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Clover Heart

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Blog Entries posted by Clover Heart

  1. Clover Heart
    So, I've been trying to get into Let's Playing for a while. Due to technical and financial problems, I haven't been able to until recently. I figured with doing a flash game, there shouldn't be any problems with file conversion or mixing the video like I would with console games, so it would just be a quick, simple test run. As opposed to going through a whole long game, realizing "This isnt' working!!" and basically having wasted all my time.
     
    So, for my first Let's Play, I play Pico's School. Be forewarned, this game involves a lot of violence, some sexualized content and swearing.
     
     
     
    In my opinion, this run was a success. Let me know what you think of it. Next, I intend to move onto console gaming. The video editing for that will be a bit more difficult, but I've done it before, so I think I can probably figure out how to do it again.
     
    If there are any Let's Players out there, let me know, and I can friend you on the forums and/or add you on YouTube. My name is Zexonyte. Happy playing, all!
  2. Clover Heart
    Jumpscare/horror warning. If you're sensitive to material like horror or are startled easily, you may not want to watch.
     
    Click below to see the first video in my let's play:

     
     
    I thought I wasn't gonna be able to play this until after I got back from a trip and I was sad that I wouldn't be able to play this right when it came out. But it's out today and now I have the chance to play it! Yay!
     

  3. Clover Heart
    Okay, there's something that's been sorta bugging me, lately. That is the usage of the word "ship."
     
    My idea was always that to ship someone was to pair two characters together, in your fan fic, headcanon, fantasies, etc. So, some common MLP ships, I think, are, like, Spike and Rarity, Fluttershy and Big Mac or Lyra and Bonbon. You can ship these characters together because they aren't canonically together. That's long been my understanding of the term "ship."
     
    However, now, it seems like people are using it to just mean... whatever they want? Like, I see people saying that they ship characters who are already together. You didn't ship them. The creator did. Like, someone saying that they ship Shining Armor and Cadance. Like, you can't do that. They're already shipped. By the creators. It's canon. You can't act upon something which has already been acted upon, which is to say that you can't put two characters into a relationship that are already in a relationship. They're already there. The only way I can see it making any sense is if you, say, write a fan fic about their relationship or something, but even then, you're not putting those characters together; someone else did.
     
    Am I right in thinking this? Or do I not understand how shipping works? I'm so confused...
  5. Clover Heart
    I just have a bit of a weird situation. I never know, anymore, whether to post these types of things in the advice section or if they're so mundane and not warranting response that I should post them here.
     
    Anyway, dude on FB. I think he's maybe a friend of my mom and uncle's. I see him post on their stuff, sometimes, and I dunno. I feel like I agree with him on a lot of stuff and he seems to have some cool insight. I sorta wanna friend him on FB just based on that, but I dunno. It seems really weird. To my recollection, I don't think I've ever even met him. I think he's, maybe, seen and read my comments once or twice, but I don't know if he even knows my relation to my mom and uncle, though I have my mom's last name, so I guess he can assume. I dunno, I just feel really weird about it. It seems sorta awkward and out of place and like why would I friend him. But then again, it's just FB friending. Not like I'm asking him to cosign my loans or anything.
     
    I think I'm stressing over things that don't need stressing over ._.;
  7. Clover Heart
    I got this locket from my mom, today.
     

     
    (Inside)
     
     
    I just recently quit my job and I finish at the end of this month. I'm trying to open my own online business, which I predict won't happen until after my current job. For that, though I know a lot of hard work and dedication are required, I think I'll need some luck on my side as well. I think that makes this a good symbol to have around my neck as I work. But since it's a locket, I felt like I could put something relevant to my business inside it.
     
    It's very small. It's smaller than a US dime. It's approximately 15 mm in diameter, give or take. That kinda limits the kinds of things that can be put into it. Basically, very small, flat things.
     
    A few of the ideas I had:
     
    -A message to myself about the business and/or my goals that I'll open when I reach a certain goal
    -A small, hand-drawn rendering of my company logo
    -Leave it empty until I reach a certain goal, then put something inside, sort of as a sense of completion
     
    None of these really seem quite right to me, though. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
  8. Clover Heart
    I really wanted for this to be a forum post, but I think it might be a bit too self-centric and rambly for the forums... I just hope I can get some sort of actual response...
     
    I want to preface this with saying that I'm not trying to tear down women or femininity. I'm not trying to tear down anyone's view of these things either. I'm simply trying to understand, which is why I'm asking. I also ask you to recognize that I'm not you, and I may see the exact same thing you see as an advantage as a burden.
     
    I'm just wondering, what's good about being female? Everything I associate with being female has to do with being marginalized, oppressed, objectified or stereotyped. This may have to do with the fact that I'm agender, but I just can't see anything really good about being female, and the recognition of such tends to bring more bad than good.
     
