3.4 Weeks

Apparently I'm 22 now. I'm having a new wave phase.

Satanism

Yesterday, I made strawberry pie in a mug. Which was awesome. And I totally wanna do it again in the near future because holy wow it was amazing! Aaaand since it was just one in a mug, I didn't gorge myself on it. Today, I'd like to talk about Satanism. I always thought it was like some weird religion where you sacrificed goats to the devil, but actually it's not even a religion; it's a philosophy - and mainly about self-worship as most (if not all) Satanists are atheists who believe in neither the supernatural, nor any gods, nor the devil. So yeah... it's not devil-worship. So that's cool. Someone I know started blogging about it recently and I read her posts which contained super interesting things... SUCH AS (and I'm borrowing from wikipedia here...): The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth (which are wonderful): 1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked. 2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them. 3. When in another's home, show them respect or else do not go there. 4. If a guest in your home annoys you, treat them cruelly and without mercy. 5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal. 6. Do not take that which does not belong to you, unless it is a burden to the other person and they cry out to be relieved. 7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained. 8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself. 9. Do not harm young children. 10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food. 11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask them to stop. If they do not stop, destroy them. I think numbers 4 and 11 go a little bit far, but the rest of them are pretty dandy. The nine satanic sins are also interesting. They are - stupidity, pretentiousness, solipsism, self-deceit, herd conformity, lack of perspective, forgetfulness of past orthodoxies, conterproductive pride, and lack of aesthetics. I can really get behind stupidity as being the worst sin of all. I'm going to borrow something from someone's blog on the 7 deadly sins in relation to Satanism, as well...

The seven deadly sins of the Christian Church are: greed, pride, envy, anger, gluttony, lust, and sloth. Satanism advocates indulging in each of these “sins” as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification. A Satanist knows there is nothing wrong with being greedy, as it only means that he wants more than he already has. Envy means to look with favour upon the possessions of others, and to be desirous of obtaining similar things for oneself. Envy and greed are the motivating forces of ambition - and without ambition, very little of any importance would be accomplished. Gluttony is simply eating more than you need to keep yourself alive. When you have overeaten to the point of obesity, another sin - pride - will motivate you to regain an appearance that will renew your self-respect. Anyone who buys an article of clothing for a purpose other than covering his body and protecting it from the elements is guilty of pride. It must be pointed out to these destroyers of labels that one or many articles they themselves are westing are not necessary to keep them warm. There is not a person on this earth who is completely devoid if ornamentation. The Satanist points out that any ornamentation of the scoffer’s body shows that he, too, is guilty of pride. Regardless of how verbose the cynic may be in his intellectual description of how free he is, he is still wearing the elements of pride. Being reluctant to get up in the morning is to be guilty of sloth, and if you lie in bed long enough you may find yourself committing yet another son - lust. To have the faintest stirring of sexual desire is to be guilty of lust. In order to unsure the propagation of humanity, nature made lust the second most powerful instinct, the first being self-preservation. Realising this, the Christian Church made fornication the “Original Sin.” In this way they made sure nobody would escape sin. Your very state of being is as a result of sin - the Original sin! The strongest instinct in every living thing is self-preservation, which brings us to the last of the seven deadly sins - anger. Is it not our instinct for self-preservation that is aroused when someone harms us, when we become angry enough to protect ourselves from further attack? A Satanist practises the motto, “If a man smite thee on one cheek, smash him on the other!” Let no wrong go undressed. Be as a lion in the path - be dangerous even in defeat!

It's interesting and generally true, I find. I have always found religion in general to be quite creepy and deeply unsettling. I find they serve no purpose in the modern world of science. Why do people need to follow archaic black and white rules on how to be a good person? Many of these are irrelevant. For example, Leviticus is mostly dedicated to dictating how to live one's life and what rules to follow, such as don't shave ever, don't associate with women on their periods, and don't wear anything that has blended fibres. How ridiculous are those? What has that to do with modern living? Perhaps it was relevant two-thousand years ago... but not anymore. As such, why on earth would you follow other "rules" in the bible? They weren't meant for people to pick and choose. Follow all, or follow none. And now that it's all so irrelevant, why are people still obsessed with it? Honestly, I believe that religions were first created to help teach people as well as explain things that were not yet explainable by science. Now, however, they have become obsolete and I believe they are just a way to control people and get their money. I mean, yes, sure, lovely they're also to form a sense of community for people, but like. Can't you do something other than worship mythology? If the Norse gods and Roman gods and Greek gods are so false and mythological, what on earth makes you and your religions so special?

