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Noxryn

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Blog Entries posted by Noxryn

  1. Noxryn

    Nanowrimo

    By Noxryn,

    of faeries and dragons and harpies and humans and gods and demons and clockwork and magic and beasts and evils and goods and in-betweens
     
    with adventure and romance and discovery and growth and compassion and survival and preservation and beauty and lies
  2. Noxryn

    hey (again)

    By Noxryn,

    this website is a safe space.
     
    if you can't respect that, please leave.
     
    or, at least, respect that this is a safe space and posting discriminatory content isn't cool and does not fit under the banner of "Safe Space."
     
    i know a thing or two about safe spaces and doing stuff like that gets you banned from them in every other instance of their existence. (i volunteered in a LGBT Youth Center, for one thing, and it was kinda a big deal because those people really needed that space to get away from mean spirited people; it's sort of terrible to go into that safe space for those people to feel safe and welcome and then to tell them they suck, like the rest of the world pretty much already does)
     
    fyi
     
    there's no courage in telling a group of people they're wrong about something very personal and integral to themselves
     
    it's really just mean and you don't really have the right
     
    so don't do it.
  5. Noxryn

    The Closet

    By Noxryn,

    (This is a rather personal position piece, where I do talk about some very personal events in my life -- I'm speaking from my perspective here, just a note)
    (and no, it's not written with the utmost grammatical scrutiny)
     
    Okay, numerous things prompted me to make this entry. But I do feel like a lot of people haven't entirely grasped what this concept is, why it's a touchy subject and why belittling and undermining it ticks people off.
     
    As a LGBT+ individual, I've had it easy. Very easy. Yes: there are a lot of problems, pressures, anxiety-attacks, bad situations and histories that I have and worries that I have going forward but, compared to a lot of people -- people I've talked with, known and am even friends with -- I've had it light. So I cannot even begin to make this a blanket entry and I shouldn't: I can only accurately explain my position and no one else's and to do otherwise would, potentially, disenfranchise someone else's experiences that may have been a lot worse.
     
    Here goes.
     
    Growing up I've lived in various, various places. From Minnesota, to Pennsylvania, to Texas, to (visiting for months on end) Arkansas, to Colorado and now Wisconsin (and various towns therein). No matter where I lived I always saw homophobia and transphobia. As a very young kid I never understood what it all was; I didn't even know the term "gay" until early Middle School. But I lived in more conservative areas -- conservative suburbs, small religious communities (Orthodox Jewish communities, namely) and in communities with five churches every mile that were all extremely "traditional" in nature. In this environment I, somehow, ended up not really caring what someone's sexual orientation was and, later, what their gender identity is -- well for the latter I care because I most definitely will go out of my way to use preferred pronouns (and I ought be slapped if I don't). But, back in early middle school, I didn't see it as an issue at all but we also didn't have any out and about gay students or trans students. At most people would use inappropriate terms to refer to mundane things (But this does not make it any more appropriate!) such as calling an event "gay" and so on.
     
    It was mid-middle-school (wrap your head around that term) when I started to realize something about myself. Simply, I was not into the girls and was far more into the boys (fictional boys, but whatever).
     
    After a whole year of stuff best dedicated to some other entry (as it doesn't quite fit into this one), I came to identify, to myself, as "Gay." I told no one at first and, basically, lived in the closet. Here's why:
     
    - Where I lived for the last six or eight years (two different locations, mind you) the sentiment towards the LGBT+ community as a whole was overwhelmingly negative. In Colorado, where I last lived, there was a Church that openly advocated Reparative Therapy and Gay-Straight Camps. If you don't know, those two methods are wretched. Beyond wretched. Many of those so-called camps have been shut down and are not legally allowed to be operated in most first world countries: there are some really horrendous stories, scandals, testimonies and victims that come out of those places. Reparative Therapy, in comparison, used to be torturous (electroshock therapy used to be a viable method) and even if it's not so much physically torturous anymore: It instills a sense of guilt, a horrible, horrible sense of guilt into patients. It makes them feel terrible for feeling the way they do. It's a horrible practice that is just a front for emotional abuse and many, many people who have undergone this sort of "treatment" have committed suicide soon thereafter. There's a reason why it's illegal for minors to be admitted to such practices in California, and why the American Psychological Association (among others) do not see it as a viable practice.
     
