HI. (I'm Reena.)

[reenka]

Okay, now I want to have a post just like Sara's, where I'm all upfront about fannish stuff (friending/defriending policies, what secretly bugs me, etc), but the truth is, my biggest thought when people who I don't have friended or know well defriend me is 'oh... I guess I don't write that much fic anymore, huh' or alternately 'oh... I guess they never did read those long rambly meta posts, huh'. Alternately, I'd made one anti-fanon!Draco comment too many. C'mon, YOU ALL KNOW I HAVE :D

I think I start from the assumption I confuse and fail to entertain people and work upward (therefore, if you do comment, it's a nice surprise-- otherwise, you have my longstanding bitterness and self-recrimination about my being too lame/long-winded/confusing/etc to excuse you). I guess that just sounds hideously passive-aggressive, but I honestly do realize the sorts of posts that 'reach out' to people and the sorts of fics that people want to read (funny smut, plotty smut, popular pairing) are the ones people will comment on, and it's totally normal. No pressure.

Of course, it bothers me if I know the person to defriend me that well, but usually I can guess why it happens, and also it doesn't happen very much.

On commenting: eh. I like lurkers, I like comments. I really -desperately- want to think I'm read, especially when it comes to my fics (don't we all-- though I love thoughtful crit better than honey), and I get pretty insecure about only 2-3 comments per fic, and also I'm more into it for the interesting conversations and new connections than pure blogging-- I mean, I don't post about my real life 'cause I don't feel inspired like that. But at the same time I know I don't necessarily invite comments a lot, with fic or meta. I'm amazed as many people as there are have me friended, and pretend you're not actually reading so as not to freak myself out. Like, DUDE. DUUUUUUUUDE. That's. That's... 297 people who usually don't say anything. Even my friends, generally, because there's only a small circle of maybe 5 people who tend to comment regularly at any one time-period and then go into 'sabbatical' (this circle shifts every few months or so)-- except for the perennial sistermagpie. Yes. That's only the people who have me on their flist. I mean. WHY??! If I thought about it too long, I'd be very confused (and possibly paranoid).

It can't be that 95% of you don't read or don't care (wouldn't you have defriended me?? ack! *hides & tries not to think about it*), but that's what I have to assume, right? The more positive option is that I'm confusing and/or you generally have nothing to say, but, uh, in a good way. Um.

No, seriously, if I consciously addressed all of you-- you-- out there-- yeah-- all the time, I'd totally freak out, so in a way it suits me that most people don't comment. I guess it's not that I'm a private person, exactly, in the sense that I want to control who reads or knows what-have-you about me, but. I -am- pretty shy, and only babble in a vaguely dissociated way, because this is 'online' and I'm not really there to have to look at everyone and be aware they're all paying attention right then. So there's that sense of disconnect/delay at the very least which allows me some breathing room.

Anyway, about the Defriending Amnesty thing: go ahead. If a whole mass of you rushes to defriend me, I'll know you were too embarrassed or whatever to do it before, and I won't be surprised, I suppose. It's not that I don't care, but it's also not that I want people to be tired or irritated by me or have to filter me out, y'know? I understand interests change, and I understand most people don't get to know me that well through this lj so they don't have a sense of personal connection, probably, so no personal feelings, right? Okay.
    As for me-- I usually don't defriend, but if I do it's only 'cause the person hasn't posted in a really long time, or our interests have -really- heavily diverged. Sometimes I prune 'cause I get overwhelmed with how long it takes for me to read my flist (I'd much rather spend time on the net reading porn, for which it was invented. Hey, straight up.) It has never once been 'cause I didn't like them. Simple, yeah?

Trying to be more entertaining: meme, by way of furiosity!
    You post a topic, list, category, whatever, in my comments section. (examples: "Top 5 Reasons To Like Draco Malfoy" or "Top 5 Crack Bunnies"). Then, in a separate post, I'll post the answers to all your Top 5 ideas, according to me.

Comments

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Calling in from sabbatical, here! I have no idea if you meant anyone in particular, and it's probably presumptious of me to think that anyone notices when I do go on walkabout, but FWIW it has nothing, ever, to do with your comments, and more to do with whether I've grown tired (temporarily!) of the sound of my own voice. Which happens from time to time . . . I babble, and then I shut up for a while, and then I babble again. Funiculi, funicula! It's like being bi-polar, a little.

