Fuck Christmas

I skipped Christmas because fuck it frankly.
Hopefully you idiots are over the festivities and the stock market can return to usual.
J/k we have another half day/day off coming up due to New Year's.
No wonder the Chinese are beating us.
And new record. This blog took approximately 10 seconds for me to know for a fact I have a winner.
This person is a Christopagan (a what) against gender binary and heteronormativity.
Welcome.

I'm worried I missed the answer to this, but do you and Clarence belong to a specific elf tribe? I know you said you do some energy work similar to the Dragons-- is that it?


Clarence and I are formally identified with the Serpents and we are in fact Dragons, which is a group for mated twin-pairs sponsored/hosted by the Serpents (though Dragons may come from any tribe, but are trained within Serpent territory, by Serpents who are also Dragons). So the energy work that we do is not similar to the Dragons, it is what the Dragons do.

Clarence originally started off as Wolf tribe and I originally started off as Hare, but an incident happened in mid-2012 where we were “transferred” to the Serpent tribe. Changing tribal affiliation is extremely rare, but the incident was also unprecedented. We were also told once taken in by the Serpents that we were meant for the tribe all along but had to “shed our skin” first.

Roleplaying garbage or paranoid delusions of the mentally ill?
I'll leave that for your judgment.

The way that having the dual affiliation works is that we do work as Serpents, and with the Serpents, as well as work as Dragons. The overwhelming majority of people do not have dual affiliation. In fact, the Dragons are the only group where one can be affiliated with one tribe as well as that tribe. The other tribes have subgroups - the Ravens have the White Ravens, for example - but one has to be a member of that tribe in order to be a member of its subgroup. One does not have to be a Serpent to be a Dragon, though the overwhelming majority of the Dragons come from either the Serpents or the Boars.

You can also give this person a tip for doing a good job.
I was thinking the tip of my fist but no, they mean money.

Hi, you're amazing. How do you make sense of the Christian side of your ChristoPaganism in the context of your otherworldly travels and elf soul and all that business? I love to pick the brains of my fellow ChristoPagans; hope I'm not being too intrusive!


Thank you! <3 comment-3--="">

ChristoPagan.
That's a thing you can be.
What, was Christianity or Paganism too mainstream?

As far as how I reconcile it with otherworldly travels and having an elf soul with the Christian side of the Christopaganism…

As mentioned earlier, there is a corroborated gnosis that the progenitors of the elves, Ana and Ka’el, had three sets of twin siblings and one of those sets was Elyon and Elat, who with the host of angels comprises Elohim. Thus angels and elves are cousins. I believe that they are “playing for the same team”, to protect and preserve the world and care for humans.

My belief in Christ is part of a polytheistic package. He is one of my Powers, not the only one, and has an influence on me trying to be compassionate and stand up for what I believe in. I do not believe I have to renounce my pagan values or the fact that I am non-human-souled to have him as one of my Powers.

What the fuck am I reading
Holy hell what have I done?
How am I supposed to write about this?
What is there to say outside of "what in the fuck?"

Yay, it's Vanaheim Friday again! So I wanted to ask this last time, but was too timid, so here goes... I've had visions a couple times of an elven city in the snow.

I know. Bummer they cancelled the last 2 Skyrim DLCs, huh?
Snow Elf and one focusing on the Thalmor. That shit would have been the mothefuck.

Made of snow and ice. Each time I've seen this city, it's been under moonlight (full moon), and the homes (I guess?) have been illuminated by soft yellow light. Keep in mind the homes are made of snow (like igloos, but not), and it just looked really cool. Have you ever heard of/know of a city like this, or is my mind being silly?

Like a thousand entries ago I made a joke about people who think their thoughts are real and they can't distinguish between reality and shit they think so they just conclude they have the spirit of squirrels or whatever--
Suddenly I'm not feeling so clever as THAT IS QUITE APPARENTLY WHAT PEOPLE DO ACTUALLY DO.
It's like someone said "yeah fuck you asshole I'm actually going to do that let's see how smart you'll feel in a year when I make this blog."

You are probably having visions of another elven realm, to be honest. Eshnahaliel =/= all the elven realms. Just because a place like that doesn’t exist in Eshnahaliel doesn’t mean you aren’t legitimately seeing another elven realm where that does exist. There are other realms than Eshnahaliel where elves live and have their own cultures and structures.

I will also repeat again that Eshnahaliel really does not have anything that modern humans would think of as an actual city. At best, there is the capital which has the government building, a market square, some inns and pubs, and the ritual space. The tribal territories tend to either be arranged as small villages or where the citizens are more spread out. While it is currently wintertime in Eshnahaliel and there is a fair amount of snow on the ground, there is no place in Eshnahaliel that is frozen year-round, their climate and terrain is rather similar to northern/central Europe with some variants in flora and fauna (species of flora specific to Eshnahaliel). 

I mean it's a parallel fucking dimension with elves in it but the flowers can't be that different.
I had a dream once I was banging all 9 members of 9muses.
Maybe that was me in a parallel reality.
With elves.

So if you’re seeing an actual large city, you’re seeing a different realm altogether. I’m sure you’re seeing somewhere in the Otherworld, it’s just a question of where. I don’t know any elven realm that’s like that but I only have experience with Eshnahaliel and Ljossalfheim, and what I’ve heard of the realm of the Dokkalfar, but I know there’s more elven realms than that, there are many, many elven realms and cultures. How many, I don’t know, but something is out there. ^^

AKA "the bullshit high fantasy realm you invented and are now treating like it's real differs from the one I made so therefore you're either wrong or it's yet ANOTHER DIMENSION OOOO"

I've a couple questions, possibly too blunt—you can choose not to answer of course. :) Since the Eshnahai are so long lived, do they have population issues in Vanaheim? Also, do they have the same personality variety that humans have? Or do they tend more towards homogeneity on some aspects. I've seen you mention bi- and pansexuality as being the norm, for example. Are some traits just reversed majority/minority from humans, or is there no real minority at all?

Let's predict the answer.
I'm going to guess that no there are no population issues because much like Tolkien says the reality is elves aren't especially fertile.
Also of course pansexuality and bisexuality are the norm because how else could this loonie toon keep this fantasy up so long?

