Rant the Geeky One

Another confession: besides Final Fantasy VII, I have never finished a Final Fantasy game. I've watched people finish their games, and I'm content with that. What do I do? I go the ENTIRE GAME and then on the save point before the final boss battle I go back and try to get EVERYTHING in the game.

If you've played a Final Fantasy game, you know this is no easy feat.

So, since I cannot play Final Fantasy XIII, it being released only on consoles I cannot afford for the time being, I am playing Final Fantasy XII. I had been avoiding this game because the main character irks me, but at least the characters around him are agreeable.

What I like about Final Fantasy XII is that you can pretty much customize any character to become whatever you want it to become. I have a very concise idea of what I want in a party of adventurers and so I can work with the game to have not one but two perfect trios comprised of a leader (basically a tank with lots of hp and attack power), a secondary attacker in charge of items (who also steals from foes and has decent magic power), and a mage in charge of healing and handling a long-range weapon as to not be in the middle of the battle.

At first I pretty much just followed a very loose path of what I wanted my characters to learn and often I would forget what it is I wanted and would end up spending my license points in the wrong thing. After I realized this I began making a list where I wrote down the path each of my six characters will go in order to better do their craft. I was aware of the geekiness involved in this, but at least I wasn't making spreadsheets.

However, Final Fantasy XII's monsters aren't the money-rich monsters of other games. Instead, they drop "loot", which you sell in order to get money to buy better weapons, armor, spells, techniques, etc. This loot also becomes neat items in an alternate shop called "bazaar".

There is, of course, a very definite set of rules as to how the bazaar works, and I happened to find a very detailed, intricate guide that showed exactly how many of which items were needed, and for a fleeting moment, I considered the possibility of making a very complex system that would make my looting far more productive than just killing a lot of things, selling what they dropped, and hope for the best.

Then I realized the amount of work that would entail.

At one point I might have done it. When paired with the right people my geekiness level rises and I've been known to keep complex documents about Harvest Moon and Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSOne. But not this time. I will go out of my way to get all the hunts I can, and I will keep on doing the "write down next thing to learn", but I refuse to put so much work into a small part of a game I'm supposed to be having FUN with.

Unless, of course, upon further reading of the long, intricate guide on the many uses of loot, I find an item that changes my mind.

MOAR!

I will admit to you this: I'm curious about polyamorous relationships.

Not open relationships or polygamy, mind you, but relationships where commitment involves more than two people.

There's a story of mine (not written yet, just have details jotted down somewhere) where a couple of lesbians take on an effeminate bisexual boy to spice up their relationship and sex life. The boy basically becomes the most feminine in the trio, taking care of all the "womanly" things around the house, since he works from home. I suppose "story" is too generous a word for it since I never actually extended on what would happen with these characters.

I suppose my curiosity regarding polyamory comes from questioning if I would be able to function inside a polyamorous relationship. I like several polyamorous characters, but only when these characters are committed to each other.

By the way, I have nothing against open relationships, I'm just quite certain I wouldn't function well with one. And I'm perfectly aware there is an overlap between poly and open relationships.

The Me You Never Knew

So, as I was talking to a friend the other day I came to a point where I told him my main problem as of late. And by "as of late" I mean "for quite a while now".

I'm afraid.

Actually, "afraid" doesn't quite do justice to how I feel. I'm terrified. I'm paralyzed with fear. You know the point where you're too afraid to scream? That's where I'm at.

I also feel ridiculously silly for admitting such a thing.

As I talked to him, I realized that this fear was far too much for me to handle on my own. It's a monstrous amount of fear that looms over my every thought and action. That keeps me from doing what I want and from breaking loose of what I need to escape.

I'm so afraid that I'm actually surprised I've managed to get anything done in the past few months. Ever since the end of 2009 there hasn't been a week where one day I just lie on my bed, deciding that maybe if I hide from the world it might decide to go away and just leave me alone. I don't want to admit to my close friends or my family that I have such a hard time getting up in the morning. I don't want it to be known that as of late I've been running away, stalling, refusing to realize that my every action in the past was leading to this one point where I break out of a prison I crafted for myself.

I want out, you see, I desperately want out of this prison. And all I need in order to destroy it is the will, because I know of several ways to be done with it. But what this prison holds up is what I have come to consider the "correct" image of me. Or rather the correct images of me. I can't leave this prison and leave them standing, but to destroy it means to destroy an elaborate illusion of me I began crafting years ago.

Perhaps I could better explain this if I wrote you a fairy tale.

So I will.

He's a Very Nice Prince

[CINDERELLA]
He's a very nice Prince.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
And-?

[CINDERELLA]
And-
It's a very nice ball.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
And-?

[CINDERELLA]
And-
When I entered they trumpeted.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
And-?
The Prince-?

[CINDERELLA]
Oh, the Prince...

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Yes, the Prince!

[CINDERELLA]
Well, he's tall.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Is that all?

We all have ideals. Concepts in our heads that are perfect and next to which we compare everything that happens in our lives. "Prince Charming" is to every princess the concept next to which every guy will be compared.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Did you dance?
Is he charming?
They say that he's charming.

