Snare's Thoughts And Such

So I stepped back for a couple of reasons. One of them was to try and improve my perspective. Why did I feel like this, why was I having these problems. How can I fix it, all of that. And after a lot of thinking and looking over old emails and posts, I had some thoughts.

While I remember what has been said before, what's happened before, and I still believe what was said, I can let it slip to the back of my mind at times. What I've been wanting and seeking is something I still believe to be valid, but that doesn't make the previous statement untrue. I let my focus shift too much to the very recent past, instead of focusing on the entirety of the subject. And in doing so, I'm turning into someone that I truly dislike, almost hate.

I don't mean in a "I hate myself! I hate who I am!" sort of way. Rather, I'm becoming like a person that I intensely disliked for doing that and similar behaviors. It drove me crazy. "Why do you need constant validation?", I would ask. But as I step back and look at myself, I realize that I've been doing that myself. Again, what I asked for most recently was not validation, but rather something different. However, it is still something I'm quite guilty of. I have some ideas that will hopefully help with that.

One of them is the other main thought I had. I'm going to look into getting back on medication. While I am in no way attempting to shift the blame onto my disorder for this, it may play a part. Ultimately, my actions are still just that: mine. I have to take responsibility for them and for changing them. But hopefully this will make certain aspects a little easier to change, mentally. The rest will have to come from my own work. And there are other benefits to returning to medication as well, but I won't get into that.

So it’s been AGES since I’ve put anything up here. But that’s pretty normal for me on any blog-type thing. I’m always terrible at it. But anydangway, gonna do an update type thing!

First of all, I want to comment about my past a little. Since I started trying not to bottle my emotions up, things have been....dicey at times. I keep thinking I have a handle on it, and I kept not having quite as much of a handle as I thought I did. As a result, my Twitter feed, and here especially, got really negative at times. I’d like to apologize for that. It’s not the person I want to be, it’s not the person I already know I am. I know I’m a better person than that. All the people I’m physically surrounded by confirm it. So I’m not sure why the darker emotional part of myself was getting more representation on the internet than it should, but I’ve been trying to change that. Hopefully I’ve been succeeding. Again, I apologize for my past negativity, and doubly so if it directly hurt you in any way.

In other news, things in life. My car died on me. (insert Monty Python “yaaaaaay”) That’s made getting to and from work a lovely experience. Hopefully I’ll have a new set of wheels in the next month-ish.  I’m like....95% sure I’ll be able to build a gaming PC of awesomeness in early 2016. I should be getting a huge tax return, and hopefully will be able to add several hundred saved up dollars on top of it. Hopefully will be ending with a budget of around $2000. PC gaming, come to papa! The 100th episode of MLP:FiM! It was a really great episode. Probably will stay around as one of my favorites for a while. I’m still not happy about Vinyl being unnamed and mute, but you can’t have everything you want, right? Vinyl/Octavia roommates is canon, so that’s cool Ummmmmmm....I can think of a few other minor things, but I’ll just stop there for now on updates.

Alright, I do this every so often, so most of you won’t be surprised. It’s been a while, so I think it’s time for it again. Strap yourselves in, kiddos.

I’ve been dealing with some unique challenges lately. Most surrounding perceptions of myself and my character, Medli. The perceptions that some people have of myself, I know that at least in part, I have myself to blame for it. I think there’s some skewed perception going on, but I know I had a heavy hand in shaping it. As for Medli....I personally think it’s a matter of people not understanding her and her personality. But I’m not going to get into that, because that’s not why I brought it up. I bring it up because it hurts when people say hurtful things about you and your character. And I say that knowing full well that I’ve done the same thing before. I’m not here to blame anyone or say that so-and-so is a mean person to me or anything like that. I don’t have a right to say those things, because I’ve been that mean person before. What I do want to talk about is what’s gotten me through that. I have 3 people that I would assign the title “best friend” to in my life. One is my friend Michael from back home. We’ve been best friends for the past 15 years or so. I roomed with him in college, and he’s been with me through almost everything in my life. Another one is a female that I’m not going to get in to here. You might hear more about her later, depending on what happens. And the third one....c’mon, you all knew where I was going with this. :P Moon has stuck by me through the rough bits. And I’ve had quite a few of them. We’ve been friends for almost 2 years now, and it honestly feels like much longer. Not only is it hard to imagine life without her in it, the thought makes me extremely sad. She has had such a huge impact on my life. Major, real world changes have happened in my life that I’m extremely confident wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have her in it. And my life has improved because of those changes. We’ve had ups and downs, we’ve fought and argued, and we’ve always come back to our friendship when the dust settled. We don’t always see eye to eye, and we both aren’t very good at communication. But when it really matters, we tell each other what we need to hear.

