Food Neophobia

School: that's why I haven't posted in a long time.

I've talked before about my fears. I mentioned in the post I linked right there that I know myself to have two main phobias: phobophobia and food neophobia. I've also come to the realization recently that I have cnidophobia, the fear of stinging insects. Maybe that's why winter's my favorite time of year--along with the holidays, school being out, IKKiCON, and the winter air, I don't have to deal with the insects. Anyway, the one I want to talk about today is the second.

Most people (or at least one person who's very important to me) refuse to believe that food neophobia is a thing. Well if you just do a quick little Google search, it totally is. Here I am to just add my experience into the mixing pot.

To give you an idea, here are my main food groups: chicken tenders, french fries, pizza, bread, chips, fruit, soda, and water...that's usually about all I eat on a regular basis. When I was younger I used to blamed my parents--specifically my mom, who was around me the most when I was younger--for the way I grew up. Now, I know it's not their fault. I still remember certain experiences associated with trying food vividly, like the time my mom tried to get me to try something new and I threw a toy at her head viciously and ran away. I'm still traumatized from that time she got me to try squash--that still has to be the grossest thing I've ever tried to this day. Who knows where this fear stemmed from? My parents and my brothers for all I know are perfectly normal. From what I've heard my step nephews always eat their food when my brother and his wife tell them to, which astounds not only me but my parents.

Being almost an adult now, I can't get away with this much longer. It was okay when I was a kid because supposedly that's what kids do. But now that I'm seventeen and I have kids way younger than me enjoying food that I won't even touch, it's becoming a time pressure to start new foods that I keep trying to put off.

I really started having to deal my fear when I started dating Preston. Preston grew up in the same kind of way that I did when it came to eating habits with a bunch of idiosyncrasies his Asperger's gave him added in--things like he would freak out if he even had food he didn't like on his plate, and once he got past that if his foods touched at all. (I'm still like the latter--at least I'm better about picking off the pepperonis on my pizza without freaking out.) Eventually he moved out of his fear of food and embraced it long before he even met me, something I've yet to do.

Like most couples, I could probably count on one hand all the main things me and Preston fight about, and one of them is my eating habits. He's worried that I'm not getting the nutrition I need, which my parents and I have already dealt with--they make things easy for me by getting me fast food and ordering pizza. I'm not as thin as I'd want to be, but I'm not obese either so I think that's a good sign--but I know I'm not getting the nutrition I need either way. When I was younger, my mom would make up for this by giving multivitamins; I still remember that one liquid one she made me take that had iron in it, giving it a very nice metal taste.

Preston's favorite type of food is Asian food--Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, all of it. His favorite fast food is Panda Express and it seems like he's constantly asking his parents to go there. He recently got a job and he says when he gets his first paycheck he's going to take me to this Japanese restaurant in the next town over and honestly I'm pretty terrified. One time I tried orange chicken at his house and spit it out. I was so upset that I started crying in front of him and his parents.

When anyone talks about getting me to try food, I may as well break out in a sweat I get so scared--I get the same feeling I do when I see a bee or a wasp, or someone's trying to get me to watch a scary movie, or monsters in my non-existent basement are trying to eat me. No one really ever tried to get me to try new food before I dated Preston, so I never really encountered it to this severity before.

Honestly, what I think will bring me out of this is Preston and his family and my love for anime. In anime and even songs, there's a bunch of food you always see and hear about that always seems interesting. The next character I'm cosplaying as has this obsession with taiyaki and since it's a sweet kind of thing, I'd love to try it. The ending theme for the anime Clannad is all about a dango family. (Funny enough, the visual novels that both those anime are based off of are made by the same company.) From my research there is endless different kinds of dangos, and I think I'd like to try the sweeter kind. There was a Japanese tea ceremony during the summer program at the library this year and they had dangos that I tried, but apparently they weren't the good kind--even Preston tried them and he said he was disappointed. I already love Japanese candy like Hello Panda and Pocky and drinks like Ramune...at this rate, what's stopping me from trying "normal" food?

One of biggest fears about growing up is I won't ever break out of this--that I'll get married and my husband will get irritated that I only make stuff that I like and forget about what he likes, and especially that when I get pregnant I won't eat the right foods. I'm worried that I'll never be the weight I want because I can't stop eating junk. But even after seventeen years of dealing with this, I know that, one day, I will eventually be able to break the cycle.

