#during my childhood i went through many phases of certain animals

[fleshdyke]

Do you know about every animal and creature in existence??

i do actually

[loosenedidylls]

Blessings, Curses, Autism

My earliest memories are of waiting rooms with musty carpets and buckets of donated, broken toys. I guess it was worse for my parents, who had nothing to stare at but walls and trashy lifestyle magazines. Eventually, the professionals decided I had a condition called Asperger’s Syndrome, and there was one thing they wanted me to understand:

“It’s a blessing, not a curse.”

If someone asked me to list blessings off the top of my head, I’d mention 20/20 vision, pitch-perfect hearing, or George Foreman’s chin — not a neurological disorder that transforms the most natural stages of personal development into a confusing struggle. In hindsight, I would have preferred more concrete advice than ‘it’s a blessing, not a curse.’ Something like:

“Watch out for the train!”

…But the quippy slogan is what stuck. My parents dispensed it like a cheap plaster, and I still don’t know whose benefit it was for — mine, or theirs. What I do know, is that I never once believed them: I felt I was being brushed aside, or told to accept something blatantly untrue. Besides, children don’t care to question whether they’re blessed or cursed, so it was an answer to a question that hadn’t been asked. Existentialism is for adults trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Being an Autistic Child.

Autism is not a superpower. Thanks to certain pieces of popular media, you might think of autistic people as quirky-yet-brilliant detectives, awkward-yet-sexy hackers (always female), or nonverbal children with a deep, instinctive connection to whatever animal or alien the protagonists are trying to communicate with. Often, people with severe autism are plot devices in the same vein as a forbidden orb or set of nuclear launch codes. Instead of damsels waiting for Bruce Willis to save them, they’re objects waiting for Bruce Willis to understand them.

A lot of autistic people are brilliant academically, though not for the reasons you might think. A common feature of autism is hyper-fixating on ‘special interests’, obsessing over a subject until one has learned everything about it, before moving on to the next. Very few people become maths geniuses this way; more often they become diehard Sonic fans or start giving lots of money to Games Workshop. Here are a few of the phases I went through:

-          Thomas the Tank Engine.

-          Pokémon.

-          Old English monster myths.

-          Naruto.

-          Peter Jackson’s King Kong (both the movie and the video game).

-          Bleach (the anime, thankfully, not the cleaning product).

Fairly normal interests for a young person, right? Now remember the hyper-fixation part. People with Asperger’s tend to focus on certain interests at the expense of others, and those ‘rejected interests’ are usually vital for social development. Now remember that high school is a psychopathic hellscape crawling with cruel little monsters ready to vent their newfound territorial instincts on anyone who doesn’t fit in. The kid who wants to discuss the depiction of brontosauruses in a sort-of-okay remake of a 1933 movie isn’t doing himself any favours — constant bullying drives him even deeper into reclusive interests and solitary hobbies, and from there, it’s the luck of the draw whether those hobbies resonate with any of the kids around him.

I’ve always known a lot about things no one knows about, and nothing about things everyone knows about. This, along with the fact that a lack of social life makes it easy to focus on one’s studies, creates the illusion that some autistic kids are eccentric geniuses-in-the-making. Parents — especially the parents of autistic children — are quick to latch onto any display of intelligence. They watch intently for any sign their long struggle is paying off, and when it happens, they praise their child endlessly, reinforcing behaviour patterns both good and bad. Because adults told me I was intelligent, I told other children I was intelligent, and you can imagine how well that went.

This misapprehension — confusing a bunch of random trivia for genius — followed me into high school, hurting me all the while, which is ironic, because it was the only positive way I could think about myself.

I’m lucky to have found books and writing as lifelong passions, but that almost didn’t happen; in fact, I used to despise any writing task the teacher set for me, to the point of outright refusing to do the work. In my defence, I was trying very hard to be somewhere else at the time — mentally, that is. The idea of putting my feelings on paper, for all to see? I couldn’t conceive of anything more terrifying.

Harry Potter changed things. I was gifted The Deathly Hallows when it was first published, and even though I had no idea what was going on in the story (I hadn’t even seen The Order of the Phoenix yet), I thought it was wonderful — maybe because I was getting a sneak peek into a future movie. Since then, I’ve always had a book close at hand, and it wasn’t long before I started writing my own novels (more on those another time).

 Voracious reading was, technically, another un-social activity that would consume my waking hours, but at least it was productive. My grades improved dramatically. I got good at writing essays. I became better at expressing myself, and I started to consider other people’s points of view. I made friends, lifelong bonds. I wouldn’t say I was happy at that stage of life — bullies tend to push back against things like improved mental health — but at least I was growing.

Looking back, I can’t help but wonder how close I came to disaster. I was 13 or so. If I’d left it any later, I doubt the outcome would have been so peachy. There are plenty of autistic adults with no friends, no employable skills, no human contact but ageing parents and rare, fleeting therapy sessions. Many of these people are quirky and brilliant, but there’s no happy ending for them.

Being an Autistic Adult.

Autism never goes away. It never gets ‘better’. It isn’t curable because it’s not a disease, despite what the vaccine deniers might tell you; autism is an intrinsic part of my neurological makeup, and living with it is a process of compromises.

I had to accept, early on, that I’m not the same sort of human being as the people around me. My brain is a different brand of brain: it makes different connections, processes different bits of data at different speeds. Things that seem obvious to you, need to be explained to me. I struggle to read a room, and I’m never quite sure if the person I’m talking to would really rather I shut up.

Put simply, my childhood experiences made me keenly aware of myself as an outsider. I need to watch for people’s reactions to anything I say or do, all the while navigating a maze of social cues and left-unsaids — but sooner or later, I’m always going to slip up. When you are differently-brained, it’s easy to misinterpret instructions, or to misjudge which thread of discussion is most important; and when you’re processing so much data at any one time, small-yet-vital points are going to slip under the radar. The result is being told off, being laughed at (‘laughing with you, not at you’ is another fun slogan I’ve learned to endure), and generally feeling stupid or useless for overlooking one point of data among hundreds.

 As I grew into an adult, I got better at performing normal. Nowadays, only those who spend a lot of time around me can spot the signs of my condition: I seem confident, funny, sympathetic, and I make friends easily. As I write this, I can’t help but feel uneasy: it makes me wonder, and not for the first time, how much of my personality is genuine. In high-stress situations, the generic piece of advice is ‘relax and be yourself.’ Succeeding in life as an autistic person means learning not to be yourself, or at least creating a version of yourself that can exist in public — so, where does the real me end, and the performance begin? Are they one and the same? I’ll never know the answer to that question.

Being an autistic adult, then, means pretending I’m not autistic for the benefit of other people. It’s a lifelong, often exhausting performance, and the temptation to retreat into my shell is ever present. But, just like anyone else, I long for human contact, so the compromise is a necessary one.

Blessings & Curses: Redux.

Terry Pratchett wrote that humans need to learn to believe the little lies so they can believe in big ones. There’s something I wish I knew during the bad years; that I was far from the only person suffering from my condition. My parents were stumbling in the dark just like me, except they had to pretend everything was under control.

My dad confided in me, recently, how he used to cry — a lot — during those days when I would return from school after another worst day of my life, talking about footballs thrown at my head, being cornered and verbally abused, or being removed from class after another tantrum. These were practically daily occurrences, and they’ve left their lifelong marks on me, but I’ve never lacked for brilliant people willing to help, people who were alongside me in my suffering. Raising a child is hard, and raising a neurodivergent child is even harder. Can I blame my parents for wanting to believe in blessings, and not curses?

Most of the time, those bad years seem like a distant memory. I don’t see autism as my blessing or my curse; it’s just a part of me — a frustrating, limiting, often embarrassing part of me, but one just as vital as my eye colour or ethnicity. I’ve come to accept it and be content despite it, and I suppose that’s the best outcome I could hope for.

[plague-of-insomnia]

Hi, would it be ok for me to ask how did you know you were non-binary? I'm questioning and would like to get some opinions, but no pressure to answer if this is too personal!!

So I got this ask months back, and with everything that has gone on with my health I wasn’t able to answer it... so I don’t know if the person who sent this will even see it, but since it’s pride month I figured it was a good time to get to the queer/questioning asks that have been languishing in my poor ask box/drafts...

First of all, I don’t mind questions like this; if I ever find an ask too personal I’ll usually just ignore it, but something like this I think is important especially since NB is such a... underrepresented concept, for lack of a better word, so sometimes that lack of exposure plus the very broad nature of the label can make the whole questioning process confusing and stressful.

Honestly, for a looong time I had no idea I wasn’t cis.

I didn’t know that you could be anything other than male and female; I grew up in pretty conservative Latin American immigrant family, Catholic, so the idea of homosexuality was bad enough, lol.

I was very involved in the (then called) “Gay/Straight” alliance back in high school, as we had quite a few gay and lesbian students and teachers. I had mostly queer friends, but even binary transgender people weren’t... as prominent back then. Ofc they existed, but I didn’t have as much exposure in HS, and I went to a catholic college where many gay students had to essentially be closeted—for example, (openly) gay men weren’t technically allowed in fraternities. I loved my school, but some of its views on women and LGBTQ+ people were pretty dark age stuff, so again I had no idea that gender was a broader spectrum than simply male/female, cis or trans.

