Glasses can hold to you...until they're impossible to put down.

I came across a video a friend liked on Facebook...

I have this to say...

For some people it's not that easy. Some people have stress like weights duct-taped to their wrists and ankles, and it drags at them. Day after day, it gets heavier and heavier, and it gets harder and harder to go through life on your own, until you're nearly crippled and need to rely on others just to stay afloat enough to get the odd breath in every so often.

Some people can't put that glass of water down. Not because they forget, or want to hold to their stress, but because the glass won't let go of them.

It's hard to live like that. With chronic insomnia, I was lucky to get a few minutes of sleep here and there in a day, and an hour of sleep a night in little snatches - a few minutes just after midnight, a minute at three, five minutes just after dawn. I lived like that.

Then I didn't. Then I started being able to actually sleep, and it was like...like a whole room opened up, a room of paints and pastels and canvas and rich, soft, white paper and gorgeous flowering plants and a world of music, where before all I had was a few albums, a record player, onionskin paper, and old, broken pencil stubs with a penknife to sharpen them with.

And now it's like that with stress. It was like cooking with long, flared silk sleeves weighted with jewels and metals, a dress of velvet and silk and six layers, rings on every finger. An old, rusty knife, a tin camp-cup, a raggedy plastic board, and old cracked pans and pots.

And now it's like seeing an open door with a modern, fully-stocked kitchen, with an apron hanging in the doorway. I'm still getting rid of the layers, to the simple sundress under it all, but the heavy jeweled overgown is gone, no more silk to catch on fire, or jewels to weigh me down, velvets and brocades to trip over and get in the way.

Or, to put it like the video....the glass is on the table, but my fingers are still attached to it...but they're coming loose, joint by joint...

And when that happens? When I am finally free of the things that, while I love to wear them, they weight my every step and make cooking nearly impossible? When the water I need to live is no longer carried all day, all night, every moment of my life?

That will be the day I no longer need to rely on things.

The Cruelty of Small Children

There are so many theories as to what this song is actually about, but according to the creator it's about the cruelty of small children.

And I have no problem believing that at all.

You see, I was a victim of the cruelty of small children while I was a child myself. I was isolated, I was ridiculed, I was emotionally, mentally, and physically hurt. My belongings were public property and routinely destroyed.
And no one who knew cared, save five people: an old friend of mine, my mother, my grandfather, Maureen, and myself.

I had one friend, Owen, who also experienced the cruelty of the same small children, during the school year. I had to wait until summer to have more friends. Sam and Walker, Ari and Cody. During the summer I knew I had friends who would never treat me like dirt just because I didn't know they were popular at a school I had never been to before. They wouldn't treat me like my oldest friend Kelsey.
And they didn't know that it was happening. They didn't know that during the school year and in my own town I had one singular friend.
I didn't want them to.

I had fun during the summer. I had friends, actual friends, and I didn't want the ugliness of the school year to intrude on my time with them.



And then there's the one thing that I lived with my whole life.
I knew someone who was a fairly constant presence in my life. She not only didn't care that I was bullied and pushed around, she said it was my fault.
She said I needed to dress differently, act differently, drop my interests of reading and video games and trading card games, horses and singing and archery.
She said I needed to care about celebrities and boy bands and clothes.
She said I needed to wear clothes that didn't cover enough skin for me to feel comfortable.
She said I needed to stop riding and doing barn chores and instead play softball or soccer or some other sport.
I said no. That was a mistake.
I didn't want to change who I was. I had no concept of pretending to be someone I wasn't in order to fit in with the majority of people. I had no DESIRE to pretend to like the people who hated me. Why would I?
I was told that if I followed her instructions that they WOULD like me.
I asked her that one question: Why would I want to be friends with the same people who isolated me, hurt me, and ridiculed me?

The cruelty of small children broke me.

But I put myself back together and, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, made those parts of me that broke, that were the target of the cruelty, shine out.

I do have to wonder, though, what I would be like had I not experienced so much of the cruelty of small children.
I have to question just why the behavior that is condemned in adults, condemned, intolerable, considered harassment, even assault, is tolerated, ignored, even encouraged in children.

Can anyone tell me that?

Reaction to a Friend's Article

A friend of mine wrote an article that was recently featured here. I replied to it, and it became a bit...long. I will repost it here.

I am on the spectrum, too. I may have started to talk and read and even write earlier than most children...but once I did I had trouble stopping for anything. Even eating was sometimes a fight. To get me to interact socially with any children beyond a very few was a war. I didn't WANT to. I didn't LIKE talking to people. I learned very early that if you look like you're so involved in what you're reading that you literally cannot notice what is going on unless they physically move your book...well, that got most people to leave you alone.

And why wouldn't I want people to leave me alone? People were loud and startling, and they didn't make sense. Books made sense. You read and turned the pages and eventually there were no more pages to turn. Then the book was over, and you started another. Books were linear. They had plots and people in books acted in accordance with the plot - either to move it along or to hinder it. Protagonists and antagonists.

Eventually I learned that if I didn't talk to people and didn't "make friends" I would be labeled a "problem". What? I wasn't a problem. I didn't make trouble, I did okay in school, I was relatively quiet and well-behaved...but I ignored "real people". I didn't understand them. They didn't follow any set of rules I could follow. Saying hello to one person could get me a hello back, but another person would treat me like something to scrape off their shoes if I said hello to them. I didn't get it.

Later I found video games. RPGs, really. It was like a book, with a story, but YOU made the story happen. There were rules, and the people you didn't control acted in accordance with those rules. You acted within those rules to further the story. It was simple.

Eventually I found friends. Eventually I puzzled out this strange thing, human interaction. I learned more and more of the sets of rules that others followed. Sometimes I still stumble on the unknown, another rule to learn, another set of rules to puzzle out.

But it was hard. Everyone was loud and in my face and they moved through a conversation so FAST...it was, to me, like trying to hold a conversation with an auctioneer.

I learned to read emotions. I do it so well now that I will react to the emotions of people I pass on the street. Walking through a city is a mental drain. So many people going by so fast and about a third of them I notice how they hold themselves and how their faces look and the energy they surround themselves with - anger or fear or the frantic panic of the very late...happiness and deep sadness or even preoccupation. It gets to the point that sometimes it overrules what I actually feel, and when that happens, I break down. Sometimes it's a panic attack, sometimes it's complete emotional deadlock - locking everything so far inside that I don't feel any emotion. I'm told that it's anxiety disorder modulated - modified - by being on the spectrum.

