Well, I’m not dead.
Ok, listen. I wrote half of this post about three weeks ago, but I ran out of steam and was unable to finish it. I thought, “It’ll be a few days late, but it’s fine. I’ll finish it before the weekend.” Except that didn’t happen. What happened was the universe ONCE AGAIN tried to kill me. Nay not kill. Destroy. Absolutely demolish. Evaporate, even. To smithereens!
Basically, I was drowning in schoolwork and work-work, and the rare moments in which I wasn’t, I was in a dissociative limbo of pure anxiety, rage, and terror. So, y’know… No blog updates.
I did, however, make the White Boy Awards in my absence. Give it a watch if you want. It’s quite fun, if I do say so myself. Also, I wrote the majority of the second chapter of Bark and Bite! I’m planning on uploading that next week, so tuned for that.
Let me talk about Bark and Bite for a second, actually, because I love that shit, man. I really do. I love writing and making stories, so to make the story that’s in my head into something tangible for others (and myself) to read has been so cool. BnB currently has 205 hits, 18 kudos, and 2 comments, and oh boy, do I feel like I’m a New York Times Bestseller. Basically, I’m Jane Austen. Or maybe E. L. James is the better comparison. I’m Snowqueens Icedragon. Anyways, I love being able to share my work with strangers. I love to share my work with friends, too, but strangers don’t have to support my work the way friends do, you know? Unfortunately, I am competitive and everything is a game, and right now it feels like I’m winning at being a writer. My posting schedule for BnB will likely be at least one chapter per month, which I worry might be too slow for some readers, especially given how long the story is looking to be. But alas, it’s my fanfiction and I get to choose the speed at which I work on it.
One more thing before we get to the part of the post I wrote last month: I am thinking of becoming a part-time YouTuber. Honestly, I kind of already have been one since I was, like, 13, but I think I might actually keep up with it a bit more consistently. Well, whatever “consistently” means in my terms—so probably like one video every moon cycle? Unsure, but I’m currently slated to post THE F1 video (which will actually not be titled that, surprise surprise) sometime this weekend—if the stars align—and I’ve been toying with the idea of vlogging recently. Because I need to add more to my plate. You know, I say that sarcastically but it is somewhat true. I’m not a huge fan of lying around in a depression slump, and I’m hoping that having a busy schedule will prevent that from happening. Plus, I’m a very complex person and need multiple ways to express my many multitudes.
I need to think it all through more, but here’s my basic reasoning for starting to vlog:
First, I was raised on YouTube, for better or worse. This has shaped many aspects of my personality, especially my humor, and has led to me now sometimes thinking in YouTube video format. What I mean by this is that some of my thoughts just need to be expressed via YouTube. Isn’t that stupid? Yeesh. I mean, it’s a bit fun, though, and I don’t think it’s that different from other forms of expression. But it is a bit stupid. Regardless, I like YouTube. I like watching it and I like creating for it. Even though by the end of making a YouTube video I end up wanting to strangle someone, I do find the process fun and rewarding. It’s similar to how I feel with BnB except I’m winning at… I don’t know… being likeable?
Speaking of, second bit of reasoning, I may have some issues. I know, shocking. Yeah so, wanting to win at being likeable probably isn’t the most healthy mindset……… But also I want to. No, okay, here’s the deal. I know I’m likeable, and I know that my likeability translates well to video. You may judge me for what I’m about to say, but it’s the truth: I find recording my likeability for others to be somewhat of a gift. I find my projects (i.e., blog, fanfiction, poems, YouTube videos) to be acts of kindness since they inform the unknowing public of my coolness. They’re also love letters to myself, since they, and the positive reception that they come with, remind me that I am awesome, and that others agree. No one else will record my awesomeness and go on to share it with others. At least not now. So it’s up to me to inform the people that I am cool. Because I am, and I’m generous enough to let others witness my cool factor. See, I’m the perfect candidate to be a YouTuber—I have the required mental health issues and touch of narcissism.
The last reason is that I need a way to talk to the future because I am currently unconvinced that it exists. “Hey now, the seriousness of these reasons seem to have skyrocketed,” I hear you say. “You want to talk about it?” No. No, I do not. But thanks for asking! No, really, all it is is Dinosaur Philosophy, dude. For me, it feels like the meteor struck and I’m just awaiting my death. But boy, is death taking a while to come, so I may as well keep on living until it does. Only problem is that I don’t know how to keep going when I think I’m heading into a volcanic pit of hell. How do I make it through the present when I don’t even know if the future will be there to meet me at the end? Maybe if I talk to the future directly, I’ll convince myself that it will be. Maybe I’ll speak it into existence, who knows? Maybe if I vlog for future generations, they won’t abandon me.
I’m a bit rusty at this. Do I usually get that bleak and vulnerable?
I’ve been thinking of changing my YouTube handle to Hades, specifically if I want to start posting videos more consistently. I realized the pseudonym is rather pointless on AO3 because no one really uses names on that site—we’re all Y/N—but it would be extremely useful on YouTube. I’m a bit nervous to make the change, though, because I know I have some friends who watch my videos but don’t read my blog, so I worry their reaction may be, well, reactionary. Like, what if they think I’m cringe and annoying? Who am I kidding… they already do. Oh well then.
Alright, I am done with updates. Enjoy the rest of the blog. It’s an interesting one, in my opinion.
✶
Love is stupid, don’t you think? I mean, it’s the meaning of life. But it’s stupid.
I’ve come to realize that whatever classes I’m taking seem to have an influence on my life and vice versa. It’s like every assigned reading is a commentary on my life. It’s been somewhat of a challenge not spilling my guts out every class discussion because the topic is so relevant to what I’m going through. I wonder if it’s like this for everyone.
At this exact second, the most influential class I am currently taking is my popular romance course. I love this class a lot. It’s taught by one of my favorite professors, it’s on one of my favorite genres, and it’s full of students who are actually capable of having interesting discussions. For the past month and a half, this class has forced me to think about love a lot, partly in ways I never have before, but not completely. What’s funny is that not all—not even the majority—of these thoughts about love are new to me. I’ve been thinking about all this for a while. But now it feels different. Maybe because I’m different? Maybe because everything’s different, yet nothing is. Maybe because now I’m saying it all out loud and I’m realizing just how stupid it all is.
Where do I even begin?
I just finished reading Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged (2015) for that class. I think it might be my favorite book we’ve read so far, if not top two. It took me a second to get into it, but once I did, I couldn’t put it down. I guessed the endgame couple almost immediately, which is more impressive than you would think considering that it’s more chick lit than it is romance, so the endgame couple is not as concrete. But it’s less impressive if you know about the chick lit genre the way I do. I mean, it was so obvious. Come on. Still, though predictable, I loved reading it all play out. It’s about the journey and not the destination, right?
SKINO was marketed as a Muslim Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996, novel; 2001, film), and it reads like that, I would say. Full disclosure, I haven’t actually read Bridget Jones, but I have the movie etched into my brain, so eh, that should be good enough knowledge. Sofia Khan is a bumbling and comedic British woman in her 30s, navigating through love, work, and life in general, all while keeping a diary. Very Bridget Jones of her. She also has the added bonuses of dealing with racism, Islamophobia, and family dramatics, so she’s definitely not just a Bridget Jones clone. She’s Sofia Khan, damn it!
Each one of the books we read for this class leave me with at least one idea about love to ponder about. (That’s kind of the point of the class. It’d be a problem if they didn’t!) SKINO’s ideas……… are interesting.
First, I’m destined to become a romance lead, aren’t I? I noticed this eons ago, but SKINO has reminded me that every goddamn protagonist in a romcom (and sometimes just rom) is a writer. Alongside her diary, Sofia has a blog for crying out loud! I used to hold on to this statistic like a lifeline. On days when the yearning was particularly unbearable, I used to think, It’s going to happen one day. The odds are in my favor. It will happen. Now? I’m somehow more and less of a hopeless romantic. Less because I’m tired of holding out, you know? I keep saying it. I’m tired of waiting. But more because… fuck. I still think it’s going to happen. If there’s a will, there’s a way. If I want this, then I am going to get it. And, my god, do I want this.
But then there it is. Going... Going… Going… This verb is the bane of my existence, probably because it’s the key to everything. The only way I’ll be satisfied is if I face what this verb means. It could mean one of two things, or maybe both. Either I’ll be in a constant state of going to get, but never actually getting, and/or the only way I’ll ever get, is if I go.
Everything I want in terms of love feels like a fairytale. The meet cutes. The dynamics. The happily-ever-afters. Even SKINO, a rather realistic novel, feels fairytale-ish. But maybe that’s just because it’s a story. I’m not completely sure this will make sense, but when have I ever? Basically, I’m beginning to question if I know the distinction between real life and stories. My life feels like a story, but how come not everyone feels that way? Is there something I’m missing? What parts of stories aren’t real and how do I prepare myself for the inevitable disappointment that’ll come with learning so?
