Some day, I'm going to actually get around to talking about all those things I've promised to talk about.
Some day.

Not today.

Today, I'm talking about my stomach. I ate for my supper three pieces of leftover pizza, my PB&J, lunchmeat+cheese bagel sandwich x3 combo, and I'm at the weird zone where you're simultaneously full yet hungry. If you're anything like me, you know what I mean. That zone. Where the food is all there, and by all rights, you should be done, yet you still crave more, in spite of knowing that you shouldn't. Liquids are things you particularly can cram in, but you feel like just what you had is not enough, as if it was nothing.

This is in spite of me having eaten a snack of a big bowl of corn flakes, plus as part of that snack, a glass of orange juice and a glass of chocolate milk. And that snack wasn't too terribly long before the meal I just described as my dinner. Soyeah. I eat a ton. And in spite of that, I barely gain a pound. Something that'd make most people jealous, I'm sure, but keep in mind I'm underweight and that has health problems of its own (which I constantly have to monitor), and also that while the strength of youth is beginning to work its way out of my system, my body is still more 'teen' than 'adult'. And probably will be for a good 5-10 more years. After that, I'm sure I won't be able to pull this same stunt.

Today, I almost forgot that I need to write a daily blog post since there's been nothing particularly special about my day. I was woken up by my sister playing piano at 11, seconds before my dad would have. It's cold, so I'm wearing my warmup jacket and pants full-time, under a blanket. (And am currently wearing my running shoes' socks on top of my normal socks.) I did some knife-based maneuver practice with my sister outside until we ran out of daylight. Tonight would normally be family night, but tomorrow is more convenient for our schedules.

So really, not much. The knife combat (well, dagger) is about the most remarkable thing; the rest has just been me wasting time, essentially, doing things that hold no true value.

Lost my original version of this (I'm seriously getting ticked off at Weebly, because the original of this was much better), but upon further reflection, I realized that my more adult fears are actually tied together, and so is the one about pain, which isn't that silly when you realize fear of emotional pain is included in it.

Basically, fear of losing my family can be thought of as being a fear of being rejected.
It also induces a fear of being hurt by them.
And a fear of being alone.

Because they're all part of the same basic fear, that I think a lot of humans have. Humans basically seek companionship; we're essentially hard-wired to want it. And my true fear is of not having it. In short,

I fear doing a lot of things because I am afraid of rejection (because that would hurt, something I am afraid of), and my fear of rejection is because of my fear of being alone.


...Still working on how "fear of being hit by a fast-moving ball" fits into the picture, though!

So I don't quite remember what sparked the thought, but I reflected on something that I've done throughout my entire life: I've turned my fears into awesome things. When I was a young child, I was deathly-afraid of lightning strikes, so much so, that I was absolutely paranoid about every possible (possible to a kid, meaning a lot of things that'd be impossible in reality) method lightning could be transferred into the body during storms. That fear, I can trace back to a particularly-bad thunderstorm, where I absolutely swore I saw lightning actually hit our back yard, immediately outside my window. (Obviously, given by the lack of singe marks the next day--yes, we checked--I was wrong, but I FELT that way, and having it roar through your body at such an age is not exactly pleasant to a kid.) Horror stories of what happens to people hit certainly didn't help, either.

I don't know when I harnessed that fear, but if I had to guess, I think it was when I created a character who was zapped...but instead of being singed, was given electrical-based super-powers, sort-of in the style of Ghost Rider, just electricity instead of flames, and a much lamer backstory. (It was a power outlet delivering a lightning strike.) And since then, lightning and my fascination for it has only grown.

Now, it's one of my favorite elemental super-powers, right up there with fire. If I'm not one, I'm the other, sometimes preferably both, but if I had to choose, lightning actually beats out fire to me as being a power I harness. Now I (in my imagination, of course) mess around with it for fun. I make lightning bolts, shooting from my fingers like a pistol; I make lightning balls I throw; I make lightning blades in my hands; I bounce lightning between my hands like those spring-toys that you roll down stairs (forget what they're called, but they're flexible). I like to play around with it, and imagine it.

It's gone from something I was deathly-afraid of to being one of my fundamental elemental powers, one of the favorite things I've ever had to play around with in my mind, and that's one of the main reasons so many of my characters use lightning-based powers; it's just...really, really awesome to me.