I have cats. I can tell you right now that without those cats I would not be functioning as well as I do. I don't do well academically and I can't work a steady, ordinary job. I'm not good at organising things and I have trouble keeping my house straightened out.

What I do do well is horses. Horses are simple. They have social rules and set behaviors. Stables have rules and are laid out in a simple way, everything in its own, very obvious place. Stalls are all mucked out the same way. Mucking out goes into the pile outside, no matter where in the world you are. Tack needs to be cleaned and stored the same way the world over. Horses need to be groomed the same way. Feed is measured the same way. Hay bales have flakes no matter where you are. No matter if you're in America or the UK or Siberia, every horse the world over needs water. Tack is put on the same way no matter what horse you're tacking up. Feet are cleaned, bits de-grassed, and aisles swept the same way. Bathtime always involves water and soap and hoses and sponges. It always ends with some amount of water and stray horse hairs on you.

If you act this way, horses will react this way. Act that way and horses will do that. It's simple.

But to tell this to people who know I am on the spectrum and they, save for family and friends who might as well be, will treat me like a five-year-old who wears glittery Disney princess dresses and wants a pony to keep in her backyard.

Sure, I may wear clothes that most people don't, and have interests most people aren't interested in, but that does not mean that you can treat me like a five-year-old pony-obsessed princess girl.

I may be in a bliaut, but I have a six-foot-tall bow in my hand, arrows at my hip, and know how to use them...be they for target-shooting...or elegant, witty, barbed discourse.

I am on the spectrum...and while that makes me different...

...it also makes me who I am, and I will neither apologise for it nor hide it.

And you, Jason, are one of the people who helped me be that person.

Thank you, my friend.

I am who I am thanks to my friends. With all that I have gone through in my life because I am on the spectrum I feel it is wrong to hide who I am and how I think. I would hesitate very little to go around in a lovely long bliaut and chemise. Work, shopping, a nice walk. I WOULD, however, think twice about wearing just a bathing suit to the beach. I prefer to cover up. I am modest. I like looking pretty, but my idea of pretty - for myself - is much different from how most people my age like to dress to feel pretty. I like my jeans and my t-shirts, my long skirts and shorts that almost reach my knees. Sometimes I wear multiple skirts at a time. I am different. To many people that is enough, in their minds, to make me unsuitable as a friend. To them I say this:

If you feel you cannot be yourself with your friends, then maybe they are not actually your friends. If you cannot be yourself, if you feel you have to be perfectly socially acceptable, then just think: why? Why do you feel you have to hide yourself? You are you and that should be enough.

 Humanity as a whole is disgusting. I honestly can say humans are the most stench-ridden lot of slime molds in this universe. Of course, that's rather offensive to slime molds. They're decent life-forms really, and some smell quite nice. Mind their own business.
Of course I include myself. I am, after all, human. I really wish I weren't. I encounter some of the most unpleasant people.
I can honestly say that one of the best friends I've ever had is a pony named Comet. Two others are cats. The other few are humans who are really on the decent end of the scale.
I also know one human who should really be non-fungal, non-algaic pond scum. You know, the kind that's all neony yellow and green and colours your skin when you so much as breathe near it and contains not one bit of pollen and never freezes? Yeah.
I think as a whole humanity is a disgusting lot of self-serving traitorous backstabbing warmongers. When a given tech is invented it is invariably used shortly thereafter to improve warfare. It is the nature of humanity to war and it is a disgusting thing. You will find individuals who are kind and honest but it is a rare thing. I tend to carry around lots of books and some headphones so I can ignore the large majority of humanity without seeming more impolite than those trying to interrupt someone reading a book larger than their head. You can count on one hand the number of centuries without warfare since the dawn of our recorded history. It is shameful, wasteful, and thoughtless. Only by seeking to understand can we erase fear and its offspring hatred and bigotry, and the large majority of the human species would rather bash those with differences into burnt cinders. I do not like humanity. I myself am human and so there is a part of me that is as bad as those I dislike. I dislike this part of myself as well, but I suppose I must live with it or live not at all. I prefer life. Life can be spent wisely and widely but death buys you little and almost none of it lasting save a name and a deed, if that.

You have value just by living?

Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia is amazing.

He believes that no matter what happens, you are yourself. Lloyd has this attitude that to change yourself for others isn't right. That everyone is who they are and that's perfect. That people are who they are, and that to hate them for things they can't change is monstrous. And following that, it's not right to hate people for what they can choose, either.

He thinks that no one should have to sacrifice themselves, their happiness, or change who they are, not for anything. He thinks that every life has value, that everyone is born the same and that it's the people who raise us who pass on prejudice, or not. He truly believes that one day there will come a time when everyone sees the value of life and no one will be sacrificed for anything. That one day every life will have value enough that no one will be seen as expendable.

One day...

But humans are, as a whole, a violent species. War has been part of humanity almost longer than civilisation has. We can dream that one day war will be unthinkable...but unless there's a drastic shift in the way we live our lives, the way we think, the way we ARE...

Lloyd Irving's dream will never live.

No life will be valued just because they are.

Friends

A long time ago, about seven years now, something happened. When this thing happened, not only did I nearly lose myself, but I lost contact with the majority of my friends at the time. A lot of these friends I had had since I was about ten, or even longer. I've been out of contact with many for years and years. There are a few who I remember being particularly awesome friends. Owen, Walker, and Katie…among others. They know who they are.
The thing is, I'm not sure how many of them remember who I am. I'm positive very few of them would recognize me now, and I don't just mean appearance. I've changed, and not for the better. I used to be someone different, more confident, more outgoing. Today I am too scared to set foot outside my door. I hide behind my curtains and my excuses and most days curl up in bed, barely eating, not doing much.
But this is different, this fear. I am scared to go outside my door because the medication keeping two events - well, a two-part event and a long line of emotional abuse - locked where they belong - inside my head - was taken from me. This same medication allows me to order my thoughts and actually take less than a full day to decide if I should cook, let alone what to cook.

But it is those two things that I can no longer banish from my head that keep me locked up in my own apartment. I suffer nightmares of the two-part event anyway, but now I relive two ordeals complete with all the immediate pain I suffered seven years ago during each one. To be honest, even though I've told others, only one outside person knows for sure exactly how bad it was - exactly how lucky I am that I wasn't killed.

