Where Life Is Headed

Life's been a little insane lately, to say the least. I've got a lot going on in quite a few different areas, and there's a lot I want to balance out and get done.

Life

Personal life has some major shifts, which there will be posts about later. They've taken effect already, but it's just that they're such a huge change, they'll need a post all their own.

Gardening

I have plants growing! Sage, oregano, spearmint, and habanero peppers, to be exact. They're doing so well. It's happy-making. :)

Writing

I'm considering tackling the sequel to Among the People Lost and getting it done already. Not sure if that's what I'll do, but that's an idea. I've still got the prequel to finish writing and a few other major chunks of literature concerning the characters, and that's a lot of work. In other projects, I have The Devil's Blade and my futuristic cyborg dragon story to write.

The Dragon's Claw

I really need to sit down and come up with a game plan for this thing. I really want to get back into it, but it's really hard to do all the work myself when half the point is getting people to submit articles and such. I have enough time to put it together each month, but writing five articles an such makes it tough work.

College

I'm putting it off at least another year because (and you're going to think I've lost my mind) I love working at Walmart too much to quit.

Work

I'm really loving my job in the back room at Walmart. The people are great, and it's like getting paid to go to the gym. I've put on a lot of muscle, likely gained some weight, and generally gotten a little healthier.

Art

I'm going to be doing a lot of photography soon just because of how nice the weather should be getting and everything. I'll keep fractaling, and I haven't had much time to do drawings, but I have a bunch I need to finish and I'd like to do more speedpainting practice. Craft fairs are sprouting up this time of year, and I would do more if I had stock, but as it is, I mainly need to sit down and have a jewelry-palooza.

Summer
My friends are rebooting their gaming series Snack and Fitzgerald, so I imagine I'll be spending a good chunk of my summer days off filming videos. It should be a good excuse to get lots done and play lots of board games. 

6 Language Things I Want to Learn

I did really well with languages in school. I pick up on grammar rules really well, and I'm good at spelling. There's lots I'd like to know if I had the time to take classes. I'd teach myself, but I have a hard time learning from a text book. I'm better off when I can hear people talking and such. 

1. Latin

More like, finish learning. I have to pick it back up and remember what I've forgotten, then get in all the stuff I missed out on in school. Latin was and still is hugely important to me.

2. German

I just want to know it.

3. Greek

I barely even know the symbols' names.

4. Norwegian, Swedish, or Finnish

Because I want to go to Scandanavia.

5. Spanish

I can't understand what my coworkers say when they talk to each other in their native tongue, and it seems like something I should mostly be able to understand. 

6. The Daedric Alphabet

Just to be that kind of person that memorizes video game alphabets.

Skyrim Love and Hate

I like lists, so let's take a moment to list some very good and very bad features of Skyrim.

Things I Love About Skyrim

1. The world.

I think Bethesda did a really great job building the landscape and scenery of Skyrim. It's not as sparse as previous games, and it's very uneven and mountainous.

2. The people.

The people look pretty great. I'm not super fond of the altmer, but otherwise, I think they did a great job - especially with the khajiit.

3. The Morrowind references.

My God, I'm so thrilled about all the Morrowind references. All the subtle references to things like Gnisis and House Telvanni, the mention of Red Mountain, and the things like draugr and werewolves that carried over from Bloodmoon.

4. Dual wielding.

The best. I kind-of-sort-of do it in Morrowind with a mod, but my off-hand sword just works like a shield, so not really. I love that I can use two weapons.

5. Chickens.

The farm animals in general. I was happy with the sheep in Oblivion, and I'm very happy that there are adorable little chickens and cows sitting around in towns.

6. Dragons.

I love how the dragons look. My only complaint is that I can't ride one, and I'm sure there is/will be a mod for that.

7. Smithing.

Why didn't they do this sooner? This is wonderful!

8. The soundtrack.

Best music so far compared to the other games. I'm also really happy about some of the Morrowind music being recycled. 

Things I Hate About Skyrim

1. It's glitchy as hell.

My graphics break all the time. There are tons of little bugs and things that break that they really should have caught before release.

2. The skill revamp.

No attributes? No birthsign? No more acrobatics and athletics? This is not okay. I miss the old skills.