And it's not alone. I used to be deathly-afraid of the dark, too. I conquered that fear by walking out into the dark, and then just resting there, calmly. It was peaceful. I was afraid monsters would eat me. (In hindsight, the fact that I didn't care meant that I was showing early signs of being suicidal at the time, in that I was fine if that actually happened--in other words, I was fine if an animal snatched me up and killed me, with me to never be seen again. But while that suicidal stuff did eventually get worse before I confronted it and made it get better, it was useful to conquer the fear.) But nothing happened. In fact, once I let myself go into the night, I found there was beauty in the night. There was nothing dangerous about it. It was something to be admired.

And sure enough, shortly after that, I had my first shadowmaster characters, characters using the darkness element, and throughout the years, these characters have grown to be some of my favorite characters in the casts of whatever stories they've been in. And in a more general sense, stories dealing with the night (e.g. vampires, werewolves) I have also come to love, because they're not scary monsters, dwelling in the night to me. To me, they're beautiful parts of the world, who may be dangerous in theory, but in daily day-to-day life are not, a fact reflected a great deal in said stories.

Same thing for fear of falling. I once got stuck in a tree because I climbed up it, but was afraid to fall down. It took several minutes of encouragement from my siblings before I managed to work up the courage to jump down, and when I did...I was fine. No broken or injured legs, no hitting my head, nothing. I softly landed. There was more to the fear, though. I was once petrified about falling into the water. Jumping off of the board into the deep end of a pool in particular was terrifying...until I just did it. And sure enough, I learned how to swim by sinking. (No, seriously, by building up my lung capacity, I would dive to the bottom of the pool and propel myself upward and forward and repeat. With the occasional treading of water, holding onto the wall, or moving forward with what is vaguely a frog-like swimming motion.) Sure enough, I had hydromancer characters after I began swimming a lot.

And on that note, I once jumped off a ledge into Crater Lake. I had been too scared to do this in previous years visiting, but one year, I decided to just do it, no longer fearing the rocks. And I decided not to be afraid of being bitten by animals in the Lake, either. And sure enough? Shortly after, I had geomancer characters.

Throughout my life, conquering fears has directly caused my imagination to expand positively. It even applies to things that aren't fears. I absolutely hate the heat, so whenever it gets too hot, I imagine channeling the excess heat to create a fireball. (As you might be able to imagine by it being one of my favorite elements, right up there in effectively a tie with lightning/energy, this happened a LOT, and I got very good at finding ways to create fire. Firebolt, fireball, pillar of fire, juggling fireballs, supercharging fireballs [I owe that one to Fable2--coincidentally, fireballs and energy are the two spells my characters alternate in choosing first], fire blades, and so on.)

Inversely, whenever I've gotten cold, I've envisioned powers based off of that. When I was younger, it was turning my limbs to ice in order to create a super-dense attack: jabbing with a frozen open-hand, or slugging an enemy with a frozen closed-hand. (Interestingly, the frost creating the power came from the opponent, not from me, when I was that age. In essence, they created the super-power FOR me.) As I got older, that changed into various spiked things, including the most common one nowadays: manifesting frozen ice wings on my back. (Yes, I still do this.)

My overreactive imagination has at times been my enemy, creating fears of nothing. But once I was able to make something of those fears, I let loose my natural skill, and have loved it since then. So then, that raises the question...am I fearless? Well, of course not. I have an instinctive fear of fast-moving balls. No, seriously, you can have a plastic giant beach ball, and if it is thrown with enough speed, I will flinch. Tennis ball? Flinch. Basket ball? Flinch. Softball? Flinch. It doesn't even need to have been thrown. You can make the throwing motion in my direction, and if I see you, then I'm probably going to cower in fear, even if your hand is empty. The fear traces back to my many years of playing soccer, as an Achilles' Heel in my play I never conquered, but it still exists to this day, since there's not a lot I could do to face it. (Every time I tried, I was rewarded...with a hard soccer ball to the FACE. Or sensitive nether regions, but while those hurt, the face-hits STING, and for me that's worse.)

