Ayase Leilani's Blog

When I think of all the worries people seem to find
And how they’re in a hurry to complicate their mind
By chasing after money and dreams that can’t come true
I’m glad that we are different, we’ve better things to do
May others plan their future, I’m busy lovin’ you
1! 2! 3! 4!
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
And don’t worry ‘bout tomorrow, hey, hey, hey
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
Live for today

~The Grass Roots​ - Let’s Live for Today

Hello, everyone.  My name is Ayase, but you can all call me Aya.  ^_^  I’m a Japanese-Hawaiian girl from Chūō-ku, Osaka​ and Honolulu, Hawaii​…who just so happens to be beached far away from either of my homes in the Upper-Midwestern part of the United States​ known as Minneapolis, Minnesota​.

I’m a girl and I’m into girls and/or femininity in general.  For gender and sexuality, I use the labels “girl” and “demisexual lesbian” in my day-to-day life.  Pronouns are she/her/hers.

I am an Otaku who gets into all the usual stuff, from videogames to Anime and everything between.  I also love listening to music, driving, cycling, swimming, reading, academics, studying, computers, technology, multimedia, doing handiwork of all sorts, travelling…and more!!

Now, for a bit more detail about who I am:

My life has been a whirlwind of insanity, with some of the most intense of moments happening ever since 2012.  A little more than a year ago, my former fiancée broke up with me in one of the most painful ways possible; I didn’t realise until I was out of her life, but she was a manipulative, abusive sociopath.  I am extremely fortunate to have gotten out when I did, but the damage of her manipulation, abuse and love-bombing had already been done and thus, I struggle with PTSD and myriad other psychological concerns that keep me from functioning normally.  Thankfully, I have the most wonderful of people in my life helping me with this process:  I’m now engaged to the most wonderful girl in the world and we share a beautiful polyamorous relationship with another wonderful girl who is my daily caretaker.  Both my current fiancée and caretaker understand me, cherish me and she remind me every single day why I am a worthwhile person.  I struggle with a terrible guilt complex that I am trying desperately to overcome.

My values are very old-school and therefore my fiancée likes to call me a “Human Time Capsule” (if anybody here has seeen the 1999 film “Blast from the Past,” I am kind of like a progressive girl version of the Adam character):  I believe in family, loyalty, love, science, spirituality, doing the right thing, cherishing one another and being there for one another.  I tend to live purely in the present and take things one bit at a time; I enjoy the idea of daily life.  There is no room for hate and abuse in my world, especially after what my ex did to me.  My values matter more to me than perhaps anything else, making me an extremely sincere and earnest girl, which has provided significant challenges when it comes to functioning in society.

As I alluded to above, I have chronic anxiety and depression.  I am also anorexic and have related health concerns, including physical weakness and poor physical endurance even for the most mundane of tasks.  Due to my challenges, I have chosen the NEET lifestyle.  I am grateful for people in my life who care for me and remind me daily that I am a wonderful person.

I am an old-school soft-authoritarian communist and an extremely devout Shinto Priestess who mixes the influences of Hawaiian Religion and Taoism into my spiritual discipline.  This having been said, I staunchly believe in separation of church and state and believe the future must be a leftist one.

I think that’s pretty much it.  ^_^  If you have any questions, please let me know.  <3

Like most people who have suffered from abusive partners, I have found that moving on from my ex has been one of the most traumatic of events in my life:  it has lasted a long time, has destroyed parts of my soul that were previously healthy, re-opened wounds from past abuses that had previously closed and destroyed my ability to function normally; these days, I’ve developed PTSD and other severe mental conditions that have made it impossible for me to stay alive without a great deal of daily assistance from my caretaker and fiancée.

This has made living the life I used to live completely impossible; I am a ruined person.

And how did this happen?

It all began when my ex welcomed me into her life, lying and love-bombing me as I noted in Part I and Part II of my series about my time with her.  She lied to me about her own feelings; in all of our time together, all she showed me was a personality mask hiding the true monster inside of her.

It was this mask that I fell in love with; I never knew who the real person behind her mask was until it was too late.  And her deceptions worked like a charm, suckering me in and leading me to believe I was dating a truly wonderful person.  She knew precisely how to play me and she did so with a level of proficiency that still scares the absolute shit out of me to this day; I am not immune to the charms of the worst of people in this world who would do their best to play their game with me.

