Leave now if you don't like people tearing off on occasionally self-righteous #%*#&%* sessions.

This rant is for July 9th, 2001. And it's going to get me sniped. I know it.

(While the original quote following was referenced to us from a friend, we changed details because no one needs their personal correspondances bandied. Much.)

No. We rip each other apart from the baseline up.

This is a rant about fangirls who use soulbonding as a clique.

This is a rant about the times we've sat there and nodded mildly to people demanding special treatment because of their characters--for otherwise, said characters would *whine* and we wouldn't want that, would we? It's about the times we've had to wade through huge gallery listings like the ones here where authors seem dedicated to the soul purpose of showing off how 'weird' and 'wacky' they are. And how much 'pain' they have to go through on a daily basis of annoyance and so we mere mortals should respect them more as a result.

Thanks! And here I thought that the purpose of the other people in my head *was* to cope.

I'm fine in general even about SBing as it is, but it can get rough with other people's characters. If you're going to take someone else's work and fit them into your group, whatever it is, no matter how much you can say *they* intruded on you, you could be respectful enough to that creator or possibly just realize you're doing an interpretation. I've seen enough of 'my visions are accurate no matter what because they're a SB' to fill a lifetime.

Maybe it's only us that this sort of thing grates on. There's the simple fact that we could be liberally peppering our words with phrases of how 'terrible' it is to keep company with Ariel (and it is) (A: Hey!). We could even go on endlessly about how 'ultimately wicked' Winter Court is and how others outside should fear and respect them.

But we don't. Because it's not only rude, but it's in a completely different field than the daily outside world that we interact with others in. How can you expect them to react? Force them to offer you cookies because a bishonen is demanding them loudly? Whenever we have that happen with the kids, we just go out and get them.

Still, we're had all these behaviors pushed on us by various people claiming the soulbond stamp like a mark of superiority. In order to have something to say when they start talking about their 'children of Fei and Bart', we are forced to nod blankly, coo over their coolness factor, or chime in with stories of our own. And we're just not going to do that.

We could post up endless random arguments by each other to 'show off' how 'wittily insane' we are too. My. Could we ever.

But we don't, not only because it's poor taste--it forces your conversational partners to be nothing but audiences--but also because it doesn't contribute a thing to the topic at hand. I don't feel like advertising nearly half the various lines that go by in here and definitely not because it's 'expected'.

No.

No, I don't know what that's like. I know what it is to be kept awake at night when desperate for sleep for Sammi's presentation tomorrow by Laric rambling on in argument with Lexa over some hair-splitting point or the other. I know what it's like to try and pay for my dinner in a restaurant and discover that Sparrow took my paycheck and bought expensive art supplies instead, or that Kyth gave it all away to the first homeless person he saw. I know what it's like to be confronted by a disgruntled coworker while I search my memory desperately to see if someone said something wrong that I must now fix, or if he just hasn't had his morning coffee.

I know what it's like to sicken and have people panic to find who is affected by the medication or not and so should be forced up front to take it and endure it. I know what it's like to discover that someone accidently ate something someone else was allergic to and they've just stepped out long enough to start the chain reaction. I know what it's like to feel my own self dissolving under the needs of others to take my preset space. I know what it's like to wake up and have to check if this is actually my bed or not.

To be swamped under the demands of popular pretty-boys? No. I don't know that.

Do I feel jealous? Damn right I do. Because soulbonding, even though it's not exactly given kosher standards by all of society, is still more widely acceptable than multiplicity. While half of us are still trying to fight against poor therapists and media standards that scorn, many soulbonders are glorying in their freedom across fan communities everywhere. It's not 'freakish'--it's 'cool.' 'Oh no, you have Id in your head, you poor thing.' 'Isn't it annoying to deal with Trieze--he's such a manipulative bastard, I don't know how I manage to endure him.' The soulbonding label is one that comes across as less restrictive--one that you can just stop talking about with little fuss if people start pounding down your door with holy water in their hands. Mind, that's just an impression, but it's a bitter one brought on by far too many fangirls shoving how 'complicated and full' their heads are in comparison to mine.

I want gods in my head. I want angels instead of Morgan's sexist swill that creeps around the edges of my thoughts, unwanted. I want things that I can shrug innocently to while feeling special all the while. But we're all mortal in here. We're all aware that we're effectively human. Our only glories are the things we can make on our own, not those borrowed from an anime creator.

No, I don't know what it's like. Because whenever I have someone less than glorious, less than a Perfect Soldier or a Chosen of the Gods, their failings can't be blamed on some pre-scripted 'tragic past.' Their narrow-mindednesses, their squabblings, their pettinesses--they all come from here, from us, and we do not have the luxury of blaming a game. In fact, as multiples, if we even dare to pick up even a halfway copy of a character, we immediately destroy any hopes of validity in the psychological community. We become delusional, dreamers without a shred of reality to ground us, insane. Everyone's existence is immediately called into doubt, no matter how mainstream they are. Look at them, they have *video game characters* they consider real. They must *all* be wish-fufillment personalities.

Someone tell me how Morgan and James are wishes for me. Or wait--don't.

The freedom to have the types of people in your head that you want. All the benefits and none of the flaws, because in the worst case, you can always pass it off as a 'writer's creations' instead of as some horribly dirty and flawed 'disease' in the eyes of society. Damn right I'm jealous. Being able to ramble out all the words in one's head instead of clamping down on them because to do so would be to clutter up the outside conversation. But primarily, it's also a shortcut to feeling connected to something else or to a character you've always admired. As a friend of mine wrote once, most of these people could wake up the next morning with no SBs, and it wouldn't change their lives overly much.

And there are good and responsible SBers. I know one--we never get plagued by the same sort of 'I'm out of control but it's my SB so you should all just pander to me' that we get from another. She will only admit even halfway to SBing, and only in an oblique, shy manner--never the strident announcement that others make as if now expecting the world to lay out the red carpeting, or as proving membership in a special club. And it's just as hard for SBers. I won't deny that. People call them just as crazy as they do us.

So sorry if we want to be taken seriously. So sorry if we have to do things like balance our checkbook instead of running around enacting yaoi fantasies--that we have to be mundane things of the earth. So sorry for not being able to be special.

Do I want to be given more consideration than a video game fragment that only exists to fill a fan's quota? Yes.

Will I be fine if compared to a person who started with qualities of a manga character, but who grew and adapted to daily living? Yes. Because there's a world of difference in there.

But oh yes. Mine don't fight. We just dismantle one another.