I once said that I fear pain, and while that sounds ridiculous, it was true at the time. (It's not quite true. There are some forms of pain I actively sought. For instance, I feared being pricked on the finger for drawing blood, and in general needles being injected into my body. But then, I began ripping open my fingers [via loose pieces of skin/nail that I would tear off] and squeezing blood out of them, a habit similar to cutting in effect. [Whoah, that's dark. But, yes, I did do it.] Needless to say, it was shortly after that horrific gory habit began that I dreamt up the idea of BloodMasters. But I digress. Point is, there were certain hurtful things I enjoyed, but for the most part, I feared things that would feel painful.)

The actual pain wouldn't be bad. I've always been basically immune to pain. (No, but dulled to it; I'm nearly-positive of it, that my ability to feel pain is weaker than most people's, and that while I do feel it, it really doesn't influence me the way it does others.) But the anticipation of pain, now that was a killer. Any time I was expecting pain, I would be petrified.

To this day, that fear has not been fully conquered, even though it mostly has been. So what do I have? A quirky fear of fast-moving balls (heck, they don't even have to be fast; I just have to expect them to be fast), and ridiculous-why-is-this-considered-serious minor fear of pain. That's all nice and fine and all, but those aren't true fears.

What, then, am I actually afraid of?

There's a TVTropes term which perfectly describes it: Adult Fears. I am afraid of my family. I don't fear abuse by them, because I am of the age where I can just up and leave if need be, although that would suck if I needed to do it. (So while I would prefer that not coming to pass, I'm certainly not afraid of it.) What I fear is losing them, which may happen if they are made aware of my trans status. (More on that in a later blog post, but again, I have very good reasons for being in the closet.) They've been my loving, caring family for 21 years, putting up with all my ridiculous antics, supporting me for such a long time. And if they ended up rejecting the me that I really am, then I'd be left without them, and that's one of the main reasons I am so afraid. Nobody wants to lose someone they love, yet alone, five of them. I know it'd create a lot of pain, pain which while I am capable of taking (I am a tough girl), I'd prefer not to need to take.

But the other, far larger thing that I fear is myself. I don't think I am capable of explaining this one. Just know that my mind goes into some really, really dark, black places. I do a lot to pretend I am a saint. When I bring up facts that show I'm not, what they show is that I'm flawed, that I'm human, but still a reasonably-good person. But there are things about me that are so black, that sometimes I wish they were not there at all. And terrifyingly, sometimes, those thoughts have gotten eerily close to the surface. You might have an idea, you might not. But just think...there are various atrocious crimes humanity is capable of, and my mind has thought of a fair number of them. That's not even going into the suicidal thoughts I can have at times.

Now, mind you. I do a fairly good job of keeping those thoughts as just thoughts. I try not to repress them because that tends to make them stronger when they do return (plus, the thoughts have created some of the most powerful aspects of my writing believe it or not), nor do I let them take reign because that risks them taking over me; I let them exist and be filed off to the back of my brain as, "Okay, you've had your fun, now shut up and never bother me again, I'm a better person than to cave into you". Which works. I AM a decent person, overall. Flawed. Complicated. Not a saint, quite the sinner. But when weighed, more good than bad.

Still, though. The fear is there that I could always be wrong. What if I snapped? What if I did something that could not be taken back? This, along with the familial fear (although that one I'm trying to find workarounds for), is the type of fear that I don't think I can get rid of, in spite of it being a very real fear. But honestly, I don't think I want to get rid of it. Having a fear of the negative aspects about me can help me emphasize the good, pushing me to improve, to be a better person, and to progressively minimize said negative aspects so that they remain in the minority.

Yeah, uh...sorry. This blog took a bit of a darker turn. But I called the blog post "fears", so it should be a bit expected that said fears could actually be dark, rather than childish. I did warn you that when reading my blog, you could encounter literally anything. I hate to end on that note, so how about a lighter one?

I don't fear getting hit in the face; I fear the pain to come from getting hit in the face!

So as I was driving home (read: being driven home by my dad; I typically prefer others to drive me even when I can drive myself because it offers me the luxury of escape), I decided that I might as well talk about my characters from my webcomic, about their backstories name-wise in-universe and out-of-universe. I'd do this on ComicFury, but until I actually return, I can't, meaning that I need somewhere to put it and in a blog is as good a place as any. (Of course, by doing so, I'm basically removing any ambiguity remaining as to who I am, there. Not that it really matters, given that I haven't exactly been subtle about it.)

