HP Fic – A Means Of Survival

I’m still going to get it all posted here, but in the meantime, I’ve also got it up on fanfiction.net.  Granted, I’m not done, but I do have 49 chapters up on there. 

A Means of Survival.

A Means of Survival – Continuing On

Well, I’ve got the first 18 chapters up.  If you see anything that doesn’t make sense, let me know.  I have gone through and edited a couple of times, but it’s always different when you’re NOT the author . . .

As for the story itself, I have over 110K written now and I’m STILL not done.  I seem to have found the answer to my interminable writer’s block.  *sigh*

lol

If you care to read it, go and read Disclaimer/Warnings if you have not done so already.

I’ve been in NC visiting my mother for the past couple of weeks and internet connection has been sketchy at best.

HP Fic

I should mention that I’m writing my first ever HP fan fic and posting it here on this very site.

Aren’t you excited?

lol

I advise that you START HERE if you are at all interested.

I only have the first five chapters posted so far, but I do have over 24 chapters so far and am still going  (63K written in 8 days, no less).  I like my story, but that doesn’t mean you have to.  I just ask that you don’t flame me about it if you do determine that you hate it.

Gotta Say

I just gotta say, I love how all of my old drafts listed on my dashboard say that they were saved on “November 30, 1999.” *snorts*

Also – I’m thinking about writing a HP fic here. Thinking. Mostly thinking. But it may happen.

Archived Post #1

My dreams keep getting weirder and weirder. Last night, for instance, I dreamed that I kept licking the outsides of bandaids because they tasted good.

A week ago I dreamed that I was in a graveyard with a bunch of kids watching a woman dig up the grave of a very dead baby. This woman, btw, much resembled, in both behavior and appearance, a cross between Eddie Kaspbrak’s mother (think Stephen King’s “It”), and the mother from Sybil. Yeah, not the most pleasant of nighttime places to be visiting.

What I remember about that particular dream is that it smelled rather bad. It smelled like a load of wash that has been sitting in the washing machine for much too long during the summer. It smelled like grayness and dusk; but not the kind of dusk that makes you think of fireflies and parties–no, this was the kind of dusk that smelled like death, where you wonder upon the locking of the front door whether or not you will have a chance to get up the next day . . .

Anyways, I wanted to share with you my rules of behavior for one particular teacher of mine. I have my rules of social engagement, but those are for general situations, and not for specific occurrences. If my regular rules of engagement don’t completely work for you, I suggest doing as I have done by taking bits and pieces here and there, and then testing to see what will and won’t work.

This one particular teacher and I have a long history of not getting along. At one point last year, s/he actually took me aside and told me that I needed to be more quiet, and to only answer questions when no one else knew the answers.

Well, my thought processes behind this at the time were as follows:

If no one is answering the question, then I should answer it, since she is asking.

But it turned out that it was better to be quiet for a bit longer, because sometimes the silence forced the recalcitrant ones to speak up.

But I’m past all of that. I’m tired of getting glares from this person, so I’ve decided to play it her/is way. Plus, s/he’s one of my major profs, so in order to graduate from my program, I have to get on her/is good side . . . and failing that, I have to at least show her/is that I am capable of doing my job properly.

