the task

or, dear god why?

a popular item that people like to use to better understand people are writing tasks. you're given a prompt, and then a due date to respond to it. you know, just like homework. so. they do it to better grasp what makes you tick, why you think about certain things the way you do.

one problem. i hate them.

i didn't use to, the idea of doing something for redemption when i'd genuinely screwed up appealed to me. when it was used i felt a hell of a lot better afterwards, and i knew on the rare occasion when i fucked up so badly it would help me heal.

the problem with that is it immediately went south.

see, there was a day when i had been up all night and was online. i was told to go to sleep, or i'd be in trouble. so i logged off and went to bed. around eight hours later i woke up, and logged back on. the person who had told me to log off then decided i was in trouble for not going to bed, and assigned me lines. i didn't do them, because i hadn't done anything wrong. i had gotten eight hours of sleep, and they hadn't noticed. that wasn't my fault.

time passed. a few months i think. i got yelled at for never doing my punishment, so i angrily grabbed paper and wrote down ten lines. as each letter was put down i became more and more upset. why was i being punished when i had done nothing wrong? it was like my abusive grandma all over again, and a deep, smoldering anger grew inside me. when the lines were done i slammed down my pen, angrily uploaded the images, and then proceeded to fall apart when i was told "good girl" for finally doing it.

ever since that day i have absolutely hated doing writing tasks of any kind.

i don't do punishment dynamics, i never have.

the one time of redemption was something that i needed, but forcing it on me won't work. i'll simply walk away. you want to get to know my mind, just ask me. really. don't tell me to do stupid essays with a due date. i'm already doing that shit in school and i sure as hell won't do one that won't get me a grade. if you want to know my mind so badly then GET TO KNOW ME! there's not much i hide from people these days anymore, but if you just arbitrarily tell me to do x, y, and z by such and such date, you can bet your ass i'm not gonna do it, and until you ask me why i'm not going to explain the middle finger in front of your confused face. what works on one person doesn't necessarily work on another, and if you assume that, it's just really not going to work out.

another kicker: just because you're a safety net on my collar doesn't mean i submit to you. shocker. i know. and just because i express interest in something i may need doesn't mean i'm submitting to you either. it just means i'm bottoming to you for a while, and my submission isn't even close to being on the table. if you think bottoming is inherently submission, you would in fact be very, very wrong.

the irony here is you could argue that all the time i just spent on this blog post could have been used on the xyz thing i was told to do, but here's the thing: i chose to write this out of my own free will. this is my space, no one dictates what i write here. being told to do something else just isn't going to fly unless you're a professor at my college and i'm a student in one of your classes.