The Eshnahai also control their fertility. Eshnahai women do not menstruate regularly like human women do. In order for pregnancy to happen, both parties have to consent to creating a soul together, and raise energy and “push” the energy along. Otherwise the males “shoot blanks” and there is an energetic barrier around the womb, only the raising of energy by both parties will result in a pregnancy. In the case of twins, which is less common but not unheard of, the one soul manifests in two bodies. (people should ask me about Vanic twins sometime, I have extensive knowledge of this being I am/have one)

FUCK YOU THIS MAKES SENSE.
If you think this is stupid and gay you are a racist.

As far as the bi/pan thing being the norm, yes it is. Occasionally you do find someone who is completely straight or completely gay, and there is also an asexual minority in the population. You tend to not see the prejudices in Eshnahaliel that you see in human society because the Eshnahai tend to believe love is sacred in all its forms, and asexuals are regarded as having a certain kind of magical power because their energy is being channeled into other things. 

Like there's just no way this can be reality.
Even if you can buy into a religion this particular one just sounds dumb and made up.

There is also a percentage of the population which can change gender at will (I would be included in that :D); the progenitors of the Eshnahai, Ana and Ka’el the Serpent Twins, were gender-shifters as well as shapeshifters, “shedding their skin” at will. It should also be mentioned here that Eshnahai society is extremely egalitarian and lacks the concept of gender roles for the most part. Women as well as men are taught to hunt, fight, sew, cook, care for children, heal, and so on. And everyone has fabulous hair. ;)

Oh, of course. Everyone is also gender neutral and can change genders at will.
So coincidentally your magic land of fantasy reality also has all of the exact traits you wish you had.
I blame the internet for this. If you had blatantly stupid views like this before the internet you couldn't say anything because you knew no one else had fucked up ideas like this and if you voiced them you got your ass kicked.
But now you can just Google "am I the only pansexual wolf-spirit Christopagan in the world?" and you're a click away from at least a dozen communities that share your dumb views on shit.

I was asked:

Last time y'all talked about the original twins in detail, the fire twins were Surt and Sinmora and the water were Kali and Shiva. Is that still your understanding? How do the more elemental jotnar like the fire jotnar fit in?

That's still my understanding, yes.

My understanding is that Surt and Sinmora are the progenitors of the elemental Jotnar like the fire Jotnar, whereas Ana and Ka'el are the progenitors of both the elves and the non-elemental Jotnar, like the trolls and animal-shifters. 

Is anyone else having violent flashbacks to Einherjar from FFXI right now?

Surt also told me that he and Sinmora are the progenitors of the Greek Titans which made me go o_O and I have no idea what to think about that. 

So there you go.
One of the more sinister figures from Norse mythology gave birth to an unrelated pantheon in Greek mythology.
Spooooooky.
Are you ready for what I'm hoping is an explanation for this shit?
No?
Me neither!

So for those of you who are new-er around here and don’t know the saga of 2013, gather round, I got a story to tell you.

Saga indeed.

Up until July 2013, I was living with my partner of seven years, and our two cats. On July first, he dropped the bomb on me that he was moving out of state in twelve days and he was taking the cats and he was not taking me with him, and I would have to find new living arrangements. 

Anyone want to bet on the gender of this person?
I'm guessing female for no real reason.
So her boyfriend rightly kicked her to the curb undoubtedly because of this shit.

After scrambling, two longtime friends of mine who I’d met via the Internet told me I could stay with them in Portland. So on July eleventh, I flew from Long Beach, California, to Portland, Oregon, and I’ve lived here since then.

About a month after moving to Portland, everything hit me and I got suicidal. Things hadn’t been going so well with my ex-partner prior to him dropping the GTFO-bomb, and another person I was dating called it quits because her own life was in upheaval. I had moved in with my ex-partner to escape a bad living situation with my abusive mother, who I’d moved back in with after being in a residential facility for psych issues which I’d wound up in after an abusive relationship after being abused growing up and blah, blah, blah. So everything hit me, I felt like a worthless piece of shit and that there was no point in continuing on, and I was legit going to kill myself. I had a plan, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone.

The hits keep on comin'.

My spirit companion, Clarence, who is a Vanic elf, threw me out of my body and took over for awhile. It was hard for him, because he had to adjust to wrong body, life on Earth (it’s one thing to be at my side and see how money works and so on, another thing to do it yourself), and the challenges of having different brain wiring. He did it to keep me from killing myself and also to give me a break from things here for awhile.

I like how she just casually says "oh yeah my spirit companion who's an elf threw me out of my body to keep me from killing myself."
So where'd you go, then?
What about this religious view is Christian?

and I was asked earlier today by someone else what I consider to be the difference between a witch and a wizard, and why I don’t consider the terms interchangeable, so here goes.

I'm equipped to answer this.
I play Diablo 3.
A wizard has arcane power as its main source of casting spells and witches can identify magic items.
I hope I cleared this up.

Since some people have nothing better to do with their time than stalk my blog, or feed stalkers information about what I post:

You don't know me.

YEAH FUCK YOU.
All this insane rambling online?

How dare you judge her based on this shit!

Over the last while I have been fairly open about the fact that I have two spirit husbands, both elves, and that I love me some elven cock.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHAT

When I, personally, have elf!sex, I am masturbating while I astrally project.

Haha oh wow.
This just keeps getting better and better.

So for those of you who don't already know this, Loki is my father.

"But Nono! Aren't you elven otherkin?"

Well, yes. In my elven incarnation, I had elven mother, Loki was my father. The Eshnahai count you as whatever your mother is, so Clarence and I were treated as Eshnahai growing up back in the day a long long time ago.

Yeah anyway. I can accept all this other crazy shit but Loki is your dad, WHAT?

how does it feel to have a human body on this side but you are very clearly an elf despite that?

I have body dysphoria. Some of it is because I’m gender-fluid, which is influenced by the elven form. (Not all Eshnahai are gender-shifters but some of us are. I am one of them. Our people consider it sacred.)

I sometimes experience phantom sensations like feeling the points on my ears, and I have been told by quite a few people over the years that my energy is really, really, really bright (and as such I tend to be “tasty” to psi vamps, so Clarence and Jarod have had to teach me about warding myself in a way that doesn’t negatively affect my natural energy but still protects me from things wanting to snack on me without consent).

Yeah you know.
Psychic vampires.
That's a thing that exists you ignorant cunt.
What the fuck do I even say to this?