The years of emotional abuse already left me with self-image issues. Now, without the medication that let me Not Think About It, I am deathly afraid of the worst offender in that chain, someone I need to deal with regularly, and it's bad - and noticeable - enough that someone else has thought to force me and the person I am afraid of together to "make [me] deal with it and get over it" - a supremely idiotic idea, by most opinions, but a fantastic idea according to two.

I need the support of good friends behind me if I am to ever get enough back to my old self to live in a world I am now rather afraid of. And most of my best friends got left in my past when I nearly had my whole self destroyed by a person I trusted, and was nearly killed during that.

I regret that. I was dealing with the aftermath of seven years ago for five, maybe six years, and lost two of my family during that time. I lost friends because I couldn't keep up with life, let alone MY life and the lives of my friends.

Is it too much to hope that my friends will forgive me? Can I dare to hope that I can reconnect with friends I all but abandoned?

...And there's ALWAYS a downside. Maybe a ferret?

I've been watching Season 4 of Warehouse 13. I did it originally because I wanted to get my mind off something I've been thinking about lately. Of course, it's MY life, right? NOTHING gets my mind off of what I'm thinking over. One line really hit me. I mean, it disrupted my thoughts like the mental equivalent of dropping into a sinkhole.

"We don't know the downsides of the Metronome yet! When you find out the downside...and there's always a downside...I just hope it doesn't end up killing you...or worse."

...and there's always a downside. Of course there is. To everything. Change one thing, and you can never un-change it. That's what I was thinking about. I have something to say to someone, and potentially after I say it things could be great.
The downside? I could push this person away, and...well...pretty much ruin one of the best things in my life.

Or things could be like the Wishing Kettle. I could get a ferret, and nothing else. That's what the thing does. If you run up against an impossible wish, the Kettle produces...a ferret.

And sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't prefer the ferret. Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't WANT this to be an impossible wish, if I want what I say to end up as a ferret. Then I realize...I'm scared. I want this change, this thing I say, to end up great. I do! But...I'm scared that this thing I say WON'T be like the Wishing Kettle. I'm scared that the downside won't be a ferret. I'm scared the downside will be like, say, Pandora's Box. That the downside would be my life would be worse off, that my friend will act differently.

Well? What should I do? I don't know. Should I risk everything? Or should I hope that, whatever happens, if the downside happens...that it's just a ferret?

Trashing an apartment? Nothing wrong! It's perfectly acceptable! Oh, and Big Ben uses batteries, and what's this about panthers?

Why is it that the people you care about the most always are the first to be left behind? Why is it that when you grow, the one person you want to stay with is the one who seems to backslide instead?

I was hosting someone, and asked them a very simple thing. "I need to give a cat a bath. Would you help out by doing some dishes?" And of course they said yes. It's not like I asked them to give a bath to a cat with a front paw full of needles, no that was my job.

I came back to the kitchen over an hour later to find all the dishes...still in the sink. I was furious. It's not like I asked my guest to remake a bed or run a malware/virus check and purge onto my computer. He'd been there three days already and I'd fallen into my mother's old trap, sorry Mom. I'd let him NOT LIFT A GORRAM FINGER. Well, okay, I let him make his own tea, but that's more the fact that everyone likes their tea/hot beverage of choice differently.

So I go into the (trashed!) living room and there he is. Reading. READING! I confront him, and he said he did do dishes! HAH! So we went back into the kitchen and he points out three small plates. Three small plates. In an hour?! No, he says. He just wanted to finish his book, and anyways, they're my dishes.
Sure, I say to him. Sure, there are a few in there that are mine, but look, there's all SEVEN mugs you used for THE SAME TEA, and look, you cooked last night because you wanted something you could cook and I could not, and don't forget who used two oven bowls for his pasta the day before instead of reusing the one you'd just eaten out of, and just LOOK at this room, and the other one!

It was at that point, as I nearly-scream at him on the same subject for the second time, hear more promises most likely just as empty as the first set...

This was going nowhere. I loved him, but the things he did...or rather that he didn't do. I left the ability to be comfortable in my own mess and filth behind at a school with people I loved but teachers and staff that hated me, one where I was socially in the best position I'd even been in(still applicable, too), where I'd left the, to quote a friend, "meh" moods that led to me not seeing anything wrong with sitting in a puddle in driving rain. A place where I was happier than I'd been in years but also more miserable than I'd ever been in my life.

If I left that behind before I'd met him, I'd also left behind being okay with others making a royal mudpit of my own home. I may not be the best at cleaning up, but I'm nowhere near making my living room cat-repelling in just a few days.

And that? That's something I cannot tolerate. The ability to not only sit as a place gets trash but to ACTIVELY TRASH IT and wonder why that's a bad thing.

There is a large difference between being an inefficient cleaner comparable to a solar car running out of energy on a sunny day...and someone who willfully ignores cleaning up in the way of a gas vehicle's engine malfunctioning in the way of its name. I, like the inefficient solar car, at least TRY to clean up and often can keep my apartment from "running out of sun" for several months, theoretically, and I get better at it all the time, if very slowly. However, the one who is an over-compliant combustion engine? If I cannot completely keep up with my own cleaning I do not need an explosive anti-cleaner around. Eventually(okay, really not so eventually) I'd go insane, or wear myself out, or something like that.

No one needs that. And as much as you may like someone, if they cannot see they have growing to do, and before age 23 at that...it is unlikely they ever will see it, no matter what they say. Superficial acknowledgement is only as lasting as the memory of what they wore that day.
There are very few days that I can say I know what I wore on them without lying. One was the worst day of my life. One was honestly pretty fun, but sad too because I had to throw out the bottom part of my best work yet because the knees of my jeans didn't fit...and that was only the jeans anyways that I remember.
And the last? It was the last Christmas with my grandfather, and I wanted to sleep outside because Naples was closing down all the non-private-residence-or-hospital lights around and in Forest Glen and the surrounding area to funnel power to an orchard that would have frozen otherwise. Street lights, outside lights, Christmas lawn ornament lights, golf course lights, restaurants and Wal Marts and Kohls and Targets and Pubixes, and even gas stations. The stars were so bright I thought I was out at Misery on the boat for a minute, until I realized I wasn't actually on the boat, or on any boat.

