~~a monogamist's lament.

[reenka]

is there a line, somewhere?

well, there often isn't, but.
is there a line, that one should not cross, between sick devotion and a "good fit"? is monogamy bias, and therefore to be dislodged? is all bias something to be dislodged?

forgive me, i am thinking in philosophy-class speak. gaaaaahh. instead of fanfic, what have i been reading??! what, i ask you. heidegger and derrida. and i can't even shut up about it. then again, i can never shut up. have i ever shut up when i wanted to speak? no. only when i thought someone would jump down my throat (hello, dear ex), if i did.

i fear i'm horribly biased, and i don't know if i -want- to do something about it. sigh.

i am, by nature, someone who's quickly and enduringly devoted to something i love. it's easy, with ideas-- you don't have to endure them smelling bad, telling you off, fucking you when you'd rather be left alone, sleeping around, being an imbecile, misunderstanding you, hurting you. ideas are easy to love, and to love for a good long time.

that's why it's always vaguely surprising that people (other than me) get tired of them-- ideas come and go-- like fads. they love them and leave them. not me.

if i love something, it's because it reflects something vital, something that's a part of me. there's no way that part of me is -going away- very easily, so i think i'm stuck, usually. so if something contradicts an idea i love, or hurts it-- i won't adopt it, most likely. just easy as that. i can understand it, sympathize, see its point, see its virtues. i cannot -desire- it, or love it, if it's "against" one i already love.

sigh. such high-minded words to feel inadequate because i'm a stubborn otp-er who won't quit.

many days, i don't know what's the attraction anymore. i feel worn out, disillusioned-- i see manifestations of this idea that sicken me and disturb me. yet i discount them, ignore them, again and again, using my love to shield me from disgust. it may be old or dead or just decrepit, but it is mine, it is a part of me, and i cannot let go of it. i can no longer think of it, i can acceed that its use is gone, its glory faded. i can say, all right, let's retire, and never speak of it again. but i am painfully monogamous when it comes to romantic ideas.

i -doubt- them. i question them. i put them through the most exact and gruelling tests. i make fun of them, i laugh at them, i belittle them, even. but it would give me physical pain, probably, to contradict them and believe it. sigh. and to think i consider myself open-minded. love poo-poos on an open mind. "ha!" it says. "you joker!" it says. yah. pretty much.
~~

and just when i thought i was hopeless...
    glockgal draws cedric/harry that makes my knees weak. of course, this is yet another love-- an older love-- i was but a wee lass when i fell in love with fairy-tales, and art-- oh, i can crush on art of -anyone-. mmm, the -pretty-. am a slut for the pretty ^^

Comments

[ishuca.livejournal.com]

that's why it's always vaguely surprising that people (other than me) get tired of them-- ideas come and go-- like fads. they love them and leave them. not me.

some people do leave, yes it's true. claim a pairing is dead (though i personally think it's only waiting to be revitalized) or all written out or more.

but there are others who simply love many pairings, have more than one OTP. i've seen it in others and am seeing it in myself. it's the difference between monogamy and polyamory, only applied to ficcing, i think.

but truly loving more than one pairing doesn't mean you love them any less. it's just a different system.

~i

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

oh, i understand that.
i wasn't saying i can't see how it can work in others, simply wondering if there's something... wrong about my inability to let go. and like-- i do love more than one thing-- i love harry/draco but also um, tsukishi/tsukasa and van/hitomi and kyou/yuki and mulder/scully and buffy/spike and so on and so forth. i love them all. my current obsession is h/d, but it doesn't mean i don't love other things. the only thing is, i can't -contradict- a particular pairing. i can't ship buffy/spike and buffy/xander. can't, can't, can't.

so i mean, i can understand polyamory-- after all, love accumulates, mine most definitely, and old love doesn't go away, i get that.
it's just, i can't... and this doesn't go with the marriage metaphor-- contradict. because, -yes-, they're fully committed in each case, and that commitment could only be changed if you had a threesome-- ie, draco/snape/harry. while that is squicky, that is how polyamory works. it has to a mixed marriage, so to speak. like... they all have to be together, otherwise in that universe, they're apart. and i will always, always hate that, if i -believed- it. see, i can still read fic with other pairings, okay. just, shipping is different.

and again, this isn't cast in stone-- i kinda-sorta ship both kyou/tohru and kyou/yuki. the thing is, they're sorta a threesome, and also, they're just so strongly -right- together in both cases, and that happens -very- rarely. both pairings have a similar feel, too. it's sort of the same as shipping both hermione/draco and harry/draco-- i mean, there are definite parallels there. so i'm like-- yah. both pairings hit similar buttons. both yuki and tohru are gentle and calm and stuff, whereas kyou rages and is vulnerable and needy and angsty. i'm more with the yuki 'cause there's more fighting/conflict there. tohru is more-- just a complete yin to kyou's yang. but anyway. this yin/yang thing, that's what i ship, always always.

heh.
i'm a tradionalist, what can i say? hate self. can't stop.

sigh.

