You Don't Understand

There's a duality in asking for comfort in a break up. There's the need for encouraging words and hugs and warm, soothing thoughts to try to ease the pain away. Then there's the words you don't want to hear, as people try to pick apart your relationship in an effort to help. They take what they know and sift through it, apply their past experiences and give you advice.

Sometimes, you don't want advice. You just want the empty words and the comforting presence, and that's all. You don't want to hear how someone's been through it before, how they dealt with it.

You don't want to hear someone say that the person you love is probably just using you.

You don't want to hear that maybe they're cheating on you or they just wanted you out of convenience or they were tired of you.

You don't want to hear "You deserve better" or "you're too young to find your forever."

You don't want to hear them take words you said a long time ago and twist them so they're not what you said.

It doesn't make you feel better. It doesn't take away the pain. It doesn't make it easier to talk to them every day as a friend and have to pretend that it's enough and it doesn't kill you inside.

Don't tell me how to manipulate him into missing me. Don't tell me you understand. I don't care if you've been here before or I'm just some stupid young kid who will get over it in time.

If you've been here before you know how it feels and you know how all that shit just makes you feel worse.

Let me be "emo" and let me have my heartache. Give me a hug, tell me it'll be okay. But don't tell me anything else.

My House is Freezing

The first thing to freeze is always my nose. Without wearing a ski mask, my nose can't be comfortably shielded without snuggling under blankets, which pretty much makes most other activities impossible. So I'm huddling here in my fuzzy boots and my boyfriend's loaned hoodie (I've had for almost a year...time for him to wear it again so it smells like him!!) and my nose is frozen.

I'm thinking maybe gloves, but I've tried to play on the computer with gloves before and honestly it's kind of clumsy, even with those nice driving gloves that are really snug. It's just not fitting right.

At least my toes are all warm and snug. That's another part that freezes quickly; my toes.

I guess all I'm getting at is: I'm cold. Like, really, really cold.

/hug?

It's Creepy When You Think About It

Has anybody ever thought about the slang that refers to women? Not the derrogatory ones. The kind of everyday ones.

Specifically "chick" and the lesser used "babe." Don't forget about "doll."

Those refer to women as if they're little. Like, chicks are infant birds. Babes are babies. Dolls are most often portraying infant humans, used by little girls.

When did referencing a hot woman become so pedophilic?

That's my random thought for the day. Just think about it.

And I Go And Do It Anyway

Seriously, what the hell. I'm all gung-ho to continue with this personal blogging thing, and then I just drop it like a bad habit, only faster than that because bad habits are actually really hard to drop. What the hell, man. WTH.

It's probably that nothing "interesting" is going on, really. What all can I say here? I wake up, go to class, have panic attacks, play some games, go to bed. That's it! And the stuff that would be "interesting" I'm not supposed to be talking about. So don't even ask, because I won't talk about it.

Oh, I suppose this is information: I won't be seeing Jordan this break. Just won't happen. Guess why? Can't say because it's part of the "do not talk about it ever" stuff. No, we didn't break up. Yes, we're both upset about it. No, it was not our idea.

After this, I'd appreciate if it isn't brought up because honestly, it hurts to talk about.

So how in the world can I make myself keep this blog active? I want it to be active, I really do. But my life is made up of nothingness. Most exciting things to happen to me are the inspiration to go on walks, which are immediately quashed by the either perpetual rain or perpetual it's-so-cold-outside-you-can't-walk-five-feet-without-frostbite. Hell, most of my interesting ideas revolve around DnD and WoW! I'm like...the uber fail geek.

I need more hobbies. /sigh

But hey, this was some sort of update, right? I guess? Kind of?

/failure

Yes, I'm Talking About DnD Again

You're just going to have to deal with it (or stop reading).

So, for the majority of my DnD "career" I've worked with one DM, Proven Paradox. I only play online because the crazy geek-nerds on campus have over-full groups or don't actually form them. But that's fine, because Dox is an awesome DM with great stories and interesting traps.

Right now he's trying to teach us a moral lesson about mass killing, which is all entangled in the fact that they attacked us when we just wanted to talk. Not to mention that we killed an orc kid's father. In fact, my character literally executed his father who was locked in place by a spell. But, in her defense, he was a crazy rabid bear at the time.

There's a lot of frustration involved in roleplaying. Often times I know something, or notice something, but it's not in my character's nature to mention it. Sometimes I know the proper course of action, but it's not my character's nature to take that course of action. Sometimes I know the solution, but there's no way my character would.

