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 |  Ohhhhhhhh. |
| The process of composing a Leading entry, for me, literally consists of one single consideration: whether or not I desire to read fifteen to twenty slight variations on its first paragraph. Because honestly, a lot of the time, I am pretty sure that's all anyone reads. Other than that, it's not so tough. I'm always puzzled by how much trouble people claim to have with leading. Stage fright, prudishness, whatever. By the way, it's Leading entry, capital L. Like that? That's the only place where I allow myself a little bit of conceit. Seriously, only there. * Here is something I think people don't realize (unless they are Aaron, in which case they hear me bitch about it all the time, or Jenn, in which case I'm sure they have pieced it together by now): I don't like when people whine about Follow the Leader. It hurts my actual, all-encompassing, IRL feelings. By the same token, I love having my dick sucked at least as much as the next person. It makes me happy when the game runs well, when people offer me unsolicited compliments, when strangers I've never spoken to show interest in their own journals. I even like fielding a bunch of email questions about the rules, because it lets me feel knowledgeable, the tiniest bit sort of in charge of something. But I hate it when people complain, and I hate it when they act like assholes. Not just because I hate assholishness, but because Follow the Leader feels, at this point, like an extension of my Writing.com persona (mostly because it's pretty much the only thing in my portfolio), and I have a really hard time separating FtL disses from personal attacks. I appreciated it very deeply that Ernie, who is my friend, and whose Writing.com personality is often intentionally obnoxious, prioritized his respect for me over his ongoing desire to systematically piss off every person playing. I hate when people antagonize each other with no regard for the fact that I asked them not to. I hate when people sign up and don't finish (absent mitigating circumstances, which of course I understand--I'm talking about people who whine about the entries being uninspiring and don't even try to juice them for tiny bits of inspiration). I hate when people watching from the sidelines diss the activity altogether because of brawls that happened in the first two rounds, three years ago, when I had no idea what I was doing anyway. I hate when people let loose with lengthy rants that condense down to Fuck this contest, or its equivalent. I consider myself as having a temporary personal relationship with every contestant, during each round. I remember everyone's Leading entries, at the very least, and reading a whole batch of Following entries from the same Leading entry is like attending a seminar on that Leading entry. If she weren't conspicuously missing five-sevenths of the week, Aaron would hear every thought that ever went through my head about every single round of Follow the Leader. She's my venting place, so I don't have to bitch constantly or change up the rules or throw in the towel every time people really, really annoy me. But I do get really, really annoyed. I throw smiley faces after every single correspondence so it's not as easy to tell when I'm feeling genuinely benevolent, when I'm passive-aggressively backspacing every scathing, irritable thing I wish I could say. I'm going to die of vanity if I keep writing about Follow the Leader, so this delightfully meta entry ends here, and I will save the rest for "prompt me." |
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