Clover Heart

Danny Avidan*HEM* I don't think I have a specific favorite... Not really... I like a lot of gaming channels, recently. I like Markiplier, Game Grumps, Natewantstobattle, The Game Theorists, Extra Credits, TheJWittz, TamashiiHiroka. I also like some review shows. I like TheMysteriousMrEnter, and LittleshyFiM. I also like 1KidsEntertainment, Ninja Sex Party and MrCreepyPasta. That guy has an excellent narration voice. That's just what I'm into, now.

Ugh, I don't have a clue what to do with my hair. More my tail than my mane. Well, okay, so, I started off with Pony Maker, and my OC looked like this: Then it's gradually changed as I've made more art. At first, I think it was pretty close. The main thing I changed was that wisp of hair, I made into a giant lock. And I've kinda stayed with that ever since this pic: The tail was difficult, so it began to change: And change And this is basically the most recent version: I think, maybe, the hair is okay at this point? I think I like the one big lock in the middle with the flippy parts coming down on both sides. The tail, though... The tail has been difficult for me to do from day one. And so, it's just morphed into this... thing. I've never been so sure on how exactly I wanted it to look. I know that I wanted it to be two-tone stripey, long and wavy, but that's about it. I think I'd always had those stipulations in my head about the tail without knowing what I actually wanted it to look like, and as such, it's always come out very inconsistent. Can you help me a bit with the tail?

-Shining Armor -Braeburn -Prof. Layton -Fennel (Pokemon) -Prof. Sycamore (also Pokemon) I know I have way more, particularly in the female department, but this is all I can think of for the moment.

Like this. In my mouth. Immediately.

I think the only time having an alicorn OC matters is if you're role playing. In an RPG, you have to consider that there are other players and rules to the game. Having an alicorn character in an RPG -is- sorta unfair, unless there are agreed upon terms for doing so. Like, for example, you're RPing as characters in the show and someone needs to be Celestia or Luna. Or your method of deciding race is on a number system of sorts (which is an idea I'm a huge fan of, but I don't RP, so...) Otherwise, you just sorta come off as a jerk who's trying to have it all. But if it's just your avatar or you're writing a story, I don't see why anyone should have a problem with there being alicorns. My avatar is an alicorn, as I'm sure you can see. I have sort of a backstory that I'd thought about putting into a comic, but I still have a lot more planning if I'm to do that and I'm not sure if I will. It's a story about identity and destiny. Many people complain about people using alicorns because they're OP. I've tried my best, in this story, to downplay her power and have it come to light only after a lot of hardship and trials. The story in its current state is by no means perfect (sounds way too much like Chrysalis) and I would still need to work on it if I were ever going to make it happen. But my aim was to have it be about the struggles that she goes through and the way that she grows and realizes things about destiny and what it is to be fulfilled and happy in life. Alicorns are accused of being Mary Sues. I've made efforts to try and make her as non-Sue as possible. Again, it's about her growth. And abandoning everyone, she's definitely not perfect. Wow, I really got off on a tangent. I guess my thoughts on it, summed up, are basically this. If it's an avatar, go nuts. If it's a story, use an alicorn if you want but make sure to avoid the common alicorn pitfalls. If it's an RPG, stick with the rules, but err against playing as an alicorn character. It might make the game difficult, unbalanced or unfair to some people. As far as canon goes, the only alicorns in existence are princesses. I especially recommend watching Magical Mystery Cure and studying it in order to get a better idea. Also, I don't remember which one, but one of the comics shows how Cadance became an alicorn. That might be worth checking out for consistency's sake. Not just anyone can become an alicorn. Canon is a difficult thing. My own story totally breaks all kinds of canon. It doesn't matter so much to me cuz I'm doing it for myself, not to please others. But if you wanna be consistent with canon, I think the best place to start is by absorbing as much of the story as you can.

Despite having a female body, I highly prefer men's clothing. The sizes make sense and the shapes aren't weird. I always have a much easier time finding stuff that fits in men's sizes than in women's. Who the hell wants to figure out what size pant they wear for an hour when you already know how many inches/cm your waist is? As for fitted clothing, I like it in theory, not so much on me. Several reasons. First, I'm a little overweight, which makes finding clothes that cover that difficult. Second, I'm embarrassed by my shape. I'd really, really rather hide it. Even if I were slimmer (and even when I was slimmer) I never wanted to show my shape. Is there a way to have fitted clothes and hide your shape? I think this may have gotten to be weirdly off-topic. ._.