    I looked up lists about this sort of thing, and the vast majority of the answers were either tongue-in-cheek ("So-and-so is female,") don't apply to me ("We can wear make-up," I hate wearing make-up...) or are incidental things ("Women live longer," And? I can control that? Furthermore, that affects how society sees me?)
     
    I just can't see the benefit of being female and it tends to bring me a lot of frustration and sadness. I don't believe I'm transgender. I have no problem with my body at all. I just can't help but constantly wish that that body didn't affect every aspect of the way people look at and treat me. Especially since they're trying to peg me with something I don't even identify as. Why should I have to change the way my body looks for people to treat me how I feel? That's some bullshit. Why isn't physical sex and the views surrounding it more incidental? Why do I have to be shoved into this box that I don't fit into? And anyway, even if I were to change sex, I don't think that would solve anything. I just think I'd have all the same problems from a different angle.
     
    If I'm unconvinced by responses... well... I don't quite know what that says about me... Yeah...
     
    I'm really tired and blithering, but I wanna know if there's any reason I should even like my physical sex outside of, well, sex. I dunno. I guess I'm done talking about it for the moment. I appreciate your responses. Thanks.
  9. Clover Heart
    Yeah, I'm going back to this, again. And I know everyone's sick of this thing but I thought of a good point so I don't give a crap.
     
    Let me start by saying that I'm neither a hater nor a number 1 fan of Rarity. I like her pretty well, but I'll admit, she's my least favorite of the mane 6. That doesn't mean I don't like her. It just means that somebody's gotta be last.
     
    So, I noticed that Rarity tends to get a lot of shit for not being "true to her element." Many people agree with this statement. Others feel that Rarity is unfairly singled out as all of the mane 6 have deviated from their element from time to time. This kinda bothered me for a while. I knew that other ponies deviated from their elements and I knew that it was probably in relatively equal amounts as Rarity. However, I still felt like Rarity was a worse offender, even though I didn't have any way to prove that. It was all just what I felt.
     
    I think the other day, I understood why I felt that way. I want to look at it this way. We're going to exclude magic because it's not a real worldly phenomenon and we can't easily ascertain the rules and parameters of it. So the remaining 5 are loyalty, laughter, kindness, honesty and generosity.
     
    For most of these, they're expected things in society, but we allow for the occasional deviation. For example, kindness. We expect people to be nice to each other. However, we understand that people have bad days sometimes, and we allow them a little leeway. Laughter: we expect people to be in a generally good mood most of the time, but understand that sometimes people get sad. Loyalty: we expect people to stick with us and while we might get annoyed if they ditch us, if it's occasional, we tend to forgive them. Honesty: we generally expect that people are telling the truth, but we allow for people to tell little white lies to spare someone's feelings.
     
    Generosity, however, basically works in the opposite way. Generosity isn't an expected thing. We don't have a social expectation that people be generous toward one another. We may think it's kind when someone is generous and be very happy for that. But we don't expect it. We do, on the other hand, expect people not to be greedy, and there's a rather strong stigma against that. We look very negatively at someone who's being greedy and tend to feel rather strongly about it.
     
    So the other 4 elements, we expect people display to fair amounts, and because we think of these as common, we also allow for people to deviate from these traits in real life as well. However, generosity isn't one of these expected things. Rather "not greed" is the expected trait in this situation. So when the other 4 deviate, it's normal. However, when Rarity deviates, it's more something that she shouldn't have been doing in the first place. And this is where I feel the unfairness comes in.
     
    Another problem about Rarity's element is that it's not as easily demonstrable. We have seen Rarity being generous in the past. Probably most notably, making a unique, personalized evening gown for each of her friends. Two, actually. However, like I said before, generosity isn't an expected thing. So when Rarity does something generous, it usually has to be a big to-do in order to demonstrate it. However, again, since generosity isn't an expected thing, when it's in smaller ways, like, Rarity giving her unique fabric to Suri Polomare, it can be glossed over and not appreciated because it's a bit of an off-handed thing. So when most people think of Rarity's generosity, they probably forget about the small things such as that.
     
    Additionally, speaking of demonstration and deviation, I think the other 4 do tend to get a pass on their deviance from their elements. I've basically exemplified this in a previous paragraph where I talked about, for example, people being usually in a good mood, but allowing for them to be sad. Also as I've said before, greediness is met with much more of a negative reaction than many of these other deviations are. (Sadness, dishonesty, etc.) Again, the negative emotion is a bit disproportionate to how we often gloss over generosity, but this is how things are. I do think that deviation from the elements is a good thing. As many people before me have said, it makes them more well-rounded characters, and I agree with that. However, when your element is generosity, the only way that you can really be portrayed as deviating from that is to be greedy. I suppose that she could also be portrayed as just not being generous. Like she could do something, but chooses not to. However, that's a lot less obvious and takes more time within the show to set up rather than being out-and-out greedy. It's a little unfortunate, but occasional greediness is probably something that Rarity's going to be stuck with.
     
