I WROTE THIS IN CLASS TODAY SO I'M POSTING IT ON MY LJ.

This is the story of John. It's cheesy and a first draft and probably not very good, but if anyone has feedback, that's cool too. Just leeeeaving this here. I know some of it isn't technically the same as it was in the comic, such as where the cakes in John's room are located, but I don't mind at this point. So, uh, here.


Sburb

At age thirteen, John was much too old
for monster suits and make believe
and instead, wished for video games,
the movie Con Air, and Nic Cage’s dirty shirt.

For his birthday, his father had gotten him a clown -
a stuffed harlequin - that sat on the couch,
grinning at him madly.

Dad was in the kitchen
baking cake for his son’s special day.
John was hiding in his room,
snacking on glorious gushers
and ignoring the two cakes
his father had already given him
and put on his bed.

John Egbert was a normal kid,
who pestered his friends Dave,
Rose and Jade,
who were all a little less
normal than he was
but he didn’t mind.

For his birthday, what he wanted most
was Sburb. The newest video game
his friend Dave had already received.

What John didn’t know
was that while his father baked,
and obsessed over clowns,
there was a small package
waiting in the car
that would change his life
change his world
his universe
forever.

Edit number 1, 2: check.

I'll just be leaving this and this here...

Hello, flist. Today is my "Guess what? I'm trans!" day. Yesterday was too, what with RP!S's wanksplosion over the character Grell and how she's a transwoman who hasn't been respected by the people who play her enough to use the proper pronouns when referring to her in the third person. I gave my two cents about it in a few places, and overall after reading all this shit I'm just ready to say THAT'S IT I'M DONE.

There's so much shit being thrown around and wank within the trans community about these sorts of things. I will admit that these posts are old, but I've just found them all today so it's a little overwhelming to take in all at once.

The problem is: as much as I agree with one side or another on these matters (and for the record, I think: objectifying doesn't do any good and is only acceptable with the other person's consent, that BINGO board is oh so very true - as is Tumblr's own Privilege Denying Dude - and is a good way to vent frustration and transform it into potential humor, Grell is a transwoman and should be referred to with feminine pronouns period, no exceptions, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ACCEPT THE FACT THAT SHE IDENTIFIES AS A WOMAN JFC, 'bio' is offensive and incorrect when used interchangeably with 'cis' or 'non trans'), I feel like without some sort of compromise in the communication there won't be any progress. If people just say 'you're wrong, you're not listening, you're obviously wrong', no matter what side you're on, nothing will come of it. Explanation - polite explanation, especially - works.

Back when I was new to the world of LJ and the online trans communities therein, there was a post made by a transwoman proclaiming her anger at transmen who use the word 'tranny' by reclaiming it as their own. I responded to it (and if you scroll down you can read what happened) and was confused by it until it was restated in a calmer manner. Even at that point, I still wasn't entirely sure of the reasoning behind it, but I had accepted that I just shouldn't use the word or try to reclaim it in any way. Now that it's been a while since then, I have a much fuller understanding of why my reclaiming the word is not appropriate and I fully support the people who have strong, personal feelings about this. However, I distinctly remember being unable to understand why it was so offensive to these women until I had it reiterated for me in a different way. Even though then I was still a little fuzzy on the why, I had enough sense to recognize that hey, I don't have to use this word, in fact I've used it very sparingly in the past and could easily go without it. My not using a word is a small price to pay and it shows that I respect these people, which is really what they're after: respect and acknowledgment.

I didn't have to do that, but I wanted to. What's really important to me is for other people to know that I respect them, even if they're not being very nice and not respecting me. I get so tired of wank because it's all a bunch of not listening to each other, disrespect, and nothing good ever comes from it. The subjects that are wanked about, though, I think they need to be talked about. It's good for them to come up and be shed light on so people can at least have the opportunity to talk about these things and try to gain an understanding of these important societal issues.

If anyone has any questions, doesn't understand something, wants to talk to me about anything, I welcome you to ask. When I first realized who I was I was so eager to discuss these things with people because I thought all they needed was to be educated and then everything would be solved and we could all live happily. I thought, because I previously thought this way for fifteen years of my life and discovered I was wrong all along, if I educated other people about these issues they'd realize the same thing. Of course, I was young and naive and still believed that these things could be resolved relatively quickly and didn't take into account that the only reason I shifted my way of thinking so dramatically was because I had to in order to be happy and at peace with who I am.

