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Justin_Case001

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  1. Justin_Case001

    Breast Envy

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    *EDIT*  I originally had an image of some busty women in swimsuits for the cover picture, but the staff recently decided that it was "a little too much"... ...after five years.  Whatever.  That's fine.  I couldn't think of anything else that made sense for the cover picture, and my obsessive personality won't allow me to leave just one blog cover image blank, so, as a joke, I just thought I'd go hard in the complete opposite direction for the cover picture.  And now, on with the show...
     
    BREASTS!!
    Now that I have your attention...
    This piece is sort of a culmination of a trilogy on why I hate being male.  I recommend reading my previous entry, "Are Men Funnier?" as a prerequisite, as well as Can Men Be Beautiful?  There are other entries would good as well, if you're interested; Sex: Nice Not Naughty would be good, as well as Living on Team Villain, and my more philosophical piece, Shallow, would definitely bring more of the picture into focus, but the first two are the most important lead-ins to this one.
    For those of you who have some variety of life, and don't have the time or desire to read a gajillion walls of text on some nobody guber's blog, here's the tl;dr--I am a cisgendered male who greatly despises my birth sex for many reasons.  I don't have gender dysphoria, but I wish I had been born female.  I feel like it would suit my personality better, and I would be more at home in the feminine gender role(s).  I love fashion, and, despite the fact that it makes me sound shallow, I've always wanted to be beautiful, but I feel like that's impossible because society seems to perpetuate this image that men cannot be attractive.
    So, continuing from approximately where the last piece left off...  I have always been a very sexually-oriented person, and a very physical and beauty-oriented person.  It's not my fault that I'm this way; I didn't create my brain.  I appreciate and celebrate physical beauty, and I desire to be beautiful myself.  It's important to me.  Unfortunately, that tends to make me sound like a shallow piece of garbage in this culture (or just about any culture, really.)  All I can do is plead innocence and say that I really don't think I'm a horrible, shallow person.  (This is where that Shallow blog post would come in.)  I would sincerely hope that any regular readers of my blog (all one of you ) would be able to ascertain from my writing that I have a lot of passionate opinions about important issues, and a lot of deep values and ethics.  It should, I hope, be fairly apparent by now that I value personality and intellect far more than physical appearance.  Of course it's what's inside that counts the most.  Whaddya think--I'm some kinda monster? 
    But the fact remains that beauty and sexuality are very important to me.  I believe that the cash value of the universe, the only reason for any conscious life to exist, is to experience happiness.  I'm not advocating hedonism; I mean, you gotta get some work done sometime or life would really suck.  But the feeling of joy is the purpose to it all, and beauty and sexuality is what brings me the most joy.  (Well, to be fair, I guess it's the fantasy of those things that brings me joy... and simultaneous despair.  I'm what you'd call the "forever alone" type.  )
    I love wearing unusual, bold, and provocative outfits.  I make a lot of my own clothes.  I wear a lot of feminine things.  I don't use the term "crossdresser" because I argue that there's really no such thing, that clothes are just arbitrary shapes of fabric, and that any type can be for any person if it fits, but I also wouldn't deny the term.  That's what I am--I'm a crossdresser.  I started down this road because I love female fashions, I really think they look good one me, I think men should be able to wear anything they want, and I resent that male fashion is so much more limited.  Historically, women have been the ones that had less freedoms and had to fight for them, but the world of apparel is an anomalous exception: it's inarguably one area where women have way more freedom.  They can basically wear anything, from the women's or men's side, and it isn't really considered crossdressing.  That's why there's only two varieties of clothing: women's and unisex.  Crossdressing is a one-way street.  I want to tear down the double standard so that one day it will be acceptable for men to wear anything, just as it is for women.
    I've always been jealous of women's fashion options, but I'm jealous of them for another reason.  And now you're like, "FINALLY!  Was he ever going to get to the breasts, or was this f*ckin' clickbait?"  Yeah, my point exactly!  Heh... that'll make sense in just a bit.  So, I've always been greatly envious of women's "feminine assets"--their breasts, their boobs, their tits, their knockers, their jugs, their racks, their hooters.  Use whatever slang term you like.  I never personally cared for any of them.  Now, as I said, I don't have gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia or anything like that.  I don't feel like I'm "supposed" to have breasts.  (Although, that doesn't sound like a half bad idea at that.  )  But no, seriously, I'm not supposed to have them.  What I'm jealous of is the fact that women have this bonus, additional asset that drives the opposite sex wild, and men have nothing of the sort.
    Think about it: think about how effective breasts are for sex appeal, and the complete lack of anything like that on the male side.  I don't seem to be very effective at attracting a mate.  I don't have many weapons in this fight.  I think I have a very nice body, but women are reputedly not very "visual" when it comes to sexuality and romance, and they can't see my intelligence or personality at a glance, so where does that leave me?  This goes back to my previous entry, "Are Men Funnier," but it seems like women can attract men easily, simply by being female, but men have a much harder time getting women excited.  To be blunt, when it comes to appearance, women literally have more to work with in order to attract the opposite sex.  You girls have an extra part that we don't.  If you actually break this down mathematically, you could theorize that when it comes to actual private or sexual parts, men have two and women have three.  We all have butts and front genitals, but then women have the top assets as well.  They have an extra weapon in this fight.  Yeah, real fair.    One could theorize that women are literally 33% more effective in this area.
    Now, I'm not suggesting that human sexuality is actually reducible to percentages.  That would be downright silly.  That point was more for sh*ts and grins.  But I believe that it's an undeniable fact that women have a decided physical advantage by having this extra, sexualized part.  Breasts can be used to absolutely devastating effect for sex appeal.  There's just nothing analogous for men.  Sure, some women might say that they're really attracted to muscular arms, or shoulders, or facial hair or some other such thing, but c'mon...  I mean, come on, dude.  We all know it's not the same.  I can sum up the asymmetry with one word: clickbait.  All guys know about this.  You put breasts in swimsuits on a video thumbnail, and every guy who sees that thing will click so fast it will set his mouse on fire.  (And you may well have proved my point when you clicked on this post.  That was the whole point of the feature photo, and the opening gag.  And don't beat yourself up if you clicked for that; I do it all the friggin' time!  That's the point!!)  There is nothing even remotely analogous for men.  There is no part of the male body that can be used as clickbait.  Not even remotely to the same effect.
    In a world where women constantly complain that they wish people would compliment something other than their appearance, or listen to their words, or take their ideas seriously, it may surprise you gals to learn that there is at least one man (yours truly), who wishes that men got noticed for their appearance more.  I'd trade places with ya'll if I could.  Maybe the grass wouldn't be any greener (yeah, I know--I'm the one who said it's dead on both sides of the fence in a past essay), but I'd gladly give it a try if I could.  I value beauty, I want to be beautiful, but I feel like men are never looked at that way, and I can't go five minutes without being reminded of just how devastating of a sex symbol the female form is.  Here's a great little example of what I'm talkin' about: awhile back, I was chatting with a male friend as we played games online, and I mentioned how I've always wanted to have a little gaming youtube channel of my own, but it's something I'll probably never do.  He then suggested I try streaming on Twitch, but then made the joke that I'd have to compete with all the bikini streamers, and I wouldn't stand a chance.  And it's true!  If a woman puts on a swimsuit for the camera, the guys just fly to her channel like moths to the flame.  But if a guy (even a hot, ripped guy) takes his shirt off for videos??
    ...
    Eyup.  That's about the size of it.  That just says it all, right there, doesn't it?
    Oh, I know I'm painting with a broad brush, and I know there's probably exceptions, but there is absolutely no comparison.  You know it, and I know it.
    I want that power that women have.  I know it's pathetic and shallow, but I want it.  Hands down, the biggest thing I'm jealous of is women's ability to prominently feature and accentuate the breasts through the use of fashion.  Outfits that call attention to the breasts are just to die for.  Breasts are like a fashion accessory.  They're like hot fudge and chocolate sprinkles on ice cream.  Being a fashonista myself, I wish so much that I could have something like that.  Men just have nothing of the sort.  Like I said, even if women say they like biceps or facial hair or something, it is not the same, and you f*ckin' know it.  To make it even more unfair, men can't even accentuate the sexual asset we do have.  Like, even I wanted to emphasize my "male package", (which I wouldn't) it is unattractive, vulgar, and downright offensive to do so.  It's like White Goodman in Dodgeball.  And even if you did that, women wouldn't like it!  It would be off-putting!  Not only do we blokes have fewer assets to work with, society often seems to tell us that the one we do have is ugly and undesirable.  At least... in certain contexts.  I dunno--I get mixed messages on that one, but it's clear that we can't accentuate the male package with outfits.  I mean, obviously.  I'd give anything to have that sexual fashion power that women do.
    I wouldn't be so upset if men just had an analogous body part that women didn't have, that could be displayed in fashion, and would excite women to no end.  Let's try a thought experiment: imagine that human males, for whatever inexplicable reason, evolved tails, and females didn't.  I know--it makes no sense, but just go with me on this.  Imagine that, in this world, the male tail was considered a beautiful, sexual part.  Women would go nuts for it, and have all these preferences for shape and length and such.  Imagine that whole outfits could be built around the tail, and it could be featured and accentuated through fashion.  Imagine that there was a multi-billion dollar industry devoted to intimate tail apparel specifically designed to excite women in the bedroom.  Imagine that there was a store devoted to such apparel called "Victor's Secret" that would cause women to blush if they walked into it.  Imagine that if someone put a male tail on a youtube thumbnail, it would cause every woman to click so fast it would set their mouses on fire, and then the comments section would be filled with timestamps of where the tail appears, followed by "you'll thank me later," or "this is why you came."  And if the tail in the thumbnail picture wasn't in the video, then the comments section would be filled with, "f*ckin' clickbait.  Dammit, I fell for it again."  If that was the world we lived in, then I'd be happy as clam.  Well... provided that I was well-endowed in that department, I guess.  Yes, I'm aware of the plights and perils of the other side.