Crappy cell phone pics of my shrine to Lucifer and my working altar.

Ha ok I'm in.

So, I already talked about this on Tumblr, but I'll talk about it here too.

One thing that I am not a fan of is hateblogs, or bastard culture forums, which is to say people whose purpose in life seems to be making fun of people about stuff.

 For those who haven't already heard about this, a god graveyard was put up by an atheist student group from the University of Wisconsin on Bascom Hill.

3edgy5me bro

As a polytheist, I am completely fucking disgusted by this. 

Who
cares
Wow this blog got boring.
Whew.
That was something.
Like what the fuck am I even supposed to do with all this fuck now?
Probably best to stop thinking about it.
So she might talk about elves being her spirit animal but my inner spirit animal is Marky Mark so let's do that as the song of the day.
Fuck.

ADVENT

Oh boy Christmas falls on a Wednesday this year.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck offffff.
Already the entries are shit like "hurrr Christmas shopping" and Wednesday is going to be absolutely insufferable with the Christmas fanfic about Sherlock fucking Watson on Christmas.
Anyway let's do this shit.

Fender bender at Target today. :| I would normally never go into a parking lot just a couple of days before Christmas, but Dad asked if I could pick up some Tupperware for Melissa (this is actually a good present), so I did ... and as I was backing out, someone else backed into me. Because their corner hit the side of my car, I think it's pretty clear that I was further out when they bumped me, at least.

lol women driving cars

But knowing some of the inner workings of insurance makes me REALLY UNEAGER to get involved in the whole reporting, even though I know I have to.

So don't?
You don't have to tell your insurance company diddly dick.
Let's read her "possibly controversial" opinion of Christianity.

1. I looove Christmas. The Christmas spirit, Christmas specials, the idea that there's ~something about this time of year~. Thick snow on the ground, curling up in the warm.

HOLY SHIT
CONTROVERSY
 EASY THERE I MIGHT CUT MYSELF ON THOSE EDGES.

2. I'm so not Christian, I'm not sure that there even was an historical Jesus (the fact that most of the scholars saying that no serious scholar would question his realness anymore appear to be Christian doesn't help) and think that if there were he was probably about 10% of what Bible!Jesus is. So very much not Christian.

Have I ever told you how much I hate the thing!name thing?
Biblical Jesus. Just say that. Don't get douchey with the bullshit fanfiction speak.

3. I am actually sort of embarrassed when people talk about Jesus. Not quite sure why. It's not a condescending embarrassment, like I think people should stop because it's wrong or anything.

 Wow this argument is fucking garbage.
I can't believe this needed a cut.
This is controversial?
Show some fucking passion.

4. I always have this TREMENDOUS cloud of guilt over the whole thing because Christmas's overwhelming of December obviously provokes discussion of Christian-centricity and privilege. I am clearly privileged in that my holiday of choice is the loudest and most powerful one, but ... because I'm not Christian and I choose to celebrate it (if one can be said to choose to celebrate a holiday that one's entire family celebrates) ... I don't even know what I want to say here, I just feel conflicted and like I'm sideways-Christian and have to consider myself a follower of Jesus even though (2). Why do I always have so much guilt and anxiety about everything?

5. Bella's church play was terrible even for a children's church play, and I realize that the original script had snowflakes in circles replacing the Os, but when your program reads "Sn*wflake C*unty" seeing the obvious does not mean I have a "dirty mind".

Woooooow.
So your opinion on Christianity is:
You're not a Christian but you celebrate Christmas.
WELCOME TO HALF OF AMERICA YOU STUPID CUNT.
It took you five (5) bullet points to reach that shocking conclusion never before reached by the mind of man.
You couldn't even manage an edgy atheist view?
Here let me give you a controversial opinion, then, since I feel bad for anyone reading this. I know I didn't sell it but at some point you were promised controversy.
Monotheism is poisonous and society was better off Pagan.
There.

My interview today went really well! I asked one of the questions that are supposed to be the right ones ("What's your ideal candidate for this job?" - answer, basically how I'd described myself, yes) and semi-lied about how I could see myself still there in 2-5 years. It's just a mail room job, and only for a couple of months, but I think I'd be suited.

>Semi-lied (what)
>said you'd stay 2-5 years
>only planning on staying months
No that'd just be a regular lie, idiot.

Somehow I've ended up browsing Amazon's "historical fiction about women in tumultuous periods of English history" section again. 

And science fiction and fantasy are still under the umbrella "scifi/fantasy" category.
Life ain't fair, man.

Okay, um. I suppose now I can claim a lot of cred because I have seen all of the following arguments:
- If you ship slash, you are disgusting and perverting the text and the obviously straight characters.
- If you don't ship slash, you are boring and unimaginative.
- If you don't ship slash, you are homophobic and ignoring the obvious subtext.
- If you ship slash, you are disgusted by women and hate all female characters (and yourself).
- If you ship slash, you are fetishizing gay men and are terrible.
- If you ship femslash, you are actually a liar because you don't. You only pretend to in order to look good.

WHY GOD WHY. How does anyone even have energy for this anymore? 

Who cares?
Who has the energy for this?
Certainly not me.
Like you're just writing shitty fanfiction because you're a no talent hack with no imagination. Just everyone play nice in your no-creativity world and enjoy it.

Yesterday I got the trifecta of bad.

Trifecta of bad?
Phantasy Star Universe with Bruce Sprinsteen album playing and you're trapped in Texas?
Because unless someone put a gun to your head and said "do this shit motherfucker" this is entirely your fault.
No one makes you play Phantasy Star Universe.
And admittedly I still have Vietnam war-tier flashbacks to how shit it is but you know.
I'll survive.

Sexism! "I don't know how those girls can call rape when they dress the way they do."

Oh.

Racism! [On a kid in Albany who picked up an abandoned gun in a vacant lot and accidentally shot himself in the hand, and his relatives talking on YNN.] "What do they think, living in places like that? Move out of that neighborhood!"

How is that racism?
Shit neighborhood. Leave.

Classism! ... Damn, I forgot the specifics for this one. Anti-Obamacare stuff. (YNN's been running a thing about how NY is starting to implement it for people who make less than $45k. I may be eligible for Medicaid!) It was there, though. It's actually there just about every day.