The truth was that she never truly felt true love for me and constantly projected her own paranoias and abusive behaviour onto me.  She continues to do all of these things to this day, openly admitting to many of her own friends–and the people from my life who ultimately sided with her–that she lied to me throughout all our time together out of her own paranoia.

It was all of the lies she spreads to this day, along with all the lies she told me throughout our relationship that started this process.  This was mixed strongly in alongside how–during our time together–she coaxed some of the most intimate parts of me to the surface only to actively destroy them all out of some sick desire to ruin everything she touches.

In the wake of the break-up, she has stolen some of my dearest friends from me and convinced them to believe I am a horrible person with her lies.  She has gone out of her way to paint me in the worst of lights and has developed paranoid delusions about things I would never–in a million years–think of doing.

She got inside my head.  She made me think terrible things about myself. For almost all of last Summer, I honestly believed I was the horrible person she said I was.  The things she accused me of would have required a sociopathy on my behalf that I am completely incapable of, especially since I am both self-aware and full of guilt complexes that often make me take responsibility for things that I’ve had no part in; I’ve struggled my whole life with believing that I am the reason everyone in my life is so miserable…and she played this part of me with expertise beyond compare.

And this is what ultimately destroyed me beyond repair.

Of course, those who still decided to stay by my side and I all know by now what sort of person she truly was, but it took me the longest time to realise that she was absolutely full of shit.  And yet to this day, I still have dreams that keep me from feeling rested at night both of what she’s done to me…and of the fact that some part of me will never stop loving her, even though what I was in love with was nothing but a mask.  I am so fucked up by what she has done that I am still stuck on the love I had for this fake mask while–at the same time–being aware that the real person is an absolute demoness.

In the end, it’s been very difficult for me to continue carrying on with my life, but I–again–stress how important my caretaker and my fiancée have been to me in ensuring I don’t end up dying due to not being able to take care of myself or by suicide.  I will likely live the rest of my life broken like this…and I’ve slowly come to accept this reality, although as someone who used to pride herself on being strong and capable, it has been both very humbling and insanely difficult to accept this new reality of mine.

I am extremely lucky and blessed…and even though I still struggle to this day, I am grateful knowing that I have people in my life who can ensure I am still around and still able to live some sort of meaningful life.

My ex has caused me irreparable damage, but I am still alive and am still able to live a meaningful–albeit limited–life.  This is something that my ex failed to take away from me.  And for that, I am beyond grateful.

staff:

People of Tumblr, we’re throwing up the Bat Signal.

Though this Administration has vowed today to sign an executive order that would end the separation of families at the border stemming from its “zero tolerance” policy, we must continue to apply pressure and do our part. Families should have never been separated in the first place.

Here are five ways that you can help:

1. Call your Senator and let them know that immigration reform is still needed. Call the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Senator’s office.

2. Donate to organizations that are providing support to immigrant families being held in detention centers all over the country:

• The Florence Immigration Project - The Florence Project is providing free legal and social services to migrants being detained in Arizona.
• The Texas Civil Rights Project - Lawyers in Texas have banned together to fight for “equality and justice in and out of the courts.”
• ACLU of Texas Border Rights Center
• RAICES Bond Fund - This fund provides money to release parents from detention centers so they can look for their kids.
• CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project - CARA provides legal representation for families in detention centers.
• KIND - Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) provides legal representation for unaccompanied minors in detention centers. They’ve also provided other ways for you to help oppose family separation here.
• CARA Pro Bono Project - Help alleviate the cost of housing for volunteer lawyers, as well as sending coloring books to those children in detention centers.
• Refugee Caravan - Donate what you can to help detained immigrants make phone calls to their families and lawyers.

3. Contact the Immigration Justice Campaign if you, or someone you know, are fluent in Spanish and can assists lawyers at the border over the phone as an interpreter.

4. Contact Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and volunteer your services as a Spanish-speaking interpreter or as a lawyer for those parents who have been sent to the state of Washington without their children.

5. If you’re a lawyer, law student, paralegal or Spanish-speaking interpreter, contact the Dilley Pro Bono Project for a week-long shift as a volunteer in Texas.

Let’s do what we can to right this wrong because children and families should never have to suffer these kinds of irreparable trauma.