3. Lydia.

She's always in my room eating my sweetrolls! Get out! >:O

4. Nighteye.

I liked it in previous games. I don't like it in this at all. It makes vision worse, not better.

5. The menu.

What is this mess? It's easier to use the keyboard arrows, and even then, it's a big pain to sort through lists instead of seeing a nice table or having a scroll bar. 

6. Buttons.

I don't understand why R is used for somethings, E for others, and F as a reject action button. I miss the days of Morrowind where space did everything. I also don't like that I can equip things while trying to put them in a chest. I'm in chest store mode, not inventory mode. That shouldn't be an option in my opinion. It seems like they couldn't decide which controls to use half the time. 

7. The alchemy downgrade.

I want my fourth item, damn it. 

8. One ring.

Two was most certainly not too many. I would like to wear one on each hand, please. 

Things I'm Mixed On

1. The cities.

Solitude is the best thing ever, but why the hell is Morthal even a city? It's, like, the same size as Riverwood. Some of the cities just really should have been bigger, being as important as they are.

2. Marriage.

Sure, there are benefits, but it's sort of obnoxious having a guy in my house telling me to make myself at home and to let him know if he can be of any assistance. Also, someone really needs to get on making khajiit and bosmer marriable. I'm forcing bestiality on my poor dunmer husband.

3. Cooking 

I love that we can cook, but I'd love even more if the food items were also alchemy items. If I want to mix sweetrolls and daedra hearts, that's my business.

4. Kill cams.

Meh...? They're cool, but I generally don't like things that break the flow of the game like that. I'm iffy on them.

5. Equippable magic.

Seems like a step backwards to Morrowind from Oblivion. Morrowind required your hands to be in casting mode, and in Oblivion, they eliminated that by simply having a cast button, so you could use magic while using your sword and shield. I hate that I have to have magic on one of my hands instead of just casting it. Sure, you can cast with some things, but why not all? It seems kind of weird.

6. Nirnroot.

I like that it respawns, but it's really not supposed to, so I wonder if that was even intentional? If it is, doesn't that defeat the purpose of it being super rare and all that? 

Writing Tip #12

I starting writing this a while back, had it almost done, and then never finished it. So here. I finished it and posted it finally.

Tip #12: Think of your story as a video game.

I explored a very specific incarnation of this tip when I went over turning characters into Morrowind characters. This is going to be much more general and focus on different gaming aspects.

The first thing to think about is how your characters interact. In The Devil's Blade, Valdius acts and fights alone. Anastera, my lead female, has no combat ability, and Zirk is really only ever a bystander. If it were a game, it would be very God of War-like, with one powerful character essentially fighting his way through tons of stuff to save/protect someone.

Among the People Lost could potentially follow a party format. Dante is, first and foremost, a sharp shooter. Put him in a fantasy setting, and you're probably looking at a skilled elven bowman. Solstice balances him out by being a very skilled martial artist. She uses hand-to-hand techniques and a dagger, meaning she can get up close while Dante hangs back. Hunter, a sniper, is sort of the equivalent to a mage in ways, being the stereotypical "glass cannon." He would be the farthest back of the group, protected by the others but dealing instant kills when he fires. Add in all the other characters that come and go, and you've got a pretty balanced party.

The point of all that is having characters who balance each other out. Action movies often have, like, five guys running around with guns, and that's not really that practical. In games like D&D, you need to have a group with a wide range of skills so there's always someone for the job when a tough task comes up.

In the first example, it's important to know your character's limitations. Maybe he gets better and gains more skills as the story goes, allowing him to go back to places he couldn't quite get to before and overcome enemies he never would have hoped to conquer. Characters that start out super powerful aren't particularly interesting. There needs to be some measure of growth and development.

Video games get more difficult as you go. A lot of books are the same way. Harry Potter's challenges in the first book are nothing compared to the seventh. As characters grow stronger, they're able to push deeper into enemy territory, take on stronger enemies, and, if they're good enough or lucky enough, win against their greatest opponent and save the day.

That's not to say, though, that there aren't really easy enemies along the way. Even weak enemies that are easy to beat can give a little experience here and there. They're more to keep the character from falling behind than to really make him move forward. Real learning experiences come from the difficult fights, the losses, and the power upgrades.