When it comes to Argus, I named him thinking that he would primarily use magic, and Argus is a name I associate with "powerful magic user". I don't know why I do, but I do. If I had to venture a guess, it'd be that a combination of archmage and magus (or even archmagus) can become Argus, but the fact is, there was a time when Argus was his name, with nothing else aside from that. I knew I needed to expand it, though I faced a problem in that Argus didn't seem like there was much synergy possible with any other names in any order that I could think of. Argus by itself didn't feel like enough, but what would Argus be a name with?

So instead of trying to figure out first, middle, and last, I instead took the easy way out and made Argus his nickname. With Argus as his nickname, though...what would cause him to use it? Well, my initial plan was to make a name that sounded vaguely similar, so I came up with a middle name of Argo. And I knew I wanted the last name to have the u and the s in it, and argo has some rather obvious follow-through in the form of Argonauts, so I decided his last name would be Maustrat. With his middle and last name effectively making Argonaut (with an added flair of 'str' and replacing the n with m), I decided his real first name might as well be Jason, and then there he was. Jason Argo Maustrat, AKA, Argus.

The in-universe reason is...far, far more complex than that. You have to understand it has changed a bit over the years, but the basics are practically the same. First off, you have to understand that Argus's lineage is...complicated. His family has a Secret Legacy: each generation of Strat (not Maustrat--it's complicated; just listen) thinks themselves to be the first generation of adventurers, and that their family has been nothing but farmers before-hand. In short, the kids are raised up to tales of adventure in the outside world, but all they know is the simple life their parents insist they have lived their entire lives, and the locals seem to back that up, with them having known each other for years and all.

...So when the kids set out to go on adventure, they think that they're basically violating the family's traditions. They think themselves to have broken the mold, to have separated from what their parents have done their entire lives. (This is, in fact, what I had in the original draft, without the twist.) But after they have gone on their adventures, and either ascend to godhood or settle down back into their lives before and have children of their own, they realize the truth: they, when settled down (or becoming gods), have no intention of returning to that life, so try to remove evidence of it and deny it having existed, but to satisfy their adventuring spirit, will still tell the stories of their exploits as if they're from other people, and that's the moment things click into place and they realize their family has been in the adventuring tradition for a long time, with a huge family history of adventuring, with literally nearly every single family member having once done adventuring. (This is, in fact, what I had on another, later draft. The backstory you see above is a merging of the two, which I grew to really like as it began to make sense.)

This might seem a bit unlikely; how can the Strat family have had so many adventurers and not a single one leaked out? Well, that's because the Strat family has a couple of unusual traditions. The first son of a Strat inherits the last name of Strat. The second son of a Strat will inherit the last name, but with something in front of it to make a new last name. (Which means that Argus is the second son of a Strat.) The third son will have a last name similar to the second son's typically (though this is not necessarily true), yet also different, and the pattern continues.

This means that when those sons start their own families, there aren't hundreds upon hundreds of people with just 'Strat' as their last name; you have variety so that you can better track who is who, and who belongs to what family. And, by the way, it does run the other way as well: an offshoot of the Strat family like Argus would be if he started a family can, if they have at least one son continuing the offshoot name, name a son simply 'Strat', if they intend that to be their last child.

So it's not like there's only one person with the last name of 'Strat'. It's just that there aren't hundreds upon hundreds of people with the last name of Strat. Thus, it can become slightly easier for the names to be hidden; Maustrat is harder to spot as a Strat than just Strat would be. However, even that seems unlikely, until you see the second Strat tradition: their pattern of nicknaming, off of their initials. First name, 1-2 letters; middle name, 1-2 letters, if applicable, 0-2 letters of their prefix name, and then the S for Strat. So, Argus's birth name of Jason Argo Maustrat could be: Jarmas, Jarms, his embarrassing nickname of Jams (which is a nickname that he actually had), or simply (albeit a bit unusually) Jas. The last one is what he used as an adventurer (rather than as a kid or by those who he was vitriolic with), because in addition to filling the pattern, it if you added an e is "Jase", the shortened form of Jason. So, his original nickname was Jas, and recordings of him as an adventurer before the story are going to be either Jason or Jas, never his full name.