As far back as at least around early puberty, I created a kind of alter ego. A character opposite my birth sex, who was unlike any other I ever created and who has stayed with me my whole life. They helped me survive my childhood/adolescence. They felt very much “me” and yet weren’t simply the person I was in actuality made into the opposite gender. More like the aspects of my self/identity I knew subconsciously.

Often, when I fantasized, I would put myself into their role. Imagine being the other gender, what their body would feel like, what sex would be like. I’d ask friends i was comfortable with about what it felt like to be the opposite gender. I felt I needed to know so that I could “feel” it too. So I could truly imagine being a gender other than my own, with different parts, different secondary sex characteristics.

Yet at the same time, I felt comfortable enough with my birth sex that I explained these moments away. I was just thinking like a writer. Curious, bc that’s my nature. I never thought I could be trans because despite the power of these feelings, the sometimes intense longing I felt to be other than I was, the thought of completely changing my body, abandoning my assigned gender, felt horrible. Like I would be losing part of myself.

I first heard the term nonbinary during Pride. I had never encountered this before, and being who I am immediately looked it up. I was floored. Gender was a spectrum? You could be both male and female??

I felt like I had been hit by lightning.

I immediately reflected on a lifetime of “queer” thoughts. About my alter ego and how I had clung so tightly to them, how often I fantasized about having parts I didn’t have (without necessarily wanting to take away parts that I already did). How I went through phases where I dressed very masculine in some points of my life and very feminine in others. How I related so strongly to certain characters over others, and other past experiences that I had always managed to discard or shelve away in “comfortable” boxes.

And I reflected on how I had always had this... shame about these thoughts and feelings, this fear that they made me a “freak,” which might be why I had always been so quick to file them away with safe labels.

Discovering that I wasn’t alone was liberating. I read about and spoke to people who identified as NB, and often found they had a similar thoughts and experiences growing up as I did, and that helped cement in my mind, without a doubt, that I was also nonbinary, that I wasn’t purely male or female, but both.

I’ve suffered with depression my entire life, and am likely bipolar (something my current therapist agrees with, though I haven’t been formally diagnosed for various reasons). And once I opened my eyes and began questioning, I discovered that a significant part of my depression was actually tied to my gender dysphoria.

Exploring my gender identity in various ways, and finally accepting that I am NB/gender fluid has made me much more content.

Now, ofc there is no one way to be non-binary. So just bc my experience doesn’t align with what you’re feeling, doesn’t mean you’re not NB yourself.

Some people don’t feel any gender at all, and wish they didn’t have any secondary sex characteristics. Some want to be purely androgynous. Some feel mostly one binary gender or another, but maybe not “fully” male or female. Some feel a mix of both, and some shift between two or more genders.

For me, I feel like I’m always partly male and partly female, though sometimes one is more dominant than the other. Sometimes I’ll have gender dysphoria so bad that looking at cis bodies can be very upsetting, or the feeling of “missing” parts I feel I have/should have is so intense it’s almost all I can think about. Yet other times I feel pretty “stable.” Sometimes I feel like I’m thinking a lot about my gender and my presentation and others I barley think about it at all, I just “am.”

I feel freer now that I have shifted names and pronouns. Like I’m finally accepting my full self.

A huge part of why I enjoy playing Animal Crossing so much is bc I can indulge my gender fluidity by playing with how I dress my character... it brings me a lot of peace I can’t always get IRL.

I hope whoever reads this finds this helpful, original anon or anyone who might be wondering if they may be NB or not.

Feel free to send other asks if you’d like, or if you know me you can DM me and we can talk privately. 💕

Happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈

[robotnik-mun]

What are your top five cartoon series?

Oh. Ooooh boy that is. That is a big one. I have so, so many cartoon series that I love dearly. Like oh my god where would I begin, where do I fucking BEGIN? It’s almost impossible to distill them down to JUST five. That’s virtually impossible right there. 

So rather than my ‘top’ five I’m just gonna give a random assortment from like, my top fifty. 

5. Ed Edd N Eddy 

Probably the Cartoon Cartoon that caused me to laugh out loud the most, Ed Edd n Eddy was one of those toons that defined a certain portion of my childhood. Despite the unrelenting misery the three went through, the antics of the Eds none the less always made me blow a gasket, and the Big Picture Show was one of those godsends given that it finally wrapped things up.

4. Beast Wars

My first foray into the wider Transformers franchise, even years after the fact this toon still stands out to me. Even the visuals have aged better than you’d expect for 90s CGI- I think this was the first toon that really sold me on the idea of plot based storytelling and character development. Plus, it gave us the glory that is Dinobot, Rattrap and Rhinox. How can I NOT love it?

3. Pinky and the Brain 

One is a genius, the other’s insane, and they’re both icons of my childhood. Spinning off from Animaniacs, these two represented some of the finest comedic storytelling from the days when Warner Brothers animation was at its peak. This one is practically branded into my retinas. 

2. Sonic the Hedgehog

Well, you all knew THIS was going to be here. This was my gateway into Sonic and the thing that shaped my feelings about it the most, even though my path to this show only came about once I accepted the internet into my life. STill, after all these years it holds a very significant place in my heart, and remains one of my all time favorite cartoons. 

1. Invader Zim

Another one of those shows that defined a period of my life, Invader Zim was something mind blowing at the time for my younger self, with it’s disturbing, nihilistic humor, gothic art style, and the hints of a wider story and conflict amidst the episodic... episodes. Like, I cannot begin to stress how into this I was during that time, my ‘dark’ phase of the teenage years. This was one of those turnpoint toons, and you cannot begin to know how gratifying it was to see Enter the Florpus actually happen. 

Again- this isn’t ‘really’ a top five list. I can’t actually distill my favorite toons into a mere five. But hopefully, this is satisfactory all the same. 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #178

“for such a little thing, you sure are in your own way.”

