But I Like the Pretty Things!

I like fanfiction.  I’m not ashamed of it, I’ve liked it for about 13 years.  I find writers that I like and stick to them like glue, and follow their recs to new writers.  But, occasionally, I go seeking on my own, and sometimes do turn up good things.

Except for when I don’t.

Don’t write accents in, people.  Feel free to make mention of the accent, but don’t mangle the words you’re writing in an attempt to really put your reader in the story.  All we do is sit and wonder if you had a seizure on your keyboard.

Also, I don’t mind if you take a few liberties, obviously you aren’t always going to be writing canon, which is fine by me because most of my couples aren’t canon.

But at least be accurate.  

• If you’re writing Grey’s Anatomy and it’s set in Season 2, remember that Burke is still there.  Burke doesn’t leave Christina until the Season 3 finale.  When Mark shows up for the first time, Burke and Christina are dating.  

• If you’re writing Harry Potter, please don’t always make Snape or the Malfoy men secretly super sensitive.  It’s boring, it’s been done, and we all get really tired of it.  Also, Hermione doesn’t have to be a secret sex kitten.  It’s just really unnecessary.

• If you’re writing Supernatural… no, that show either has an incredible amount of subtext or my mind just looks for the gay everywhere.  Just, like with Snape, don’t make Dean all secretly sensitive.  Sometimes is okay, ridiculously out of character is not.

• If you’re writing Glee, and you’re writing Puckleberry, please don’t automatically make Finn out to be a total shit heel.  I’m not his biggest fan, either, but sometimes the level of douchebaggery is just too much.  Also, please don’t throw in a ludicrous amount of Yiddish.  I know Jewish people, and most of them don’t do that.

I’m sure I will think of more things, but I just wanna go read some fic now.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Meningococcal

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

I made someone happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  On the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate it when I talk about my experiences with depression and someone says, “Oh, I know exactly how that feels!”  No, you don’t.

You might have a general idea because you’ve gone through depression, too, but depression is individual.  You have no idea what it actually felt like for me, you just have my words.  My words are nothing.  They don’t even come close to truly conveying what it feels like because I am fumbling for a way to describe it that makes sense.  But it doesn’t make any sense at all, so all you have is my feeble attempt at explaining something awful and encompassing and that devours you completely, sometimes bit by bit and sometimes whole.  Something that causes you to stop seeing yourself in the mirror because there is nothing to see.  You don’t feel anything, not really even physical pain, though it does afford you a quick flash of something in the darkness that is quickly swallowed back up.  You’re drowning and freezing at the same time, and nobody sees it.  It aches when people tell you “I love you”, because you can’t say it back and mean it, not even if you want to.

You might understand the words I’m saying, but that doesn’t mean you know how it feels.  That doesn’t mean that your depression didn’t matter as much as mine, just that your’s was tailor-made for you, and mine for me.  

And so saying, nothing makes someone else’s depression bigger or more important than yours.  It doesn’t matter the final push over the edge, be it family or love or grades or what-have-you.  It doesn’t matter where it took you or how long it took you to scrabble your way back out of that hole, or if you’re still doing your damnedest to climb out.  The fact that you are still here, fighting your way through every day to try to find some sense of reality proves that your struggle is just as important as anyone else’s.  Don’t ever let them tell you otherwise.

Someday, you’ll find yourself in the mirror again, and you’ll know how to fight back.

“So they can create a drug that makes a man’s dick hard, but they can’t cure cancer or AIDS.  That’s fucked up.  They need to find cures.”

I hate when I read this.  Scientists weren’t exactly looking for Viagra.  They discovered the effect of Viagra accidentally; it was originally intended for blood pressure.  

So let’s break the rest of this down.

Cancer isn’t just one thing or caused by just one thing, so basically you’re asking why they can’t cure dozens of different problems at once.  It’s an incredibly unrealistic and unfair demand to make.

The reason that AIDS and HIV haven’t been cured yet is because 1) HIV is constantly becoming more resistant to treatment, leading to AIDS that is even more resistant, and 2) it’s science, not magic.  The fact is that scientists are constantly looking for ways to, if not cure, at least stop the diseases from getting worse, which isn’t easy.  They have enough pressure being put on them by people who actually know what the hell they’re talking about, they don’t need it from you.  Where we’ve come in terms of treatment over the last 30 years is actually stunning.  You wanna help?  Don’t share needles with other people.  Practice safe sex, be honest with your partners and demand honesty in return, and get checked regularly, not just for HIV/AIDS, but for every other STD.

Let’s make a list of things that can (mostly) be avoided just by not being reckless with your body:

• Herpes
• Gonorrhea (the Clap)
• Syphilis
• HPV (which can lead to genital warts or cancer)
• HIV/AIDS
• Chlamydia
• Hepatitis
• Crabs

Want to help in another way?  Donate your money or your time.  Don’t just talk about wanting things to change, take action.  I can talk about how much I hate being fat and what I would do if I weren’t, but who the hell cares until I get up off my ass?  Not saying my being fat is anything compared to a life-threatening illness, but talk is often cheap, no matter what the subject.

Every time I hear someone say that love doesn’t last a lifetime, that love at first sight isn’t real, that there’s no such thing as “meant to be”, I have this to say:

Tommy, who grew up on a farm in Tennessee, has a week’s leave after basic training before being shipped off to the South Pacific, and gets on a city bus in Nashville.  A few stops later, Sarah Janet from Georgia, up visiting her cousins, gets on the same bus.  Tommy falls in love at the sight of her and gives her his seat.

They write to each other the entire time he’s away, and a year after he returns they get married.  They build a life together, a home, a family.

When they get old, he watches as the woman he loves, that girl he met by chance on a bus who stood by him through good times and bad, is slowly lost to him due to Alzheimer’s.  When she finally passes, it’s the first time his family can remember seeing him cry.  He follows her three months later, because living without her just isn’t worth it.

Tommy and Sarah Janet married in September 1946, when he was 29 years old and she was 24.  Sarah Janet passed in January 2005, and Tommy followed in April. They were married for just shy of 59 years, and had loved each other for more than 60.

My grandparents gave me the greatest imaginable example for just how strong the love between two people can be, how it can last a lifetime, and sustain you through the worst of things.  And I can only hope that someone will love me half as well as they did each other.

http://www.sundancechannel.com/seduction/