1. Do Not Speak.
2. Ask Friends First.
3. Raise Hand.
4. Only Speak When Spoken To.
5. Don’t Make Noises.
6. Pay Attention Silently.
7. I Am Not Special.
8. I Am Not An Individual.
9. _______ Is A Very Busy Person.
10. Everyone’s Voice Deserves To Be Heard.
11. If No One Else Knows An Answer, Then You Can Speak.
12. Do Not Look At Hir Too Often.
13. S/he Is The Wise Teacher; I Am But A Mere Unknowing Student Of Lesser Stature.
14. Stay In The Moment.
15. Don’t Think Ahead.
16. Don’t Even Consider Going Off-Topic.
17. Be Direct.
18. Be Concise.
19. If You Can’t Say What You Mean In Just A Few Words, Keep Your Mouth Shut.
20. Do Not Infer, Suppose or Assume.
21. Creative Descriptions May Only Be Used In Conjunction With Subjects That Are Centered Around Creativity (i.e. – music).
22. Do Not Mention Anything About The Autism Spectrum. (At one point on the first day of class, when s/he was talking to us about our term papers, s/he turned towards my direction and said that s/he would not accept papers written on Pervasive Developmental Disorders. S/he didn’t say my name, but s/he stared at me directly upon that announcement.)
23. Do Not Venture Into Other Related Subjects.
24. Do Not Comment On One Subject/Topic More Than Once Unless What You Have To Say The Second Time Is Significantly Different From Your First Statement.
25. Listen.
26. If S/he Confuses You With A Statement, And Your Friends Are Also Confused, Then It Is Sometimes Permissible To Ask About It During Class; Otherwise, Wait Until The Conclusion Of Class To Speak With Hir.
27. Never Talk With Hir Just To Chat.
28. Always Have An Important Reason For Speaking With Hir – Otherwise Just Smile And Nod.
29. Speak Slowly.
30. Say One Idea At A Time.
31. Write Your Questions Down.
32. Stay Out Of Hir Way.
33. Look Up From Your Notes And Nod Your Head In Agreement With What S/he Is Saying From Time To Time.
34. Don’t Tell Hir Your Ideas Unless They Are Directly In Line With What S/he Lined Out In Class.
35. Don’t Think Outside Of Hir Box.
36. Do Not Discuss Music With Hir Unless It Is Non-Western (and even then, it’s better just to keep your mouth shut).
37. Remain Serious.
38. Do Not Make Jokes (one every so often is sometimes permissible, but those times are seemingly random and if I choose wrong, they tend to end badly).
39. Apologize Immediately, Even If You Don’t Know Why.
40. Do Not Make Guesses (especially if they are somewhat wild).
41. Do Not Admit Uncertainty.
42. Never Imply That Your Misunderstanding Is Somehow Hir Fault.
43. Stay Focused.
44. Sit As Still As You Can Stand To.
45. Pay Attention Without Being Obvious About It.
46. Do Not Make A Spectacle Of Yourself.
47. Do Not Talk To Others Or Interact With Others In Any Way, Shape, Or Form When S/he Conversing/Directing With Them.
48. Do Not Attempt To Show Support To Someone Who Has Fallen Subject To One Of Hir Critiques (until afterwards).
49. Do Not Mention The Differences In Hir Treatment Of Other Students Within Hir Hearing Range.
50. Try To Avoid Going To The Bathroom During Hir Classes.
51. Try To Avoid Eating Too Loudly During Hir Classes.
52. Try To Avoid Drawing Attention To Yourself During Hir Classes.
53. Never Show Up To Class Late.
54. Never Speak Casually With Hir.
55. Try To Refrain From Openly Disagreeing With Hir.
56. Don’t Let On When S/he Has Upset You.
57. Don’t Ask Hir To Repeat Herself.
58. Don’t Laugh At Hir Jokes Too Often.
59. Don’t Laugh At Hir Jokes Too Loudly.
60. Don’t React Too Much To Anything.
61. Do Not Try. You Must BE instead.
62. Remain Calm.
63. Do Not Become Excited When Talking To Hir.
64. Breathe.
65. Never Ever Attempt To Show Off.
66. Don’t Lose Your Nerve.
67. Do Not Smile Too Frequently.
68. When You Do Look At Hir, Look At Hir Intently, As Though You Are Pondering How To Create Nuclear Fusion With Just The Power Of Your Mind.
69. Do Not Give Up.
70. Do Not Be Casual In Your Actions.
71. Be Clear.
72. Don’t Tell Hir Your Ideas.
73. Ask Hir Rather Than Just Telling Hir.
74. Don’t Laugh Within Hir Hearing Range (outside of class).
75. Always Be Courteous.
76. Do Not Show Fear.
77. And For The Love Of God, Don’t Point Out Hir Mistakes.

Soul

I’ve been digging through some old poetry I wrote way back in the day and came up upon a post that was written right before I left home for college for the first time. It was written on August 8, 2002. Woah.

Fuck it. I don’t need to worry that much. Life sucks and I keep that outlook with me at all times. I just expect the worst to happen from everything. That way if the worst does happen, then I’m prepared for it. And if something good happens, I get a treat. Joy.

I’m ready to leave. I’m ready to get out of this freaking place of fucking hell.

Walls close in
ground falls away
sinking sand
falling

Roof collapses
night obscures all
no moon, no stars
dark as hell

sliding into the pit
gasping for breath
not enough air
not enough room

solid ground now–
but things keep falling
covering me
like dirt in a grave

and realizing
horror upon horror
my grave
my death

town killed me
mom killed me
life killed me
fear killed me

trapped in the dark
a small dark hole
only consolation
I didn’t kill me

earth is hell
while I live–
hell is here
burning slowly

lungs burning,
I claw at the dirt
it’s all around me
filling me

filling my mouth,
ears and lungs
gasping I pull away
finding nowhere to go

and finally,
when all is lost
the darkness covers
completely

and suddenly I see
it got to me,
but I didn’t give up
here I am

I lost,
but didn’t quit
life lost
but soul won.

