Slytherin Risen
The Online Haven of Ms. Katonic
Slytherin RisenThe Online Haven of Ms. Katonic |
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| The following entries may contain material on adult subjects or other things likely to disturb those of a narrow-minded or sensitive disposition. If you are one of them, why not save us all a lot of trouble and turn away now, hmm? |
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| Apr. 8th, 2012 @ 06:29 pm Er... now what? | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  boredGuys. I think I finished Skyrim. Main Quest - done. All Faction quests - done. Civil War - won. Thane of all Holds. All houses owned. Married. Side Quests - done. Daedric Quests - done. I theoretically could play it again with yet another character, but honestly? I think I am a bit Skyrimmed out. Which leaves the question - now what? I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with myself now. I have found some fic, including LJ's Skyrim Kink Meme (awesome!), but honestly, there's not a lot out there. I could even write my own, but I'm not sure if anyone would actually want to read what amounts to Two of the SR Girls Go To Skyrim. Or indeed Character X from Fandom Y ends up in Skyrim as the Dragonborn, which is essentially what it would otherwise be. However, there are other Elder Scrolls games. And I have also been pointed in the direction of the Fable series too. So I have Oblivion and Fable III on the way, we shall see if they are any good. In the mean time, here is an awesome video of the Skyrim theme song performed by two amazing musicians, set in a very Skyrim-esque landscape, with actual costuming and many little in-game references. All it needs to make it any more awesome would be if a dragon turned up. Enjoy! This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/558687.h |
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| Jan. 16th, 2012 @ 07:28 pm Unsettled | |||
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By Skyrim, of all things. One of the quests involves being coerced into agreeing to do something for this demonic hell deity, and it involves rescuing a priest of a rival hell deity purely so the first hell deity can get hold of him and punish him for desecrating his altar. I've not got a problem with the rescue per se - if the priest is stupid enough to go back to the haunted house and keep doing the rites that pissed off the hell deity in the first place, that's his problem. But thing is, to finish the quest, you have to go back to the house while the rite's in progress and help the hell deity deliver the smackdown. I'm a tad unsettled by this! I mean, yes it's part of the game, and yes the priest's a worshipper of hell deities, but watching the guy cringe and be forced into surrendering his soul even though he knows he's just doomed himself for all eternity is more than a little disturbing. You do get a free house out of the deal, and a truly bad-ass weapon as a reward, but the demonic altar and dead body in the basement do rather detract from the value somewhat, and the weapon's powerful but I'm a bit worried it'll steal my soul. So I've basically got a house I'm too scared to sleep in, a weapon I'm afraid to use, and enough nightmare fuel for the next year. Er... thanks? I think I will have to leave scary weapon in scary house, and then me and Sidekick Lydia will move on and agree never to speak of this again. This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/557889.h |
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| Nov. 27th, 2011 @ 10:26 am That Shiny New Fandom Feeling | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  moodySo anyway, you know that feeling when you tear through a seven book series and you loved it, and you want MORE DAMMIT, and you've already been back over it once already, and there's a conflicted and tormented Snape-type who looks like a Malfoy and is ruthless and devious as all hell, and the eighth book is not out until next year, and you need a bloody FANDOM already so you can flail and squee and speculate and read fic about Wasp-kinden of flexible morals... and there isn't one. :( Nothing. Nil. Nada. Nothing on ffnet, nothing on AO3, no LJ comms, just a few reviews and forum threads, and not everything in the forum threads is complimentary necessarily. Closest thing we've got is the author's own website, which don't get me wrong, is interesting and all, but it's not the same. I am rather disappointed. All of which is a gentle suggestion that if you are looking for another series of fantasy novels to get your teeth into, now that HP has finished and the next GRRM is not out for some time, you could do a lot worse than give the Shadows of the Apt series a go. This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/556245.h |
