vixenmage

A rather more elaborate version of what I couldn't say earlier.

There’s a website which I often fool around on called TV Tropes, which analyzes common themes found in different media; some of you may be familiar with it. One of the tropes discussed at length there is the “Crapsack World,” which is… well, exactly what it sounds like. Here’s one of the descriptions in the summary: “An immutable Crapsack World has corruption and pain Inherent In The System, both physically and metaphysically. Trying to fight this corruption will always result in it winning.”

So basically, this describes a world that is inherently unfair, a world in which good is not only useless, but often counter-productive. This is a world where the evil overlord wins. This is a world where humanity really is reduced to numbers, where the Daleks succeed because the universe doesn’t care; this is a world where a sonic screwdriver and a brilliant smile will get you killed, regardless of how clever or powerful you are, how strongly you want to save the world. This is a universe where the more unfortunate people of the world are taken into slavery to serve the whims of the culture on the other side of the world who doesn’t know or care about their plight. This is a world where an entire population can be decimated on a whim, once more to benefit a class more useful to the people in power, and no one bats an eye. This is a world where those born into poverty and disease and starvation are, more or less, thought of as deserving of such a fate; this is a world where Scrooge was right.

This is our world.

And speaking against any of that makes you a bleeding heart, an emotion-driven basket-case, and it pits you straight up against the power-driven universe, in a world where greed and oppression are rewarded and selflessness is mercilessly stamped out.

I’m not exaggerating. This isn’t hyperbole.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, and I will keep on saying it until the day I die.

THIS IS NOT RIGHT. I don’t give a used fig as to what your personal beliefs concerning the semantics and wordplay of “ethics” versus “morality,” or which political party you support, or whether you’re an independent or a moderate or on the fringes or outside altogether.

If you are supporting slavery, genocide, if you have nothing to say to this world we’re living in, if you don’t believe that there is something very, very, wrong with what’s going on in this world, get the hell off of my friends list. I don’t care if you're a conservative who believes capitalism is the only thing that will save this world from itself, or you’re an anarchist who believes capitalism is what’s killing this world. You should be fighting for the same ends right now. There are people being driven into slavery, not only in Mali and Cote d’Ivoire, but on this continent, in the cities and the suburbs and all around us. There are people dying on the streets, of malaria. A disease that was cured over a century ago. Not a lot of people know that. Mosquito bites are killing more people in this world than any other animal. Mosquito bites. Death. By. Mosquito. Death by a disease we cured. A disease that’s become a joke in this country. That doesn’t even touch the disease we haven’t cured, AIDS, which people are also dying like flies from.

That’s the one that makes me sick – people believe, somehow people allow themselves to be convinced that it’s not that important. They deserve it, right? Just like the kids born into starvation deserve to die before they reach adulthood, and the people being laid off from their jobs in this very country deserved that, and they deserve to be homeless on the streets with their families, the filthy savages. But not on our streets, no, how about the darker part of town, tucked away somewhere we don’t have to see them? This country makes me sick sometimes. I’m an American, that much is true. I believe in freedom, and I mean that literally. I believe everyone should be free. I believe that freedom is a human right, not an American right. I believe in liberty, and I believe in justice. I believe that no one should die because of a damned bug bite. I believe women who are raped are never ‘asking for it,’ I believe that in a world where there is enough food to go around, no one should starve to death. I believe that it is twisted, sick, and downright evil to refuse homeless men the basement of a church to sleep in on winter nights -- to let them freeze to death in their sleep -- because it brings them too close to the business district.

To be fair, not many people know the reality of all of this. (That's why it's important to do this. Because people don't know.) It’s mentioned in passing, occasionally, but rarely expanded on. We’re very careful, this country is, of tucking things that make our viewers uncomfortable out of sight. We wouldn’t want to lose our viewers. We wouldn’t want to make them too uncomfortable, to make them turn aside to somewhere where the view is a little more pleasant.

Don’t forget this. There is nothing – nothing – that makes you somehow innately more worthy of life than someone else on this planet. I’m a Christian, infinitely more than I am an American. That’s what I believe. I believe in unconditional love, and unconditional forgiveness. You were born (for most of you, anyway) in a wealthy country, if not a wealthy home. Your parents were able to feed you, because they’d worked hard, but also because they’d been born to a land of opportunity. That is why you are here, and not starving to death, or dying of malaria or AIDS, or being beaten to death in the cacao fields on the Gold Coast. Because you were born here, and not there. It doesn’t make you a bad person – but it doesn’t make your life worth more than theirs, either. A life is a life is a life. Please, please remember that.

This world has become a horrible, horrible place -- we don't have to leave it that way. We don't have to submit silently to what this world has become. I mentioned earlier that in this universe, morality is punished and powerlust is rewarded. I don't believe that's Just The Way It Is, I believe it's the way the human race has made it. And we can change that. It's not idealistic to believe that conscience should overrule politics.