    It's really more about how we view the assigned elements to each pony. From the start, Rarity is set up to be more harshly judged than the other 4 for the reasons listed above. Does she actually deviate more than the others? I don't know. We'd have to count each account of faithfulness and deviance from each pony's element and weigh that against their appearance in the show.
     
    However, I finally realized that I do agree with Rarity fans. Rarity is rather unfairly pegged for not being true to her element. I don't think this is her fault. And honestly, I don't even think it's the fault of people who don't like Rarity. Nor is it the creators' faults. It's just a culmination of incidental things that just happen to stack things against Rarity.
     
    Realizing this, I think I have a newfound respect for Rarity and like her more than I did previously. I hope when people read this post, they'll take these things into consideration when watching Rarity in the show and analyzing her actions. I believe that if more people realize consciously how we view generosity and greed within our society, it will put the character of Rarity much more into perspective and maybe people will even, like me, like her more.
     
    Those are just my thoughts on this issue.
     
    *edit, 1/31/14*
    I know this is a bit late to edit, but I just came up with another good point. It's not very in depth because I don't have time to sit and write an analysis on this point. However, one more thing I noticed is this. Honesty, laughter, kindness and loyalty, you can put very little effort into. In fact, you can do almost nothing and still be considered to fall under all those categories. Except maybe laughter, but out social structure and expectations make it so that most people smile during exchanges, so that's basically effortless. Generosity, however, you really have to go out of your way to exemplify. You're not just considered generous because you haven't been ungenerous, as opposed to many of the other elements. You might be considered kind or loyal just because you've never been blatantly unkind or unloyal. Generosity, however, is more of an active thing. I think it might be weird to make Rarity a character who gives all the time. It would, in fact, make her rather unrealistic. This is another reason I think Rarity's generosity isn't shown as much.
     
    I might write more on that later to tie it up in a neat little bow, but I don't have the time at the moment.
  10. Clover Heart
    So, I've just recently written two creepypastas. I dunno why, but I was really compelled to write this week and somehow managed to get two done in one week, which was cool.
     
    I sorta want some feedback and opinions. The problem is that I'd really like to publicize my works, but I'm worried about what people would think of them. As they stand now, I enjoy them and I think they're good. They're no Russian Sleep Experiment, but they're alright. I like them having been the only person who's read them. However, part of my worry is that if I let other people read them and they don't like them, I won't like them anymore, either. Another part of that is that if I get a lot of negative feedback, in particular harsh criticism, that I'll be demotivated to write anymore. I really like writing and entering the territory of creepypastas has been interesting. However, though I enjoy writing, these are among the first stories I've completed. I've written a lot of things, but often, they just kinda fall by the wayside midway through the project.
     
    That's why I'm posting a blog entry. I want to find some people who I can show my stories to on an individual basis who'll be honest but not brutal or hurtful. Why is this such a big deal? Because the last time I asked for a critique was on my drawing style. Some people were genuinely helpful, but for the most part, I got burned hard. People telling me that they couldn't believe I had been drawing so long and was so bad at it, that I suck, that I should quit. It almost ruined drawing for me. Even now, I'm not fully over that ordeal. So I'm a bit sensitive to what people think of my works.
     
    Again, because of this, I'd like some feedback from someone who's aware of this issue I have and will be sensitive to it. I can't handle all the "This sucks," and "Who told you you could write?"
     
    Anyway, if someone out there is willing to take a look at my stories and will give them a fair shake, I'd really appreciate it. These are my first attempts and I'd really like to keep writing more. Your help might help me to do that.
     
    Thank you
  11. Clover Heart
    I thought that maybe other people might possibly have this problem, but it didn't seem like it'd be common enough to warrant its own topic. So I'm making a blog post instead.
     
    Let me grab an excerpt from a post I made in this topic just to exemplify what I mean. I realize we write a bit differently than how we speak, but this is the best way I know how to do this.
     
    Excerpt:
    Probably Batman. Because Batman doesn't have "super powers." Just gadgets. Which I think gives him some sense of believablity as a super hero. In theory, he sounds like someone who could actually exist. As opposed to heros that can fly, transform into other things, have superhuman strength, etc.
     
    So, I imagine that most people divide word by word. Or alternately, I think they probably divide things in this way:
    Probably Batman. Because Batman doesn'thave "superpowers." Just gadgets. Which Ithink gives him some senseof believablity asa superhero. Intheory, he soundslike someonewho could actually exist. Asopposedto heros that canfly, transform into otherthings, have superhumanstrength, etc.
     
    However, when I hear people speak, it comes off more like this to me:
    Probably Batman. Because Batmand oes n'thave "superpowers." Just gadgets. WhichI thin kgive shims omes enseof believ ablity asa superhero. Intheory, hesoun dslikes omeone whoc ouldactu ally exist. Asopp osedto heros thatc anfly, transform in tooth erth ings, haves uperhu mans trength, etc.
     
