Apostle angers university professor's puffed up with pride. More at 11

Growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, especially once the socially mandated going to college age of 18 got closer during high school, I really only had one institution of higher education that I wanted to go to: Brigham Young University. My autism has prevented me from getting any higher education in general, but up until recently my academic plan was to get general education credits out of the way through CLEP or enrolling at another local college before transferring to BYU to finish my degree, whatever I finally decided that degree would be.

Things learned from a year in quarantine

•  People will whine about the slightest discomfort, even if said discomfort is literally a life-saver. I always wear my mask outside the house, and the worst that happens is fog on my glasses (which is why the only exception to that rule is going through a drive through).
• I may actually be more of an extrovert than I previously thought. I miss being around people, even if I don't do a lot of talking to them.
• Twitch is awesome. I think I've made more internet friends through that platform than any other, even MMORPG's.
  
• The GOP has become a toxic wasteland of white supremacy and all around bigotry and I am so glad I jumped ship when I did about four years ago.
• Sea shanties are bops, as are bardcore covers.
  
• Facebook may be great for keeping up with friends you haven't seen in a while, but it may also reveal that said friends aren't the kind of people you want to associate with now.
• If the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints gets a Covid-19 vaccine, he will be criticized by members who've bought into various conspiracy theories about vaccines and microchips being the Mark of the Beast and whatnot. I for one, will follow the prophet in being a good global citizen and get vaccinated as soon as my age group is eligible. 
• My family's holiday season got rather chill and laid back well before we had to isolate from extended family.
• God is always in control.
  

I am beside myself

 It's one thing to know that the America you grew up in no longer exists on an intellectual level. It's far more of a gut punch to see domestic terrorists storm the Capitol because they didn't like who won the presidential election and wanted to kill the people who support the victor.

And now, some gaming stuff

 On December 10th, I was casually scrolling through Twitter when I came across an odd tweet. The picture in the tweet was of a Sephiroth (the big bad from FFVII) figure surrounded by My Little Pony figures. The caption said something along the lines of how Sephiroth must feel around all these cutesy Nintendo characters. Finding it odd, I decided to keep scrolling and not pay it much heed.

Until midnight that is. I went downstairs for a midnight snack to see my brother scrolling through his phone. He asked me to guess who was announced for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as DLC that day. And then it clicked in my head. Sephiroth was the new DLC fighter, and that tweet was just the beginnings of the internet about to lose it's mind. Naturally, the trailer is just a thing of beauty, and the reaction vids were infectious in their enthusiasm.

Now, I am no stranger to having Sephiroth appear in weird contexts. He was an optional boss in both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II. I am a huge fan for a game series that has Sephiroth exist in the same universe as Winnie the Pooh. Having him be in a game with Pikachu, Link, and Mario isn't that much of a stretch for my brain, as unexpected as his appearance was for the fans.

This does, however raise a very interesting question. You see, after the optional Sephiroth boss fight in KHII, Cloud decides to take a whack at Sephiroth (regardless as to whether the player beats him or not) and the two disappear. Sora then says that Cloud went to fight a great battle. This was well before even Cloud made his Smash debut, let alone Sephiroth. Most KH fans joke about it, but with how sly Tetsuya Nomura (the main creator of FFVII and KH) is, this may turn out to be something big.

 

Truth in writing

  So, it's been a slog these past few months. Pandemic continuing because people are stupid. Political tirades out of the mouths of the idiotic and the outright hateful. Non-pandemic health concerns for both self and family members. Financial worries based on both said health concerns and the possible outcome of the US presidential election (doesn't matter who wins really; both Biden and Trump suck and a third-party candidate doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell).

    And yet, I'm actually feeling okay right now. Not great, but I'm not drowning in sorrow and anger at the world I live in. Mostly because General Conference was really uplifting, as it always is. 

    I've also come to a realization as to why I've always been so fearful of writing out my fanfic and posting it online. It's a fear of rejection. Not because the story would be bad, but because I feel I have a moral obligation to stand up for what is right in both the real world around me and the fictional world I create. That means I can not write anything that glorifies sin, and that means that any and all slash and explicit content in general.

    Well, if you are even slightly familiar with fan fiction at all, you know that slash and explicit content are essentially bread and butter to fanfic writers, both in output and consumption. Meaning there is a real chance my fic will get little to no attention. That's not what scares me. What scares me is that some readers will be offended by my choice to not glorify homosexual relationships. As well as my choice to put religious content in there at all. Basically, I'm afraid of being persecuted for my beliefs.

    But I was not put on Earth at this time to shy away from persecution. So what if no one on AO3 likes me because I speak the truth in my fic? That is not the end-all and be-all of my existence. Besides, I would rather have no internet friends at all than abandon my faith.

In case anyone was wondering...

    I believe that black lives matter. No "ifs" or "buts", but plenty of "ands" to add. Hispanic lives matter. Asian lives matter. Indigenous people's lives matter.  Jewish lives matter. Muslim lives matter. LGBTQ lives matter. The lives of women matter. The lives of the mentally ill matter. Autistic lives matter. The members of other religious minorities, their lives matter. Democrat's lives matter. Republican's lives matter. And when a person is a member of two or more demographics, like a queer black woman or a Muslim autistic boy, guess what? Their lives matter to God, too.

    White men's lives have mattered too much more than other lives for way too long.

Covid-19, Conference, and China?

I forget to post for a few months and now there's a global pandemic. I kid, but being forced to stay home is probably just what the blog needed. Not that I go to a lot of places anyway. I'm very much a homebody. But now that everything is closed saved for essentials, I feel like I'm bouncing off the walls.