As a man who makes no money whatsoever I am anti-Obamacare.
This is weak.
That is not the trifecta of bad that I know.

Yup, getting involved in another argument on Jezebel about historical fashion. This is my life now, objecting nerdily when people say corsets cause health problems or Chanel blah blah blah THERE ARE BETTER NON-NAZI FEMINIST FASHION ICONS OUT THERE

Woooooow arguing on feminist blogs about historical fashion.
So cool.

A blog this gay deserves a very homosexual song of the now.
I'm stopping this entry here incidentally. I can't handle talks about Victorian fashion and feminism.
Like who gives a shit, honestly?

Ha

Wow it feels like a week since I last updated.
Oh shit I'm sorry.
I found a blog that I was going to review but then I found out it was in character and it was like a roleplay/fanfic thing.
Bad sign when your fanfic is so boring I think it's really you posting.
The only sign I had that it wasn't actually a real person was the line "I'm a spy."
Either you're the worst spy ever or the best spy ever.
I found another blog that was good but it just started--
more fanfic crap--
here we go.
That was a tough one.

If you begin an essay with, "I don't really know much about..." and then have the gall to carry on writing for five paragraphs, I don't know why I or anyone else should bother to read it.

If you're ignorant, shut up or find something by someone who's not ignorant and read it. If you aren't ignorant about a given topic, don't start off insisting that you are. You don't look suitably humble, you just look like a tool.

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that  

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU NOT GONNA FINISH IT.

I have started but not finished about four books in the last week. I don't think I will finish Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel, because I got about two chapters in and realized all the characters annoyed me. I am not sure if I will pick up Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone again, because it is very Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. I am probably going to finish Walter Mosley's Little Green, because it is a Walter Mosley novel and he is a sufficiently good prose stylist that I can get through even a substandard volume, which I don't think this is. 

Huh yeah that's cool meanwhile in the land of stories that aren't fucking gay I'm reading Vulkan Lives.

Turns out the reason Vulkan lives is because he's a perpetual like John Grammaticus and therefore can't die.

Oh by the way if you don't want the story spoiled you might not want to read that previous sentence.

But why is he a perpetual?
Did the Emperor do that on purpose or is it like Sanguinius' wings?

If it was on purpose, why?

WHO KNOWS.

The Unremembered Empire is going to be off the fucking chain though.

Look how fucking metal this cover is.

Folks, when I write a lengthy post about something I think is cool, and explain why I think it's cool even though it's challenging to figure out at first, and two different people respond with, "I still hate it," I don't have a civil response.

>Reading all those words

har not today, asshole.

If, despite my reasonable and articulate arguments, you haven't read Homestuck, now is your last opportunity to do so while there is some surprise left about how things will end.

I tried to read Homestuck once and I got bored somewhere around the 60th comic mark and there still wasn't the semblance of a plot and the rules were still being explained like the comic is some kind of RPG from the late 90s/early 2000s.

THIS IS HOW YOU JUNCTION MAGIC TO A WEAPON.

But what Hussie is doing, when you scrape away the in-jokes and the sex muppets and the shipping and the deliberately-bad art and everything else (and some days that takes a LOT of scraping), is structurally different from anything that's happened in comics before. So reading it is work, especially at first. And what I hear from friends, recurrently, is that they think it is too much work.

Good stories shouldn't be told in a complicated manner. The story should stand on its own.

When you have to do gay tricks like this it tells me you don't have much to say.

Opened a romance novel I bought last night and in the first paragraph, the protagonist is swearing "in his mother's native Mexican."

I'm...I'm not even sure where to go with that. I think it'll be more fun if I choose to believe he speaks Nahuatl.

I still contend the greatest opening to a book would be the line from Geto Boy's "Straight Gangstaism":

cigarette in one hand

drink in the other

leanin' to one side

cooler than a motherfucker

Tell me you wouldn't read that.

Reading state curriculum standards: in kindergarten, my kids are supposed to develop the ability to "distinguish wants from needs."

Yeah the state curriculum for 9th grade English includes such gems as "students will be able to form a coherent argument and back it up with original logic with evidence."

Most adults can't even do that.

I don't expect to be futzing around on the work Pinterest account before bed and stumble on a picture of a severed human penis.

I mean, no. That is not work-safe. That is not within my remit. That is not the fuzzy bunnies and teapots and bizarre diet recipes and umpteen kerjillion pictures of the Romanovs native to the Pinterest I know and use for work-related purposes. Yuck yuck yuck. 

>On the internet

>bitching about seeing a severed penis

how new are you to the internet?

I see weirder shit at 8 AM than that on an average day.

In fact my reaction if, at the end of the day, I haven't seen outrageous gore pictures my reaction is "holy shit I wasn't on the internet at all today."

Internets, I will not entertain the possibility that fiction written in the first person is inferior to that written from any other point of view.

I will give you not one, but two reasons why. To wit:

The reason first person is shit is because a lot of the mystique of interesting main characters is ruined when you realize their internal monologue is often as boring as your own.

Your reasons are irrelevant. This is reality.

It is a truth generally acknowledged -- I mean, around here, not, like, at my place of business -- that I have done some kinky stuff in my time.

But little in my experience has proven as disturbing, painful, unsatisfying, or producing of distressing marks in the genital regions (when something says it is "safe for use on the bikini area," I don't expect it to leave any part of said "bikini area" covered in very large splotchy bruises) as the Sally Hansen All-Over Body Brazilian Wax Kit, Just Heat In Microwave.

I see no problem with smearing something you just put in the microwave on your crotch.

Girls are dumb.

It would take a more creative mind than mine to make this product fun, but for those of you who enjoy inflicting pain on others, let me just say, this is absolutely the most perverse thing I have ever bought at the Target on a Friday night.

Ow ow ow ow.

And to add insult to injury, it didn't particularly get rid of the undesirable hair, either.

I can't believe normal ladies do stuff like this on a regular basis. I mean, I am working hard at the Convincing Impression of Girlyness (I am totally getting good at putting on eyeliner, too, I hardly ever have to do the "it's a smoky eye, it's not that I totally can't draw on my face competently" thing any more), but jesus fuck. There are some girl skills I don't think I can acquire, and waxing is one of them.

Surprise!

What, you thought this was just a normal girl?
HOW WRONG YOU WERE, ASSHOLE.