Needless to say, I wasn’t in the best of places at the conclusion of high school.

Damn.

It’s Hot

I just walked to the grocery store. At 10 pm at night.

I went because I had been living off of poptarts and powerbars for the past 3 days.

I think it was a mistake to go.

I had forgotten how much I despise exercise. I thought that maybe it was a thing of the past, you know? Maybe my endorphins have the opposite effect on me. Hell, everything else does. Seriously. Hydrocodone makes me hyper. Pot makes me hyper. Non-drowsy Sudafed makes me sleepy. Sugar makes me sleepy.

So maybe for me, endorphins are a downer.

Whatever the reason is, the result is the same. I exercise and then about 45 minutes to an hour later, I become hugely depressed. Like, I want to shove a knife blade into my jugular kind of depressed. Like as in, I want to self-injure for a little while kind of depressed. You know, just for the hell of it.

Like suddenly life has no meaning and everything feels like shit, and I can’t remember why I’m still upright. I feel like I just don’t give a shit.

WTF?

The last time I had a doc (I’m a grad student in a state far from “home,” remember?), I told him all of this. That’s when he answered with these famous words: “I think that’s a little beyond family practice. Maybe you need to talk to a psychiatrist.”

That was about 3 years ago.

I’m on anti-depressants now. They work. Trust me. About 2 months ago, while low on cash, I started running out of my pills. So I started lowering my dose in order to make ‘em stretch. Whatever, right? Yeah well, I’m walkin’ across this parking lot just after the end of church, and suddenly this thought pops into my head. “I should kill myself.”

Now, tell me that isn’t effed up. I wasn’t depressed or upset before or anything. Just, out of the blue.

I recognized the impulse was whack and managed to stay on at a higher level than usual until the feeling wore off.

This time, it’s gonna have to be the same thing. That, and I might eat, even though it’s kinda late (after 11 pm).

If that doesn’t work, I’ll just watch a Star Trek movie.

BTW, I found another post by someone experiencing the same thing. I might add that I find the comments by other people who said things like, “Well that’s odd because I feel wonderful after exercise!” really effing annoying.

Here’s another one called “Can Exercise Piss You Off?“

How’d You–Huh?

It always amazes me to see the sort of search terms that people find my other site through. For instance, ever since I made a comment about slug peni, I’ve been getting hits thanks to strange penis related terms. Those can be found here btw. I’m slowly but surely providing people with something to see in regards to those terms . . . whether those results are what the person was originally looking for is a whole other story.

But I looked this morning and found that someone had found my site by putting in “Stephen King.” Now, how the hell that did bring them to my site?

I tried to repeat it in an experiment, but gave up after 5 pages of searching. So that means that the person went through more than 5 pages and then clicked on my page??? I mean, I regularly go through more than 5 pages of results, but when I do click on a page, it usually has something to do with my original purpose. *smacks head*

Maybe they thought I looked interesting.

I read a post the other day where the person was talking about creating pages to match the search terms that they got the most often. And I thought to myself, “Huh. Well, that’s a concept.”

I guess I already did that with my penis search terms page, but to do that on a large scale basis just seems like . . . cheating, I guess. It’s perfectly legit of course; logically I know this, but I’m always wary of things that seem too simple.

Well, since one of the most often used search terms to find this particular site is “Overflow System,” maybe I should explain about that.

The name, for me at least, is directly related to one of my most favorite X-Files’ episodes ever, called “The Host.” The Host had all the elements of a really good story to me, because it hit a few different long term interests of mine: radiation, sewers, Chernobyl and monsters. Sounds like something you want to see now, doesn’t it.

For the handful of you who have never seen this episode *glares at you slightly* I shall attempt to give a background of how these things all come into play together.

Russian sub is hauling equipment that turns out to be salvaged from the Chernobyl site. It’s radioactive equipment. In the depths of the sub’s sewer system (or whatever it’s called), in radioactive sludge, this monster is born. The episode starts out with there being a blockage in the sewer system that a young Russian soldier is made to work on by one of his old [fat and probably smelly] superiors. I make a big deal of the old and fat merely because I don’t like this guy. That and the young man is kinda cute. But I didn’t say that.