But that's beside the point. The actual point is that...as much as you care for someone, if they refuse to see that they actually need change...there isn't much that can actually be done, is there? If they cannot see that their actions and beliefs are harmful to others, and also to themselves?

I refused to have to babysit my boyfriend. I refused to have to walk him through thoughts that shouldn't be THAT hard. I refused to clean up after him, when all he did was fight it. I refused to sit there and fight with someone who obviously only ever COULD learn through rote memorization, someone who couldn't even begin to guess how to start a mechanical clock, even though a further "suggestion" proved he wasn't beyond thinking "batteries did it." Yes, Big Ben used and uses batteries, that's exactly it. A several-hundred-year-old clock tower, and you just put a couple AAs in, maybe a C-cell or D-cell. Maybe a Baghdad battery? Oh! I know, plug it into the thousand year-old power grid from the Roman construction of Londinium.
And that's just on GRANDFATHER CLOCKS. Ask me about "non-melanistic panthers". That's a hoot! Please, it's hilarious!

The world is sick...can we heal it?

Some people seem to be picking religion, delusions, and objects over family. It makes me sad to see friends unable to even talk to their immediate family, or attacked by siblings, or destroy relationships with children because of disagreements over clothing blown way out of proportion. This is why the whole world is sick and dying. This is why family is thrown aside when ideals become indoctrination and brainwashing. This is what happens when the world itself makes sickness that alters our very minds.

I once heard something, a long time ago, that to this day makes me think that maybe there is hope. I heard someone say that everyone has value by being alive. That by being alive an living our lives we make change, even if just with the ones we meet, our friends, family, someone we say hi to on the sidewalk. That we're all born with the same soul, that we are born without hate, without prejudice, without bias. That there are things that can't be changed in us, that we cannot choose our family, our eyes, our skin color, our bodies. That if no one can choose that, then why the hell can't we see that the person we hate couldn't choose base facts about themselves? If we can't choose things like appearance, gender, family, country, culture...why hate that we can choose other things like clothes and friends and what movies and shows we watch?

A while back, after this but well before now, I was told that in our souls are two wolves. One is made of darkness and hatred and war and violence. The other is made of love and friendship and happiness and peace. They battle constantly for your soul until one loses.
The one that wins? It's the one you feed.

We all are born with the same soul. If we feed it peace and acceptance and love, that is what we will be. If we feed it darkness and hate and us vs. them, that is how we will be.

I won't tell you how to live your life. Your life and thoughts and feelings are yours. All I can do is tell what I feel, so that others can read it and decide how reading it makes them feel.

Whose fault?

So, there's this guy out there, right? He likes this girl, who is pretty much oblivious. She's happy being oblivious. To her, this guy is a very, very distant relative. Turns out her cousin is his second cousin, on opposite sides of the family. But to this one girl, that's MORE than enough. I mean, her family? Not one person she knows is related to her by blood. Doesn't matter, they're FAMILY, you know? Mom, Dad, Grandfather, Mimi and Papa, cousins, brothers, aunts, uncles...not one blood relative among them. Some people made a huge deal about it. She said, "Why? My mother brought me home, changed my diapers, and fed me that pharmacy her kitchen became when it turned out that all she could stomach was ground lamb. Her dad took her camping and boating EVERY summer, and for all that she didn't see him every single day of her life, she thought he was the best dad ever. I mean, he got her two cats, right? And kept them because her mom is deathly allergic, for almost 12 years, until she could take them to her own place? Yeah! And he WAS there, right? Yeah! Her dad was awesome.

Anyways, back to that guy. He got tired of her being oblivious, and just one day called her his girlfriend.
Point 1

And so things went on, and events happened, and all the while he started getting pushier and pushier, and she tried to ignore it as best she could.
Point 2

And then, one day, he pushed so hard that, not wanting to, she agreed.
Point 3

And then she said, "No." Nothing had happened. Yet. But she said no. He ignored her. She said it, yelled it, screamed it...and he ignored it.
Crack.

He said, 'Oh, it won't happen again, I'm sorry, give me another chance.'
And she did.
Break.

And so time passed, fun was had, it was summer. She saw a friend's band play, was fun.


And it happened again. Much the same way. Wore her down, and she agreed...for all of about a minute.
"No. This happened before. I told you no, you said you'd listen next time. This is next time. No."
And she walked away.
She didn't make the door.

She fought and screamed, tried to get away. Screamed bloody murder. But for all there were other people home, her bedroom was out of hearing. Yeah, both times in her own home, in her own room.
For once she cursed the fact that she kept her nails cut to the quick. Biting did nothing. At the end of it, she told him one thing: "I am going to walk you to the door, to your car even. You are going to leave. If I ever see you again but for chance, I am going to go to the nearest phone, press one button once, and one more two times. If anything comes of your idiocy, I will tell everything. And if you try to contact me blatantly, I will tell everything. I expect you will try once or twice, and I will give you that...but do not keep trying."

And that was that. He called for over a week. Send a package. That was, I expect, the last straw, having something sent back so coldly.

The guy had said before that he could twist any marks left to be her fault. She believed him. The second time, she didn't care.

And so that ended.

But she was silent. She told only three people. Two were her friends. The third was too. But something he said, you know, put anything that might develop beyond mere friendship, however close, out of any thought that developed about it later.

"Are you sure you want to say that? I mean, something like this could ruin his life." Ruin. His. Life. Ruin HIS life? Ruin his life, when he ruined MINE?! I stopped speaking about it. I never brought it up with him again.
Shatter.

I later told a few others about it. Not many. I had to choose carefully. So scared of something like that happening again, I never even told the person who had become my sister in high school until recently. For someone who knows all too well that family need not be blood, that family is entirely about love, acceptance, a bond closer than any other, she is the only family I've ever told.

His family owns a relatively widespread business, involving deliveries and essential dry goods, non-food, and I still shudder every time I see a truck belonging to the business. Because of him, I see parts of life so much differently. Some of them I never had the chance to ever see WITHOUT that creep's interference. Yeah, I'm not putting this in third person. Why? Because as hard as I try, this happened. It was personal. And I can never stop blaming myself. If I'd stopped him just calling me his girlfriend without even asking, if I'd stopped it when I realized he was wearing me down, even if I'd thrown him to the curb the first time instead of the second. What would have happened then? Maybe I wouldn't have all this to deal with,

I can never un-live what happened. I can never un-do what he did to me. I can never forget. Even now it's not, and can never be, something that happened.