Now apply this to other Strats, with similar results. If a name for an adventurer who only goes by one name (rather than a full name) ends in S, there is a fairly good chance that they are a Strat of some form or another. Yet because they're often known by just that name, in legends about them, nobody would think anything about them. For instance, instead of asking the question of "So what's Jas's middle and last name?", people would probably instead ask, "So what would you best describe Jas as?", with responses of typical naming things: The Great, The Magnificent, The Kind, Orcslayer, Of *famous battle they were key in the victory of, e.g. Of Ardan*, etc. Said, Jas The Great, Jas Orcslayer, Jas of Ardan, and so on.

That's just the kind of world they live on. People aren't interested in where the adventurers come from when listening to the stories. People are interested in what the adventurers are famous for doing. And that is how the Strat line's familial secret legacy has remained hidden. Strats in some form or another have been in virtually every known famous adventuring group throughout history, because there are a lot of Strats (they have big families) and adventuring (and after retiring, keeping their adventuring a secret) is quite literally in their blood.

So why is Argus going by Argus, now? Well, remember how he's the second son of a Strat? The first son was Arthur Guy Strat. Argus. Arthur died of old age about the time that Argus began adventuring the second time around. (Adventurers have a limited form of immortality: their lifespan is extended by their level, so someone who's L5 has a life expectancy of 85 [it's not an exact science], and someone who's L20 has a life expectancy of 100, and someone who is L500 has a life expectancy of 580. Argus adventured for practically 80 years and got to be level 900 at the end, the point where adventurers become gods and lose their mortality altogether. But when he lost his godhood, it reset his age to be at the prime of the human body's natural age, around the 30s, give or take 5 years. His brother, however, never became an adventurer, and by then was a very old man, having lived an entirely natural life.)

So in honor of his brother, Argus took on his name, with the blessing of Arthur's son, J.C. Strat. (J.C., though, still calls Argus Jason.)


Aria's name was much simpler. Aria L. creates "aerial" in sound, and Fulor is basically an accented "Floor". So her name's a pun; She's above the floor. It gets worse when you realize that her middle name is Levi. There's nothing fancy about that name, but in-universe, there's a background to her last name. She never knew this, because her parents both died at a young age, leaving her orphaned before she learned it. She took on the class of her mother and alignment of her father, but didn't realize that her father choosing to be an adventurer (warrior, more specifically) was done for some rather specific reasons: he was the younger brother of a King. Said King didn't have a family, so her father was next in line, but the younger brother still felt inadequate and chose the humble life of adventuring. Aria, of course, finds this out when encountering the new king (though by 'new', I mean 'replacement', not 'recently-inaugurated'; he's actually middle-aged because Aria has been dead for some time), King Brandon DuLor...Aria's long-lost baby brother. Because unknown to Aria, technically, her last name isn't Fulor, but actually FuLor, with Fu being given to princesses and queens and Du being given to princes and kings. (I have more specific notes on the circumstances in a notebook of mine, but I'm too lazy to pull that up, since this conveys the basics. Trust the notes I have there over the notes I'm posting here, since I gave it rather extensive thought as to how it'd work and what I have here is me reciting it from memory, but I believe that what I'm saying here is just a simplification of the notes.)


Davos's name was chosen because I wanted something that sounded vampiric. There was just something slightly menacing, dark, gloomy, and overall "of the night" about the name Davos to me, and it had some of the letters for 'Dracula' in it, making it appropriate. That continues into the T. and the Veidmir; I think it should be obvious that I was incorporating Tepez and Vladimir into those two. (I forgot what the T. originally stood for. It might currently stand for 'Tristan', his middle name being the first name of his father, but I'm not sure. It's something that I never settled down on 100%.) Unlike most characters, there's nothing particularly special about his name in-universe.


Sasha's first name was chosen just because I thought it was a nice name for a character, and it seemed appropriate for her, somehow, but her middle and last names, there's stories behind. Her middle/last name become G. Oblong, which if you replace the second o with an i, I think you can see the meaning of. Another punny name, made on a whim. It was Oblong because I decided that her entire name would be "things that spellcheck doesn't hate", so not even really caring what Oblong meant, I decided to stick with it for the pun. Her middle name became Gold following that same logic, and in that case, it refers to the color of her light magic, and...that was really the extent of thought I put into it.

