When something is supposed to be fun and then stops being fun, and instead becomes a constant bringer of anxiousness, frustration, and a desire to quit society and go become a mountain man -- then I suppose it's time to cut and run. I had it right the first time, I think. "Take the bad with the good, because there is so much fucking bad," should not have become applicable here. But, it has. At the end of the day, that's the problem and it's about time I recognised and owned up to it.

A professor defends fanfiction.

Most of the history of Western literature (and probably much of non-Western literature, but I can’t speak to that) is adapted or appropriated from something else. Homer wrote historyfic and Virgil wrote Homerfic and Dante wrote Virgilfic (where he makes himself a character and writes himself hanging out with Homer and Virgil and they’re like “OMG Dante you’re so cool.” He was the original Gary Stu).

I giggled lots.

The thing that was most interesting to me was the fact that praising originality and dismissing all else is a modern concept -- I had never put the pieces together from "ontological argument" to "collective unconscious" to "holy shit you wrote a story about the heroic journey of sharks, I WROTE A STORY ABOUT THE HEROIC JOURNEY OF SHARKS!" Suddenly having horrible flashbacks to high school English and how I read The Lottery at least three different times.

I wonder why the chain stops with Virgilfic. Did no one want to hang out with Dante, hanging out with Virgil and Homer?