Moon, you’re my best friend. You have done so much good in my life in such a short time. I don’t know how to thank you enough, or if I can ever repay the impact you’ve had on me. All I can do now is tell you that I love you dearly, and I’m excited to see what the future holds for our friendship. Thanks for being in my corner.

I feel unappreciated, uncared for, and disregarded. For a while, I tried to always make sure that the people here that I cared about knew it. I tried to, on a regular basis, point out, in both private and public, those that meant something to me. And I made sure they knew WHY they meant something to me. I never wanted those people to ever have to wonder how I felt about them. I wanted them to know, because there's comfort in that.

But as time's gone on...it feels mostly unrequited. Most of said people don't really do that in return. A couple are gone now, and one basically spit in my face and turned their back on me. People generally don't seem to care about how I feel or ensuring that I know that I'm valued, and just as or more important why. And plenty of people are much more invested in "keeping the peace" than trying to make things right. 

Don't get me wrong, I understand the value of keeping the peace. I don't like conflict, and I certainly don't want to start any. At the same time, I don't like seeing people I care about being wronged. I feel that things like that should be pointed out, shed light on, and hopefully prevented from happening again. To me, it's one thing to start a conflict, and another altogether to try and stop one that's already started, either by bringing about mutual understanding or, in appropriate cases, telling one or more people to get off of their damn high horse and listen to the other person's feelings.

Today is a very special day for me, although most of you don't know why. It's not my birthday, it's not my anniversary. Well, it's an anniversary, just not the one you'd think.

Today is the one year anniversary of my most treasured friendship.

On August 13th, 2013, Medli met Moon for the first time.

I had passing interaction with Moon Coral's player before that happened, but that was the day we really began talking to each other. Talking about what would happen in the RP, how the pony who was Moon Coral's "boyfriend" at the time was laughable, and starting to get to know each other. I knew pretty quickly that Moon was a cool person, and was pretty sure we'd get along well. I had no idea she'd become my best friend.

Over the course of this past year, lots of stuff has happened for both of us. Our characters have changed drastically through interacting with one another, and are better for it. Multiple story arcs have come and gone, and Ponyville is different, yet still the same ol' Ponyville in a way. Outside of Twitter, we've both had multiple instances of personal significance occur in our lives, which I won't fully go into for the sake of privacy. And throughout all of it, we've had each other to lean on when we needed it.

I can't tell you how much my friendship with her has changed my life for the better. Seriously, I can't. First of all, I'm not even sure I can properly articulate it. And second, some of the matters she's been with me through are ones I'm not quite ready to publicly discuss. But trust me when I say that her impact on my life can't be measured.

She's congratulated me in my victories, comforted me in my defeats, encouraged me to pursue things I was fearful to, and somehow has endured some rather wild mood swings from me (which are mostly under control now, but still pop up from time to time). In all of it, I've had my greatest friend by my side. And even though talking about serious matters is not her strength, I'm proud to know where I stand with her.

I'm legitimately surprised at the amount of crap I've gotten for unfollowing people. Seriously?

"If you don't like it, just don't follow"

How many of you have said that? How many times have we seen that posted as one of the main rules to live by on Twitter? Instead of raising a fuss, instead of whining and complaining about it, just unfollow it. Makes sense, right?

You know what seriously ticks me off? The amount of hypocrisy on OOC. People expect you to care when junk is going on in their lives, but don't give a damn when it's happening to you. I've been on the receiving end of this, as well as watched it happen to my best friend.

When people I consider my friends say that something's going on and I see it, I try to at least DM them to say that I hope that things get better, and offer a listening ear. I try to at the very least express that I saw it, and that they are in my thoughts.

I post things like that, what do I generally get? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Sometimes one or two insincere mentions. I say insincere because I've had enough interaction with the people in question to know that they don't actually care about me, they just want to "be nice" or some crap like that.

Worse still is that people whom I actually view as my friends generally don't say anything. Not a single word. And that hurts a lot. Because I try to be there for them as much as I can, and I feel like I don't get that back at all.

And to clarify, I don't mean as in "you're one of my best friends". I mean as in "you are my single closest and dearest friend".

