I'm Well Aware of Certain Things that Might Destroy a Man Like Me · 7:34pm Apr 7th, 2017
So FoME’s contest ended a while ago, and we finally know who won. In the blog that put an end to the whole deal, one of the judges – ScarletWeather – made an interesting comment:
You should all be proud of yourselves! Especially you, author with serious self-esteem issues. You know who you are.
Upon reading this, I immediately pinged her through Discord.
Aragón: so
Aragón: ‘author with self-esteem issues’
Aragón: I kinda wonder
Aragón: I’m counting myself, right? obviously
Aragón: and then mrnumbers
Aragón: ghostofheraclitus
Aragón: iisaw, SPark, kingmoriarty
Aragón: aquaman? probably aquaman, yeah
Aragón: and like, I don’t know
Aragón: fucking horizon or whatever
Aragón: am I forgetting someone
Scarlet: Cynewulf
Aragón: fuck
So that tells you a lot about the fucking psyche of this place, eh? We’re all a bunch of idiots, really. But hey, at least we’re pretty.
And talking about pretty things: I’ll be appearing on this week’s Seattle’s Angels podcast. The date is next Saturday, 8pm EST. I’ll blog about it and include a link to the podcast the moment we go live, and later on, I’ll include a link to the recording.
Cool? Cool. INTERESTING STUFF AFTER THE BREAK.
I’ll probably talk about FoME’s contest (which I won, by the way!) in the podcast, and how I wrote that story – so check it out, if you’re interested.
I’ll also talk about the classmate that’s been trying to insult me over social media all week, because holy shit. He’s so bad at it. One of his comments is, and I’m not making this up, “I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU SO MUCH DICK YOU’LL TURN INTO A FIELD MOUSE”. I have no idea how to react to this. I blow him kisses whenever we cross paths in the faculty, but he just looks the other way and starts walking faster.
Ah. Talking about blowing kisses -- I know some of you read my romance blogs and wonder if I can actually put my money where my mouth is. For y’all: I wrote actual, for-realses romance back in the day. Really! It’s even on EQD! The story drags a lil’ during the middle, but it’s surprisingly solid, or at least that’s what I thought upon re-read. Illya Leonov did a reading of it recently:
And I got fanart! For Long Story Short, Things Went Down. I need to write more about those assholes – all my fanart is for that story, it’s crazy. Check it out!
Gotta love that Lyra, all messed up. It really reflects what the story is about, doesn't it? I should, like, include links to all the fanart in that thing. Crazy popular among artists, really. I've got, like, at least two of those as fans.
Anyway -- I'm working on commissions. Sunsettle is coming, but it's a hard one to write, harder even to tune up, and I'd rather write it right than write it fast. Its schedule is officially changed thus to "Updates Fucking Whenever", which to be honest suits the spirit of the story rather nicely. Another commission also coming, dunno how. Y'ALL WILL PROBABLY LIKE IT.
Also, the RCL are doing special stuff. Check this thread out, it's about people getting a second feature. Go there and vote, it'll be neat!
Also ALSO, next romance blog should be coming SOON. Gotta start writing that one. I don't want to, because it'll be painful, but oh well. Doing it for the art.
Cheerio!
Actually, it's more that it tells you a lot about the psyche of the profession. One of the most commonly bandied sentiments between authors both professional and filthy-fan-fiction-peddling is that most of us have these crippling self-esteem issues that hit the moment we stop writing. Speaking from personal experience, during the writing process nothing could be more awesome than what you're working on right now, but the moment you stop, your sense of realism comes rushing back so hard that it spins right around and you immediately convince yourself you basically just shat out this story and everyone's going to tell you how utterly crap it is.
It's not just fan fiction authors. Real people feel like this too.
When you say you'll be in Seattle’s Angels podcast do you mean you'll be part of it or will you hijack it? Hey it is a fair question.
Also congratulations, I would say I knew you would win but I didn't get to read all the stories in the contest so it would be unfair to all others to make that claim. Still congrats and all.
4487781 It's very true, but it can actually be extended to most creative types are more prone to depressive bouts or self-esteem issues than the average person.
