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reenka i don't know what use it is to say this, but i like thinking about the nature and shape of my own aesthetic biases.
i tend to admire the things i think i'm not, i think. or at least, admire especially much. thus i find myself in awe of precise wording, elegant structure, concise intensity in imagery. it's like with romantic love, kind of-- i love it because it completes me. my very favorite art is an art of condensation, smooth corners and density and brilliant color. and i mean visual as well as verbal. when the top of my head comes off and i'm screaming with delight, it is almost always because something is so brilliantly multifaceted and intense with meaning. this is why i am especially drawn to symbolic work-- directly visually symbolic and metaphorical as well as verbally symbolic. symbols and good metaphors can't help but embody the height of this density. you're imbuing something with meaning at both polarities-- both verbal and visual and an overlay of the ephemeral, bound together.
often enough i see metaphors being used sloppily and without true feeling. the density is important, but it requires extreme precision. you must know exactly how much strength and exposition to devote to any aspect of the metaphor-- you must precisely calibrate the space it will use and the shading of the color intensity. if you're using a metaphor, you're having so much more information "per pixel" of meaning, the room for error lessens. oh, but the immense satisfaction of coming across something that truly is able to encompass huge ideas within the boundaries of one image, one set of symbols, one poem or story.
in this case i'm thinking of how much benches mean to me. benches in the moonlight, next to some trees. old, elaborately carved benches. girls sitting on them, shadowed adrogynous figures standing next to them, illuminated by a thinning moon, with the shadows of the trees creeping slowly across the seat. am trying not to be addicted to deviantart, but found this and this beautifully evocative photo of a bench by moonlight, and then this painting of a girl perched on a bench next to some trees. and it just makes me sigh with contentment. as rambly as i am, i want to speak in the language of the ineffable. this is why![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ztrin's meme struck me like that. she can speak in the language of dreams and nightmares, the barely-voiceable things that stick in your mind in the moments between sleep and waking.
this is also probably at the root of why i hate over-explaining and cliches so much. voicing the obvious is the very opposite of voicing the ineffable, though in a weird way one defines the other for me-- by voicing the ineffable, you're redefining the obvious and showing how all these images are really the -truth- and more obvious than one can easily understand. they -feel- right, they are obvious on the level of a gut reaction, a shiver, a caught breath. that's what i want art to -do- to me. to make me -react- on that basic level. hit over the head with a silver hammer.
sigh.
~~
one of the best things, to me, about reading fanfic is that you have this huge investment in the characters. every story with them-- at least, with the same pairing-- is somehow united, and builds on top of all the ones that have gone before it. so that it's a given (if it's well-written at all) that even if there's only a small amount of heat, one's emotions easily come to a boil. all one needs is a small bit of tension, a fleeting kiss, something that gets the pov character's heart pumping-- and one can feel it through a vicarious link, so that one simultaneously feels breathless or angry or sad along with the character.
this is such a great shortcut-- you get your kicks and you don't need to discriminate as much. what you could usually get from only one source (ie, the original), you can now get from multiple sources just because they use certain cues (in this case, a pairing). i suppose it could be something -other- than a pairing, but that would be tricky-- for example, if one was attached to a certain character. people write them so very differently from fanfic to fanfic. there is no one dependable fanon of any character that's in a majority of fic. with pairings, you will always get these two people (hopefully their personalities retain some measure of decent constancy), always doing the same sorts of things, because they're together. kissing, fighting, groping, angstying, and so on. so you can depend on something-- a predictable rush of endorphins when one's favorite pairing gets their first kiss, for example.
naturally, good fiction can do this (affect the reader on a basic level), with any characters or pairings (or lack thereof). but this is really rare. i don't see how you would read fanfic as a hobby, if you didn't discriminate based on pairing, unless you were at least somewhat indiscriminate towards quality in general. i used to read (commercially published) fanfic in elfquest and star trek, but there was quality control there. so i read het and gen and so on indiscriminately, but i had assurance of solidly unified world-building (to some extent) and a certain minimum of talent and comfort with that world.
anyway. i was just surprised (yet again) at the difference it makes, reading about the same thing (a kiss) in the same story, by the same author, with different pairings.
if it's harry/draco, i'm interested, even excited. if it's harry/ginny (or harry/oliver, or harry/justin or whatever)-- forgoing the squick factor for a second-- i'm just not moved at all. zero. nothing. couldn't care less. it's all flat and lifeless and i'm staring curiously and wondering how on earth the same sentence could make me shiver with delight if it was written with different names attached. i start noticing how it's not written well enough, how the sentence-structure is flat, how there isn't enough build-up, how it's not intense enough and i don't care about this incarnation of these characters, and how it feels like i'm really wasting time, because i'm noticing it go by.