Anyways, I digress. The young man is attempting to locate the blockage when suddenly something grabs him and pulls him under. His foot gets caught in the steel ladder attached to the wall, which allows two or three other men to run and grab it in an effort to save him (one of whom is the fat smelly guy). They pull, the monster pulls, and the monster wins. Shortly thereafter, the smelly guy orders the system to be purged in an effort to find the cute guy. No dice on that account.

However, later in the story, folks in the New Jersey sewer systems start showing up dead and Agent Mulder gets put on the case–much to his dismay, I might add. Oh, and this is one of the umpteen million times that X-Files have been closed down; so not only is Scully*** not there, but he is also not working with a partner.

Anyways, towards the end of the episode, we find ourselves at this section of the plot, helpfully borrowed from Schwicky.net.

FOREMAN: Agent Mulder!

(Mulder pulls the phone from his ear and looks behind to see the

foreman yelling to him.)

Linesman spotting something down in a section of pipe!

MULDER: Where?

(Inside, the foreman unrolls a blueprint of the pipe system.

He points to a section.)

FOREMAN: Here.

MULDER: That’s near where we found the first body.

FOREMAN: Right, except this is an old overflow system that dumps

into the harbor during heavy rainfall.

MULDER: That must be where it got into the system.

(The foreman nods.)

It’s working its way back out to sea.

(They look at each other, worried. Mulder and the foreman race to a

sewer grate where workers are standing by. Mulder grabs a flashlight

from one of them and heads down. The foreman follows. Mulder has to

cover his nose from the smell.)

The underline and bolds were put in by me. If you want to read the whole episode, it can be found here. Thus, we have the term “Overflow System.”

Now, for me, this term is used for when I’ve already written something recently at my other site, but I still have something else to to say. Plus, I feel that some of my posts are not really in the style of that site, but I still want to say them. Thus, I created my own overflow system.

***Side note — my spell checker said that “Scully” was not a word, but it said nothing about “Mulder.” Huh.

Grainger

I hate it when online sources write these two vile words:

Coming Soon!

And then don’t date the original text . . .

*grinds something other than her teeth into tiny shavings*

Entirely too much in relation to that statement, I think I might have found my next special interest.

Why Superman Will Always Suck

Sure, some people talk about Batman having it easy–what with being a billionaire and all–but truly people are discounting his struggle completely when they say that. Sure he has the toys, but he designed and made the “toys.” He did all his training on his own. He threw his life into the hands of fate and went out to find his destiny. He has a real reason to fight to keep others safe; he knows what it is to lose something so precious to you that it makes you physically hurt just to contemplate its memory. He takes a chance every night that he goes out. He uses his brain and skills that he has mastered throughout the years in order to fight with. Occasionally he gets knocked out and beaten to a pulp; look at the whole thing he went through with Bane and getting his back broken. And yet, here he comes, always fighting back, always trying.

Never giving up. He fights because he believes it is the right thing to do; because he knows the horrors that can happen; and because he believes that if he can use what he is to save just one child, one person, then it is worth it and he has done better than most of the population . . . super powers or not.

Superman, on the other hand, just is. Batman can be a son-of-a-bitch, but he has a reason to be. Look at the amount of insomnia that man has endured. Geez.

If you look at Kohlberg’s 6 stages of moral development, I’d say that Superman could be evaluated around:

Level II: Conventional/Role Conformity: Moral values reside in performing the right role, in maintaining the conventional order and expectancies of others as a value in its own right.
Stage 4: Authority and social-order-maintaining orientation

• Orientation to “doing duty” and to showing respect for authority and maintaining the given social order or its own sake.
• Regard for earned expectations of others.

Yup. That’s Superman alright. Compare with Batman then. I’d say that he’s here:

Level III: Postconventional/Self-Accepted Moral principles
Morality is defined in terms of conformity to shared standards,rights, or duties apart from supporting authority. The standards conformed to are internal, and action-decisions are based on an inner process of thought and judgment concerning right and wrong.
Stage 6: The morality of individual principles of conscience

• Orientation not only toward existing social rules, but also toward the conscience as a directing agent, mutual trust and respect, and principles of moral choice involving logical universalities and consistency.
• Action is controlled by internalized ideals that exert a pressure to act accordingly regardless of the reactions of others in the immediate environment.
• If one acts otherwise, self-condemnation and guilt result.

Hmm . . .

Don’t agree? Check out this article: Why Superman Will Always Suck.