    I don't have any hearing problems but sometimes, I think people think I do because I ask people to repeat themselves so often. It's not that I didn't hear properly. I heard everything they said. It's just that my brain can't piece it together right all the time, especially if someone is mumbling or speaking quickly.
     
    Does anyone else ever have this problem? I tried looking this up, and I can't find anything. Whenever I mention it to someone, they just think it's weird and have never heard of such a thing. Is this something that happens for other people? Is it a disorder? Is there a way to start piecing words together in a proper manner? Probably having more conversations would help, I guess...
  12. Clover Heart
    I really, really wanna make this a forum topic to reach more people, but it's a limited-time thing so I don't know how appropriate that is.
     
    Anyway, it's a simple experiment. All you have to do is listen to some audio files and rate them.
     
    If you wish to participate in this experiment, I'll have to PM you with details. So look out for that.
     
    That's about it, I guess. If you wanna participate, let me know in a comment and I'll get back to you.
     
    Also, since I don't think I could make this into a topic, if you know any other forum members who'd be willing to participate, please direct them my way.
     
    Thanks!
     
    -Clover
  13. Clover Heart
    Please reply if this sounds interesting!!
     
    Yeah, I'm not sure if I should have done this in a blog or in a post, but just to be safe, I figured I'd do a blog.
     
    I have an idea to, possibly, do a weekly or bi-weekly game of Pictionary among MLP Forums users. There's an amazing site called iSketch where you can play Pictionary online for free with other participants. There are a number of categories to choose from (though, I dunno if MLP is one of them. <- I just checked. It's not ) I thought this might be a cool way to connect with your online friends or users you don't know so well outside of the site.
     
    I dunno if something unofficial like this can be approved, as there might not be a good way to moderate the chat. If that's the case, sorry for bringing this up. Anyway, for the time being, I just wanted to put the idea out there and see what people think. Please respond if you think you'd be interested. I just wanna see how many people would be interested in something like this before we go making plans and stuff. Hope to hear from you guys!
  14. Clover Heart
    A few months ago I went to a kind of big marketplace area in the city. I went with my friend. We went to do some things before she left to go home a few weeks later. We'd done what we went to do, and were looking for other things to do while we were in the area. I'd been to this marketplace area several times before. Each time, I'd seen this sign for a cafe. It was a cafe which is actually more like a manga studio with seats available for a cheap price. We went and the guy running the place was really nice, giving us tips and telling us all about the process of making manga. We drew some pictures. We were actually there for longer than we had intended to be. I enjoyed it. The guy told me that there's a group of English-speakers that meet there every Sunday. I said I'd be back sometime to meet them, or something.
     
    It's been a recurrent dream of mine to draw manga professionally. (Can you use the term "recurrent dream," in this situation?) It always just seemed like an endlessly daunting task that I never had any clue where to start from, though. It's kinda been on the back burner for a while, and as I've gotten older, has started to fade into the background. I mean, I'm just getting older and older... when is it time to give this up. You know what I mean? Going to this studio, however, made me want to draw manga again. I actually felt a want to do this hobby that I haven't wanted to do in a long, long time. I even started forming characters and a story around this idea I'd thought of a few years ago.
     
    Well, as for going back, my friend was still around for a few more weeks. I wanted to spend time with her while I still could, so we hung out on the weekends and stuff. Then she went back, and I had various things that were causing problems. I was sick or stuff like that. However, in recent weeks, I've been able to go. Able to. I never actually went, though. I've wanted to, but for whatever reason, I just can't seem to bring myself to do so. I thought it was just a matter of me not wanting to get out of bed. This past weekend, though, I actually got up at an hour where I could make it out there at a reasonable time. And I just sat for a while. And eventually, I just said to myself, "Nevermind... I just can't do it..." And I went back to bed.
     
    I don't know why I couldn't bring myself to go. I just got this bad feeling about going, like it's just going to go really wrong. I think one of the things I'm worried about is that I think this may be my only shot to actually make it as an illustrator. That may or may not be true, but that's how the situation looks as of now. If I blow it and people don't like me, it's not just that I've blown my shot to make friends, but I've blown my shot to fulfill this dream. And on a rational level, I realize that if I don't go, it's taking away my shot before I've even had it. But on an emotional level, it worries me too much to even try going.
     
    The other part of this problem is that I feel really guilty about the money. Not only does it cost money to go out there, but it costs money to utilize their service as well. And I'm supposed to be saving money. I'm about to make a dent in savings, because I need to go home and have surgery, so there's no good reason for me to be spending so frivolously like this. Even if I do go and it goes well, I'd still feel bad because I spent so much money on this activity.
     