And let me get this straight: THIS IS NOT SOMETHING I ASKED FOR WITH MY WORDS OR MY BEHAVIOR! I NEVER wanted this. I NEVER asked for it. And guess what? HE IS AT FAULT! It's not him being "young" and it's not him "not having the brain development to know it was wrong". People are WELL past knowing right from wrong by late teens. People are WELL past NOT knowing that rape is WRONG. And people are WELL past thinking it RIGHT to, once refused this, hold her down and do it like that anyways, with the screaming and the tears and the begging for help.

Ruining HIS life? What? What would I be doing to ruin his life that he's not already done? I know, letting people know he did it, letting them know he's MORE than capable of doing it again! And this instead of what, keeping quiet and giving him the opportunity to ruin another woman's life?

Yet I kept quiet. Why? Because I couldn't deal with what would happen. I couldn't deal with the attention and the people hating that I'd told what happened to me and kept this guy from being able to do like in the future. To another girl? Another woman? I wouldn't ruin his life. He'd already ruined his own by committing a violent and sexual crime. All I'd do was not let him hide it.

And even though I'd let him hide it, it doesn't mean he didn't do it.

And even though I'd kept quiet, it didn't mean it hadn't happened. That he'd done this to ME, that he'd ruined my whole life. The way I see things, the way I act around people, the way I live.

All ruined because he couldn't take no for an answer, couldn't take the fact that he wanted this and yet it was still my RIGHT to refuse it. Couldn't take that I DID.

So, people, think: who takes the blame? Not the pointed fingers, but the REAL blame. Was it my fault? Was it MY fault I said no, I fought tooth and nail, and I...lost?
Or is it his fault for forcing me? His fault for thinking that "No" cried and screamed and begged and fought for meant, "Go right ahead and take what you want by force!"?

It's not up to me to decide what you think. But as someone who has been through that? Been bruised and forced and held down? Screamed my lungs out for help, to stop, to please, just stop....I can tell you now, that it's his fault, and he had a few bruises to prove it, too.

Fulya Rant Time! - Subject: Flash Carts

I get it, okay! Under normal usage, flashcarts are indeed illegal. Please also know that I do have...slightly illegal things(okay, very illegal) on my cart. Yeah, okay, point taken.

Yet...
What about people who use them for games such as...umm...well, Tetris DX, Pokemon Gen 1, or Pokemon Pinball? What about people whose only way of playing imports is to NOT shell out $25+ EXTRA, PLUS insanely high shipping costs? What about the people who cannot afford to pay $100+ for old, out-of-print games or whose older systems have died? What about them?
What about the people who used their flashcart to BACK UP data from games that are in extreme danger due to battery acid leaks? What about them?

WHAT ABOUT MY POOR TROPIC AND SWAMPER!? WHAT ABOUT THEM!?

Yes, I just had two of my prize Pokemon die due to a battery acid leak. Poor Tropic the lvl 26 Tropius and Swamper the 36 Swampert, who took down the Hoenn Elite Four almost by themselves(the rest were heal-time-buyers), who survived a massive, world-burying flash-flood only to be grabbed at the last minute(almost lost the game down a storm drain), whose cart I "lost" at boarding school, only to find them being sold by the person in line in front of me at the last EB games in New England(who actually believed you if you said a game was yours and could tell them your Hall of Fame team[Tropius, Swampert, Kyogre, Breloom, Ninetails, N/A]...), the game I spent money to have someone back up for me...BRICKED! And it's not the cart. The data on the SD itself is locked down. I was really slow about putting that data on my new computer because I thought it was safe enough...and now not only is the cart useless(yay extra microSD cards!), but all that data...two gyms from the Elite in Red, my poor precious ONLY! Hall of Fame team, quite a few high scores in some non-NA-releases, all my progress in Tales of Phantasia (S?)NES version...all my hard work in one of the SMB re-releases for GBA, and half a game done of FF6.

It's not right! Some of us use flashcarts because we REALLY don't want to re-buy games and/or shell out a lot of money for old, out-of-print, or non-localised games.

I understand why it's done...I just don't get what makes it seem RIGHT to these people, these companies.
Any thoughts?

Moving

So I'm moving. Not far, but it's a change.

The problem is that I'm not going to be here when I'm supposed to move in. I'm going to be away until a few days before I move...and I need most of my things OUT until I leave. I have no way to pack about 90% of what I have here because of that fact.


Also, on Customer Service. Notably, Verizon.
I have one of my best friends coming to move in with me. I won't be there, and I need someone who is on my account, authorised, to be there to change over/accept the router and box. This is not good.
Apparently, no one gets the concept of moving from a one-person studio with barely room for a bed and a desk to a two-bedroom with a roommate. Also a difficult concept: NOT BEING THERE WHEN THE FIRST PERSON MOVIES IN! I've been asked if I want to CANCEL my plan and WAIT THREE MONTHS TO BE ABLE TO GET A NEW ONE. No, I do not. I want to move, move my plan to the new address in the same city, same coverage area...but my roommate happens to be moving in well before me, due to a very extended vacation. She needs to be in before Christmas. I'm not coming back til almost January. I have no way to be there, and she needs the internet at the very least.
Is that so difficult a concept?

Also, apparently I have been on the phone to someone who says they're in Seattle. Sure, okay, but can you at least TRY to speak English in a way I understand? I mean, it's one thing to claim to be in Seattle, but another thing to claim to be in Seattle in a very strong Mexican accent speaking broken English, and passing me off to someone else because "I am sorry, no understand."
Next guy claimed to be in PENNSYLVANIA. I have nothing against the state, probably a great place. I do not believe, however, that someone in Pennsylvania works at a Verizon call center. For one thing, Pennsylvania doesn't HAVE a Verizon call center. Nope. There's one about five miles outside of Seattle, apparently. The closest Verizon TV/net call center to Pennsylvania is...about three states away, I believe. So that's one strike. The second? Your accent, Ma'am, is not even American, let alone North American. That's not exactly so bad. All sorts of accents here. Yet I can barely understand you through this accent and you seem to be using words that I've never heard. A lot. Passed off again.
Finally! Someone who speaks English. Hello, Mr. Canadian Guy! But you say your call center is in Texas?
I was in Texas for five days and I couldn't stop myself from picking up the accent. Your accent is CLEARLY eastern Canadian. Okay, whatever. I need help........and hours later?
"I'm sorry, I have no clue what you're trying to do."
"I have been saying this. I am moving to a two-bedroom apartment up the street. My roommate is moving in well before me. I need to add her name to the plan so that she can accept the new box and router, as I will be away when she moves in."
"Why do you need a new one?"
"I was told that the ones I have are tied to this building. That I can't move them from here."
"So you can cancel your plan and get a new one in three months."
"I don't HAVE three months!"