    In Texas, I lived in an extremely religious neighborhood that was, essentially, a borderline ghetto (it was right next to a ghetto, with all the violence and everything). I was going to the religious school as it was the only school in the area that was relatively safe to be in (might've changed). At this school students were denied admission on grounds of ADHD and disabilities. Some students were expelled for less. The religion I was partaking in, at the time (I'm... basically just utterly non-religious now), held that homosexuality is a sin. They held that rather adamantly, actually.
     
    Had I come out at this school:
     
    - I could potentially have been expelled.
    - I could potentially have been attacked (as other students so often threatened gay people; trans-people not so much although I suspect they just didn't know about trans folk).
    - I could potentially have risked ostracizing my family from the community. (Granted, many adults expressed frightening sentiments towards, specifically, gay people).
    - There was a chance our property could have been vandalized (which, recently, happened in Pennsylvania near a place I actually lived) and with our living situation, that would not have been affordable to fix.
    - I could lose my friends (And did lose some).
    - I was scared of being sent to those aforementioned camps and therapy sessions.
     
    So I stayed silent at age 12, worrying about these types of things and undergoing a lot of stress because of it. At the time, I didn't even know if my mother would have accepted me, I didn't know her stances on anything and she hung out with a lot of the adults I didn't like (sans some). I had read horror stories of kids, who lived in religious communities like this, who were kicked to the curb because they were gay. I didn't want to be homeless, I didn't want to upset my mother, I didn't want to run the risk of being expelled from the school I went to, I didn't want to give people more reasons to pick on me and hurt my feelings. I didn't want to be a problem and so I chose to live in the closet, keeping to myself and lying whenever such subjects came up.
     
    When we moved I felt excited: new school, new people (albeit I have social anxiety issues, so that frightened me), but I hoped it'd be a more accepting community. Especially since it was close to Denver.
     
    Nope. But it was a bit better.
     
     
    Living in Colorado, I made no friends. I didn't want friends; to be honest I was quite scared to have friends. For me and my life, friends have by and large been the people who ended up hurting me the most and I was in this mindset of "get through High School with as little pain as possible." So in my first three years, I never made a friend. Well, good friends -- namely as I was scared what they might do, or say, if they found out I was gay. (I don't condone doing this, by the way).
     
    On top of struggling with Social Phobia/Social Anxiety Disorder (Therapist said both, so) and Depression (which I was put on medication for, that and the Social Anxiety) I was struggling with a lot of stress. Every year I missed a huge chunk of school days. Living in the closet and trying to keep people from getting to know me, in the end, hurt me extremely and all of the problems I was going through were amplified because of that sole fact.
     
    In my Sophomore year... where do I start...
     
    I was on the School Newspaper and did a center piece, with others, on the LGBT+ Community at our school. We had... I believe two openly gay students (one of whom got a lot of behind-the-back talk in ninth grade), and at the time we had one open lesbian student. I just covered the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy as it made the military, as a lot of our students were interested in it, as a viable career option for LGB+ people (sadly not trans/genderqueer folk as DADT only covered sexual orientation).
     
    One student went on a tirade on a social networking site over it. Defaced the pages, insulted the writers and said just hurtful things at every turn. A parent actually emailed the teacher about the page and actually had the audacity to insult the students who put it together. Saying words not appropriate for BZPower.
     
    Another story?
     
    In my AP US History class I sat next to a student who openly advocated the death of gay people. He went on tirades about how gay men are beasts at best with low intelligence levels (Ha. Ha. I helped him with his work.). He would use terms inappropriate for BZPower to refer to gay people and, so many times, I wanted to seriously speak out but could not. I wasn't out at the time, no other students ever spoke out -- I didn't even know if any of them would agree with me, or if they'd all turn on me.
     