But that's part of the fun, keeping your character true to themselves while still trying to survive the room quickly flooding with distilled negative energy or the huge band of bloodthirsty orcs. You work with characters who don't fit your personality in the least.

When Soli is confronted with this kid she just "orphaned" (if he doesn't have a mother), she's not going to have but a few drops in her care cup. The bear-shaman was outnumbered, outclassed and offered options besides death. He continued to fight, so she killed him without mercy or remorse. If he had a kid, he should have probably considered that when offered the opportunity to live. Yeah, sucks to be the kid, and she might feel bad for him, but she won't feel bad about what she did.

But that's not the case for all my characters. Asani (favored soul), Avi (bard) and Hannah (cleric) wouldn't have killed him and attempted everything to keep him alive at the point he was hopelessly outnumbered. Tazmurr (gnoll swordsage) would have killed him, but felt bad about orphaning a child and confused as to why the orc had sacrificed himself if there were cubs to worry about. Jester (chaotic evil nymph warlock) would have enjoyed the situation and pondered how to make it worse. Bellbell (Crusader) (yes she exists in DnD too!) would feel no remorse for killing a father who put saving face in battle above caring for his own child and would be making arrangements for the adolescent's future in her head already.

But they're not the ones in the situation. Soli is. My 4'8" human swordsage girl, 19 years old, spent four years living by herself in the wilderness to escape a neglectful, verbally-abusive father and the expectations laid out for her. In that time, she toughened up and reconciled with the harsh realities of life. Those harsh realities include death, especially if your actions are idiotic and miscalculated.

She's not me, but I love her. She's merciless without being sadistic or cruel. She's socially awkward, often confused, loyal, conflicted and focused. She's as ire-less as a hunting animal; she does what she does to keep herself and those important to her safe, and for no other reason. There are things she feels guilty about, like making her brother worry or accidentally causing problems with her uncomfortableness of close quarters and around people, but this won't be one of them.

But this is all speculation; she doesn't even know she killed the kid's father yet. Who knows? Depending on the kid's reaction, this could all change in the blink of an eye. That's why I love DnD; you can make all sorts of predictions and plans, but in the end it'll all be different than you thought.