Marie X Antoinette

Have I mentioned my love of Marie Antoinette yet? The movie. The lady. Everything ever? I'm genuinely convinced that I was her in a past life. Like. Actually. Convinced.

Anyway. I've been listening to the soundtrack from the Sofia Coppola movie all evening/night/morning/whatever, mostly because it's the only thing I can ever listen to without skipping a single song. It (+ extreme boredom) inspired me to do my makeup and then take pictures. I was also inspired by a new Chanel collection by Karl Lagerfeld which combines Marie's style with the styles found in the Harajuku District in Japan. It's weird and not my favourite, but I loved the makeup on the models so I did my own thing but was inspired by their pink eyeshadows and Chanel logo beauty marks.

Why Did I Do This?

I just got all of the A Song of Ice and Fire books delivered to me.

They all range from the high 700s - 1100s in terms of page numbers. 

There are 5 of them. (But books 3 and 5 are "too long" so they came in 2 volumes so there's 7 total)

It's so intimidating having 7 giant books staring at me. 

Like, yeah, I read all 3 Hunger Games books in less than a week, but... they were little and young adult fiction. I don't think I've ever read a book series meant for adults before. Which is hilarious, but whatever. I love reading teenager books for some reason. 

Anyway. I guess I had better get started. They're not going to read themselves.

I should keep some sort of excel chart to see how long it takes me to read them and what page I'm on when and stuff. 

Not Now

Come here, please hold my hand for now
Help me, I'm scared please show me how to fight this,
God has a master plan, and I guess
I am in His demand

Please save me, this time I cannot run
And I'll see you when this is done
And now I have come to realize
That you are the one who's left behind

Please stay until I'm gone
I'm here hold on
To me I'm right here waiting

I see a light, it feels good
And I'll come back soon just like you would
It's useless, my name has made the list
And I wish, I gave you one last kiss

Please stay until I'm gone
I'm here hold on
To me I'm right here waiting
And take my one last breath,
And don't forget
That I will be right here waiting

Please stay until I'm gone
I'm here hold on
To me I'm right here waiting
And take my one last breath,
And don't forget
That I will be right here waiting

Please stay until I'm gone
I'm here hold on
To me I'm right here waiting
And take my one last breath,
And don't forget
That I will be right here waiting.

This is how I wish it had been when my mom died. 

RPG Star (AKA I Am A Massive Geek)

When I was seventeen, I joined a website called HEX-RPG, which was this Harry Potter-themed role play site. They sorted me into Gryffindor, which was weird, as I'm the most Slytherin person I've ever met. Before I continue, I'd like to go into that some more. The typical traits of a Slytherin are as follows:

• Traditionalism - I'm very, very traditional about some things, and shockingly non-traditional about others, mostly my appearance. But the morals I hold fast to and my taste in art both tend to be very traditional. Also, I have a strong sense of tradition, in general.
• Resourcefulness - I'm definitely resourceful.
• Cunning - I didn't know what this meant for the longest time, so I was blissfully unaware that it applied to me. It means skilled at achieving one's ends through evasion or deceit. I generally have no problem getting things done by any means necessary. Apart from cheating in academics. Cheating at games - yes, all the time, but never when I'm supposed to be proving my actual knowledge and skills. Cheating is beneath me.
• Ambition - yes, obviously.
• Leadership qualities - in the event I actually do take it upon myself to lead, people tend to follow. It's not a position I'm always comfortable in, but I can manage.
• Self-preservation - my mum once told me that she worries about me, but less than she'd worry about someone else due to the fact that I have a self-preservation streak a mile wide. It's pretty much true.
• Shrewdness - yes, I do like to think myself rather astute.
• Determination - when I care, there's not a thing anyone can to do stop me... so yes, I would say I have a great deal of determination.
• Certain disregard to rules - definitely.
• Intelligence - I'm slightly cocky about this, yes. But, I do tend to deliver so apparently it's not so much being cocky as being self-assured that I actually am exactly as intelligent as I project myself to be.

That pretty much describes my whole personality. I once got sorted into Hufflepuff, which is hysterical as I possess almost none of those qualities - loyalty, dedication, hard work, patience, and fair play. I am loyal, to be sure... but none of the others really fit me. I tend to rely on my intelligence in school to get me through rather than actually putting any hard work or dedication into my studies. I am one of the least patient people I've ever encountered, and I'd rather win than play fair. I'm really not sure how I ever got put in with all that.