Politics are supposed to be a way to follow your conscience; they are not supposed to subvert it for the party values.

I'll say it once again.

We don't have to take this. If you have a conscience, if you want to see this world become something other than a prison, do it. Don't wait for a signal. You ARE the signal.

I'm going to break this down as calmly and with as little profanity as I can.

The Salvation Army Homeless Shelter in Hartford, CT, is closing down.

Despite common opinion on what Connecticut is like, Hartford is a kind of rough place to live, and by that I mean it's a city, with all the problems that come with cities. It has gangs, and drugs, and crack pimps with their whores, and homeless people, those down on their luck for a few months, those with severe mental illness, those who for whatever reason just can't make it. They have kids, a lot of the time.

The shelter, the new shelter, will be called the "no freeze" shelter. This is because there are nights here in Connecticut, given that we're in a northern part of the country, where you can freeze to death if you have to sleep outside. To avoid people dying of cold, the city is trying to open a shelter so people will be able to not DIE IN THEIR SLEEP.

The best location for this "no freeze" shelter, it would seem, is a church near the center of town, near the business district.

The head of the downtown business improvement district says, and I quote, "a shelter like this one in the Hartford central business district is not conducive to economic development and economic prosperity in the downtown."

Oh NO! We can't have ...those people... near our businesses! It might scare all the paying customers away!

I am so, so angry right now. I want to find this guy and beat his head against the sidewalk until he is no longer too blind to see what's going on RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. I swear, it's like something out of a Dickens novel. Does this guy even hear what's coming out of his mouth? "No, we don't object to giving the homeless a place to sleep where they won't freeze to death, just... can it be somewhere where we don't have to deal with it?" Or look it in the face.

That's the issue here. Homelessness is ugly. Extreme poverty is ugly. That's why people click off of the channels begging them to help save the emaciated children in Africa or South America. Because they don't want to see the dark side of this world. And that's why this... this monster doesn't want homeless people in his business district. Because then he would have to look the problems of this society in the face, and it's a lot harder to ignore your emotions and toe the party line when you're staring the evidence of reality in the face.

Or, actually, 'fics at all about bands IRL. Fictional bands, whatever. Real bands? Aha ha ha no. Pasted from my response to khajidu from the PPC 'Board in an ongoing conversation about the fact that there are U2 slashfics out there, and why I not only never saw them, but never even considered that fact.

( Because I am Not Okay with writing fictional stories about real people, at least without consent. )

Also, the Leonid Meteor Shower is tonight! All over, or so I'm told. Will DEFINITELY be checking that out.

Also also, wound up spending... what, an hour and a half, two hours? at the library, reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet. I really, really need to get a library card. That's a book I'll never be able to finish in snatched hours at the library. I meant to read it for the first chapter and then go pick up Coyote Medicine and take the next chapter of that. Buuuuut Salman Rushdie is just that good. I really should've been expecting it-- he inspired the U2 song, after all, and I only freakin' heard Shaker recommend him as an author eight times, and that's a conservative estimate. Anywho. Back to NaNo-- I'm finally writing harder on that again, but I'm not sure if it's too late or not. We'll see. I've gone back to work on skipped scenes, maybe that'll help. Also, remembered the policy of introducing a gun or something crazy every time I get stuck. Which actually makes SENSE in context, which is nice. Given, in this novel substitute "pursuit by the shadow conspiracy of magic ninjas" for "gun," but still.

There are so many decent, fair, loving people in this world.

Sometimes, it's hard to understand why the world is in the shape it is, with so many people who care, who want things to be better. WHY? Why is it so difficult to show reason to the fanatics in this world? Why are there so many fanatics? Why do people not care? How can people not care? How can people not be moved to tears by the plight some people in this world are facing-- thousands of people, worldwide. Why is it so easy to forget, to ignore, to focus on our own small problems and ignore the slaughter and slavery and horrors around us?

Yesterday a friend asked me about fair-trade; I explained what was going on in the process of chocolate (and coffee, by the way) industries, how young boys (as in under sixteen, often) were being coerced into slavery on chocolate plantations-- not wage-slaves, not near-slavery, out and out SLAVERY to produce chocolate. Which is bought by the ton in this country.

Today I found out that the government of Sudan is trying to get a lobbyist into Washington. A government which has been recognized by our country as guilty of genocide is looking for a voice in Washington.

Then I saw tammy212 mention the women and girls of Swat Valley, Afghanistan, currently being denied school, being forced back under the veil.

Why.

Why, with so many people who care, is this world still such a hell for so many people? Guys, it DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. This world could be so great. Why are we letting it turn into... into this?