The 4chan Mentality

Hello, eyes and ears. How've you been? That's good. How am I doing? Weeell, I've mostly been chilling watching TobyGames videos (L.A. Noire and Fallout: New Vegas specifically) and learning all sorts of new parapara dances for the new dance troupe I'm in. (We also have a Facebook page.) Oh, and I went to a crappy anime convention and Jonathan's wedding all in one weekend, and the wedding was definitely the better part of the weekend. Luckily, me and Presto are officially going to San Japan! One day only, but still better than nothing.


Everyone hears about cyber bullying. You hear on the news that some girls at a sleepover thought it'd be funny to tell a girl over MSN or Facebook message how ugly, fat, and/or stupid she is, and that that message was just the straw that broke the camel's back and the girl kills herself. "We didn't mean for her to do that," they say. A new trend (or a trend that's been going on all along but society just started caring) that's been appearing is gay teenagers committing suicide from bullying and overall pressure from everyone and everything. I'll tell you I've seriously considering suicide when I had depression, but never been anywhere close to actually doing. (They say the steps to suicide are contemplating, planning, and carrying out--I only ever got to step one.) Of course, I felt like everyone hates me because I dressed in black and was different. I openly told people that I was "emo" and my favorite thing to do at recess was sit there and cry or pretend to cut myself (by pretend I mean I would take a pencil or paper to my wrist, but somehow I still manage to have one scar,) hoping someone would say something to me. I had a lot of "haters" you could say, lots of people that thought I was a weirdo or creepy, but I never had it as bad as all those people that actually have been bullied to death.


The thing is all those stories you hear on the news sound so false. Like, why would someone ever do that to someone so directly? Or maybe that's just me.


Everyone knows about Rebecca Black and "Friday." I'll admit the song is stupid and the autotune makes her voice grating. But did you see this video of her actually singing for reals? She can sing. Whoa! Btw, she didn't write the stupid song. Her parents paid some producers to write this dumb song that caused so much hate. I'm not blaming anyone (okay, I guess the producers are kinda at fault for writing a stupid song and Rebecca's at fault for not realizing how stupid the song was,) but in another life she could've been popular with not nearly as much hate. And for whatever reason, people are still blaming Rebecca for all the awfulness. In her new song (which isn't half bad--but I really wish they'd get rid of the autotune, she sounds fine without it) and even her friendly introduction to her new channel is getting so many dislikes and hate comments it's ridiculous. People are confusing hating someone with hating a song a person sung.


If you go to any YouTube video with any sort of recognition, there's going to be ton of hate comments. No popular video on YouTube has 100% likes--there are always gonna be some dislikes, no matter how good you or someone else thinks the video is. (Now, why do you think Facebook won't add a dislike button? I personally like it better how it is--keep the positivity up!) Why? Who knows.


Thing is, everybody does it. Maybe not to that extent, but to some extent for some reason all kids and teenagers at some point are going to sounds somewhat rude or even full-out hate on something or someone. Like I said, YouTube is a perfect example, but even Facebook and forums are active examples. I'll admit to being rude to some people I don't see in my daily life or I'm not friends with on Facebook and I recently posted a thread on the Cosplay.com forums with a huge rant, and instead of focusing on the topic on hand, they just judged me for my rant even though that obviously wasn't the point.


I said earlier that I've been watching a ton of TobyGames videos. Someone posted a comment that I responded to, and they responded back, quite rudely correcting me. I responded again, politely, and they were very polite back to me. Why? I have no idea. But I've done the same exact thing on YouTube--maybe because it's a lot easier to treat the person like an idiot instead of being polite.


Preston and I refer to this as "The 4chan Mentality." If you don't know what 4chan is, it's just a huge stupid pointless forum dedicated to idoicity. No, really--that's the only feasible way I can describe it. It gave birth to all the biggest memes on the internet (if you don't know what a meme is, it's basically a big inside joke that's either a phrase or image or video) like so i herd u liek mudkips and Rickroll. (Ironically, KnowYourMeme is actually a pretty intelligent website that I use quite often.) 4chan is also basically a big excuse to make fun of everything and everyone. This really sucks for anime fans because we often get thrown into the mix of these 4channers because both are from Japan. There's even a kid in my high school anime club that is a big 4channer who shoves his iPod with thousands of pictures of macros (think LOLcats,) into peoples faces and literally has said, "I don't know about anime, but I know way too much about the internet to not be here." Not the same thing. At all. And then there are the people that talk in memes and the people that still think The Game is funny...let's not even go there.


