Eleven

<<<<< Batman is NOT winning. Does THAT bother you? XD Vote.

I've been tagged by Gabrielle.

The Rules

1) post these rules.
2) post 11 random things about yourself.
3) answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post.
4) create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
5) go to their blog and tell them they've been tagged.
6) no cop-outs in the tagging section like “if you are reading this/follow me,” blah blah blah. you have to legitimately tag people.

Questions from Gabrielle
1) What is your favorite song? Right now, I’ll say No Light, No Light {Florence + the Machine}, Through Glass {Stone Sour} and Angels of Clarity {Dead by April}.

2) Who is your favorite artist? Hm, this could be interpreted different ways. My favorite PAINTER? Jan Van Eyck. My favorite SINGER? Florence Welch.

3) Name a hobby or passion you have. Making lists.

4) Favorite quote? “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
“To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will.” ~ Ronald Reagan
5) Are you athletic, artistic, or both? I’m both, but perhaps more artistic.
6) One of your favorite movies? Batman Begins
7) Do you have a lucky number? What is it? Yes. 5.
8) What is your favorite season? Summer, without a doubt.
9) Do you have curly hair, straight, or in the middle? In the middle. Some days it’s beautifully curly, others it’s sickeningly wavy.
10) Dogs or cats? Cats. And I’m allergic.
11) If you had one wish, what would it be? That my best friend wasn't getting married in June.

Eleven Things About Me:
1) I love the way Dead by April says "clarity" in "Angels of Clarity."
2) I love Tyson chicken nuggets. And their commercials.
3) If someone called “Ember!” in a public place, I would turn.
4) I have developed a love for trollface comics. It’s a miracle I haven’t subjected you guys to them yet.
5) I prefer guy friends to boyfriends.
6) Ronald Reagan is one of my heroes.
7) I love to argue. So much.
8) Word limits are my nemesis. {Not my arch nemesis, mind you; just a low-grade one.}
9) My shoulder cracks. And it’s started to hurt and interfere with movement. But I will not go to the doctor. I’ll probably be armless by Easter.
10) I still think I would like to marry Bruce Wayne.
11) I just can’t get into Pinterest.

Eleven New Questions
1) Does it bother you when people turn the volume to numbers like 14 or 29?
2) Have you ever read a book that made you cry? If so, what book and why?
3) Batman or Superman?
4) What’s your most embarrassing nickname?
5) What’s the most outrageous rumor you’ve ever heard about yourself?
6) Would you rather go without chocolate or chewing gum?
7) Why did you start blogging?
8) Do you crack your knuckles or bite your nails?
9) Did you watch Arthur as a child?
10) Do you psych yourself up before killing a large spider?
11) What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and had lost all your followers?

I tag G-Fish, Ginger, Aaron, Sam, Alana, Lauren, Amanda, Steph, Dandalily, Sweet Pea, and Jay.

~Stephanie

The Ellie Experience Part 2

*sigh* Being Ellie's friend is exhausting at best. We used to help each other equally; she'd rant to me, I'd rant to her, and we'd help each other out. I always felt better after talking to her. She would help me see reason, and I'd do the same for her.

I don't even LIKE girl friends that much, but being friends with her was one of the most helpful things in my entire life.

However, lately it's all about Ellie. I mean even before she got engaged. She didn't want to hear about my problems; I was simply her personal shrink and if *I* ever needed something, oops, it wasn't a good time to talk.

I missed her more than I could see coming. My insides started to fall apart rather unexpectedly. I starting thinking a lot of thoughts that needed to be sorted out, and suddenly I realized that the person I wanted to talk to the most was Ellie, who wouldn't talk to me. I tried my guy friends, who were great, but what I really needed was my best friend.

Then the other day when Ellie texted me, she said she knew she'd been a crappy friend lately, but I was seriously her best friend and she was sorry.

:D YAY!

See, sometimes I forgive too easily. Maybe "forgive" isn't quite the right word. But if someone has been a jerk to me {like Ellie}, the second they show a sign of acknowledging it and wanting to do better, I'm all over it. I smile, I laugh, I feel happy tears. Yay! My friend is back! I'll help you with your problems again, and I know you'll help me with mine now! Yay! :D

I actually have to guard against that tendency. {And by guard against it, I mean panic to someone I trust and cling to what they're telling me is the right thing to do because I really just want to believe that the friend will change.} But with Ellie I didn't guard that well. I was ecstatic that she'd "come back" and we could help each other with life again.

However even in the lull between helping Ellie make a difficult decision and telling her parents about it, she never once asked what was going on with me, even just to say, "I really want to hear what's up with you later!" In our conversation, it was painfully obvious that something was up with me.

Me: "I'm glad to help! Dealing with this stuff is fresh in my mind because I just did something a tiny bit similar."

