Posted on: 2009-02-06

Our story begins on a cold winter's morning, on a Sunday morning to be exact.

Our main character was perusing the DWG board as was her custom in the morning, and as she was looking at the new chapter of "Nothing Wanting" she noted yet another person talking about angst in their comments.

She then started asking herself "What is this angst stuff? I've never felt it before. Is it some type of strange process? But why would someone do it as it seems to cause them pain and misery. I guess I'll have to look into it sometime."

She kept on mulling it over as she made herself some breakfast, and finally determined to ask another Dwiggie what it was.

First she asked Allison, who told her angst occurs when you want to slap someone upside the head.

Then she asked the general Dwiggie populace what it was, and some told her it was horrid but necessary, and some told her that angst was what they disliked in a story, and some told her it made the story actually interesting.

So she decided that she would go and look for it, and using the handy-dandy story search, she found "A Story For Everyone" which confused her greatly, since angst was portrayed as a person, and everyone had told her it was a feeling.

She found other stories where all the characters did was just torture themselves until they pulled out a "shocking" secret that makes their lives perfect and smooth. And then she found stories that were fluffy and sappy and that had no plot whatsoever. She spent the whole day searching the archives, looking for something to tell her what angst was, in fact, she was getting rather… anxious as the day drew to a close.

And finally she shut her laptop , rather sleepily preparing for bed, and shut her eyes with a sigh.

However, her sleep wasn't peaceful. She started to dream, in her dream she was reading aloud to herself; "… Mr. Darcy certainly was proud and haughty enough to denounce the woman he loved… And here comes my favorite part! … Especially when Wickham hadn't even bothered to keep Lydia, and instead had her sent to the Gardiners once he had tired of her, and Mr. Bingley had never bothered to come back to Netherfield, instead he had married some rich friend of his sisters. And so Elizabeth lived the rest of her life in complete misery, especially after she married the widowed Mr. Collins at the behest of her mother. The End."

She finally woke up, but only after hearing herself recite Sense and Sensibility with Edward and Elinor forever miserable after he bends to his mothers wishes and marries an heiress, and Marianne marrying Willoughby and then finding out that he was being unfaithful to her after two years of marriage, and Colonel Brandon was miserable and decides to marry Eliza to give her child a father and they end up being unhappy together.

She also recited the summaries of Emma, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Lady Susan in the most horrid way imaginable.

When she woke up she was beginning to sob out of sheer horror at her dream, and to reassure herself she read one of her favorite stories ,"Twilight of The Abyss" just to reassure herself that her dream wasn't real.

She then gaped at the screen in abject horror, because she hadn't grasped yet how nerve-wracking it was to read a story where you weren't sure if they ended up together, or how long it was going to take them to get together. She skimmed over some of the other stories, almost hyperventilating every time Darcy insulted Elizabeth, every time Wickham ran off with Lydia, and every time General Tilney threw Catherine out of Northanger she almost sobbed with anxiety, hoping that Henry would swoop in soon to save the day.

And then… she had an epiphany. It's just a story. It's not the be-all and end-all of her life. She has a house, a cat, a job, and a life. No matter how angst-y the story gets, it does not affect her life.

With that settled, she got up out of bed, readied herself for the day, and… checked the DWG board. She read the new stories that had been posted, and she enjoyed it, she enjoyed the fluff, and she even enjoyed the angst. Imagine that? The girl who didn't know what angst was the day before, was now able to enjoy it.
With a sigh she shut down her laptop, put it in her computer bag, and started her walk to work. She got out in the cold winter sunshine, and smiled. Today was a good day. She wanted to start singing, but she figured that might weird out the neighbors. At that thought she grinned rather widely, thus striking admiration into the hearts of the neighborhood bachelors, and brought them to remember Mrs. Bennet's words of wisdom "that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Now the author exits (pursued by bear, if anyone wants to know.).