you -could- interest me in non-h/d-- i've read sirius/remus and adored it beyond all earthly belief, so it's possible, obviously-- it's just really hard. you'd have to do it right. you'd have to hit my weak spots and have spot-on characterizations and your language has to sparkle and your plot has to excite me and tantalize me. there just isn't enough fic i'd consider good enough to be read without positive pairing bias to stay in fandom for any significant length of time. it's just hard to want to read gen or non-otp pairings when the same semi-mediocre writing does nothing for you in one case, and gives you a heady rush of emotion with the merest kiss in the other.
that "hitting my weak spots" comment is probably the key, though. if you focus on the dynamics described rather than the actual writing, that is. it seems that the reason i tend to like h/d so much more isn't entirely because there's just this lever in my head. for example, h/d kisses tend to be a certain way-- violently passionate and intense and sudden, full of repressed emotion and power. the whole dynamic just works for me. i've also noticed that if the dynamic shifts greatly and say, the kisses are gentle and loving, they do nothing for me. and if, on the other hand, harry/ginny suddenly turned brutal and intense (um, unlikely as that is), i'd probably be more riveted.
i wonder if the people who aren't really all that biased deal with this. do they not get as excited? would -anyone- kissing excite them roughly equally (not too bound up with the type of chemistry involved, or even the presence of intense chemistry)? is the excitement level not important? do they spread their excitement around and get just as affected by any number of scenarios? that last seems the most likely. i suppose they just find something to like-- a -lot-, because i'm talking about liking something to the point of breathlessness, which is how much i like h/d-- in a number of different combinations. maybe i'm just not lucky that way. i -like- different things, but they don't usually all get me woozy with love. and i miss that. if harry & ginny (or lionel & chloe, or starsky and hutch) kiss, okay, so maybe i'm not wanting to stab my eyes out, but i'm not swooning in my chair either, dammit. so i stop and think, "wait, why am i reading this? i can be reading something that would make me swoon."
clearly, this only applies to fics that aren't written brilliantly. which is most fics.
ah, the dilemmas of an otp addict. *laughs*
~~
EDIT - salima's `quiet intensity' reminds me of the first blush of my (h/d) love. awwwwww, the angst-ridden woobies. (she writes so well, too!)
i tend to admire the things i think i'm not, i think. or at least, admire especially much. thus i find myself in awe of precise wording, elegant structure, concise intensity in imagery. it's like with romantic love, kind of-- i love it because it completes me. my very favorite art is an art of condensation, smooth corners and density and brilliant color. and i mean visual as well as verbal. when the top of my head comes off and i'm screaming with delight, it is almost always because something is so brilliantly multifaceted and intense with meaning. this is why i am especially drawn to symbolic work-- directly visually symbolic and metaphorical as well as verbally symbolic. symbols and good metaphors can't help but embody the height of this density. you're imbuing something with meaning at both polarities-- both verbal and visual and an overlay of the ephemeral, bound together.
often enough i see metaphors being used sloppily and without true feeling. the density is important, but it requires extreme precision. you must know exactly how much strength and exposition to devote to any aspect of the metaphor-- you must precisely calibrate the space it will use and the shading of the color intensity. if you're using a metaphor, you're having so much more information "per pixel" of meaning, the room for error lessens. oh, but the immense satisfaction of coming across something that truly is able to encompass huge ideas within the boundaries of one image, one set of symbols, one poem or story.
in this case i'm thinking of how much benches mean to me. benches in the moonlight, next to some trees. old, elaborately carved benches. girls sitting on them, shadowed adrogynous figures standing next to them, illuminated by a thinning moon, with the shadows of the trees creeping slowly across the seat. am trying not to be addicted to deviantart, but found this and this beautifully evocative photo of a bench by moonlight, and then this painting of a girl perched on a bench next to some trees. and it just makes me sigh with contentment. as rambly as i am, i want to speak in the language of the ineffable. this is why
ztrin's meme struck me like that. she can speak in the language of dreams and nightmares, the barely-voiceable things that stick in your mind in the moments between sleep and waking. this is also probably at the root of why i hate over-explaining and cliches so much. voicing the obvious is the very opposite of voicing the ineffable, though in a weird way one defines the other for me-- by voicing the ineffable, you're redefining the obvious and showing how all these images are really the -truth- and more obvious than one can easily understand. they -feel- right, they are obvious on the level of a gut reaction, a shiver, a caught breath. that's what i want art to -do- to me. to make me -react- on that basic level. hit over the head with a silver hammer.
sigh.
