~~a bunch of disparate meta threads.

my professor rocks so hardcore i want to -cry-. i'm just so happy remembering it, especially seeing the question (on slashphilosophy) "what does it mean to be, as a large number of slash writers are, women writing about the sexual experiences of men?"
    i handed in the smut with draco and person X, and i've talked to him about it yesterday. he's a gay male, btw (all blatant and cute about it, too). he thought it was very well written, but when i pressed him on it from the pov of "is it authentic or worthwhile, considering it doesn't have a `real' gay-male voice", he just said, there -is- no such thing as an authentic voice. gahd, how i love that.

of course, he's a philosophy professor. but it means so much to me to have such a basic thing (to me) validated. it's obvious to me, because i write fantasy-- i write about things i can't know, don't know, will never know-- all the time. it means very little, really, in some larger societal sense, that i write about faeries and may be "misrepresenting" them. but people do think they ARE gay males, not just, males who are gay, people are possessive about their identities and their experiences. since i'm sympathetic to them, i consider this argument whereas if it was a white russian female trying to appropriate her identity and tell me she knows what's it's like and no one's imagination can encompass such subtlety and complexity, i'd just laugh at her.

( i really get too fired up about these things, don't i... )

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it often seems most people only really want to read about characters they can identify with. they insist on projecting their own understanding of what people are like and what they're likely to do onto everybody, every character. "i recognize myself" is so often the delighted response to a particularly beloved character (or hated, depending, i guess). but isn't it more interesting, more of a transcendent, true power of literature to create identification with someone whom you'd never be or want to be, find disgusting, even? you could get outside of your own identity, see what's out there. that's what imagination is for, isn't it....
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i was thinking how weird it is that considering i know rather little highlander canon, i already feel characterizations in fanfic are more or less "them", more or less real. it goes beyond merely whether they work for me-- i think a part of me already knows what i want, even if i couldn't quite articulate it. it's interesting that this sense is rather strong, and yet obviously not a deduction based on extensive study of canon. people make all sorts of claims and try to base them on canon-- whereas i'm rather too aware that the most intense sorts of character knowledge come from within, from your own imagination and perception of whatever your present knowledge of these characters consists of.

( i came up with a reason, except it all sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me right now... *smacks self again* )

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meanwhile, read blythely's extremely cute owl reproduction h/d fics, for the birds & its sequel. mmmm, owl sex :D smiling is a Good Thing.
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and i think there is something i wish for more than i wish for peace. i wish for understanding. ( i'm just bitter. )