Anywho. When I look back to literal fairytales, like Disney Princess movies, and modern fairytales, like romcoms, I notice the love happens because there’s an inciting incident that leads to it happening. In the fairytales I am thinking of, I notice that the inciting incident tends to happen to the heroine rather than because of her. Here, we have quite a couple of Oh Brother’s. First Oh Brother, what if I’m not exactly a heroine? Not exactly a hero either. I’m a Herobrine. Second Oh Brother, you want me to wait MORE??!??!?!?! Ohhhhh Brotherrrrr.
I did manage to think of one heroine who causes the inciting incident, though, and it’s almost perfect who it is: Ariel. Miss Little Mermaid herself. My childhood favorite princess. No one or nothing forces Ariels to save Prince Eric in the beginning of the film. And while she gets a bit manipulated by Ursula into signing away her voice for legs, no one or nothing forces her to seek out a way to get them. She just wants to save Eric, so she does it. She just wants legs, so she gets them. Ariel has always been seen as one of the Disney princesses with the least agency, but I’ve never seen her that way. Can’t say I cared about any of that when I was three and dressing up as her for Halloween—think I was just interested in her tail, hair, and songs—but now that I’m older, I look at her and see a young girl full of curiosity, bravery, and love. She’s inspiring, honestly. Wow. That feeling when you’re shaped by the art you consume. Jaw drop.
So that’s idea number one. The idea that I’m destined to be a romcom protagonist, it’s only a question of when. Idea number two is an answer of when. And I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Sofia Khan is in her 30s. Before her endgame, she was dating for years—she even got engaged! Twice! She dealt with bad dates, awful suitors, heartbreak, and perhaps most importantly, years of singledom. Well, shit.
I want to skip all that, I think. Recently, I’ve been flirting with the idea of being a serial dater, but I know what I truly want is to be in a long-term commitment. Ever since I knew about love, I have wanted to be in love forever. As usual, I am once again ahead of the game. Not many twenty year olds want to lock in to forever yet—either for good reason or because they’re all boring, you decide—which leads me simply waiting. Waiting for everyone to catch up. Waiting for someone who is ready for forever. Waiting for something. Anything! Please!
As much as I hate it, I must continue to play the waiting game. I refuse to settle for less than what I want and I refuse to give up, so I just have to wait. But it doesn’t have to be such an excruciating process. Even if I am waiting, I must find a way to make it feel like I’m not. Love is the meaning of life, but surely romantic love is not life in itself. I have to make myself believe that. I think, consciously, I do believe it. But my subconscious is telling me that I haven’t started living until I make progress in that category. Need to figure out how to change that or at least drown it out. It’s what I’ve been feeling in general, really: I need to figure out how to feel alive. Part of me wants to add “again” to the end of that sentence; the other part me thinks it works without it.
What do romantic leads do before their love stories? Probably stuff like finishing school… Going to work… Hanging with friends… Starting a blog… Swimming in the ocean… The usual. All stuff I need to do. All stuff I’m going to do. Just need to turn the “going” into a “doing.”
The third and final idea is a quick and unfortunate one: I’m probably not going to realize when I’m not waiting. Every. Single. Goddamn romantic lead. Never realizes they’re a romantic lead. They go, “No way this person would like me,” then spend 15 chapters being oblivious to all the very obvious ways that that person loves them. Now this is unfortunate for me because not only will it feel like I’m waiting for forever, but as you may be able to tell by now, I am rather self-aware. As in, I know I’m destined to be a romantic lead, but you’re (SKINO, romance/chick lit novels, etc.) telling me that I won’t know when I become one? Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. That’s not good. I’m the mature one. The smart one. The self-aware one. I’m the one who’s always ahead of the game. You’re telling me that when I get what I want, I’m going to be forcibly stripped of all that? At least for 15 chapters? Bruhhhhhhh…….
Although, I doubt I’m going to exactly be a conventional romance lead, so perhaps that means my love story won’t be conventional either. Maybe I’ll be aware when it begins? Or maybe I’ll end up with a ghost or something! That’d be cool.
If anything, this blog post makes a great prologue to whatever stupid love story I will eventually find myself in. Oh shit, wait, does that mean my love story is about to begin? It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. Wait, fuck, is this the obliviousness that romance leads feel? What the hell does that mean then???? GAH! Love is so stupid!
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