And so on. That was pretty much the conversation.


Don't you LOVE when that happens? Nope, neither do I, but it happens.

Oh, dammit, I need to change my ID again when I get home. Three times in as many years. They're gonna LOVE me.

I belong to a group of people online. They're going through this upheaval. The leaders are AWOL, nothing gets done even when they DO show up, and we've now initiated the process of picking someone. I've already chosen.
There were two favorites, but only one has any real talent for leading. He was the one who CALLED the meeting in the first place. He chose group leaders for minor events that make the whole group more active, things they wanted to do.

Isn't that what a leader is? Someone who can see what needs to be done, what wants to be done, and can step back and say, "This is something better done by someone else. This I can do. This I can do, but this one has a better grasp of this particular thing. This I can do. This I need to do." and so on? Other people agree he already leads our group, whether he realises it or not. This is something that our group NEEDS. This is something that will make our group stronger, more active, more fun to be with and do things with.

Now let me tell you something about the other guy. He can be a real sour pickle sometimes and has the name to match. Oh, he's personable, he's nearly always with the group, but somehow, he's...lacking. I don't think this guy can handle leading. Maybe sub-leading...maybe. But this guy...he has his friends, and then he has..........those other guys in the group. He knows of the others, maybe a hi, hello, oh, heard about that thing, great for you!

But the clear choice? He has his friends, and then he has his other friends. Maybe they're not as close, but he cares about them just the same. He takes the time to make sure they're doin' okay, maybe do they need help with this or that or the other thing?

So what do you all think? Who's the better choice?

Yeah, me too.

Fulya out.

Fulya's Music Time! THINK! (Aretha Franklin)

I love music. I love it to death. Sometimes I have no words for something, but there's a song.
A lot of my emotions can be expressed more accurately by song than by discussion. A lot of the songs I feel express emotion aren't really about what I project into them. But isn't that what Music's really about? Taking a song, a song someone put their emotions, their energy, their feelings into....and FEELING it, making it...no LETTING IT be about something in your life?

Let's take this song: Aretha's Think. The original one.

To me, it will forever be my way to tell one person...
"Think! You're trying to push me into a box I don't belong in! You're taking who I am...no, who you SEE me as, and you're trying to make me "better" by making me just like every other stereotypical popular girl!"

You see, she thought I, the perfectly happy person, would be made LESS MISERABLE as she told me everything I was and loved being was WRONG, and that if I just acted like everyone else, I would be happy and have friends.

And to this day I have never been able to really tell her this:

If you had stopped to THINK about things, you would have seen that I was happier BEFORE you started your crusade to make me be just like everyone else. I was depressed, yes, but through no fault of my own. I wasn't unhappy, I was FUCKING DEPRESSED! It's a medical condition, not an emotion, and it cannot be FIXED by taking the things that make me happy and labeling them as "bad behavior", "bad habits", and "bad parenting.
Yes, bad PARENTING. She wasn't, and still is not, even my mother. Or my aunt, or my grandmother, or my older sister, older cousin, or any other sort of family member. She was someone who, having the opportunity to as my father's girlfriend, took a look at the girl with the Game Boy, the tee-shirts, the jeans, who considered any day where she wasn't outside doing something a total loss, who loved who she was. She said, "Oh, she is depressed, which is another word for unhappy(no, lady, it's a medical term, too, and you SAW me having fun, too, and took your OPINION and it didn't fit, so you threw the FACT away!), and I must fix that! Look at her, she's like a boy! She's in the woods, climbing, running around! She'd be happy to have more friends, and to get more friends, she must look and act like a popular girl!"

Now, here's my thing with popular girls. I don't like 'em as a general rule, because as a general rule popular girls in schools of any type are self-important bitches who think everyone should toady to them. I had a....very personal experience with one of those bitches.

Her name was.....hmm...let's call her Rachel. Rachel was my best friend since before we could walk. For the first four years I was in the school system I was in private school. And then, in fourth grade, I started at the local public school. Of COURSE Rachel went there. So the first day, when all 20 of us kids were waiting for the doors to open, I saw Rachel. So of course, I did the smart thing and waited to see where she was socially, right?

Nope. I was stupid. I was a MORON.
I didn't know any better.

I went up to her, said hi, and hugged her. Stupid in hindsight, but really, it was my first time setting FOOT in a public school. And of course she took me aside and explained popularity, right? Because she was one of my best friends, the see-every-weekend kinda best friends, right?

Nope. She pushed me onto my butt and said, "I don't know WHO the HELL you think you are, FREAK, because I've never seen you before in my LIFE."

And so it continued, and that's why I was miserable. The Head Bitch decided that I was a bit of gum on the sidewalk, and so I was treated for almost three years. Sure I went to her house, she invited me after all. But I got pushed around both physically and verbally, and her mother, my mother's friend, looked away and pretended it didn't happen as I was pushed down stairs, called freak and moron and idiot.

And so while this was going on and everyone knew, this BITCH girlfriend of my father's decided I needed to be taught everything about being a girl. Being a girl meant being popular, I was told. It meant wearing things I wouldn't wear now to go swimming in to beach parties when I was 10! It meant treating others like so much lint on a white shirt.
And it meant giving up my game boy.

That was IT. NO ONE TOOK MY POKEMON GAME AND THREW IT INTO THE TRASH!
So she learned that was a Limit. I actually physically attacked her for that. So she learned one thing and I learned one thing.
She learned that NO ONE MESSES WITH MY GAMES!
I learned to keep my games away from her.

When I was nine I got an iPod Mini. You know, those big clunky things in pale colors, metal, old-fashioned LCD screen?
I'm pretty sure it was never more than seven inches from my person until finally, after replacements and replacements of replacements, it died. That is to say, Apple decided to drop it from its supported devices.
From that time on, I had an iPod. The longest I have NOT had an iPod was....March to June.