"I still don't get what's so damn fun about Minecraft. I mean, what's so fun about spending lots of money for like.,,yeah. Plus creepers." Expressing a lack of understanding regarding the game's success and praise. The use of the term "damn fun" suggests mild dislike of the subject.

"Lots of money? Game isn't that expensive and I've been playing for a couple years." The previously stated "spending lots of money" point is countered by someone that plays the game, and has for some time.

"Don't you have to use real money for materials?" Demonstrates a lack of knowledge regarding how the game functions, which is, at least partially, the source of misunderstanding the game's appeal.

"What? No. You buy the game, done. Even mods are free." The point is again refuted by an experienced player.

"Ohhh...well I can't even afford the game right now. Even if I could, I don't own a computer." Up until this point, the conversation has been about "what's so fun about spending lots of money for like...yeah." Now, it has turned to "I can't play the game." At this point, it is no longer about what makes the game fun or not fun. It is about whether or not a single person can play it. It is entirely possible for the two conversations to be one, but it was not structured that way, so this shift does not make sense.

"...I'm confused. Are we talking about you getting Minecraft?" Question clarifying the purpose of the conversation.

"Not really. We're moreover talking about the appeal of the game." Clarification given, stating the purpose is not in regards to his ability to play the game.

"Okay...I don't see what your computer and console situation has to do with that...." Expression of confusion, as the conversation has taken on topics that have nothing to do with the game's appeal.

"Thing is: I THINK is like to try it. But I lack the necessary stuff to get it. Money, a computer/console." ....statement revealing that this is, in fact, about him getting the game, despite the fact that he just said it's not.

It's entirely possible to talk about wanting to get the game to understand it's appeal. But that's not what he did. He questioned the game's appeal. And did so in a way that expressed dislike of the game's success, and demonstrated misconceptions about the game.

I think my confusion is justified.

For the past several years, I've watched the Super Bowl with a group of my closest guy friends. We would watch the game, laugh at the commercials, and have a good time. But not this year. I moved far away from all of them, so this year, I was alone. I didn't even bother trying to watch it.

It made me think of how hard it is to leave everyone you've ever known. And it made me sad to think that all the people that I want to spend time with are at least a few hundred miles from me.

It's something that I think is very reasonable to feel bummed out over. Not some little RP thing, or something trivial. But, I know I've gotten down on the TL a lot, so I didn't get into much last night, because I don't want to be "that guy".

But...as is the usual case with me, two people actually noticed. By which I mean acknowledged that I said something.

The reason this bothers me is that I know from experience that if...say, Swissy. Or Sao. Or Bonk. Or Cap. Or Bran, had said they were feeling really bummed out, half the TL would have swept in, asking what was up.

In the long run, it doesn't really matter I suppose. I do have friends, and I know they care about me. It's just...when the thing that's bothering me and making me sad is that I feel lonely, it's not a good time for that to happen.

“Son, being a nice guy with a genuine sense of humor, and being honest and respectful doesn't always get you the girl. In fact, a lot of the time, it won't. Many, many times, it will get you sent to the friend zone. The girls you like will often respond to your kindness by confiding in you, trusting you, spending time with you, and never thinking of you as anything more than a friend. And when you try to make your relationship more than that, you will be promptly denied, told that 'You're a nice guy, but I don't think of you that way.' You will be disappointed, saddened, and sometimes you'll wonder if any girl will ever think of you as more than just a good friend.

Time to rant abooooout.....CUTIE MARKS!

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUN!!

Alright, so. A few basic things we know about cutie marks:

Each pony, at some point in their life, gets a cutie mark

The cutie mark is unique to that pony

The cutie mark signifies what their special talent is

The cutie mark appears when the pony realizes what it is they're meant to do

Most ponies have gotten their cutie mark by or around the age of the CMC (hence why the three banded together)

So! Given this knowledge, let's look at what we see in Twitterponies on a regular basis.

Adult pony without a cutie mark

Pony with a cutie mark, and a talent not even remotely relating to it

Pony that "lost" cutie mark

Pony that doesn't remember how they got their cutie mark

Pony that doesn't know what their cutie mark means

Over half the school-age foals in Ponyville don't have cutie marks yet

......wow. Seriously? Alright, come on people. This is absurd. Let's tackle these.

Adult pony without a cutie mark No. I'm sorry, but no. There's not any reason to think that this is something that actually happens in the show. This is a blatant attempt at attention-grabbing. You're trying to turn your pony into some kind of outcast or something weird so ponies will pay attention to you or have pity on you. Please stop.