I'm slightly surprised that I've never gotten sorted into Ravenclaw as I like to think I possess all qualities prized in Ravenclaws - intelligence, wit, wisdom, creativity, and individuality. Perhaps it is because I am so strongly Slytherin and nothing else that I've never been put into Ravenclaw?

Now, as I've gone through all the other houses, I might as well go over Gryffindor. I used to get sorted into Gryffindor all the time when I was growing up. Gryffindor qualities are - bravery, chivalry, courage, and daring. I suppose those apply to me as well? I guess both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw do apply, but not so much as Slytherin actually describes me to a T. Also, I suppose I take a lot of pride in my Slytherin-like qualities? Not sure. Anyway. That turned into a giant long ranting tangent about my personality in relation to Harry Potter. Cool.

ANYWAY. I was talking about HEX-RPG. It stands for "Hogwarts Extreme - Role Play Game". Only the second part is important. Online role playing is when you go on a forum, assume a character in a setting, and write back and forth with other people. It's really fun and brain stimulating, which is nice. It's also usually fandom oriented, so I used to do mostly Harry Potter RPs. There was this girl I always used to RP with called Missy. We had like 4 different threads going and we'd play different characters. I definitely remember playing Sirius black at least twice, Lucius Malfoy, and Regulus Black. I'm sure I played more than that, but that's what I recall right now. The threads would go on forever and we'd just stay up all night writing back and forth to create these great long stories. And that's what I used to do before tumblr. I think I stopped when I went to Culver and then I did a lot of it the winter I was 18 as well, but then the forum got flooded with Twilight fans and went down-hill from there.

One of my best friends, Ellen, is really into role playing and since I got into Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire a few weeks ago, I've wanted to get back into role playing. Some fandoms are just really good for it. Unfortunately, it's relatively difficult to find open RPG boards in the GOT/ASOIAF fandom. BUT! I've managed it. There's also some that'll show up on tumblr sometimes which are amazing. You'll usually have to submit an audition of your writing in character to them and then you'll have your own little tumblog to write all of your characters interactions. It's more difficult to follow than forum role plays, but just as fun. Anyway, I auditioned to one that just opened the other day and I got accepted to play one of my favourite characters, which is AWESOME. It also makes me feel really great about my writing.

Additionally, I managed to find another GOT/ASOIAF RPG board that's open. It's really new so there are only a few members and even fewer threads, but I've made my own original character and have a back story and a few threads started, so I'm really excited about that. I love writing, but I get stuck sometimes, so it's nice to be writing back and forth so that you don't have to decide what all of the characters do, you can just concentrate on your own.

SO yeah. This has been me showing off how much of a geek I actually am - ie a huge one.

But yeah... role playing, exciting.

Someone Hide The Photoshop

When I was like 13, I used to play this game called Neopets all the time. It's a website where you have virtual pets and shops and items and you can play flash games for virtual money and it's this whole little world, and it's fun and cool.

Anyway, when I was 12-13, I had some sort of photo editing software... Paint Shop Pro, I think? People used to give me little items or NeoPoints or whatever and I'd make them little graphics for their shops or their clubs or userpages or whatever.

I liked making graphics. It was fun. I had my own little angelfire site called Speckled Negg Graphics. Because why not? It's adorable.

When I got a little older, I obsessively made Pirates of the Caribbean user icons (small 100x100 pixel pictures) for livejournal. I think I still actually have an embarrassingly massive collection of user icons squirrelled away in my photobucket.

So basically, from when I was 12 until I was about 18, I would play around on photoshop and make things all the time. It was really fun and I was pretty good at it.

And then I didn't have photo editing software for like a year and a half. But then, when I first moved to Parkdale and got my DSLR, I managed to acquire a copy of Photo Shop Elements, which is just a basic photo editing software program. And I think I mostly just did photo editing with it. Sometimes I'd put text over pictures... but nothing too extravagant.

ANYWAY. As of last night, I have full-fledged photoshop on my computer... aaand I've started making graphics again. And I can do more stuff now since I have better software and way more experience than I did before. So that's fun.
But also, oh god, what will this unleash? (Nothing to horrid, I'm sure.)

I would also like to bring attention to this man:


His name is Peter and he's amazing.

He plays my favourite character (Tyrion) on Game of Thrones.

Also. Look at how handsome he is.
He's totally dreamy and a really good actor.

He was in both versions of Death at a Funeral, and totally hysterical in both. Those are also just really funny movies, anyway.

Maybe I'll make a lame header for this blog for once... it's looked the same since I was 18.