Original -- Clumsy
Title: Clumsy
Rating: G
Word Count: 596
Warnings: none
Summary: Clumsy is not cute.
Author's Note: I was getting tired of those "clumsy" heroines in books. Real clumsy is spilling Sprite on yourself and almost knocking your chair over in front of the cute guy in your seminar. 8D
CLUMSY
Allow me to set the record straight: Clumsy is not cute.
There seems to be a trend in literature these days that revolves around making female protagonists adorably clumsy. I take exception to that, I’m afraid, because I, for one, am genuinely a klutz, and it’s far from adorable.
First of all, there are reasons for it. I’m tall verging on awkward, and even so, I’ve never quite grown into my feet, monolithic monuments to podiatry that they are. Consequently, they function like cement blocks strapped to the ends of my calves, which wouldn’t be particularly alluring in the first place, even if they didn’t cause me to fall frequently upon my face and mess that up a little more, too. It doesn’t help that I like a bit of extra space in my shoes, lest I strangle the life out of my oversized appendages. Really, it’s perfectly logical that I should be the most unwieldy creature this side of a drunken daddy-longlegs, but the rationality of it doesn’t make it any more pleasant.
Second, clumsiness is consistent. I don’t go waltzing around a shimmering ballroom in a trailing dress with no incident, then tumble into a fountain the next morning simply so that a delicious male individual can see me wet. I can’t turn it on and off, and it can’t be used as a tool to make me more attractive. When I wake up in the morning, I bang my head on the frame of the top bunk. When I strive to avoid so doing, I bang my head on something else, because it is part of the morning ritual and part of me. It’s a matter of not fitting-not fitting my limbs, not fitting the world. There’s a gap, and I trip over my tremendous feet and go hurtling into it. It’s inevitable. It’s immovable. That disconnect doesn’t disappear and reappear at opportune moments.
Yeah, and discovering so many bruises in the shower that you look like an abuse victim, then not being able to remember whence you acquired most of them? Yeah, not cute. Disturbing, maybe. Cute, no.
Thirdly, clumsiness is not lucky, and it doesn’t become lucky in the presence of eligible bachelors-or any type of bachelor, or anyone. I’m not likely to stumble and fall onto a couch, right into the arms and lap of a startled stud, who will gaze into my eyes until we realize it’s destiny. Sparks and sparkles do not fly. I have, however, misjudged the distance and slammed my hip into a couch arm, jolting it such that a harried hunk spilled orange juice all over it, himself, and his phenomenally beautiful girlfriend. It was distinctly not-cute. Moreover, I got cussed out.
Fourth and finally, clumsiness is not some little flaw that you can tack on like an epithet in order to facilitate “depth.” It’s not really a character trait at all-traits are things like “optimistic” and “polite,” pieces of a personality. Clumsiness, I maintain, is a state of physical being, and a state of living (at least until you fall down the manhole where the sewer alligators hang out, after which it isn’t a state of living for much longer). Is it a weakness? I suppose. Is it a problem? Most certainly. But that’s what life (abbreviated by sewer-dwelling monstrosities as it may soon be), is about. And life, my friends, is not very cute at all.
I’ll make it exceedingly simple: Clumsiness is not cute.
Authors of the world ought to take note.
Or I’ll spill orange juice on them.
Rating: G
Word Count: 596
Warnings: none
Summary: Clumsy is not cute.
Author's Note: I was getting tired of those "clumsy" heroines in books. Real clumsy is spilling Sprite on yourself and almost knocking your chair over in front of the cute guy in your seminar. 8D
CLUMSY
Allow me to set the record straight: Clumsy is not cute.
There seems to be a trend in literature these days that revolves around making female protagonists adorably clumsy. I take exception to that, I’m afraid, because I, for one, am genuinely a klutz, and it’s far from adorable.
First of all, there are reasons for it. I’m tall verging on awkward, and even so, I’ve never quite grown into my feet, monolithic monuments to podiatry that they are. Consequently, they function like cement blocks strapped to the ends of my calves, which wouldn’t be particularly alluring in the first place, even if they didn’t cause me to fall frequently upon my face and mess that up a little more, too. It doesn’t help that I like a bit of extra space in my shoes, lest I strangle the life out of my oversized appendages. Really, it’s perfectly logical that I should be the most unwieldy creature this side of a drunken daddy-longlegs, but the rationality of it doesn’t make it any more pleasant.
Second, clumsiness is consistent. I don’t go waltzing around a shimmering ballroom in a trailing dress with no incident, then tumble into a fountain the next morning simply so that a delicious male individual can see me wet. I can’t turn it on and off, and it can’t be used as a tool to make me more attractive. When I wake up in the morning, I bang my head on the frame of the top bunk. When I strive to avoid so doing, I bang my head on something else, because it is part of the morning ritual and part of me. It’s a matter of not fitting-not fitting my limbs, not fitting the world. There’s a gap, and I trip over my tremendous feet and go hurtling into it. It’s inevitable. It’s immovable. That disconnect doesn’t disappear and reappear at opportune moments.
Yeah, and discovering so many bruises in the shower that you look like an abuse victim, then not being able to remember whence you acquired most of them? Yeah, not cute. Disturbing, maybe. Cute, no.
Thirdly, clumsiness is not lucky, and it doesn’t become lucky in the presence of eligible bachelors-or any type of bachelor, or anyone. I’m not likely to stumble and fall onto a couch, right into the arms and lap of a startled stud, who will gaze into my eyes until we realize it’s destiny. Sparks and sparkles do not fly. I have, however, misjudged the distance and slammed my hip into a couch arm, jolting it such that a harried hunk spilled orange juice all over it, himself, and his phenomenally beautiful girlfriend. It was distinctly not-cute. Moreover, I got cussed out.
Fourth and finally, clumsiness is not some little flaw that you can tack on like an epithet in order to facilitate “depth.” It’s not really a character trait at all-traits are things like “optimistic” and “polite,” pieces of a personality. Clumsiness, I maintain, is a state of physical being, and a state of living (at least until you fall down the manhole where the sewer alligators hang out, after which it isn’t a state of living for much longer). Is it a weakness? I suppose. Is it a problem? Most certainly. But that’s what life (abbreviated by sewer-dwelling monstrosities as it may soon be), is about. And life, my friends, is not very cute at all.
I’ll make it exceedingly simple: Clumsiness is not cute.
Authors of the world ought to take note.
Or I’ll spill orange juice on them.