Thinking of your story in game terms can help determine if an ability or skill is really over-powered compared to other characters. If your character is really skilled, is he the only one? Or are all of his enemies roughly the same skill level? If your story follows more of a party format, where is the group really weak? Who gets tired after walking up a short hill and who can run five miles without an issue? All stuff to consider when writing stories and making games.

Writing Tip #6

I'm super behind on my novel! Yay! I also have Skyrim and do not yet have a good pc to play it on. Work needs to hurry up and give me more money. Work may also be fixing some of my health issues. It's weird. Anyway, on to this tip thing.

Tip #6: Give yourself a vocab list.

My 8th grade reading class did weekly vocab things. Each week we had 10 words, and they were words that were actually pretty advanced and new, like bulwark, incongruous, and myriad. Occasionally we had to write stories incorporating at least 20 vocab words, and I really think the story I came up with was fantastic.

So here's my challenge to you. Go through www.dictionary.com or something and browse around. Maybe look at little used words or something. Get yourself a good list, and make it a challenge to work them into your writing. If you have miasma, sinew, and Gorgonzola, you might think up a detail like seeing sinew and exposed tendons at a butcher shop while the nearby cheeses have a miasma of cheese scents. It can really help spark ideas while trying to get all those words in there, and it also makes your writing a little more interesting.

Writing Tip #2

NaNoWriMo starts today! I'm seriously reconsidering what I'm writing. I fear I may have severely underestimated the amount of research I need to do in order to write a story that flows well enough to let me write 50,000 words in a month. Anyway, here's my next writing tip. Character development is one of my strongest points, so I'll be sharing lots of tips for that. I feel that good characters can make for an enjoyable book even if everything else isn't that great.

I'm using my character Dante as a reference, just because he's my most fleshed-out character. Dante's story is set in 2026 and he does lots of fighting in a realistic, essentially post-apocalyptic setting. He'll work for this example despite the fact that he is not at all a fantasy character.

Tip #2: Give your character Morrowind stats.

Yes, I'm aware of how silly that sounds. Morrowind is my favorite game. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it's this big open-world RPG where your character is very customizable and such. Got it? Good.

Specialization

There are three options here: combat, magic, and stealth. They're pretty self explanatory. Dante falls under stealth, as he spends much of his time in the shadows of dark alleyways both to hide from enemies and to sneak up on them. 

Favorite Attributes

There are 8 Primary Attributes that govern your character's skills. These are obviously designed for a fantasy setting, but they can be adapted to work for a modern character such as Dante. You choose two of these when starting out.

Agility - Ability to hit, dodge, be stealthy, and recover from a hit.

Endurance - How much damage you can take and you much energy you have to keep going.

Intelligence - Your magic in a fantasy world, and probably something like your resourcefulness in a modern world, if not just taken literally. In D&D, low intelligence means you can't talk properly.

Luck - This affects everything you do in a small way.

Personality - How much people like you and how well you can talk to people.

Speed - How fast you are.

Strength - How much damage you can do with a weapon and how much you can carry.

Willpower - Maximum energy you have available, and in a fantasy setting, your chance of successful spell-casting. In a modern setting, this could be literal willpower.

Dante's two attributes would be agility (he is accurate, stealthy, and easily dodges hits) and personality (he is able to gain people's trust very easily).

Skills 

I'm just going to copy this chart from the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Wiki. There are 27 skills in Morrowind. Each has a governing attribute and a specialization. Blue boxes are Combat, yellow boxes are Stealth, and red boxes are Magic.

Attribute	Skills Governed by Attribute
Endurance	Heavy Armor (3)	Medium Armor (2)	Spear (7)
Strength	Acrobatics (20)	Armorer(1)	Axe (6)	Blunt Weapon (4)	Long Blade (5)
Agility	Block (0)	Light Armor (21)	Marksman (23)	Sneak(19)
Speed	Athletics (8)	Hand-to-hand (26)	Short Blade (22)	Unarmored (17)
Personality	Illusion(12)	Mercantile (24)	Speechcraft(25)
Intelligence	Alchemy (16)	Conjuration (13)	Enchant(9)	Security(18)
Willpower	Alteration (11)	Destruction (10)	Mysticism (14)	Restoration (15)

I'm going to put each of those into simple terms for use in any setting.