We've been hearing forever about how the internet's basically the end of society. What with all this talk of zombies, Uncanny Valley and homosexuality ending the world, sounds like it's coming up pretty soon, don't you think?

Creationist, Evolutionist...Who Cares?

If you know anything about me, you know I'm a Christian. I grew up in the church my Dad's been the pastor at for the last 25 or so years. I go to church almost every Sunday and I go to all the youth events. My tagline even says I'm "Jesus-loving!" How more Jesus lovin' can you get?


I've noticed lately that people, Christians and non-Christians alike, sometimes substitute the word "Christian" with "creationist" and "atheist" with "evolutionist." I can only begin to explain how wrong this is. Those terms above are NOT mutually exclusive.


Although people (specifically people I go to church with or other Christians) are usually taken aback when it comes up in conversation that I don't believe in the story of Adam and Eve. Maybe I'm just a silly teenager that likes to be different than everybody else, (Though, quite honestly, as a teenager being a Christian already makes me different.) but hear me out.


Preston always says everything in the Bible is "God-breathed" and that although it was written by flawed humans, all of it is fact. "What kind of God of Love would confuse us with giving us a misleading holy book?" he says, and when he says it like that I really want to believe him. Honestly I'm starting to believe the majority of the Bible when I used to have the ideology that lots of teenagers have, "It's written by humans, it can't all be right." But the story of Adam and Eve sounds so much like an ancient Indian legend we read in elementary school outta those thick literature textbooks where it explains how the Grand Canyon was created or something. Seriously? "We're gonna punish you by making child birth painful?" Just no. But this isn't about my opinions.


Going back to the "everything in the Bible is God-breathed" ideology, I can understand what Preston means by that. But think about it: This was supposed to happen at the beginning of the entire universe. With the first two people on earth. Do you think there was a scribe writing this all down? Do you think Eve kept a diary? No. This story was probably passed down for a very very long time by word of mouth until someone thought, "Hey, maybe I should write this down!" As we all know from gossip, word of mouth can really screw up a story. I'm sure at the time there were hundreds if not thousands of variations. I believe that if Adam and Eve really happened, it was a whole lot different than the story we have today in our Bibles.


But "what kind of God of Love would confuse us with giving us a misleading holy book?" Just pause for a moment--does believing in Adam and Eve really determine our salvation at all? Pretty sure the Bible says, "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Roman 10:9)" (That's my favorite Bible verse by the way.) So what else is there to do? Technically, nothing. Sure, there's baptism and communion and well, living like a Christian (though a lot of us seem to forget that part,) but I believe that if you believe you're saved you desire to do those things as a result of your security in your afterlife.


I know plenty of people that say they're Christian that either think they're going to hell or they're not sure where they're going. First of all, if you think you're going to hell, why in the world are you a Christian?! Honestly, that makes absolutely no sense at all! Secondly, if you believe God is a god of love, why would you think that he would ever send you to hell for, I don't know, doing something? What happened to forgiveness and all that? Humans seem to forget that God forgives us because we can't forgive ourselves--I know I've been guilty of that one on more than one occasion. The weird part about that verse? People don't even know it's there.


Like I said, that's my favorite verse in the whole Bible--because it's so simple. So simple. Like it's almost too easy. But having faith even when things are going really really bad and you almost can't take it? That's hard enough.


So the next thing people always say when I say I don't believe in the story of Adam and Eve is, "Well, then what do you believe?" And all I can say is, "I have no idea." And does that really matter? Just because I don't believe one story in the Bible happened exactly how it did as it was written doesn't mean God's sending me to hell. I'm not going to waste my time researching it to "find out what I believe" either because that would just be a waste of time, because who cares? My God sure doesn't.

Hair Cut

I got a haircut last Wednesday. The last few years or so I've gotten a haircut about once a year, occasionally sneaking in a cute little style based off an anime character's for about six weeks till it starts looking bad and I have to cut it again. The last couple times I cut my hair was for cosplay. Before, it was for Haruhi Suzumiya and now it's for Yui Hirasawa from K-On! I pretty much do any cosplay where I can use my own hair. Plus Yui's friggin' adorable. 