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| Sep. 25th, 2011 @ 04:19 pm What has been seen cannot be unseen... | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  weirdFinding My Goddess. No, it isn't a pagan site for spiritual seekers. It's a really creepy personal ad from a man who, not to put it too finely, has Issues. From the introduction: ( Read only if you feel brave enough ) But there's more. Far more, oh yes. The lady in question must have long hair and conform to mainstream standards of beauty, can have kids as long as they're either older or she can find someone to take care of them so he doesn't have to get involved, and apparently having pets drains energy. This is before we even get to the deeply questionable Surrender vs Control section, and the insistence that he is guided by God in all he does and hardly ever gets angry. It's hysterical. If by hysterical you mean Freaky and Disturbing. I'd wish him luck in his search but, er, that'd mean some poor woman ending up with him... This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/553891.h |
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| Sep. 24th, 2011 @ 10:47 am Linkses! | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  contemplativeIt's Saturday morning, I've just finished watching the rugby (convincing England win against Romania, a good sign for the future!) and Fringe has yet to download. Fringe and Castle are back on TV, yay! I got to see the new Castle when I was at ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} envoy's the other day, but have yet to see Fringe.So here are links. First up: What planets would look like if they orbited Earth at the same distance as the Moon does. Amazing YouTube vid, worth watching! An Atheist Writes on 9/11 (thank you ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif) asrana for the link). If you want to convert someone to atheism, this would be how to do it - a personal story, the emotions behind your choice, both negative ones that pushed you away from your prior religion and the positive ones that underlie your new choice. Same with anything else you believe in - you convert people because you love what you believe in, and you pass that love on by engaging their emotions - positive ones, that is. If you manage to offend or alienate your target audience by implying or outright stating that their existing beliefs are wrongheaded and delusional and they are wrongheaded and deluded for having them, you have basically shot yourself in the foot - they are not going to come over to you no matter how good your arguments are. The Rationality Project: One Man's Quest to Ignore his Instincts. Did he succeed? See for yourselves. All I can say is that his wife is a very patient and understanding human being. Although one bit did strike a rather autistic note with me - the part where he refuses to get angry over misplacing his son's pushchair, and his wife outraged that he's not showing more emotion over it: very Aspie way of thinking, that. What good is being annoyed about it going to do you? Get back in the car and go find it. Maybe his wife was thinking 'he's not showing any emotion over it, he clearly doesn't care one way or the other about our stuff, and by implication, our family', which is understandable as a thought process (not necessarily a correct thought process, but it's not an unreasonable one), but the not saying it outright and just expecting other people to have the same way of thinking as you is a very NT way of doing things. Finally, I just came across this article on the Intense World Theory of autism. It's about two years old, but clearly it's not that widely known or I'd have heard about it before. Conventional wisdom has it that autistics have no empathy and aren't even aware other people have minds, let alone know what they're thinking. I'm not convinced by this, and many other autistics feel the same way - of course we know other people are different, we've spent our entire lives being acutely aware of the fact, TYVM. We don't always know or understand how their minds work, but guess what? Allegedly empathic NTs who are meant to have Theory of Mind and ability to decode non-verbal signals don't exactly do a brilliant job of understanding us either. And this article is bearing this out: nonautistics aren't that much better at reading people either, but being in the majority means they're more likely to be right when they assume someone else is thinking the same way they are. Ironically, it turns out it's not empathy we lack - we have too much of it, we pick up far too much, more than most and we can't tune it out. And that would be the story of my life really, I can cope one on one or with a few people, but more than five, or if the background environment is noisy, and it's too much. I'm getting the full blast of several people's mental chatter plus all the background interference and I just can't process it. And the number of times I've walked into a room full of people and wanted to run straight back out again because the atmosphere's just so negative and hostile, and no one else seems to even notice... Apparently it isn't just me. Autistics are all picking up this constant barrage, and we withdraw to get away from it - but if we're doing that from early childhood onwards, we never develop properly socially as we need to be around others to do that... and whenever we're around others, we're too overwhelmed to learn anyway. Or we shut out everything and come across as emotionless, when really it was that or end up rocking in a corner. It could also explain why we don't automatically think to share things with others - if we hypersensitively pick up on what they're feeling, we may assume they're doing the same with us and we therefore don't need to tell them. And maybe the rise in autism diagnoses over the last twenty years is at least due in part to the similar rise in population - with more people around us all broadcasting their emotional states at high volume, people who might once have been considered normal aren't any more. It's all rather interesting, don't you think? This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/553628.h |
