[Babbleon]

[reenka]

Heheh, I just saw kaiz's post on meta-analysis fatigue (which I share), and it was nice to realize I'm not alone. And yet...
    I still get tempted to rant about the very ficcish pet-peeves I'm sick of seeing rants about, sometimes, because while I'm here to read/write fic, yea, there is never quite enough fic I find exciting/enthralling/satisfying, and it's that frustration that often leads me to want to complain. I think that's the main thing people who say 'just enjoy your fic and lemme enjoy mine!!1' are missing. I guess a lot of people are easy to please on a gut level, or at least their kinks match a large enough percentage of fandom, but what happens when next to no one writes the way you like anymore?

...Well, in my case I realized it was me (and my burnout), not them, but-- fact remains that I don't tend to analyze what I like (and why I like it) so much as I analyze what I don't like, in an attempt to purge myself somehow. Though I admit I feedback fics/art I love in great detail too, but that's not the same as meta, which I find to be more of a general analysis. It's like this: to be a fan is to care, and to care is to be pissed at things not measuring up to the past standard of enjoyment, that's just all there is to it. I simply can't be like "omg I love fanfics and adore Draco" and not be like, YOU KILLED KENNY MADE DRACO KISS HUFFLEPUFF ASS, AGAIN!!1 What I'm saying is, I don't really get the idea of pure fannish enjoyment without caring enough to notice/whine when something stinks. It's like imagining a true-blue Star Wars fan who didn't cringe at the prequel movies. I mean. You care, you cringe! Even if you don't really care, you cringe! It's just... the more one's invested, the more one notices these things.

That's really why I'd kept ranting about my least favorite kind of fanon!Draco-- not because I really think he's an abomination and should be eradicated from the minds and hearts of fangirls everywhere, because I do possess some common sense, but just because I'm easily annoyed by awkward/fake-seeming writing, and above all too-good-to-be-true characterizations seem fake and I can't suspend my disbelief, not with my fandom burnout at the time, blah-blah-I-whine. During the worst of my burnout, I didn't stop when reading fic wasn't fun anymore until I couldn't go on even if I wanted to, partly out of sheer inertia.

I remember being really sick of negativity, where every pet-peeves list and canon-snark post just drove one more nail in the coffin into my fandom enjoyment, and I was literally unable to tolerate any more bashing of like, anything. Not even characters I wasn't that invested in; I remember becoming really distraught over some 'Sirius is better than Snape'/'no! Snape is better than Sirius' post last fall. That was probably my deep fatigue speaking, at least in part; it's always easier to tolerate dissent when you're generally satisfied with your fandom experience, to me anyway.

However, I think it's false to imply that critique has to be divisive or disruptive. This probably has something to do with my never intending to tell anyone what to do or how to write or interpret anything whatsoever; basically, I think you can theoretically remain positive when critiquing something, it's just that most people get carried away with their irritation.

Bottom line: I don't think I can ever quit meta, per se, 'cause that'd mean I quit thinking. I could think about frivolous or inconsequential things and I guess that's still meta to me, though I don't think it fits the label if by 'meta' you mean 'linear analysis'; perhaps I'm exempt because I never did linear analysis in the first place? I just babble. I still babble. I will always babble. I live, therefore I babble. The babble is dead; long live the babble!


I just saw an interview with Naomi Wolf, the feminist, on CNBC promoting her new book, and I liked her-- she seemed to be intelligent and charming and talked about writer's inspiration and 'holding out the bucket' every day (man, I really need to start handling that bucket). Then I looked her up online, curious, and came across The Porn Myth, an article in NY Metro, where she basically says the easy online access to het porn has made men... er, disinterested in the real thing 'cause fake women appeal to men more.
    Actually, she might be on to something 'cause slash porn has certainly turned what's probably a minority of women off het sex (maybe), though I'd really like to blame that on the not-so-appetizing selection of straight males out there and young women's tendency to go for ideal-slashy-man over reality-pig-man. It's easy to dream about how if a guy wasn't so straight, he'd be... more sensitive, prettier... maybe he'd even smell better, who knows. Man, women really cling to the shortest straws, it's true -.-

According to Wolf, it's a warzone out there, and I just don't know it. Women & girls dressing up and styling themselves to 'please a man' or attract a man or what have you, and they're finding it difficult, so they have to try harder. This sort of doesn't compute to me at all; if you'd asked me why that girl in the store yesterday was wearing tight jeans and a clingy top, I would've thought it's because she liked to look good, not because she's desperately trying to catch a guy. Then again, right before me (in the gas station) some skanky guy was like, "hey baby, you're hot" and she actually seemed interested and gave him her number, etc. You know, seriously; I've seen people say recently that in 'real life' people don't kiss or have sex easily, you have to have lead-up and believable set-up, etc. I wouldn't have thought 'hey baby, you're hot' is believable set up, but clearly I know nothing. I guess this is how the human species survives, or something, but whatever.