But still, all that time, she was trying to change who I was, who I couldn't NOT be. I watched Wolf's Rain. She called it kiddie and a cartoon, and why was I watching it? She never saw one frame of it.
She said video games were for little kids and slightly older boys and I shouldn't be playing them, because I was one: too old and two: a girl. She didn't get why I liked sci-fi(and it wasn't really. Star Wars was great and Doctor Who, and Stargate was amazing, but I couldn't STAND anything else.), she called it over-hyped and stupid. I forgot to mention how many fans Stargate and Who had/have. She could NEVER understand why I went around with headphones glued to my ears. She thought my interest in Japan was "inappropriate" and once even ripped up my homework because it wasn't in English. It shouldn't have been...but I thought she knew the difference between Spanish with Japanese in the margins because it helped me remember a couple words and Japanese. I mean, there's no letter e in Japanese...it's all kanji and kana, no Latin lettering at all. Still...to her mind...

And so that's how I lived. Being accepted by more and more people for who I was, and going home to someone who never gave me an opportunity to tell her what I thought, because she was too busy criticising my decision to buy a period tunic dress...with my own money.

And where was my mom? There. I lived with her for the most part. She had to go to Florida my senior year because of Grandfather. I was kept out of the loop, my dad decided I'd do better being told lies and half-truths as my grades got so bad I almost didn't pass, though they.....that's another story for another day. But I was told everything was fine, they could come back at any time, while my mom had a heart attack and Grandfather couldn't walk on his own.

And through this all, that BITCH was the one who told my father to keep it from me.


My mom was always there to say that I was who I was and I should be proud. Grandfather was there to be my dad in a lot of ways. He was always there, and he didn't have to work through Ms. Girlfriend saying that she would do better talking with me when I was "being inppropriate". So she was the one to tell me that no one wanted to hear about how I was doing in Japanese when the person I was talking to asked. She was the one to tell me no one listened to music and hummed while doing homework. She was the one to tell me that I needed to start wearing miniskirts and ruffles because I was 12, and not a little kid who wore jeans and tees to school. That I..........and on and on with the bad crap that I knew wasn't true.

And that all brings us back to the song.

"Think about what you're tryin' to do to me!"
And think: why should your laws of how a girl should be apply to me?
Let your rigid mindset go, let yourself be free to accept the differences in people.
We are not all how you think we should be! We have the FREEDOM to chose who we can be.

And that is how that song makes me feel, that is what I put into it.
Someone for years trying to make me who I am not, who, if she had just thought instead of putting me into a box and trying to cut out all of who I was that fit into it.
If she had thought, who knows how our relationship would have turned out, instead of the barely0civil thing we have now, where I pretend to like her just a little.

Opinions

My first post was about pop-culture being about sex, drugs, money, and violence, not necessarily all at once. It was about how consumers accept what is thrown to them, and rarely question how the RIAA got so big, so powerful, and controls so much, while pushing out 20-minute hits. I said make your own opinions. I said don't just pick your opinions up off the floor that the RIAA and the RIAA-controlled radio threw them.
I said, "Think for yourself."


I again go to that girl who was so wrapped up in her own opinions that she refused to let fact in. Why did this happen? When did it start? How many kids are we raising to think that way - that fact has no room in our bubble of opinion? Can't they realise that fact and opinion are just two parts of the same idea?


Some examples for you all:

FACT: The Beatles were the most popular band of their era, with dozens of hits on dozens of charts in countries all over the world.
OPINION: You don't like the Beatles.
BAD THINKING: You don't like the Beatles, so anyone who does is an idiot, or a liar, or just plain wrong. You don't like the Beatles because the Beatles suck.
BETTER THINKING: I hate the Beatles. I don't want to listen to the Beatles. I won't listen to the Beatles. Some people, however, do like them, and just because they do doesn't mean they are wrong, stupid, or idiotic. It just means they like something I happen to hate.

FACT: The Twilight Saga is a series of books written by a housewife who had never seen the town she was writing about. Some aspects of this series match the popular young-adult writing fad of the time, which was to write about vampires, usually with romantic overtones. Its cult following ranges from very young to older adults, and can be irrationally vicious when defending their books, but has also been known to be rational and accepting.
OPINION: Twilight books are the best books ever! No one could ever write better books!
OPINION 2: Twilight sucks. They were badly written and rather boring.
BAD THINKING: You don't like them!? How DARE you! You wouldn't know a good book if it hit you on the head! Well, maybe you would! I'll hit you on the head with a good book until you get it!
BAD THINKING 2: You're an idiot for thinking they're anything but trashy vampire romance novels and they should be taken off shelves and burned!
BETTER THINKING: While I like these books, like is subjective. People might like books I hate too, but does that make them wrong? I'm pretty sure an idiot couldn't read all those long backstories by the guy who wrote about Legolas...or learn to speak whatever language that is. Books are books are books, and Twilight is just another bunch of books.
BETTER THINKING 2: They're trashy vampire romance novels, but they're good for trashy vampire romance novels. They're not up to the literary standard of, say, Tolkien or Lewis, they won't ever be assigned in a high school literature class, but there are people who like trashy vampire romance novels, good for them. Not every book is for every person, or why would there be so many books?


See? That's better! But yeah, no one's going to think like that unless that sort of thinking is ENCOURAGED. And that's the problem. They see their parents trash-talking someone's right to choose, as if that's not a right at all, as if choices of entertainment, music, books, friends, attitude, places...as if they are wrong? That's going to be what they do, too! Kids learn from parents.

But perpetuating the cycle of hate, of marking opinion as fact, and fact as opinion...when will that stop? Because eventually it's going to blow up in our faces.

Politics, a game of opinions, of choosing the person who you, personally, think would be better for the office they run for, has become a battleground of hate. No longer are we voting for people. Now the majority are voting AGAINST a candidate rather than FOR. And candidates, too, are dealing in factual opinions.
Romney is going to take away a right to CHOOSE for yourself something that should only ever BE your choice, ladies. Those who don't want an abortion shouldn't be able to say, "I don't want one, I don't believe in them, so you shouldn't be able to choose to have one."
Another Romney thing: taking away the right for same-sex LEGAL marriage. So what if you think it's disgusting, so what if you think it's wrong, that it's mandated by God as sin? That's between you and your RELIGION.
Tell me if I'm remembering this wrong, but I thought that our ancestors decreed that there be separation of church and state. Forgive me, and again, feel free to point out my potential wrongs, but I thought that meant that just because the federal government says that this is what is, what has to be, that you guys, you religions, didn't have to follow it? Well, unless you were into human sacrifice because I'm pretty sure that's murder and I'm pretty sure murder isn't covered by the excuse of religious reasons.
But am I? Am I right or wrong? Because if I'm wrong, then okay, my bad. But if I'm right, then you have your right to deny religious marriages to anyone you want, gay or not...but it's not up to you, not your choice, not your CALL, to deny legal marriage to anyone save active clergy, and then only in some.
I can't call to mind anything Obama has denied as a right that is an opinion, but if you want me to find out, sure, go ahead, tell me, and I will look it up. That's your RIGHT, to have an opinion.