Also, congrats again Ara, you worked damn hard on that fic and I'm so glad you got recognition.
Your avatar is awesome. Never forget that.
Congrats again. Also, I'm strongly tempted to bow out of my usual Saturday shenanigans next week just so I can hear you rant about the contest live.
What? As you noted, you're far from the only person on this site with self-esteem issues. The fact that so many people enjoyed a random impulse of mine that much is nothing less than astonishing to me. I'd appreciate one last ego boost from it before it goes out of the rear view mirror of life.
At least it's a step up from punching you on the shoulder and running away!
Fine, don't mention me. See if I care.
Because I don't. I am totally self-esteemed up and do not care that I was skipped.
Wait, a man like you? You seem a bit more like a lady. But I'm a dickgirl so what do I know.
I feel like this has a connotation in Spanish that I'm missing.
Didn't they learn their lesson the first time?
I think everyone has self-esteem issues in one way or another. It's a big part of highschool culture and growing up -- haven't lived until you've been picked on, had your dreams crushed, and trodden upon fo eight years.
Personally, I've actually improved a lot since joining the fandom.
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I hope so very much that it doesn't. I hope there's someone out there who, upon asking all ninety or so of his neurons to come up with an insult evolves that. I hope we can find this rare creature and preserve him for future generations as a marvel, a sort of psychic counterbalance to the late Don Rickles.
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There is absolutely no missing connotation or translation issue. He sent me four gigantic paragraphs of insults, and that one comes the closest to making sense. Others include:
· I'm going to yandelize [1] your clitomax [2].
· You are like a suprarrenal hypoallergenic disease.
· I have seen turds with a more conjoined family.
*wait I meant 'shat', not 'seen'. Otherwise it makes no sense. [3]
This is a person who's made it clear he hates me with a passion, so this is not him trying to be quirky; he's actually and unironically trying to think of the worst things he can say, and then spewing those words at me. Constantly. But in person he just runs away.
It is an extremely confusing situation. I think it's because of -- MORE IN THE PODCAST. OOOOH. OOOOOH CLIFFHANGER.
[1] Not a word in Spanish either.
[2] ...I think he doesn't know how to spell clitoris.
[3] Not a typo. He sent the insult, then edited it so it would be more. Uh. Coherent?
4487982 Then I’m left wondering why too much dick would transform you into a field mouse.
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Even in Spanish, I can't imagine this isn't trolling. How could a euphemism possibly drive a dick-to-field-mouse transference in any language?
Dick-to-dapper-wombat, sure. But dick-to-field-mouse? I'm not buying it.
4488232 you'd be surprised at euphemistic language in other cultures.
It gets weird, to say the least, so I wouldn't have been entirely surprised if maybe getting so much dick one would turn into a field mouse was a euphemism of sorts that I wasn't aware of.
But no, Aragón just knows weird people apparently.
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Oh! I think I get it now!
"The amount of dicking you shall receive is going to cause you to become meek and frightened like a field mouse." Field mice are prey for raptors and they have to scurry around a lot, or they gets ett. You're going to be afraid of getting more dick. (Yeah, it's not great, but can you come up with a better one?)
They're basically saying they are going to sexually assault you until you have severe emotional trauma. That's a completely normal thing to say to a random stranger on the internet... sadly.
4488238 Oh my god that makes so much sense.
That interpretation never occurred to me.
Ooo, I get to hear your voice again...
What? I don't bave self-esteem problems. Who said I have self-esteem problems? Are they more popular than me? Do they secretly hate me?
Oh god, I bet they do.
I bet everyone does.
Fuck.
tl;dr
This fandom:
I think someone has been running their insults through the Google translator. At least 2 languages if not more with one of them being Swedish.
If you are returning to the romance blogs again can I recommend doing one on soul-mates/imprinting, basically the hole magically enforced mating for life? It is one of the worst romance tropes I know of, and that’s before all the other shit is added to it. even when it isn’t super-rapey it usually used to skip the romance part of romance.
Granted it is pretty rare in the My Little Pony fandom compared to say, Harry Potter. but I still would love to read your awesome analysis of it.