I was actually thinking recently about how it bothers me to see all slash fanfic (with sex in it) equated with porn, in responses to posts like this, I guess. There's a line between discussing the basis of enjoyment of fic and the issues of craft in fic which gets forgotten when one gets carried away with defending the right of fic to be written in whichever way pleaseth and ignores the question of quality & the attendant need for research, etc.

It's not as if porn is antithetical to good writing or realism (though it depends whether you think 'realism' is nitty-gritty or more emotionally based-- me, I don't care about the nitty-gritty if they don't have self-lubricating asses, and even then... I mean, I could pretend I just didn't see the panel with the lube), and that's the point-- if you have one, why not have both? In retrospect, I do realize that what some people took issue to isn't the question of improving sex-scenes but rather the implication people have to, or face, um, the elitists' mighty wrath?? Or something. I guess this is what happens when you don't pick your audience.
    And on a more meta level, why can't sex just be another aspect of the human experience, not just a dirty thrill (in fiction & reality, though obviously that's not about to happen anytime soon).

Though it was interesting when Wolf quoted a college student casually saying, "sex has no mystery"; that did bother me. I think what she's really talking about isn't anything to do with porn but rather the disintigration of a traditional sexual marital bond, the possessor and the possessed (and the ways in which a husband and wife may possess each other); the suggestion here is that if women can't guarantee their partner's full attention, men's minds wander. I myself find that as anti-feminist a sentiment as On Becoming A Woman, that horrid sex-and-relationships guide for good Christian 50s girls.

To add yet another thread, thinking about kayen's post as to how slash could be subversive, I guess if anything, this would be it: not in the queer lib sense at all, really, but sometimes it could be seen that way in a purely feminist sense. I think semi-older women (especially of Naomi Wolf's generation, in their early 40s) are starting to want the security of the possessive male, of a sort of semi-traditional role where they're wanted in some stable fashion, while retaining the freedom of human rights equality. In a lot of ways, I think those things are contradictory, and the moment a relationship becomes possessive, some measure of 'rights' and 'equality' just plain goes out the window. And it's not that real-life gay partnerships are necessarily more equal (and what does that even mean on a person-to-person basis?); but I suppose you could say that even writing the most traditional possessor/possessed relationship becomes somehow different (in some slashers' minds) when no woman is involved, merely based on our associations with male pronouns. So in this sense fantasy itself can be subversive; just ask the guy who wrote that 50s good-girls-don't book.

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I do think people's relationship with their sexuality (has always been) pretty fucked up, generally. It's pretty sad, but I guess, uh... well, some people think that's how society keeps itself going (repression vs. anarchy?? I don't buy it, but... er, I guess that's where the Garden of Eden came from... man, do you think Eve was liberated?? o_0).

She (Wolf) sounded quite normal/sane when not mentioning women's lib issues! She wrote a book about her father's advice.... Though perhaps that's her looking for more male authority figures, I dunno anymore. She also had this whole thing about how Howard Bloom (the Yale prof) harassed her... so maybe she has, er, issues -.-

Ahahahah The Relationship Myth. I think most of us bought into it at some point.... I know I did. I guess I always knew I was unreasonably idealistic though ^^;; Um. Plus my vision of the ideal man at 15 was Spock, not, uh... Big Daddy or whatever. *scrubs out brain*

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Spock...

Okay, you're officially weirder than me.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Okay, big shot :P So what was your ideal man at 15, then??
Ahahah though I probably am weirder, that's no big surprise :))

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, 15. By that time I was firmly ingrained into the yaoi phenomenon, so something pale-haired, androgynous and slutty was in order (gee, can't half tell where my Draco obsession came from, eh?). I can't say there was ever any real d00d who embodied that, unfortunately. Though Neal McDonogh comes close (mmmmm, pretty pouty lips *drools*). Also, I was kind of realising I was bi when I was 15, so that just made matters even more confusing.

Still, it was never anything close to Spock. So you're weirder.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not as if I liked Spock for his physical charms :P heheh It was more... um, mental :> And I've always liked repressed & cuttingly intelligent above sex-machinish, though that has its obvious attractions. I think I was... um, well, vaguely Luna-ish at that age (moreso than now). I still liked androgynous & pale, and I did watch anime (though not yaoi). My favorite pale boi was probably Skywise from Elfquest, but then he was also a dreamer & a loyal friend which is what I liked more than his pretty silver hair. Though that was really cool :>