Confidence?

I know I've said it before, but I'm never quite sure where I've shared the story and sometimes I forget to share the story all together. I think as I grow older and more detached from the teen/young adult me, the less concerned I am about that phase in my life. I accept that it happened, that my thoughts about myself were drastically different, and that it shaped the person I am today.


I am the youngest of four, and our ages are spread out very oddly. My oldest sister and brother are 17 and 16 years older than me, and the next sister is six years older than me. So really, as I was growing up, it was me and the that sister. The other two were old enough and pretty much out of the house for the most part.

Problem is that the sister closest to me happens to be crazy. I always say that, and I know it sort of diminishes the story about here. I get a couple of reactions, the normal one being, "Everyone's sister is crazy. We all have crazy sisters." Yeah, I know. But no, something is seriously wrong with her.

At the moment, I'm pretty sure she's simply bi-polar, but possibly schizophrenic . She would have moments of being super happy, and then have horrible moments of being really mean.

I could always tell when these moments were coming. She would stand around being very quiet, just stand there staring at something or nothing, usually out a window, and then she'd suddenly blow up about something, anything. Something she remembered, some injustice or insult she remembered from months possibly years prior that she'd finally respond to.

She was a source of chaos in the house. She was the only person I've ever physically fought with (and won, thank you). She was the only one who'd yell and scream and throw fits, really hateful frightening screaming too. Like someone possessed by a devil sometimes.

My parents never knew what to do or how to handle it. Mom looked for someone to blame for it, even blaming me more than once. (Like I asked to be born, thank you.) Dad would only shake his head and feel completely powerless. He'd look to someone else for answers. Usually, he'd look to me for answers or ask me to be the one to talk to her because he figured that I was close to her age.


But she completely hated me. She was a demon in our house, and I was the focus of her hate. Anything that I did would seem to cause her to have these fits, it was part of the reason that Mom blamed me sometimes.

My sister used to call me names. She'd walk past me and call me an "ugly little thing." People would compliment her when dad took us out, telling her she was pretty and usually completely ignoring me, so I pretty much accepted that it was true. She'd tell me I was a horrible person, and say I was selfish. She had all sorts of things she used to tell me, and after a while, especially being a young kid, I believed it.

I don't remember now how old I was, but I remember this very vivid dream. I was probably 12 or 13, and my sister was strangling me in the dream as my parents stood near by looking anxious, but not knowing how to stop her. I woke up crying. I am pretty sure I remember sobbing so loud that my parents came to see what was wrong, and I told them the truth.

I don't remember how they reacted, but I do remember realizing right then that she was killing me, and I would become a shell of a person if I let it continue any more. And so I fought back. The anger welled up in my chest into a dense ball that I held onto and carried with me to use as a weapon against her. I used it as a shield, and I used it as a mace. I had to fight for room to breath.

But it was one of those things that's both good and bad. Carrying that around with me, I pushed everyone away that I could and I sealed myself up. But I honestly had to. I needed to fight and I needed to heal. And at the same time I still had to fend myself from the ugly names she'd whisper when we passed each other in the house. I didn't have energy for anything else, not friends or hanging out and certainly not love or boyfriends.

It was like my own personal war. I wish I were exaggerating for the sake of this story. But it was honestly a battle to fight her off and learn to fight myself off. I knew that if I undermined myself by agreeing with her, believing I was bad and ugly, then I would lose. So to avoid that, I simply stopped looking at myself. I didn't look in mirrors or reflections and I wouldn't allow pictures to be taken. By completely avoiding myself as if I didn't exist as a physical person it was easier to fight and to make my core stronger.

I found other things about myself I liked. This didn't mean that I felt I was great at those things, it just meant I would do them and take pleasure in doing it. Writing, homework, school work, discussions, video games, reading. I did those things for me, because I needed something to do, and once I completed something, I felt good about it because I had done it and it had come from me.