But when your opinion is flaunted as fact, as what is, what has to be because you think it so, you want it to be so? That's where you should take a good hard look at your "fact". Go ahead, do it.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Is my fact universal?
Is my fact something that can be PROVEN?
Do other people have an opinion that directly contradicts my fact?
How many other people believe my fact?
Does my fact have anchors in real life?
Do people call my fact "controversial"?

Those are not be-all, end-all questions. All I can say is that if you get into a yelling match or an argument over something you believe is true, you've gone too far. Opinion or not, the only way we're gonna get back to things that matter, things that need to be addressed rather than things you want addressed, is to agree that everyone has a RIGHT to CHOOSE, and that no one has a right to PREVENT that choice.
But remember, things can go so wrong as soon as you neglect what is for what you think is.

As for my name

This serves as my intro.

So what's up with the name, and what's that text at the top? FULYA_ANSUL_SOL=HYMME

First we must go to the game Ar Tonelico

Reyvateils are bio-mech girls who can sing and interface with the Tower at the center of the world to produce various effects like explosions, freezing someone, etc.

Magic. Song magic.

These Towers, there are three, require an Admin, a Reyvateil who does not age, does not die.

Shurelia, admin of the first Tower, Ar Tonelico, has said many times in her game that she has seen too much, seen the world change in the greatest ways....and the worst.

Similar things have been said by the other two admins, Frelia and Tyria.

The Origins, for that is what the Admins are called, are named after Norse gods.

Eoria(Shurelia) is the only one that's REALLY hard to get, she's Eir.

Tyria and Fureria(Frelia's straight transliteration)

Freria

Tyr and Freya

So I took the name of a Norse god and modified it, Fulya

The way a Tower knows what Reyvateil is accessing it is by their Hymn Code.

It goes [NAME]_[RANK]_[TOWER]

My Tower would be Sol Hymme, the Tower of Manifesting Song.

the rank of an admin is ANSUL

FULYA_ANSUL_SOL=HYMME

Taken just by what I said earlier, "Fulya, who has seen too much, she of manifesting song"

A very long way to say that this blog is what I think has gone wrong with the world, and that I love singing.

I will update at least once a week with a song, and hopefully once a week with another post.

This scares me.

I'm sure you've all heard that story about the Twilight fan insisting the Lord of the Rings movies were the original format, and I'm sure that you laughed, haha, Twilight fans can be such blockheads. But has something similar ever happened to you? I can say it has.

A few days ago I was in my local sub shop, minding my own business, waiting for my food, humming "I Want to Hold Your Hand". The Beatles are awesome, right?

Well this kid, couldn't be more than fifteen, she comes up to me and plants herself four inches from my face and says, "I'm sure you're having a great time with it, but it's bugging me. That song's supposed to be much slower."

It took me a bit, but I managed to choke out, "Not the original!" Then she said something that made me think, and even feel a little sad for kids if this is really how they think.


"I don't know what Helium-speed version you're listening to, but Kurt did the original." At this, I really did choke.

"Have you, poor thing, never heard of the Beatles?"
"Who are they?"
"Four guys from the UK, they were so popular so fast they called it Beatlemania, and let me tell you, I wish I could have seen it. News, televised concerts, screaming fans. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and John Lennon. They were amazing. There's one album cover that no one will forget. Four guys walking across Abbey Road, on that striped crosswalk..."
"Lady, I don't know HOW old you are but I never heard of no Beatles."

I admit it, I asked for help. I asked the guy at the next table, "Hey, you ever heard of the Beatles?!"
"Sure! I remember it like it was yesterday...they were sure somethin'."
"Now, could you tell me some of their most famous songs?"
"Sure! Hey Jude, Yesterday, I Want to Hold Your Hand...my wife and I got married and that was the second song."
"Thanks."

She looked at me like I was crazy. Then she did something that I will never, ever, in my worst nightmares, want to believe.
She denied it.

"I don't know who you two are, but it's not nice to go around tellin' people about a band doesn't exist." And she walked out.

Is this what American pop culture is now? Is this what we're leaving behind? Five-week bands, songs about domestic violence, sex, guns, and money chanted by people who couldn't sing if you paid them? Songs needing six writers and four producers for sixteen words rearranged every which way? Kids who don't bother to look past the next big thing? The way things are going, Sinatra will be just another name. No one will remember the BeeGees. No one will have HEARD of the BeeGees. It'll be what crazy thing this person did and OMG! A teacup kitten I want one! and "Did you hear what happened to [Name]?" No one will recognise good music. No one will know any better! Already we have rabid fans who DON'T RECOGNISE OPINION! I almost had someone ATTACK me once because I said that, a few years back, the Jonas Brothers "aren't my thing". Not, "I hate the Jonas Brothers with a passion and hate their fans too!", just, "Meh. They're really not my thing, but go ahead and listen if you want." I got SCRATCHES down my ARMS for DARING to say that I, personally, didn't like this band but it's great you like them, opinions rock. I now am SCARED to say ANYTHING to a Justin Bieber fan because even the worst Jonas Brothers fans had NOTHING on the rabid intensity of the vast majority of Bieber fans I have come into contact with.

This isn't what we want to leave behind! This isn't what pop culture should be! Why has this happened? Pop culture shouldn't be about rabid fans and denial of things that you didn't know before. It should be about things that are great, things that are popular and going somewhere and.... Not dresses made of meat and what this rich girl bought for six hundred million, or this newest rap song with swearing and allusions to domestic violence and drug money... Not what the music industry puts in front of our faces, not what the RIAA shoves at us until we're so used to it we just accept that whatever they say is good is amazing and awesome.

It's time to try making opinions, instead of buying them.