    During my Junior year, the great "Gay Marriage Debate" came up in my AP US Government course.
     
    Where the teacher basically discredited such a notion. I had a whole thing I could have gone on but, at first, did not. (I did later, and I felt good afterwards).
     
     
    Now at this school I knew I would not be expelled for coming out. I knew I wouldn't be ostracized from any church because I didn't go to any. I still felt uncomfortable around a lot of students, but I found a safe place amongst the art students (admittedly, very talented ones) who were a mixture of gay/bi/lesbian/straight people who were just not open about it. When I needed help I would talk to some of the art teachers, mainly as they really liked me as a student and offered to help me on days where I was stressed or experiencing breakdowns.
     
    I still stayed in the closet due to previous fears and not wanting to be one of those students people talked about behind my back. (I only actually "came out" after two months in the LGBST Club late Junior year... headed by one of the art teachers I got help from). The posters for this club were defaced, ripped down and nasty things were written on them. Just for some context. (Our school implemented a stricter penalty for defacing these posters, which is what stopped it).
     
    And that's just school life.
     
     
    I had no idea what my family would think. A lot of them are devout Catholics so I was -- still am -- nervous to ever have to mention it to them. I didn't know what my father would think, still don't, and I don't care to find out given some of the things he's said in the past on the subject.
     
    Admittedly, I'm only comfortable "being out" online because no one in real life knows me online. Even though people on this website say incredibly hurtful, harmful things that only perpetuate the mindsets above (Y'know, the one that thinks Reparative Therapy is a good idea). But I don't think any of them really understand the gravity of these situations. I don't think a lot of people understand why it hurts. But here it is from me:
     
     
    I come to BZPower, the internet, to hang out and have a fun time with cool people. I get a lot of dung for it in real life. I get more than I can shovel. And when someone makes a mundane entry on this website and people go in and upset that person, or when someone has the intent to say something hurtful and upsetting just for attention -- Well I am sorry. I have absolutely zero respect for you. It's a horrible thing to do. It's a wretched, disgusting thing to take someone else's problems and belittle them. It's sickening when people take actual, serious, issues and devolve them into nothing.
     
    People DIE because they come out of the closet.
    In some countries, being gay (or trans/genderqueer) is a DEATH SENTENCE. Literally and LEGALLY.
    People are kicked from their HOMES because they come out of the closet.
    People commit SUICIDE because they are forced to be in the closet with a locked door.
     
    This isn't some cutesy little thing you can just arbitrarily apply to anything.
     
     
    This is a serious issue that can, and has, ruined lives.
     
    I know I'm not the most articulate member, and that I likely botched some things up but... I just had to say something on this because it really hits home for me.
  6. Noxryn

    Dorm Room Appliances

    By Noxryn,

    so now i'm the owner of a microwave, mini fridge and a coffee/tea/hot chocolate maker.
     
    i like these things for they are useful
     
    and also have ffxiv: arr preordered as my birthday present yesterday :>
  7. Noxryn
    omg yesssss FFXV finally sounds like it's going somehwere ;u;
     
    (and and and Kingdom Hearts III <3)
     
    and and microsoft kinda destroyed themselves in so many ways it's just sad (thus, ps4, already preordered thankyouverymuch)
     
    but also the FFXIV videos looked awesome, and while i believe separate from the event, the PS3 UI Vid was really informative (i pretty much have my character nailed down now -- saw the hair i wanted :3 -- and now i know how it'll look on the PS3 system and how smooth the overally controller is for the game; might still try a PC version just to see how well my PC can handle it, but eh)
     
    and new super smash bros for 3DS <3 (i can't afford a Wii U after my ps4 preorder lol... and i don't have the space for two systems and a pc in my dorm... prolly gonna be laptop/ps4 there)
     
    (wii-fit trainer totes awesome)
     
    but now i'm all excited for Destiny too, and still in need of getting the HD Remixes of FFX and KH1
     
    (the mandatory pay online for PSN doesn't bug me too much, like it is 50 bucks and possibly 40 with a Best Buy Game Club membership -- still need to look into that -- which... i -believe- is cheaper than LIVE, or at least the same price i imagine; but i'll hopefully have an on-campus job and can throw money to that)
  8. Noxryn
    my computer can run it on max settings wooo (but only at an average of 46~FPS going by the benchmark test, so prolly a bit lower) but the game looks just rad on high and medium settings so there... which technically doesn't matter since the human eye can only see like 27 ~ 30 frames per second (if this is wrong punch my 3D animation instructor from two years ago).
     