~~
one of the best things, to me, about reading fanfic is that you have this huge investment in the characters. every story with them-- at least, with the same pairing-- is somehow united, and builds on top of all the ones that have gone before it. so that it's a given (if it's well-written at all) that even if there's only a small amount of heat, one's emotions easily come to a boil. all one needs is a small bit of tension, a fleeting kiss, something that gets the pov character's heart pumping-- and one can feel it through a vicarious link, so that one simultaneously feels breathless or angry or sad along with the character.
this is such a great shortcut-- you get your kicks and you don't need to discriminate as much. what you could usually get from only one source (ie, the original), you can now get from multiple sources just because they use certain cues (in this case, a pairing). i suppose it could be something -other- than a pairing, but that would be tricky-- for example, if one was attached to a certain character. people write them so very differently from fanfic to fanfic. there is no one dependable fanon of any character that's in a majority of fic. with pairings, you will always get these two people (hopefully their personalities retain some measure of decent constancy), always doing the same sorts of things, because they're together. kissing, fighting, groping, angstying, and so on. so you can depend on something-- a predictable rush of endorphins when one's favorite pairing gets their first kiss, for example.
naturally, good fiction can do this (affect the reader on a basic level), with any characters or pairings (or lack thereof). but this is really rare. i don't see how you would read fanfic as a hobby, if you didn't discriminate based on pairing, unless you were at least somewhat indiscriminate towards quality in general. i used to read (commercially published) fanfic in elfquest and star trek, but there was quality control there. so i read het and gen and so on indiscriminately, but i had assurance of solidly unified world-building (to some extent) and a certain minimum of talent and comfort with that world.
anyway. i was just surprised (yet again) at the difference it makes, reading about the same thing (a kiss) in the same story, by the same author, with different pairings.
if it's harry/draco, i'm interested, even excited. if it's harry/ginny (or harry/oliver, or harry/justin or whatever)-- forgoing the squick factor for a second-- i'm just not moved at all. zero. nothing. couldn't care less. it's all flat and lifeless and i'm staring curiously and wondering how on earth the same sentence could make me shiver with delight if it was written with different names attached. i start noticing how it's not written well enough, how the sentence-structure is flat, how there isn't enough build-up, how it's not intense enough and i don't care about this incarnation of these characters, and how it feels like i'm really wasting time, because i'm noticing it go by.
you -could- interest me in non-h/d-- i've read sirius/remus and adored it beyond all earthly belief, so it's possible, obviously-- it's just really hard. you'd have to do it right. you'd have to hit my weak spots and have spot-on characterizations and your language has to sparkle and your plot has to excite me and tantalize me. there just isn't enough fic i'd consider good enough to be read without positive pairing bias to stay in fandom for any significant length of time. it's just hard to want to read gen or non-otp pairings when the same semi-mediocre writing does nothing for you in one case, and gives you a heady rush of emotion with the merest kiss in the other.
that "hitting my weak spots" comment is probably the key, though. if you focus on the dynamics described rather than the actual writing, that is. it seems that the reason i tend to like h/d so much more isn't entirely because there's just this lever in my head. for example, h/d kisses tend to be a certain way-- violently passionate and intense and sudden, full of repressed emotion and power. the whole dynamic just works for me. i've also noticed that if the dynamic shifts greatly and say, the kisses are gentle and loving, they do nothing for me. and if, on the other hand, harry/ginny suddenly turned brutal and intense (um, unlikely as that is), i'd probably be more riveted.
i wonder if the people who aren't really all that biased deal with this. do they not get as excited? would -anyone- kissing excite them roughly equally (not too bound up with the type of chemistry involved, or even the presence of intense chemistry)? is the excitement level not important? do they spread their excitement around and get just as affected by any number of scenarios? that last seems the most likely. i suppose they just find something to like-- a -lot-, because i'm talking about liking something to the point of breathlessness, which is how much i like h/d-- in a number of different combinations. maybe i'm just not lucky that way. i -like- different things, but they don't usually all get me woozy with love. and i miss that. if harry & ginny (or lionel & chloe, or starsky and hutch) kiss, okay, so maybe i'm not wanting to stab my eyes out, but i'm not swooning in my chair either, dammit. so i stop and think, "wait, why am i reading this? i can be reading something that would make me swoon."
clearly, this only applies to fics that aren't written brilliantly. which is most fics.
ah, the dilemmas of an otp addict. *laughs*
~~
EDIT - salima's `quiet intensity' reminds me of the first blush of my (h/d) love. awwwwww, the angst-ridden woobies. (she writes so well, too!)
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-30 04:14 pm (UTC)and -wah-! i -really- hope it doesn't come out before i read it. which will obviously be like, today or tomorrow o_0
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Date: 2003-04-30 04:22 pm (UTC)Oh, of course the SV fen fancy Lex like mad. But I'm sure most of them would still be in the fandom if he was played by a different actor - EXCEPT that MR's characterisation of Lex depends so much on the physical. But that's a mannerisms thing, not a sexiness thing.
Right. Off to sleep. Have nearly 4500 words of VM9 written.
Ooh! Check out my recs page for HL. Mmmmm, yeah.