Perhaps this explains all of my story lines? I seem to have a thing for girls being protected by powers that aren't necessarily good powers. It seems born out of my deep wish that I had been protected, that someone would have wanted to protect me, even if I wouldn't have accepted the protection. I just wanted someone to see that I needed the help.

I'm refusing to look this back over for editing or revising. So this is the first draft I'm throwing up. This is the raw me. I'm really only posting this up because I forget and perhaps because I thought you should know.

The happy maid

I haven't read a lot of period pieces, but I have read a couple and a thought just occurred to me this morning while taking my shower. A lot of the time, when writing about powerful men, part of the package of their masculinity is that they can get any women they want and they usually do.

This of course means they have to have partners. Usually in a period piece this will be peasants or maids of some sort. And these maids are always willing and happy to be with these men. I think this is a romantic idea.

I heard one author say that in the time period she was writing in, the royalty lived like "rock stars." But I wonder about that. If you've got a powerful man hitting on you, especially if this man happens to be your boss (or even your boss' son) what's a maid to do? She's not always going to be willing. She may say yes, but if she feels that she has no other option then it's still against her will.


I've sort of been having issues with this, not in others' work, but in my own. Basically, how to approach this idea properly. I don't believe it's a spoiler to say that Henri is in this situation himself. I base a lot of the Wildlands off of what I've seen of medieval stories and what I know of the Feudal system. Henri is a powerful man, a king in his own right. He's had his share of women, but there's no way 100% of them were willing participants. (*here's something of a spoiler* And in fact, I know he had issues with this when he was younger and more impulsive.)

I've known this for a while, but I'm almost scared to present it! Rape is a tough issue to tackle at all. I wonder if in some people's eyes it makes it impossible to redeem those characters. But I've seen plenty of the type of people who I don't believe would like a character who had raped a woman buying this romantic notion that every maid is willing when a powerful man bats his eyes at her.

I'll just let my mind hover over this idea looking for weaknesses and the best way to illustrate this. I think it's possible to be good and still mess up which means even Brandon needs to watch out. I don't think he's messed up yet but that doesn't mean he won't.

And Theresa needs to watch out too. She's very powerful, and she could easily overpower a man. Women are capable of rape as well.

Inspiration in the strangest places

Saw the creepiest and saddest thing today. From this post on the EPBOT girl geek blog (by the woman who does Cakewrecks)-- not the first video but the second one.





I know the music is part of what really does it, but just hearing the story sends a chill over up my spine. Five years ago this park was closed in preparation for a storm, and it never reopened. I'm sure it wasn't the first storm they'd had to close down for, and I'm betting they didn't expect it to never open up again. Come January, the entire park will be bulldozed and sold for scrap.

A lot of the destruction is made by the storm, but there's also plenty of destruction made by human hands. It's also interesting to see how quickly nature moves in when people are gone.

Well, in the blog I got this from, someone then mentioned looking at current pictures of Chernobyl and the areas affected and abandoned in the aftermath of that. Well that lead me to this site where a woman goes on a trip to see the old villages that were evacuated. It's clear that English is not her first language, but it seems to really only help the simplicity of her descriptions and at times make her descriptions more poetic.


This is what I want for Ruin. Especially the Chernobyl stuff. There's something there. In Ruin, they have a creation myth, and it's essentially the same thing as their destruction myth (The story of the Two Brothers). I think that something horrible happened once upon a time, and most of the people have forgotten. It still shows up in their myths although heavily veiled and still affects their behaviors (like their almost instinctual fear of the ocean-- although note that Paula was the one who was greatly disturbed while the others with her that day were not).

I imagine Ruin being a large continent like Australia. So that makes me wonder about the rest of the world. Is it still alive? What is there to find? Are there people who still know the truth? And if so, are they trying to protect themselves?

I downloaded that You Tube video and made it into a format that will play on my DS so I can be inspired on the go. I'm also going to watch 28 days later. *shudder* Supposedly, it's a similar idea, though I know it also involves zombie-like creatures. *shudder again*