The reason I chose now to cosplay as Yui is because my friend that's going to the same convention as me soon did a Mio cosplay. I wanted to cosplay as Yui as soon as I saw her design before I had even seen the anime/read the manga--now, I've watched most of the first episode and read the first two volumes of the manga. I'll watch the anime when it comes out in English. (I also dragged Erinn into being Ritsu since their hair is pretty much exactly the same.)

HOW ADORABLE CAN YOU GET?

Though, truth is if I could buy a wig, I'd totally cosplay as Azusa instead.

I just answered my own question.

Well, really the real reason I'm not cosplaying as Azusa is because I didn't even know she was a character till I read the second volume of the manga. I had seen cosplayers of her, and went, "Who is that? Mio's long-lost twin sister or something?"

"Oh, I'll just give her pigtails to differentiate between the two. And give her a different colored ribbon than the rest of the girls (FOR NO APPARENT REASON). YEAH!"

Azusa's basically the character that everybody swoons over for being so frickin' adorable. Before that, it was Mio. I guess by the second volume the mangaka got tired of torturing probably the most mature member of the group and brought in Azusa.

Proof:

Her nickname is Azu-nyan for goodness sake's.


So my Mio and I were chatting, and she reveals to me that she wishes she could cosplay as Tsumugi. Apparently she's her favorite character. That's great, because nobody wants to cosplay as Tsumugi; we can get another Mio easy. If we just got someone to be Yui (if I got an Azusa wig) or Azusa, we'd be set.


Anyway, that's not actually the point of this post at all.


I'm to the point where I can make my own hair appointment. Heck, I had to call her back after I "figured out my work schedule." (Oh, by the way, I got a job.) I made my appointment sitting in the car waiting for my mom to get some medication from the pharmacy. Sitting in the driver's seat, of course, since I was driving and all. (I'm so cool with my driver's permit.) I had nothing better to do, so why not?


I've gotten my haircut at the same place my whole life. In fact, I had the same hairstyle up until 3rd grade when I decided to grow it out to the small of my back.

Left: This was the girliest any of my outfits got back then.
Right: I'm seriously wearing those pants right now.

Anyway, even though I've always gotten my haircut at the same place, I haven't had the same hairdresser. It seems like every time I make an appointment, I have to meditate on, "Paula cuts my hair, not Susan" because I will accidently say Susan. It's happened before. Okay, not while I was making an appointment, but just talking to my mom. It sounds like I have Alzheimer's or something.


I love Paula because she's such a perfectionist. Also, she is honestly surprised when I don't bring in a picture of an anime character for reference. With the combination of those two things, she will be one of the few people I will trust to give me as-accurate-as-physically-possible anime-styled haircuts.


As everyone knows, hairdressers have the life-long stereotype of talking to their clients about all their hopes, fears, joys, and concerns while they cut her hair. This is one stereotype that is absolutely true. Thing is, they expect you to start the conversation. Usually that's a middle-aged lady thing--are teenagers really expected to do the same thing? When I got my hair cut every six weeks, I was too busy playing my Game Boy Color to say anything. My mom sorta does that thing when she gets her hair cut, but it's pretty basic stuff that people like hearing: "My son's getting married" is pretty customary to get people excited. Actually, that was brought up when my mom was talking to another customer she knew. As soon as Paula heard it, she goes, "Oh, is that coming up soon?" "Yeah, next weekend." ...


"You're awful quiet today." "I guess I'm just tired."


I guess she just had a memory relapse and forgot that I don't talk when people cut my hair except to say "That's good" or "Can you give me layers, too?"


All in all, I was satisfied. I have cut hair now and I'm so ready for Anime Overload III. :D

I Feel Old and I Want to Be Older

Shameless advertising here.


See, I still think about you, ol' blog of mine. I would never forget you.


My entire life has always been focused on the future. This is honestly one of the worst traits I have. Always looking forward to a new milestone, hardly ever being able to enjoy the present but only remember the past, and not realizing when I've met that milestone.