    So, that's why I'm envious of breasts.  But there's more to the story.  I'm frustrated by the gender double standard that men can never be as appealing as women in general.  Uhh... here, let me illustrate what I mean with an example: let's say it's a man's birthday.  His girlfriend could give him the gift of "herself", and he'd be ecstatic.  If she had her boyfriend sit on the bed, and the she walked out in fancy, sexy lingerie, said, "hope you like your present", and gave him an enticing dance, he'd just be on cloud nine.  But imagine the reverse: if a man treated his girlfriend to a dance in skimpy underwear on her birthday, it would just look ridiculous.  In fact, she'd probably laugh because it would literally look like a joke.  Alternatively, she may even be grumpy that he didn't buy her a present, and he may end up in the doghouse.  A woman can give sex as a gift.  A man cannot.
    That's an illustration of what frustrates me.  I want to be desirable in the way women are.  I want to be desirable to women the way they are to me.  I want it to be 50/50, really.  I think the underlying reason for this is that, for better or worse, my brain is simply wired to love and appreciate physical beauty and sexuality to an extremely high degree (perhaps that makes me a bad person, but again, it's not my fault), and I see women as being so impossibly gorgeous that it's simply magical.  It fills me with a sense of incomprehensible and indescribable wonder and ecstasy.  To me, they're spectacular, radiant miracles of nature--so special that it's as if their very molecules are made of something better, something magical and divine.  I often marvel incredulously at how it's even possible for nature to create something that magnificent.  Of course, it's actually no mystery at all, and I understand the biology of sexuality and evolution perfectly well, but that does nothing to diminish the awe-inspiring profundity that I experience from looking at the beauty of the female form.  That's just how I feel.  The point is, I would want my partner to feel that same way when looking at me, but it feels like that is impossible because I am but a simian, utilitarian male who wasn't evolved to be very attractive to the opposite sex.  That depresses me greatly, and I suspect that I would always feel resentful towards my partner if she didn't find me beautiful in the way I find her.
    I always feel like I'm striving to be something I cannot.  I'll never be looked at that way.  For me, this is an obsession, and a black hole at the center of my life that sucks everything else into it.  I like to call this feeling "the tiger and the toad".  It feels as though women are tigers (the most beautiful animal on Earth, in my opinion), and I am just a toad.  I could be the most handsome and sexiest toad in the world, but I'm still just a f*ckin' toad.  I don't want to be a toad.  I want to be a f*ckin' tiger.  Every day, everywhere I go and everywhere I look, it's the tiger and the toad.  Story of my life.
    It doesn't end there, either.  There's other reasons why I wish I was female.  I think I'd find the female gender role in the romantic relationship more appealing, including in the bedroom.  I won't go into any graphic detail, there; your imagination should be sufficient.  But it's not just romance and sexuality--there's platonic friendship reasons, too.  I've always been envious of how women (not all, but many), tend to be more physically affectionate with platonic friends.  They hold hands sometimes, they hug more, etc.  I wish I could have those sorts of relationships and experiences.  But the funny thing is, there's nothing really stopping me from doing that with my friends.  The thing of it is, I don't want to...  It would feel awkward.  It's not appealing.  I don't actually want to hug my male friends, but I want to want to.  I resent having this stupid male brain that finds platonic male-male physical affection off-putting.  It's not how I want to be, but it's how I am.  A perfect illustration for this is food: I hate Asian food.  I've tried it many times.  Just don't like it.  Don't care for the whole flavor palette.  But I really wish I liked it.  It looks and smells so appealing, and it would give my rather mundane diet some much needed variety.  I want to like it, but I just don't.  I want to be the kind of person who is more physically affectionate with my friends, but I'm just not.  And neither are my friends for that matter.
    I get depressed every time I watch Equestria Girls because of how huggy and physically affectionate they are.  That's the kind of life I want.  That's the pony I want to be.  Every day, I am reminded of how much I wish I had been born female.  It just looks like such a more appealing existence.  It's like looking through a window into a better world.  But I know, I know--I'm sure it's exactly like I said: the grass isn't greener.  It's dead on both sides of the fence.
    I reckon most people are fairly content with themselves and their personalities, but I also know that there's a lot of people out there who don't like who and what they are.  It's a paradoxical thing--to be a certain way, to have a certain personality, but to hate it and wish you could have another.  Most days, I wish I could just wake up and be someone else.  Perhaps that's a fairly common feeling.  Why must we suffer that way?  We're the only species on Earth that is cursed with the ability to look at ourselves and think, "I don't like this."
    So ends the tales of my sexual saga... at least for the time being.  I'm intending this piece to be the conclusion of these rants, at least for a good while.  I've said enough.  Thanks for reading.
  2. Justin_Case001
    It's been a long time since I've written in the blog.  *Checking*... holy crap!  Almost exactly one year??!!  Wow.  Time flies.
    I have something I'd like to talk about.  I forget if or how much I've written about this, so I'll just approach it anew, which will be better for someone reading my blog for the first time, anyway.  Let's try a hypothetical, shall we?  A little thought experiment.  This one is more intended for the ladies, but all are welcome to participate.  Pretend that you know nothing about me, other than the fact that I'm an adult male.  Now make believe that you walk into my bedroom and find that I have a large wall tapestry of a painting depicting a photo-realistic, beautiful, topless mermaid resting on a rock in the ocean.  Now imagine that you see my computer monitor and notice that my desktop wallpaper is a picture of a buxom lass in a provocative fantasy gown.  You also notice a folder with some adult imagery of women.  Then I start up a game and you see that my in-game avatar is a beautiful, scantily clad woman, perhaps with some mods to enhance her beauty further.  What are you thinking at this point?  What assumptions have you made about me?  What sort of person do you think I am?  What is your opinion of what you've seen?
    I often feel alone and misunderstood in this world.  Sometimes I feel like the only people who understand me are NSFW mod authors.  There is a feeling in my proverbial, figurative heart that I have so much trouble expressing, and it makes me deeply sad and confused that so many people can't understand it.  I have always described MLPF as a sort of bastion of sanity in a sea of madness.  There are all types of people in the MLP community, as well as here on the forums, but it seems like the percentages are slightly in the more sane direction than the greater world of social media at large.  My all but unknown blog with it's two regular readers won't attract much ire, but if I posted my thought experiment on Twitter, I'd probably be maligned as a sexist, shallow, objectifying, chauvinistic, toxicaly masculine monster, and then promptly cast out of civil society forever.  Why?
    There is a fundamental, simple fact about human reality that most people seem hell-bent on ignoring.  They either can't understand it, or refuse to believe it.  It is this: it is absolutely possible to simultaneously have the utmost respect for women, to view them as real, complex, and equal human beings, and also find them to be the most beautiful and sexy creatures imaginable.  So many people (I reckon mostly angry women), seem to believe that loving the female form, being attracted to women, and finding women to be beautiful and sexy is necessarily and automatically tantamount to some kind of horrible, degrading, sexist objectification.  This simply isn't true.
    I am male.  I am hetero.  I am a very sexual person.  I love women.  I love the way they look.  I love the female form.  Does this make me some kind of monster?  Does this mean that I don't respect women, or that I think less of them, or that I think they were put on this Earth just to be my eye candy, or just to gratify me?  No.  Absolutely not.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Assuming such things about me or anyone else is unfair and insulting.  It's ignorant, and makes the same mistake that you'd be accusing me of--it assumes me to be one-dimensional.  I am not.  I am a complex person, just like you.
    I respect women as much as anybody you could ever hope to find.  I don't want to use them or take advantage of them.  I want to make a true love connection (though it's almost certainly not in the cards for me.)  If the plethora of female imagery in my room would have led you to believe I'm shallow or objectifying, you'd be wrong.
    Why do so many people think that it's bad or wrong to find people beautiful and sexy?  When and why did it become wrong to like the way someone looks?  How is that anything other than a good thing?  Yes, I know--it's because bad people ruin it for everybody, right?  There are many, many people who are shallow, sexist, chauvinistic pieces of sh*t, and they've set the standard and caused everyone to think that that's the only way to be if you like the way the female body looks.  It's never right or fair to judge individuals based on assumptions and stereotypes.  You don't know their mind.  People deserve a chance to prove the stereotypes wrong.
    If someone chooses to surround themselves with pictures of women, perhaps instead of assuming them to be some sort of sexist, woman-hater, maybe consider that they might be surrounding themselves with what they love.  If someone surrounds themselves with pictures of cats, it's probably not because they hate cats.  People like to look at what they love.  It's not a bad thing.  It's not necessarily objectification.
    I've established that I fully respect women.  Now let me tell you frankly and completely how I feel when I look at an attractive naked female form.  (Don't worry, SFW).  I feel completely overwhelmed with indescribable awe and utter disbelief that nature is capable of creating something so ineffably, impossibly beautiful and gorgeous.  She is the pinnacle of creation, the zenith of existence, a paragon joy.  She is a radiant, divine treasure.  A woman, her face, her body, is so impossibly magnificent, so exquisite that her beauty is agonizing.  She radiates a beauty so brightly that it hurts to look at her, like trying to stare at the sun with wide, open eyes.  How can nature create such a thing?  How can a a creature, a form, a body be so perfect, so elegant, so brilliant?  How can nature create something that stands so, that sits so, that lays so, that moves so, whose parts and muscles join together to create something so wondrous that I can't comprehend it, whose curves blend together to create something so gloriously, dazzlingly ravishing that it can't possibly be real in this cold, indifferent universe?  The notes of each part of her body resonate together to create chords of pure perfection, and each chord joins together to create a symphony of pure ecstasy.  She is miraculous--a miracle of nature.  It's too much for me to bear.  I feel like my heart is going to burst.  I feel like my brain can't even process or comprehend such beauty, like my synapses are simply the wrong tool to fathom anything this beautiful.  Like a Windows 95 computer trying to run Alan Wake 2, my poor brain and body were never meant to handle this.
    I dream all day, every day of having a woman to love who loves me.  The desire to know her, to be with her, and to sweep her into my arms and hold her like I mean it, hold her in a crushing embrace like there's no tomorrow, share our bodies intimately, and tell her how much I love her hurts more than I can ever describe.  I will surely never know such a thing.
    Was any of that hyperbolic exaggeration?  Absolutely not.  A little cringy?  Perhaps, but every word the absolute truth.  That is how I really feel.  Truly.  Does it make me a monster?  I feel so alone because I feel like so many people think such feelings are a bad thing.  How can that be?  I just don't see how such wonderful feelings can be bad.  If you still think that such feelings are sexist, or shallow, or degrading, then I just don't know how to communicate with you.  I don't know how else to put it.  I don't know what else to say.
    I am incapable of understanding why it's bad or wrong to find any person beautiful and sexy, and to celebrate it with every fiber of our beings.
     