Now that I realize these things, I'm still open to discussion and being patient with people. I want to help educate and teach people about other perspectives and above all, simple respect for your fellow human being. It's taken me two years to fully align with myself (as in, change my thinking and my way of looking at myself to be supportive of who I am instead of self-detrimental) and I know I've had a lot of help along the way. I'll be the first to say I don't have all the answers, and I want to acknowledge that each person has their own personal truth. I'm not in any way an expert, just a member of the community, and from that perspective I'm certainly willing to help you gain a better understanding of these issues if you want one.

Significant edit of hope and love: I've only read a few of the articles on this blog, but so far I love it and I'm going to read more. I like it, and find it very refreshing as a transman who has yet to begin any sort of hormone therapy or undergo surgeries associated with physical transition.

... Totally going to get on that, though. Soon.

Anyway, since I saw mythologiced do this and thought it would be a good idea (also Plurk has something similar going about and I thought it might be just as fine as a reason to use my realjay, so why not?):

Pick one of my RP characters and I will tell you:

(a) three facts about them from my personal canon/fanon
(b) a reason he/she sucks
(c) a reason he/she is amazing
(d) five things that I’d like to see happen to them
(e) five people that I ship that character with and why.

Or just pick one of them that you want to know if you'd rather since that's the way Plurk's been doing it. And I suppose if you're so inclined, you're also free to just ask a separate question of your choosing about one of them too.

Class is finished. January 19 is when I go back. I'VE OVER A MONTH OF FREE TIME FUCK YES. Not only that, but this free time spans over a multitude of holidays, including a particular Dark Lord's birthday.

Which meeeeeans that I'm going to be doing what I did last year, which is read the Harry Potter series completely through. Book 1 to Book 7. I'll be posting notes, thoughts, whatever here on LJ if you want to follow along and discuss. I know I've not used this journal in a while (or at all to be honest), so I'm cool if this just ends up being my little place to put my Potter notes.

I've got a few things I want to count while reading the books, and some are going to be counted in part due to this being my way of celebrating You-Know-Who's birthday.

For my Voldy-things:

1. I want to know exactly how many times Voldemort's name has been said and by which character. Conversely, I think it'd also be interesting to see how many times characters use "You-Know-Who" versus "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" and who does so.


2. The number of times teenage and/or young Tom's beauty/handsomeness/overall-physical-attractiveness is mentioned.


3. Exact lines of description of Voldemort's appearance. Fandom seems to think he's got a forked tongue in the books and I'm fairly certain nothing of the sort was ever mentioned.


4. Each time Harry's scar starts hurting, the situation surrounding it, and a brief description of his visions/dreams.


5. Evidence that Voldemort is NOT Hitler but is in fact his own unique villain who exists independently of real historical figures.


6. Thorough annotation of all Voldemort's scenes, especially the memory scenes.

Just... annotation of everything. That's what I want out of this, but especially for Voldemort and his characterization, motivations, etc. Last time I mostly read it for enjoyment also because I got crit saying I could do with a canon review /cough, and this time I will as well, but I'm also going to make specific and thorough notes of what I feel is noteworthy instead of just read the series as fast as I can.

What's up there on the list isn't going to be the end-all be-all of what I'm covering, not at all. I know there are things I'll probably think of as I'm reading that I'll want to remember to pay attention to and such. If you've anything specific you'd like me to keep an eye out for or note or just to comment on, let me know and I'll include it in my post for the day. I feel that a chapter per post wouldn't work out well and would end up with a large amount of posts in such a short time, so my thought is posting per day what I read and having the posts put up in chapter sections.

Today, though, I'm just going to relax. It's the first day of break and I'm finally done with the semester. Next semester I'll be taking English 104, which is all about literary analysis. I think beginning a project to thoroughly analyze a series I love is an appropriate activity to help pass the time and will not only help me prepare for the upcoming semester, but help me gain even more of an understanding of the series itself.

I've a feeling this is going to be an awesome month.