Most alcohol. It burns. It's just unpleasant to drink. I also don't like being drunk. (My few exceptions are some Chu-Hi, umeshu and certain cocktails.) Coffee. I think I posted this on the sister thread, actually. It makes me jittery and then I crash really hard. Also, it's super-bitter, which isn't cool. Cherry cola. Cuz cherries are gross. Water. Yeah, I'm weird. I have a weird story to go with my weirdness. I'm American, I live in Japan. Japanese water, I have no problem with. Filtered, tap, bottled, whatever. I'm fine with any of it in Japan. Actually, I can drink quite a bit of water and feel fine about it. In America, though, I can only drink a few gulps before I feel super-bloated. It also tastes weird. Water in Japan doesn't taste like anything, like how water's supposed to taste. In America, though, it has a weird taste to it. Well, where I'm from, anyway. I can't exactly speak for all of America. So, yeah, Michigan water. Considering all the lakes, you'd think it'd be better.

Cherries are my absolute least favorite food. Even just the smell of them makes me gag. I've hated cherries for as long as I can remember. This always surprises everyone I tell this fact to, because cherries seem to be pretty well-liked by most people. I really don't like coffee, either. Occasionally, I like a little, but only with copious amounts of sugar and milk or cream in it. On the whole, though, I don't like coffee. It's really, really bitter and it makes me really jittery. People always wanna know how I survive without coffee. Between being jittery and getting insanely sleepy after the jitters (like, head-bobbing sleepy) I wanna know how anyone survives with coffee.

Almost any word having to do with bodily functions grosses me out. Going to the doctor can be difficult for me. ._.; The word "proud" makes me cringe. I also don't like inherently childish-sounding words, like "tummy."

I speak high-intermediate Japanese. In college, I took German, Chinese and Arabic. German, I actually took in high school and quit after a semester in college due to a freaking stupid testing system that placed me in a class too advanced for me. Chinese, I learned a ton in just a year. Unfortunately for me, I forgot most of it, but I'd like to return to it at some point. Arabic, I can't read, like, anything and the only word I remember is "shukran" (sp?) The professor was a really nice guy but a terrible teacher. I'd like to learn all kinds of languages. Italian, Gaelic, Latin, Russian, Korean, Portuguese... I'm a linguaphile. I think my only real talent in life is the ability to pick up languages. My brain is definitely geared for language.