    (but i plan to get the collector's edition for my PS3 since it's just a safer investment and get the standard version for PC so i can play it there too/see if it runs well... though i think i can do that in open beta so we'll see)
     
    but yay i wanna be a miqo'te white mage <3
     
    (i'll be so bad at white mage jsyk)
     
    if other people plan to get it and play they should totes say something (i have like one other friend who wants to play it too so we're gonna be miqo'te boys blowing things up randomly)
     
    but yay so excited (and release date is Aug 27th, but since i plan to preorder headstart is August 20th... and that's after the open beta which i think will be in mid-late July since Phase 3 testing is in June [and open beta is Phase 4])
     
     
    (oh oh oh and i graduated wooo so now onto college come Sept 4th)
  9. Noxryn

    bwahahaha

    By Noxryn,

    finally i finished Fire Emblem: Awakening
     
    76 hours it took (although four of those hours was me failing hard on a DLC, over and over and over again)
     
    i opened all the chests and killed everything
     
    and met a wonderful lobster whom i asploded
  11. Noxryn

    man

    By Noxryn,

    I've had a... well, I'll say it wasn't a very good week overall. Some drama (not here you silly nannies) popped up that upset me (but I'm over it, thus why I'm all good), had to work in a library for 15 hours of Spring Break (not that I don't like libraries, but cleaning shelves hated my back with a passion... and cleaning books... let's just say some of them were really gross and I'm a wuss), and I got into a dumb argument (no nothing here again you sillies) which... let's just say it was dumb and leave it there.
     
    and BZPower had a bit of drama go on, i think it's stupid it's even "drama" but whatever. I think my signature accurately displays my opinion.
     
     
  12. Noxryn
    Last week I picked up some new games, two specifically, and I came to love both of them.
     
    The first, barring the not-so-well-thought-out title, is DmC: Devil May Cry which I believe was developed by Ninja Theory.I had a lot of fun in this game, from just murderizing all the demonic monsters (which, to me, seemed very clockwork-y which was pretty neat, design-wise) to watching the cutscenes, and paying attention to the story. I had to use every button on my control (sans Start and Select) through basically every fight, swapping weapons constantly and using all of the abilities they all had, and some of the boss fights took me a while to get through, lol. (I played on Nephilim difficulty, which is basically "Hard", other difficulty modes are made available later on).
     
    Admittedly, I liked the first sequence in the game the most... and then the last sequence <.<
     
     
    The second game I picked up (well, downloaded) was Journey by thatgamecompany. The exact opposite of DmC, Journey has no fighting, no crazy music (it does have amazing music, though), profanity, etc... it's an extremely calm game. The effects (mainly the sand) are incredible, and I've gone through this game four times now (meeting companions along the way, as it will put you with one other person if you play online). Oddly, I enjoyed the inability to communicate outside of small chirps/song notes and not even knowing the other person's name. The shortness of the game (which is not narrated, and is very much up to player interpretation) makes it easy to stick with one person the whole game.
     
    But, what's the best, is that this game seems to bring out the best in some players. Instead of someone trying to halt progress, getting in the way, throwing out insults or being otherwise rude, the players I've come across (one in a white cloak, which is an upgrade from the standard red cloak) were all incredibly helpful. Often going out of their way to show me where some items were, where some achievement requirements were, and would wait for me if I messed up, and celebrate when we did something right.
     