Heavy Armor - Plate armor (think knights and such) and other armors that are very thick, heavy, and are very stiff and rigid.

Medium Armor - Durable but flexible armors, such as a modern day bullet-proof vest.

Spear - A pointy thing on a stick. A character who kills zombies with a shovel would be good with a spear.

Acrobatics - Jumping, climbing, scaling walls, falling and not taking damage.

Armorer - Crafting and repairing armor. In a modern setting, this can be expanded to general craftiness and ability to repair things.

Axe - For dwarves and lumberjacks.

Blunt Weapon - Clubs, chairs, and other things used to bludgeon people without cutting them or stabbing them.

Long Blade - Swords!

Block - Parrying incoming attacks.

Light Armor - Very thin and flexible armors, like chain mail or a thin layer of Kevlar.

Marksman - Bows, guns, throwing stars, etc.

Sneak - Ability to remain undetected.

Athletics - Running, swimming, and walking.

Hand-to-Hand - Beat people WITH YOUR FISTS. Also martial arts like karate.

Short Blade - Daggers, knives, and short swords. 

Unarmored - Take a beating while totally unprotected.

Illusion - Make things look to be something they're not, whether by magic or mad skills.

Mercantile - Bartering.

Speechcraft - Persuasion, taunting, and general skill in talking to people.

Alchemy - Mixing potions and cooking things up. Cooking is basically just modern-day alchemy. 

Conjuration - Summon minions! I don't know how to make this non-magical...perhaps by having lots of connections and being able to get help whenever you need it?

Enchant - Make magical items and use them well. For a non-magical equivalent, probably something like fine-tuning an engine to get better performance or building a better mousetrap.

Security - Lock picking and disarming traps.

Alteration - Magically allowing you to do things like carry more weight or breathe underwater. This may be impossible to make non-magical, now that I've reached it.

Destruction - Fire and poison all around! This is pretty easy to make non-magical.

Mysticism - Telekinesis and teleporting. This would a be a favored skill by someone who meditates a lot to reach a higher level of awareness.

Restoration - Healing and medicine. 

Your character has 5 major skills (skills in which they are very proficient) and 5 minor skills (in which they are moderately proficient). All the rest get pushed to the side so your character can focus on the more important stuff.

Dante's major skills would be Marksman (his primary weapon is a revolver), Sneak, Acrobatics, Unarmored, and Short Blade (his secondary weapon is a switchblade). His minor skills would be Athletics, Hand-to-Hand, Block, Speechcraft, and Armorer.

So that seems like a lot of work! It's probably too much work and I probably just spent two and a half hours typing this thing up for nothing. Actually, it was largely just to put off starting my novel only to see it fall to bits. At some point, I want to go over some D&D stuff, too, so watch for that if you actually liked this. Have fun! 

Things That Keep Me Sane

Heavy Metal

For a lot of people, it's noise. For others, it gets them all riled up and angry. For me, it's an outlet for all the anger I'd hold inside otherwise. Channeling my emotions through the music I'm listening to keeps me sane and relieves headaches. It can calm me down almost instantly. It's a learned thing, and I'm sure a rare one, too. 

Caffeine

That's likely an addiction talking, but whatever. It makes me feel better when super stressed.

Advil

For the days when headaches are a little too much for my high pain tolerance to handle.

Cats

Hug a cat and see if it doesn't make your day 20% better. Unless you're allergic. Then you should hug a toy cat.

Sylvester is worth 5 hugs.

Crafts

There's something about the way I do crafts that makes the tedious, meticulous, monotonous work very relaxing. It sort of lets my mind drift while still staying stimulated. I can work on things for hours before I need a break.

Pillows

When I have my own place and stuff, I might make a panic room filled with pillows. That would probably be fantastic. Sinking onto my pillows is the best part of going to bed.

Photographs

My bedroom walls are covered in photos and posters. I stare at my photos a lot when I need to think about things. Seeing friends can help clear your mind really well, even if it is only a photograph.

Video Games

Sometimes, there's nothing like getting lost in Tamriel for a few hours and beating the hell out of some mud crabs. 

Things I Wish I Could Do

I have this vast list of skills and talents, all in varying degrees, and most of them not all that useful. Here now are some things I can't do that I wish I could.

