Thought
Not necessarily a rants page, although they do crop up every now and then. As the name implies, this is a page for my thoughts on any number of things, petz-related or no. There are only five 'thoughts' at the moment, but rest assured that more will come.

Have comments? Drop me an e-mail at starsweptblah@hotmail.com, and I'll put them up on their own lovely page ^^. Be sure to tell me who you are, or let me know if you want to remain anonymous.



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Sorry to burst your bubble..
Okay, so I have to admit, I'm pretty much out of the loop on "current" petz controversies, drama, issues, stuff, whatever the hell you wanna call it. Yeah, so I've bitched a couple of times on show poses and hexing, but they had no root in already-existing PC issues, as far as I know. Anyway, I tend to keep out of discussions other people start on their particular petz peeves and causes, and sometimes I don't even bother looking. But hell, eventually I'll give in and look, or stumble on something. That's about it.

Just today, though, I finally took more of a look at this whole "bring back the old PC" thing. Looked at Ye Olde Petz, came by Crack Babies and saw the rant there. It's the latter that sparked this, as well as a grand ol' WTF and eyeroll from me. What annoys me is that someone might misconstrue my bringing back Starswept as being something to do with this 'movement' (not to say that I'm against, I simply don't see myself as a part of it). Well, let me tell you now, that is NOT the case; it merely coincides, perhaps unfortunately.

Starswept is back because I missed PETZ and the people involved in it, not because I miss the old PC. Let me tell you something now: I've been missing the old PC for years. I was missing it two years ago when Starswept was still open. I've been missing it since Excite died. I've been missing it since, one by one, the people who were here when I started disappeared.

You know what? You can't bring back the old PC; you will never bring it back. It's not adoptions or graphics or layouts or site content that makes the PC what it is. The PEOPLE make the Petz Community what it is. It's right in the name, you see? Petz Community. And that's exactly why you can't "bring back the old PC." The old PC is gone with the people who were a part of it. Sure, there are a few of us left, but not many.

Also, I think that one person's "old PC" is different from another's, purely on account of who you interacted with or looked up to. In my case, there is no old PC without Seven and Twin, Prawny and Mithy, Becca, Sheepie, and so very many others.

The old Petz Community is gone, and will never come again.



Vampiyaz, yo. :F
You know how, sometimes, you'll do or not do things just 'on principle,' or just 'because'? Like...say Person A likes a certain thing, and you avoid it just because of that? Not because you don't like it, but because they like it, and that's enough to make you stay away.

Well, point is, sometimes there are things I'll keep away from just because they're 'big.' Like vampires. There are lots of people who are crazy-obsessed with vampires, and think they're cool. I mean, I've always thought they're interesting and all, but I never read any of the books, watched very few of the movies, and just plain didn't get into them. I was that way simply because of all those nutso, obsessive people, particularly the ones who think 'their' vampires are THE vampires. Their views on what a vampire 'is' are the only correct views. You know what I mean.

At any rate, last Halloween I acquired something that would take me from avoiding vampires to obsessing (in a non-obnoxious way) over them. On Gaia, I essentially bought a character who became the reason for my about-face. Technically I suppose he's a 'pet,' in Gaia terminology, but he's a person and very much a character, so I don't like to call him a pet. The premise of the shop I got him from, in short, is that some historical and/or mythological figures, being too attached to life, live on as spirits trapped inside artifacts. With time, research and roleplay, the spirit is drawn out as a ghost and eventually becomes solid and 'alive' again. My artifact? A spearhead. My ghost? Vlad Tsepesh.

Dracula: a combination of history, folklore, popular mythology, and a healthy dose of creative liscense, my Tsepesh has one foot in reality and one in fantasy. And oh, how I love him! He's become one of my dearest characters ever, right up with Justice and Iden. Iden, by the way, is my sort of general Gaia character, a representation of me, an offshoot of my own personality, albeit a me who's a bit darker, a lot more insecure, a lot less stable; Iden is a me who's been pushed to one of the extremes of what I could be. Iden is flawed and hurt, lonely and needy, desperate for help, desperate to feel.

Iden's the one who researched Vlad ('Drac,' as she prefers to call him) and drew him out. For eight months now she's fought with him, slept with him, hated him and loved him. Vlad is my enigmatic, arrogant, sometimes crazy and oftentimes downright nasty, un-figure-out-able bastard who just has something about him that Iden and I can't get away from. He draws us in and claims her as his own (possesses her, not loves her), and we like it. We love him for some reason we can't explain and can't quite understand, even when he's being a the world's finest prick.

Drac, and now Iden with him, has affected me on many levels, not least among them my interests and obsessions. I can't get enough of vampires, from modern novels to old myths, from good movies to the ones you watch just to laugh at. I've bought and read two books on the historical Vlad Tsepesh--the only two I've come across. I've spent hours in the University library looking for anything I can find on him, on vampires, on Romania and its history. I have two books on the Romanian language and want very much to learn to speak it. I've done a complete 180 and gotten into things I never would have thought I'd get into. I love vampires.

Vampiyaz, by the way, is the title of what is undoubtedly a spectacularly awful vampire movie. I haven't seen it. Yet.

(This is Vlad, and this is the Gaia shop he's from. This is Iden as she was, and this is Iden as she is now.)