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| Sep. 16th, 2011 @ 11:29 pm Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered... | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  drainedEight hours at work, left at half five, and then spent the next four hours trekking round East London. There was a reason, I hasten to add - I was collecting a parcel from the courier's depot. Which was right out in the middle of nowhere. Oddly, work to depot was relatively easy, but depot to home proved an utter nightmare and took nearly two hours, largely to trying to get a bus from Stratford to Walthamstow. Took forever, they'd closed the bus station and moved the stop, and when I did get a bus, it unexpectedly terminated halfway. Annoying! But I am home, and it was worth it, for the parcel was an order for a LaserStars Projector, that now makes my front room look like the sky at night. Er, if stars were green. But I do not care about that, for it is PRETTY and SHINY. Also, the Stratford City Westfield is now open, it seems. Probably why the transport's fallen over, it can't cope with all the extra people, hem hem. I think I shall have to inspect it at some point, see what it has. The world's biggest Marks and Spencer's from the look of it. I may have also recently shelled out for a custom userhead on LJ. Yes, I went for the princess icon. One thing you should know about me is that when it comes to artistry and design, I have absolutely zero fucking taste, as shown by the fact that I think these pics of works of art with a giant fat ginger cat that looks like Dr D's Animagus form shopped in are the best thing ever. Even better than My Little Pony Pop Icons (yes, even the Lady Gaga one). This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/553460.h |
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| Sep. 3rd, 2011 @ 11:35 am For those of you who knew Kay Dekker... | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  calmBut aren't on the LJ Bicon community, there is now a memorial community. ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif) remembering_kayBecause I know the fannish types who knew him probably won't be reading the Bicon comm. Feel free to spread the word! This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/553133.h |
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| Aug. 28th, 2011 @ 09:42 pm Vid links! | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  amusedJust a couple of them, but they are HILARIOUS, I can assure you. Severus Snape does an It Gets Better video. Contains spoilers for all the books, but I imagine most of you have read them by now. As upbeat and optimistic as you would expect. And for this one, two fandoms collide! My Little Top Gear: Friendship is Ambitious but Rubbish. I linked it on Twitter already, but thought it was worth sharing here. The credits alone are a work of genius. This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/552513.h |
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| Aug. 14th, 2011 @ 02:19 pm Top 100 Speculative Works Competition! | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  accomplishedNot run by me, I hasten to add. It's here. Basically, the conventional NPR list is too white and male for a lot of people's tastes, so eruthros is putting together a challenge for fannish types to help compile their own top 100 of speculative works. In other words, anything horror, sci-fi, fantasy, AU, magical realism, etc etc. Can be any media, including books, ebooks, movies, manga, tv shows, and also FANFIC AND FANART. See, that got a few of you interested. ;)Anyway, I put my nominations in. Not sure mine did brilliantly on the Creators/Characters of Colour front, but it's 50:50 male/female, which is something. Feel free to check them out - I intentionally avoided nominating things that were already in there, as everything nominated will go on to the long list. I nominated All Lies and Jest and mina_de_malfois. Authors of both, consider yourselves signal-boosted!I would also like to have nominated A Song of Ice and Fire, Inception and Back to the Future, but didn't have space. If anyone wishes to go in and nominate any or all of those, along with anything else they like, I would really appreciate it. :) Nominations close on Friday. This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/551662.h |