Draw People 

People are hard as hell. I can't draw them without a reference, and forget about expressions and such.

Draw in an Anime Style

It looks easy. It's just lines. It looks so freaking easy. It's not. It's really damn hard. I can't get myself to think in terms of lines and perspective well enough to get anything good. 

Play Guitar

The arthritis has never helped, and the new pains I've been getting in my left index finger will definitely impede any further progress. I will get you to do what I want, hands! :|

Physical Activity

I'm lucky if I can go up the stairs in my house without my chest hurting, my knees creaking, or getting out of breath and blacking out a little. I think I have the body of a 90-year-old sometimes.

Move

My house is probably one of the worst environments anyone can live in. I have no money and no job, and that means I'm sort of stuck here. At least I got a mini fridge for my bedroom.

Make Clay Things

I can't do much of anything with clay. I don't have much ability to put things in 3D in the first place.

Play Games Better

I'm bad at video games. I'm always the one person in a group who hasn't played a really popular game, and I know if I tried, I'd be really bad and probably give up. I like things that don't require tons of manual dexterity.

Get a Job

It's hard finding a job when you have no work experience. The unemployment rate in my area is terrible, too.

Volunteer

I always learn about community projects after they happen. I'm slow on the local news, I guess. It always makes me wish I had known so I could help out with stuff.

See Without Glasses or Contacts

My vision is awful. I'm terrified of surgery, though, and eyeballs sort of freak me out, so laser surgery is not an option.

Reach My Kitchen Shelves

I'm five feet tall. Watching me try to get a bowl off of the top shelf while standing on a step stool and still failing to reach it is really pathetic. My boyfriend can verify that. 

Remember Numbers

Numbers fall through my mind like sand through a fishing net. :( 

Daily Art - Concept Wars Round 2

The second theme was a fantasy game, and we had to make a stormy blue character and his pet. This is my result. It came out pretty well, considering I did the entire thing a few hours before it was due. XD

Daily Art - Concept Wars Round 1

I took part in a group on DeviantART called Concept Wars. The idea was that we'd be given an assignment from a fictional video game company, and the best concepts won points. It's on indefinite hold at the moment. This one was a steampunk mafia game called Pioggia (rain in Italian), and we had to design a character and a weapon. I really like the steampunk revolver I came up with. But then, I like revolvers in general. :P

Weird Things You Probably Don't Know About Me

I assume my boyfriend knows all of this stuff (since he lives with me), and I imagine a lot of it has come up around our closest friends as well. For the rest of you, I make no sense. These are in no particular order (sorry), and some are much more serious than others.

I eat my oatmeal dry.

It's gross when it's warm and mushy. D: I use a spoon and eat it right out of the packet.

I went to court for truancy.

In 4th grade, I had a lot of really bad friend issues. The girl I thought was my best friend was sort of terrible, and then she was worse when I decided I'd had enough of her. On top of it, there was this other girl that wasn't mature enough to handle any of the stuff we were going through. They were pretty much the only friends I had, and I missed a lot of school. In 5th grade, it was a new school building with the older grades, and the four elementary schools are all put together and shuffled around. The grade is split up into two "teams" where each team has like, 5 teachers. You might move around in your own team, but you would never do anything with the other team. That means I have like, no friends in my classes (in fact, there was only one person in my class that went to the same elementary school as I did), no one to talk to at lunch, and an unfamiliar environment. Instead of giving me help or trying to set it up so I could work from home because I clearly had severe issues, there was a time when I was carried by the principal to his office, forced onto a school bus, and generally humiliated on a regular basis by my teachers. I missed enough school that I had to go to the magistrate and risk going into foster care, which probably would have led to me running away or committing suicide, to be totally honest. My own family has trouble dealing with my food habits and personal endeavors; a new family would have no chance. Anyway, it all worked out and the one girl I knew sort of adopted me, and even though she lives across the country now, we're still great friends. I obviously stayed with my own family and continued on in school, only to later drop out against my will (though I should have done it anyway). Still, the whole experience was a big pile of trauma that I really didn't need.

I taught myself how to read.

I used to make my family read me stories constantly. I would follow along with the words, and before I knew it, I recognized tons of words. I was able to read books by myself without any of them lifting a finger to teach me anything. As I moved into more advanced books, I picked up grammar and punctuation like it was nothing. English classes refined what I already knew. I knew college-level grammar rules by middle school. Latin really helped pull it all together. After all, we had to understand our own grammar before we could put it in Latin.