[CINDERELLA]
We did nothing but dance.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Yes-? And-?

[CINDERELLA]
And it made a nice change.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
No, the Prince!

[CINDERELLA]
Oh, the Prince...

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Yes, the Prince.

[CINDERELLA]
He has charm for a Prince, I guess...

[BAKER'S WIFE]
guess?

[CINDERELLA]
I don't meet a wide range.

It's an idea that has gotten quite the bit of critique lately. It has become a sort of fashion to blame fairy tales (and specifically, Walt Disney Animation Studios) for raising the expectations of gullible girls and gay boys to such levels that most males would rather just not try at all rather than spend a lifetime building the body of a Greek god while simultaneously becoming the ultimate genius renaissance man.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Did he bow?
Was he cold and polite?

[CINDERELLA]
And it's all very strange.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Did he speak? Did he flirt?
Could you tell right away he was royalty?
Is he sensitive,
Clever,
Well-mannered,
Considerate,
Passionate,
Charming,
As kind as he's handsome,
As wise as he's rich,
Is he everything you've ever wanted?

But so much of what the Prince Charming ideal is includes what we want it to include. It's like Cinderella and everyone thinking that she wants to marry the Prince in the first place. She doesn't, all that she wants is to go to the ball. It's us that want her to marry the prince, because we feel she deserves it.

[CINDERELLA]
But how can you know what you want
Till you get what you want
And you see if you like it?

As far as my Prince Charming is concerned, he is beyond perfect. He's an ideal I've worked on ever since I started storytelling to myself and I pretty much started doing that when I was able to form coherent sentences. It's evolved in such a way that it isn't one ideal, but several, each fitting a specific moment or mood. Some of them only existed for a specific chapter in my life. Some of them borrow heavily from real people and others from characters in books and movies. What all of them have in common is that they all know exactly what I need.

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Would I know?

[CINDERELLA]
All I know is-

[BAKER'S WIFE]
I never wish-

[CINDERELLA]
What I want most of all-

[BAKER'S WIFE]
Just within reason.

[CINDERELLA]
Is to know what I want.

How can I make sense of a guy that is, in fact, many guys? How can I have ideals that contradict one another? How can my needs be so different from one moment to the next that I can't come up with a character that can cope with them without becoming more than one character? How can I enter a relationship with a real person when I can't trust myself to keep my ideas from one moment to the next?

[BAKER'S WIFE]
When you know you can't have what you want,
Where's the profit in wishing?

Whenever someone tells me to get over my Prince Charming ideal and "give a guy a chance" I feel as if I'm being asked to lower my standards at the same time I'm disrespecting whoever I'm giving said chance to.

[BOTH]
He's a very nice Prince...

I don't feel that ignoring what and who my Prince Charming is in favor of whatever guy is around will do me any good, really. My Prince Charming could be a very clear image of what I want, and to turn my back on him would be to ignore what I feel I need. My Prince Charming, after all, is also an extension of me and not a fantasy waiting to come to life. He is part what I expect of others and part what I expect of me in the context of a relationship.

You have to look behind the fairy tale to understand it. Under the fantasy there is a hidden truth, and in order to find it you need to submerge yourself in it.

Lyrics from Into the Woods

Princess-like

Let's talk about something I've been avoiding for a while, and that is the name for this blog.

"Princess" has been a self-given title of myself for quite a while. I might not have called myself one in public until last year, but that doesn't mean I didn't see myself as one. Most of my make-believe games while growing up had me being one, as long as I played with myself (while playing with others, I didn't even try for a "prince" title). And my fascination with princesses comes mainly from the place where most girls got their self-deluded idea of royalty as well: Disney.

Nostalgia Chick did a pretty good video on the whole Disney Princess phenomenon. And it's important to mention that the Disney Princess line was sort of an afterthought after one of the honchos at Disney realized that girls really bought into the whole idea (the word "bought" there also refers to how much money they and/or their parents spent on the idea). For me, the Disney Princess was less a merchandise (probably because there were (or are) no items marketed for boys) and more an ideal. Disney Princesses might've started as complex stories of Damsels In Distress (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty), but I grew up with the ones that would fight for what they wanted. I'd finally find my One True Princess with Belle.

Belle was well-read, snarky, and would wear one of the best dresses ever worn by a princess. She was brave, curious, and the kind of boy I wanted to be when I turned 18.

Yes, boy, for you see, it never occurred to me that Princess had a gender limit. As far as I cared at the time, the only difference between Belle and I was that she was a girl and I was a boy and just as Adam (or the Beast, for those of you who do not know the Beast's name) saw her for who she truly was and loved her, someone would do the same with me. I was as sure of being a boy, as I was sure of being a Princess.

Some years later, Cuarón's A Little Princess would come out in movie theaters, and she would deliver onto me (us) the following line.

Miss Minchin: Don't tell me you still fancy yourself a princess? Child, look around you! Or better yet, look in the mirror.
(dramatic pause goes here)
Sara Crewe: I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us.

Yes. All of us. Even the ones who are boys.

