(no subject)

As easy as it would be to assume, the idea that Jake had been trolling me that whole time still doesn't add up, and if it did, I wouldn't have anything to ask him. He and I had been friends for years on end, and everything he did just seemed out of character. Not like with Blood, with whom everything made sense from the start.

It seems more likely that he didn't know what he was really getting into when I first hired him, started feeling especially bitter after that dispute regarding Jamie but just sucked it up from there, and failed to anticipate any actual consequences when he reached his decision just to give up on the project. That's exactly why I wrote that whole file: To enlighten him if or whenever he's feeling less resistant. He enlightened me before by pointing out how self-centered I had been all along with him and Chelle, and that's what led me to promise to change by not bringing up my fetishes or Lucky Star with him anymore. He seemed to have lightened up a bit from there, before we agreed not to speak to eachother for a while longer.

Yesterday morning, I sent him another email, inviting to focus on other things with him for the time being, while still stating my remaining intentions to make sense of things later on, when the topic will at least be less tiresome for him. Even though I'm feeling somewhat relieved after having analyzed things for myself, though, the actual implications behind his decision and rationale will still sit in the back of my mind for the foreseeable future.

As far as Unwilling Service itself goes, that, too, is still somewhat on my mind, but now is the time just to switch gears already. I've already told Michael to take as much time as he needs with May, and am planning to show Brian that Crystal guide the next time he's here while we focus on Starbound for this visit coming up. Rekindling my interest in that, especially after having finally launched a trope that I had already proposed five years ago, is also the reason I've finally decided to play anything new for the first time in two years.

(It's actually pretty ironic, that I specifically revived that story to switch gears from the Cibus project, which I focused on to switch gears from Lucky Star, and now I'm coming back to that for a change in pace from US after everything that's happened surrounding that. Said irony, in turn, becomes that much more infuriating given how badly undermined said reason was for US's revival, and I will bring this up again; just not right now while Jake's still tired of the same old topic every time we talk these days.)

(no subject)

It really is over between us. Jake got back to me, urging me to forget about him, and I asked him in turn to forget about his debt and the Yoshi's Island fic, so that I have nothing left to hold out for and can just move on.

Jake doesn't want to have this discussion while his life is in such disarray as it's been in, doesn't want me to drive myself insane any longer than I mentioned having been, and the only way for me to stop is to just perish any thought of ever resolving things properly. Technically, it is possible that we will talk again some time in the future, once he's in a better position in life, but his promise to pay me off once he has a job and a steady income would still constitute something to hold out on, for when he'd be in a better state of mind to discuss things properly, which would only perpetuate me to keep losing my mind over things.

Even his departure itself from the project aside, how do I deal with the fact that he, despite having apologized more than once, tried to explain as little as possible to me about something I deserve to know everything about? That judging from his reluctance to name any more halfway measures than the few I had to goad him for, he apparently expected unlimited creative freedom from the very beginning? That I hoped he would redeem himself of his actions with Jamie's first chapter by making no muscle references at all in his second and third, but instead, that was one of the reasons he came to hate the story itself? That all the interest he displayed even after that one dispute, until April last year (and even then, he still went on to request a trial run of the Pal Park), was basically just for show? And that, since he considers me no longer his friend after that one thing I said and misapologized for, anything I'd have left to withhold from him is now a moot point? Especially without any actual malice behind it all?

(If I ever do contact him again, it will most likely be whenever Davì finally makes his debut in Starbound, or when I reach the Hooters arc that he once suggested, in case he'd be interested by that point. At least Starbound itself is something I'm in charge of personally instead of looking forward to. But then again, both of those were probably just ways he suggested to make that story somewhat bearable for him, and I wouldn't be surprised if he asked me to perish such ideas for milestones as those too.)