However, her name has in-universe meaning. Goblin family names tend to do with their roles in society. In particular, it has to do with the difference between hunters/warriors/etc., elders/shamen/etc., and gatherers/farmers/scouts/etc. Hunters/warriors/etc. tend to be 'sharp', angular, direct, and pointy. They are blunt, they are sometimes aggressive, they are passionate. Elders/shamen/etc. tend to be the mediators between sides, mediating debates and keeping them short and simple, yet respectful. They are sometimes a bit forceful, though, and often can be indecisive and not nearly as helpful as they could be. On the brighter side, they serve very well to fill the gaps in goblin society, willing and able to perform most miscellaneous labors.

And then, there are the gatherers/farmers/etc. They are generally eloquent, polite, respectful, passive, and logical. They are also rather stubborn, and hold unusual beliefs compared to the more angular warriors/hunters/etc. While not fast to make decisions, once made they tend to execute their decisions rather precisely, having spent a long time smoothing out the surface details of their planned action.

And names tend to reflect where a person is most comfortable being. Hunters/warriors have acute, sharp, brief, aggressive names typically. They may dress them up to show accomplishment (e.g. Aks-->Axgrinder), and these names often change over generations as a result, but the trend is there. Elders/shamen have more neutral names, though they tend to shift towards the side the village most favors. (More on that in a bit. And if the village sides most with the elders/shamen, then imagine their names being very, very, VERY loosely Nordic sounding, like, say, Jorgun, Alric, Golrun, Mehtis, etc. Think the TVTropes term, "As Long As It Sounds Foreign"; that's how loosely I mean.)

The farmers/gatherers/etc. therefore have names that are generally longer, more eloquent, soft, smooth, and typically unchanging throughout the generations. They hold a heavy emphasis on that familial tradition, in fact. So when Sasha's surname is Oblong, you can envision what type of mold her family fit into. (At least, you should; I specifically looked at the dictionary when making the terms so you could see contrast between sharp/angular, compact/short, and oblong.)

Each goblin village has a focus on one of the sides, typically either hunter/warrior (these ones are generally more nomadic) or on gatherer/farmer (these ones are generally more grounded). Sasha's village had a focus on the latter, which means that as far as her village goes, being an Oblong means that she is nobility. (She's entirely unaware of this, of course, thanks to the fate of her village.) In a different village with, say, a hunter/warrior focus, being an Oblong would get her teased, and even in her own village, it did to some extent happen, but she was raised well, and had good friends, so she saw very little of that and mostly had fair treatment. She wasn't from a particularly noteworthy family, even though traditionally, her family held importance. 

This is one of the reasons why she's the inheritor of her tribe's legacy. Even before they were wiped out, she was in the line of succession for possible candidates, and very easily could have been a leader. So in a sense, though distantly in line, it could be said that Sasha was the goblin equivalent of a princess in her own village, even though she was totally unaware of it.


Sanik A. Ronado-->Sonic Archer (his original class) Tornado; that's basically it.
Tyra is not, as you'd expect, directly from Terra; it's from Nira, the name from her character's inspiration...and then made with a T to bring it closer to Terra.
Sarge = basically, Sergeant; Spark = obvious. Last name, I just made up as far as I know.
M = based on water (there's a water word--I think from Latin--that begins with M), but gender-neutral.
Kinas Z. Ronado-->Sanik backwards, Z at the opposite end of the alphabet from A (And it being Zachary because it's a cool name), Ronado because he's Sanik's brother.
Sinaer Da(ugh)tira-->Sinner, (because of her original class and element) Daughter of Tira.
Nathan Betrax-->Ninja Berserker.
Enlecar Hovan Craftsman-->Energy Lightning Arc, who is a Craftsman of Hovercrafts.

None of them have particularly special stories except for Sinaer and Tyra (okay, so does Nathan, but not directly so), but those go into spoilers.

Soyeah. Very long post. Gives you a good insight into my mind, and also tells you more about my world.

