on monstrousness
originally written 13 march 2022.
this is a partial transcription of a diary entry. it was originally going to be filed under xiaoven, but then i realized it never mentioned either of them, so it technically falls under miscellaneity.
know that in my heart, this essay is about xiaoven, though.
a while ago, i was thinking about why all my favorite ship dynamics can be abstracted down to MONSTER and MONSTERFUCKER.
like, i love to romanticize moments of being seen as your true self and being loved and understood anyway. feelings of inadequacy transformed by acceptance into love. being told you are unworthy of anything by virtue of your existence and believing it until one day, someone gives you something and does not regret it.
and i have to wonder if this is a result of [REDACTED TIME] and [NAME REMOVED], or merely coincidental towards it.
bc here's the thing, and i'm sure i articulated this before [TIME REPRESSED]: [NAME REMOVED] made me feel as if my romantic intentions were disgusting and repulsive to other people, a joke worth only scorn. he made me feel as if the idea of me as a legitimate romantic option was shameful, if not outright impossible. in that sense, he made me feel like a monster.
and i think this might be why i'm so obsessed w/feelings of repression, or at least am so drawn to incredibly repressed characters. bc i remember what it is like to be shamed for something so beyond your control as your feelings, and i remember desperately pretending my experiences were not as painful as they truly were in the hopes that the feelings would go away.
and [REDACTED], he plays a role in all this, too. from helping me believe i maybe wasn't so disgusting despite being a monster, to teaching me how it feels to be a monster for faults and mistakes that aren't so bad. though, he already fit the archetypical character i'm drawn to, so technically, he just exacerbated [NAME REMOVED]'s doing, if all this is cause & effect at all.
i just like to believe in my own worth as someone/something to love. though i am flawed, though i am afraid no one will love me through them, i long for a moment where i will realize, and fully, joyously believe, that someone does anyway. that i am wanted, that i am cherished for who i am, even when that means i am still ugly in some ways.
i love characters whose hearts are bleeding out from within, far out of sight of everyone. i love characters who act on their bleeding hearts when there is no time to think. and i want them to realize they do not need to hide their love bc there will be those who would love to receive it.
[…]
i think i tend to romanticize devotion for a lot of similar reasons. just… the compulsion to stay out of love, to continue to love, even quietly, just as fiercely as ever… as someone who is far too often Too Much, that romanticism, that portrayal of it as something as good n beautiful n even desirable, makes me feel better.