Ultimately, it all comes down to me policing my own writing too hard

So I'm an absolute nobody by fandom standards and it pains me that I still don't really, like. Wanna put names on the stuff I wanna talk about. Like, the undercurrent of "so many people in fandom think making fun/attacking the things other people like in fandom is the main purpose of it" creates this sense that I need to protect myself any time I open my mouth, because for me fandom has always been also about undertanding myself and my own feelings, in a way that is contained and safe.

So, as winter comes and my piece-of-shit body starts hurting all the time, I wanna talk about how part of the reason I've latched onto Bulkhead out of all the characters in Prime is that he gives me the biggest disability sympathy vibrations, but everything I wanna say about it is very direct about whose fault it is that he gives me that vibe. I have many words to say about how Ratchet's general lack of interest and disdain for Bulkhead does more to make him sympathetic to me than almost anything else, but Ratchet is the popular character, and unpopular characters don't get to be "wronged" by popular ones without someone coming to explain to me why Ratchet would behave like that.

When I know why, because, y'know. Ratchet is my second favourite character, and I've thought about him more than the person coming to put me on blast b/c of the parasocial hurt of their fave being called a bit of an asshole.

Like, I'm just viscerally aware that there's a double-consciousness going into my writing. I want to write things that are analytical, that draw from canon and make the canon more understandable for people who might have had a feeling about it that they couldn't explain, or illuminate something for the people who may have missed it the first time. But I also know that it matters, to me, personally, that I've latched onto this character out of a sense of mutually not having our needs met by our circumstances.

And if someone wants to disagree with the analytical part, I can probably write out their disagreements in detail before they even get to them, because my analysis is subjective. That's not what scares me. What scares me is someone going "this isn't analysis, you're just being a" and then getting on with the accusations and derogatory statements, when all I was really doing was tapping into a sense of kinship through literal, physical pain, and that's just not a thing I can constantly keep extending myself over to get that I'm not privy to people's motivations.

*throws hands up in frustration*

On the other hand there's this post about how much prescriptive language itself has become this... barrier, because we're all exhausted, and nobody is having fun anymore.

Which I agree with, while at the same time having that problem of "sometimes I just wanna use the words that are True To Me to describe a thing". If I'm already committed to putting it down, sharing it with someone outside of my bubble, then I get this pull where I know the experience will go down better if I don't dig my heels in and don't assume anything I don't have to, but... that's just not emotionally satisfying, and there's no point in writing it if writing it doesn't give me that sense of satisfaction on having the thing in words.

So, essentially, I'm caught between two frustrations. Keeping my big feelings in hurts, and I'm tired of being afraid of what happens if they get out (it feels too much like the shit my OCD pulls, tbh) but at the same time knowing that I also don't wanna be like the people who I see posting shit that just makes me go "even though I agree with that... lmao fuck off if I disagreed you wouldn't get to tell me why I disagree".

So, IDK.

I don't want this journal to be just me writing about how much I'm not writing and how anxious I am about writing but I guess that's just where I'm at at the moment.