You won’t get much closer
Till you sacrifice it all
You won’t get to taste it
With your face against the wall
Get up and commit
Show the power trapped within
Do just what you want to
And now stand up and begin

~Muse - Panic Station

Vegan, vegetarian or omnivore?  Exercise vigorously or be a couch potato?  Eat at McDonald's​ or make a homemade salad?  Sugar or fat?  Meat or carbs?  Fruit or vegetable?  Healty or not?

Privacy or publicity?  Download the app that asks for permission from a bunch of stuff or don’t?  DuckDuckGo​ or Google​?  Twitter​ or Mastodon?  Siri or Alexa?

Left or right?  Libertarian or Socialist?  Trump or Hillary?  Democracy or Authoritarianism?

Good or bad?  Or neither…?

The truth is it’s all misleading.

Let’s be perfectly honest:  life in the modern world is toxic by nature.  And while you listen to the endless snake-oil schillers try to sell you on this fad or that fad, you’re being distracted from the reality:  humans are not living in a world where maintaining their health is possible.

Consider the fact that for millenia, humans were small-scale socieities; people lived in either tribal or nomadic groups.  These tended to stay very collected together and often never extended further out from their tiny little area of residence (or camp, if they were nomadic) with the exception of handfuls of alliances.  Thus, people didn’t really do much outside of move around, hunt, settle and/or take care of things back at base (which was either a camp or a settlement).  Much of this involved great physical labour or other sorts of strenuous physical activity.  The food eaten often was made up of the freshest kill along with whatever vegetation could be found in surrounding areas, making meals a mixture of vitamins, minerals, water and fructose.

This is how humans have lived for most of their existence on earth.  But then things began to change about two thousand years ago.

It all began with agrarianism; farming and growing food off the land allowed nomadic people to begin to expand further, along with being more in charge of what they could eat.  Then more and more inventions of technology came along; simple hunting tools got more complex, milling and fermenting tools were developed for the first time…and soon, humanity began to collect and form the prototypes for modern government (from Genghis Khan in the East to the Romans in the West).

And then came the expansion of global colonialism, which developed enough advanced technology to lead to the industrial revolution…

…Which led to enough technology to create the automated/service-based societal model we know today.

We no longer hunt for our food and in most cases, we don’t even grow our own food.  We work for people far above us every day…

…And go home to climate-controlled housing…

…While those who are not privileged enough live on the streets and have nothing to live off of at all.

Obviously, this means life today is nothing like life in the past where humans spent much of their existence.  Because of this, in the span of only about two thousand years, things went from very basic and small-scale to complex and stratified.  We went from doing everything in our power to be responsible for our individual survival to modern conveniences, comforts and automation (the best of which only came about in the last several hundred years).  This, of course, has vastly outpaced the capacity humans (or indeed, any species) have had to evolve physically.

Of course, this means the way we live is incompatible entirely with the way we used to live…and it can never go back to that way again.  Thus, we have to find ways to adapt to our life and the way we live in the modern world; our lifestyles are unhealthy, our food is unhealthy, our way of living amongst each other is unhealthy and even the way we look at politics is unhealthy (as I alluded to above, we can no longer exist solely as individuals but rather as individuals within a whole; this is a huge reason why I believe socialism is the only sustainable political model for the future).

But wait!!  That’s what you want to say, isn’t it?  And then you want to add comments about disease, obesity, health concerns, genetic ailments, privacy, liberty, freedom, personal success and other stuff, right?

Guess what?  Unhealthy and collectivist living is our future.  That is the future humanity chose when it chose this path of stratification, modernisation and convenience.  And that is the path we all must now pursue, because many of us cannot imagine life without what we have right now (and those of us who can–let’s admit it–know that humanity will never want to regress back to the way it was for millenia).

This means you get health care and fight for those who can’t access it due to bigotry and hatred.  This means that you get involved with making life better the more we allow technology and modernity to be one with our way of life.  This means you find a way to live.  And it means you face the political reality and begin to understand that we can’t all fend for ourselves any longer due to how things are structured in today’s world.

Therefore, please, please, PLEASE!!  If you are able, join the fight to ensure that the homeless, the marginalised, the underprivileged and those otherwise without a voice can have enough of the resources to get involved as well; we can no longer rely on bootstraps thinking or believing that we can all help ourselves by ourselves in today’s monstrous, modern world.

As for you, personally?  Yes, you can go ahead and get that Big Mac or Whopper.

Enjoy your technology and don’t get angry when privacy concerns come to the forefront; we are learning and growing and so is all the technology we use every day.