I realized today that U2 is more than a band to me; seeing Bono in his headband, his handwritten Coexist band, I realize anew how many people are out there who want peace, who want this world to be a place without the senseless murder that is thrust on us so quickly. I realize how much of a difference one voice can make; it becomes clear to me that if I go through life without trying to end this slaughter, this mess, this perpetual hatred that permeates our world, I will easily consider that life a waste.

This is what spurs me onward. There are so many people out there working to make this world a better place, not for a select few who happen to have a television and a vote, but for the world over. Why can't we do something about it?

An elegantly tall figure, dressed in finery, or foolery; in all probability, both. He makes an elaborate bow, and the grin is wide enough to imply more teeth than a rattlesnake, and something twice as smooth. The gesture of the hands, twirling, beckoning, at once graciously inviting and delicately flirtatious, follows, bidding you, the audience, enter. Don’t be afraid, be alarmed; it’s a day, it’s a night, for a celebration, instigation, maybe levitation, he’s enjoying himself immensely, as if his whole life had led up to this. As a matter of fact, truth, veritably his whole life is this, actually. The jester, the harlequin, the fool, wiser than the audience, perhaps.

But enough with the facts; what is the perception?

No one feature may stand out as you enter the arch, the theatre, except that this usher, this ringmaster, this fool is, in fact, the theatre. His clothes are immaculate, bordering gaudy, his hair is fine and his face is laughing; you would not be surprised to see fangs in his grin, but you do not. He winks, roguishly, his hands long and twining as they gesture and gesticulate, a complementary accompaniment to his rising, falling, gaily flowing speech. If he’s pausing to breathe, no one can tell.

While trying to write a college supplement about how Human Rights Club changed and matured me, I inadvertantly came up with ( this ).

It's a backstory for the character who opens the Portaltuner story; why he is there, running an antique shop which sells items of great portent, always to exactly the right customer. It also explains why he's been there for nearly a century, and survives without apparently making any money at all. I kinda like it, though in all honesty I'd rather have the college essays done.

When I was really little, there were tons of little round mirrors in the basement-- about the size of a circle I could make with my thumb and forefinger now. My brother and I broke probably most of them, while we lived there, after the restraining order. Our mom used to tell us never to believe in superstition, but also told us what the superstitions were. Technically, I could blame my life from that point on those mirrors, but that would be too easy, and also is irrational.

I won't kill a spider if I can help it, partly out of an instinctive dislike of killing small things that don't need to be killed, and partly because of Anansi Boys. I never knew you weren't supposed to until reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but that was a long, long time ago anyway. But I've walked under tons of ladders, spilled tons of salt, and I love all cats and am happy to see them, across my path or otherwise. I used to open umbrellas inside just to drive the superstitious around me up the wall; on sidewalk cracks, it mostly just bothers me that they are never in sync with my stride. Never!

As a result of an existential crisis one cold winter night, before the snowfall, when I wondered if I was a reality or a dream, perhaps, wandered into the real world-- a shadow, or a wraith. It was in the lattermost parts of the twilight, and I noticed a fist-sized gray rock on the grass of the park I was cutting through, and kicked it along. I did that a few times, and then when it went out of my path, stooped and picked it up. The rock felt good in my hand, solid, cold, heavy, and undreamlike. I tossed it, caught it, and held it all the way home. Following that, I carried it everywhere in my sweatshirt pocket, or tossing it from hand to hand, rather skillfully after a time. It became a superstition sort of thing, to always have a rock in my pocket, and when it grew too warm to have a sweatshirt, I carried a little piece of clinker in one pocket, and a reddish tiger-eye in the other, to remind me of two different things. I could toss the clinker, but the tiger-eye was too smooth and slipped from my hands. Anyway, I rarely leave the house without a small rock somewhere on my person, these days. It's become a superstition, or a tradition, or something.

(Also, in early middle school I made up a story about fairies who would only take as an offering the very core of a carrot-- you know, the inner part? And they would only take it completely unscathed, and without a trace of outer ring on it, and they would either grant you a wish when you broke it, or eating it brought good luck, or something. I forget if I told this to anyone or just made it a personal game.)

Right now, I am wondering why Mr. Kanye West – why anyone, actually – has felt the need to go on record calling themselves “the voice of a generation.” Why does this generation need a voice to speak for us? We all have minds, hearts, and voices, do we not? Why, then, are we so silent? How is it that we have opinions on fashion, on pop culture, even on petty national politics at times, yet we remain oblivious to the world outside of our lifestyles? We should not be depending on Kanye West, Barack Obama, or Rush Limbaugh to voice opinions for us. We have minds. We have hearts, we have voices. Why are we allowing ourselves to be led by the nose, like so many idle sheep? Educate yourselves! Listen to your conscience and speak out! There is slavery in Africa, upheld by the mainstream chocolate industry. There is genocide in the Sudan, upheld by the Chinese government. Peaceful protesters are being brutally put down in Iran. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent the greater part of the last twenty years under house arrest in Burma for speaking out. Here in America, there are entire families homeless and without food or shelter. In countries all over the globe, there are young children working endless hours in deplorable conditions without even enough money to live on. What are we doing about it? We depend on politicians to get things done; we elect them for their elegant promises, and then consider our duties to the world done. I am not targeting any one politician; they have all betrayed us the same. We cannot simply cast a vote on election day, and then walk home to go back to our lives as though the world had been changed. We cannot ignore the condition of this world.