A mentally ill person could read between the lines on that one. But she didn't even acknowledge the message in there. She just said,

"Well i'm so glad cause i need all the help i can get right now!!!"

:-/

Glad to help.

I really want to be someone who doesn't need help figuring out her thoughts. I'd love to rock on with life, shrugging things off and sorting things out on her own. That would be ideal. Then I wouldn't have to bother others, and I'd feel a lot stronger in myself.

Sometimes I think I'm becoming that way. When I started this blog, I felt that way. Up until recently I've felt that way. But then I just realized that was because I didn't HAVE confusing thoughts.

I wasn't getting stronger, there just wasn't anything to lift. Now that there is, I'd like some best friend help.

And now that there is, she's not around to help me.

~Stephanie

The Ellie Experience Part 1

<<<<<<< Batman is winning. Does that bother you? Vote :D

Thanks for following, Alice! {She's also going to write for the Miss Unlimited blog, which is, by the way, launching soon, guys!}

{This is a rant that got too long and had multiple profound-ish conclusions, so I had to break it in half.}

Remember the friend I told you that got engaged? To the guy she'd been dating for only two months? {And she's definitely not pregnant.} And I think getting married is a stupid thing for her to do?

Because they're only seventeen.

Because they're not finished growing up.

Because who knows if they will be the same people in five years.

Because the people they turn into might not be compatible.

Because this means Ellie will most likely not go to college.

Because they have nowhere to live.

Because Ellie is doing it under pressure.

Because Ellie can't stick to a decision to save her life, so why is marriage a good idea?

That friend?

Well, the other day, she texted me:

"Stephanie."

"Yes?"

And she was having doubts. I gave her more or less neutral advice, not telling her not to marry Brian, just helping her to think things through. When it became obvious that she was coming to the conclusion I had already come to, I started slowly voicing my more biased opinion on what she should do.

We talked for three hours.

And she firmly decided to break off the engagement.

She knew she wasn't mature enough. She realized that there's literally ONLY SO MUCH maturity someone can have at seventeen. She realized that if she and Brian were meant for each other, they still would be in two or three years.

She was certain of her decision, and she told me to please be there for her and keep her straight, because now she had to face Brian. And her {really stupid, irrational, unhelpful} parents.

I told her to remember all the reasons she now firmly believed in. I told her I was there for her. I told her to trust the rational part of her brain, even when the irrational part reared its head. I told her to call me if she needed me.

She talked to Brian. She talked to her dad. She prayed.

And decided actually NOT to break off the engagement.

{As a general rule, I do not approve of profanity. It's distracting and unnecessary and not especially classy. If you agree with me, you might want to skip the next sentence.}

WHAT THE FUCK?

I knew this would happen. I knew it, knew it, knew it. She sees reason, sets it in stone, asks me to hold her to it because she knows it's the right thing to do, then turns right around and embraces the old way of thinking because she's a compliant flake who believes whoever happens to be talking with her at the time.

"Gods bigger than the fears, Steph," she says.

God is bigger than EVERYTHING, Ellie, that doesn't mean you should do stupid things.

"The Bible says to let your yes be yes, and your no be no. God will bless sticking to a decision."

Let's not even get too into that one, because if Ellie has ever stuck to a decision in the eight years I've been friends with her, I must have missed it. She quit flute, guitar, dance, soccer, church, a boyfriend, a school, another school, cheerleading, volleyball, another boyfriend, an engagement, and then she quit BREAKING OFF an engagement.

Don't even pretend like you're doing the "Let Your Yes Be Yes" thing.

But even if she were, it's still not a valid point. Someone could decide that theft is just the right thing for them. God is not going to reward them for making a bad choice simply because they STUCK TO IT. That's not how it works.

~Stephanie

Priorities

Thanks for joining us, Grace S!

My best friend Cassidy and I are in love with Cassandra Clare's books {the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices trilogy}. They're gripping, hilarious, sarcastic, well-developed and full of incredible characters.

However they are also full of the ever-popular Love Triangles. Despite Cassidy's and my usually-similar tastes, the concept of Love Triangles provokes very different responses from us.

Cassidy cannot stand them. As in she hates, loathes abhors, detests, despises and wishes Love Triangles would go burn in Hell for all eternity and beyond. She says, and I quote, "There's never a good solution. Someone is always going to end up hurt. Love is something so special and sacred; it's wrong for someone to have to compromise love that way."

She says love is THE most important thing to her. Nothing else in the world comes before love in her mind. Had she known the latest Infernal Devices book, "Clockwork Prince," was going to end the way it did, she says she would not have read it until the final book was released.

Then, as usual, you have me.

I do not mind Love Triangles. In fact, when they take the front seat of a novel, I tend to shrug them to the background automatically and focus on something else. It's not that Love Triangles bother me so much that I have to shut them out; it's not that I'm just a cold-hearted shrew who like to see people suffer. It's just that...I don't mind them. They don't affect me emotionally.