Did I say entry II? Make that entry 3! Entry II was typed ten minutes ago, posted, and yet, DIDN'T ACTUALLY POST. Oh, it made a post, alright. It's just that literally every word of the post was deleted, meaning that the whole blog entry was effectively wiped out, and what you see here is me frustratingly retyping up the old entry from memory.

But with that said...I'm tired. Like, really, really tired; it's been a bit of a long, arduous day. (And, honestly, I think my mental health may be influencing how sleepy I am.) I'm also hungry; the time I was planning on spending eating I ended up spending rewatching the last minutes of FaceOff. (The show. Not the movie.) Which means no eating for me until after I finish my homework assignment...that is due tonight. (Oh, you can add frustration from a lost post to the list of things making today an "uhg" day. Honestly, I'm a bit worried my medication may not be working, given how little sleep I felt I got last night and my overall mood.)

...Hey, I did tell you earlier that I had important stuff I needed to get done; that assignment was one of them. I realize it's not exactly the healthiest of habits, no matter how typical it is for a college student, but that's the price I pay for slacking off.

On that note, got to get to work! (Actually, no, not quite yet. I'm going to play Heroes of the Realm first, then do the homework. I know, I know. I have a messed up set of priorities.)

And not a clue which to do. Heck, I almost considered not writing this blog post because it felt like a chore, but I decided I might as well because I've got nothing more important to do. (Uhhh...that's a very, very bad lie; I most certainly do. But it FEELS like I don't, as I'm about to describe.)

Ever have one of those days? I'm not sure if it's typical for people, but I think it is. You know the type of day. Where you have a dozen tasks you could do, and yet, you don't feel like doing any of them? Yeah, that one? I've been slammed by it hard. There's so many productive things I could be doing. Heck, there's a bunch of things I could waste my time on. Games. Reading TVTropes. (Speaking of which, some time I want to talk about my addiction there, and how I want to make an account for a couple of Fridge Brilliance moments for things.) Whether you consider it productive or a waste, my novel.

Know what I feel like doing?

None of them. And yet, all of them. It's as if I simultaneously have a drive to do everything and an entire lack of drive inspiring me to do absolutely nothing at all. And it's been happening since at least yesterday. Because I haven't been sleeping well in spite of my medication and taking it for the last couple of days, I do suspect that it's possible my mental health is involved, with it being so poor and all (and I hope that I get sleep soon, since this will be a big problem if it continues), but it's still annoying.

I'm relatively smart. I should be using my time intelligently. Or even leisurely. Yet here I am...without this blog post, I'd be doing absolutely nothing at all. Not even sleeping. Just laying down, staring at the ceiling, thinking, idling, lost in thought.

...Now, don't get me wrong. Every once and a while, that's a healthy thing to do. It can be quite relaxing, even. It soothes the soul. It gives focus, replenishing me, and can often serve as massive inspiration for me. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, it's like I said: it's been happening since at least yesterday, maybe even Monday. Which...means that it's not going away. :s

It's basically as if I have too many choices available, and as a result, am freezing up on which to actually do. Obviously, we love the idea of freedom. I think everyone deserves the opportunity to have a choice in their lives, even if that choice is just on whether to have a choice. So obviously, I do appreciate we have the chance to be free, not being oppressed constantly, always having ways out. (Weeeeeeell...debatable. Some would argue otherwise, and even those who argue for it have to acknowledge it's not universal. But let's be a little optimistic and idealistic and assume that most of us have it.)

We have that right to choose our life. But while it's good to have the choice...and I know that at some point in my life I will desire it...remember my blog post about obligations? Bringing that in, another reason I don't make that many decisions, that I appear indecisive, is by choice to not make choices. Making decisions sucks. I don't particularly like doing it. Sometimes, it feels nice to just go with the flow, and do what others suggest me to do. 

So while I definitely like to reserve my right to make a decision, to choose my life, to have freedom to do anything (within reason)...well, the simple fact of the matter is, I like having those in theory and currently not in practice. They don't mean much to me right now, even though I know I'd fight to the death to protect my right to them.

Funny how the human mind works. Fighting to protect something we don't need, just because we feel like we should have access to it if we decide we want to use it.