You have a mind. You have a voice. You have the right to be free, to live and breathe and eat and drink and laugh; do you not have the responsibility to fight, to give that freedom to every other living person on this planet? We are born into our circumstances; we do not inherently deserve what we are given at birth any more than any other human born to any other parents in any other place. There is no reason why being born in America should give you more of a right to be free, just as being born in a village in Darfur does not mean you deserve to be raped and killed. But we’ve inherited this world, our generation has. We’ve inherited this world full of smooth-tongued, power-hungry politicians, and we’ve inherited some kind of system that tells us that on one side there are good guys, and the other side is not to be trusted. I tell you now that this is a lie. There is good and bad on both sides; both sides are labels. Stop listening to the fanatics on both sides of the system! Read the facts, from as many trustworthy places as you can, and then follow your own conscience. Stop letting others speak for you! You have a mind! You have a voice! Your voice is important, what is behind it is important; your mind, your conscience, your freedom is your birthright, as it is with every other human on this planet. Do not let it be taken from you!

Please. We’ve lain silent long enough—too long. It’s time to stop letting people speak for us, decide for us; we’re adults, or we soon will be. It’s time to start thinking about the world we’ve been born into, it’s time to step up. We’ve been born to this Earth, for better or worse—how will we leave it?

So I didn't hear about the George Sodini murders until recently. [summary: man is lonely, angry, feels that "30 million desirable women" have rejected him because he's "always nice, etc." and yet no girl wants him after a few dates (note: he is in his forties, and only really seems to want desirable women-- is infuriated by his neighbor's daughter leaving the house regularly). decides to go to a gym and shoot a bunch of random women, then himself. Misogynists sympathise, call the man a hero. I couldn't make this shit up.]

In looking at the talk about the story, I discovered the subculture of PUAs, guys who use a system of "Game" to get as many girls as possible, basically. It involves using backhanded compliments and manipulating women in order to get sex with them. Game revolves around the concept of "Alpha" males, men who can get girls whenever they want, by being dominant and magnetic. It demonizes women as emotionless stone-cold man-eating bitches, and somehow manages to demonize them simultaneously as clingy, emotional, man-eating sluts. Get this: guys are encouraged to ensure that "their woman" is dependent on them, or, sans relationship, to always leave a girl hanging, to always play the field with vigor, having as many one-night stands as possible and never allowing a girl access to their emotions. Girls who have sex with a lot of people? Sluts. Girls are simultaneously highly desirable sex objects, the ultimate trophies (when they're hot, of course), and evil demons who manipulate men. Seriously. I could not make this shit up.

Still. Don't believe me? http://roissy.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/relationship-game-week-subtle-dominance-plays/

Every entry on the website is at least that offensive.

It's things like this that make me wish I was a lesbian.

Finally! Took me long enough, but I finally got down and did something about this.

Here's the Facebook Group, if you're on there.

And if you're not, here's what I used for the group description, throwing stuff together.

The mission of this group is two-fold.

1) Educate the general public on the effects of the chocolate and coffee industries on slavery in Africa.
2) Provide common solutions to the problem of slavery, and show ways to avoid contributing to slavery through consumerism.

This isn't a political cause. It's not an economic cause. It's basic human rights. It's common knowledge that slavery in the United States of America was abolished during the Civil War. So it's usually hard to explain to people that, worldwide, slavery is far from gone. What's even more difficult is showing people how, exactly, the average American lifestyle contributes immensely to slavery in Africa. But it's true, and it's real, and it's out there, and American consumerism is what's fueling it. (I should mention here that it's not just America-- I mean first-world countries in general. But I'll talk about America here, because that's the easiest for me to reach.)

It's easy to ignore things like the AIDS emergency, malaria, and famine in Africa-- they're far away, it doesn't really affect us directly, and we can always reassure ourselves with "What can I do about it?" After all, we didn't create this situation-- why is it our job to remedy it? I could go on and on about the fallacies of this logic, on all above points, but the fact is, slavery is different. (I should clarify here that I mean slavery, complete and total. It’s not sweatshop labor, it’s not minimum wage, it’s not slave wages. Slavery: forced labor on a plantation, for no pay whatsoever, in horrible living conditions.)

Right now, all over Western Africa, children are being trafficked as slaves. They’re often picked up in Mali, boys as young as twelve, looking for work to feed their families. Slave traffickers from Cote d’Voire or Ghana promise them wages, food, whatever it takes. Then they’re taken to plantations, where they work in horrible conditions, often very dangerously, abused and underfed, harvesting cocoa beans.