For example, a big thing for me my whole life was turning 16 and getting my license on my birthday. Both my brothers did it, so why shouldn't I? (I actually thought for the longest time that everyone got their license on their 16th birthday.) When I missed the deadline of my 15th birthday to get my permit so I would have my permit for exactly a year, I was super excited when I found out you only needed your permit for six months to get your license. Oh yeah, by the way, I missed that deadline because October 25th is my birthday but October is marching contest month. Almost every weekday practices, Friday night football games, and Saturday contests. The only days you get to breathe are Sunday, which are usually spent sleeping and re-cooperating from the contest the day before, and Wednesday. Absolutely no time to take driver's ed classes, forget about practicing driving. So, okay. I'll start driver's ed in March so I can get my permit so I have it a little over 6 months by the time I turn 16. But guess what? Now we have UIL rehearsals weekly after school now during March, so I can't fit in driver's ed with that. Wait till summer.


So I've had my permit for close to a year now. I hardly ever get to drive. Timothy is supposed to take me night driving, so I can fill out that stupid form with the night hours (that's the only reason I still didn't get my license back in January, thank you Texas,) but we haven't done it once and I've been out of school for almost a month. Great.


Because of all the stress to go along with it, I've hardly realized I'm freakin' capable of controlling a big machine that could kill me and many other innocent bystanders. Something that before, I was incapable of doing. Sure, it wasn't all picturesque as my brothers' experiences (okay, maybe they weren't too picturesque, I was 8 and 12 when they got their licenses so how am I supposed to remember?) but I'm still (getting) there. So what made me miss it all?


I've spent the last week being a group leader at my church's vacation bible school. In the past, I've helped out with the crafts station (I will never do that again,) the preschooler groups, and even done nothing (that was last year.) I have very fond memories of VBS from when I was a kid and I realized that this year I didn't have to be a junior anything--I could be a full-fledged group leader. So of course I was totally in. And hey, when did that gap close where I could be an actual leader instead of just helping out?


Jonathan's getting married in about two weeks. Timothy and I are going to be part of the wedding party, which as predictable as it was, was still pretty cool, considering there's only three bridesmaids and three groomsmen and we're both one of them. This is my first time being in a wedding party ever. My brother, who I often questioned would ever get married, is getting married. I'm starting to feel pretty old.


The funny this is, I still want to be older. I want to be more mature, as apparently everyone I know thinks I'm immature. Is it because I dress up in costumes and go to conventions and like anime and stuff and they don't get it, or is because they know me better than I know myself? When can I be mature enough for them? When will I be mature enough to, say, get married and have kids? Would I do either of those things before I thought I was ready, or before they thought I was ready?


I want to get "my life" started as soon as possible. But I'm living it right now. Why does "my life" have to mean being married and having kids to me? I really wish I knew why, but I guarantee you it won't actually feel that way when those things do happen.

I Can't Sleep

So it's been a long time. Like a really long time. Like in over a month. Anyway, you get the idea--it's been a long time.


I can give you all these excuses but none of them are really that good. I was busy the last few weeks of school trying to make sure I passed all my classes (which, thankfully, I did :D) and was able to exempt most of my exams. I managed to only have to take two out of eight and one I had to take for college credit, the other I didn't have a high enough grade to exempt...or at least I THOUGHT I did until I got my grade and saw that it actually was high enough. D:< Oh well, I did better on the exam than I thought I would so it was okay. Anyway, I figured I'd finally write an entry once I got out of school but I've had absolutely no inspiration, so I've kept busy with Cracked.com, Cosplay.com, video games, and Presto. UNTIL NOW.


My Facebook advertises that I have two phobias: phobophobia (the fear of fearing) and food neophobia (the fear of trying new foods), both very accurate descriptions of me. But I also apparently have a phobia of anything when it's dark and nighttime.


Phobia isn't just a fear of--it's a irrational fear of. Wikipedia describes a phobia "as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding despite the fear, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational. In the event the phobia cannot be avoided entirely, the sufferer will endure the situation or object with marked distress and significant interference in social or occupational activities." However, it's kind of hard to avoid going to sleep.


Maybe I should cover my history with fear and anxiety. When I was a young girl I had this fear that while I slept, either a kidnapper/robber would break into the house or a fire would start and I wouldn't hear the fire alarm and my family would leave me behind for me to burn. I'm not quite sure where this phobia came from. I was fine during the day, but by the time it was time to say goodnight my mom would have to stay up for a very long time trying to convince me that none of that was going to happen. My mother showed me every night that all the doors and windows were locked, and one day showed me how loud the fire alarm was to prove to me that there was no way I could sleep through that. It couldn't have gone on for that long but the fact that it's so much at the forefront of my memory it feels like it went on for years. 