    *    *    *
    If I have put my foot in my mouth or made a mess in some way, some of my previous blogs, such as Shallow, or Natural Sexuality might help to clean it up.
  3. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  The ridiculousness of characters falling into water on tv and movies.
    Movie/TV laws of physics:
    Fall from literally any height and land in deep water, at any angle, and be perfectly fine.  Surface tension does not exist.  Take no damage.  Fall off a cliff, unconscious, plunge 2000 feet, land in water, wake up on the shore, happy as a clam.
    Actual laws of physics:
    Falling into water from higher than about 20 feet and landing wrong (i.e. ragdoll, belly flop) risks serious injury.  Higher than about 30 feet can result in broken bones.  Anything over 50 feet when landing wrong can be fatal.  It's like landing on concrete.  Falling into water from thousands of feet, like on tv, regardless of how you land--basically 100% fatal.
    Tip for Hollywood: tv and movies are usually more interesting when consequences are realistic. 
  4. Justin_Case001
    Hey. This is a sequel to Episode 81.  Quick recap--I hate reading subtitles.  Nothing against foreign stuff, just a slow reader, can't do it.  It really GMG that Netflix doesn't make it more apparent when something is subtitled and not in your region's native language.  I want to be able to tell at a glance.
    But y'know what grinds my gears even more??!  When you actually take the time to scroll down, click on "audio", check to see if subtitles are on or off, and they're off, then you scroll down and see that it clearly says "ENGLISH [ORIGINAL]", so then I start watching, and guess what?  *Drumroll* Subtitled.  Foreign language.  Okay, well, y'know, lots of movies in your native language will have a foreign speaking character, and that's actually part of the plot, and a few lines/scenes have subtitles.  That's fine.  I can read a few.  So I figure it's just one of those.  So I wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Like ten minutes in and still not a word of English.  I decide to fast-forward a bit.  Let's see.  Let's just f*ckin' see.  I skip around, play a little here, a little there.  I watch a scene at 30 min, 45 min, 1 hour, etc.  Foreign, foreign, foreign.  Subtitles, subtitles.  Not a word of English to be found.  Oh wait, I finally found ONE person speaking English for a couple minutes at the 1 hour 15 min mark.  OMFG.
    What the sh*t is this f*ck?  Is this some kind of cruel prank?  Why do they say that it's "English original" when 85-90% of the movie isn't in freaking English???!!!    I mean, somebody must know that the overwhelming majority isn't in English (or whatever your region's language is)  So why do they do it?  What--is it because the director or producer's native language is English?  It was paid for by English speakers or something?  English speaking companies had some control over it or something?  Some legal mumbo jumbo bullsh*t?  Is that it?  I know, here's a novel idea--how about just listing the Celestia-damned language that majority of the movie is actually in??!!  CELESTIA DAMMIT, dude.  I can't even count the number of times I've encountered this mean trick.  Sneaky, not-really-in-English "English original" stuff.  It's buuuuullllsh*t.  I hate it.  Just tell me the truth, man.  So annoying. 
    In other news, I have a big, BIG, BIG announcement about my blog!
    Okay, that's it.  Bye.
  5. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  When restaurants list "cheese" on an item but it's actually nacho cheese sauce.  Look, I'm not necessarily averse to nacho cheese sauce.  I typically only like dipping chips in it without any other ingredients, but the point is that if it's sauce then it should say sauce.  If I order nachos that say "topped with ground beef, lettuce, beans, and cheese", then I expect CHEESE.  GRATED CHEESE.  Not f*ckin' sauce.  If it says cheese then it should be cheese, and if it's nacho cheese sauce, then it should say that, Celestia dammit!
    And that's what really grinds my gears.
  6. Justin_Case001
    My gears.
    Y'know what really grinds them?
    When characters separate out either the subject or object of a sentence and move it out in front as a lone fragment in an attempt to sound more dramatic.  This is one of those things where you probably have no idea what the f*ck I'm talking about until I give an example.  This is where, instead of asking, "Where did you hide the money?", the character will say, "The money.  Where did you hide it?"  Or instead of, "You must not trust Mr. Smith", it will be "Mr. Smith.  You must not trust him."  Characters on nighttime dramas do this c o n s t a n t l y, and it drives me nuts.  It's just an arbitrary, contrived way to create artificial drama and sound more EPIC.  It's dumb.  I hate it. 
    It's also one of those things where you may never have noticed it before, but now that it's been pointed out to you, you will never be able to stop noticing it.  So... you're welcome. 
    My gears.  That is what grinds them.
    My blog.  Thank you for reading it.
  7. Justin_Case001

    Death to Deadlines!