“Research in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which together make up 60 per cent of the world's cocoa, reveal up to 80 per cent of children in the cocoa fields are being exposed to dangerous practices such as unprotected use of chemicals, carrying heavy loads, brush burning and using machetes. About half of these children do not go to school.” –Tim Costello, Courier Mail

Chocolate companies signed a pact to improve conditions and stop slave labor in 2001. Seven years later, almost nothing has happened. Nestlé, Hershey, Mars, none of these companies can guarantee that their chocolate hasn’t been produced by slave labor. Once the beans are harvested, they’re all mixed together; by the time the cocoa enters the factories, it’s impossible to tell what came from where, what chocolate was produced by slave plantations and what was produced by fair-trade farms in South America. Anything you eat as a consumer is most likely at least partly produced by slave trade.

So what are the solutions?

1) Don’t buy non-Fair-Trade chocolate. This is probably the most important thing. If you don’t buy it, they don’t get paid for it. By boycotting slave-produced chocolate, you are refusing to pay for something that was produced by slave labor. Remember in history class, when people talked about condemning the Southern states for owning slaves? Remember how the Southerners were quick to point out how guilty the Northerners were—the Yankee economy was completely dependent on slave-produced cotton. We don’t own slaves here. But by paying for slave-produced goods, we’re supporting it nonetheless. And there are alternatives! I know people might see not eating chocolate as a hardship: buy fair-trade! I’ll put up a list at the bottom of this page, listing fair-trade companies and non-fair-trade.

2) Contact the companies, the stock-holders, politicians, etc. I’m not the most legal-savvy person in the world. Honestly, I’m not exactly economy-savvy either. But I know that if ten people send the CEO of Hershey, Mars, Nestlé, Cadbury, et al. a letter, nothing will happen. If the chocolate companies, senators, and so on get a thousand letters from a thousand people telling them to stop this or else, something has to give way eventually. So send letters! Make calls! Send e-mails! Don’t give up. Make them feel the pressure.

3) Spread the word. I can’t stress how important this is. So few people even know this is going on, it’s incredible. It’s easy to ignore problems when no one talks about them. So talk about it! Send this around, start discussion, get people’s minds working! Write a song, write a letter, get your teachers/friends/coworkers to talk about it. I guarantee that if most people knew what went into the products they buy for comfort, that comfort will evaporate, conscience will spring in, and this horror will end all the sooner.

So, in this story I am writing, things are beginning to take shape. Originally, it was a little drabble about a guitar tuner that teleported people into places. It moved on to a story about the boy who found it and was sent to a very strange world indeed. Now, I find myself wondering what he'll do, now he's there, and the world itself has become an interesting and complicated place, with two characters already inserting themselves and their backstories into the mix. The third matter is the king. Somehow, I wound up with the premise that the king has messengers, mysterious creatures of semi-lore, who can see into people's dreams. No one seems to know why, or how. Obviously, as someone from a world very like our own, this bothers Jim just a tad (there is a bit where he tries, unsuccessfully, to quote John Locke on why kings have limits). But the problem, for me, was that I did not want to make the king a villain. He was a character already swimming around in the back-burner of my mind. So after Ti (the first person Jim meets in the new world) falls asleep and I introduced the creature watching her dreams, I began to write his backstory. It started out as an impersonal family tree sort of thing, and wound up rather detailed, but I'm happier with it that way.

(Click ye not lightly; the thing is six and a half Word pages, 11pt TimesNewRoman and 1.5 spaced, with a line between each paragraph.)

( And here it is. )

So, in the process of writing Ra's backstory, I found a reason for the dream-watchers to be there, without making a villain of the king, and for that I was quite happy. It's all starting to fit together, and I'm looking forward more and more to seeing where this will all go.

Somewhere along the way, I decided that there are no truly native species of the world. People are simply sent there, for some reason or another, by instruments of fate in other world, knowing or not. (Rolf, for example, the man who sells Jim the guitar tuner, is only in business because he sets up mythological matches between Heroes and Objects, set in place by someone or other. He doesn't know the specifics because he tries very very very hard not to think about it.) So the king wound up with almost completely randomized specieses populating his world, and he's just fine with that. He has made it known, actually, to Guardians* across the planes, that he will provide a safe haven for deviants who don't fit into their world, and so he winds up with a motley bunch, and he likes it that way. And so do I.