    At the very last part of my second run through, I having been with the same white cloaked character the whole time, before the moment where we leave eachother's company and end up in a walking loop (before the final cutscene), she drew a heart in the snow. I found it incredibly touching, and of course made one of my own (not even having thought this possible) before we both walked off into the light. It's sort of a bittersweet moment at the end, since you'll likely never play with that person again, (You do get the PSN ID's of all the people you ran into at the very, very end of the game though -- after the credits).
     
    (I used "she" because of the PSN ID and because the characters always make me think "female" which might have something to do with their design reminding me of burkas).
     
     
    Both were great fun, to me. (However, I would not recommend DmC for people sensitive to: Blood/Gore, Nudity/Crudeness [Dante is nude for the first sequence, and while it's all censored via environment... well, yeah], foul language/killing giant demon babies.
     
    Journey I recommend to anyone. It's a game for all ages, and has a low skill barrier (I find it just a ton of fun to run into someone else and to help one another through the journey). -- if you don't have a PS3 though, then you can't play it. (PS3 exclusive in the PSN store).
  14. Noxryn

    Summer Plans!

    By Noxryn,

    So, I'll likely be out of the country some time late June/July. Which month I don't know yet, and it'd likely be a max of a week (likely less than that, though -- I also plan to go to Denver Pridefest this year, which is the 15th/16th... so before I'd leave, since I'd leave after the 19th).
     
    I'm thinking to go to Italy, though~
     
     
    But dunno if I'll be able to go to BFair, the college I'm going to has some thing going on in August... I forget if it's early August or late August, though.
  15. Noxryn

    Musical Inspirations

    By Noxryn,

    My friend showed me a song recently that made me want to write, or just find, a story where the fate of the world hinges on Pong.
     
    And, like, the characters would challenge each other to these world-changing, mind-smashing rounds of the game with:
     
    "Let us play Pong."
     
    And it'd be all dark and serious and stuff. *makes ominous hand motions for dramatic effect*
  16. Noxryn

    Been a While!

    By Noxryn,

    Sort of, anyways.
     
    But... well, I was off doing things that had to deal with more serious matters in life. (Nothing so serious as life and death, luckily, but simply matters that affect my personal future and some issues relating to how some things were treating me [in which I won't go into detail on]).
     
    As a result, I ended up spending a lot less time on here. Honestly, I ended up spending a lot less time anyplace that I had to invest a lot of time and stress over in some cases. What I ended up doing with the time I had with the internet was going back to some games like World of Warcraft (why? Because it's, honestly, a nice light-hearted escape from things) and writing poetry and spending time figuring out short stories to sort of vent things out in. (Which I wrote by hand, in a notebook, so the likelihood of any being shared is practically nill... though some of it was just roleplaying, anyway). I also began working out more, because that has a history of bringing my mood up.
     
    But, there's some things I now want to do.
     
    * Finish up college applications (I've really dropped the ball on this one)
    * Start catching up with more of what is expected of me, be it posts on one site, or working and helping on the forums here. (Real life things already factored in).
    * Write Nightingale, Guardian Angel and put work towards a currently untitled story.
     
    After tonight, I feel tons better. Walking around Mainstreet and stopping into a small little shop that sells neat little trinkets really got me out of my rut, that and some guy downtown hit on me so that made me feel pretty good (Actually, about three different guys did; 16th street mall was a nice way to spend some time today... wasn't like creepy, either).
     
    I have a new wallet now, it's one of those small, compact steel case thingies (mine's pink <3) and I also got a new Hello Kitty phone case (As a side note, I also got a LGBT related car magnet I love~ it's sorta political, so I shan't post an image of it).
     
    There's still some things I really need to do, personal things I don't want to talk about here, but after I get myself to do it... things will just be so much better.
     
     
    **Note: I've begun to notice that in games I play, like MMO's or FPS games, I'm always apparently mistaken as a girl... ? I really don't get this, though I mean... I suppose playing a female panda in WoW could lead people to assume this (I just thought the male ones were too chubbywubby and wanted a panda badly), but... man, some of the messages I get.
     
