Facebook flog - Jan 28 2014

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Jan 28 2014, 12:00
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's Facebook. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

Because it's a theme this week:

"Destroy your personal demons, use their corpses as fuel to light your way."
Laurell K. Hamilton

Comments

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

I am growing increasingly annoyed by the term "personal demons," though it never bothered me before.

[jessica collett (from livejournal.com)]

Me too. Possibly because it's accompanied by sanctimonious advice that is not useful. 'Be more positive!' - which is the gist of all her dodgy self-help advice - is one of the worst and most aggravating pieces of advice to get if you have 'personal demons'.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

It bothers me because it feels like a rip-off of Pablo Wapsi's "personal demons" -- in his cosmology every being-with-consciousness has a set of personal demons that can fuck with you, but can't themselves cause harm to another person.

It's the kind of series LKH would dig -- short, busty, Latina-descent BAMF who likes non-girly things but is generally v. femme in appearance -- but it's WAY awesome.

[jessica collett (from livejournal.com)]

Oooh, that sounds fascinating! *adds to must read list*

[jeza-red.livejournal.com]

Because saying 'personal problems/issues' is for the weak! She doesn't have 'issues' she has demons! With claws that tear at her psyche and fangs that rip her soul to shreds and so forth and so on...

[jessica collett (from livejournal.com)]

SHE IS SO DARK AND TUFF

LIKE MY GOD SHE IS A DEMON SLAYER BECAUSE SHE GETS TO LIVE HER DREAM LIFE

[ravens-shadow.livejournal.com]

Same here. I think, for me anyway, it's because she presents them as this external thing. Sher personifies an issue someone is struggling with to the point that it isn't about the individual understanding why they engage in unhealthy behavior (I'm thinking of other common things called 'personal demons' like alcoholism) or why they struggle with something from their past, and then working to change their thinking and their behaviors in order to deal with those effects. No, it's this demon that is attacking you personally, and you need to fight it.

Determination to overcome is one thing, but this aggressive need to battle something that is, despite not being good for you, a part of who you are, just rubs me the wrong way.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Plus she keeps talking like you can destroy your personal demons, and then they're just gone. That's not how it works.