*_{I am squeamish and foolish, but I don't believe in gods. Or at least, those to whom I refer are not gods. In my mind, gods are false. The demons in this verse claim to be gods. Men (and by 'men' I mean sentient, self-aware creatures of any species and gender) often call guardians gods. That is because they don't ask. If they asked, most of them would tell them that they are not gods, merely immortals who have a vast power, who have been put in charge of them. It's rather like Lewis's idea of the eldila, how they are more guardians of people than gods. (Of course, in this verse they are immortal, and vastly powerful, but not holy or angels or omnipotent or perfect.)}

Taking a break from writing Portaltuner (as it remains, without a proper name) and a few pages on Ra's background to type this up and slap it on Facebook (and then copy it into an e-mail to the friend in question, of course.)

I often find it hard to verbalize things that I feel strongly about. When all is said and done, I'm a writer. Things are easier, on paper. Things make sense this way. So, here, I fictionalize a response to a recurring debate with a friend, because it's easier than telling him straight up.

Once upon a time, there was a hummingbird. Like most hummingbirds, it was covered in the most brilliant of feathers, shimmering, shining in the light. It was a male hummingbird, brilliantly flashing, displaying, performing acrobatic feats that would impress an eagle. Eventually, it wound up with a female, her coloring only slightly less brilliant--more brilliant, to his eye, and they mated, and she built a nest, tiny and perfect, built of plant down, lichens, held together with strands of gossamer web which had caught her eye all shining in the morning dew. And, in that nest, she laid two tiny, perfect eggs, smaller than the last digit of a man’s finger, and infinitely fragile. And they hatched, and she fed her two young with insects and nectar and whatever she could find, and when they were big enough and strong enough, they flexed their wings, and steeled their nerves, and launched off into the air.

In their first flight, the first true venture of their young lives, they blundered directly into the weaving of a cloud, by a goddess known for her wisdom, and her pride. She looked at the two tiny things, like living gems, and smiled. And she gave them a choice, in that moment, the two tiny living gems, for all things living have a choice, no matter how small or unlikely.

And the one chick, just barely fledged, chose safety, security, stability, and a steady life.

The other chick, as young, as naïve, chose freedom, adventure, mystery, and a life of surprise.

Athena took the first chick, a young male hummingbird which had not yet grown into the full, brilliant colors of his father, and wove around him a cage, as soft, as supple as the nest he was born in, translucent to allow in the light, strong as steel. It was large, easily ten times the size of the cages usually given to heavy parrots, there was a perfect nest on one of the walls, and all over the floor flowers sprang up, nectar perfect, sweet, and constantly replenished. The other chick flew off, still unsteady on her young wings.

She found a bush soon, and landed, surrounded by inviting, beautiful flowers. She stared at them in bewilderment for a few moments before flicking her tongue habitually—and successfully—at a passing insect. Something clicked, and she spent the next few minutes drinking deeply from the flowers. With her energy replenished, she set off, already becoming more confident in her skills. She slept that night in the incomplete shelter of a butterfly bush, and met the butterflies that morning. It was a few months before she grew into a full size, and began to move south. The urge to migrate wasn’t so strong here, but she followed anyway, and landed eventually in a foreign land. There were several close calls: a more dominant female, of some other species, battled with dizzying speed; a cat, who she saw almost a moment too late; a day when she flew a long distance to a place where there were no flower bushes nearby, and nearly starved without the energy of the nectar to sustain her. She was more careful, after that. When she met a male, bold and brash and beautiful, she was surprised at how naturally raising a brood came to her.

There were cold nights, where the wind made her wish, desperately, for a warm home, somewhere without breezes altogether, but then she would remember that without breeze, she would find it hard to smell the flowers. There were days when, dodging larger animals or birds, exhilarated and terrified, she would almost find a regret in the farthest recesses of her mind, a wish for a life without danger. But, overall, she was happy.

The cage was hung in the courtyard of a temple, where the sunlight would kiss the bird’s beautiful feathers every day, and the cool night air flowed through at night. At some point, someone opened the cage, allowing the hummingbird to roam the courtyard. But he never left; that was part of the choice. There was always a soft nest, there was always enough to eat, especially in a place where spiders never made webs. He even had a romantic adventure, when a female of his species wandered into the courtyard one day, and they had their own brood, which he never saw, in the way of hummingbirds. It was a gentle life, one without danger, without hunger, without risk.

But sometimes, he would look at the walls of the courtyard, and remember a wide sky, not hemmed in by corners of stone. Sometimes, in his tiny, beautiful head, he wondered what the world was like, outside the temple. He had never seen it, he never knew. He wondered if he would have been brave enough to leave, but he never tried. That path was closed to him, now. But it didn’t really matter; overall, he was happy.

This is something I wrote on facebook, and the capitals are left off not in any style or anything, but because that's how it came out, and I wanted to post without thinking about it, and what's more in a forum my -dad- can read. So. Here it is, and I may post it on the blog Rambling Lunacy as well before I slip off into the night, amid the sounds of belching and dishes and other noises from David doing his thing in the kitchen. Glad I already ate.

the thing is, i don't know if i want a normal life. i don't think i even want a normal job. i don't want to get rich selling juice-- or even sharing juice. i don't want an excellent business opportunity, i don't want to have a LIFE, in any sense of the word. i don't. want. anything. at least, not anything like that. and yet, you people continue to tell me that it is Necessary, and that i should Compromise, or at least look beyond whatever stupid world i'm living in in my head (okay, you haven't said it like that, but i think you want to, at least a few of you, a few times), and try to get some kind of stability before i try to be an Artist. here's the thing though.