    Other than the money, though, I don't know why I just can't bring myself to go. I feel stupid.
  15. Clover Heart
    Check it out, please :3


     
    Also, please check out my let's play channel. I've been working hard on a lot of things to try to make the channel better and been doing more editing and updates than ever before. It would mean a lot to me if you'd take a look at my channel! ^-^
     
    https://www.youtube.com/user/Zexonyte
  16. Clover Heart

    This pissed me off

    By Clover Heart,

    So, some context. Someone on my FB posted an article to their page which appeared in my feed. I quickly dismissed it in a short comment. Someone called me out for being dismissive so I wrote this whole long post explaining why I thought it was a piece of shit. I posted it as a draft on my blog, here, because I knew I'd written a lot and I didn't have a way of saving what I'd written. So, instead, I put it here, and I figured, why not post it? I bothered to write all this. Why not have people read it? Just keep in mind that it's a response to someone.
     
    The article I'm referring to is here: http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/11/6-ways-that-feminism-insults-and-demeans-women-while-claiming-to-protect-them/
     
    First of all, the entire article hinges on the idea that feminism aims for women to be better than men rather than equal to men. The problem with attacking -all- of feminism is that feminism isn't just one thing. And that causes a problem with the label and it's true that we might be better off using different terms rather than trying to adhere ourselves to this amorphous blob of an antique that so many people seem insistent in clinging onto, but that's another whole can of worms that I don't really care to open up. The point is, there is actually very little consensus when it comes to feminism. So when it comes to talking about feminism, it's best to clarify either what kind of feminists you're talking about or at the very least, say -some- feminists, rather than grouping every single feminist together under principles they don't adhere to or ideals they don't follow and dismissing the movement as a whole based on such.
     
    I'm not going to attempt to make some claim that there aren't misandristic, extremist feminists out there. There are. Plain and simple. At the same time, that's not all feminists. In fact, this is, rather, the loud minority. The reason that those are the only feminists many people hear anything from is because they're all shouting louder than anyone else. But that's not the majority of feminists.
     
    It's hard to even really comment on feminism as a whole because it's so fractalized. There are feminists with a whole range of ideas and beliefs. I think it's really stupid of someone to attack feminism as a whole when it -is- so fractalized. Because even if you attack one aspect, you're really only attacking one part of feminism or some feminists.
     
    For the sake of being able to talk about it, though, let's try and talk about unifying factors, and dare I say probably one of the only ones. And even -then- there are people who claim to be feminist and don't truly buy this. But for the sake of argument, I think most feminists are interested in women being equal to men. And in recent years, that's really a lot of what I've seen. I'm not gonna say that I've never seen anything else, but for the majority, that seems to be the consensus.
     
    Let's talk about that word, equal. A lot of people take issue with feminism for it fighting for women to be equal to men, but not for men to be equal to women. Frankly, this is stupid. The word "equal" means "even." It means that all parties have what all other parties have, no more, no less. So if what feminists really want is equality, it is inherent, by definition, that they also want equality for men. Because that's what equality is. To want anything more or less is not truly fighting for equality. And in recent years, that's also what I've seen among most feminists I've seen or talked to.
     
    I think most people have realized that rather than bringing women up to men's level or looking at one side of the issues, people have realized that in order for equality to happen, at this time and how things are, it's more about balance. Most women's issues also affect men. The things that disenfranchise women do the exact same things to men. And rather than looking at the plights of one group of people, we need to look at the plights of all people if we're ever to even attempt to attain equality.
     
    This article completely ignores all of these notions, entirely. And rather, it attacks a straw feminist rather than any actual issues feminists raise or any of the things they've actually fought for.
     
    You asked me why I formulated such a short, non-constructive response. It's because I was pissed off and couldn't manage anything else out. Re-reading this, at point one, I remember exactly why I was so pissed off. I would like to ask this woman, what, exactly, is wrong with someone getting consent before sex? Like, this doesn't even make sense to me. I absolutely think that you should be having a conversation with your partner before having sex.
     
    "Not only does this turn sex into a decidedly unsexy, legally fraught encounter, but it also implicitly requires men to obtain consent from women and not the other way around."
     
    Because not being sure of your partners needs is soooo sexy. So hot. Can't even tell you.
     
    Why does asking your partner what they want to do and keeping lines of communication open have to be unsexy? Sex is a way that we can communicate with each other and verbal communication enhances your experience. It honestly baffles me as to why someone has to take such an issue with this. Just ask if they like what you're doing. If not, stop. Why does this lady have to have a stick up her ass about this?
     
    I like how she doesn't cite the bill as a source so you can't go and check the law unless you look it up for yourself. Fortunately, Google exists. It does not require men to obtain consent from women but not for women to obtain consent from men. The bill doesn't mention sexes or genders and refers to people as people, parties and similar, non-gendered terms as well as the pronouns "he or she." I think the only reason the writer thinks this is due to her own social biases and the way she believes the script of engaging in sex to play out. There is nothing gender-specific about the law.
     
    "What underlies the whole affirmative consent program is the idea that women are emotionally crippled, fearful, insecure and immature weaklings who cannot possibly make their thoughts and desires clearly known to adult partners."
     
