it's probably the screen protector that's cracked) but I take photos a lot for myself and also for class. It's just really inconvenient for me to grab my crappy little Canon Powershot and deal with how much that stupid thing shakes and only then transfer my photos from the sim card to my computer and/or to my phone from there.

Our first plan, getting the old phone of a family friend to replace mine, didn't work out because the phone was under AT&T and mine is under Verizon, so it wouldn't let the SIM card be activated. I was kinda bummed because our other option would be buying another iPhone 6 off Gazelle, and that'd mean I wouldn't get the things I actually asked for on my Christmas list.  

So I was fully prepared to just scrape by with my current phone as a compromise, until my dad says we're all eligible to upgrade the whole family to iPhone 11's with T mobile. I expressed that I didn't want to get an iPhone 11, mostly because those don't have a headphone jack. I can't use Bluetooth in my car because the module in mine is destroyed and it would have to be sent back to Dodge and I just don't have the time. I rely on the aux cord to play my music and use GPS because I'm bad with directions and barely know how to get anywhere.

Dad's obviously into it for how much we save a month, but I say to him that I just want a 6, and I made it pretty clear I'm not budging on that. Seemingly out of nowhere, my dad stomps over to me, backs me into a corner, gets in my face to yell at me, points his finger at me, and makes me feel like I'm going to get hit. He rants about how I need an attitude adjustment, I'm upgrading with the family or else, and that my only other option is to get my own phone on my own plan myself. He knows I can't do that second option because I don't have a job right now since I'm (almost done with being) a full-time student, and my class load was too much with trying to balance work.  

That was the most intimated and frightened I think I've ever been of my dad. He's yelled at me and intimidated me before but one thing I felt sure of until today was that he'd never hit me or my brother or really anyone. Tonight, I felt like I was about to take a swing from him, which would probably put me in the hospital since my dad is an ex-powerlifter and a veteran. The kicker though was that my mom, who's a piece of work in her own right, completely let this slide and didn't do shit while dad was one step away from whipping me with his belt.

I held in everything as I took my stuff up to my room and I just cried once the lights were off and the noise machine was cranked up all the way. I couldn't stop shaking and I forced myself to scream into my pillow so I wouldn't alert my parents. I felt helpless because I have few friends that live close to me, so no one can take me in or help me that I know of. I feel like if I don't get out of this hellhole, I'm going to die, and it'll be by my own hands.

Honestly, I don't know why my dad chose this to get so bent out of shape over, it's literally not that deep, it's just about phones for god's sake. Regardless, if that little thing got blown out of proportion, I don't wanna stick around for what else might happen. I don't feel safe in my house; before I was just fed up with my mom's mind games, emotional abuse, and manipulation, but now I'm fearing for my physical safety as well, something I haven't really before, and I need to get out of here now.

Tomorrow I want to have a pretty big conversation with my dad, where I'll tell him essentially that if he ever gets in my face yelling and backing me into a corner making me think I'll get hit again, I will 100% call the cops on him and have him arrested. His behavior is unacceptable. He has a lot of nerve telling me that my attitude is awful when he's cornering his daughter like an animal. I can't believe I have to lay these ground rules out with my father but apparently I'm the only one that's gonna keep him in line.

All this happens during finals week of course, so it's only stress after stress after stress.

I have no idea what I'm going to do and I know that I'll just be expected to act like that never happened, but this really is spurring me into finding a job over the holidays and getting an apartment of my own.