Sadly, not long after this (which is an event that would later have me wanting to become a filmmaker) I had to face the real world. The real world had very definite standards when it came to its princesses, and I did not even begin to fit any of them.

While the fantasy became silent, it did not become absent. Sometimes things about ourselves that are hidden take on far more power than those that we do acknowledge. The Princess factor in my case sort of helped me through all of my jr. high and high school drama. It was an escape.

It would take until college to retake the whole Princess ideal. What is it? What does it mean for me? How does it affect me and those around me? Am I really a princess?

As the title of this blog might've told you, yes, I do still see myself as Princess-like. At first I commented it among friends as a joke, but it began gaining momentum in my own subconscious. I began to question what it meant to be a Princess, and how my being a male affected it.

My main issue was based on the idea that what is feminine is weak. A Princess can be a strong female figure, but to put any sort of feminine characteristic on a male ideal is to weaken it. Being a feminine boy, I was no stranger to people thinking of me as weak. The only answer to this, I was told, is to become more male (tougher, stronger, less sensitive). But that to me would've meant creating a mask. Strength is not real strength unless it comes from who you are.

But then I realized that for all it's chest-pounding bravado the idea of what is to be "a man" is fueled a lot by fear. Being "a man" is a lot more about what you don't do than what you actually do. So by forgoing that fear I was actually brave and strong. Putting on a mask would only give a face to my fears, showing myself as I am would be to deny fear an entryway.

Right now, what being a Princess means for me is to try and know yourself. It means to keep a sense of wonder about the world. It means to try and be kind to everyone. It means to focus not on the problem at hand but on how to solve it. It means not to underestimate yourself.

I am a Princess, and I say that only half-jokingly.

@spicuzz por que el twitter me da hueva

@mintonarel pues que el cine gringo ha hecho fregaderas por siempre, no se le perdona, ya sabes que asi es.

Hay muchas joyas en el cine gringo. Aún hoy en día hay películas gringas muy buenas. Algunas son independientes, algunas otras logran encontrar el apoyo de una productora grande, algunas son netamente comerciales. No me puedes decir que el cine gringo siempre ha hecho "fregaderas" cuando tu mismo has dicho que hay directores que han logrado "domar" a la industria Hollywoodense. El suceso no es nuevo, y descartar todo el cine gringo como malo es igual de iluso y prejuicioso que pretender que todo el cine mexicano es malo.

Y el decir "así es" es perdonarlo. ¿Por qué aguantamos una película nefasta gringa con excusas como "sólo vine a divertirme", "es mala pero pues se veía desde el trailer", o "es una película dominguera, no la sobreanalizes" pero esperamos que toda opera prima Mexicana sea comparable con Buñuel? Sí de verdad queremos que dejen de traer cine malo (sea de donde sea) lo que tenemos que hacer es dejar de verlo.

@mintonarel y pues la neta ellos tienen más $$ para hacer cine. Aquí es más dificil y está de la shit que se hagan fregaderas.

No es sólo el dinero, es la industria. Estados Unidos tiene una industria cinematográfica estable y por lo mismo se puede arriesgar de manera que el cine Mexicano no puede. Y muchas de esas "fregaderas" que se hacen se hacen por que el director luchó a capa y espada contra fuerzas enormes para lograr hacer su película. La gente que levanta las manos, se hace la víctima, y dice que "es muy difícil hacer cine" no merece hacer cine.

@mintonarel Y lo peor de todo es q basan esas fregaderas en cine gringo esperando recaudar la misma taquilla. Vamos, quieren seguir formulas

No tiene nada de malo seguir formulas, y no es fácil. La gente se las sabe y tiene con que comparar. Además no son formulas que hayan inventado los gringos, sino los antiguos griegos. Se siguen usando por que funcionan.

@mintonarel se hace cine de "formula" para "recuperar" la "inversion". No se hace cine porque se quiera hacer cine de calidad.

Perdón, pero por muy formula que sea el cine, la gente involucrada en general quiere hacer una película de calidad AL MISMO TIEMPO que quiere recuperar su inversión. Se soportan en la calidad de su producto para venderlo. Querer vivir de tu trabajo no es egoísta, es normal.

@mintonarel lo peor de todo es que tambien se hace cine de calidad. Pero los exhibidores no las pasan por miedo al fracaso taquillero.

Lo mismo le pasa a peliculas gringas independientes. El problema del cine en México es que TODO es independiente. No hay industria, y cada vez que se intenta hacer algo para crearla los mismos que trabajamos en el medio parecemos más empeñados en destruir lo que el otro tiene que en ayudar a construir algo de donde todos podamos vivir. También hay mucho cine que no exhiben por que es en verdad malo, y el director automáticamente se pone el manto de la virgen y a llorar como magdalena.

Anyway, cómo dijo @dannker "Esas son pláticas de primer semestre"

I want my money back

It's funny... when I was a kid, I thought grown-ups never worried about anything. I trusted my parents to take care of everything, and it never occurred to me that they might not know how. I figured that once you grew up, you automatically knew what to do in any given scenario. I don't think I'd have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I'd known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.

Calvin's Dad in Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson