(oh, but for the demise of the self-indulgent 'should')

I think it's not that I don't love H/D as much as always-- or don't adore brilliantly well-done things like lillithium's new HBP!H/D comic and cursescar's latest H/D ficlets-- but in the end, the enjoyment of these can be personal and contained within myself.

So it's fandom that's worn me to the bone. Seeing people reiterate the same (lame) points, make the same (lame) arguments, have the same (lame) wanks, write/draw mainly the same uber-self-indulgent stuff and nearly nothing else (and squee about it as if it's omg-so-new-and-brilliant-and-shockingly-amazing, gah)... having the same passionate reaction to that as I once did is just counterproductive. And no, by 'self-indulgent' I don't mean porn itself but rather the approach-- I ♥ (...well-done...) porn.

However-- however! I realize, I fully realize that it's the -nature- of fandom to be self-indulgent and not generally artistically ambitious on any grand level-- I know. It's my fault, not anyone else's, for caring, for not... fitting the dominant paradigm. Or something. And it's not even that -I'm- not self-indulgent, because anyone who's read some of my stuff-- or maybe the very fact that I'm in an online fandom for Harry Potter shows I am; it's merely that I don't want to be.
    Worse, I think I'm pointlessly reiterating my own point right at this moment, saying this, because I've said this a million times before & I'm sure you're all sick of it too. Though that's what being -around- means, for me at least: caring enough to pay attention, to go 'omg, not -this- again' and telling yourself all the lame isn't worth the nuggets of amazing, I guess.

I think the problem is that I take it too seriously, because in the end I approach writing-- all writing, all art-- with the same basic desires and passions. I can't... separate fandom fully into the the 'unimportant entertainment' category because the characters had at once point set up camp in my head, so-- so I guess I wanted the best for them. I didn't want to see them continuously mangled, but neither did I want to see only my own vision, because my vision -fed- on others' in the first place, and I adore fanon for the way it feeds upon itself, ideally, creating kaleidoscopic reproductions and mutations. At best, fanon is inspiration central, in other words-- but at worst (and lately), it fries my brain. What to do :/
~~

Anyway, this particular wangst brought upon by more reheated overdone meta with people saying, more or less, that the worth of 'realism' in writing is basically dependent on whether it hits their kinks. This has got to be my Number One Pet-Peeve in fandom, so it's very difficult for me to be objective, but I'll try. Even so, I wouldn't care if it wasn't so -prevalent-, if it wasn't -everywhere-; if I didn't seriously think, for instance, that people -prefer- fanon!Draco to canon!Draco, I wouldn't begrudge fandom its ice-prince!hair-dresser!Draco or its adoring!pathetic!lump!Harry. But. It's the dominant paradigm, and my tolerance for the indulgence is overwhelmed by the wrongness of the idea as 'reality'.
    (And most of my frustration is just restraining myself from trying to shake people and yell, WAKE UP! WAKE UP!! WTF PEOPLE??!)

Perhaps this also hits upon something else: much as I love fanon and canon separately (at times), there's nothing in fandom I despise quite so much as the careless willful confusing of the two (giving the people who say "Harry/Draco is canon" or "Snape/Draco is canon" some credit). Think of it as a game of telephone: the first person (canon) is clear and precise and sometimes vague or contradictory so we want to correct them or enlarge upon their point, perhaps; the second person is imaginative and funny, inserting a few jokes and footnotes into the 'canon' of the first; the third mumbles a few words and invents a few extraneous points entirely; the hundredth doesn't even remember that 'canon' existed, it seems.
    I mean, without continuous reference back to the first person's 'canon', it's basically a chaotic system, discordant and so messy as to be useless. All real meaning is gone by that point, and that's where I balk.

( ...ramblerambleramble. )