I don't WANT to be an Artist. Or, really, a Writer. (I want to be meet a very specific writer sometimes, but that's different.)

I want to tell stories. That's all, in one way. In another way, I want to LIVE, to feel the salt on my face in every way possible, to climb mountains like a goat like i did when i was young, to see forever the dappled sunlight on the forest floor, to hear forever the brook singing over rocks, to lose myself in the thunderstorms, spontaneous and forever. but mostly, i want to tell stories. I want to take all the characters floating around in my head, and all the landscapes that exist a thousand worlds over, and all the meadows and flowers and faires and sprites and genies and gargoyles and assassins and thieves and shepherds and everything. i want to live, live all of it forever, and then come back and tell people.

and that's often why i don't mingle well, or why i can't be coaxed to dinners and parties and things, and why you meet me in the mist and the dark, with no good reason for being there, and why i might choose a notebook over a car. because mingling, gossip about folks who aren't there, laughter, light, takes me away from the Stories, mine or someone else's, and life as it should be pales in contrast with life i want to live.

there is a part of a book i read that says something like "The thing about stories is, they don't mean a damn if there's nobody listening," which sometimes i kind of agree with. I want to go to the edge of the world, the end of life, and then come back and tell the stories to people who want to hear them. And it seems like that's not an acceptable goal, these days. And that saddens me.

Actually, according to John Adams, the Declaration was signed on July Second.

And it's about a guy, and a genie, and an island and a dice game. Whaddya think? Honestly.

( The Game )

So a girl I know from Drama Club last year, now a sophomore, took this quiz and I saw the results on facebook and they made me see black and red for a few seconds. So of course, out of morbid curiosity, I took the quiz (but refused to publish the response and spread the damned stupid thing.)

The quiz? "What Mental Illness Do You Have?" (or maybe it was "what mental illness 'are you'" or something. but I'm pretty sure it was "do you have'.)

Her result? Schizophrenia. (My result was the same.)

The description?
Schizophrenia is a serious illness marked by psychotic phases of hallucinations and gross disorganization of thoughts. You're not just a disorder - you're a DISEASE! Your peers fear and hate you, and they also think you're a freak. You're severely ill and should go check yourself into the nearest mental hospital as soon as possible.

Even reading it again is making my blood boil. These are the times when I wish I was more successful in my efforts to tone down my language, simply so that when I said Fuck this quiz, and whoever the fuck made it, it would carry more weight. Fuck this quiz. Fuck whoever made it. If I knew who they were, I would take a stout tree branch to their fucking face. Not just for me, either, because I'd bet quite a bit that any other result was just as offensive, wrong, and just fucked-up (and, incidentally, full of triggers).

My favorite part is how it characterizes your disease as YOUR FAULT. (you are a DISEASE, your peers [rightfully] fear and hate you because YOU are a freak.) Ironically, immediately after pointing out that schizophrenia is a serious illness. Whatever. Fuck this quiz, and whoever made it.

Oh, for sure. There's tons of things, left over from the culture shock: wearing pants, cutting my hair, wearing make-up, reading secular books, singing that dirty rock music, giving up meat, swearing, going to public school, the list goes on and on.

But the thing that I remember, deciding under my own power and in my own mind, never to do, is smoking. Cigarettes, I mean. I hated the smell of them, I knew they could kill you, I knew they turned your teeth and skin and fingers yellow, and I have heard the story countless times of how my grandfather came home and had to clean up his father's lung from being spread all over the kitchen table, when he died of tuberculosis. And I remember my grandmother's slow, painful death from emphysema. So I definitely didn't need help deciding not to smoke. It was also right around the time my aunt found out she had throat cancer, after a very, very short time in her life, long ago, smoking.

My younger brother's been smoking for years now; he'd left an almost-whole lit cigarette on the side door railing. Hanging outside with my two best friends, I grabbed it while he went inside, and smoked as much of it as I could before he came back, which was almost the whole thing. And you know what? I enjoyed it. It tasted good, I didn't choke on it, it didn't really burn my throat or lungs, and for some reason I really liked it. Then, of course, he came out and chased me down for it, until I gave it back, almost gone, laughing. The next three days, all I wanted to do was smoke another one. Three DAYS I craved that thing, and for one and a half my mouth tasted like ash no matter what I ate. I swore I wouldn't do it again.