What’s your favorite type of bird? Barn owls are actual deities. What was on the last sandwich you ate? Pb & j. What sort of music did you listen to when you were in high school? Same stuff I listen to now, although I had a mild screamo-ish phase. Have you ever gotten back together with an ex? No. How far away is the closest store to your house and what is it? Some cheap dollar store in the town, dunno names. What is your favorite Thai dish? Haven't tried any. When was the last time you made out with somebody? Over a month back. What month of the year was your mother born? August. Are there any candles in your bedroom, and what scent are they? No. What TV show(s) have you been watching currently? None. How many apps do you have on your phone? Six. My phone has so, so little storage ugh. Have you ever dated a smoker? If not, would you? No to both. Are there any movies you’ve seen so many times? Yeah, sure. Of course a lot as a kid, Finding Nemo and The Lion King 1 & 2 especially, then I've watched both Blair Witch Project movies a lot, Jim Carrey's How the Grinch Stole Christmas... How would you describe your sense of humor? Sarcastic. What’s your favorite type of bread? Pumpernickel. Do you share a middle name with any of your siblings? Yeah. Have there ever been any brushfires/wildfires in your area? Yeah. What did you have to eat for dinner last night? Nothing (Thanksgiving was lunch). Do you have separate emails for personal and business? No. Have you ever missed a flight? Yes. Do you know your significant other’s passwords? No, I have no reason to. Would you like to study abroad one day? No. Does someone have a crush on you but you don’t feel the same way? Idk. Who do you feel most beautiful around? Sara. /v\ What’s one makeup item you cannot live without? I could easily live without any. Is there one thing all of your ex’s had in common? All guys. Did you french kiss before you were 16? No. Imagine your spouse just died; would you get re-married? I don't know if I would. Like... I'd never stop loving her, so "moving on" to someone else just because she's no longer physically here would feel disloyal. What’s your favorite thing about life? New, fun experiences and creating strong bonds with people like you. Who pays for the first date? Idrc, but probably whoever proposed the date? Or split the bill? Have you ever had a friend that got a bf/gf, and then completely ignored you? Yeah. Do you play any computer games, if so, what ones? Not currently 'cuz my gaming laptop has to be fixed. :| When it is and I have my own income, I might return to WoW, but I'm not sure. I think the subscription is kinda high, and I have more important things to handle. What is the funniest movie you’ve ever seen? Idk why I find White Chicks so goddamn funny. What lyric means the most to you? Off the very top of my head, "A bloody war behind my eyes; I'll come all right on the other side" from "Free" by Mother Mother. Really makes me think of all I've been through but how I keep coming out stronger. Who is the smartest person you know? Girt. What’s the next movie you will see in theaters? Idk. Are you adopted? No. What band do you like that most people hate? You canNOT look me in the face and say you don't like at least one Nickelback song. I don't get the hate. Any new bands that you actually enjoy? Oh idk. What is your escape from reality? RPing. Do you have any self-inflicted scars on your arms? You can only just barely see them. Do you like “scene” hair? YEAH AND I ALWAYS FUCKING WANTED IT BUT I COULD NEVER POSE IT CORRECTLY 'CUZ MY HAIR WAS TOO THICK AND HEAVY. Have your parents ever been to jail? No. If your friend asked you to hold their drugs, would you? Definitely not. Does it scare you when a relationship moves too fast? Y E A H Would you ever consider hitchhiking? I don't know if I would even in a desperate situation... I don't trust people. Have you ever hitchhiked? No. Have you ever been to a music festival? No. What color car do you want to have? Burnt orange. Would you rather hike a mountain or explore a cave? Explore a cave!!! Would you rather wear a flower crown or veil? Probably a veil? Do you believe peace on earth is attainable? I honestly don't believe so. What type of tattoo do you want? s o  m a n y What is your favorite insect? Butterflies. Would you ever live in the desert? Nooooo. Fuck the heat. Is your town beautiful? I don't really live in one, but the closest town isn't. Which season do you want to get married in? Autumn. Are totem poles cool? YEAH! Favorite art forms? Conceptual photography. What kind of music do you enjoy? Plenty sorts of metal, rock, and alternative. Do you have any gay friends? Yeah. Where is your favorite place to go? The zoo, even though I have mixed feelings about them... Do you know your dad? Yeah. How often do you get on Facebook? At least once a day. Are you related to anyone who’s in prison? Don't think so?? What concerts are you attending in the near future? Y'ALL I MIGHT FUCKING SEE OZZY IN JANUARY. He and Megadeth are coming to Charlotte and the tickets aren't too bad. :') It's a loooong drive but Mom was like "hell yeah" when I told her and wants to buy tickets after she gets her tax return AH. Metallica is a possibility too, but Mom doesn't think she can afford it. If you were kicked out of your house, where would you go first? Dad's. What are you currently looking forward to? Sara's b-day, Christmas, hopefully getting my laptop fixed, aforementioned concerts, and school. What was the reason you got grounded for last? Idk, that was a long time ago. But most likely for "talking back" to Mom. The last two people you kissed, are they virgins? Yes; probably not. Is there a guy that knows everything or mostly everything about you? Yeah. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed? A bit to the left. If you could have anything delivered to your doorstep each morning, what would it be? Um,,, money?????? What is one vacation destination that many people think is just fabulous but which you personally have no desire to visit (or revisit)? New York City. Heard from my sister it's a shithole with the craziest and rudest people known to Planet Earth. I'm not big on cities, anyway. Which animated character is your all-time favorite? Uhhhhhh... Dory, maybe? If you could own a home on the shore of any body of water in the world, which waterfront would you choose? I WANT THE PINK BEACHES OF THE BAHAMAS. But I'm scared of the Bermuda Triangle so will probably never see them. :'''''') What serves as the greatest motivation for you in your daily life? MY RECOVERY. If I got through what I have, I can't ever give up and roll back down that hill. I'm focusing to always improve. If you could have any round object in the world, what spherical item would you want? t h e  g a m e s p h e r e ,  l a d s If you were left alone for one hour with nothing more than a pen and a notepad, what would you be inclined to draw or write during those 60 minutes? Practice eyes or start a poem. If you could witness anything at all in super-slow motion, what would you want to see? Hmmm... OH, maybe a big cat's tongue licking meat. See how it actually shears tiny bits off. Cats' tongues are cool. What do you forget to do more often than anything else? Take my anxiety med at the right time. If you could teach everyone in the world one skill, what would it be? Compassion. You’ve been offered the chance to paint a billboard along a highway with any message you choose, as long as it’s only 10 words long. What is your message? Oh jeez, I'd have to think too hard on this. Who’s the last guy to give you roses? Tyler. Did your parents do drugs when they were younger? Not to my knowledge, and I doubt they would've. Do you have any relatives who live on a different continent than you? I don't believe so. What are your religious beliefs? Were you raised with those beliefs, or did you develop them on your own? I'm a theist, entailing I believe in a creator, but I know nothing about him/her/it. I personally picture them as a peaceful and sage deity that allows life to go on without it intervening anywhere, letting the world evolve on its own and see how we adapt to our unique settings and handle life. In the end, I believe we are either given some form of paradise or a type of damnation depending on how you wrote your story. I like to imagine the good go to their personal vision of "Heaven," and I wonder if the paranormal activity some experience in life are the acts of the damned, apparently confined to remain on Earth or something. Anyway, I wasn't raised with such beliefs; they were developed. I was brought up Catholic, then I turned to just simple Christianity as I didn't agree with a lot of Catholic ideas, and most recently I abruptly turned away from that in favor of theism. How did you and your significant other celebrate your last anniversary? We went out for breakfast. What has been your favorite house/apartment/etc you’ve ever lived in? My last house for location, as a house itself, my childhood one. What’s something in your house that currently needs to be cleaned? I need to vacuum my room. Do you still remember any of the dreams or nightmares you had as a child? Yup. What’s the most bizarre conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard of? The world is donut-shaped. Yeah. Do you have a good sense of direction? Not. At. All. Who was your first crush? Did you ever actually date them? Dylan, and no. What’s the weirdest, rudest, or most ridiculous thing a guest has ever done in your home? Who knows. Has anyone ever told you you’re manipulative? I don't think so. Do you know anyone who owns their own business? No. When was the last time you weren’t 100% sober? Uhhh maybe that movie night with Colleen and Chelsea. Is obtaining a college degree something that is important to you? Well, for my possible career future. Have you ever eaten at a vegan restaurant? No. Do you view substance abuse as a disease or a choice? I have... mixed feelings here. Starting something, that is indisputably a choice. Becoming addicted though, I'm not sure. Some people have addictive personalities so have a bigger inclination to become addicted, but isn't that just a personal trait/weakness you can fight?? I dunno. I know it's labelled as a disease by people way more informed than me though, so. What does the last text you sent say? Don't feel like checking. Does it bother you when people call you ‘ma'am’ or ‘sir?’ No. I live in the South, that's polite. Have you ever been obsessed with a television character? Does Dory count for movies? ha ha Do you ever wish you had powers of invisibility? Not really. What was the last thing that changed your life completely? Recovery. Do you have any step siblings? One. Have you ever been questioned by the police? No. In which state/country were you born? NC, U.S.A. Have you ever been to an amusement park out of state? Disney World. What do you normally drink when eating at a fast food restaurant? Coke or Mountain Dew. Have the police ever been looking for you? Not because I did something wrong; I've told the beach story a few times. If you chew gum, which kind is your favorite? I love the watermelon Hubba Bubba one asjfawoeu Have you ever kissed someone of the same sex? Yeah. What was the last liquid that you choked on? Water, just this morning when I was taking my meds ah. How many times did you wake up today before actually getting up? Well, I woke up once in the middle of the night like usual, then I woke up at like, 6-something and went back to sleep. Who did you celebrate your last birthday with? Mom, sises, Ash's husband and kids, and Dad stopped by. Was your last kiss initiated by you or the other person? I think it was kinda a simultaneous thing. We were saying bye. Do you buy a ton of things at the store at once or just for that day? Mom does the shopping, but it depends on how much time she has and what's at the house. When getting dressed do you put your pants or shirt on first? Pants. When you kiss a person where do your hands usually go? I actually don't know if it's a consistent thing for me??? I don't kiss anyone regularly so I don't recognize a pattern. What is one song you listen to that you’re sure not many people do? "False Flags," probs. Massive Attack is so neglected of the attention they deserve. Do you use a handrail on stairs if there is one? Yes, I'm scared of tripping. What was the last thing you saw that made you smile? Teddy came right up into my face wanting attention. What is your favorite drinking game? Never played any. Do you have any tattoos that you don’t like anymore? I think I've mentioned why I don't love my "ohana" one now. I'm getting it covered at some point. My "perfectly flawed" one is probably getting covered by a much bigger piece; I picked a bad location for it to want a sleeve. I'd just maybe redesign it, put if somewhere else. Do you have a shower curtain or door? Curtain. Who was the last person from your high school graduating class you saw? Probs Colleen? Who was the last non-relative you hung out with? Sara. Are you listening to anything right now? I'm way too obsessed with "Black Wedding" by In This Moment (feat. Rob Halford). Rob makes it, and the chorus is awesome. How many keys are on your keychain? One. Who was the last person you took a photograph with? Ryder, my nephew. Are you left handed? No. What were you most scared of when you were little? Losing my mom/being separated from her. Are you biracial? No. When was the last time you painted your nails? What color(s)? I couldn't even guess. Has a stranger ever offered to buy you a drink? Thank fuck no. Have you ever overflown a bathtub? Don't think so. What’s at the top of your to-do list in life? Stay positive, never stop aiming to improve. What was the last thing you shared? Well, Thanksgiving food. Where are you most ticklish? Feet. Do not- Which cartoon character do you want to keep as a pet? Uhhhh how 'bout an Espeon. I imagine them to be calm and silently affectionate like cats and very intelligent. Have you ever considered a career in music/acting? No. When was the last time you felt seriously embarrassed? Getting food yesterday. Per usual, let things die down, but I still ended up crammed in a corner, unable to go in any direction while someone was trying to get past me. I was headed for an anxiety attack and felt like a total nuisance. I'm pretty sure it showed in how I was whipping my head around, shuffling in various directions, clearly wanting the fuck out. Have you ever liked a song, looked up the lyrics to it, then hated it? No, lyrics can't ruin a song I like the sound of. What would be the icing on the cake for you this Christmas? A PS4, omg. I have to get my laptop fixed and a new camera, so I highly doubt I'm getting that or a tablet considering cost. I want to play the Spyro Reignited trilogy beyond words, like I refuse to even watch a let's play because I want to experience it all first-hand, but. Yeah, unlikely anytime soon. If you had the opportunity to live forever, would you take it? Noooooo. Do you like quesadillas? Only chicken and/or cheese ones. Did you like the show Invader Zim? I surprisingly never saw it. What’s the greatest/most influential song you’ve ever heard? "Life Won't Wait" by Ozzy always makes me wanna get off my ass and do something. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen in a grocery store? A HUGE BOX OF ANIMAL HEADS IN THE MIDDLE OF WAL-MART, BECKONING THE FURRIES INTO ITS DEPTHS. Have you ever bought yourself a present on Christmas? No. Well, I've used money I've been given on Christmas, if that counts. Have you ever been on a mechanical bull? No. Do you need a key card to get into the building you live in? No. Have you ever stepped in chewing gum? Yes. Name all the people you know that you’ve seen today. Just Mom.