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| Jul. 29th, 2011 @ 08:46 pm I HAVE FINISHED A DANCE WITH DRAGONS!!! | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling: accomplishedIt only took me a fortnight. *eyeroll* It's a massive great book - thank the gods for my Kindle, I wouldn't have wanted to carry a brick like that around. It's a very good read though, oh yes. Only slightly marred by it being so long since I read the last book, I'd forgotten what happened. Plus the fact that DoD interweaves with the timeline of Feast For Crows, means you're essentially only getting half the story. However, IMO, this was the better half - I remember Feast for Crows being a bit of a let-down after the first three, and it was precisely because the stories that had most gripped me - Jon, Dany and Tyrion - weren't there. In DoD, here they were, but there was the awareness other things were happening too off-page. I think I would have preferred both timelines interwoven and being told at the same time, tbh. It's no good, at some point, I will have to read the whole series again. ION, LJ has not been having a good week, has it? I hope the DDoS attacks stop soon. OTOH, it'll actually poke me into making more use of DW than I do currently. This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/550556.h |
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| Jul. 24th, 2011 @ 12:20 pm In other news... | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  shockedNorway, wtf??? Shocking, horrible news, a barbaric act of right-wing Christian terrorism. I'm appalled and ashamed on behalf of everyone of Northern European ethnicity. On top of that, Amy Winehouse is dead. While not really surprising that she died so young, given the problems she had, it is still a waste of life and a waste of talent. She'll be sadly missed. ION, there is now a browser add-on that warns you when you are reading a Murdoch-owned news site. Nifty! Also I have just acquired the first season of Eureka, which is a show this town populated entirely by top scientists... apart from this one normal guy who ends up as their sheriff. Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton speak highly of it, so it must be good, amirite? This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/550170.h |
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| Jul. 24th, 2011 @ 11:58 am I went to see DH2 and it was AWESOME! | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  excitedI think that about sums it up. :) But below the cut is the detail. ( What I liked ) ( What I wasn't so keen on ) Apart from that though, good film! This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/549971.h |
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| Jul. 17th, 2011 @ 06:56 pm Google + ToS | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  geekyCurrently in the Jukebox: White Lies - To Lose My Life There has been a bit of a kerfuffle over the ToS for Google +, with certain people claiming that they're asserting ownership over any photo you upload to the site. Well, investigation has happened, lawyers weighed in, and it turns out it's utter bollocks. Yes, you need to grant Google a license to share and manipulate your photos, but you need to do that with any photo-sharing website. Because Google can't display your photos in other people's photo streams if you don't, and they're going to need to resizse photos in order to get them to look right on the site. And it's royalty-free because otherwise Google would have to pay you every time someone viewed your content, and that's a little unreasonable. The copyright, however, stays firmly with you, assuming you ever had it in the first place. In other words, they're not being evil. You may all join in comfort. :) This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/549194.h |
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| Jun. 24th, 2011 @ 11:24 pm (no subject) | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  bouncyPottermore has content! Doesn't it look exciting??? There are even screen shots! Basically as far as I can tell, it's an official site combining social networking with an RPG. Traditionally, I am not brilliant at either of these, but I am willing to at least investigate. Doesn't open until October (so probably Halloween then) but I have put my email address down. Fannish reaction is a bit mixed but largely positive. I believe this post sums the likely reaction. Meanwhile, LotR fans, I have a rec for you as well: Atmospherics by legionseagle. PG, genfic, and the premise behind the Haradrim turning out for Mordor. Best bits: the description of the Dwarves Sauron arranges to unknowingly work for him, and the modern concepts in Middle Earth dialects.Saw partners this week - both of them bought me Dominion expansions for my birthday. Fortunately not the same one this time. ;) I've got them all except Intrigue now. Go me and my Dominion collecting ways. This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/548584.h |
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| Jun. 18th, 2011 @ 11:46 am Stories! | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  lethargicThere are hints and rumours regarding a new project by J. K. Rowling involving more Harry Potter. So far, all we have is a website and a Twitter account, but more will be revealed in a week. ISN'T IT EXCITING? Also booklectic has a book of short stories out! Creepy horror ones involving puppets and weird babies and zombies and ghost relatives and inbred villages and several interpretations of Cinderella, to be sure. But good ones, nonetheless. It is £1.40 on Amazon, and also availabe on Smashwords in whatever ebook format you would so desire. Links are in her blog-post above.This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/548238.h |