[ishuca.livejournal.com]

if it's how you work i don't see much of a problem with it. :shrugs:

commitment could only be changed if you had a threesome-- ie, draco/snape/harry.

that is -one- way in which polyamory works. there are people who have relationships with several people at one time, love them all- and the other people are not related to each other. like, if i were polyamorous with harry and draco, it does not necessarily follow that harry and dsraco -also- have to be together. i am simply in two working relationships that have completely different dynamics.

the only constant is me, see? of course, the original metaphor doesn't really work either, because unless you're writing series each harry and draco and 'me' is different, too. regardless if you have two continual muses, each and every time ficlet you write can be encapsulated within itself.

personally, i don't see how they contradict. of course, i don't have meta harry and draco bouncing inside of me, so that might be it, but- harry, draco, and other characters are reborn with each fic they appear in. so there is no contradiction because the draco who fucks snape is a completely different person than the draco who fucks harry or ginny or ron or his father.

-completely- different. at least, that's how i work. you work differently, as do other people. it's what makes reading fic so interesting.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hi, um, I couldn't help but read this and relate--I'm very much the same. I can deal with an OTP that has a sort of auxiliary pairing, like one that happened in the past, or is used simply to point the character towards his real OTP. But I can't ship something that contradicts...I even avoid reading fics that ship something that contradicts. And it's rather strange because usually I'm so flexible. I like to be able to look at things all different ways and never be tied down to just one thing, except with a pairing. (Not that a pairing like H/D doesn't really encompass dozens of pairings in itself depending on the characterization!)

I try to tell myself that obviously I'm getting something out of whatever my current obsession is and I just can't move on until I've understood everything I need to understand from it.

[phoenixw.livejournal.com]

i am, by nature, someone who's quickly and enduringly devoted to something i love. it's easy, with ideas... ideas are easy to love, and to love for a good long time.

that's why it's always vaguely surprising that people (other than me) get tired of them-- ideas come and go-- like fads. they love them and leave them. not me.

if i love something, it's because it reflects something vital, something that's a part of me. there's no way that part of me is -going away- very easily, so i think i'm stuck...

many days, i don't know what's the attraction anymore. i feel worn out, disillusioned-- i see manifestations of this idea that sicken me and disturb me. yet i discount them, ignore them, again and again, using my love to shield me from disgust. it may be old or dead or just decrepit, but it is mine, it is a part of me, and i cannot let go of it. i can no longer think of it, i can acceed that its use is gone, its glory faded. i can say, all right, let's retire, and never speak of it again. but i am painfully monogamous when it comes to romantic ideas.

I'm in love with traditional music. The songs and tunes are hundreds of years old, some of them, and tackle themes that are well-worn -- one might even say "cliche". But some themes continue to speak truely of our experience as humans living out our lives, and some songs articulate those themes so perfectly that they really can't be outdone. That's why they continue to appeal to modern folks. Modern pop songs that come and go in a year are fleeting experiences with no staying power, because they don't speak to enduring human experiences, or they don't do it well enough. Songs that are part of the traditional repetoir have been through the wringer of folk-process -- people have chosen to continue singing them. Many of their contemporaries didn't survive to today.

My love for traditional music is enduring, pre-dating and surviving the Riverdance fad. I love it because it speaks to me about things that are important.

Some folks jump onto a 'ship when it's popular, and jump off when it becomes fadishly passe. I don't understand that any more than I understand the folks who love traditional music only one day out of the year. I guess my bigger concern about fadishness involves the creation of new work. I remember when croissants were introduced in my city, and they became the thing everyone wanted. More and more places started serving croissants, and the quality dropped dramatically. Eventually it became impossible to get a decent croissant in this town. The same thing happened with espresso, but in that case there were some producers who were devoted to both espresso and quality. So while there's plenty of crappy espresso out there, it's still possible to get decent coffee if you go to the right place. I sincerely hope that the fanfic that I love takes the path of espresso, avoiding the fate of the croissant.


i -doubt- them. i question them. i put them through the most exact and gruelling tests. i make fun of them, i laugh at them, i belittle them, even.

If you can laugh at your love, it's healthy. Who could ask for more? :-)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

awww. a fable.
*hearts the croissant/espresso fable*~:)
thinking about it, i suppose it's silly to worry about other people's preferences and to think they say something about your own. i mean, obviously they don't. people are different, and their tolerances vary, and some only want a croissant with cheese on it, and some might thing that's an abomination, or something -.-

it's a weird thing, that love of this sort is something of a communal thing at all-- that it seems its nature changes depending what someone else does with it. i mean, it's more obvious with things you can -use-, and i suppose fanfic, but rather weird with the meta ideas behind it (like pairings).

it's weird that a pairing's appeal can wax and wane depending on what your friends thing and what your friends write and what the general plebe writes and yes, so often you started out loving it -because- of someone's story (or stories), and -because- someone else's enthusiasm infected you and made you look again.

although i guess i don't care so much what anyone thinks, it's just having a scary pairing intrude on my "safe circle" of h/d shippers is... like someone being a frog-man under a halloween ball mask. or something. now that was a really weird metaphor, right there >< hee.