Be politically involved and stay educated so you know what’s happening out there.  And thank gods you’re privileged enough to have access to all of this while having a job (if you–indeed–want one or can have one) and living in your apartment or house.

Educate yourself.  Experiment and figure out what works for you, because we live in a world where we can no longer do anything but try to find ways to entertrain ourselves and make ourselves more and more intelligent so we can all work together.  And realise that this is all we can possibly hope to do in today’s modern world.

As one might imagine, as an Otaku who has essentially been forced into the NEET lifestyle due to physical challenges, I love playing videogames.  And as I am also of the fun-loving sort, I love huge, impressive galas like the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which promise not only a great deal of fun and partying, but lots of details on the latest and greatest when it comes to technology out of the videogames industry.  Think Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but with ten times the party and–of course–being exclusively for videogames.

In short, E3 is all about fun, all about gala and all about the industry’s latest and greatest.

This is not the first time I’ve spoken out about E3.  I’ve been following the annual convention now for about the last decade and actually covered the show remotely from my home in 2013, which was one of the most exciting years in my history of following the convention.

How many people remember SONY’s Jack Tretton ruining Microsoft’s day?

I’ve obviously followed this convention for a while, seeing all sorts of interesting things happening, from companies like Nintendo opting for video packages instead of a physical presence at E3 (something I criticised at first, but later praised as genius) to announcements like the SONY one above that shot Microsoft in the foot.

But…as years went on, things got less impressive.  Grand technological introductions faded away to discussing new, upcoming games that were often already announced prior to the show.

And then this year’s show began and I spoke out on it just yesterday via my Facebook account:

As you might imagine…

I was…

More than a little…

Disappointed…

…And unhappy.

I have honestly never seen such a lacklustre showing in all my time of following E3.  I was left feeling empty, beside myself and completely frustrated last night with the lack of gala, interest, presentation and industry-shaking announcements.

And then one of my closest friends commented on my final status:

“E3 may not even be as important as it is now. Thanks to the Internet, we don’t have to trudge through flashy, expensive press conferences to get info on upcoming releases.”

This gave me pause and I began to think about what I had been saying and how much things had been shifting in the industry.  I thought back to how Nintendo had pioneered the idea of video packages being released more like news updates throughout the year instead of all at once at shows like E3.

Then the same friend reached out to me in Telegram and sent this to me:

By the way, is anyone else surprised that E3 is now open to the public?

It looks as if E3 has undergone some huge sea changes over the past several years, which is all thanks to Nintendo and the way they’ve revolutionised how announcements of games and tech are handled in the videogames industry.  This has caused E3 to get creative, open up to the public and shift from an “industry conference” format to a “celebration of videogames” format.  In the end, it may not be too long before the conference loses its relevance altogether and ends up either no longer happening…or happening on a much smaller scale than before.

Wow.

I was wrong.

It’s not that these companies don’t care about E3, but that these companies know that E3 is no longer what it used to be; the announcements need to come periodically throughout the year via video packages and press releases, not huge industry-smashing galas.

And so it goes.

Things are always shifting and changing in this world.  I am generally very good at catching and predicting these waves, but like all of us, I am imperfect and fallible; I am just as capable of getting caught up in the high energy and gala as anybody else is.

And I am sorry for being mistaken about the importance of E3.

I will say that even with E3 on the way out, I continue to feel optimistic about the games industry, as things are growing, shifting and changing instead of becoming stagnant.  Nintendo has never looked more amazing with their market-throttling Switch and the industry itself is being forced to shift and change because of the changes Nintendo has been pushing.  It has never been a more exciting time to be a gamer, in my opinion.

No matter what happens, we can continue to enjoy fun with our games and the news updates related to them, even if grand galas such as E3 die out.  And that is something we can all be truly grateful for.

I am aware that people are looking me up on social media. I am aware that they have a pre-conceived notion about me in their head. I have this to say to these people:

Why not try getting to know me instead of performing a witch hunt? I am not the horrible person you think I am.

How long has it been now?
It’s been almost a year.
And yet you continue to plague me.

The thoughts of all of our time together…

You told me I was the one you wanted for life.
You told me you wanted to give me everything.
You told me you wanted to be there for me forever.

You doted on me.
You cherished me.
You embraced me.

You made me believe that you truly cared.

In reality, things were not at all what they seemed…

You did all the talking and expected me to listen.
You asked for all the support without supporting me.
You demanded validation but refused to give me any.