[waitingformargo]

~ Facts about Me ~

I’m pretty cute, I have a cute face with a cute nose and do cute things like naming the head made of styrofoam, that I bought to put my hats on, Brian. Or maybe that’s weird, I don’t know.

I have three guinea pigs that I adore and love to cuddle and I love it when they lick my face.

I listen to audio books at night, I barely fall asleep without.

One of my favourite books is called “The whole world in a single sentence” (translated) and contains little tips on writing, like cinquains or also ideas on what you could write about or words you could use, making you observe your surroundings, find adjectives to describe it etc. I don’t think I actually ever used any of the tips but just flicking through it makes me smile and feel warm. If I had to throw away all my books and pick only one that I can keep it’d be this.

I love my guitar that I named Jesse. I love running my hands over it, smelling it and feeling the strings. But I can’t really play it actually. I know the common chords, sure, but that is hardly enough. I barely practise but it isn’t my aim to be good at it anyway. It calms me down to just strum a bit and to badly play a few of my favourite songs while singing to it.

When I think of home I think of sounds more than anything. I think of children playing and shouting and of the sound of a piano in the background. My parents’ flat is next to my former primary school and next to this again is the music school my dad works at. My room used to be directly next to the school yard and I often did my homework listening to the other children play outside and to the students playing their instruments fading into my room. I actually have a certain melody playing in my head when I think of this. It’s a small instrumental part in the song Unstillbare Gier (Confessions of a Vampire or also Endless Appetite) from the musical Tanz der Vampire (Dance of the Vampires). If you want to listen to it it’s 1:06-1:23 in this version (which is my absolute favourite, having Drew Sarich on vocals): Die unstillbare Gier - Drew Sarich als Graf von K…: http://youtu.be/PCqEybPFdpo

I love music in general, mostly British bands, mostly indie rock.

I collect vinyls although I don’t listen to them often. It’s the same with drinking tea: I love it but I need time for it. I like to savour the moment and to do things like these consciously. I don’t have vinyls playing in the background, I sit in front of my record player and watch the vinyl spin while listening closely. I don’t just take sips of my tea every now and then. I warm my hands on the mug, staring into the brown liquid. I don’t do these halfway. I’d never put a record on when I’m not in the room and I’d never drink tea for breakfast when I only have little time before uni.

When I was younger I sewed myself plush toys. I couldn’t sew well and I still can’t and they all look a bit weird but I am proud of them nonetheless. They were pretty weird animals or even objects though- I still have a hand-sewn jellyfish and a plush belly (yeah, I wrote belly) that I gave to my older sister. It even has a belly button.

I collect sand from all the places I’ve been to in little glass bottles and I like to look for special postcards as well.

I love to write. Since I was 10 I knew I wanted to be a writer. I don’t believe that I ever will be now but that doesn’t change a thing. It is still my greatest and probably my only passion. Nothing has ever come this naturally to me. It’s probably my writing talent that prevents me from bringing anything else to perfection because anything else actually requires work that I am not ready to invest as I was good at writing from the start and expect myself to master every new challenge like I did with this. I haven’t written in a while and nothing makes me hate myself more than when I don’t write for a long time. I don’t want to waste my talent and I don’t want to waste my life. I’m sure this is my biggest fear. To waste myself.

Characters and character development is the most important part for me in a story. I don’t care for the plot. Give me a trashy love story between an alien-human hybrid and a cactus that takes place in the 30th century; as long as the characters are complex and interesting it could still become my favourite book.

I love F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I once created a little book with quotes from Fitzgerald novels for one of my favourite musicians because he made a song full of references to his writing. To this day I like to believe that I am the only one who ever got those hints.

I love drinking milk.

I behave like a child when I am around my parents. When I visit them, coming home to my former home, I can forget about the responsibilities of an adult and pretend everything is like it used to be when I was little. I talk differently with them, feeling like an 8-year-old, play games, solve puzzles, watch movies from my childhood, knowing that they’ll always accept me back like I never grew up.

It makes me proud that one of my heroes smiled at me during a concert.

It makes me proud that I once won in a writing competition.

It makes me proud that I didn’t give up school during an impossibly hard phase and am now able to study at university.

It makes me proud to be a good person.

It makes me proud that I can be proud of myself.

Making this list makes me feel like a complex character from a book someone created and characterised like this, with all these little details because they grew very fond of them and it would be sweet and make me feel loved if that was the case.

I can’t keep plants alive.

I have been suffering from depression since I was about 14. I went through two therapies, am still taking antidepressants and I guess I can’t yet go without them but I’m confident that I’ll be alright eventually.

I always dreamed of having a pet chameleon.

When I was little I used to play with marbles on the floor in the corridor. I gave them names and played they were in school.

I like to draw pictures with hidden objects, adding many details to it.

I rather listen to the audio books of Harry Potter than to read the books. I used to listen to them and draw scenes from it.

I did that with different audio books and movies as well and collected all my drawings in a box. I love to get them out from time to time and look through them.

I still have many of my milk teeth as I put them into a tiny box when they fell out or rather when I pulled them out once they were loose.

I like to remember the times when I played and fell onto my knees, having bruises on them. It’s a very child thing having bruises on your knees.

I like the scent of warm tar in summer, of mowed grass and floor polish.

To me lit candles smell like Christmas while freshly blown out candles smell like birthdays.

I’m silent around strangers. Even with my friends I’m often silent during talks and just listen to them. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, it’s just that I often don’t know how to say it. Maybe that’s why I love to write. I can structure my thoughts.

I love being alone. I can easily entertain myself and being around too many people for too long wears me out. I need to get home and change into my pajamas to recharge then.

I like dimmed lights and soft voices. I like blankets and calmness and feeling cozy.

I love losing me in myself. It often happens at night, it happens when everything becomes slow and fuzzy, when the night swallows reality and I drift off into my thoughts. I especially get inspired and emotional when there are many lights.

Once I was at a city festival and there were hot-air balloons, their lights flickering and I stood there, among many people with horrible music playing loudly, but that kind of moved into the background and I began to cry at the beauty of the moment. And I must have looked weird but I was just happy and overwhelmed by the world.

I usually repress my anger and swallow it down until I explode and say horrible, exaggerated and unreasonable stuff towards those I’m angry at.

I’m loyal and would do anything for my friends and family.

I love drinking cocoa while watching children’s shows.

I like suspenders, bow ties and glasses although I don’t need them.

I would love to own various wigs so I can change my style for each day.

I love food. Yet everyone says I’m a picky eater and I guess I am. But I love the stuff that I actually do eat.

I should go outside more often.

I have the brain of a fly. I can’t remember where I put my notes, when I have an appointment or what I ate yesterday. I also don’t remember much from my childhood. Whenever my parents try to describe an event to me that took place when I was ten or 13 or even 17 I can’t recall it happened. They could tell me anything and I’d believe it.

I don’t have a sense of orientation at all. I could probably get lost three streets away from my home.

I’m a daydreamer. I’m often lost in thought and although I hear someone is talking to me I don’t stop dreaming, not even for a second to tell the other person I can’t concentrate on them right in that moment which leads to them being annoyed.

I love language and what you can do with it.

I am super lazy.

I have no willpower and can’t force myself to do anything that needs to be done. If I have a course in the morning I often don’t go because I can’t bring myself to leave my bed.

Concerning work I worry too much about not being good enough while at the same time only doing the bare minimum.

I don’t believe in god or a higher instance. I also don’t believe that there will be anything happening after I die. I believe that this will be the end.

I am agender. I don’t identify as either male nor female and that’s not a phase, it’s who I am: human.

I like making lists as they help me a lot to structure my thoughts.

I think that my neck is too short and my arms too fat and I’m self-conscious about my belly but all in all I think I look alright.

I’m good at remembering faces, names and voices.

I love my sister to death. She is the most important person in my life.

I can watch a movie once and memorise the best quotes from it. Me and my sister often talk through quotes and make quizzes about who said what in which movie. It’s our thing.

I love writing letters. I think it’s an intimate thing and you think more about what you want to say when you write a letter than a quick text message. I wish I had a pen pal again who I can get to know through letters and who I can tell secrets about me. I want the exciting feeling of waiting for a letter, of opening your mail box to find one.

I’m into freckles and dimples and moles.

When I feel ugly I put on cute dresses, heels and makeup and watch a movie looking bomb.

I like using my typewriter. I love the clicking noise, the font, and that I need more time this way. It makes me think more about what I write. It fuels my creativity.

I’m a procrastinator.

If I had the choice to either go back in time or into the future I'd always choose to go back. I don't want to know what will happen to Society and Earth. This knowledge would burden me too much.

[yourtransbrother-blog]

Ftm phrases 1 - The acting fake phrase

Many say that being LGBT is a phrase, that eventually we would all fall back to the “default normal cis-straight mode” - that is not the kind of phrase I was talking about. I am talking about the phrases you may go through when you are a ftm. I went through these, and I think I might share my notes going through them.