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    I don't think I need to spend much time explaining the problem of horrendously overworked employees at triple-A game studios to anyone here.  Unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade, I'm sure you're well aware of the so-called "crunch" times at big game studios where employees are forced to work 80 hours a week to meet deadlines.  The one that has probably gotten the most attention was Rockstar with RDR2.
    I think we're all on the same page here--I don't think a single one of us common folk are in favor of this practice.  We all want a change.  We all want game studio employees to be cared for and treated with respect, and not like disposable robots.  The only ones who want to continue working employees to the bone are the owner classes who profit from it.  I think that's self-evident.
    But here's what has me flummoxed, something I just can't figure out--developers enter this crunch period to get games out "on time", right?  But... on time... for what??  Seriously.  For what?!  Who sets these arbitrary deadlines, and why?  There are certainly some instances in life where deadlines matter, but it seems to me that deadlines have absolutely no meaning or purpose whatsoever when it comes to entertainment, particularly video games.  Why does any game need to be released at a specific time?  What--is somebody gonna die if it's released late?!  Why is there even a concept of "late"?  How can a game even be "late"??  It's only late if you set an arbitrary date and then fail to meet it.  Why even set a date?  Why have deadlines at all?  What's the point?
    Here's a novel idea: no deadlines for video games.  None.  Employees work 40 hours a week.  No more.  They have free time and days off.  The game is finished when it's finished and no sooner.  Why can't that work?  We'd have to wait longer for triple-A titles.  Boo f*cking hoo.  You'll live.  I think you can find enough to do.  I literally (not figuratively, but literally) have more unplayed, untouched games in my Steam library than I'll be able to finish in a lifetime, and that's if I stop buying games forever, right now, which I obviously won't do.  You don't even need to spend money nowadays to have more games than you know what to do with.  The idea that we need the next entry in the triple-A franchise RIGHT NOW is laughably ridiculous.  Trust me, you can wait an extra year.  Would you rather be patient, wait a little longer for the game and have the devs be treated with respect and be happy and healthy, able and eager to keep making games, or would you rather have the game 6-12 months earlier at the cost of grinding the devs into dust, destroying their sanity, sapping their will to live, and forcing them to quit because they can't take it anymore.  I dunno, call me crazy, but I'd kinda rather have the former.
    Why do they force these arbitrary deadlines on developers?  Is it for the "holiday season"?  Pffft.    Gimmie a break.  F*ck that sh*t.  Do they think gamers won't buy it if it's not for Christmas?  That's bullsh*t.  Gamers are gonna buy the game no matter what.  If they actually lose a few sales because they miss the Christmas season, then boo f*cking hoo.  Small price to pay to treat your employees like human beings.
    Why can't we just let entertainment creators create their thing, and when it's done, it's done.  Simple as that.  Just wait and buy the game when it's done.  What the f*ck does it matter when it is?  Why have deadlines at all?  Game studio deadlines need to go away.  Forever.
    That's it.  This one was short enough that it could have been a GMG, but I wanted in here.
     
    *EDIT*
    I now have a very good piece of evidence to support my claims.  Do you know what you get when you give a studio the freedom to just make what they want to make without being beholden to deadlines and corporate bullsh*t?  You get Baldur's Gate 3, that's what. 
     
  8. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Getting online gaming to work.
    Gaming graphics continue to surge forward to unfathomable new heights while netcode just seems to rot away in a dumpster.  Why is it that no matter how much progress we make, no matter how sophisticated games become, no matter how fast internet connections get, and no matter how powerful computers get, simply getting a lobby of your friends together in an online game and playing for a couple of hours without issue is like some kind of Herculean task, and if you manage to play, it is only by the grace of the gods.
    I bought Halo The Master Chief Collection on Steam a little while ago, and I had been promising a good friend for some time that as soon as I finished some projects I had been working on and had time, we would do a Legendary all skulls run through of all the games in timeline order.  We're both Halo mega fans and veterans from way back, but neither of us has played any of them in a good decade or so.  I've beaten the games on Xbox inside and out, but I've never played the 1 & 2 anniversary editions, nor have ever had the pleasure of experiencing them with skulls.  A nostalgic playthrough with a new challenge and a fresh coat of paint sounded like such a blast.  My friend and I were insanely psyched.  The time came and we began our legendary journey.  Reach went off without a hitch.  It was by far the most fun that either of us have had in a decade.  I cannot describe the joy that this co-op campaign was bringing both of us.
    Then our playthrough ground to a halt when we reached Halo CE and were plagued by frequent, fatal connection desync issues where the non-host player essentially freezes and is unable to interact with anything.  It's a permanent, game ending netcode bug.  All that can be done is quit and restart, losing hours of progress.  And then it happens again.  And again.  ...and again.  Apparently this is a widely known issue resulting from the MCC running on crumbling legacy netcode and never being updated, and 343 has openly stated that they have no interest in fixing it.  So, RIP.  There's goes the most fun we've had in a decade.
    I think I know why stuff like this happens in so many games.  It's because advertising fancy, reliable netcode doesn't move product with most people, but advertising shiny, fancy lightning, textures, ambient occlusion, and raytracing does.  In other words, make game look pretty, make money.  If the game looks nice, people will buy it, but who f*ckin' cares if it works, because once you find out that it doesn't, then the company already has your money.
    Why can't anything every just work?  I mean, seriously.  WTF?  25 years ago (Sweet merciful Celestia, am I old) my friends and I were sitting around troubleshooting Starcraft and trying all night to get everyone to connect and start the game before someone would get dropped.  Now, 25 years, and many gigabytes and tera flops later, and we're doing the exact same f*cking thing.  Nothing has changed.  We can land a car on Mars and drive it around, we can launch a telescope that can apparently see beyond and before the big bang (or something), but we can't play A F*CKIN GOD DAMN VIDEO GAME.
    F*CK.   
  9. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  When drivers stopped at a red light take their foot off the brake and start coasting out into the intersection, inching their nose out before the light turns green.  I hate this behavior so, SO f*cking much.  WHY DO YOU GOTTA DO THAT??!!  WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO F*CKING IMPATIENT??!!  It's not gonna get you there any faster!!  Do these ding dongs actually think that they're saving tons of time??  IT DOES NOTHING!!  Why can't you just chill the f*ck out and wait until it changes??!! 
    Being this impatient does not save you time, does not get you anywhere faster, does not allow you to complete your tasks faster and have more time for leisure, does not help you do anything more efficiently, and most important of all, does not make you happier.  All it does it make you angry and stressed all the time.  So just CHILL THE F*CK OUT.
  10. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  "Breakfast" foods.  First off, for some odd reason, I hate all traditional American breakfast foods.  It's so weird that I would hate all of them, but it's like someone put some kind of curse on me where it makes me hate any food that is universally agreed upon to be traditional breakfast food.  So, I'm talkin' about waffles, pancakes, eggs prepared in any way other than hard-boiled, ham, bacon, sausage, hash browns, etc.  I can kind of tolerate some of those on their own, but mixed together, like in a big restaurant breakfast entree... *shudders*... ugh.    The worst is any kind of breakfast sandwich or burrito.  The absolute worst is the beloved Egg McMuffin.  The smell alone makes me want to vomit.  Imagining the smell can actually make me queasy.
    But that's not really what grinds my gears.  I don't like those foods, but I don't care if you do.  Their existence doesn't offend me.  Eat 'em til you explode.  Doesn't make any difference to me.  What grinds my gears is just the arbitrary assignments that we give foods--i.e. breakfast foods, lunch foods, and dinner foods.  If I were to eat a cheeseburger for breakfast, some folks might give me guff for it because that's not "breakfast food".  Some would say it's too heavy or too savory or something.  So... waffles and pancakes dripping with butter and syrup, and an omelet packed with eggs, ham, sausage, bacon, and cheese is fine, but a burger is not.  Okaaay.  The f*ck??  And then if you want to have those foods for dinner, then you have to call it "breakfast for dinner" like it's some kind of special event.
    I hate these arbitrary time-of-day assignments for food types.  Well, lemmie tell you something--there's no such thing as "breakfast food", "lunch food", and "dinner food"; there's just food.  Eat any of it any time you want.  End of story.
  11. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?   ...
    ...
    ... um... uhh...
    ...