(Quick note on my previous blog entry, I remembered what I was going to write. Look forward to a philosophical post. But not now. Now, it's something far more intimate than that.) I just realized that throughout my life, I've been unsatisfied with my birth name. It came up in-class, when we were asked about whether we had ever tinkered with our names and tried to change it.

And I realized...I had. Constantly. Throughout my childhood, particularly. I always felt like it didn't fit. As if the name I had didn't fit me. I didn't know back then why. I always guessed at reasons, but I never knew why.

I think now I do. It's because those names, the ones I was trying for, were focusing on the wrong me, and the right me was there, waiting to be brought out. And though by my middle-teens, this had been suppressed (so much so, that when I finally realized I was trans, I considered keeping my birth name in spite of its entire lack of ambiguity), the desire had been there for good reason.

I was always seeking out an alternative identity to what I was, because what I was is the wrong me. I focused on the wrong things, because I didn't have any idea what the right thing was; it was a concept entirely foreign to my young mind.

Now, I'm different, of course. I was initially a bit unsure, still clinging to my original self slightly in my name. (I could say it, but I prefer not to. Both because it's still in use in real life thanks to my closeted nature, and because I want to leave it as much in the past as possible, including using my new name as much as I can.) But with time, I progressively just began to open myself up, and I knew.

I just knew.

That what I had chosen as a basic name. What I chose just to make a choice, as a preliminary "might as well" name.

Was me.
Fully and entirely.

It's a strange feeling. I had heard of trans people having it, but I was doubting it. I was afraid. I held fear, even. It came naturally to them. Why not to me? But what I needed was some time. And on reflection today, only today, did it finally come together 100% in my choice to have taken my new name.

It's really difficult to describe unless you've gone through it. But those who have understand.

It took me 20 years to find, and nearly a full year to accept.

I am Bree.

So my browser crashed, which was a darn inconvenience as you can imagine. I was going to talk about something, but this chore took me half an hour to fix given that I'm on college wifi which for some reason is painfully slow today, far beyond normal. (It doesn't help that I have three windows worth of tabs. I kill most of them because I'm not using them, but when chrome crashes, they ALL try to reload when restoring.)

So have me posting a mini-rant here, instead!

Hey, it's more interesting than it sounds! (By virtue of being weird, so not much, but hey, it's something.) I had PB&J, Lunchmeat+Cheese Bagel Sandwiches...three of them. And just so we're clear...that's peanut butter and (strawberry) jelly (actually, I think it was technically jam, but jam, jelly, and preservative--while all having a slightly different meaning--are effectively synonyms to me; I don't notice the difference even though there is one technically), spread on Thomas' bagels (because they have the best flavor and are big, filling, and in general, awesome bagels), with two slices of lunchmeat (might be turkey; I don't pay attention to the specifics) and two slices of cheese placed on to of that, to make an awesome meal.

Each element on their own is good. (Thomas' bagels are some of the only bagels I can eat plain, because they always taste good to me. PB&J is a classic. Lunchmeat and cheese is also a bit of a classic, and tastes good in a different way.) But they also combine really, really well, if you get the balance right. None of the elements are overpowering, overwhelming the taste buds. Each of them is there in balance, and you can taste them all. The PB&J has slight dominance over the lunchmeat and cheese, but that's okay because lunchmeat and cheese can taste a bit strong at times. But the bagel isn't lost in the mixture.

So it's delicious, and incredibly filling. (Fair warning, you need to be like me and have a bottomless pit of a stomach to eat as many as I did. One or two Thomas' bagels are either a meal or a significant section of a meal for most people; three of them, with toppings, is a lot more than that.) I also had after it a cup of orange juice, and before that (shortly after I got home from kickboxing), I had a glass of chocolate milk.

...It might not be the healthiest meal in existence, but it's better than the alternative: no meal at all, for someone that's got weight issues as it is. "Huh. Weight issues, and you eat a meal like that?" 


Yes, weight issues. I didn't say overweight, though. I'm a 6'2" stick, weighing in at a meager 140 pounds. I can afford to eat more than most people, because I need to gain weight, not lose it. Skipping a meal is very bad for me, since it does in fact cause me to lose weight if I continue that sort of negligence for too long. So the lunch I had was really, really good, both for my body and my taste buds. It does take some prep time, and it is a little bit messy annoyingly enough, but it's worth it to me.