In the silence between whisper and shout

Rudolph Valentino, Tyrone Power, and Montgomery Clift all looked similar to each other, got cast in the same kinds of roles, and died young and tragically. I can't help finding those coincidences a little creepy.

Not very many fictional couples get me excited, and of those that do, Raoul/Christine and Will/Elizabeth are the only ones that really have anything in common. My reactions to most romances in fiction are "Ugh, shoehorned love interest" or "I like these characters as individuals, but not together" or "Yeah, sure, they make a cute couple, but I'm not really feeling it."

I do not want to see a movie chronicling the unlikeliest friendship in mob history, because I inevitably foresee a certain person getting the Yoko Ono/Courtney Love treatment. *grumbles* 

(In case you couldn't tell, no, I don't think she had a choice in the matter, any more than Meyer Lansky did.) 

Friendship fascinates me. Gangsters also fascinate me. It's why I loved Angels With Dirty Faces so much. Which is to say, I would happily pay money to see a movie about the tragic three-way relationship between Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, and Meyer Lansky.

(Though I still can't get over how much Lucky and Bugsy sound like names for pet rabbits.)

(In case you're wondering, I'm fine.)

I came up with a title for a fanfic: The Definition of Sin. Unfortunately, I don't know what sort of fic it would be attached to, or what fandom that fic would be in. :/

I feel like a stagnant pond. I'd probably feel better if I spent less time browsing inactive LJ-communities, playing computer games, and watching old YouTube videos, but the only real-world activities I have any interest in are my weekly art classes and voice lessons. I drew pictures all the time when I was a little kid, but I still draw like a little kid when my art teacher isn't there to help me, and that's embarrassing. I used to like reading, but nowadays it just feels like a chore. I would have sat and listened to music for hours if I could, but now I wait impatiently for the song to be over. I don't even watch as many movies as I used to. My life is an endless cycle of school, homework, and Internet, one I don't know how to break. What's wrong with me?

First post on my brand-new laptop! :D

Anyway, I think my self-preservation instinct is finally growing back.

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now, but didn't know how to put my feelings into words. I still don't, not really. But I'll try my best.

Last October, I decided that I was going to stop reading and watching stuff on the Internet that made me unhappy. (It's a long story. Okay, not really, but it's kind of a sad story.) Twitter was my main source of misery back then, so I announced to my followers that I was going on hiatus and left. That was easy enough. The hard part was realizing that some of the communities dedicated to sporking bad fanfiction and bad original fiction, the same scene I'd been a part of for the last four years, might be unhealthy for me as well.

The vibe I got from Twitter that depressed me so much was this: "You are a good person as long as you think and believe exactly as we think and believe. If you do not, you are a horrible person with no chance of redemption."

It's an Us vs. Them mentality. You're initially one of us, but the moment you disagree with us, however slightly, you become one of them. You aren't allowed to have your own opinions.

I tried to tell myself that antishurtugal and das_sporking2 didn't have the same holier-than-thou, judgmental attitude. No one there had ever been mean or nasty to me. I'd met most of my Internet friends through D_S. I was just overreacting and taking everything too personally. What did I know, anyway?

I was wrong.

I never feel upset after browsing phanwank's archives or reading bsc_snark, because they don't take everything 100% seriously. But AS and D_S do, and I'm not comfortable with that. Not all snark communities are created equal.

Writing has rarely been fun for me, but I'm worried that this attitude might have destroyed my self-confidence for good. I feel like I have only one chance, and if I screw it up, I'll never be able to live it down. It makes me not want to take that chance at all. I've been afraid of failure my whole life, and these feelings only intensify it. 

I'm going to take a break from those communities. I'll try to rediscover who I am and stop stifling my creative impulses. I'll still be a proud member of the crusade against romanticized abuse in fiction, but I'll do it my own way. I won't invite any more unnecessary negativity into my life.

Maybe I'll even get in the habit of writing longer blog posts like this one. Who knows?