NO ONE ON THE INTERNET IS USUAL.

Folks, you know that I feel strongly that in a nation as rich as the United States, it's ludicrous that not everyone can afford medical care. I also feel strongly that birth control is a good idea and should be made freely available, and I oppose recent conservative efforts to limit women's access to birth control. 

So is it double ridiculous when I could afford healthcare but now can't? 

I'm not sure how you fuck that up, speaking of.

In your quest to make healthcare more affordable I went from being able to afford it to not being able to afford it.

That's the opposite of your goal.

 Fuck.

Song of the now.

Can you believe

Can you believe I'm still fucking doing these?
I thought for sure I'd have gotten bored after like week two.
Who rules?
Me.
Anyway here's some cunt who writes fanfiction about video games no one plays.
Are you a big fan of Fire Emblem?
No?
Well I'm not really surprised.
But if you are then you might want to avoid this entry.

I have a self-portrait and some formidable studying to get done before tomorrow morning, and a research paper and take-home final to complete by Thursday.

Yeah and I'm teaching chorus tomorrow.
We all have our challenges to overcome.
If you had ask me 10 years ago "hey do you think you'll be leading a chorus class in your life?" my answer would have been "no" and I'd have been wrong 3 times over.

Instead, I have written three pages of meta in the last two hours.

I think this is a good time to give a jovial little "FML."

You say this like it's something that happened to you. Like when my car blew a spark plug and needed a 400 dollar repair.
No, you knew you were supposed to study and instead you wrote some insufferable "meta" (whatever the fuck that is) and now you're updating your blog like LOOK WHAT SHIT HAPPENED TO ME TODAY.

I came to a fandom epiphany a couple of months ago and have been wanting to write about it, but like everything else, it needed a bit of time to stew before I got it into words.

Wow a fandom epiphany holy shit count me right the fuck in!
It's only 8 paragraphs.
I have time to read all these words.

There are multiple ways to approach being a fan of something. You can approach it like a diner: just sit back and enjoy, let the work wash over you and just react to it in the moment.

AKA what sane people do.

You can approach it like a scientist: take it apart to see how it works, make observations, and come to conclusions after a period of study.

That's the nerd approach but equally acceptable.

You can take the approach of a historian and determine where it came from and the sort of effect it might have. 

Generally a part of the second one but all right.

You can look to defend it without question or rip it to shreds in the name of love. I think everyone takes a different approach depending on the work, or even just how they're feeling at the moment.

As for me? I tend to approach FE as a performer. What are my lines, and more importantly, what can I do with them on stage?* My impetus for writing meta and fanfiction is to explore what we're given and, with all due respect, do something interesting and at least a little bit unexpected with it. It's about potential for me. This is why I look at things with, for lack of a better term, a sort of optimistic overanalysis. I like making connections and revealing hidden depths and opening up characters or situations for other people. I love it when other people love characters and write about them at length, because it opens them up for me in new ways. 

Fire Emblem, for those of you uninitiated in obscure Japanese turn-based tactical RPGs, is a series well known for its political drama and not so much its deep characterization.
So keep that in mind as this bint rattles on.

(*The other metaphor I've given for fanfic in particular is that the source material is like a coloring page. We all get the same black-and-white lineart. Most people are going to color it similarly based on the sort of colors things are generally supposed to be, give or take the odd artist who turns it into a whacked-out Lisa Frank mural or something, but even among the similarly-colored pages, there will be differences. An unclear line might yield a leaf for one person and a bird for another. The leaves could be spring-green or autumn-orange-- neither one is wrong! There's going to be a few artists who rise above the crayon-and-marker crowd and turn in, say, a gorgeous watercolor piece that doesn't even look like it was a coloring page in the first place.)

There is no metaphor to give for fanfiction because it's straightforward. It's a bunch of self-important cunts who think they're better than most people because they happen to like something and write at length (poorly) their own misguided interpretation of it.

This is also why I tend to get bristly about author intent. I totally understand the purpose of looking at it, and I definitely don't think it should be discounted from the wider conversation. It just doesn't help me as a fan or as a writer to look at things that way most of the time. The idea of looking at things that make sense as probably being slipshod and things that don't add up as being dead ends is frustrating to me. 

You don't like author intent?
You don't like the reason the author created something?
Look your idea might be better than theirs (not true in your case but it can be true) and if that's the case maybe you should tell your own story because clearly you have this better in hand than the author of the thing you're a fan of.

To once again be clear, I'm not claiming Death of the Author: that author intent doesn't matter because ~it's all relative, maaaan.~ There's stuff we don't know because it's left ambiguous, and then there's stuff that, yeah, we don't technically know, but come on.

The characters in Fire Emblem are supposed to be blank slates that make way for the political intrigue and double dealings and the tactical game play.
The author does not care about your dumb fanfiction about how two characters might be gay together. You are not some great artist for concluding this. Literally anyone can do it.
Literally everyone does do it if the typical fanfiction writer's blog is to be believed.

tl;dr, take this for what it's worth: a long-ass reflection on why I react weirdly in discussions and why I (don't) write (enough).

With that off my chest, I'm gonna go write something.

• Current Mood: liberated

 

No one cares.

Thing I just now realized after playing FE for eight years

I'd like to point out in a previous post she mentioned she only played 6-8.

I don't even give a shit about Fire Emblem and I've beaten 6 and 7.

So in 8 years you've managed to beat exactly one more Fire Emblem game than I have.

"Mt" stands for Might.

I was always so confused at that abbreviation. In my head I read it as... 'mount of damage.

... 'mount of damage?

I'm not going to make a big deal about this because I've thought of really stupid meanings for abbreviations before but that's especially dumb.

This isn't the big post I was planning on opening with (that one's still in progress because I talk myself into corners), but it's the first one I finished.

You don't hear a lot about pets in FE-- pets that aren't mounts, that is.

Thank fuck because if I had to hear about that dumb bitch's pegasus one more fucking time I was going to quit.

I can't imagine dealing with that and a dog.

Because I need some form of incentive to write my jillion-and-a-half essays.

Give me a series to cross over with Fire Emblem, and I'll give you as plausible a summary as I can think of.

Shin Megami Tensei.

The entire cast of Fire Emblem gets sacrificed to Pazuzu. End of fanfic.

I'd read that.

Apparently she can barely trudge through Fire Emblem.

