𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗦 𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗦 𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗦 ↬ food for thought

𝗥𝗘𝗣𝗨𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 ↬ rant two

"Reputation precedes me, they told you I'm crazy-- I swear I don't love the drama, it loves me. "

This site was my haven. Fuck, nobody knew who I was here! I was free to pretend to be who I wanted to be, free to say shit loose-lipped and suffer from no repercussions!

Then something called a reputation caught up to me. There was drama drama drama and tears tears tears and a Good-Old Fashioned Cry, and then I had to be careful, because I'd never know who was watching. The Internet's a scary place, █████, they'd say. Anyone who's anyone can find you here.

But in the end, it wasn't my rabid ex-boyfriends mother who I became afraid of.

Nope, it was the Fans.

They have a glorious idea in their heads about Who I Am and What I Write. █████ the Philosopher, they'd say. This girl who writes mean teen fiction who occasionally spouts Philosophical Bullshit! Wow!

And here I am, constrained by my reputation Yet Again. In the Real World I'm a Good Girl, a Goody-Two-Shoes with Not A Single Defiant Bone In My Body! When I'm by myself, I'm a depressed wet rat with anxiety problems and too many books. 

Scratch that. Not enough books. 

On Wattpad for the first few months, I could be bubbly or bitter or happy or depressing, because nobody cared! There was nobody there to witness it. And then when I started to get quote-unquote Popular, I ended up doing the same thing I always do-- trapping myself inside a version of Myself that isn't even me! I built myself my own cage of my own free will, and now I have to stay there.

I baked my fucking cake and used too much frosting and fuck, now I have to actually eat the fucking thing. 

I don't even like frosting. That's the thing.

I'm tired of making myself into a person I'm not and then having to live with it. Like now-- you think I'm this bitter little bitch with too much rage bottled up inside of her.

You're not wrong-- but you're not right, either. I can be happy, too. I can be sunshine and rainbows and 'xxxx' and 'omg ilysm' too, you know. 

I'm human. I can't be one-dimensional, or even two-dimensional. That'd be boring.

I can be bitter, but I can also be bubbly, right? I can be sarcastic but also be depressing, can't I? I can be a Toxic Little Bitch but also The Spewer of Inspirational Quotes, right?

Here's the thing. I can't.

Everyone holds me-- us-- to expectations. We always have to rediscover ourselves and find new facets for everyone else-- you-- to find shiny. 

But we also have to hide the not-shiny parts of us, and bury the parts of us that Aren't Good. Because they expect Pretty Little Girls, not Girls Who Can Be Both Pretty and Bitchy.

I'm half heaven and half hell, what a fucking revelation. I'm ninety-nine percent angel, but sweetheart, you don't want to know what that one percent is.

I am everything and nothing. A gray area of the blandest, fuzziest gray. I will neither be black nor white-- I'm not stereotypical by any means. I'm also like a snake, forever shedding its skin.

Ahh, reputation. My cage and my palace, my daydreams and my nightmares.