I was desperate to be some dominant straight tough shit to prove my masculinity. I drew a line between the days when I was a girly little girl and the day I came out and become the guy I have always wanted to be. I tried to cut clean with those old days, items, memories and everything; to erase a part of my history that I would have to explain to other people or that would put me in another depressive and helpless mentality.

I pretended to be calm and laid back. I made sexist jokes. I come out to every group of people when I first meet them. I said “No homo” all the time. I take care of my new image, because I was so used to consciously control what kind of impression I gave people back in the days, and I took that into my new life. I thought I had to let people know I am a certain kind of person; if not, they would think whatever they saw in me. If I don’t prove to people I am some tough shit, people would think I am some tomboy; if I can’t pull off being tough that day, I will just say nothing.

You can already tell that it was not alright, right?

Looking back, there were three problems I had to deal with.

1) I was new to a lot of things - social norms, state of mind, the liberating feeling, transphobic people, confused parents, change in sexuality… The list goes on. I just came out, and I could have been taking my time to figure shit out. Even if I want things to settle down and start find a way of living I was comfortable with, I had to give myself enough time to figure out and get used to things.

2) I thought everything in my past is girly, hence they are not worth looking back or worth remembering. I should get it out of my head, out of my life, so I would not have girly elements to make me girly again.

3) I care too much of what people think of me. I tried to control people’s impression or feelings towards me, to make sure I am liked or accepted. I tried to be what people want or expect, instead of being myself and let those who likes me stay.

It was until I met some old musical friends of mine. We were more of just acquaintances instead of friends, because I kept my distance from most people when I was deeply closeted and people felt distant around me. We had a lovely evening, just singing or blasting out songs we knew from musicals or YouTube. At first I was shy and just sang male parts, but then it loosen me up, I was less tense, and just let myself be femme or tough, whatever that matches the song themes or the characters. At that point it was more important that I am a musical performer than a ftm. And I realized this is what it should be about - your body is just like a Power Armor. It’s not about which one(s) you have, but how you use it to help you use your potential, and have an absolute blast.

At that point, I already switched to gay porn instead of straight porn several months after I came out, and that night we just talked a lot about boys. Then after a week or so a friend there took me to my first gay bar(s). At that point I was still using a lot of “No homo” or “Bottoms first”, and I found out that it was just unnecessary. You don’t have to pretend to be uncomfortable about homosexuality to be a guy. There are guys comfortable with just being gay and there are some who don’t. There are guys who don’t know how to dress and there are guys who do. There are guys that cannot grow facial hair and there are guys who do a lot. There are guys with sissy tendencies and there are some that despise this fetish. There are guys who likes art and there are ones who nap in museums. There are guys who likes ballet and there are some who just laugh at dance belts as boners. There are guys with men boobs. There are guys who do not watch TV. There are all kinds of guys, and I just really don’t have to live in such mentality “would guys do this?” It is just not necessary.

And during my holiday I think about this a lot - I missed out a lot of my childhood. I felt homesick for a boyhood I have never had after reading this reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/54plk7/i_am_a_male_transgender_growing_up_as_a_girl_tell/

Then I thought about it, and found two solution:

1) I could try all the things I’ve never tried in my childhood, and

2) (I was still in depressive mode and had a lot of throwbacks, I thought about the unhappy times and how I passively held my disappointments or anger or sadness in.) I got a notebook, wrote all the almost-traumatic scenarios down, an how I could do/could have done to make it better.

Then I realized my childhood was weird - I experienced something for the other gender, but the young kid there was me.

So this is how I dealt with the three problems I mentioned there:

1) Eventually I get to know myself and my place better. Since I am slowly becoming the person I am right now, confusing things started to get clearer, so I could now interact with the environment and people in ways appropriate, but at the same time be comfortably yourself.

2) I wrote these questions on my notebook and answered them:

(You can do it too. Answer these things honestly. If you don’t know, just say you don’t know or you will look it up later.)

What is your name? (Your real name, guy name. I asked my mom “what my name would have been if I was born a baby boy” after I was out, and that name meant more to me. Makes me feel like I really do belong there.)

What is the to-go online username you use now?

What is your favorite color?

What is your favorite animal?

What is your favorite season? Any memories related to the season?

What is your favorite food?

What is your favorite toy?

What is your favorite sport?

What is your favorite game?

What is your favorite cartoon?

Who is/was your favorite teacher?

Who is your hero? (Hold Your Heroes to a High Standard.)

Who is the person you respect the most?

What is your favorite book?

What is your favorite song?

What is your favorite quote?

What is your favorite fairy tale?

And when I was done, I realized that my past sharpened who I am today, and it is not necessarily a bad thing. I could get what I don’t want to see from my past out of my sight, do whatever was guilty pleasure to me, but still tell yourself that you had a past. And that little kid, that little boy was you.

You maybe looking at the above questions, and think that those questions above is nothing major. Yeah, maybe your favorite color would not affect your future career, but they are to train you to be honest to yourself. I have spent a lot of time evaluating whether my decision is manly enough, but then looking at the above questions, I realized that hey, I have to be in touch and trust my inner self. It is unavoidable. Instead of calculating my moves, I have to learn to follow my instincts, because it is how your body and soul is communicating to you.

3) It’s even more simple. Be you. Let those who stay for who you are stay. Let people give advice to you based on the person you really are. Make mistakes. Laugh about your mistakes. Own up to and learn from your mistakes. Be nice and empathetic to/towards people; and if they think badly of you or anything, remember your intentions are good, and you have nothing to be sorry about.

That was my denial/fake ftm phase, and I hope you have gained something from this. I hope this helps.

[rgmonzon-folio]

From Glass Slippers to Lightsabers

At the tender age of three, I have usurped my parents and became Supreme Lord of the Television set. Under my command, the T.V. blared the Disney Channel 24/7. From what I can pluck from my foggy memories, I would sit at the lowest step of our staircase, swivel the big, black box that was our T.V. to face me, and watch as it blared to a fantastical life with a press of a button.

I hummed along to the music my favorite Disney princesses would sing. I clasped my hands to my mouth at jaw-dropping twists and turns reminiscent to Aladdin’s carpet rides. My heart would pound along with the drum beats as Mulan fought China’s foes. I was completely enthralled in worlds within the black box, which kept me from the lure of potential playmates in our neighborhood of back-to-back row houses. The rubbery clop-clop-clop of their slippers as they chased each other on the eskinita pavement and their shrill cries of taya! were drowned by the whimsical tunes I never grew tired of.

Within the confines of our white walls and beyond the fairy tale renditions of Disney, I learned to create worlds of my own. I learned I could fashion my pambahay garb into gowns as magical as Belle’s and Cinderella’s, I learned to will images and drawings from books to come to life and undertake adventures of their own - under my own terms.

I even learned, despite my still developing skill with my native tongue, to speak English. I pieced together the words Mickey Mouse and friends uttered with their animated actions, and built my vocabulary before I even started going to school. Growing up, my parents would remind me that in my pre-preschool age I would only occasionally ask them what certain words meant - and it wasn’t long before I could speak coherent English sentences on my own.

Language weaved itself into the fantastic world of moving images, and storytelling took to a whole new level. I knew what magic and adventure meant, and I loved it.

It wasn’t long before my parents updated my old, vandalized boxed set of Grimms’ fairy tales - which was gifted to me during my first birthday. You could see it in an old photograph, where I was in the living room in blue jumpers, huddled with a pile of dolls and toys, beside me was the boxed set which I now wish I had preserved better. Luckily my parents eventually gave me other storybooks to enjoy, which got me into drawing as soon as I got school notebooks and crayons with blank pages at the back. At five, despite my scratchy handwriting and drawing skills, I wrote my first story, about Hello Kitty who dug too deep into her garden and found relics of an old world.

Of course you’d think all of these would be an immense advantage once I stepped into school, but with my classmates speaking Tagalog, I only became acutely aware of how different I was. And with the fact that I didn’t interact as much with other children compared to my T.V. screen, social interaction made me want to duck my head into my blouse the way turtles hid in their shells.

But somehow my classmates’ parents knew I could speak English, and they found joy in making me translate phrases into the language, to my utmost embarrassment. They found me smart and gifted, despite never having been on top of the class. Apparently, speaking in English made you smart.

Whenever I was singled out, I would squirm and try to hide behind my mother’s legs, who would in turn coax me to entertain the people fascinated in me. But that made me speak less, in fear of making mistakes and seeming less brilliant than people set me out to be - a trait I still have traces of to this very day.

Going into grade one, I decided not to highlight my difference, much to my mother’s dismay. Everybody else spoke Tagalog, so why should I do otherwise? But for some reason I had been branded, and people could not forget.

I revealed myself in writing, even in my earliest essays. Perhaps this marks the start of my love of the craft and my dream to become a writer, my dream to make people feel what I felt when I read or watched a Disney classic.

I learned to watch more action-packed cartoons in grade school, which aired in the usual Disney Channel. I was then introduced to a new world of heroes. While I did not fully trade my princesses with caped superheroes and super spies, I learned to anticipate stories in sagas when I went home from my classes.

I got hooked on stories of boys and girls with magical powers who fought crime and the dark forces of evil. There’s an allure in the charming protagonists, like Jake Long - the American Dragon, who went to school like me, but would switch to their secret lives through a magical transformation sequence.

American Dragon is one of the most beloved cartoons of my childhood, one that made me faithfully await new episodes as they aired. Its story was more complex than my preschool line-up of shows, as Jake came from a lineage that could transform themselves into dragons, with the task of protecting the magical world from evil, whilst maintaining daily lives as mortals. Plus, Jake still had to go to school. He had a sweat deal.