I hurt someone who was interested in me, once. Honestly, I never thought I'd find myself in that position. I never thought anyone would actually actively seek me out in that way. Well, he had asked me out a few times, I declined, but we proceeded to be friends. Then, at a later point, I found myself liking him, and not really knowing how to deal with those feelings, because for so long, I hadn't felt that way. So at some point, this gets out to him, and it's just this fact that's just kinda hanging in the air, we're getting to know each other a lot better because of that, but I won't commit. Which was stupid. At the same time, I was already going out with someone else. It was a situation where we were free to date other people, so no harm, no foul on that front. (Actually, with that guy, we both have different partners now and are still friends.) I wanted to go out with that guy, but there were a few stupid reasons holding me back. Probably the stupidest, most shallow reason was what people in my life would think about him. And, again, it really is stupid and shallow. I'm aware of that. The only thing I really have to say in my defense is that this happened with someone else before then. I was going out with someone and some of my friends didn't like him, which made things really frustrating and miserable for me. The only justification I can think of is not wanting to go through that again or not having to choose between him and my friends. It doesn't mean that it's not still a bad reason, but that's where I think I was coming from. On the topic of friends, I didn't wanna lose him as a friend, and my thinking on this was that if we did go out and things didn't go well, we couldn't be friends anymore. Why we couldn't have amicably split if things didn't work out, I don't know. And I don't know why I didn't consider that. Of course, ending badly is a potential result but, well, apparently, it's the same case for just being friends. Another petty sort of reason had to do with the guy that I was going out with. I didn't wanna risk a sure thing on something that might not work out. With that guy, we agreed to go out until we A. either found someone else or B. one of us got a better job, which we were both actively looking for, and moved. I think I didn't wanna lose him as a friend, either. This, I think I can forgive myself a bit more with. If I'd gone out with the guy I was interested in, there's no reason we couldn't have ended things on good terms if it just wasn't working. I most likely would have, however, had to end my friendship with the guy I was seeing. I suppose I'm not 100% sure it would have to have been that way, but it's not entirely my choice at that point. He could have let me continue being friends with him or he could have not wanted me to talk to him ever again. So, there's that. If there's one thing about it, though, that I can say I don't deserve blame or don't feel bad about, it's this next thing. I was talking with the guy who I was interested in. I was, seriously, about to ask him at that point. Like, seriously, I just needed a day or less. I think I had it planned out that I was gonna tell him on a certain day or something, but I can't remember completely. Don't make too much of that. It's just the way I do things. I have to put it on a time schedule. I hate spontaneity. But I was talking with him, and what he said gave me pause. I don't remember the conversation entirely, but it was something to the effect of asking me why I was interested, now. I think he was trying to get me to think about the reasons I liked him. He'd always helped me with various problems, emotional, tactical and otherwise. He wanted me to think about whether I liked him for him or whether I liked him because he supported me or things like that. It might sound weird. Like, of course being supportive is a good trait to seek out in someone. I'm having a hard time explaining, but I'm not saying that I shouldn't have liked him for being a supportive person. Rather, he wanted me to look and see if there was anything else. A relationship can't just hinge on one thing like that. And from then, I was confused. I took the week to think about it and came up with the other three reasons I listed. At the end of it, I just said "no," to myself. I said I do things on a time table? I told myself I was gonna tell him on Monday. This was (of course) after the weekend. The weekend is when I used to see that other guy. So basically, I went to see the guy only to tell the other guy I wasn't interested after all. Which, had I not said anything, would probably not have mattered. But he pried and pried and got it out of me that I went to go see him. He sorta blew up about this. I really don't know whether to be offended by this or not. Even now, years later. On the one hand, yeah, I suppose it was crappy of me to do that. On the other hand, he doesn't control my life. I see his frustration with what I did. And I'm not saying that I'm innocent in this situation. I'm not saying that what I did was right. But the way he came off to me was a bit on the controlling side and at the time sorta made me question whether or not it would have been a good idea to go out with him. Then again, this is under a lot of various pressure on the situation, so I can't actually tell if anything like that actually would have happened in a relationship. There was just a lot of pressure and focus upon the situation, so setting a fuse like that, I can't say I really blame him. Needless to say, I haven't spoken to him in about 5 years. Five years later, I still regret it. I have a lot of feelings about this situation. I have a lot of "what ifs." What if I hadn't said anything or I had made some excuse to him that didn't involve that guy, then broke it off? What if I had told him right away? Better yet, what if I had told him about my doubts and hesitations? What if I had never mentioned anything about liking him? Probably the biggest what if, though, is "what if I had just gone out with him?" I refrained partially in the interest of not losing my friend and I lost my friend. I feel like a lot of my reasons were either stupid or selfish. I definitely screwed up. To this day, I feel bad about hurting him so badly. I actually think about it a lot. About all these what ifs and playing things back in my head. Even though I'm in a relationship now, sometimes, I can't help but wonder how my life would be different if I had just agreed to go out with him. I just feel really stupid about the whole thing. Incredibly stupid. I acted badly. I acted stupid. I acted like an asshole. I think every mistake I possibly could have made regarding this situation, I made it spectacularly. Again, it still affects me to this day. Some times in my life, I think of what happened more than others. Sometimes, I check out his social media a little. Cuz I did care about him. I never wanted to hurt him. I never intended to hurt him. But I didn't think about what I was doing. I really should have considered his feelings way, way more than I did. I feel incredibly selfish about things, even now. Some lessons get learned the hard way. The way I acted about this entire situation is the thing I regret most in my life. Even now being happy with someone else, I still regret this. He blocked me on most of his accounts and stuff. I respect his right to do that, and knowing that he probably never wants to hear from me again, I respect the situation by remaining silent. But if I ever had the opportunity to talk to him again without it being an invasion of his privacy and his right to shut me out, all I'd wanna tell him is that I'm still sorry for hurting him and I've always regretted my actions. That I know now what I did wrong and exactly how wrong it is. That I was only thinking of myself and I should have been thinking of him. But I know that I can't change anything, now, and even now, I still regret things. I'm sorry.

My family has an artificial tree. Because stagnant water, sap in the carpet and stepping on pine needles well into April was nobody's idea of fun. They typically put it up about two weeks before Christmas and take it down the day after New Year's.