Fire Emblem, it bears noting, is legendary for its difficulty and in fact has a mechanic where if a character dies they are gone forever.

Naturally people who write fanfiction are a little more used to the flash game side of gaming instead of serious games like this so I appreciate her lack of progress.

Oh, I finished FE9, fiiiiinally. Overall I was quite pleased with it, despite some lackluster elements. Of course, as with most FE games, it's part of a bigger picture, so I started up FE10 shortly afterwards. Verrrry happy with this one. Aside from the disappointing way the supports were handled, everything else is fantastic. I've had a lot of "wait, what!" moments while playing-- in a good way. I played through Part 1 and about halfway into Part 2 before I got frustrated with "Geoffrey's Charge" and went back to FE7 for a while. I'm surprised people were so hard on Part 1! Granted, I'm playing on Easy mode, but I didn't have trouble with the battles, 

"I don't get why people complain about a hard game while I'm playing on easy mode."

People who play Fire Emblem look for a challenge and so typically play on hard.

Easy mode is for baby's first SRPG.

Day 17 - Which stat is your favorite?

Hmm, tough pick between Speed and Defense. I think I'd have to go with the latter, though, just because I'm not very good at FE and I need all the protection my units can get! If you can get both in one unit, though, they'll pretty much be a powerhouse. 

Might and defense I believe are mathematically the one and two most important stats in any Fire Emblem game. I remember I had this big fuck off dude with a spear who would win entire levels by himself.

This blog kind of degenerates into lists of garbage no one cares about.

What the fuck is happening?

How long do I have to tolerate this?

Oh.

Well that's her first entry so I guess that's how long I have to tolerate it.

Wow that was something.

Since this was a highly video game-centric post and I'm feeling FUCKING RAGE after reading this I think this is appropriate for the song of the now.

Enjoy 30 minutes of Streets of motherfuckin' Rage 2.

One of the best soundtracks in video games I feel.

Dear Assholes

Dear Annie it is this Friiiiiiiiiiiidaaaaaaaaaaaaay Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight muthafuckas

Dear Annie: My boyfriend and I have been together for two years, and he moved in six months ago. "John" is 25 years older than I am. 

Found the issue.
If I was dating someone 25 years my junior I'd be dating a 1 year old.
Think about it, won't you?

John was forced into retirement last year, and I think he somehow blames me. I work full time, take care of two teenage boys, cook dinner every night, do dishes and laundry, clean the bathrooms, buy the groceries and pay the bills. John sweeps and vacuums and does the yard work, which is a godsend because I have had shoulder issues that make these things difficult for me. 

Sounds like you're just together.
I've learned in life that most people can't choose their significant other with any sort of ability so it sounds like you got off easy.
I don't care about this.

Dear Annie: I recently missed my 10-year high school reunion. I found out it was held in August, and I was never invited because I am not on Facebook.

Good.
Who would want to revisit those jackoffs anyhow?
I don't understand.
Anyone I'd want to see at a high school reunion wouldn't be caught dead at one anyway.

Dear Annie: I read the letter from "Waiting," who doesn't like it when the bank tellers chitchat with the customers. I enjoy the personal touch and suggest that those who don't use the ATM instead.

As a man who spent the last two days on a quest to get two documents notarized and two envelopes mailed I can tell you that shit gets old fast. I'm not going to point any fingers here but when it's two women doing a transaction you might as well get in the other line even if it's out the door and around the block because that one is going to die down faster.

Dear Annie: My husband and I frequently go out to dinner with several other couples. One of the wives is a vegetarian. That's fine, but she sometimes makes a scene with the server. She argues about the way things are prepared and accuses the waitstaff of lying. 

I've been watching a lot of Kitchen Nightmares lately and I've learned a lot about cooking and how to run a restaurant and I can tell you she's probably right but because she's acting like a cunt she should probably be thrown out.

Dear Annie: In 1988, I had a wife and three beautiful children. Then my wife decided to be "liberated." She wanted to spread her wings and be independent. She engaged me in a particularly acrimonious divorce and lived on child and spousal support until she discovered that being independent was not working for her. She remarried and moved my children hundreds of miles away, effectively excising them from my life, even though she admits I was a great father. Needless to say, I harbor considerable animosity toward her.

As well you should.
I mean goddamn.

I've since remarried a wonderful woman. My children are grown and starting their own families. I recognize that I must endure the unpleasantness of having to see my ex at my children's weddings, etc., but I never expected that my brother and sister would invite my ex to their own children's weddings and other family functions.

I feel that because my ex divorced me, she is no longer a part of my family and should not be invited to attend family gatherings

That's a tough one because she's your children's mother--
I dunno man.
Look I know this won't help you too much but as I've advocated numerous times I think it is clear where you made your mistake.

I have made this point very clear to my siblings, along with the fact that seeing my ex causes me significant pain. Further, my new wife feels she's being upstaged by my ex at these events. Yet, my siblings insist on including this woman.
Is it unrealistic for me to believe that when my ex divorced me, she also divorced my family? Am I expecting too much to ask that my siblings not embrace the woman who devastated my life? — Divorced in Oregon 

You know maybe it's a good thing. I personally believe you can't come out on top without facing a lot of misery in your life.
Look at Caesar during his Gallic years.
That must have been a shit time. On campaign all the time in barbaric France/Germany/Spain kinda area we're not really sure what that is and then he decides maybe he could do better by conquering all of Rome and liberating it from the corrupt senate and so he did.
Then he got stabbed a few times on March 15, 44 BC but let's not talk about that.
Dear Oregon: Sorry to say, but what your siblings do is not something you can dictate. Their children may still consider this woman to be their aunt, and their relationship to her does not include the bitterness and rancor you are hanging onto.
Please let it go. Allowing your ex to rattle you after all these years gives her power over you. You don't have to enjoy her company, but you can work on making her presence insignificant.
Don't let go of your hate, man.
That's what makes you strong.

Dear Annie: My wife and I recently married. The wedding was in Texas, but most of our family lives elsewhere. Although we were disappointed, we understood that many folks would be unable to attend due to the travel and hotel costs.
Here's the problem. Not one of these relatives sent so much as a card, let alone a gift.