To me, yes; love is important. However, there are a lot of things in my mind that go before love. Family, Honor, Justice, Patriotism, THEN Love.

Now, you might be thinking "What if someone's family is unreasonably against the person you love? Do you side with your ridiculous, unfair relatives?"

No, because that would be a violation of Justice and/or Honor. If your family hates your beloved for an unjust reason, then go ahead. If your family insists that your beloved is too lowly for you, then that's a violation of Honor and you ought to go ahead.

However, the one you love has committed some horrible hate crime against your family or insulted your family's honor, then yeah, sorry. Family first.

Honor, in my mind, always comes before Love. Now WAIT. Before you flip out, let me explain what I mean by Honor. I do not mean Pride, Arrogance, or Public Appearance. True honor comes when you are standing up for the right thing against all odds, shame and slander. You stand up for yourself, your family, and the ones you love. You protect their Honor, because in my opinion, your own Honor rests on defending the Honor of those you love. Therefore, Honor is almost like a BRANCH of Love, and never HAS to give way to it.

What if the person you love has committed a crime and is sentenced death, but has had a genuine heart-change since the perpetration?

I'll have to get back to you on this. I can never make up my mind. But in less extreme cases, Justice always wins out. An dishonest piece of scum is not worth obstructing Justice for.

What if someone's country forces them away from the one they love? If it rips them apart for merely racial reasons, then again, that's unjust and dishonorable and you ought to ignore "patriotism" in this case.

But if the one you love is an unrepentant enemy spy or holds beliefs counter to the spirit of your nation, then sorry. Country first.

Love IS very important to me, but I do think there are certain principles that should not be broken for it. That's what I mean by Love not being my "top priority." Cassidy and I have talked about this, and we've agreed to disagree. Love is the most important thing to her, and it's just not the most important thing to me. I don't think any less of her, and she doesn't think any less of me {unless you count repeatedly calling me a cynic "thinking less"}.

How do you guys feel about this?

~Stephanie

Sleeping Beauty Questions

My friends and I recently sat down and watched "Sleeping Beauty." I fully expected it to be boring, predictable, cheesy, and stupid.

It was not.

I seriously enjoyed the movie. I don't know why I was so convinced it would suck. Even Princess Aurora wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated.

However, being the people we are, my friends and I couldn't help but make a few slightly sarcastic observances.

- It's heinously unfair for the king to command EVERYONE to burn their spinning wheels just to keep one girl safe.

- How could Aurora dream about the prince if she'd probably never seen a man before? She'd lived in the woodcutter's cottage alone with the three good fairies her entire life. How could she know what a man looked like? And how would you explain that, anyway? "They're like us girls, but with deeper voices and...different..."

- Don't the fairies realize that by putting the entire kingdom to sleep, they're wiping out a good percentage of the guys who might be able to kiss Sleeping Beauty awake? I mean, good thing Prince Philip wasn't in the kingdom at the time.

- Prince Philip loses his Shield of Virtue and his Sword of Truth while fighting Maleficent. Is that to say that you lose your virtue and honesty in your quest for love? Or that once you've found it, you don't need those things anymore?

Aaand that's what happens when four highly analytical seventeen-year-olds get together to watch an old Disney classic.

~Stephanie

Disney Princes Go PG-13

Sorry Jay, Sam, and Aaron. It's another exclusively girl post.

While getting pictures for the Disney Princes list, I came across a fascinating page.

Fairytales Gone Sexy.

Someone has taken the Disney Princes and redrawn them in a slightly sexier light. Let's face it, girls: our taste has matured a bit since we were five.

Of course, not all the redraws work in my opinion. Some of them weren't especially attractive {Aladdin}, some of them were downright ugly {Tarzan and Shang}, some of them were better in cartoon {Prince Philip}, and some of them were unnecessary. {Like Will Turner NEEDED a redraw.}

But they all made me smile, and a couple of them were quite jaw-droppingly hott. I thought I'd share some of my favorites.

John Smith from Pocahontas

Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid

Peter Pan

Ahaha. You're welcome. Hopefully this didn't feel like having your childhood innocence brutally slaughtered in front of your eyes.

~Stephanie

You Might Be a Dancer...

If it is almost physically impossible for you to begin something NOT on an eight count when music is playing.

If you wear leggings and soffe shorts in public and people think it's cool.

If you instinctively point your toes every time your feet leave the ground.

If you can recognize useless French phrases such as "step of the cat" and "on the neck of the foot."

If people do not like to watch dancing movies with you. {Because you will either non-stop groan and sneer or non-stop gasp and ooh.}

If you count your everyday-life steps in groups of eight.

If certain songs make your body twitch in choreographed motions...ohhhh, that's right. You danced to this song when you were seven.

~Stephanie