    ...gimmie a second...   ... mm...  um....
    Dammit.    I forgot.  It'll come to me in a second...  uhh... shoot....  
    Can't remember.  I guess I'll let you know if I think of it.
    ...
     
    OH YEAH!!  Just remembered!  I f*ckin' hate it when you had something you were about to say, and then you suddenly forget it!    Or you walk into a room to do something and suddenly forget what it was.  Don't you absolutely hate that?!  It's like right there, and then POOF!  Instantly gone.  It's like your brain just decided, "I don't need this junk," and tossed it out.  Just threw it into the garbage.  Deleted it.  Thanks.  Stupid brain. 
  12. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  When they throw in the bowling pin sound effect every f*ckin' time something or someone gets knocked over.  They do it SO much.  I mean, sometimes it'll be the most serious show or movie, it'll be f*ckin' Lord of the Rings, and, like, the Riders of Rohan will plow into some orcs and knock 'em over and they'll make the f*ckin' bowling pin sound.  Okay, maybe they didn't actually do it in LOTR, but they did do a Wilhelm scream or two.  Anyway, the bowling pin sound is sooo overused.  Drives me nuts. 
  13. Justin_Case001
    Yer like.... what??  The hell??  Yeah, I'll explain.
    Y'know what really grinds my gears?  When you see a longtime, beloved fictional character's name written down for the first time in your life and suddenly realize that the name you've known for your whole life is wrong, that you've been mishearing and mispronouncing it for decades.
    I recently wrote a blog about how the X-Men were a beloved childhood favorite of mine.  I always believed that Storm's real name was "Aurora Monroe".  Patrick Stewart said it once in the first X-Men movie.  That's what it sounded like to me.  That's what I've believed for the past 23 years.  I never bothered to google it.  Never saw it written.  I recently started watching X-Men: Evolution on Disney+, and Storm's nephew calls her "Auntie O".  I was puzzled as to why, so I looked up the credits on IMDB.  Sure enough, her name is "Ororo Munroe".  Yup.  I heard it wrong for all these years.  Feels like my whole world is crashing down all around me, like everything I've ever known is a lie, like nothing makes sense, like I can never know what is real anymore.  Yeah, I'm exaggerating and being melodramatic, but I really, really hate it when this happens.  I hate change (as I made abundantly clear in a previous GMG episode), and I hate having to readjust to a name that I've grown accustomed to my whole life.
    Another example from the same franchise is the mutant girl who can walk through walls.  More accurately, she can phase through solid matter.  Katie is her name.  Or is it?  Nope.  It's Kitty.  Kitty Pryde.  I heard "Katie" all these years, but I looked her up too.  Kitty.  Dammit.  Celestia, Celestia dammit.  I know it seems like a silly thing to complain about, but... well, like... imagine if one of your favorite characters in one of your favorite franchises turned out to have a different name than you thought.  Like, imagine if you suddenly found out that all these years, instead of Princess Luna, it was actually... idk... Princess Lana.  I mean, it's hard to think of an example that would be plausible, but you get what I mean.  That would suck.  You'd hate that and have a hard time adjusting.
    Anyway, I know my upset feelings will pass relatively quickly, but I still f*ckin' hate it.
  14. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Episodes of shows where the characters play other characters in some story that didn't happen and doesn't serve to further any plot or character development.  I'm talking about episodes where they contrive some reason for one of the characters to tell a story (like the power going out), and then they proceed to read some fairy tale where each of the characters from the actual show are reimagined as the fairy tale characters in a one-off story that serves no purpose.  This could be a re-telling of some well-known fairy tale, or a trio of Bible stories or some crap like that, or a completely original and meaningless story.  I know you know what I'm talking about, but just drill the point down, this might be, for instance, a fairy tale about Twilor of Sparkleton and her companions Rainbow Hood of Loxley and Gandlepie the Pink, who set off on a quest through the Forest of Darkness to retrieve the Crystal of Who-Gives-a-Sh*t from the mountains of Who-Give-a-F*ck.
    I HATE these sorts of episodes.  I mean, some are better than others--A Hearth Warming Tail was okay--but every time they do one of these episodes in a show, I just feel like it's wasted time.  I just think, oh great, ~23 minutes of garbage that didn't happen when we could be using that valuable time to actually further the plot.  It basically just means one less episode in the season is how I see it.  It's especially heinous in a short season when there's barely enough time to wrap up the real story as it is.  Now, Hearth's Warming Eve was different because that actually happened, both in the sense that the play was actually historical fact in Equestria, and in the sense that the mane 6 actually acted in the play for real, so that was good.  But most of these sorts of episodes really irritate me.
    I guess the only exceptions would be the Family Guy Star Wars specials, but that feels like a totally different ball game.  Those were hilarious mini-movie parodies.  I'm talking more about episodes of more serious shows that aren't even meant to be funny, and the fairy tale episodes aren't even amusing, but just a colossal waste of time.  I recently watched X-Men: The Animated Series on Disney+, and that's definitely not a comedy in any sense, and it does one of those fairly tale episodes.  Jubilee tells a story to a bunch of school-children in which the X-Men are reimagined as fantasy fairy tale characters just like I described, and it was a garbage waste of time in a short final season that already didn't have enough time to wrap up the series properly.  I HATE episodes like that. 
  15. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  When superheroes or similar characters make outfits/costumes appear magically when that's clearly not part of their powers.  The best example that every here will know is when the Equestria girls use their friendship laser powers and it gives them all magnificent superhero costumes that look like they took Rarity months to design.  Why is that part of the power?  Makes no sense.  And how about good ol' Elsa making her dress during Let It Go?  She's Iceman.  She's a cryokinetic.  Why can she magically make a dress appear?    And where did the dress she was previously wearing go?!    Another example off the top of my head is Storm in the pilot of the old '90s X-Men cartoon.  At the mall when the sentinel attacked, Storm surrounded herself with electricity which magically transformed her street clothes into her super suit for no reason.  I think she did the same thing when demonstrating her power to Jubilee later at the school.  WHY?  That has NOTHING to do with Storm's power!  I mean, I can kinda let the EG and Elsa slide, but X-Men should be held to a higher standard.  The mutant's powers are supposed to have more continuity than that.  Why on Earth can Storm magically change outfits??!! 
    Every time characters do this, I just hear Ryan George saying,
    "Wait, can their powers actually do that?" 
    "Maybe, who's to say?"
    "Well okay then!" 
  16. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  I'm a huge fashionista.  Like Rarity.  I love fashion.  But y'know what really grinds my gears?  Seasonal fashion lines and fleeting trends.
    I'm not just talkin' about "new" clothes.  I'm talkin' about when the fashion industry puts out new seasonal lines, and the media/celebrities/whoever tells us that last season's [perfectly good] fashions are now "out of style".  This is just planned obsolescence to squeeze more money of out you, and it's contrived garbage bullsh*t.  Let me let you in on a little secret: good fashion never goes out of style.  If it looks good, if it actually looks good, then it always looked good, and it always will look good, forever and for all time.  And if it doesn't look good, then it never did to begin with.  Don't let peer pressure and asinine, contrived trends designed to suck money out of you determine what you wear.  Wear you love and what makes you feel fabulous!
  17. Justin_Case001
    Feel like I'm gonna take some flak from all the optimists for this one.  Meh.  Whatever.
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  The saying, "whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger."  Um... yeah... with some obvious exceptions.  How about muscular dystrophy?  How about osteogenesis imperfecta?  Epidermolysis bullosa?  Polio?  Varicella Zoster?  How 'bout cancer?  How 'bout a paralyzing spinal injury?  How about friggin PTSD?  How about f*cking long COVID??
    How about f*ckin'...
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know, I know.  Overcoming adversity, learning lessons, becoming more resilient, blah, blah, blah.  I don't care.  Still bugs me.  Remember, I'm the world's biggest pessimist.
    Also, on an entirely serious note, I have long believed and preached that the valuable lessons that people report to learn from experiencing and overcoming extreme adversity can be learned without said adversity happening to you.  The lessons are readily available to be learned without having to lose our homes, our limbs, our eyes, our ears, or our loved ones.  All one needs to do is learn how to pay attention.
    And that's all for this episode.  See you next time, my little ponies.
  18. Justin_Case001