No one cares two people got married. They'll probably be divorced in 6 months anyway.
Don't use your wedding as an excuse to jerk yourself off, throw a big party and treat it like a fundraiser.
Maybe treat it like exactly what it is.
A legally binding contract.
Only when you are adult enough to acknowledge this reality then you can get married.
I'd have a quiz before a wedding. "Why are you getting married?"
"To express our love for each other!"
"Oh shit better luck next time, kids. Time to pack this tent up."

In the past few years, we have attended several family events and always gave gifts.

 "A gift or a present is an object given without the expectation of payment."
Says Wikipedia.
Now we all know reciprocity with presents is the polite thing to do but most people can't disgorge their heads from their ass long enough to do anything about this.

Dear Confused: Many people feel that if they did not attend the event, they do not need to send a gift, although a card with good wishes is always proper. But please do not treat your wedding as a fundraiser. While a gift is welcome and appropriate, it should not be the point of the invitation. And gifts may still be forthcoming. We hope they will extend their good wishes, but you cannot demand that they do so.  

Thank you, Annie, but I got this one.

My supervisor rarely states his desires clearly. But if I take the initiative or ask him to clarify, he makes me feel like an idiot. He is condescending and highly critical of most people. He also is a nonstop gossip. He has portrayed me to others as racist, womanizing and incompetent. 

Who hasn't been depicted as these things?
I'm dead serious.
They're easy things to push.
Also just do this to him.
How many places with a notary public should a man have to go to before he can get two documents notarized?
I'd think one.
The answer, of course, was seven.
Thank you, NC, for your remarkable efficiency.
No wonder this state is shit for the birds.
Can't even get a semi-literate cretin to stamp a paper.

Dear Annie: Why do people make a big deal out of men who are crossdressers?
I am 43 years old, happily married and not gay. I'm a businessman, and I wear lacy lingerie with breast forms under my suits every day.

Holy shit dude
What the fuck
Suddenly I see why I'm doing so well on Wallstreet Magnate. This is what I'm competing against. I'm sitting in my underwear, miserable and eating Cap'n Crunch competing with this guy who has given up on life.
How can you make the trades if you have frilly panties on?
I'm so filled with hate when I click buy I can barely see.
YEAH
CHINA MOBILE.
THE HATE HAS SEEN IT.

My beautiful wife of 20 years thinks I look hot in lingerie. When we go out to fancy restaurants, I dress up as a woman. I'm very passable, and our four teenage daughters are OK with it.  

BRO.
CHINA MOBILE.
CHINA MOBILE IS GOING TO CUT A DEAL WITH APPLE. GET ON THIS TRAIN NOW.
Nope can't be a businessman because he's too busy going to dinner in a dress.
Give me your money. I can do more with it than you can.

There are straight women who wear men's clothing, and I never hear anything negative about them.

Yeah there are. They know what it means to be in business.
Here let's do a little thought experiment.
You need to conduct business/buy stocks/sell shit/whatever this man does.
Who do would you trust more to give reliable advice?

Or:

 Go on. Think about it.

Dear Happy: Women who wear men's clothing generally do so because it is more comfortable. Men who wear women's clothing, which is decidedly less comfortable, often do so because it gives them a sexual thrill or satisfies some emotional need. (Some women dress like men for the same reasons.) The important thing is that your wife and daughters are OK with it. No one else's opinion matters.

If you haven't seen the show Profit (which is the top image) you really should because it's 5/5 bretty good :DDDDDD
Jesus Christ.
Well so ends another session of assholes with problems.
Song of the now?

Jesus Christ People

Dreamwidth's front page is awash with people posting every single log of every single roleplay they ever did ever and it's mostly two people just posting constantly.
No one cares. Knock it off.
This one person just signed up today and they already have 20 posts.
Stop.
But luckily amid all the garbo I found this jackoff.
Look at this motherfucker's avatar. Have you ever seen such a fedora tipper in your entire goddamn life?

I was very depressed this morning, and am less so now.

I essentially gave myself permission to do whatever I wanted today, as long as I was doing something, so naturally I defaulted to coding on LiSE. I've nearly got the map editor working again.

How long until there's a post about My Little Pony or atheism?

I'm not feeling well lately. I doubt I have any very compelling reason for feeling this way. The stresses I am reacting to are ordinary, and I know how to deal with them generally. I need to refine my approach a bit, and I'm having trouble with that, because I'm not feeling well, and planning for the future is difficult.

"He felt the hate engine stab rage into the meat of his mind."
-- Aaron Denski-Bowden, Betrayer, 2013.
Seriously one of the best Warhammer books ever written. Listen to the audio drama Butcher's Nails then read Betrayer for some shit, man.

It may be difficult because I haven't examined the present closely enough. To examine the present I need to examine my feelings, since they are rather directly relevant to my plans.

I was going to quote something but I forget what it was and I ended up listening to The Geto Boys for some reason.
I think it was related?
Can you imagine if blogs were as well written as Mind Playing Tricks on Me?
This blog wouldn't exist.

Any amount of self-reflection upon my emotional problems is going to sound very similar to self-pity. Maybe it is self-pity. I'm not sure. Is it always called "pity" when you try to empathize with sorrow, your own or someone else's, and want to make it better? Is that condescending? Regardless, this is what I need to do. It will probably sound bad, even to myself. So I shouldn't dwell on it any longer than useful, and I shouldn't try to share it with people who aren't already interested in it.

What the fuck are you talking about you nut?

I'm feeling disappointed in myself. Not for any particular failure. There are a few that I can point to, but they're either recoverable, or they're old news. It's stupid to be disappointed that I didn't put enough effort into high school, or I shut myself off from my would-be friends. I don't even remember those experiences very well.

I forget who said it but someone wise said he never trusted a man that has never felt disappointment and failure.
Who knows how you'll act when you inevitably face failure if you've never felt it before?
Best feel it early so you don't feel it when it really matters.
And then fail that.

I lack motivation.

To get motivation, I need to form an emotional association between what I want and what I need to get it.

There is no greater or purer emotional assistance in aiding motivation than anger.
Studies have even demonstrated you make your best decisions while mad.
Contrary to most conventional wisdom.
Except, of course, the sanguine wisdom of the true wise men.

To form an emotional association, I need to go about doing one thing in a way that evokes the emotions of another thing. To form an association with something I want, I need to find bits of what I want that evoke an immediate, visceral emotional reaction, and insinuate them into whatever I need to do.