In that show, evil didn’t simply come from ugly monsters and beasts, as is the usual depiction in fairy tales. There was also evil among the dragons that supposedly protected humans and magical creatures alike, and evil among humans and magical creatures who were supposed to be protected.

These just made me love the story more - sprinkle in the classic subplot of Jake falling in love with Rose, who happened to be of a human tribe sworn to rid the world of dragons like himself, and I was hooked. For a cartoon written for the grade school demographic it was strangely complex (the fact that the main character is a Chinese-American in New York, with an African-American and Caucasian best friend also made it culturally diverse!)

This made me want to write my own novel and work for Disney all the more.

At eleven years old, we finally got access to the internet, which utterly changed the game for me. I was used to appreciating my animated media all by myself, my only companion the white walls of our living room, our Japanese-themed portraits behind the T.V., our wooden sofas, and the cold, green tiles with wispy patterns on the floor.

Internet showed me other people’s feedback on my beloved childhood classics - the shows which honed my hopes and dreams to this very day. People actually hated High School Musical, and I found that utterly heartbreaking.  

I’m not the least bit joking - my anger surged like boiling water in a kettle when I read youTube comments from crude teenagers unabashedly declaring the HSM sucked. It was corny and unrealistic.

And I could not have it.

In turn I did some bashing of my own when High School Musical’s biggest rival came out - Camp Rock. I hated the Jonas Brothers with a passion on the sole grounds that they threatened the popularity of the High School Musical cast (which is ironic, because I later on learned to love the brothers’ sitcom Jonas L.A.)

Upon discovering fanfiction, I even learned that my writing ability was heaps and bounds behind other people my age, and becoming a famed author and a Disney employee became bigger and bigger of a stretch.

In a nutshell, the internet ruined my life.

I even made it a point to avoid movie reviews of the films my favorite Disney actors would star in, in fear of the jolting pain and anger I would feel at the critics’ responses. That is until I matured, if only by a fracture of a degree, to try not to let these words hit me personally. In the first place, it was strange, since they were never really addressed to me, but to my favorite films and shows, and yet I would feel like they attacked my family with bolos.

Looking back on my pre-teen self makes me laugh, knowing how truly childish I was. Thankfully as i went into my later teens, I learned to accept criticism for my beloved films, after all, it is a basic requirement for a subject in college called English 103, or Critical Writing.

College had went out of its way to shatter many of my previous beliefs and providing me with lenses with which to view the world. With several workshop classes, I received criticism for my own works, which in turned helped my to hone my future projects. However, the attachment I felt, and still feel, towards my favorite films and shows is natural, as I write this very moment and trudge through the BA Communication Arts program because of them. I guess I just learned to accept their flaws when putting them under a critical lense.

I learned that Disney made better and better films because they learned from their criticisms. Had they not, girls would still be passively waiting in the towers their stepmothers locked them in for their princes to save them. Now we have Rapunzel in Tangled, a girl with agency who chose to climb down her tower to free herself from Mother Gothel’s abuses. Rapunzel became not a subordinate to her male love interest but a partner. We’re also blessed with Moana, a Polynesian heroine that depicts non-Eurocentric beauty, with her thicker limbs, her rounder face and nose, and her curly, windswept hair. She didn’t need a man to complete her.

Now I could say with ease that Cinderella had been sexist with lines like “Leave the sowing to the women!” Ariel in the Little Mermaid had absurd motivations, as she was willing to sacrifice her entire life for a stranger she’d just met, whose only known quality was his good looks. I do admit I still need work accepting that Mulan is sexist due to its adherence to the gender binary, this film is an absolute favorite, but I recognize I still need to be objective, as what the academe didn’t pay me to say.

And yes, I came to realize that High School Musical is unrealistic. Also, my English proficiency didn’t make me a smart student or a better person, as college slapped in my face. And I’m okay with that.

I am thoroughly relieved I moved on from my pre-teen phase. Now I have discovered more groundbreaking shows and films, which defy the standards of a hero (with the emergence of an anti-hero,) the binary opposition between good and bad (with morally ambiguous characters,) the very idea of storytelling (with experimental forms of film and stories,) and so much more.

Eventually I picked up a lightsaber with the Star Wars saga, which is a whole new epic experience, given the classic original trilogy and the mess of a prequel trilogy. It was a new brand of fantasy for me, yet still equipped with the epic adventures and heroes of my childhood. I am less protective of this series however, as I was before my childhood faves. I may have a crush on Anakin Skywalker, if only for his brooding looks, but I could still recognize the acting for him was flat and robotic. And while the prequel storyline had great potential, the execution was poor, specially with the script’s dialogue.

But that only prompted the creators to redeem the saga with an epic seventh episode, with a fantastic heroine in the form of Rey, a complex villain in the form of Kylo Ren, and a possibly gay romantic subplot between Finn and Poe.

In my journey from glass slippers to light sabers, I learned that being told that you suck could help you not to suck in the future. Criticisms for films, books, T.V. shows for that matter, aren’t meant to put them down, likewise workshops in writing classes aren’t meant to have your work’s flaws pointed out so you would quit writing forever. Criticism was meant to make the future body of art better, serving as reminders for creators not to make the same mistakes.

Right now, I’m glad professors and peers have told me what needed fixing in my writing classes throughout college. Otherwise, I wonder if I’d ever make it to my senior year...

[jaytury-blog]

10 Signs You Were An Emo Kid

So one thing we’re all guilty of is going through childhood phases that we’re pretty embarrassed to talk about. Whether that being the geeky kid that essentially fantasized over Warhammer figurines to the kid that liked to eat the whiteboard pen in class. We’ve all been there guaranteed, and along the way we’ve picked up and dropped some pretty weird habits and traits. But I’m not here to reminisce about the stickmen animations I used to create on PowerPoint, that’s for another time. This article is aimed more towards those little cliques we found ourselves in during our early school years; cliques which pretty much evolved and shaped our tiny little fragile minds. Our worlds soon opened up and offered things we never even knew existed, whether that being a new weird friend or a music genre that sent shivers down our spines for the first time. It’s true, at some point during our tween years most of us ventured into certain factions, sometimes not by choice, but by fate. Cliques are forever changing and for the life of me I can’t keep track of what they are these days. Something about roadmen and plastics maybe? That rings some sort of bell anyway, who knows? But if you were like me and facing secondary school in the mid-2000’s, then you were most likely left with a choice of two factions, both of which stood at complete opposite ends of the scale. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present, the Chav, and the Emo. Sworn enemies until the dying days of the earth. Perhaps you were one of these and can openly admit it and even laugh about it. Or maybe you’re just too ashamed to confess that this phase was in fact a part of your development as a teen. Maybe you’re in denial. I won’t judge you. The fact is, these factions were a real thing back then, and although the Chav outlived the Emo, we can still learn to laugh and reminisce about those crazy scene days that once ruled our lives each day. So let’s do that. Let’s talk about the old days and what defined ‘The Emo Kid’ May I present to you, 10 Signs You Were An Emo Kid 1. YOU HATED EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING So I’ll start off with the obvious one here, and that is that you most likely hated everyone you knew, minus your other Emo comrades of course. I’ll just come out and say this, but did you hate your teacher? Your parents? Your pets for no particular reason? Did they do something you didn’t like, regardless of how little it was? Was their smiles too wide for your everyday mundane life? If you answered yes, then great – you were on your way to Emo-hood. However this one was strange, because deep down I know you probably didn’t hate everyone, but simply because you had the persona of a gravestone and came off as friendly as a brick wall you just kind of stuck with the hatred of positivity. Ever see the Emo kid that always smiled? No? That’s because they weren’t a real Emo kid. A real Emo kid would have kept their heads down, muttered obscenities at anyone breathing that wasn’t one of your friends. You hated everyone through and through, and regardless of what the world had done, you made sure THEY were the problem, not you. 2. THE FRINGE Oh, the fringe; the trademark of the Emo kid that everyone had. You probably reached this point early on and decided if you were going to make it with the opposite sex then you needed to rock the cringe fringe 24/7. Day in, day out you would style your hair for hours, straightening it and burning the hell out of the ends until it was just long enough to cover one eye. The longer your fringe, the cooler you were. That’s just how it was for some reason. It of course, being like your personality, had to be blacker than the soul and thicker than moose’s blood. Your fringe was your baby, and if you wasn’t spending at least half the day correcting it and keeping on top of obscuring one eye then you weren’t a very good Emo kid. Hair was everything, plain and simple.

3. THE STUDDED BELT AND RED SKINNIES

That, as well as the other insane things you used to ‘rock’ like the fingerless gloves or black and

white chequered hoodies.

Whatever you wore, you made sure it was branded with Blue Banana, because that’s essentially the only retailer that did awesome enough stuff for your Emo requirements.

If you were a guy, you thought you could pull off guyliner better than any chick you knew, and no matter the occasion or how far away from your bed you had to go that day, you made sure your eyes were thicker than a pandas regardless.

Before leaving home you made sure you had AT LEAST two studded belts, both diagonally crossed and fastened through only one hole on your jeans.

As for the girls, a not so sturdy pair of fishnet stockings were on the essentials, oh, and also a spare pair to cover your bloody arms for some reason.