    X-Women

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    When I was a young kid, about 7 or so I think, my parents gave me two VHS tapes of the 90's X-Men: The Animated Series as a gift.  These tapes were titled Creators' Choice, volumes 1 and 2.  These were the tapes including these round table discussions at the beginning, in case any of you old timers remember that:
    These volumes contained the first four episodes of the series.  Volume 1 was Night of the Sentinels part 1 and 2, and volume 2 was Enter Magneto and Deadly Reunions.  These two tapes started my childhood obsession with X-Men.  I must have watched the tapes hundreds of times.  I probably watched them about once a week from age 7 to 12 or so.  X-Men were my favorite superheroes during my childhood, and I continued to love them into adulthood as well.  However, interestingly, I never saw the rest of the animated series.  I don't remember it ever airing on TV when I was a kid.  Obviously it did, but it must not have been on when I was home and available, and there was obviously no DVR or streaming or on-demand or Youtube at the time, so I never saw it.  Funny thing is, I don't remember ever questioning it.  That is to say, I don't remember ever trying to find out when it was on, or asking my parents to help me see it.  I couldn't say for sure, but I think that as an ignorant child, I honestly thought that those two tapes were all that existed.  I probably just assumed they were movies.
    Time and life went by, and by the time I was old enough to know that it was a whole series that I missed out on, it was long gone.  I don't think they reran it much, and I doubt it was available to purchase back then, so it just seemed like a bygone relic.  When the live action movie came out in 2000 (I was 15 by this time), I was super psyched.  I loved the live action movies, and I thought that the casting perfectly nailed the characters.  But it wasn't until 20 years later (Celestia almighty I'm f*cking old.  ) that I thought about how odd it was that my massive excitement about the live action movies, indeed my entire lifelong love of X-Men, was based purely on four animated episodes and nothing more.  That was my only experience with X-Men.  How curious. 
    Fast forward to today.  In the year of our Princess, two thousand and twenty-three, I saw that the complete X-Men: The Animated Series is on Disney+!  (Which we have)  What a unique and amazing opportunity this was.  By pure chance and serendipity, I had unknowingly orchestrated a completely bizarre and wonderful entertainment experience.  Here was this series that I was totally obsessed with as a kid, and yet I had never seen past episode 4.  It doesn't get any more nostalgic for me than X-Men: The Animated Series, and yet the majority of the show was entirely new to me.  Watching this was simultaneously a nostalgia-dripping blast from the past and a brand new, never-before-seen experience.  It felt like returning to my childhood while not knowing what comes next.  How often does something like that happen life?!  I cannot overstate what a strange, wonderful, and exciting experience it was to watch this nostalgic show that defined my childhood, and yet it was basically all new.
    I just finished the series a couple of hours ago, and unfortunately, as gratifying as it was to finally see it and have closure, I have to report that while the series had a great foundation, it is ultimately an extremely mixed bag filled with weird, nonsensical crap, dead-end plotlines, colossal missed opportunities, and squandered potential, not to mention a final season that, due to budgeting issues, resulted in a completely different animation style that looked like they asked a 5 year-old to draw the X-Men from memory with crayons, and audio that sounded like the VAs recorded their dialogue through traffic cones.  It's really a shame, because some of the themes they established early-on were really stellar.  X-Men is a franchise that explores themes of bigotry, prejudice, hatred of those who are different, scapegoating, segregation, civil rights, division, discrimination, racism, sexism, and any other -ism you can think of.  Mutants are just a stand in for any hated, marginalized group.  There are some truly fantastic scenes, too.  In one episode, a teenage girl "comes out" as a mutant, and her (extremely conservative) father disowns her.  In that scene, mutants are a stand-in for gays.  In another episode revolving around political polarization, local businesses are seen displaying signs that either say "no mutants", or "mutants welcome".  In this episode, mutants are a stand in for blacks.  Anti-mutant domestic terrorist groups then attack and bomb the mutant-friendly businesses.    (Wait, this is supposed to be a kid's show, right??!) 
    But sadly, those couple of mind-blowing episodes are the exception.  The majority of the series is, well, frankly garbage if you ask me.  They took those incredible themes and basically went nowhere with them.  The series just went increasingly off the rails, and became less realistic, less serious, and less mature as it went along.  But, y'know, credit where credit is due: it's the only kids show I know of that said, not once, but twice, "the price for freedom is eternal vigilance."  Wow.  But they really squandered the potential.  It could have been so much more.  I've heard rumors of some kind of Disney+ animated X-Men reboot.  This is one time where I actually think it's warranted, and I'm hopeful.  Hooves crossed.
    But the series got me once again thinking about something I've pondered before, and that's the phenomenon by which we've often historically used masculine terms to refer to mixed company.  (Ah, there it is.  You were wondering what the hell the title was about.  )  Y'know--mankind means all humans, phrases like "the dawn of man", or "the age of man" refer to all people.  And likewise, the X-Men are a mixed group.  In fact, X-Men has been celebrated as one of the early franchises to be very sexually, as well as racially, diverse.  And all of the women are still known as "X-Men".  Even at the individual level, they'll refer to one female member as an "X-Man".  Several times on the cartoon, Rogue and Storm refer to themselves as "an X-Man".  This doesn't strike anybody as odd.  It's totally fine.  But imagine if it was reversed.  What if they called it "X-Women".  What would that mean?  Well, it would obviously mean a group of strictly women... right?  That's what anyone would assume... right?  But why?  Why can't "X-Women" be a mixed group?  Why can't "womankind" refer to all humans?  Why couldn't Wolverine proudly declare himself to be an X-Woman?  I mean, I know that sounds funny, but really think about it for a second--Rogue, a woman, calls herself an "X-Man", and nobody bats an eye, nor does the thought of her being trans or the like even cross their minds.  But imagine Wolverine, imagine f*ckin' Hugh Jackman, calling himself an X-Woman.  Let the cringe ensue, right?  But why?  What's the difference?  Why can't it be reversed?  Why can't a feminine term refer to mixed company?  This isn't a rhetorical question, either.  I really want to know.  I don't have the answer.  This isn't one of those essays where I float my theory.  I really don't have one.  I don't know.  I wonder if the answer to this question might lead us towards better sexual/gender equality.
    Incidentally, I just want state for the record that I'm not offended or upset that the X-Men are the X-Men.  In my adulthood, I've tried to adopt inclusive terms like "humankind", but I'm also not particularly bothered by the masculine terms, either.  This isn't an angry, offended rant.  Rather, I'm just posing the question as a thought experiment.  I often wonder why stuff like this can't be reversed.  I usually try to have some kind of snappy ending to my blogs, but this one just kinda petered out.    I guess that's all I have.  Catch you on the flippity flip.
  19. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Sneezing.  Oh, damn, does this one grind my gears to a f*cking halt.
    I sneeze more than most people.  I don't have any specific, acute allergies, just more sneezing than average.  I don't really mind sneezing too much, but it's the inevitable, annoying chore than comes afterward.  I absolutely cannot sneeze without then blowing my nose afterwards.  It is completely impossible.  Many a time I have tried to resist.  I'll sneeze and then sit there saying, "I'm not gonna do it.  I don't have to do it.  I'm not gonna do it.  I am the master of my own nose."  I'll sit there sniffing for five or ten minutes, then give up and blow.  I hate it so much.  Interrupts my work all the time.  Makes me want to smash my nose with a hammer. 
  20. Justin_Case001