I'm pretty sure that's where it began. But, the onset of my next set of worries was far more severe. When I was in third grade, I suddenly was afraid of everything--that someway, somehow, me or someone I knew would die. I hadn't known anyone that had died that I was close to at that time, so I, again, have no idea where this came from. It became so bad I had to go to therapy. In third grade! (Then again it may be more surprising that I went back when I was 11 for depression.)


So even though I don't really have an especial sense of cowardice, it appears that I have a history of it. Huh.


Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that THE MONSTERS IN MY BASEMENT ARE TRYING TO EAT ME.

The above video is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Silent Hill is supposed to be the most terrifying, psychological, overall mind-screwy game series ever. The clip above? From Silent Hill: Homecoming...one of the least scariest in the series, only seconded by Silent Hill: Origins for the PSP and I can see why. I really don't understand how a game on a portable system can be terrifying. Anyway, Silent Hill, 2, 3, 4: The Room, and the upcoming Book of Memories were all created by the team in Japan--Silent Hill: Origins, Homecoming, Shattered Memories, and the upcoming Downpour were created by a team in the US. (No, I didn't just know all that...just most of it. Wikipedia is my friend.) Everyone was sure when Origins and Homecoming came out that the US team was going to screw up the series for good (though, you know, I'm all good for less scary, hence why I like Resident Evil and other non-terrifying "horror" games like Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, and frickin' Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and psychological thrillers instead of horror movies)...until Shattered Memories was released. It's considered the scariest in the series alongside Silent Hill 2. Why? You don't even get to attack the enemies. This installment has the same story as the original Silent Hill but managed to have way more goosebumps quality. Not like I would know.

That's right. I know all this crap about this series even though I've only played Homecoming, only because my friend, Kayla, brought it over one day and really wanted to play it. Once she got past the opening sequence (you're in a demented hospital and your brother is acting like a total creeper, though that part is consistent throughout, and when you go to get his stuffed bunny who is obviously covered in blood and what not, you can potentially get your arm torn off, though it all appears to be a dream...or something like that), I wanted to go around the now much less intimidating town.

If it's like all the other games in the series, 25% of the time you're scared out of your mind and the other 75% you're really irritated that YOU KEEP NEEDING TO GOING THROUGH FAMILY TOMBS AND AS MUCH AS YOU TRY TO FOLLOW GAMEFAQS--

Now, I was honestly not afraid of this game while playing it. Okay, the lurker (that's what those monsters are called) from the video above kinda made me jump, but after I killed it and got rid of the water I was okay. And after I killed the lurker in my driveway. Aaand all the lurkers that crawl out of gutters randomly...and all the mutant half-decomposed dogs lurking around the graveyard.

If you're curious, I got up to the point where you're transported into Silent Hill, went into the hotel, and got attacked by monsters in the elevator. Then Kay-chan had to go.

Recently I've been really stressed. I've been noticed split ends for the first time in my life and it's been hard getting to sleep.

For the past few nights, that scene and many others from Homecoming keep popping up in my head whenever I try to go to sleep. I know it's just a video game and I don't have a little brother who's a complete psycho and a mom who stares out the window, sitting in a rocking chair, telling me "I don't want to talk right now, Alex," every time I try to talk to her. But the monster from my basement is trying to eat me.

Last night when I was in the bathroom, I could hear rustling of paper, like a newspaper, which totally freaked me out because everyone else was asleep. I ran out into the living room to realize that the sound was coming from my room where all the papers on my walls were being blown around by the ceiling fan.

I really wish I wasn't such a scaredy cat. Preston owns Silent Hill 2--you know, the one that's supposed to be the scariest in the series? That one gives you a radio that sends out static when an enemy is nearby, which apparently is terrifying because sometimes you can't see the enemy till it jumps out at you, and the sound of scraping metal signifies the appearance of Pyramid Head.

(Insert picture of Pyramid Head that Zizi is too afraid to look up on Google Images.)

(Okay, the information below is from the Pyramid Head article on Wikipedia and the image there is a little too gruesome to put on here. Go there at your own risk.)

Pyramid Head only really appears in Silent Hill 2 (though apparently he makes a few little cameos in Silent Hill: Homecoming, including one of the endings involving two Pyramid Heads turning your character, Alex, into one of them...which allows you to wear the costume. Awesome.) and is said to be pretty much the most terrifying thing in Silent Hill history.

