3897: Reprehensible
I've been trying my best to avoid the trap of talking about specific people in a bad light, even if they are famous people who pretty much deserve the criticism... though I'm not going to beat myself up for making fun of Charlie Sheen, say. The thing is it's just a cancerous trap that I've been clawing my way out of since, and nothing good can really come of going back. Vague enemies are fine to discuss [e.g., Pointy-Haired Boss, who may or may not actually be multiple people, or people who can't drive, or people who can't possibly NOT use a phone in a theatre], but unfortunately a lot of the things I might want to talk about are specific to one person.
As a vague ferinstance, there's an example I would love to use as how not to write, but if I started describing the character in detail, it's very possible to figure out who I'm talking about. In fact, some of you might even know just from that description, just because it's an easy guess, but I don't want to spell it out and even hint at the idea I might be speaking about that person out of spite vs. as a pure ferinstance. [I don't want to "research" to find a suitable substitute or even a common-enough meme/theme, either.]
Okay, here, I'll try to make one up that's similar. It's like... a wolfman character, but he is a human who wants to literally be a wolf, so as part of this quirk, he runs around on all fours. Well, fine, but SPECIFICALLY written into his character is the fact that he never learned to walk, because he wanted to be a wolf so badly that he didn't learn as a child.
...what demented baby would DELIBERATELY hinder itself by not exploring the full range of its senses and capabilities, just to pursue a rather ridiculous character trait as an adult [or even older child]? Sure, "that one," you might say, but realistically, it's unfathomable. Children explore, and that includes getting up on two legs to see what's up, literally. Even actual children raised by wolves [as many as there are of those] learn to walk on two legs to a degree, because it's faster and easier than crawling and "WOW, I can see things that are not the ground!" kind of stuff.
Clearly the creator of such a character has never been around children or even remembered what it was like to be a child to think that anyone would remotely identify with this wolfman. Such a perfect example of what will damage a story.
The aggravating thing is it's easy to say, "Amnesiac car accident victim, forgot how to walk." Believable-ish! Why did you need to concoct a ridiculous backstory? Why was the "never learned" vital to the character such to emphasize that, supposedly, the wolfman CAN'T walk on two legs?
[I can tell you why--the writer Did Not Do The Research. That's why it's so aggravating! If you didn't know X and didn't want to bother learning anything about X, then say Y, which avoids the issue of X entirely! I suppose maybe that requires actually learning things about the world, though, so there's that.]
The other stuff I realize is personal stuff to work through, but I don't know how to do that. It's like the guy who teased me in sixth grade--that kinda sticks, even to this day, and I realize it's just a symptom of sixth grade. But it sticks, and I don't know what to do with that besides be annoyed about it. Granted, I haven't seen the guy in years, so it's a relative non-issue, but if I DID? If he was around and, somehow, never grew up in that time to where it's actually worse? [this is that "make one up that's similar" thing now, for the record]
I know the Grown-Up thing to do is to act civil, and I try, but when one's history with a person is coloured by abuses written off as social awkwardness and/or not knowing any better, it's a bit of a tall order. When a person hears me say I need my phone and says, "Here, use mine," because that person is oblivious to the idea that I might need MY phone specifically [say, to get a work contact] then acts insulted like it's not good enough [actually, it isn't], or is quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion FIRST [being angry and blaming someone else for stealing X when X is underneath a pile of stuff that wasn't put away], or never once says, "I was wrong/I'm sorry", then... it's SO difficult to just write it off and Act Like A Grown-Up.
Even Grown-Ups get sick of shit. And this is without any provocation, either--I have no reason to sit and hate, but I am, just because my mind wandered there. [THAT I need to work on, I realize.] I've written some of the traits I hate into my villains, but I haven't quite beaten them up enough to feel like I've worked through anything. It may be that the real-life "villains" have never been addressed--which won't happen, for a number of reasons. All I can think is if I talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it enough, maybe I'll eventually get so bored with it that I won't care anymore or, at worst, it would be, "Eh, this again." Thinking Glorie from The Maxx here [the comic, which went farther than the cartoon]--enough sessions of Gone-yelling, and hey, I feel pretty okay now.
But actual yelling at the actual person(s) feels like a can of worms I don't want open. It's one thing when Gone submits as penance--it's another when Gone won't admit to having done anything wrong.
At least I've been relatively lucky that my triggers have primarily been random stream-of-consciousness, recently anyway, so I can just as easily throw myself into some other distraction and do away with it. It just bothers me that so much of my life has been spent in negativity [as good as that is for writing], but I really don't know what to do about it at this point. I do try to think of more pleasant things, or at least DIFFERENT bad things, but I can't stop my mind from drifting.
So since I got cut last time, I'm actually looking forward to this jury duty thing, even more interested in sitting in a longish trial [though doubt I will, with nothing coming up]. Not excited anymore about the high school reunion thing, because I've done the nine-hours-one-way drive [seven if I pushed it, which I won't], and I've done the reunited-years-later-and-feel-unaccomplished thing, made worse from being between jobs at the moment.
Nothing against the planner. Just crap timing and distance. [I'd fly, but not if I have to fly back the same day. Also, no money for tickets.]
