Taking a break from writing because this is on my mind.

My little sister. Her name is Robyn Grace Alva. Why am I bringing this up? Because she wants to change her name. Not just in the thirteen-year-old, I hate everyone and I don't want to be myself way anymore, but because it's been a subject broached several times since she was at least six.

She's not an Alva, not by blood nor by marriage. She's a Fuentes, but the only time she ever went by that was when she was living in Oklahoma with her dad's family.

Here's what happened. My mom, a Brosan, married my dad, an Alva, and thus became an Alva herself. She bore Carissa and myself, both Alva's, before divorcing my dad. But rather than changing her name back to Brosan, she stuck with Alva. Around the same time she divorced my dad she got remarried to my late-step-dad, a Fuentes. She legally became a Fuentes, and bore Robyn. A few years later they divorced and my mom went back to Alva, and soon after he died.

The reason she went back to Alva was because she'd been an Alva longer in her life than a Brosan, and honestly Brosan is a weird name anyway. I also found out my grandma's maiden name is Neuman. WTF? Better than Robyn's grandma's maiden name which is Frachtling. And just 'cause I'm on the subject, my dad's mom's maiden name is Quintero. Horray for confusing paragraph of doom!

Carrying on.

So when my mom had Robyn-- bear in mind, I'm backtracking, so try to keep up ^_^-- she was still technically married to my dad, so to avoid certain insurance issues she listed Robyn as an Alva. This was never legally changed while my mom and step-dad were married.

So in short, Robyn was never legally a Fuentes, though she's not an Alva by blood.

What's going on is that Robyn and my mom go back and forth over the last name issue, at least once a year. Robyn has begun taking up hyphenating her name to Alva-Fuentes, though as far as her school is concerned she's just an Alva, and will be so officially until it's legally changed.

My mom is completely okay with Robyn changing her name, if she so chooses. She understands the costs, and it's been researched to death many times over. But, understandably, Robyn can't make up her mind. Does she want to remain an Alva, and carry the same last name as her siblings and mom-- my mom, mind you, has no intention of changing her last name back to Brosan-- or does she want to go full on and be a Fuentes? She's also balancing the hyphening idea, but she's worried it's going to become too troublesome down the line.

If this wasn't confusing enough, she also wants to add another name to the equation. Jessica. If she were to have her way, she'd change her name to Jessica Robyn Grace Alva-Fuentes.

My personal opinion, and I told her I respect whatever she does, is to change her last name to the hyphen and wait on the first name until she's at least eighteen. Changing your first name is too heavy of a thing for someone still in their early teens.

But, of course, there's a reason she wants to change her name to Jessica. Robyn was the compromise name. Robyn is named after two people-- my mom's best friend, and her dad's grandma who practically raised him. Her dad originally, though, wanted to name her Jessica. Incidentally, Carissa and I both liked the name before Robyn was born, for our own reasons. But Robyn became Robyn, and I prefer that myself now.

She's thirteen now, and her dad passed when she was maybe six. Every year she feels more and more distant from her dad, and it's understandable that she'd want to hold onto anything that she could-- including names. We're all very supportive of any decision she makes, we're just hoping she doesn't go over board, haha.

Wow, I just wrote 3000 words to the first part of a Buffy fan fic I wasn't expecting to go anywhere. It's only part one of the story, and it's not even finished yet-- nearly, but not. This is the most I've written for anything in a long time, and I'm so stoked!

I need a beta'er, if anyone's interested. I already asked one person, but in case she can't it'd be nice to know if anyone else is available. It's a post-Chosen, non-comic AU Xander/Larry fic. Larry, if you don't remember, was the gay football player who played a pretty small part on show before dying. Thanks to soclosesofar for reminding me he existed, lol.

But yeah, I'm really stoked on this story so far but I won't post it without it getting beta'ed. Any takers?

Also, I need a Xander icon if anyone knows of any good ones.

Dream time! Ooooh, I love weird dreams!

The first thing I recall-- mind, the dream was going on long before this, but I can't remember it-- is I'm running down a stone hall and into a temple of sorts. There is a fire burning on the far wall in a stone pire, and there's three statues of sorts. They're three logs, each painted and flecked with gold, two laid on the bottom, and one held over it with something else. I can't describe it, I don't know the right terms, haha.

I run in there and there are three people in there, these Gods who have been chasing me. Actually, one of them is the God and the other two are extensions of said God. Each God constantly changes appearance, age, race, sex, and voice.

The two extension Gods stay youthful each time they change-- never getting older than, say, sixteen I guess-- and one is always male, the other female, though they keep changing. The main God can get way old-- probably into their seventies or eighties-- and as young as five, I'd say. But the main way you could tell the main God was the one was because he carried this weapon that changed with him, though remained mostly the same. It was a golden half-spear, half-hand axe, that's handle would change length with their age. When they were younger the handle was shorter, and the God was more aggressive and in my face. When they were older it was a long staff, and they'd stand back and taunt me.

I kept dodging and weaving away from the Gods, and climbed through, under, and over each of the things in the middle of the room. It was a pretty awful game of cat and mouse.

All the while the gods kept shouting things like "What do you call your God? Yaweh? Allah? Thor? Kali?" and a bunch of other names I can't remember. I got filled with a lot of anxiety.

There was a way through if I could get through the fire on the other end, but the main God kept blocking that way. I couldn't go back through the hall I came in, either, because I knew I'd be trapped forever.

After a time one of the Gods, at the time she was a young black girl, realized that they were going about things all wrong and they decided to try being nicey nice with me. The last image I remember seeing is them coming at me, I'm backed into a corner and they're completely surrounding me. I remember I was looking at the fire, knowing I couldn't make it out now.

That's all I remember, though I know there's more to the dream. That's all that sticks out.


I also had a dream the other night I mean to write about that was one of those "What if..." sort of dreams. What if instead of my mom, my dad got taken custody of Carissa and I. In short, it was extremely depressing-- in the dream, my mom had killed herself when I was really young (she already had severe depression growing up), Carissa killed herself when she was a teen (which she actually tried doing several times, anyhow) because apparently my dad had molested her. Dad was the same as he was, though he was an engineer. We never talked, Robyn didn't exist, he never met my stepmom, and altogether I was completely unhappy and alone. one of the more depressing dreams I've had.

Meme time! This time, spock74 picked out six of my icons and wants to know more about them. Fun!

( Icons, woo! )