Exploring the Development of Sexism, Using DnD Orcs

(10:31:39 AM) Proven Paradox: Hm. Sexism would vary race to race.
(10:31:58 AM) Proven Paradox: Orcs are the obvious example here since the group is facing a violently patriarchal society right now.
(10:32:23 AM) Proven Paradox: Orcs value strength as the highest virtue. To the orcs, might makes right.
(10:32:38 AM) Proven Paradox: However, the difference between orc men and orc women is less pronounced than in humans.
(10:33:44 AM) Proven Paradox: So their sexism isn't based in a difference in aptitude. Orc societies would probably include more women warriors than others.
(10:34:41 AM) Proven Paradox: I think the issue here becomes one of childbirth.
(10:35:03 AM) Proven Paradox: Consider two orc tribes. Tribe A starts with 10 men and 10 women. Tribe B starts with 5 men and 15 women.
(10:35:43 AM) Proven Paradox: Discard ideas about monogamy, and Tribe B will grow approximately 50% faster due to starting with more women.
(10:35:53 AM) Dani: though uh
(10:36:05 AM) Dani: that introduces problems with genetics
(10:36:12 AM) Dani: genetic diversity^
(10:36:35 AM) Proven Paradox: Yeah, that's true, inbreeding becomes a problem eventually, but for the sake of my oversimplification let's ignore that shall we? <<
(10:36:47 AM) Dani: <3 kk
(10:37:51 AM) Proven Paradox: So, Tribe B grows faster. But you don't want women in higher risk jobs, like hunting and so forth. Losing a man doesn't reduce the growth potential of this tribe.
(10:38:22 AM) Proven Paradox: So the women are more valuable to the tribes' success by staying home, out of harm's way.
(10:38:23 AM) Dani: wait
(10:38:25 AM) Dani: that uh
(10:38:28 AM) Dani: that seems kind of wrong
(10:38:33 AM) Proven Paradox: Howso?
(10:39:00 AM) Dani: with less men they'd be considered more valuable, wouldn't they? You could afford to lose a woman in tribe B because there are 3x as many of them as men
(10:39:12 AM) Proven Paradox: Remember, we're ignoring inbreeding.
(10:39:21 AM) Dani: whereas in tribe A reducing the female population would actually slow them down considerable
(10:39:24 AM) Dani: considerably
(10:39:27 AM) Proven Paradox: As long as there's one man left, he can produce children with all 15 women.
(10:39:29 AM) Dani: because there would be less males than femals
(10:39:34 AM) Dani: females^
(10:39:46 AM) Dani: er
(10:39:50 AM) Dani: more males than females^
(10:40:02 AM) Proven Paradox: When/if Tribe B gets down to one male, then we suddenly see a gigantic flip in priorities.
(10:41:45 AM) Dani: With 3x times females than males, you can afford to lose females more. All things remaining the same, in both cases a female can only hold a single child at a time. But when you have the same amount of females as males, females become more important to save because having more males than females is useless. But you can lose females in the tribe with extra females so long as the total number of females is greater than or equal to the amount of males.
(10:42:26 AM) Proven Paradox: That presumes a male can only father a child with a single female.
(10:42:34 AM) Dani: No, it doesn't
(10:42:38 AM) Dani: It means that's the minimum
(10:42:49 AM) Dani: You want to meet the minimum
(10:43:00 AM) Dani: If you want to meet the minimum you need at least the same amount of females as males
(10:43:11 AM) Dani: Which means tribe A is at their minimum
(10:43:14 AM) Dani: They want to stay there
(10:43:22 AM) Proven Paradox: Wait, why do you want to be at minimum?
(10:43:34 AM) Dani: You don't want to be BELOW minimum
(10:43:44 AM) Dani: Because then you have useless males.
(10:43:47 AM) Proven Paradox: But being above the minimum is better, is it not?
(10:44:24 AM) Dani: Yes. But it also means there is more freedom for females because losing one of them isn't affecting the minimum, whereas for a tribe AT minimum (A) losing a female puts you below that line
(10:45:00 AM) Proven Paradox: Okay, I see what's happening here. Okay, let me expand a bit.
(10:46:09 AM) Proven Paradox: Okay, Tribe A puts more priority on protecting females, yes. But if the five males in Tribe B are sufficient to cover hunting duties by themselves, is there a reason they wouldn't also protect their females to preserve their greater growth potential?
(10:47:24 AM) Dani: Well that comes into complications of if five males can handle that growth potential. Because first you're just feeding 20 people, then you're feeding 35 people...then you're feeding 5 males, 15 pregnant women and their 15 toddlers...
(10:48:03 AM) Dani: Assuming orcs advance much the same as humans that puts a huge strain on five males to support a rapidly growing tribe
(10:49:20 AM) Proven Paradox: Hm. I was constructing this model (in my head, as I type <<) with a base assumption "there is plenty of food, that's not a problem, we're hand-waving that" without stating it. Take that away and yeah, you're right, this falls apart. Hm.
(10:50:32 AM) Dani: Not considering as well the need for clothing, building materials...
(10:51:50 AM) Proven Paradox: Mmm. I need to put that on the backburner then, my rationale has serious holes in it.
(10:53:11 AM) Dani: Well, it's a good thought exercise.

I Write, Therefore...

So, NaBloPoMo is over. I feel like I can relax a bit, not worry about whether or not I get a post up. Really, nothing was at stake other than my faith in myself to keep with it, and luckily I didn't break that faith.

But, now what?

Honestly, some of the things I posted were pretty lame. I didn't like posting the lameness, but I needed to post something. I don't want to do that anymore, really. I want to write when I have something interesting to say. Unfortunately...my life is not that interesting.

Get up. Go to class. Doodle. Eat food. Sit on the computer. Be Bored. Sleep.

I have a lot of interesting thoughts, but I can never remember them when I sit down to write. I wonder about a lot of things, have idle fancies. But it never seems to stick.

Pretty sad considering I used to want to be an English major, huh? I still want to be a novelist, but I can't get going. I can't get my ideas to mesh, to make coherent sense. I have ideas but they don't have a consolidation for them. I scribble out parts, pieces, but I can't ever tie them together or summon up enough oomph to do it properly.

Augh. My wasted youth. Lulz.

Maybe it's that school takes up so much time and energy. Sitting in classes, writing notes, writing papers, doing research projects and reading textbooks...I don't feel the strong urges to write as much anymore. Even my WoW blog is waning a bit.

Or perhaps I'm just settling further into the lonely depression that accompanies the fact that I've now not seen my love for almost 5 months.

I have to get out of this funk.