Bracelets and bracelets, so many damn bracelets filled your skin right up to your elbows, and why? Maybe to cover the…*cough cough*

Moving on.

4. YOU CAPTIONED EVERYTHING WITH ‘RAWR!’

To this day I still don’t understand it, but maybe you do.

Back in the day when Bebo was alive and everyone used to obsess over mirror selfies with their Sony Ericsson phones, the dinosaur was an iconic thing to the Emo kids.

Don’t ask me why, I don’t have an answer for it.

You used to hold one hand out like a claw and have a mouth like Clint Eastwood, slightly open and aggressive like you were about to annihilate a herbivore.

Each photo had to be angled perfectly just so you’d see the several lip piercings you gathered over the last year or so, and if you could sneak in a tongue piercing somewhere you were at the peak of your image, truly.

You also made sure to ‘own’ everyone else’s photo’s too, which never actually accounted for anything at all.

Thought someone was hot? Comment ‘I own this’ and some incredible thing happened. Nobody knew what the thing was, but it happened alright.

You owned the hottest pics of the day, and it literally meant zilch. Congratulations, you achieved nothing.

5. EMOTION WAS EVERYTHING

If you weren’t a tween basket case going through a mental breakdown for two years straight then you weren’t an Emo kid.

If you broke a smile more than twice a day you were considered one of the happy kids with a happy life and make-believe fairy parents. But if you were a true Emo then you honestly believed your life was the worst thing ever in existence. The world could collapse beneath our feet and it still wouldn’t even put a dent in your day-to-day life.

If you weren’t fighting off the make-believe depression you tried so hard to land yourself with then you were trying to find it, just so you could fight it all over again.

Every day was an emotional rollercoaster for you, and so long as you walked in your Vans shoes, the black cloud would slowly follow behind.

Everything was just terrible, utterly bloody terrible.

Cat died? Terrible.

Girlfriend left? Terrible.

Bus late? Terrible.

No mayo on your sandwich? Terrible.

Your life was just terrible, wasn’t it?

6. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

So nine times out of ten we dated someone in our social circle, because deep down we felt the connection more and the sparks ignited slightly easier knowing they were just as Emo as you were.

Maybe it’s because you saw them every single day and considered them a friend already, and for that reason, a relationship was on the cards.

Chances are you dated a few people in your group, because let’s face it, when you’re fifteen and open to experimentation for the first time, you’re willing to just go out with everyone to get an idea of how everything works.

Like there was always that one quiet kid who was into the dodgiest stuff that caught you off guard, and if you ever found yourself in a relationship with that certain individual then you’ll know exactly what I mean. It’s weird.

But then there’s the one that got away, the other half of the jigsaw that quite literally ‘rocked your world’ and completed your black little heart. We’ve all been there, I know we have.

A decent length for a relationship back then was about five or six months, but to you that was like an eternity. It was so sacred that everyone knew about it. You were the ‘in couple’ of the crowd. Just how you liked it.

But kids being kids things eventually went spiralling out of control and plummeted to the ground, making you realise how screwed up your world was all over again.

Things ended for a crazy reason you could laugh about these days, but back then you felt like your whole world had come crashing to the ground.

Initiating Emo breakdown number eight thousand and twenty-one.

7. YOU HAD FOUR BANDS ON YOUR MP3 PLAYER

I’ll give this one a straight shot in the dark and you tell me how close I am to hitting home, okay?

Ahem, *cracks fingers*

1. My Chemical Romance

2. Panic At The Disco!

3. Fall Out Boy

4. Linkin Park

Yes? No? Spot on?

Well that was me anyway, and I know for a fact you had at least one of those bands on your crappy little MP3 player at school. Those and a few songs you heard from friends but didn’t quite know the band, so just referred to them as ‘songs that speak to me on a personal level’.

You and a million other Emo kids.

The lyrics were identical to the pain you were feeling on a day to day basis, and if you felt the warm throbbing in your heart when the first piano note of Black Parade played, then you were a part of the 95% of Emo kids that felt the passion for the music aspect of the scene. This was your go-to anthem when somebody asked what music genre you were into. Period.

You were the frontman of the Black Parade every day of the week.

8. YOU PROBABLY HUNG OUT UNDER A BRIDGE

Now I’m not saying you were a gremlin that loitered under a bridge, but you probably did have a hangout spot similar to that, didn’t you? Perhaps the town square that consisted of two benches and a pound shop. Maybe a church cemetery to match the dark aura you surrounded yourself in?

For me it was the town square, which funnily enough consisted of two benches and a pound shop. It was cheap and convenient, and I spent more hours sat there loitering than I did in my own home. If I had spare time, I was there. Smoking, drinking, and overall being a general public enemy to the elderly and working generations.

Shock horror it later budged to the nearby cathedral, because we eventually discovered that the more death surrounding us, the more Emo we were.

If it rained you’d find me cupped under the roof of a Debenhams store, sat in line with thirty other kids thinking we were the coolest dropouts in the county.

We later on figured out we weren’t. We were just a nuisance and an inconvenience for those trying to gain access to the doors of Debenhams.

But maybe this rings true for you as well? Did you have one of these hangout spots? Did you have an Emo home away from home?

9. BEBO. MSN. TUMBLR.

Tumblr, Tumblr, Tumblr – this was your life indoors. This was your second-life where you could break out of your shell without actually having to interact with anyone. If someone asked you you’re hobbies, you’d tell them ‘Tumblr’ and nothing else.

It was a place for you to express yourself through various captioned pictures and dark gruesome quotations. It was your way of saying, “I’m edgy, so what?”

If your Tumblr wasn’t plastered with pictures of Pete Wentz or Gerard Way then you weren’t cool, because those guys were heroes in your books. They were the definition of ‘Rawr’ or something along those lines.

Bebo was of course where it all started, before Facebook became the in-thing and dominated the social market. It was a place to share ‘luv’ and post your classic mirror selfies to the world. You probably had some edgy black profile theme with sparkly skulls and chessboard patterns, right? That’s because you were Emo, and you wanted the world to know it.

MSN was basically Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp except it had all those old quirky school features like webcam chats and classic emoji’s. Plus the cool thing with MSN was you could just have some crazy name like ‘Dark Life <3 Girlfriend <3 RAWR!’ and nobody batted an eyelid. That was just the norm, and it was perfect.

If you spent all your time indoors flicking between the three tabs of the above sites, then there’s a strong chance you were a textbook Emo kid.

10. YOU DESPISED THE CHAV KIDS

If like me you cringed at words like ‘Bruv’ and ‘Danz’ then you probably shared the strong hatred towards the Chavvy kids in school. Unfortunately they took up about eighty percent of the playground, and sadly for the Emo kids, they were unavoidable when trying to go about your day in peace.

You know the kids I’m talking about. The ones who usually wore tracksuits and hand-me-down Reebok classics. They’d usually try and boot a football in your direction if they so much as saw your fringe wave in the wind.

They’d be there when you crossed the field, they’d be there waiting outside your classroom, and they’d be there when you left the school gates at the end of the day. They were always around, doing whatever it took to ruin your day and boast to their mates.

To put it short, they were vile creatures that took pleasure in making your day even worse than it already was.

The Chav’s and the Emo’s were two factions always at war with one another. Two complete opposite ends of the scale. Different music, different hobbies, different vocabulary – everything.

You skate, they kick a ball. You bang your head to MCR, they punch the wall to N-Dubz.

Everything about the two factions was messy, and although they often say opposites attract, this was a case that never would come close without starting a fight.

Chav kids were what made school days so gruelling and dark, but you pushed through in whatever way you could. You stuck by your friends and mocked them from behind the filter of a cigarette. You said nothing and kept your head down, but whilst the fire was dimly lit, the coal was most definitely still burning.

In the end, the Chav outlived the Emo, but I’d like to say we had the last laugh. Because whilst we were socially beneath them in school, we managed to climb above them and realise a phase was just a phase and it was time to grow up in the end. We weren’t thirteen anymore. We were getting older and the greying hairs were inevitable.

The masses of Blue Banana clothing died out and became just like everybody else; mostly suits and ties sadly enough.

The Emo within may not hold as strong a presence anymore, but deep down I know some of us sure as hell still rock out to Black Parade on a regular basis. It’s a piece of us that’ll never die.

The Chavvy phase continues to grow, sometimes into people’s late thirties and beyond.

But the Emo kids will always be able to smile knowing full well they aspired to be more.

The Emo kid may have died in reality, but it will never for once be forgotten in our hearts.

…That is something a true Emo would say. *

So, were you an Emo kid?

Share your memories from this beautiful era below and allow the dark child within you to re-emerge for a while.

Emo kids unite!

- J Tury

[dailycryptonews-blog]

Crypto News - Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower

Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower Adam Draper is the founder and managing director of Boost VC, an accelerator that focuses on exploring the applications of VR/AR, blockchain, cryptocurrency, bots, space, ar... You May Likes reading: Also Read: How to Buy Bitcoin With USD Dollar

Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower

Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower

Adam Draper is the founder and managing director of Boost VC, an accelerator that focuses on exploring the applications of VR/AR, blockchain, cryptocurrency, bots, space, artificial intelligence, and drones. Boost VC is more than just a series of buzzwords, as the accelerator has funded over 200+ companies and launched some really cool projects. A fourth-generation VC, Adam Draper invested and backed startups such as Coinbase, Plangrid, Amplitude, as well as many more through Boost VC.