I play trumpet really damn well.

I picked up the trumpet for band in 5th grade. Needless to say, my frequent absences made me one of the worst. I stayed after school with our horrible teacher, and she told me to quit and pick up a different instrument because I had an overbite. My dentist, by the way, says I do not. Anyway, I somehow learned it all really fast, because by freshman year of high school, I was the best of my grade's trumpets. All that with minimal at-home practicing (and none after like, 7th grade).

Dogs kind of scare me.

I've been around cats my whole life. When I was little, we had a dog, but we kept her outside, so I never interacted with her at all. When I went to friends' houses, sometimes they had dogs that would bark at me and jump on me and lick me. It was the scariest thing ever. I've pretty much gotten over it now, but I still don't like jumpy dogs. I'm usually just worried they'll knock me over and drool on me. I also don't want to get scratched by them, even though I know in most cases the dogs mean no harm.

I've never done laundry in my life.

I've helped at the laundromat before we had our own stuff, but that was when I was like, 10 and younger. Don't make me do laundry. It probably won't end well.

I taught myself how to cook.

I never cooked anything other than the occasional baked goods before I was 17 or so. When I started having health problems, my sleep schedule got all screwy, and I was often up at night with only my boyfriend. I learned how to make tons of baked goods, and from there, I taught myself how to do meats and stuff. Now I'm totally self-sufficient and make better meals than the rest of my family. I even have my own way of making rice, which I had never even eaten until a few months ago.

October is my favorite month. 

Fall is my favorite season. I love the temperature - perfect for a light jacket - and the smell of leaves. October is pretty great. I love Halloween, my birthday comes on the 23rd, and it's a whole month dedicated to pumpkin bread, hayrides, corn mazes, and pretty leaves.

A good example of Octoberness.

I'm terrified of soccer.

I have next to no coordination with my feet. I was lucky I survived marching band. Add to that an incident where I got hit in the face with a soccer ball and got really swollen, and you'll find that it's one of the worst things you can ever make me do. I'm just not aggressive enough to like sports, and in soccer, it's aggressive or get yelled at my the teacher.

I hate guys who give me special treatment because I'm female.

I've always had friends who were male. In elementary school, most of my friends were boys. In high school, the main group I hung out with (and still often see) was a bunch of big guys who played video games and looked really damn intimidating. Despite the fact that I was like, a third of their size and hardly played games, we got along great. I've had lots of my guy friends tell me they think of me as just "one of the guys," and that means a lot to me. To contrast, I've worked with people on projects who think they need to be careful not to offend the girl of the group. They're nice to me so they don't hurt my feelings. They don't joke with me about the same things, or tell me which porn stars they think are really hot. It's frustrating. In ways, I think on a more masculine level anyway; I don't care about the petty drama that a lot of girls do, and I don't feel the need to flirt with every male in the vicinity to get get what I want. The guys I'm used to don't care about any of that crap either. Also, despite the fact that some of them look like they could and would break someone in half, they're there to listen if I want to open up about a relationship I'm in or something. That's what I'm used to. I don't want the mindset that you shouldn't hit girls, that girls are easily upset, that girls get offended if you talk about your man parts, and etcetera. If you're a guy that really wants my friendship, than don't treat me any differently than the other guys you hang around. Give me the same hand-reddening high fives and complain about your girlfriend.

My religious views are confusing.

I'm not a Christian, but I believe God exists. I refuse to serve a being who supposedly created life with a free will and expects that life to obey his every command. That being said, I think most of the Bible is a load of crap. I believe most deities exist, and I do not believe any one of them is omnipotent, or even close to that. I think they are simply immortal beings on another plane of existence who offer protection to their followers. I believe there is a measure of truth in all religions, but I don't believe any of them entirely. Pagan beliefs are the closest to my own, so I suppose if I had to label myself, I'd say I was a pagan. I believe in an afterlife, and also in a form of reincarnation. I don't believe in an eternal punishment for your actions in your tiny amount of years on this Earth. I believe sin is dictated by the people of the world, not by a deity. I believe that we are here to learn about ourselves and our spirit's past forms on our way to bettering ourselves, much like the concept of Nirvana. I will not dedicate myself to a being. I have respect for the laws of society and the people I interact with, and I am doing what I can to improve the world of the living. I will not offer praise to a being on another plane of existence. I believe in fate, but not in karma. I believe our origins are mostly evolutionist. I think everything happens for a reason, and that if we spend a lifetime working towards one goal, that is how we were meant to spend that lifetime. Perhaps we'll never see it come to fruition, but a century later, the work will be recognized; maybe it was all useless, but it will prevent others from following the same path. Either way, I believe everything coincides with other events, and everything is connected.