    Snowfall

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    This entry will be somewhat different.  I just experienced something extraordinary, and I wanted to write it down while it's fresh.
    At about 5 am, I pulled back the curtains on my kitchen window and peeked out.  Expecting to see drizzling rain, I was surprised to see snow, which is rare in my area.  But what left me awed and transfixed was just how hauntingly beautiful this perfect scene was.  I watched large, fluffy snowflakes slowly and softly falling in the eerily still, deathly silent pre-dawn darkness, illuminated by the glow of the street light which silhouetted the leafless, winter tree in front of the window.  It reminded me of The Dead by James Joyce.  It was, strangely and unequivocally, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.  (At least, shall we say, most beautiful nature-related thing.)
    I stood there and watched this tranquil winter scene for a good ten minutes or so, until the large fluffy flakes turned back into the more slushy sleet-like drizzle that it had been doing earlier.  The perfect, silent winter moment was short-lived, and I felt lucky to have seen it when I did.
    I am, by most metrics, an unmitigated failure at life, and quite a troubled and miserable person.  But standing there, at the kitchen window, in a very rare and uncharacteristic moment of profound gratitude, I felt like I had succeeded.  I felt like witnessing such a moment of natural beauty, and really seeing it, really connecting with it, really paying attention to it, and finding the meaning in it, was one of the most important things we can do on this Earth, as if it's what we're supposed to do.  It made me feel as if I was more successful than Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, and that I had won at life.  It made me feel, for a brief moment...
    ...content.
  21. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  When people pronounce "social security" as "sosal security".  They slur it, y'know?  But I don't even understand it, because I don't think "sosal" is any easier to say, even when you're saying the term quickly.  Sometimes people even say "sosa security".  Drives me nuts.  Anyway, that's it.  Shortest GMG in history.
     
    Okay, I'll give you a couple more.  I hate it when people pronounce "million" and "Williams" as "meen" and "weems".
    Okay, bye. 
  22. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grinds my gears?  When a character in a movie... um... ok, so, like, y'know how in a movie, somebody's girlfriend/boyfriend or something is presumed dead, and then the person will be all like, "He/she is alive!"  And then someone else says, "how do you know?", and then they go, "I don't know how I know; I just know."  F*CK YOU.  You do NOT.  I HATE when they say that.  You don't know.  How can you?  You DON'T.  You just want them to be alive.  Now, I'm not talking about movies where there's some form of magic, like telepathy or the Force or something.  Yeah, yeah, Leia knew that Luke wasn't on that thing when it blew because she could feel it.  Yeah, yeah, the Force, that's fine.  But I'm talking about the normal reality, realistic, real world movies where they do that.  It annoys me to no end when somebody says that they "just know" something that they couldn't possibly know.    Incidentally, it annoys me just as much when people do this irl.  :/
  23. Justin_Case001
    Hey.  Y'know what really grind my gears?  When products advertise having some sort of "technology" when it's completely unwarranted just as a gimmick to make it sound cool.  Like, for instance, the ziplock bags we have in our cupboard boast having "power shield technology".  It's a plastic bag, you dipwads.  And my hand lotion claims to have "MVE delivery technology".  Or, say, a mop might claim to have "dirt locking technology", or perhaps a t-shirt will have "lint repelling technology", or a towel will have "rapid absorption technology", or a bottle of water will have "ultra-hydration, hyper-thirst-quenching technology".  Get off your f*ckin' high horse.    It's so stupid.  Yeah, I know that technically speaking, literally anything that humans make is some sort of technology.  Like, tying a rock to the end of a stick and using it to hit things is technology, but gimmie a frigging break.  Those technology claims on products just sound asinine.
  24. Justin_Case001
    This is a sister entry to the previous blog about The Lion Guard.  It is recommended to read that one first before proceeding.
    In my previous entry I gushed about Disney's The Lion Guard, and how they included a brilliant, sensitive, emotional, and lovingly crafted death scene.  That scene got me thinking more about something I've thought about occasionally for a long time, and that's the strange beauty of sadness.
    There are definitely a few emotions that I could do without.  Anger, frustration, annoyance, hatred.  I mean, these emotions are still integral to the whole human experience, but if I never felt those again for the rest of my life, I'd be sound as a pound.  The same isn't true of sadness.  Ironically, sadness without anger can be a strangely beautiful emotion.  This blog may be a little clumsy, because I'm not sure if I can even articulate this very well.  I've never tried.
    We've all heard philosophical statements about how joy cannot exist without sadness, or how sadness makes happiness all the better and brighter, or how life needs balance, and the good cannot be experienced without the bad, and I think we all understand that to a degree, and most of us tend to agree with all that, but I think I take it a step further.  Sometimes, I actually find certain kinds of sadness to be... well... pleasant.
    We all know that a good cry, when it's needed, can be very cathartic and make one feel better afterwards, but what I'm talking about is more than that.  There are certain moments that, on their face, are the saddest in life, and yet, somehow, in some strange, inexplicable way, can also be the most beautiful, if we let them.
    I've never been much in the tears department.  It takes a really big catalyst to make me really cry, but I actually wish that I could cry a little more easily, because the few times I've done it in my life have actually felt really good, and have been eerily pleasant.  There have been many more moments when I felt like I needed or wanted to cry, but nothing comes out.  And no amount of forcing makes it work.  Most of my life has been spent in a state of depression or mundane annoyance and frustration, which just feels like it's rapidly aging you, shortening your lifespan, and wreaking all sorts of physical havoc on your body.  But those rare moments of pure, unadulterated sadness have been... I want to say... actually... almost euphoric.
    That death scene I talked about from The Lion Guard--that scene was unbelievably sad, but it was, without question, the most beautiful scene in the show, and really, one of the most achingly beautiful scenes in any show that I've ever seen.  When thinking about similarly sad but beautiful scenes, another that instantly comes to mind is Iroh's Tale in Tales of Ba-Sing-Se from Last Airbender.  (Oh yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about.)  I absolutely love these kinds of scenes.  It's not that I'm glad that a good character died, per se, nor am I rooting for them to die.  However, I find such emotional death scenes to be by far the best and most beautiful.  Another prime example is Violet Evergarden, a show packed with gorgeous, emotional gut-punches.  You better put on emotional body armor for that show, cause it's gonna hit you in the feels so fucking hard. 
    Why do I love these scenes so much?  Why do I find them so beautiful?  Is it something about the meaning of life?  Something about a valuable lesson on how to live?  A lesson about the preciousness and brevity of life?  All of the above?  Something else entirely?  I'm not quite sure.  I'm not even sure if searching for that answer is a worthwhile endeavor.  Perhaps it's wisest not to question, but to just feel.
    But is this feeling of beautiful sadness only relegated to fiction?  It turns out no.  As I said, I'm not much in the tears department, and I've also been extraordinarily lucky that I haven't dealt with much death in my life.  All of my grandparents have died, as well as a couple of extended family members, but I was never very close with any of them, and it didn't affect me very much.  I've never had anyone extremely close to me die.  Not yet.  But none can escape, as death comes for us all.  However, I have experienced the death of many pets.  My family had pets the whole time I was growing up.  I remember the death of each one, but none affected me quite like our last cat.  We got her when I was a teenager, and we pretty much knew at that time that she would be our last pet.  We didn't want to take care of pets forever.  I loved that cat more than any of our other pets, and bonded more with her.  She outlived all others, and for over seven years, she was our only pet.  She moved across the country with us, and helped make our new house feel more like home.
    Her death at the ripe old age of 18 was unlike any other pet death that I had experienced.  All others had been rather unexpected--a sudden health event, followed by an emergency vet visit from which the pet never returned.  But our cat was different--her death was... well... scheduled, actually.  See, her health was rapidly declining.  It was clear that she was in pain, and not eating much, as animals tend to do near the end.  This was also a complicated time for us because we needed to move across the country--again.  Due to a variety of complicated reasons (some being job-related, and some being related to the boring, stupid reality of the housing market), we needed to make the move in a timely manner.  We couldn't wait another year or more.  The vet, and my mom, completely agreed that our cat could not make the journey.  It would be much too hard on her.  At that late and painful stage of life, stuffing her into a carrier for a cross-country trip, and dumping her into a new house when she was already having trouble seeing and navigating in her own house--all of that would have been cruel.  The vet didn't even believe that she could survive the trip.  We all knew that the end was near, and while we could have prolonged her life for a few more painful months, we needed to make the move, and we all agreed that putting her to sleep now was the best option for everyone, including her.  So, we scheduled the vet visit.
    The night before, after my parents had gone to bed, I sat alone with her, petting her and saying my goodbyes.  It was a surreal moment.  I had never experienced anything like it.  It is truly a strange thing--to look into a creature's eyes, into a loved one's eyes, and to know, to know... that by this time tomorrow... they will be gone.  I had no idea how unprepared I was for that.  I sat with her for hours, just holding her, and crying silently, and telling her that she would be okay.  But here's where it gets strange--in an eerie and inexplicable way, that moment actually felt good.  And not just in hindsight, either, but right then, in that moment.  I didn't run from the emotion.  I didn't push it away.  I wasn't afraid of it.  I just embraced it, let it all in, let it all out, and let it all wash over and through me, and there was something wonderful about it.  Don't misunderstand me--there was no part of me that was glad that she was dying.  Not at all.  I can't really explain it.  There was just something extraordinarily, indescribably, achingly beautiful about letting this sadness happen and just experiencing it.  And naturally, my eyes are full of tears right now as I type.  I cannot reminisce about this experience without some of the emotions returning.
    But you know what's also strange?  It's now over seven years in the past, and when I think back to that night, crying with my cat are some of the most pleasant and wonderful memories that I have.  I know how that might sound, but again, please don't misunderstand.  I wasn't happy to see her go, as I think is abundantly evident, and moreover I still miss her today, but when I call those memories to mind, they don't feel painful.  It's not the same kind of pleasant as remembering an actual fun, happy event, but it's pleasant in a different way.  When I surrender to the memories, they just feel... warm... beautiful... and even comforting in a way.  I don't fully understand it myself.  I don't even know if it's possible to understand it.  I don't even know if we should understand it.  But that's how it feels.  Still sad, but somehow eerily wonderful, too.  I love those memories.
    Is that weird?  Is it just me?  Does anybody else feel this?  I know I'm not alone, because I've listened to several podcasts with people who work in hospice care who have repeatedly said that the end of life for people can be amazingly beautiful if you let it.  I think I know what they mean.  Death has much to teach us.
    However, I think that death can only bring this sort of ironic beauty in certain contexts.  Firstly, the death must occur at a point where we'd agree that it was "their time".  That is to say, the death must be at the end of a good and full life, a life well-lived, and at a time where we don't feel like this person (or pet) went before their time and was robbed of life.  A tragic death before one's time is incredibly painful, and it's almost impossible to see beauty in it, particularly if the deceased was the victim of a crime.  Such tragedies are accompanied by feelings of anger, hatred, and confusion, which amount to some of the worst suffering on the menu for the human condition.  Secondly, I think that in order to experience this strange beauty, those left behind mustn't be alone.  That is to say that once the loved one has passed, you, the still living, need to have at least one other loved one still with you.  It's hard to imagine feeling any sort of cathartic, beautiful sadness if you're left completely alone in this world.  But if a loved one passes in a peaceful way, at the end of a full life, and those left behind aren't alone, then the end of life can bring a strange beauty and deeply meaningful lessons if we let it.  I can't speak from experience about people dying, but I think I do understand this to be true.
    I want to wrap this up before it rambles on too long, which it absolutely could.  Certain types of pure sadness, unaccompanied by anger or hatred, can be eerily beautiful, and it's an emotion that I would never want to purge from existence.  And, truthfully, I kind of wish that I could feel that way just a little more often...
     
