reenka

One of the finer pleasures in life, to me, is detailing how Everything Sucks, And Then Some. It's funny to me, taking pot-shots and deconstructing things until they're wet smears on the ground. So I'm negative, you say? Well, I guess so. I'm also painfully positive, when inspired. I squee a lot. I bounce a lot. I babble a lot. It sort of evens out. Also, I find most people to be waaaaaaay too PC. Have you noticed? Everyone talks circles around everything. God, I hate that. They're just hiding the fact that they have these strong prejudices. Everyone does, man. Almost everyone. Some people are saints, I'm sure.

So, um. I came rather close to posting an embarrassing list of "fanfic commandments", heheh. Oh man. My mother was here this whole weekend and I didn't get -anything- done (except cleaning), so I get these tiny snatches of time to (of course) read fic and I just happened to read a badfic.

I can be solipsistic a lot of times. I'm very sensitive about being criticized about things I think I can't easily change (my overall personality, my idealism/romanticism/naivete etc, my weight/appearance/personal habits, my manner of speaking), but I almost -enjoy- seeing things bashed if I care about their quality and they're not aspects of me directly. I love seeing people angrily railing against things, going over the top, being vitriolic and unreasonable. I find it cute and endearing. Possibly, I don't do it the right way, but in general, vitriol and a certain type of exaggeration appeals to me.

This makes people (even my mother, whom I'd forced to read over my rant) tell me that I sound like I feel self-important and cocky, like I'm shoving my rhetoric down people's throats. This makes me rather abashed, because this sort of behavior is beyond offensive to me in other people. Isn't it funny how that works? I myself enjoy strong opinions, a good rousing debate, and people who froth at the mouth to various degrees. As long as it's all about ideas and not about an attempt to control, which I admit is a question of intent, something which isn't always clear by far.

Maybe I'm uncomfortable with the power inherent in speech-- this much is probably obvious. My saying something in anger and just venting giving people the impression that I'm trying to control them somehow-- that bothers me. I hate knowing that people don't know me and could think that I ever mean to-- well-- do anything. I accept my powerlessness as a fact of life. I may rail against the idiocy of the world, but part of my vitriol stems from my very sense of powerlessness. I don't think anyone cares because that's been my experience in real life so far. I am a quiet person. I don't go out of my way to get heard, really. I babble, yes-- but only when prompted. It's almost like "dialogue" and "other people" is a complete abstraction to me as a default setting.

If I say, "it's obvious, such-and-such practice is ridiculous and stupid and wrong"-- I don't mean to somehow plot to curtail the activities in question, even if that's the stated goal. Maybe I should. You know, put my money where my mouth is, whatever that means. Maybe that's what I need, to get a sense of perspective.

I just want people to know that I don't -mean- anything by it all. What I believe is what I believe until further notice, and it's -never- a given that it's connected to my or anyone's actions or that I intend it to be.

As an example: there was finally a Mars landing today. Seeing this on the news actually made me cry, and almost nothing does that to me. I spent my adolescence obsessed with space & thinking that that was the ultimate work to be done-- thinking that it was space or nothing, basically. I feel very strongly about the need to explore the galaxy for entirely personal reasons of wanting to -escape-. But anyway. I just don't have the motivation and drive to -do the work-, anyway-- to get through all those chemistry classes, to dedicate myself to getting there. Even though I considered it virtually the only thing worth doing, for ages. Far be it from me to really think someone -else- should do the work. Even -I- can't get myself to actually -do- it. But I still believe, for what it's worth. I can still talk a good game.

It's not so much that I'm a fraud as that I'm horribly lazy and incompetent, I guess, with a constant low energy-level and a lingering depression. I have all these thousand-and-one -ideas- of how Things Should Be Done. I can talk to you about how life should be, how writing should be, How Everything Should Be, until the cows come home. I get pretty worked up about it, too.

So yeah, I can tell you exactly how such-and-such fic sucks, how a whole approach to fic sucks, how a whole approach to living sucks. I can outline my idea for Better Living Through Neo-Communism and I can write papers on 20 Easy Steps For A Better Tomorrow, easy-shmeasy. It sort of detoxes me, it's relaxing and it takes the edge off my constant ennui. Fanfic frustrates me, yes. Life frustrates me. Everyone's a bloody raving idiot in one way or another, including me, what can I say.

It's funny to me that people assume I really "mean" it when I write something here. Like, "normal" people would, of course, have thought it all out beforehand and have excuses ready, defenses on hand. Certainly they're not just letting off steam, these normal people. Certainly, they've used their brains for Good, Not Evil. Oh yeah.

There's a sort of skittishness most people have in "polite company" when it comes to having strong feelings. You're not supposed to. You're not supposed to froth at the mouth and spout semi-nonsense, clutching your Holy Writ and shaking with fervor. That's kind of embarrassing, and besides, no one will take you seriously. And as a grown-up, you're supposed to want to be taken seriously, right. Yeah.

Well anyway, that's me. I'm the lunatic in the corner. I'm likely to blow my lid any moment and I like it that way. My facade of calm acceptance is just that-- a frail, brittle facade. I don't accept anything; intellectually, yes-- just not emotionally. I don't accept what I see as bad writing and I don't accept stupidity and I don't accept pro-life people or fundamentalist Christians or anti-Draco or anti-science people or chauvinist pigs or prudish house-wives or conservative Republicans and I sure as hell don't bloody accept George Bush. Somewhere down that list is also me not accepting people's spelling "they're" as "their" and refusing to put "trousers" for "pants" in HP fanfic. They could/should all disappear. I know they won't, but that doesn't stop my wanting them to spontaneously combust, ideologically speaking. I don't actually wish anyone bodily harm~:)

I don't mind people disagreeing with me, see. It's just that I do mind the things I consider stupid. It's a weird contradiction. I -like- people disagreeing with me-- I dislike bland yes-men and forced harmony. I will also have fun cheerfully telling said person they're insane. If I trust them to take it the right way. "I still love you, I just think you're mad. PS. Feel free to prove me wrong." I think what it comes down to is-- things are stupid; people aren't. I love people. People rock. <3 Even bad, mean, delusional, hateful people. They rock too. I dunno. I'm not being facetious.

I "hate" lots of things. It's a very very very very long list. I also love lots of things. I don't know which list is longer. I do know I don't hate -people-, only ideas and behaviors. Possibly, this all reads as if I have severe anger issues. How do I even get from day to day without biting someone? I don't know, man. I don't know. :> I'm shy?
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Anyone who bothers to read/understand this prolly already was empathic to me to start with, so I doubt I made any sort of difference. Still, I feel bad for having ranted (even though I didn't post it). I don't condemn because this implies (to me) some sort of emotional distancing, whereas I just sit there and boil and stew. My judgement is innate and passionate rather than dispassionately "handed down". I always thought judgement was more rationalized, more separated from the person's awareness of ego, whereas to me, my opinions/judgements -are- my self. They're not something I -give-, they're something I -am-. What I "am" is, of course, fluid. Another thing judgement isn't supposed to be-- consciously fluid.

Anyway. Babble over now. I just wanted to apologize to anyone who's ever thought I judged them (badly). I haven't judged -them-. I've only judged -things-, which I don't consider a part of -them-. I don't even know what people -are-, but I know it's not something up for judgement. It is beauty. It is subtext. It is mutable. It is, in the end, truth.
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Also. This H/D pic by