You demanded my attention.
You expected my affirmation.
You desired total affection.

You took full advantage of my good nature.

Our whole relationship was an elaborate deception…

The truth is that you never really cared.

Did you ever truly love me?
I really doubt that you ever did.
And yet I always loved you.

I still love you even though you turned my world upside-down…

You lied when you said you loved me and left me devestated.
You took advantage of my generous spirit and fed me to the wolves.
You turned everything around on me and tried to ruin my life.

Your deception hurt my soul deeply.
Your fakery rended my heart to pieces.
Your taking advantage wounded my spirit.

You refused to take responsibility for what you’d done.

You’ve spent your whole life blaming others for what you’ve done…

You attacked and defamed your exes whenever we chatted.
You told me how everyone in your life had ruined and abused you.
You engendered my compassion by telling me these sob stories.

You fooled me.
You lied to me.
You took advantage of me.

Everything you said was done to absolve yourself of all responsibility.

You’re an awful person.
You ruined my life.
You destroyed my world.

So, why do I still love you…?
Even though I have a new fiancée…?
Even though I try to move on…?

Because I let you into my heart.
Because I let you get too close.
Because I cared too much.

And thus I must live with the scarring of your abuse of me for the rest of my days…

The pain never really goes away.

I’m a working journalist. I’m interested in all points of view and I draw conclusions based on facts, not just on opinions.

~Tom Brokaw

We live in a day and age where pretty much nobody seems to be sharing news stories from either reputable sources or reputable aggregates; I see so many articles being shared on my social media accounts from disreputable places that I am beginning to question the hearts and minds of those in my life.

Allow me to issue a PSA:

UNDERSTAND

One of the most important roles of our journalists is to be watchdogs.

~Dan Rather

The following groups of journalists (and aggregates) can generally be considered “reliable and investigation-focused:”

• CNN
• MSNBC
• NPR and its affiliates
• PBS and its affiliates
• CBS News and its affiliates (with the exception of affiliates owned by Sinclair Media)
• NBC News and its affiliates (with the exception of affiliates owned by Sinclair Media)
• ABC News and its affiliates (with the exception of affiliates owned by Sinclair Media)
• BBC News
• CBC News
• The Guardian
• The Independent
• The New York Times
• Washington Post
• Los Angeles Times
• The Des Moines Register
• Star Tribune
• Honolulu Civil Beat
• TIME
• Newsweek
• Salon
• The Atlantic
• Teen Vogue
• News And Guts
• VICE
• Huffington Post
• Vox
• Bloomberg
• Business Insider
• CNBC

The following groups of journalists (and aggregates) can generally be considered “unreliable and biased” (I will not be including links for this list because I wish to reduce traffic to these disreputable sources):

• FOX and its affiliates
• FOX News
• MyNetworkTV and its affiliates
• Sinclair Media
• Yahoo! News
• MSN
• The Sun
• The Mirror
• The Times
• Daily Mail
• The Telegraph
• TheBlaze
• Breitbart
• The Wall Street Journal
• Forbes
• FOX Business

RESEARCH

There’s no such thing as an independent person.

~Peter Jennings

Any other group of journalists (and aggregates) should be approached with caution.  While the above lists are hardly exhaustive, they give a good place to start.  When in doubt, check to be sure where your news stories are gathering their information from; every reputable article will link to one or several of the above sources in the first list.  If they only link to themselves, to other unknown sources or to any sources in the second list, you are almost certain to be looking at “Fake News.”  There is one exception to this rule:  personal blogs.  All personal blogs (including my own) are biased, but in many cases, they may speak about greater truths.  For all personal blogs and sources not in the first list, check the informatin shared against Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo to ensure its authenticity.

READ

I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four.

~Jim Lehrer

Once you’ve done this, you can be sure that what you’re reading is solid information and you can go ahead and trust the content.

INFORM

The issues of the day have never seemed more complicated and yet the conversations over how to solve them increasingly resemble cars passing down a divided highway. Whizzing by without a glance.

~Lester Holt

And when all is said and done…share links to the stories about the news you’ve been researching only from the first list.

If your response to this is, “but Aya, I don’t have enough time to do that!” or “Aya, that’s so much work!,” then don’t share anything at all.

Do your part to halt the spread of fake news, everybody!  Follow Ayase Leilani’s “Rule of Four:”

Understand.  Research.  Read.  Inform.