Dr. Elliott once said in the midst of his English lit lecture:

“If you ever write a book and want to wrench your reader’s heartstrings, create a family and then tear it apart.”

I guess the best description of me in high school could be pulled from the INFJ personality profile:

“INFJs have a rich, vivid inner life, which they may be reluctant to share with those around them. […] [T]hey are guarded in expressing their own feelings, especially to new people, and so tend to establish close relationships slowly. INFJs tend to be easily hurt, though they may not reveal this except to their closest companions.”

I’ve always been very reserved — sometimes perceived as standoffish or uncaring — due to extreme emotional vulnerability. The people who most often recognized me behind my reserve (before I ever said a word to them) tended to be other introverts. The best (though not the only) example would be my friend Dee. She approached me softly and unexpectedly in gym freshman year and I felt an instinctive understanding with her. I saw some of my own shyness in her, but she’d reached out in her own quiet way and made it easy for me to feel safe. I believe she knew how to get past my reserve simply because she knew what it was like to be afraid of opening up.

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In a Bible study a year or so ago, we went around the room and said the top three big things we wanted that we couldn’t get right away.

My list went like this:

1. Second Cat
2. House
3. World of Warcraft Phoenix Mount

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Crazy, stupid, offensive people sell a lot more newspaper headlines than sensible, rational people do.

Thus, the crazies often get 98% of the publicity for any particular group.  Think about Muslims and what they have to deal with when the terrorist sects are all some people know about their religion.  Or consider how Christians only get publicized by nutjob hate groups anymore.

The crazies are not usually the community leaders of a group.  They just stand out of the crowd more.  There are other crazies who listen to them, sure, but every time a crazy says something stupid, the sane part of their community has to live it down.

Thus, those of us who don’t want to murder anyone really don’t appreciate when the crazies crawl out of their holes to make headlines.

They aren’t our spokesmen.

They’re nutjobs.

Just so you know.

1. Cat tells girl she’s a magical super hero who fights monsters.
2. Girl is bad at fighting monsters.
3. Girl finds local friends who fight monsters with her.
4. Girl likes mysterious guy who saves her from monsters all the time, but no one knows who the guy actually is.
5. Girl finds out who mysterious guy is and starts dating him after many trials in a “One True Love” sort of deal.
6. Girl finds older friends who fight monsters with her.
7. Girl finds space alien friends who fight monsters with her.

I loved writing fanfiction about Sailor Moon.  There are a lot of good characters to play with and a lot of interesting dynamics to dabble in.  My favorites are the blue-haired genius from the first group of friends (the girl’s inner circle), because she’s shy and thus I can identify with her and get into her head for a story; and the bubbly blonde from the inner circle, who (according to the canon comic book) used to be the leader of that group in their previous lives (instead of the main girl).  I find the blonde makes the most fascinating material for character studies, simply because she yearns to be outgoing and girly but has a heavy sense of responsibility too.

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