I am not in the habit of finding the visceral bits of things. I'll need to practice.

To viscerate something is to find the visceral bits of it.

To enviscerate something is to insinuate those visceral bits into it.

And to feel like you need to eviscerate something just read this tripe.

I am a nihilist by disposition.
I do not subscribe to any of the various belief systems called "nihilism," unless you're one of those people who think that moral relativism is strictly equivalent to moral nihilism. However, I dislike belief, and try to avoid believing in things whenever it's reasonably practical. I rejected theism just about as soon as I understood it, 

BOOOM
ATHEISM POST
I'm counting it
fuck you
a thousand points to me
I am the greatest

rejected the notion of American exceptionalism (past or present) once I understood it had to do with identity politics, and rejected most notions of group identity in general when I learned how easy it is to identify as anything you damned well please.

I think I was thirteen when I did that. I was trying to reject the relevance of mathematics, too, but that didn't stick.

I rejected the relevance of mathematics in my life when I was like 10 and haven't looked back.
Have I mentioned how well my fake stock portfolio is doing?

Why not just describe myself as a skeptic? Well, I guess I could say that, but skepticism to my mind implies a degree of curiosity and inquisitiveness that I only demonstrate on occasion. My urge to disbelieve is more like a reflex. I rarely think about it, and I don't remember a time when I didn't have it.
I have a theory about how I might have learned this habit.

>I reject belief
>here's what I believe about what I think
hurrrrr

Today wasn't terrible.

Can't ask for more than that I find.
That's what I do when I look for jobs on the substitute teacher system. "Well that probably won't be terrible or get me killed or fired."

I have power issues.
That's nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone has those. It's like saying I have "health issues". It's trivially true, because "power," like "health," is an exceedingly broad category.

Me too.
My power issue is I'm not caesar.

Power is a confusing concept. Most of the time, when we say a person is powerful, we're not really referring to the number of joules or amperes they can put out. We're referring to who obeys their orders and under what conditions. So "power" in the common use is intrinsically conditional.

There's soft power and there's hard power. Soft power people feel obligated to do what you say based on some sort of fallout for not doing what you say or whatever. Hard power people want to do what you say because they're compelled either through mutual interest or admiration or whatever.
Machiavelli makes this all very clear in his definitive guide to the subject.
As Machiavelli teaches and is so often mangled by idiots misinterpreting his wisdom it is better to be feared than loved if you can't be both but he never goes so far as to say being feared is preferable to the point of exclusion.

Even if you're commanding an army, your power is contingent on the cooperation of everyone in your chain of command. Getting that chain of command to the point where it's reliable enough that the people giving the orders can be meaningfully said to have power is a very difficult problem that takes up a fair portion of the national budget.

Wow your understanding of power politics, government and military spending is breathtaking.
Clearly, clearly the US government spends a lot of its budget ensuring the loyalty of the troops.
That's why troops make so much money, obviously.
Not, you know, the fact that guys are firing rockets that cost more than they'll make in a year at people who won't make that much money in their lifetime. 

As an aspie, I have to think harder than most people in order to accomplish basic tasks like talking, eating, and getting out the door.

Are you genuinely autistic or are you just an antisocial, lazy cretin using that as a screen?
If you're genuinely autistic then no harm but if you're just saying that then you're a fucking asshole.
Like what, I'm just sitting here having the time socializing, eating and getting out the door?
Life is a fucking wide awake nightmare and no one has an easy time doing fucking anything. We just pretend we do because if we don't then that's when motherfuckers get shot.

Because I am accustomed to thinking about every action, I often fall for the delusion that thought is action. 

I do that a lot. "Did I do that or did I think about doing that?"
Most of the time I don't remember.

I think I've worked out what my issue with "pride" is.

It's rare for a person expressing pride to say exactly what they are proud of doing.  

Oh let me break this shit right the fuck down for you before you launch into a 3 page treatise of pretentious garbage on the subject.
Pride.
I am proud I lived.
I am proud I died.
Simple as that, dipshit. It's a trait you either have or you don't.
The old Pagan cultures engender a healthy sense of pride in its men in particular believing that's what caused people to aspire to greatness.
And I think few can argue with the glories of Rome or the Han.
Christianity was quick to quash that idea and instead opted for meekness and submission.
Dark ages ahoy!

Usually they point at the result of their efforts instead: "I'm proud of you, son" vs. "I'm proud of the way I raised you, son". The intended meaning is the same. The former phrasing means something different by the pronoun "you" than usual: instead of referring directly to the person the speaker is talking to, as they stand right here and now, it refers to some experiences that the speaker had with them.

Usually when someone says "I'm proud of you" it's more of an empathetic thing or perhaps a notion of being proud to know the person.
Because, you know, usually we're judged by the company we keep because we tend to surround ourselves with people who are at least similar to us in some regard so if someone does something you're proud of you likely possess a characteristic at least broadly similar to them.
Also pride is a pretty serious thing. It's easy to not have pride.
Having pride suddenly makes you intolerant of a lot of shit you'd otherwise be fine with.

To use my empathy to its best effect, I need to turn it up and down at will. Perhaps I already have this ability. I seem to be pretty good at turning my emotions off; my new task is to turn off particular emotions when and where they cause trouble.

For example. My calc teacher will be disappointed to see how far behind I am on the homework. But it's still his job to help me, so I should ask, and when (if) he makes his displeasure apparent, I should acknowledge that, and not care.

You're in college, dipshit. His job is to lecture and your job is to figure it out on your own.
He can help you and probably will if you're a nice guy but no, his job is not to help just you when you need it, plebeian. 
See that's what I mean about pride. If I were a college professor and you said that to me that'd be my reaction.
I didn't get a fucking PhD in mathematics to babysit spoiled bitches like you.

Starting today, I am going to award myself experience points for every moderately difficult task I complete. Ten points is standard;

If only life worked that way.
I'm serious.

I am a coward.

“It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.”
-Herodotus
I love these essays on bullshit that can be answered with one sentence by me or someone else.

Years spent actively pursuing indifference have left me with a general tendency toward indifference. This is causing problems.

Wow what do you fucking know
If you think something over and over it becomes your thoughts
Beat your thoughts to the mold of your will.
Fuuuck.
Anyway work tomorrow and shit so time for the SONG OF THE NOOOOW.