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| Jun. 15th, 2011 @ 07:48 pm (no subject) | |||
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Samuel L. Jackson does the narration for the audio book of Go The Fuck To Sleep. AWESOME. (Contains swearing. Obviously.) This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/547829.h |
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| Jun. 8th, 2011 @ 01:14 pm Aspie article | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  indescribableInteresting article in today's Guardian on Ari Ne'eman, autism campaigner fighting for autistic people to have more of a say in autism policy and decisions (thank you to booklectic for the link!). According to the article, he believes that "for too long even the most well-meaning advocates in the US and in Britain – including parents – have been obsessed with moulding autistic people to fit with society's expectations of "normal" behaviour", and that "more research investment be directed towards improving support for autistic people, rather than towards finding a cure to eliminate the condition". And he has a point - the current discourse on autism is dominated by parents and professionals, there's rarely any space given to the views of autistic people themselves. Most news stories on it are along the lines of "autism is this terrible disease, we must find a cure for it immediately before it claims any more of our children!" No one ever stops to think that maybe we like being this way and don't want to be fixed.I can sort of see the point of view of critics who claim that he and others like him can't speak on behalf of all autistics as we're not as severely affected as some... but I'm also inclined to think that the definition of high and low functioning autism being used by said critics means that any autistic person who does speak out is going to get automatically slammed as high-functioning and therefore not having any authority to talk about their condition merely because they're considered able enough to speak out. How do we win in this sort of situation? Wouldn't this prevent any sort of self-advocacy? It is all very frustrating. If you don't speak out, you just get all sorts of assumptions made about you, but if you do, you just get ignored because clearly just by speaking you've proved you're not really autistic. As if the bullying, isolation, unemployment and underemployment were a walk in the park... Anyway, due to being off work ill with a cold, I have been looking around at Ne'eman's organisation ASAN's website, and the UK equivalent. Turns out I've just missed the AGM of the London Autistic Rights Movement and there's no future events planned. Also, may I say that is absolutely dreadful website design on the parts of both organisations. Aspies For Freedom's site looks better though, I shall poke around that. One of these years, I should totally do Autscape as well, maybe even this year as I'm almost certainly skipping BiCon. Hmm, worth thinking about! This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/547126.h |
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| Jun. 4th, 2011 @ 09:27 pm DOCTOR WHO OMG | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling: bouncy( Spoilers! ) This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/546909.h |
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| May. 2nd, 2011 @ 10:29 pm Eurovision! | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling: amusedIt's that time of year again, folks! That's right, Eurovision is upon us, on May 14th. Turns out Blue are doing ours this year and it's not a bad tune. It won't win, but it's not a bad song. My favourite thus far is probably the Dutch one - now that will do well. However, you can tell Ireland's economy's in the toilet. Their act? None other than Jedward. Yes, that Jedward, the godawful twins with the stupid hair cut who were on X-Factor. And yes, the song's terrible. Anyone hosting a Eurovision party this year? ION, the UK's referendum on its future voting system is THIS THURSDAY! UK people, please get out there and vote. Ideally for AV - the Tories are bitterly opposed and will have a very hard time of it in future elections if it goes through. Plus this graphic says it all. This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/545630.h |
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| Apr. 16th, 2011 @ 11:18 am (no subject) | |||
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This week, I have been mostly feeling:  lazyDEATHLY HALLOWS 2 TRAILER!!!!! Isn't it exciting? And it'll be here in JULY! OMGSQUEEE!!!!!! What would happen if H. P. Lovecraft ever wrote an episode of Futurama. I frequently do wonder if I'm really autistic or just extremely inotrverted. According to the latest research, there might not actually be a difference. Party this afternoon. I should really get up and get ready but first, HIGNFY. This entry was originally posted at http://ms-katonic.dreamwidth.org/544514.h |
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