I read somewhere once that Pyramid Head isn't actually an enemy at all. Like, really--technically he's not, considering you can never kill him. But he really isn't trying to harm you. Okay, maybe pushing you through a safety railing and murdering your companion is harmful...but that's not the point. Without Pyramid Head, you can't progress through the game. Pretty much every time you see Pyramid Head, he gets you to a new segment of the game. So why are we afraid of him so badly if, maybe, he's subconsciously just trying to help us? Good question.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I have a far-away love(?) for horror. But it's kinda like the hedgehog's dilemma (that link is just for the lulz), except instead of human-human, it's like...human-entertainment. I've read entire summaries and good amounts of FAQs of games I know I'll be way too scared to ever play like the scarier installments of Silent Hill and another survival horror game series, Clock Tower. I've read summaries of horror movies on Wikipedia, then quickly clicks them away when a scary image pops up. *coughcough*Child's Play*coughcough* If I wasn't such a scaredy cat maybe I'd be able to enjoy them.

Preston's father loves horror movies. We all thinks he's a psycho. But he always says "it makes you feel alive." (Really? 'Cause being scared just makes me want to feel dead.) I mentioned that Preston owns Silent Hill 2, and I know that he's not a fan of horror movies and can at times be as big of a scaredy cat as I so I don't even understand why he likes it so much, but he does.

Maybe one day I'll be more open to the horror games I long to play. But for now, I'm content will knowing the big plot twist and the entire ending to Silent Hill 3 without even having played the game at all without all the terrifying images present in my mind.

Top 5 Anime With the WORST Fangirls

Hey, good news: My commentary "team" of sorts just did a podcast. Listen to us be nerds for an hour.

Also, Presto was inspired (by me! :D) to make a blog where he reviews anime. Check it out. 

So I was talking to the Presto last night about annoying fangirls and I had been reading Cracked.com lists all day. And since I'm short on blog ideas I decided to run with it and make a Top 5 list of the anime shows with the most annoying/most ridiculous/generally worst fangirls these days. (Note I say these days, not of all time.) But before I say anything, realize that this is my opinion and you are entitled to your own and you don't need to argue your point. And I'm not saying all people that watch these shows are horrible fangirls, nor that it's the show's fault (except maybe my number one). Accept this post as humor if nothing else.

5. Soul Eater

The anime: I first heard about this show before FUNimation even had the license to it. A girl I followed on deviantART cosplayed as Death the Kid, and when I looked it up I thought it looked really cool. When I heard FUNimation got the license to it, I was on the website pretty much everyday checking to see if they had updated the cast. I was there when the first teaser with an English voice came out: The whole trailer was just clips from the show with music, but ended with  Soul saying "Your soul is mine." Everyone thought it was Johnny Yong Bosch, but it was actually Mica Solusod--a pretty big newbie to the industry, so no one recognized his voice. I remember the first announcement was Todd Haberkorn playing Death the Kid (and I thanked God that it wasn't Vic Mignogna like oh so many of the fans wanted), Liz was Jamie Marchi, and Patti was Cherami Leigh. I didn't even know who the two latter were at the time. It's really the only show I can say I was "there" when they announced who got the license and who the cast was, so it automatically has a special place in my heart.

If you've read my Signature collection post, you know that I actually own this series (I own the first three parts out of four, and anticipating money so I can get the last part,) though I can honestly say this show is not my favorite. The only thing I found particularly good were the character designs and the music. (By far it is the show that I want to cosplay the most characters from: Soul Eater Evans, Death the Kid, and Crona; and every time I hear Bakusou Yumeuta I want to break out into dance.) Apparently the ending is amazing so maybe if I rewatch it and/or see the ending I'll be more liking of it...

The fans: We know that you think Death the Kid is amazingly awesome and that you think his obsession with symmetry is hilarious. Yeah, it was funny to me for about five minutes when I first saw it back in what, 2007? However, I didn't keep going on about hilarious it was. Imagine that.

I kind of liken my experience with Soul Eater to my experience with Twilight. I read Twilight before people I knew started reading it (people in general were reading it by then though, because it had made the #1 slot for the New York Times bestseller list) and the whole vampire-teen obsession thing blew out of the control, and I liked it pretty fair. Not the greatest thing I ever read, but it was okay. Then I came back to the first day of eighth grade and EVERYONE was talking about it. I thought it was cool at first until I realized how blown out of proportion it had gone. Thus, scarring me for life. Same thing with Soul Eater: the fans basically ruined it for me.