[[speaking of, prolly eBaying a few things shortly, just to have them potentially find better homes, vs. new home in the trash]]
[[[because otherwise that's where they'd go, as much as I've given up on eBay = gold on the random pickings-over we have left]]]
Ten thousand years of unerasable acts and permanent facts...
As a vague ferinstance, there's an example I would love to use as how not to write, but if I started describing the character in detail, it's very possible to figure out who I'm talking about. In fact, some of you might even know just from that description, just because it's an easy guess, but I don't want to spell it out and even hint at the idea I might be speaking about that person out of spite vs. as a pure ferinstance. [I don't want to "research" to find a suitable substitute or even a common-enough meme/theme, either.]
Okay, here, I'll try to make one up that's similar. It's like... a wolfman character, but he is a human who wants to literally be a wolf, so as part of this quirk, he runs around on all fours. Well, fine, but SPECIFICALLY written into his character is the fact that he never learned to walk, because he wanted to be a wolf so badly that he didn't learn as a child.
...what demented baby would DELIBERATELY hinder itself by not exploring the full range of its senses and capabilities, just to pursue a rather ridiculous character trait as an adult [or even older child]? Sure, "that one," you might say, but realistically, it's unfathomable. Children explore, and that includes getting up on two legs to see what's up, literally. Even actual children raised by wolves [as many as there are of those] learn to walk on two legs to a degree, because it's faster and easier than crawling and "WOW, I can see things that are not the ground!" kind of stuff.
Clearly the creator of such a character has never been around children or even remembered what it was like to be a child to think that anyone would remotely identify with this wolfman. Such a perfect example of what will damage a story.
The aggravating thing is it's easy to say, "Amnesiac car accident victim, forgot how to walk." Believable-ish! Why did you need to concoct a ridiculous backstory? Why was the "never learned" vital to the character such to emphasize that, supposedly, the wolfman CAN'T walk on two legs?
[I can tell you why--the writer Did Not Do The Research. That's why it's so aggravating! If you didn't know X and didn't want to bother learning anything about X, then say Y, which avoids the issue of X entirely! I suppose maybe that requires actually learning things about the world, though, so there's that.]
The other stuff I realize is personal stuff to work through, but I don't know how to do that. It's like the guy who teased me in sixth grade--that kinda sticks, even to this day, and I realize it's just a symptom of sixth grade. But it sticks, and I don't know what to do with that besides be annoyed about it. Granted, I haven't seen the guy in years, so it's a relative non-issue, but if I DID? If he was around and, somehow, never grew up in that time to where it's actually worse? [this is that "make one up that's similar" thing now, for the record]
I know the Grown-Up thing to do is to act civil, and I try, but when one's history with a person is coloured by abuses written off as social awkwardness and/or not knowing any better, it's a bit of a tall order. When a person hears me say I need my phone and says, "Here, use mine," because that person is oblivious to the idea that I might need MY phone specifically [say, to get a work contact] then acts insulted like it's not good enough [actually, it isn't], or is quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion FIRST [being angry and blaming someone else for stealing X when X is underneath a pile of stuff that wasn't put away], or never once says, "I was wrong/I'm sorry", then... it's SO difficult to just write it off and Act Like A Grown-Up.
Even Grown-Ups get sick of shit. And this is without any provocation, either--I have no reason to sit and hate, but I am, just because my mind wandered there. [THAT I need to work on, I realize.] I've written some of the traits I hate into my villains, but I haven't quite beaten them up enough to feel like I've worked through anything. It may be that the real-life "villains" have never been addressed--which won't happen, for a number of reasons. All I can think is if I talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it enough, maybe I'll eventually get so bored with it that I won't care anymore or, at worst, it would be, "Eh, this again." Thinking Glorie from The Maxx here [the comic, which went farther than the cartoon]--enough sessions of Gone-yelling, and hey, I feel pretty okay now.
But actual yelling at the actual person(s) feels like a can of worms I don't want open. It's one thing when Gone submits as penance--it's another when Gone won't admit to having done anything wrong.
At least I've been relatively lucky that my triggers have primarily been random stream-of-consciousness, recently anyway, so I can just as easily throw myself into some other distraction and do away with it. It just bothers me that so much of my life has been spent in negativity [as good as that is for writing], but I really don't know what to do about it at this point. I do try to think of more pleasant things, or at least DIFFERENT bad things, but I can't stop my mind from drifting.
So since I got cut last time, I'm actually looking forward to this jury duty thing, even more interested in sitting in a longish trial [though doubt I will, with nothing coming up]. Not excited anymore about the high school reunion thing, because I've done the nine-hours-one-way drive [seven if I pushed it, which I won't], and I've done the reunited-years-later-and-feel-unaccomplished thing, made worse from being between jobs at the moment.
Nothing against the planner. Just crap timing and distance. [I'd fly, but not if I have to fly back the same day. Also, no money for tickets.]
[[speaking of, prolly eBaying a few things shortly, just to have them potentially find better homes, vs. new home in the trash]]
[[[because otherwise that's where they'd go, as much as I've given up on eBay = gold on the random pickings-over we have left]]]
Ten thousand years of unerasable acts and permanent facts...