Something that I haven't seen mentioned in discussions of Anna and Chris is the unique take that Mormonism has on mental handicaps. Without getting into the details, Mormon theology teaches that people had a spiritual existence prior to earthly life, and volunteered to be born into this world and live a mortal life as a form of spiritual testing. Supposedly, some people are so spiritually advanced, that they didn't have the need for the full earthly experience and that is why they were born with mental handicaps. Yes, according to this theory, Chris is probably better than you by virtue of being an idiot. This should probably be kept in mind when considering why Anna would knee-jerk verbally side with Chris.
So Anna might have her own mormon version of Rocky? That's kind of a weird thought. What's Anna's stance on Rocky, do we know anything about that? That's both kinda fascinating and utterly terrifying to think about.
Not a goddamn thing, but it's still sorta fun to hash over old stuff. Sometimes new stuff bubbles up.
This. This is why it disheartens me that there is such a rush to lock threads around here. It confuses me why that happens so quickly and so frequently. People like to talk and BS. That's why we're here.
Server constraints maybe? I can understand when posts are literally paraphrasing what has already been said in other posts/threads. During a CWC info drought it's natural though, almost flattering that people stick it out even when they're not being fed any new stuff.
Samefagging bloats threads makes it that much harder to find good posts. I support the fast-lock approach the mods take, particularly here in Disco. The continual arrival of new users/lurkers who decide to post means that in certain threads the samefaggotry could otherwise become pretty much self-perpetuating. Ultimately, if there's nothing to talk about it's because Chris isn't doing much at present.
What I would like to see is the ability to filter based on the different ratings. They are kind of useless without that capability.
That would be useful. I think it's been brought up in the post ratings discussion thread. IIRC it's quite difficult to implement from a technical perspective.
Sadly, not even a Rocky speech would do Chris any good at this point. He'd probably see the "How much you can take and keep moving forward" speech from Rocky Balboa and relate to it 'cause he fought through all the trolling attempts and blue arms and kept pressing on in his love quest, making him just as much of a resilient, unstoppable and dominant force as Rocky.
Fighting a Soviet/Swede on steroids in the ring contra fighting Chrischun's lack of logic... Give me a ticket to Soviet Russia and don't expect me to come back.
Having met Anna, I don't believe she's too active in the LDS faith. She's got a tattoo on her arm now, which is typically frowned upon in the LDS faith, and she's got quite a mouth on her. Cussing is also not a done thing in the LDS faith. Then again, I consider myself a Mormon and I do and say a lot of shit that wouldn't make me popular at the local Ward House. I act very differently around the devout.
I used to talk to her a lot on AIM. In fact, her parents considered renting the house I still own in Utah before I found other tenants. I thought she was really cute but also really annoying. By 2009 I was past the phase of ignoring annoying personalities for cuteness. It was pretty clear at the time that Anna was very childish and only giving a crap about Chris because it brought her attention. Though she claimed that she liked talking to me because I didn't talk about Chris. I had forgotten about her until this thread refreshed. I really hope she has found some stability and happiness in life. I really like Mormons. Behind all the stories of "weird beliefs" (as viewed by some outsiders) are very friendly and also very human people just like the rest of us. My old boss once confided in me that he punched his partner out on his mission. He served in North Carolina. One person they ran across said "you guys worship a different Jesus" and he said his response was "I'm pretty sure He's the same Jesus." Haha. Mission stories are the best. Seriously guys, if you ever see the Elders say hi. It's a really difficult thing to be on a mission and even if you don't agree with everything they believe in, the church does a lot of charity and good in the world. Plus, if you come off as overly friendly and supportive and even tell the cashier in line ahead of you that you will buy their sandwich/coffee/whatever they actually assume you are Mormon and don't try to recruit you. Score.
When I met her she seemed nice enough, just really vapid. The wheel turns, but the hamster has died. She of course went off about how "Chris is so sweet and just misunderstood! If only people knew the Chris I know" and so on. In our group therapy she was talking about how being in the hospital was the first time she had left the house in months and will play video games for days on end so she didn't have to think about life and how the people she plays with on CoD were her main social life. I wish her no animosity and I hope she was able to work past her emotional issues and start living life. Being an emotionally crippled shut-in is a horrible life to live.
@The Dude that is an excellent adjective to describe her. "Vapid" I also remember she was always down on herself. If I tried to steer the conversation to what she wanted out of life shed shut down and ignore me for hours and then pop back up like nothing happened. It got to a point where I felt that we weren't compatible as friends and talking wasn't a logical thing to do. I figured if she wanted to talk to me again she would. She did once about a year later but by then I was already pursuing my now wife who made it very clear at the time she wasn't interested in dating me and that I am not allowed to talk to other girls.
I don't know if I'd speculate too much as to her religious beliefs or motivations here, since by all accounts Anna sounds like a pretty liberal Mormon at best. Lot's of people just pay lip service to their religion's teachings (or taboos) when its convenient. Not every Jew keeps meat separate from dairy, not every Muslim prays five times a day or avoids alcohol. I'm assuming Mormons are the same way. It sounds to me more like Anna is a confused woman who has, for whatever insane reason, latched onto Chris and now uses it to justify what a "good person" she is. It's weird, yeah, but just about everything surrounding Chris seems to be. They also believe that Native Americans (and Polynesians) were "cursed" with dark skin because of the sins of their ancestors, which is not only racist... it's just silly.
Every community has one or two people like Anna. They believe themselves to be perfectly normal, ordinary people and yet there's a spark of insanity deep down. In some places, it's that weird lady who has about fifteen thousand china dolls and her house painted pink inside and out to the point where it's so garish the local paper runs a column filler story about it (yea that's mine). Other places have the odd guy that rescues wildlife and seems to have his own personal screeching, hooting zoo in a back garden the size of a small bathroom (also mine ). Anna is one of these people. She wants to believe she's a paragon of the community, a person who's just so much more moral than you that she can reach out to people like Chris and give him the friendship and support only a really top quality human being can. What she doesn't realise is that she's a crazy cat lady, but with overweight autists instead of cats (she might also have cats, does she have cats? Cats.) Anna doesn't like Chris, she likes how pretending to be friends with him lets her wave her big ass morality billboard at people. Chris to her is a badge, his only purpose is to give her a justifiable reason for being 'better' than average Joe, because she cares about the little people. TL;DR Anna just wants Chris so she can pretend to be awesome and she actually hates him. The end.
