The lyf so short

Anyone want to know last night's stupid dream in the Lyra-brain?

No, of course you don't, but I'll tell you anyway.
First, have some backstory.
A week ago, my grandfather's girlfriend (ladyfriend? how do you call these relationships among people in their eighties?) was buried. I was not there due to exam preparations, but my parents and brother went.
Those among you who have been keeping track may remember that not long before that, I posted about the same (I only have the one) grandfather's sister dying (her burial took place on the day before my first final, so I wasn't there either)...

Well, last night I dreamt that my grandfather's wife-if-not-for-taxes' death was faked.

Gee, brain, I wonder where that came from...?

I didn't actually want to post about this, but I'll take that dream as an incentive to get it out of my system.
In very vague and general terms. You don't have to read it if you don't care to.
(But of course that goes for all my LJ entries anyway.)
- - -

On the whole, I know I've only been vaguely affected by the whole mess (for those who're not in the Silmarillion fandom: Someone has recently been found out to have faked the death of one sockpuppet, had various tragedies befall another sockpuppet, and tried to make herself comfortable again in the fandom with yet another sockpuppet, which is when she slipped up because people utterly unknown to each other shouldn't have precisely the same interests or, um, IP address...). I've never been attacked for things I posted on my LJ (perhaps my entries were too long and complicated to read?), only once for something I said in comments (and I was half hoping that I'd be defriended after that, but somehow that didn't happen: I am now wondering why. Not worth the effort? Or did "they" actually think that I was too big a name to slander? Oh, the flattery!).
I know that I didn't review at the SWG for a while because I didn't want again to be accused of having time to comment on other people's work (repeatedly, what's more! OMG!!!1!) but not on the things posted by the bereaved widower on his late wife's behalf (and the truth is, I didn't comment because I cannot be bothered to read something that long if it is so full of unnecessary typos and grammatical errors, which actually hurt me on an almost physical level; besides, the stories almost always followed the same pattern. So I only read and reviewed the short ones and put the long ones off for... well, let's just say that this time procrastination actually did make the problem go away?). I am kind of mourning the loss of two original paintings I sent there (though I only was happy with one of them, anyway. But I wonder who really got them, and what became of them?). And there were some e-mails exchanged in which "she" whined about someone else's post which "she" felt put "her" under a lot of stress - but when I said that the person who'd made the post simply worked better under stress and "she" should respect that the other person wanted to talk about it on her own journal, which "she" after all didn't have to read if she didn't like it, somehow the whining ended.
(God, I can be so reasonable sometimes. ;))
So I guess it did affect me after all.
But I wasn't affected to the point of being unable to ramble in my own journal, and not nearly so much as some other people, particularly those whose names were dragged in the mud.
And by the time the umpteenth tragedy hit the "bereaved widower" (who was beginning to sound more and more like the "late wife" - see, kids, learning to recognise narrative voice is actually good for something after all!), I was starting to entertain serious doubts, and thought something along the lines of "I wonder whether we'll find this on fake_lj_deaths soon?". So the big reveal wasn't a surprise. The extent of the whole mess, on the other hand, was.

And it affected me enough, apparently, for my subconscious to play on it!

What shall we bet that Freud would've interpreted that dream in a completely nonsensical way, possibly related to sex?
(Yes, I am still sore about That Professor's expectations for the exams. And will be until they're over. Or, in fact, until I've gotten over the impending bad grade. That is because I think she's stupid, and she's forcing me to come down to her stupid level in my essay, where I will naturally be beaten by the more experienced bullshitter. Yes, now it's out: I am absolutely convinced that I am smarter than that professor. I could give classes more interesting than hers, too. Yes, really.)

- BTT. I have also been affected enough that I am now compulsively checking the profile of every LJ user jumping in on the discussion whose posts share one or more characteristics of the sockpuppet's "voice": Repetitive rambling without punctuation, typos, certain grammatical boo-boos, and, above all, interpreting things that have been said in the most offense-giving way possible, drama-mongering and a sense of entitlement. There probably are a couple of poor real people whom I've been suspecting (and still am, because little nagging voices are hard to silence) just because they can't be bothered to use a spellchecker appear to be heavily inspired by James Joyce think someone's trying to hurt them think someone should beg pardon on bent knee for real or imagined 'crimes' are reacting very emotionally to an admittedly rather emotion-heavy issue...

Anyway.
Once we've all licked our respective wounds, shared our astonishment at what happened and how deeply we were sucked in, and shared our stories - once we've done that, I think it's time for a general amnesty (because if everyone who got hurt waits for everyone who hurt them to realise that they hurt them and apologise, we'll all be RL!dead of old age before we get over it).
And then, rebuilding.
Which actually shouldn't be hard if the general amnesty thing works out. After all, if that works out, all we have to do is carry on as before.

So I'll begin it:
If I have knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or accidentally, directly or indirectly hurt, insulted, offended or otherwise caused harm to anybody in the few months that I was involved in the whole thing through something that I did or didn't do, I hereby offer my genuine and heartfelt apologies. Feel free to speak out or not, just as you wish.
(Actually I can't recall knowingly or intentionally hurting anyone, but it's been a crazy year and you never know how you come across...)

I don't remember having been hurt by anyone except the actual culprit, so nobody needs to apologise to me. :)

Right! Back to work, shall we?