I am allergic to two specific laundry detergents.

Gain and Dynamo both have a chemical that makes me really, really itchy. I don't know what chemical it is, so I don't know what others have it, but those two do for sure. I think it's the only specific allergy I have, other than nickel, which almost everyone has.

I would rather be in a snake pit than have one spider on me.

I like snakes. I think they're really cool, and I also know how to not agitate them. Spiders want me dead. Every time I see a spider, I ask someone to kill it. If they don't, it ends up crawling up my leg sometime later on. Never fails. It's like they see me as this all-you-can-eat buffet.

I can't wear thongs.

I disagree 100% with anyone who says they're comfortable.

I've never watched porn.

Seems awkward. XP

I'm slightly lactose intolerant.

I can eat milk in my cereal, but I prefer 2%. Whole milk makes me a little nauseous. A lot of 2% will, too, but it's usually okay to have a bowl or two of cereal. 1% and skim are just yucky.

I have really, really dry skin.

If I dry off too much with a towel, I might just disintegrate. 

I like guys with either blonde or black hair.

Even though they're opposites, those two colors are the best. Style depends drastically on the person, though I made this thing on DeviantART and noticed that I'll probably really like you if your face is obscured by your hair. (Mechazawa is a joke. Pay no attention to that. XD)

Also, I apparently like guys who are sadistic and/or mass murderers.

I can't stand whistling.

It gives me a very, very bad headache. I don't know why. If it's low, it's tolerable, but I still hate it.

I love really soft fabrics.

This is probably because of my dry skin, really. I'm way more likely to buy a shirt because of how soft it is over how nice it looks. Luckily, there's Deb, and most of the shirts they sell are both. I recently bought a nice blanket at Borders that's pretty much the softest thing I can use to make myself into a burrito. Best $16 I ever spent.

I flip between being dominating and submissive.

There are situations where I'm totally fine with taking orders, mostly when I don't want responsibility or want to trust someone's judgement. Other times, I want control over every minute detail. Let's not even go near the sexual implications of this.

I have weird elbows.

When I extend my arm, the joint can go past 180 degrees. I can actually touch the insides of my elbows together. My friends say they look broken. It's pretty funny. I'm also able to lick my elbow. 

I don't like chocolate things.

Specifically, chocolate cake, frosting, and ice cream. I love marble cake, though. It's my favorite. I can eat chocolate cake and icing, but they're usually just too sweet for me. I only ever do so when PMS drives me into a chocolate-craving frenzy. I always regret it afterwards.

I hate feminism.

Dear women of the world: without men, you wouldn't exist. My mother is one of those women who jumps at any opportunity to say things like "that's a guy for you" or "men are worthless." It gets irritating really fast. It's a good part of why I generally like guys more. Sure, you have the occasional remark about how women make no God damn sense, but there's never this idea that the world would be better without them. Feminist women seem to think we'll be able to reproduce asexually one day and that the male gender will become obsolete (my mother believes this, by the way), and I'm sorry (I'm not), but that's just ridiculous. Plus, I love men. They can fit any need, from cuddly and adorable to sex god. That's more than you can say about most women, who range from petty ditz to sort-of-compassionate ditz.

Look how cute it is. Don't you want one?

I'm pretty good at real-time strategy games.

Age of Mythology is a fantastic game, and I'm pretty decent at it. My able-to-do-500-things-at-once mind is very well suited to the multitasking you need for RTS games.

I'm a democrat.

Plain and simple. My views are pretty moderate, but definitely lean more left. 

So I guess that's about it for now. There's tons of other stuff I could add, but for now, I guess you know a little more about me that you probably didn't know already.