    No, no and fucking no. The reason the law should recognize and have a clear model for what consent is is to prevent rape from happening. If a woman says nothing, it's not consent. One could argue that "S/he didn't say 'no,' so that made it okay." Rather, it firmly states that the absence of a "yes" is not a "yes." Furthermore, it pounds out certain situations where consent cannot be given, such as when a person is drunk or mentally impaired. There is nothing wrong with this law. It doesn't aim to harm anyone and it isn't making a commentary about anyone. It's simply laying down ground rules for people to follow so we can all have a more clear and enjoyable sexual experience.
     
    As I stated before, this person clearly doesn't understand thing one about PTSD. This whole argument against it seems to believe that only women benefit from trigger warnings. That isn't the case. Trigger warnings aren't for women. They're for anyone who needs them, men, women and anyone else included. And honestly, I don't get what the problem with this is. It takes 5 seconds and alerts people to the content of the medium. Again, why does she need to have a stick up her ass about this?
     
    I have PTSD. I was assaulted in a movie theatre. This happened 5 years ago. Last year, I was in a movie theatre with my partner. I was sitting in a very similar location to when the incident happened. I did what I could to lessen the effects, but nothing helped. (In all honesty, I should have just left the theatre at that point, but I'd paid for the tickets.) By the end, I was so anxious that I was shaking and nauseous. It was really bad. From then on, we always sat on the right side of the theatre, after I told my partner how badly it affected me.
     
    Should I avoid movie theatres? No. Should movie theatres have trigger warnings? Of course not, that's silly. However, if someone told me ahead of time "hey, sitting there might set off an anxiety attack," I might have listened. And that's what a trigger warning is. It gives you a head's up about what's in store so you can make an informed decision about the situation and not be blindsided by a triggering comment or situation or anything.
     
    "Know what I hate? Reading about adults who kill infants. It makes me feel sick to my stomach, so when I see headlines like “Mother Microwaves Baby,” I don’t read them.
     
    "In the era of clickbait journalism, it’s incredibly rare to see headlines like “Unusual Situation Happened Last Night” or some other misleading or elusive headline that downplays the actual events. Quite the opposite."
     
    It depends on the types of journals you read. Or videos you watch or podcasts you listen to. If there's a video out there entitled "My Suicide Attempt Story," yeah, no duh the video's gonna talk about suicide and most likely give some substantial detail about it. However, if you have something with a title about something like depression or mental health overall and your video intends to tackle suicide at some length, yeah, I think people should be aware of that. Again, I don't see why that needs to be any sort of problem.
     
    "But feminists adore trigger warnings because it reinforces the idea that women are ruled by their emotions, are incapable of recovering from trauma and are just generally hysterical nitwits unprepared to confront adulthood and reality."
     
    I think I facepalmed so hard, I gave myself a headache. Again, trigger warnings aren't exclusively for women. They're for ANYONE who's experienced a traumatic event. Or is the author implying that men never deal with emotional trauma? The thing that pisses me off about this is conflating having a legitimate anxiety disorder to being a "hysterical nitwit." That is -so- insulting to anyone with any kind of psychological disorder, especially anxiety. Again, PTSD is a real thing. It's not just some emotional stint. It's a reaction that's out of the person's control. -Women- are not ruled by their emotions. Rather, -people- are -affected- by their emotions. But this is all the more so for people with emotional disorders. Again, an emotional reaction is not within someone's control. So there's nothing wrong a little courtesy and a 5 second heads up. Again, I don't get why this needs to be any sort of problem.
     
    The next point is the only one I gave any credence to in my original post. I take it back. I do agree that we shouldn't look at women as incapable of inflicting injury on men. The author failed to realize that many feminists fight against this notion. It does disenfranchise women as it does men. It paints men as violent and women as helpless, which is not positive for anyone. Moreover, there are many situations where a man couldn't overpower a woman. For example, if he's attempting not to hurt her or if she's wielding a weapon. However, like I said, many feminists also agree. You can't just broad brush the situation like that. This is one point of contention that people are divided on when it comes to feminism, but in order to be divided, there has to be another side.
     
    I'm not for affirmative action on any front. I feel like there should be an entirely different way of hiring people based on their actual qualifications. First, I feel like there should be more of a blind resume sort of system, where there are no names, ages, sexes or ethnicities. Only the school and work history. Additionally, interviews are a terrible way of judging someone's work ethic. Again, I think there should be a blind trial where the employer doesn't see the applicant. Just their work output.
     
    That's just my personal opinion. Tangent.
     
    So I'll agree that affirmative action in -any- context is a load of crap. However, there's no reason that we shouldn't encourage everyone to go for STEM fields. There's no reason we shouldn't encourage everyone to go for languages and arts. There's no reason we shouldn't encourage everyone to go for trades. Basically, there's no good reason not to encourage students.
     
    "Women are encouraged to ignore what their natural needs and wants are, enter careers that they are only nominally qualified to be in and guess what happens? The vast majority of women with STEM qualifications are not working in the field at all... Feminism insults women by telling them that their natural interests are wrong and they are too stupid to know what’s good for them."
     