     
     
     
    What, did you actually think I was going to end this blog without mentioning BUTTERS?!    HA! 
     
  25. Justin_Case001

    LPS: AWOOO

    By Justin_Case001,


    .
    After finishing Littlest Pet Shop, I immediately dove right into LPS: A World of Our Own.
    (Relatively) spoiler-free.  Basic premise discussion only.  No specific story stuff.
    AWOOO is just a short spin-off.  It's not a full show.  Just one season, and the episodes are half-length.  11-ish minutes a pop.  But there's 52 episodes in the season, so it works out to the length or one normal season.  However, it's not really feasible to do any complex stories with such little bite-sized time block to work with.  It's just a fun, cute, fluffy, simple show.  I mean, I said the same thing about original LPS, but this one is extra fluffy, cute, and simple.  No arcs, no development.  But hey, it's also kind of a no-expectations, no disappointments type situation!    Having no arcs and no real development means that you're not going to be hoping for any particular storyline to go a certain way, and you're not going to be disappointed by anything.  I said spoiler-free, but the truth is that the show is unspoilable because there's nothing to spoil.  No stories.  This is even more of a show about nothing than Seinfeld. 
    The basic premise is kinda stupid.  It's a new cast of pets, and they briefly explain that there exists a magical world just for pets which they can travel to and from via a portal, and time doesn't pass while they're in there.  So, they can stay as long as they please and then hop back to the human world and it's exactly the time when they left.  They never addressed whether they age while in the magical world or not, so who's to say if they're actually immortal and can stay in the magical world for a thousand jillion millennia or something.  This premise is literally the laziest, silliest, most contrived plot device I've ever experienced, and the logic of it breaks down immediately if you start to analyze it.  There is absolutely no attempt whatsoever to explain the existence of the world or create any kind of magic logic or continuity or anything like that.  Equestria this is not.  They just wanted and an excuse to have a pets-only show and slapped together a way to do it in 2 seconds.
    I kinda think it would have been better if they had dispensed with the portal to the magical world idea altogether and just had it be all animal world like Equestria, but I understand why they didn't go that way.  They specifically wanted the characters to be pets, not just animals.  They all have human owners, and they regularly crack pet-related jokes about them.
    Those are the criticisms.  The good points?  The characters are delightful, adorable, and incredibly charming.  Edie the parakeet gave the ponies a run for their money for cuteness.  I actually liked them better than the pets in regular LPS.  They were so much fun to watch.  It's such a shame that the show was only an appetizer.  I really wanted a full show with these characters featuring arcs, development, the whole nine yards.  I think there was enough potential for it.  Not nine seasons like Pony, but perhaps four full seasons like LPS.
    Though incredibly light on storytelling, this series did give us what has to be one of my favorite characters in all of fiction: Jade.  Jade the cat is so friggin awesome.  Brilliant voiced by Ingrid Nilson (Maud ), Jade is the perfect cat.  She's a little similar to Maud in some ways, but she's not weird and socially awkward like Maud.  Jade is anti-social, but not awkward.  Jade is laid back, aloof, and jaded, which I have to think is where they got the name from.  Her shtick is that she couldn't care less about anything, which makes her totally cool.   Deep down, though, she actually does care, and will begrudgingly tag along on adventures and help her friends, despite complaining every step of the way about having to leave her warm bed.  Jade cares deeply for her friends, despite acting like she doesn't care about anything or anyone.  Jade has a scathing, bone dry, razor sharp wit that she always uses at the perfect time.  Cool doesn't even begin to describe her.  The more I think about it, the more I'm realizing that in some ways, she's almost like Rick Sanchez in cat form.
    Jade actually made me like myself 1% more.  I am aloof and jaded myself, and I've always hated myself for that (and for many, many other reasons.)  I've always wished that I could be more excited, passionate, fun-loving, and enthusiastic, partly because I've always felt like those are the kinds of people that others like and want to be around.  But Jade is the one I'd want to be around, and I love her so much that it made me think that maybe, just maybe, my qualities aren't as off-putting as I think, and there may be some people out there who would see me the way that I see Jade.  Maybe.... 
    I just wish that Jade could have been in a full series.  Oh, the things they could have done with her if they'd had the time and opportunity for proper arcs and character development!  Tis but a dream...
    Despite the shortcomings, great series with a truly great theme song to boot, and totally worth it.  I mean, let's be honest, it's worth it for Jade alone. 
     

     
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