Located in San Mateo in Hero City, Boost VC plays an integral role within the Draper University ecosystem, a world energized by the ambitious and eccentric father/son duo of Tim and Adam Draper.

All it takes is a quick one-on-one conversation with Adam to get a feel for his passion for the startup community and exploring technologies that could potentially solve problems and enhance life for all of mankind.

The following interview was conducted at the DraperU 2018 Blockchain Intensive and goes over blockchain and its role in the growth of the entrepreneurial tech-world.

It’s really cool seeing how DraperU and Boost VC are really embracing multiple technologies like blockchain, VR/AR, AI, etc all on one block.

Yeah, I guess it is sort of interesting for people. Until you’re here, you don’t really see it. It’s really interesting. Yeah, we’re all like right here. It’s been awesome. We have some crypto companies in this tribe who’ve definitely been able to benefit. VR companies learn more about crypto by being a part of all the events that are going on. One of our companies helps people put to put together the ERC20 smart contract so people were getting excited about launching their own coins.

The ground floor of Hero City.

I think blockchain is going to accelerate VR pretty substantially.

Originally, I said this during my talk, but originally, we jumped into crypto and then two years later, we jumped into VR and crypto. People were like, well, where’s the overlap? In my mind, there wasn’t even an overlap. I just thought they were both really important technology and people were going to have them.

And then recently, like in the last six/nine months, I’ve realized that VR doesn’t work without crypto and the perfect use case for the blockchain is VR. We’re realizing that there’s a whole emergence of huge potential just in that category of things, which is wild because it was lucky. I think one of the things that has given me the impression of that being really useful is Crypto Kitties honestly.

It’s underrated technology.

Very underrated and laughable.

Beanie Babies were a $3,000,000,000 industry.

Yeah. I collected comic books. I collected cards. I’m a huge collector of things but digital has never had that feeling of scarcity where it’s like there’s one in 100 of these or there’s one in a thousand of these. Which is super exciting that we can do that now and distribution is the internet. How cool is that? Like instead of distribution being the sports card store or the comic book store, the internet is able to be the distribution service. 

You don’t have to risk putting a rare edition card in a letter and sending it to Pakistan and hoping the money gets to you. It’s just done.

I haven’t seen the traction for art collectibles yet, but I’m really excited about it. And there are a couple of companies that are working literally just on marketplaces like the eBay of these digital goods. I’m really excited, we actually have a company called DarkWinds that’s launching sort of a Magic the Gathering on the blockchain. And I’m really excited about the future of all these things because you can actually long term make the cards more valuable. If someone pre-programs this into the system whereas blocks are mined or blocks are used.

You could also make it so that people can only use cards a certain number of times per week. You can make it like as if in the Magic the Gathering system, but you can also make it so that they become more powerful as you play. So, if you play more, the cards become more powerful. I think that’s so cool. This is such a fascinating concept that couldn’t have existed with flat cards. Suddenly, there’s a truth in the blockchain of transparency that can allow for that. When our company said we’re launching this, it’s sort of like Magic the Gathering but it’s with pirates, I bought a bunch of cards because I got to play. 

Especially if it’s peer to peer dueling sort of thing. As long as it works, and you retain your card value.

Have you seen Ready Player One yet? He goes through the store and grabs the bombs and whatever. That isn’t possible without the blockchain, like having one bomb is not like a possible thing without the blockchain. It’s wild.

Great movie. The inflection point of the technological curve is we’ve got AI, we’ve got VR/AR and blockchain and they all sort of cross-pollinate. Then robotics mixed in there too. All four of them are experiencing massive amounts of rapid growth. Just to see it go down is just like, damn.

Another thing that I’m seeing is the AI characters are going to be a thing in VR. So, there’s overlap of all these is what you’re saying. The overlap of all three is going to be fascinating. It’s going to get to the point where you can interact with animals, characters and stuff who will talk and talk back as well. There are going to be millions of these AI’s out there. Like someone said to me, I love the thought process. There’s going to be 10,000 AI’s per person. The idea that there’s just going to be an infinite number of these personalities, this intelligence out there in software is so cool and you’re going to interact with them through virtual reality. I’m a VR first person, I think VR is going to take off before AR.

Think about this. If an AI is just so good at understanding the human brain, how humans interact and how they de-stress and stuff, you can literally do therapy in VR without talking to another human being. There’s an AI here helping. But in VR, you can put that in everybody’s home and make a big leap in solving a global mental health issue.

And without pills. We have one that’s for Alzheimer’s. Reversing Alzheimer’s is their goal. You’d actually be in control of reversing. There’s a lot of studies that show that music, exercise, and experience are all very helpful in reminding the brain about who you are. Alzheimer’s patients will go through this product. It’s really interesting. It’s on a bike, you’re biking through this forest area. There’s music that’s playing in the background that’s from your childhood and it’s really captivating. That’s exciting. The medical use cases that aren’t medical. The ones for mental health or for brain health which is the whole category.

Any sort of isolation can be cured through that as well.  Like astronauts in space. I don’t even know how they do it. Spending like six to eight months interacting with only three people. VR puts them down here.

Six months in space, VR would solve that completely.

You’d be able to chill with your friends and family anytime you want to.

Someone’s got to send a VR headset up to space. Put the first VR headset on the space station. Let them play with it.

Exactly, or stream them down to their family.

When’s the next space thing going up? Can you just look up these things on the internet? Let me follow this thing. Space, that’s another thing that’s intersecting with all these technologies.

It was science fiction before but now it’s blending into reality. When I was growing up, the idea of being able to video chat with somebody was insane to me. I was like, THAT is a future. And that was commercially popular in just a few years.

The thing that showed me the power of technology was actually Napster, peer-to-peer file sharing. I think it was the true power of networked computing where someone had music on their computer and I was able to see it and then I was able to bring it into my computer and I was able to listen. That asset-based sharing thing blew my mind and I was obsessed with it for like a long time. I went through the phase of downloading things and you had to misspell to get the right downloads.

It was a really interesting phase to go through for everything. I mean, without Napster, there was no Skype. That technology needed to show itself as peer to peer technology in order to… Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just peer to peer technology. It’s a peer to peer networked system that’s hooked to a ledger.

The differentiator between today’s companies and the early Internet companies was where those companies, their growth was limited to the growth of the Internet because who was on their computer? A very little amount of people. We have fully loaded internet where 12-year-olds and eight-year-olds are on it and they understand how to use it.

They understand how to use it without ever not understanding how to use it.

Every single company coming out now has instant access to all of these things. Feedback loops can be an hour short whereas back in the day, it was just like days, weeks. It’s pretty fascinating stuff. What I like about the Blockchain Intensive is you guys are really taking ownership of blockchain as a technology and educating people into it and you guys have an amazing platform to do it. 

I don’t think we realize how great of a platform it is. This was a shot at seeing how impactful we can be. I will say I’m not affiliated technically with the event other than genetics with my dad, but we’re geographically in the same location. So, I help just by talking, speaking. I didn’t set it up though, that was all my dad and his team. He has a great team. We’ve gone big on crypto and we’ve been doing for a while now. I was technically the first Bitcoin fund. It wasn’t called crypto. It was just called Bitcoin. Then I got obsessed and then he got obsessed and then he got the Marshall coin and we just went. Now, the world has gone crazy with crypto. I was in Singapore three weeks ago and it’s just all anyone could talk about.

No matter what your intelligence level is or what you’re doing in life, if you just heard about crypto, which most people did mid-2017, you’re tasked with this enormous burden of learning blockchain theory and everything that has to go into it in such a short period of time to be able to make an educated investment in coins that are going up, regardless of whether they’re a good investment or not. It was just such a little wacky…

Now, I think that like a big piece of last year was about education. So, you guys do the service but supplying as much content. But those people who didn’t really understand it but were playing had to learn over a course of time exactly how everything worked. So, that’s really exciting. It’s sort of like the Internet is common knowledge now, but when the Internet was being pitched in 1995 to 1999, it was probably an equally unfathomable thing. You connecting digitally to people makes no sense.

I always try to put myself in the mental perspective on the cusp of innovation with the general before like what people were thinking before a lightbulb turned on. What is this thing? What implications does this have? Now, we can work at night.

Do we have more time now to do things? That’s crazy.

They just won another four or five hours at their own leisure. 

That’s awesome. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I love it. So, in my head, you’re not replacing dark with light, which is definitely a huge value add. You wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing in the basement without light. It’s a trust system. So, somehow there’s this on switch where now there is machine trust. I wonder what the next generation is going to be like? What their lightbulb flip on is. That’s going to be cool.

That’s a great way to think about it.

It’s like the cyborg merging.

I think that’s the next one. I’ve got this wacky theory that our generation, people that are relatively young now, there’s going to be a point where the ability to transfer your sentience into a machine is going to be a possibility. I don’t have a trajectory for it, I just think it’s going to happen at some point. There is going to be a significant drop-off of people that are just getting older and things happen to them and they die before that sentience uploading point. The ones that make it past that point live to infinity. The ones that don’t, don’t.

Then it’s like, what is a human? That’s basically what the question ends up being. If you had Einstein’s brain, do you have his soul? Do you have the pattern recognition that he’s created for decision making? That’s what existence is. And memories.

Lightbulbs.

Perfect.

To keep up with Adam Draper, check him out on Twitter. Boost VC invests $50k – $500k in exchange for 7% of companies and provides housing, workspaces, and a deep network in the startup world.  You can learn more about Boost VC here.

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