    That's my ramble for the night.
  17. Noxryn

    Unhealthy Habits, and Halo

    By Noxryn,

    So I bought Halo 4 at midnight, well more precisely, nine minutes after midnight. I just got the normal edition -- Limited was sold out, and I wasn't shelling out 350+ for the console (even if the design is cool, and the harddrive is massive).
     
    I was actually in the line around 8:30ish my time, ran into some friends and we just talked about Halo, he went on about The Walking Dead, boyfriends, and some career related things. Was fun, also ran into some other people I know and just talked about random stuff for the most part. It was my first midnight release thing, and they had some copies of Halo 4 going on a massive screen for some people to play, but otherwise it was mostly this massive line (I was near the beginning of it, as most people showed up around 9 and 10).
     
    So I got my copy (number 91) and then picked up a thing of mountain dew. Why I did this I don't know, but I ended up drinking the whole thing in that week and in conjunction with playing so much Halo... yeah, not healthy (going to the gym tomorrow...).
     
    But I:
     
    - Beat the whole campaign on Legendary solo the first day, found all the terminals too (still need to grab some other achievements).
    - Beat the current Spartan Ops episode on Legendary
    - And got up to SR - 34 (prolly to be 35, or even 40, by the end of Sunday)
     
     
    I'm having fun. :B
  20. Noxryn

    AMC!

    By Noxryn,

    So I have a job interview with them tomorrow! (The theaters, not the channel sillies)
     
    Just need to run to get my haircut after school (It's getting long *hasn't gotten it cut since before Brickfair*), shave and find something nice to wear.
     
    What's awesome is that I know how to get there, and to the haircut place, and have my own car to drive myself there in (and to school, so no blechy buses anymore)
     
    Hopefully I get the job *would love to work at AMC*
  21. Noxryn

    Pokemon Names :D

    By Noxryn,

    Or otherwise, how I nickname them!
     
    Oh yes, I am very bored (on a Pokemon break, waiting for someone to wake up, don't feel like going anywhere) and I thought I'd share. Because I'm bored.
     
    I usually pick things out of the name, or occasionally a name that references something I really like. (Like, with Audino, I had five in the last game and named them: Audi, Ausum, Audina, Ausi, Auvina). In White I wanted to name my Snivy "Snivylicious" but that sadly didn't fit, but a close friend came up with "Sylvanus" and he's been rocking that since.
     
    But anyway, here's what I named my party (I name all my Pokemon) :B
     
    - Lucario - Mio (Wanted to name him Rio, but thought that would get old after he evolved :B )
    - Jolteon - Shiki (Favorite Pokemon gets a name related to my favorite person)
    - Magnetite - Mave (Why, idk)
    - Elekid (Not currently in party) - Eleziel (like Ezekiel, but not)
    - Sigilyph - Sigyl (obvious inspiration is obvious)
    - Genesect (Can't name him D: )
    - Dewott - Poseidon (Stole friend mention's above name scheme for a minute here... he usually is the one to reference gods/goddesses of ancient mythology and pagan faiths << >>)
    - Growlithe - Rowlie =D
     
    I usually pick names I think sound cute/adorable. Or are bad puns. Occasionally I'll throw in one of substance, like a god's name here, or name a Pokemon after someone important (usually my favorite pokemon get those names :B )
     
     
     
     
    As a note, right now I'm up to the Electric Gym. =D highest level Pokemon is Poseidon at 29 *almost 30*
  22. Noxryn

    Pokemon White 2

    By Noxryn,

    Because I lost my Black copy forever ago and restarted on White. And also because a close friend also got White, and he gave me free shinies because he's amazing and awesome (and one of them was named after a Cinderella character so *squee*) :3
     
    He's actually why I got White 2 today, though he doesn't get his copy until Thursday *when it's released where he is* so he and I can't trade/battle until then *he always wins anyway, but it's fun xP*
     
    Although I'm not starting it yet, I need to wrap up the first White game and then finish up some schoolwork... or finish up the schoolwork and then the first White game. *Was also dragged into GW2 for a while there so fell behind a bit in his Pokemoning*
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