Guilty Pleasures

Everyone has little things that they do when they are having a bad day to cheer themselves up. For a normal person, I guess that might be watching a funny movie or drinking a nice cup of herbal tea.

But for me it’s much more shameful. In deep ugly corners of the internets lurks fan fiction. Usually Harry Potter fan fiction to be exact. Twisting the plot of one of my favorite book series into an unholy abomination of badness. It is creepy. It is wrong. It is hilarious.

I don’t know exactly when this started, but after learning that there were portmanteau couple names for pairings such as “Snarry” I knew I was hooked.

I usually go in looking for the worst possible fan fic. Sometimes that can be challenging, as there are so many bad ones to chose from. Bad spelling, Purple prose, mixed metaphors, they’ve got it all.

There is a particularly we’ll known (amongst people who seek out bad Harry Potter fan fiction… It’s a thing) example is “My Immortal” By the (supposedly real?) Tara Gillespie. It is the story of Enoby Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way, a Hogwarts student in an alternate universe where all the main characters (excepting Snape/Snap/Snop/Snoop) are “Goffic”.

 

Some quotes:

“I MAY BE A HOGWARTS STUDENT” Hagrid paused angrily “BUT I AM ALSO A SATANIST”

“U C Enobby” Dumblydore said, watching the two of us watching the flame. “2 c wht iz n da flmes(HAHA YOU REVEIWRS FLAMES GEDDIT) u mst find urslf 1st, k?”

“Abra Kedavra!” he yelled at Snape and Loopin pointing his womb. I took my gun and shot Snape and Loopin a gazillion times and they both started screaming and the camera broke.”

…

Now how could anyone be sad or lonely when things like this exist in the world?

So yeah… Totally legit and not at all creepy thing for a 25 year old mother to spend her time reading right?

Face-mind

So I have this problem. No matter how hard I try to disguise my feelings, my face gives it away. In my head I can be like “ok. Play it cool.” And then face-mind takes over. My discomfort is apparent. Not even just a little bit. Like in an overly expressive awkward way.

It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be a genuine person not afraid of expressing my feelings if it weren’t for my major social awkwardness and feelings of horror when people touch me.

My husbands family consists of almost entirely immigrants. I hear that it’s common for people to cheek-kiss as a greeting in their culture. But in my own culture (that of a socially awkward WASP?) it’s a face-mind attack waiting to happen.

One time my girlfriends dragged me out of my cave to this middle eastern restaurant. They happened to have Belly Dancers performing that evening. My asshole friends decided to both go to the bathroom and leave me at the table to watch their purses. And then scantily clad hip shaking woman approaches the table. Face-mind is flaring up to eleven at the moment my friends return.

This is why I have more friends on the Internet than I do in person.

No one can see my affliction through text. So they don’t find me so off putting.

Picture this senario:

Friend and I are at lunch. Friend has questions about my experiences in parenthood, as she does not yet have children.

Friend: so was Moses born with hair all over his body? Because I read on the Internet that it’s a common thing. And my cousin’s friend’s daughter was basically a wookie.

Me: *facemind* uhhh.. No?

The awkward questions could go on for ages and my face-mind would escalate to something truly horrible to look upon.

And if people don’t know me then they will probably take it as an insult or find it just plain creepy.

But with my online friends we can talk about almost anything and I can come across as fairly personable. This makes me really worry when I have an in-person (in-face-mind) meeting with one of them. So far it hasn’t been too bad.

So… Yeah. Face-mind is a serious condition. I think it deserves its own awareness ribbon.

Do you think I should have my son tested?