4. Black Butler

The anime: From what I've seen so far: Horrific compared to the manga. I've only seen three episodes of it and it's already that much worse than the manga. Preston said he won't watch it with me anymore, but I promised myself I'd watch the Jack the Ripper saga before I called it quits to see if it gets any better.

Ciel is. a. BRAT. GET OVER YOURSELF. STOP BEING EMO. (Really only in the anime though.)

The fans: I understand Sebastian's apparently so sexy because he's a demon. Whatev's. Good for you.


The franchise itself is good and all, but the fanbase is almost enough to turn me off from it.

3. Naruto

The anime: Crap. It's probably the most popular anime in the world right now, but why does it seem like all the most popular anime happen to have hundreds of episodes with no real point to them at all? Alongside Bleach, Inuyasha, and Dragonball Z, this anime has no real point and is not gripping in the slightest.

Before you go off on how I have no idea what I'm talking about, I watched about the first 50 episodes. Then I started watching Fullmetal Alchemist and lost interest. Huh, wonder why?

The fans: The anime fan base like to endearingly refer to Naruto fans as "Naru-tards," and with good reason. Most of the time the people that like this show (along with the ones I mentioned above) obsess over these specific shows and don't have any variety. You find out they're anime fans and all they wanna talk about are those shows...and then you realize they're not really anime fans at all.

Don't even get me started about the horrific cosplay. O_O But that can really be saved for my next anime on this list...

2. Death Note

The anime: Is good. No doubt about that. Death Note alongside with Fullmetal Alchemist was my first "real" anime that I actually watched all the way through, though unlike Fullmetal Alchemist I have yet to have the girth to watch it through again (even though FMA is longer and I've watched it all the way through three times within a 6-month period...tell you anything?)

But it's true, it does make you think and there really is nothing like it, but that doesn't mean you have to be a crazy fangirl about it.

The fans: Something tells me that the fangirls of this anime care very little about what the show is actually about. All they care about is how sexy L is (or Light, depending on which way you swing, but most of the crazy ones are after L) even though he is very obviously not interested in romance and may as well be considered asexual. And don't hate on Near because he "replaced" L. Obviously if you think he "replaced" him, you must think pretty highly of him, so why do you have to hate on him? Besides, Near was the one who CAUGHT Light--not L.

And the stupid cosplayers...do I even have to say anything? (Even Preston admits that he regrets his L cosplay.)

1. Hetalia: Axis Powers

That's actually the art for the OST, but you wouldn't know that because you can't read Japanese.

The anime: I think Preston says it best when he says, "Watching Hetalia is like watching a migraine." You're so confused the whole time that when a joke comes up you don't know whether to laugh or not. When I remember the brief chance I gave watching Hetalia, I see it as something I'd rather forget.

The fans: This was so easy to choose as number one. This one hits closest to home because most of who I consider my closest friends are rabid fangirls of Hetalia. As if that wasn't enough, at my last convention I kind of wanted to kill every Hetalia cosplayer I saw, and oh, there would be a lot of bloodshed because they pretty much made up half of the attendants. All my friends thought it was amazing that there were four Italys they could hug and talk to. I however did not. Yeah, and when was the last time you saw a Hetalia cosplayer that was actually male like the character? Yeah, there's a reason for that.

Yeah, and if that didn't set me off enough I cringed seeing the HUGE amount of people that went to the Hetalia Fan Panel. The only reason I was even in that area was because following this panel was the "Classic Anime You Should Know" panel in the same room. I don't think anybody stayed. Imagine that.

As if the fangirls themselves were not bad enough, the show is unfathomably popular. What's the appeal? Please explain it to me. And no, "because it's funny" will not cut it because there are plenty of shows that are much more funny and don't have nearly as big of a following.

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In reality, most of the teenage attendees of anime conventions are not very well-versed in anime at all. I will admit that before I started dating Preston, I was not even that well-versed myself. Now that I've had the opportunity to see anime of all kind, I understand what I like and not just what me and my friends talk about all the time. Nobody's perfect, but could you just try a little bit harder?


And now that that's over, I should probably go find a hiding spot before my Hetalia fangirl friends come to kill me. Bye!