    "Natural" interests? Exactly what -are- women's "natural" interests? Seriously, I'd like to know. It's unnatural for a woman to take an interest in math and science? On what basis? Where are the studies that women "naturally" gravitate away from STEM fields and that encouraging them if defying their nature?
     
    I will give you that individuals do have areas that they gravitate toward. But that's for individuals. There's no reason that women can't pursue careers in STEM fields if that's what they have an inclination for and an interest in.
     
    One thing that many feminists aim to tackle is these notions that girls -aren't- interested in STEM fields. A lot of this has to do with notions. If Billy and Suzy both get a 70% on their first grade math test, their teacher or their parents might treat it very differently. Where Billy's parents and teachers might encourage him to try better next time, Suzy's parents and teachers might just give up or not encourage her as much. Does this mean that we should push kids into fields they're bad in or have no interest in? No. Rather it's a matter of opening the same opportunities to everyone. Which ones they choose are up to them.
     
    The entire microaggressions thing is one big strawman, like I said. Even Elevatorgate, the author blew way out of proportion. Watson never said nor implied that "men will attack you." She simply said she felt uncomfortable. That's a huge leap and a really shitty accusation. But anyway, I've never heard any feminists talk about microaggressions. I don't doubt that some have but this isn't a central point that feminism generally deals with. And while, if there are people thinking this way, yes, that's crappy. But again, this is barely a blip on the radar for most feminists. Aside from that, though, the author acts like feminists invented the idea of microaggressions. This is much more of an issue when it comes to issues of things like race, as well as much more applicable. Like I said, barely a blip on the radar.
     
    I've gone on for a long time and frankly, I'm really weary at writing about this article that's done nothing but piss me the right off for the past two hours, so I don't have a lot to say about the catcalling. I feel like a lot of people don't know actual catcalling when they see it. Saying "hi" to a woman isn't catcalling. Asking her how she's doing isn't catcalling. Compliments are up for debate. But there are plenty of people who get really up in women's faces about going out, getting their number, etc. And the other thing is, you shut them down, and they ignore you. I feel like I'm a very closed-off person, so I don't get much of it, but I have come across this kind of person. This kind of person who implies they wanna do something (what, I won't presume, it could be as innocent as dinner,) I tell them "no," and they keep pushing it. It makes it difficult to get out of the situation. I'm lucky that that's all I've gotten. Other women have sexual gestures made at them, sexual things yelled at them and it can really make women feel uncomfortable. Possibly men, too. I dunno if men get this kind of attention.
     
    I really don't like that video, because there -were- a lot of people just saying "hi," yet the video counts it as catcalling. Moreover, there are no accounts of people giving examples of that worse sort of behavior, like sexual gestures and whatnot. I'm not saying anything like they should have staged it or waited until someone did it. But it really blurred the lines on where catcalling actually falls and has caused a lot of confusion amongst the people who have seen it.
     
    Anyway, it comes down to a few things. Are you being respectful? Is this a situation where it's appropriate to ask someone out? Are you giving your number or telling that person to give theirs? It's situational, but this does exist. And if it -is- disrespectful, on the street and in your face, then yes, people have a right to be offended and uncomfortable by that treatment.
     
    "The broader culture treats women as adult humans capable of making choices and dealing with the consequences of those choices, just as we expect all men to do. Feminism is the social movement pushing to treat women as large children who need protection from their own actions."
     
    As I've said time and time again, this is not all feminism. This is a straw feminist that she's attacking. I really wonder if this person knows anything about modern feminism. Because most feminists don't think like this.
     
    Furthermore, this aims to attack, mostly, little pissy things that don't matter. You have to say "yes" before you have sex. Control your damn PTSD. Seriously, fuck this lady. She doesn't know shit about shit. She doesn't know anything about different angles or arguments about different kinds of feminism. If she did, she wouldn't even be making any of these arguments. But even within her arguments, she fails to understand the basics of what she's even arguing about. I stand by my initial statement. This article is full of shit.
  17. Clover Heart
    This ep just aired in Japan this past week. I found The Smile Song on YouTube in Japanese. Someone in the comments requested Romaji, so I figured I'd do the lyrics, the Romaji and the translation. I dunno if I can link this blog to that person, but, well, if not, the lyrics are out there somewhere, anyway.
     

     
    スマイルの歌 (The Smile Song)
     
    日本語
     
    あたしはピンキーパイ　(ハロー)
    今日もみんなにご挨拶　(調子はどう?)
    あたしはみんなを笑顔にするの～
     
    どんなときでも　(どうしたの?)
    声を掛ける　(こんにちは!)
    だってみんなを元気にしたいから
     
    そう、あなたの笑顔が好き、ホント
    ほら、あなたが笑顔でいれば幸せ
    だからあたしには必要なの、あなたの笑顔だね
     
    あなたの笑い顔　(最高!)
    ニコリした顔　(すてき!)
    口もっとあげれば、ほら、笑顔のできあがり　(ハイタッチ!)
     