Terminology
Something I muse about every now and then is the all the terminology you run across in the PC. I find it very interesting, the little bits of 'lingo' and the like that we use. We'd probably sound terribly crazy to 'outsiders' if they stumbled on us, no?

You have to admit, some of it does sound pretty weird, when you think about it. Hell, 'slothy eyes' still earn a WTF from me. It had to be explained to me when I came back, heheh. While I'm vaguely bothered by the term simply from a "just say what you mean" point of view, it mostly just amuses me. I haven't got a thing against people using it, I just find that one in particular a bit silly. Something I still don't know is who started it and why. Where'd such a seemingly nonsensical term come from? I'd really like to know.

I can't rip on it too hard, though, being a user of more little-used terms myself. Other people's 'dusty' is my 'olive,' and 'tan' is 'fawn' to me. And those spiffy black (or other color) 'nose spots' on Danes? Those, to me, have always been 'nosebands.' It's the way I've always thought of those things in my head, and they've stuck with me. Being a creature of habit, I'll continue to stick with them.



The Chicken Littles strike again..
Good sweet lord, what is WITH all these people? I had a thought on this same damn thing years ago, and I think that's a good indication of just how true it is. Everywhere I look, I see people moaning about how the Petz Community is dying. That old song again? Please, spare me before it gets stuck in my head.

News flash, guys, the PC is not dying. It wasn't dying three years ago, the last time I wrote a thought just like this. Doesn't look dead to me. When Excite got rid of its Clubs feature, people thought the PC would die. Well, obviously didn't die then. It is not and has never been dying. It changes, that's all. Old people leave, new ones come in, sometimes old ones come back. As long as there is Petz and people who love the game, who turn to the internet, there will be a Petz Community. It will continue to change, but change is not death; stagnation is. Sure, you can be technical and bizarrely philosophical and say that it's always been dying, just as every moment we live brings us a moment closer to our death, but that's a bit too sickly deep and fatalistic for Petz, don't you think?

Enough with the predictions of death, doom, and despair; you're not Nostradamus. Besides, if you were, you'd be busy predicting the next World War, or leaving hazy clues about the end of the world, not the end of the PC.



A whole lot of thinking..
Over the course of the past few days, I've had bunches of ideas for new thoughts flying in and out of my head like you wouldn't believe. And then I'll be thinking about one I've already done or intend to do, and WHOOSH another idea zooms into my poor head. So, finding myself wanting paper and feeling sort of silly for it, I started thinking about why I do this in the first place, and what people think about my doing it.

Only on my website and on forums am I so comfortable running my mouth (or my fingers, more appropriately) off about stuff. Get me face to face, of even just on AIM, and I don't usually say much. I like more time to think about what I want to say so that what I do say comes out as close as what I want to say as possible. Of course, this way I'm more likely to ramble on away from what my original intention was, which just so happens to be what I'm doing in this paragraph.

Back to the point, I think I do this for a variety of reasons. I do it simply from a want to be heard, and rarely from a need to just let off steam. Contrary to what some of them may come across as, my 'rants' are not often a result of the latter. I want to get my feelings out on a matter, yes, but I want to get them out largely because I want my feelings on a matter to be known. I enjoy sharing my opinion like this, as well as sharing things that interest me, or things about myself. Any number of things, really. I also like that what I write might make other people think.

Now, something unavoidable everyone runs into is someone trying to force their opinion onto you. A lot of rants/monologues/whatever I've read do that, and I suppose mine can come across that way as well. I don't quite mean them to. I'm not at all offended if you disagree with me on matters of opinion. Your opinion is yours, mine is mine, nothing wrong with that; same old story, you know. And it's true that nothing's wrong with that, and it's fine with me, but for all that talk, it's not exactly an absolute.

Why? Because I genuinely care about what you think of what I think. I honestly want to be agreed with. It's a bit like being right about something. It's a nice, validating sort of feeling. Still, I don't expect you to agree with me, and I won't give you crap if you don't, as long as you can at least be civil about things. Yes, it disappoints me in a way if I'm not agreed with. It's just the opposite of being agreed with, so why shouldn't I feel the opposite feeling? I won't moan about it or hold it against you, it'll just have me a bit down is all. Also, whether you agree with me or not, I still want very much to know. Something is better than nothing.

I want my opinion to count for something, to be something, whatever that something is. It's as simple as that.



Would you just grow up already?

Okay, what the hell is up with all the people who're 'omg i'm anti-tamsin and PROUD!!'. Seriously, how immature is that? How pointless is that?

They don't do anyone any harm. They're just...there. If you really can't stand them, learn to ignore them and just move on. You're not proving anything, and the only thing you're succeeding in doing is making people with sense roll their eyes and laugh at how pathetic your 'hatred' is.

There are a lot of breeds, original, hexed, and selective, that I don't like, but do I find it necessary bitch about them? No. There's no point to it, save maybe for being an excuse to be an asshole.

So what is this about? Is it just another way of saying you're an asshole and proud of it, or a bitch and proud of it? Oooh, that's just SO badass of you. Proclaim it to the world, kiddies, go on, be good little rebels while other people get on with their lives because they've got better things to do than proclaim their hatred for certain animal-shaped pixels.