Pony with a cutie mark, and a talent not even remotely relating to it I feel like you don't know what the cutie mark is.....it's not a tattoo you pick out. Decide what your pony's good at, and stick to it.

Pony that "lost" cutie mark If you can actually explain how that happened in a way that makes sense within the rules of the universe, I'll consider it.

Pony that doesn't remember how they got their cutie mark Alright, the ONLY reason I will accept this is that you haven't figured that out as a part of your back story yet. That's fine, but you really ought to at least come up with a simple story your pony can tell about it. Other than that, this is not okay. Acquiring the cutie mark is one of the single most significant moments in the life of any pony. You don't forget things like that.

Pony that doesn't know what their cutie mark means This one is my favorite, because it's so easy to poke a hole in. Alright, so you have your cutie mark, but you don't know what it means. You don't know either what your talent is, or what you're meant to do with it. Alright then. So, by that logic, all of the CMC should have their cutie marks. They would have gotten them during Show Stoppers.

Yep. They would.

If all it takes is using your talent, but you don't have to know it, or realize that it's what you're meant for, then they'd have their cutie marks already. Guess what? They don't. So, that means that when your pony got their cutie mark, they MUST HAVE understood why. They MUST HAVE known what it meant for them.

Half the school-age foals in Ponyville don't have cutie marks yet Based on the episode where the CMC is formed as a group, we should assume that most of the school-age foals already have their cutie marks, which is why Applebloom felt like an outcast.

Now this is one that I'm much more willing to back down on, for the simple reason that 1) It's not that big of a deal, and 2) RPing the discovery of the cutie mark can be fun.

Moon offered up some of her thoughts surrounding one of the issues I have regarding Luna's RP style, and I thought I would toss one of mine out as well.

But before I do, let's be clear here. These are not angry rants, this is not "hating on" anyone, and this is not a bandwagon. All of those are attempts at dismissing a viewpoint when you don't actually have an intelligent way to counter the stance. So don't go there. Anyways, I digress.

One of the issues I see with Luna that I've stated before is most simply described as arrogance. This manifests itself in a few ways, but most notably are her "giving advice", as she refers to it. The most recent example being the shipping fiasco from yesterday.  It's perfectly fine to think you shouldn't ship. But she did a very poor job explaining herself, and it simply came off as "You shouldn't ship because I say so. Also, you would probably be bad at it." This is a poor way to earn respect. I think the best example in recent memory is her stance on changelings. In case you missed it, Luna was telling a semi-reformed changeling that they weren't playing the character properly, as all changelings are evil. Naturally, this got peoples attention, and they told her that this wasn't the case. Her argument to this boiled down to: "They have to be, otherwise that makes my character appear racist." There are a few problems with this line of thought. One, it is self-centered. The argument is solely concerned with the appearance of her own character, as opposed to all characters being equally respected in terms of what they wish to do. Two, it's about deception. Logically, based on how she reacts to changelings and OOCs about them, the character /is/ racist, and this is an attempt to hide that. Granted, the character of Princess Luna could easily be given valid reason for being racist against changelings. It's not difficult to imagine that at all. But the point is that if the player doesn't want Luna looking like she's racist....why play her as such? Finally, it is against the guidelines. I direct your attention here: http://twitterponies.wikia.com/wiki/Changelings_Information  Under "Changelings as a Personal OC", please note "Equestrian Citizenship Changeling". The guidelines specifically allow for changelings that have willingly left the rule of Chrysalis, wish to change their ways and become friends with ponies. So telling people that the must play their changelings as evil so as not to make Luna look bad is not only selfish, it is against TP guidelines. So to boldly state it in the manner that she did is, in a word, arrogant. Oh, and the proclaiming of oneself as a RP expert is arrogant, too. Whether or not it's true is irrelevant. That's a title that should be earned from others, not one you give to yourself. And playing for a specific length of time does not mean one is skilled. There are people on TP that have RPed for years, and are still not very skilled in the eyes of most.

Tried the LP thing. It's something within my grasp, but I'm not very interesting in terms of voice over, and nearly all of my games are long, and probably not very fun to watch. And honestly...the only time anyone said anything to me about the videos was a critique about missing a collectible. Not exactly inspiring. 

I just want to take part in that. I hate seeing everyone trading art, talking to each other about methods and stuff, commenting on how much they enjoy what someone does, being excited for the next thing coming....I just want to be part of it.