The second, and last time, was months later. My friend and boss had taken a week off, and the manager and I were working alone, and everything went wrong. Like... everything. Everything went wrong. And, stressed to the max, hot, irritated, I bummed a cigarette off of her, telling her that 1) I was eighteen, legal, which was true (...I think.), and 2) I'll just buy my own later anyway. Which probably was not, because I do Not look eighteen. At all. So I bummed one off of her and sat on the loading dock behind the store, took a smoking break for a few minutes, felt marginally better for the break, but the cigarette was disgusting and burned my mouth, and I felt like a jerk for smoking it, and more of a jerk for promising not to tell my friend who was on vacation, who I knew would kill both of us.

And that's when I really decided not to smoke. It's expensive as hell-- I can't afford to go out and spend six bucks every three days! That's insane! And it only gets worse as the habit develops, and it will only get more expensive as the tax goes up. It makes your mouth taste like ash. It will eventually kill you, unless you are one of the lucky few, or unless you manage to kill yourself first. Your house, car, clothes, and everything you own will smell like smoke and turn yellow. And, and this is the biggest point for me, you become completely dependent on it. I Do Not Like being dependent. On anything. I'm still pissed about being addicted to coffee. Tobacco? Yeah, no.

Eight months or so later, I told my friend who'd been on vacation the whole story. And now, I know that if for whatever reason my resolve wavers over the course of my life-- if I join the Army, or whatever, I will most definitely not smoke again, anyway, because that memory of disappointment will stay with me. It was possibly the worst single guilt trip anyone's ever been able to pull on me, but hell, I don't care. Stupidest decision I've made my whole life long, and that's saying something. Anyone who tries to keep me from doing that again is a friend I can trust.

Today, in Euro, we started the Russian Revolution of 1917. But before that, because our History teacher is freaking awesome, we got a little background info on the death of Rasputin.

Apparently, this dude, the "mad monk" who had a crazy level of control over the tsar and tsarina, was pissing off some nobles in a major way. The tsar was so isolated that he pretty much was talking to no one, but Rasputin had a constant audience for whatever reason. He was also feared pretty much by everyone, and reported to have supernatural powers of some kind. So the nobles, sick and tired of shouting at the gates while Rasputin, this dude with no -real- reasons to have the tsar's ear at all, did whatever he wanted, hatched a plan!

The tsarina, purportedly quite beautiful, was out on some journey or other, but they told Rasputin that she was coming back briefly just to have dinner with him. Rasputin, blissfully unaware, agrees to meet her.

The nobles have dinner prepared, but lace the food, as well as Rasputin's two favorite drinks, apparently, heavily with potassium cyanide. Gleefully rubbing their hands together, they watch as the food is served, and Rasputin digs in.

Annnd eats, and eats, and drinks, and eats, and starts to wonder where the tsarina is. They tell him she'll be here pretty soon, and he calls for gypsy music. (Seriously! Freakin' gypsy music!)

The noble who was in charge of dinner freaks out. He excuses himself and goes upstairs to freak out with his comrades, who decide on a backup plan.

He returns with a revolver and shoots Rasputin. (Where is not specified.)

Rasputin lurches to his feet, makes it to the door, and falls out. Of the door. He flees, the would-be-assassins firing after him (and missing). Eventually, they catch up with him, and, after conferring briefly, tie his hands over his head and dump him into the river.

Autopsy reveals that it was, in fact, the river that finally killed him-- not the cyanide, or the gunshot wound.

Only in Russia, man.

( Cut for nudity )

It's not porn or anything. Just a sketch, Greek-style, in a way. I don't know. I just didn't have the heart to draw clothes on something like that. It wouldn't have been the same. The bit of print that was cut off at the bottom reads "Eagle, I am not." The first draft, months ago, said "I am no eagle" or something like that.

Recently I found out that chocolate companies, at least a lot of the major ones, use a lot of child slavery to stay in business. So this was rather depressing. Hershey, Mars, and Nestle are the biggest, but I guess a lot of them do it. Here are the sources thus far:
http://www.bukisa.com/articles/12355_bitter-sweetchocolate-by-slave-labour
http://www.ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=173
http://www.american.edu/ted/chocolate-slave.htm
http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/khadijasharife/2008/11/08/of-oompa-loompas-slavery-and-racial-supremacy/
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper/company.cfm?id=238
http://www.laborrights.org/end-violence-against-trade-unions/colombia/969
http://www.organicconsumers.org/fair_trade/slavechocolate060414.cfm
http://www.chocolatework.com/chocolate-slavery.htm

This is something that's pretty hard to just swallow. It's kind of sickening that chocolate companies are slipping this right by us, and most people don't even know. Long run, my idea is to take these sources, put them together, and write an article type thing, basically just something to get this information out there so people -know- what it is they're buying. I'll try and have this ready as soon as possible.

If anybody wants to help me edit this, once it's finished, let me know. I'd really appreciate a few betas.