    ちょっと心配で
    不安なときでも
    あたしが頑張って笑顔にしてあげる
     
    そう、あなたの笑顔が好き、ホント
    ほら、あなたの笑顔を見せてよ
    そう、あなたの笑顔があたしを幸せにする
     
    だれでも寂しい日があるけど
    悲しいときだってそんなときはいつもそばにいてあげる
    あたしを最高に幸せにしてくれるもの
    それはだれかの顔に戻ったSmile
     
    本当に幸せ
    あんたの笑顔
    あなたが笑えばあたしも笑顔
     
    そう、あなたの笑顔が好き、ホント
    あたし、あなたの笑顔見れて幸せ
    そう、あなたの笑顔で今日も最高の一日
     
    さあ、みんなさん、笑って
    あたしを幸せにして
    必要なのはス・マ・イ・ル
    あたしの友だちの
     
    さあ、みんなさん、笑って
    あたしを幸せにして
    必要なのはス・マ・イ・ル
    あたしの友だちの
     
    あたしが欲しいのはたくさんの笑顔よ
    あたしを幸せにするのは
    スマイル、スマイル、スマイル、スマイル、スマイル!
    さあ、笑って!
    さあ、笑って!
     
    Romaji
     
    Atashi wa Pinkie Pie (Hello!)
    Kyou mo minna ni go-aisatsu (Choushi wa dou?)
    Atashi wa minna wo egao ni suru no~
     
    Donna toki de mo (Doushita no?)
    Koe wo kakeru (Konnichiwa!)
    Datte minna wo genki ni shitai kara
     
    Sou, anata no egao ga suki, honto
    Hora, anata ga egao de ireba shiawase
    Dakara atashi ni ha hitsuyou na no, anata no egao da ne
     
    Anata no warai kao (Saikou!)
    Nikori shita kao (Suteki!)
    Kuchi motto agereba, hora, egao no deki agari (Hai tacchi! (High touch))
     
    Chotto shinpai de
    Fuan na toki de mo
    Atashi ga ganbatte egao ni shite ageru
     
    Sou, anata no egao ga suki, honto
    Hora, anata no egao wo misete yo
    Sou, anata no egao ga atashi wo shiawase ni suru
     
    Daredemo samishii hi ga aru kedo
    Kanashii toki datte sonna toki wa itsumo soba ni ite ageru
    Atashi wo saikou ni shiawase ni shite kureru mono
    Sore wa dareka no kao ni modotta smile
     
    Hontou ni shiawase
    Anta no egao
    Anata ga waraeba atashi mo egao
     
    Sou, anata no egao ga suki, honto
    Atashi, anata no egao mirete shiawase
    Sou, anata no egao de kyou mo saikou no ichi nichi
     
    Saa, minna-san, waratte
    Atashi wo shiawase ni shite
    Hitsuyou na no wa su・ma・i・ru
    Atashi no tomodachi no
     
    Saa, minna-san, waratte
    Atashi wo shiawase ni shite
    Hitsuyou na no wa su・ma・i・ru
    Atashi no tomodachi no
     
    Atashi ga hoshii no wa takusan no egao yo
    Atashi ni shiawase ni suru no wa
    Smile, smile, smile, smile, smile!
    Saa, waratte!
    Saa, waratte!
     
    Translation from Japanese
     
    I’m Pinkie Pie (Hello!)
    Today, I’m greeting everypony as usual (How are you?)
    I’m going to make everypony smile
     
    Anytime (What’s wrong?)
    I’ll call out to you (Hello!)
    That’s because I want to make everypony happy
     
    Yes, I love your smile, I really do
    So if you’re smiling, it makes me happy
    So the most important thing to me is your smile
     
    Your smiling face (Awesome!)
    Your grinning face (Great!)
    If you raise the corners of your mouth, look, you’ve made a smile (Hoof bump!)
     
    When you’re a little worried
    And you’re anxious
    I’ll do my best to make you smile
     
    Yes, I love your smile, I really do
    So show me your smile
    Yes, your smile makes me happy
     
    Everyone has lonely days
    But even when you’re sad, I’ll be by your side during those times
    There’s one thing that makes me incredibly happy
    That’s the smile that returns to someone’s face
     
    It’s really happy,
    Your smile
    If you smile, it makes me smile too
     
    Yes, I love your smile, I really do
    I’m happy when you show me your smile
    Yes, with your smile, today will be another wonderful day
     
    Come on, everypony, smile
    Make me happy
    What I need is a smile
    From my friends
     
    Come on, everypony, smile
    Make me happy
    What I need is a smile
    From my friends
     
    What I want is a lot of smiles
    The thing that makes me happiest
    Smile, smile, smile, smile, smile!
    Come on and smile!
    Come on and smile!
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