So, there are two main types of teas: green teas and black teas. I have different ways of drinking both of them. My favorite black tea is Lady Grey. I have several go-to teas, though, which include Lady Grey, Earl Grey, Darjeeling and Prince of Wales. Lady Grey, I drink with breakfast. Earl Grey, I drink with a bigger meal. Darjeeling, I drink with dessert. Prince of Wales, I drink on its own. I also drink peppermint tea on its own, because it's very heavy. Occasionally, I also drink Chai, with no particular food or absence of food, but just when I have it around. My favorite method of drinking black tea is with milk and sugar. However, I'm trying to eat healthier, so nowadays, I hold off on the sugar. Many of these teas, though, can feel rather acidic to me, so I like to cut through that acidity with milk, at the least. When I'm sick, though, I hold the milk and put in honey and lemon. It's very soothing on the throat. I like these all hot. For green teas, my favorite is jasmine. It's so mild, yet distinct and refreshing. I really love jasmine tea. I also like sencha, matcha and oolong tea. I think it's blasphemous to put anything into these teas, so I drink them all straight. Seriously, the thought of something like sugar in a green tea makes me nauseous... Typically, I prefer these chilled, but if they're served hot, I'll still drink them. I also like white tea, which I think is different from green tea, if I'm not mistaken. I like the light, mild flavor of it, though I don't have the opportunity to drink it very often. I like white tea served hot. As for procurement, I buy everything from the grocery store. I never drank tea before I came to Japan. Japan will turn you into a tea-drinker, for sure. So, living here, good teas are very easy to come by. I buy Twinings for my black teas. In fact, I think Lady Grey and Prince of Wales are exclusive to Twinings. I still like both, though, as they're distinct and unique flavors. I don't have a specific brand of tea I get for my green tea. Except, I like Ito-En for Jasmine tea. Everything else, I buys what I sees. And it's usually all tasty. I'm not much of a connoisseur of tea, so I don't know how that all sounds, but *shrug* I like the taste of most of the teas I can find in any Japanese store. Usually in bottles or tea bags. I will say, I do prefer how fresh loose tea tastes, but it's such a hassle to brew and clean the pot, I'd really just rather not. Speaking of Japan, when I went back to America, I had quite a reverse-culture shock in relation to tea. Basically, a lot of the tea sucks. I asked for tea when I was at my aunt's house, and what she had on hand was... weird? It didn't really taste like anything but murky water, and it didn't have a name. That's actually what I found for a lot of American tea. It never tells you what kind of tea it is. It's all just "tea" or "green tea." Sometimes they get more specific, but this is often when they're trying to sell something that they're perceiving as snobbish, like chai tea. Now that I know the differences between teas and how they taste and such, it's incredibly weird to go to the store and see something labeled as "tea." What kind of tea? Tea-tea. Just tea. >.> It makes me think of shopping for cheese here in Japan. Let's buy a bag of cheese. Pick it up, it just says "cheese." What kind of cheese? "Natural cheese." ...Well, I should frigging hope so but that doesn't answer my question! That's what it's like shopping for tea in America. Or at least the Mid-West.

Does it count as cross-posting if it's from a completely unrelated forum? I posted this on another forum that focuses on creepypastas. Sadly, the forum isn't terribly active, so I haven't gotten a response despite posting it, like, a month ago. Well, here's my issue, if you can call it that. I'm aiming to start up a review show on creepypastas. I've created this character, Count Capellini, and this is sorta the format of the show: talking over still frames. Since it's primarily written word, I think that this style is fine. Here's the introduction: In this video, I echoed the voice and lowered the duplicate tracks in order to give a “demonic” effect. I think this was cool to do for the intro video, but I’m debating whether or not to do it for the reviews, too. My first video that I’m planning is probably gonna come in around 30 minutes. I’m wondering if the under-pinnings will be distracting to listen to for that amount of time. Should I just go with the straight-up voice without any duplicate tracks? Or does adding the demonic tones give it character and depth? And yes, it is supposed to sound slightly campy and flamboyant. One thing I was considering was to have this voice in the video do the review and maybe amplify the lower-pitched voice to narrate quotes. I thought that might break up the monologue a bit and give listeners an audio cue of when I've switched to a quote. (A minor peeve of mine with YT is when content creators let the visuals do the talking when it's primarily talking. I like to listen to stuff like this almost as podcasts, sometimes, but stuff like that takes you out of that illusion.) But let me know if that sounds dumb or something. I have sort of a semi-sample that I did, maybe I can post it for comparison. As for right now, though, my computer's borked and I'm on my partner's computer, so it may be difficult for me to upload that audio right now. But I'll try if anyone needs to get a better idea. I appreciate your opinions! Thanks!

I've always liked mermaids. I know they don't really have any special powers or anything but... I dunno. I just think they're cool. When I was little, I wanted to be a mermaid. Actually, I used to pretend to be a merdog... That's really weird...

Bacon. ...Okay, fine. I prefer cupcakes to muffins. I just like cake. Cupcakes are little cakes.

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.