Also: top 5 things Harry and Draco get wrong about each other.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I do notice when you go on sabbatical, though it's more that I'm surprised when you come back :D Sometimes the 'tired of my own voice' happens to me too (especially with HP and/or H/D), but I just can't help rambling about whatever's tickling my fancy at the moment. I think other people talk to their friends or something when the urge to babble strikes them, but of course I wouldn't know :>

I babble and shut up too, most especially in real life. Except not on my lj. I think if I don't talk, I feel... uh... like I don't exist & people will just forget me any second now. Huh.

Ehehe, trust yours to be the one that made me think, yaye! Though man, I'm rusty with H/D so it took awhile o_0

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Well now, in breach of the limits even of my narcissism, I have to ask why you're surprised when I come back? Do I seem like one of those people who will come to a bad end, and everyone will just shake their head and say, "we knew it, it was just a matter of time!"

I know what you mean about feeling like you don't exist if you don't talk. Although sometimes it's nice to disappear, I don't know! And I'm much more self-conscious about posting in my LJ than in commenting on other peoples' threads, because when I post I feel as though I should have something to say, to sort of get up on stage and declaim it, while commenting is just normal conversation.

I loved your "five things" about Harry and Draco. I think you're dead right -- they each see themselves as so put upon, and the other as leading such a charmed life, and it's such a perfect recipe for self-pity and resentment. And for the occasional shove or kick, just to help rectify the balance! If only they truly understood each other -- then they could really piss each other off . . .

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think in my case, it's more that when people normally 'leave me', they don't tend to come back, ahahah. And also I tend to 'give up' on people rather easily, deciding they've now said all there was to say and I'm no longer of any interest (if they stop talking, that is). I'm always shocked when people come back-- like, wow, uh, it -wasn't- All About Me. And speaking of narcissism ;) (Though I'm more solipsistic than narcissistic, for most people that's prolly a too-subtle difference).

With 'declaiming' on lj-- I've heard this several times from people, and-- um, I think if I felt that way, I'd never say anything (that is, if I was fully aware of my audience, I'd get freaked out, as I'd said). I think all that allows me to post regularly is tuning people out & pretending they're not there-- not too hard, since they barely ever talk to me, what with my general average of 1-2 comments per post. ^^;; 5 comments is a let-letter day. I guess I give off this vibe, too, since people often tell me I don't seem to be 'asking' for feedback, or I've already said it all myself, or I seem like an 'article' rather than a person or what have you.

You know, I think that's what genuinely bothers me the most in how most people H/D, perhaps-- that lack of general awareness than boy, these two piss each other off for reasons that have -nothing- to do with whether Draco says 'Mudblood' or is a Death Eater and whether Harry feels insecure he's not as 'cool' as Draco. It's sort of like... they're in each other's space, or something, and there's all this intrinsic misunderstanding as to what the other wants. It's not-- really really not-- that if you took away Draco's parentage, he'd be Harry's next bestest friend.

Then again, I deeply suspect if most shippers realized this, they wouldn't ship them, maybe :>

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm guilty sometimes of just abandoning threads when they seem "talked out," and I wonder sometimes if this comes off as rude -- I hope not; I don't feel like I'm abandoning people really, because I sort of believe, well, there'll always be another thread, another chance to connect with them as far as the next topic permits. I think I got more cold-blooded about that on NrAged, when Magpie and I used to have so many separate threads going that you'd go nuts if you tried to keep them all running until every possibility was exhausted.

Also, I find writing comments either very easy or very difficult, and I've just come to go along with my instincts on whether I have something to say or not, or whether it's clear enough in my head to take the time to set it down. I pretty much always write even really long multi-part comments all at once in a rush, without drafts or editing (except a little formatting under "preview," and not always even then.) And if I get stuck, or lose the thread, then I just let it go -- I've tried saving and editing complicated meta comments that I couldn't finish, and it just doesn't work, I just lose interest once the first rush is gone. Also, I find if I don't comment when the mental juices are flowing -- like right after I read a post or a chapter of a story -- that I never, ever come back to it, even with the best intentions.

So anyway, solipsism, yeah. I guess it's self indulgent of me to meta-babble about my own approach to commenting. But I think we all get hypervigiliant sometimes and wonder what the things that other people do actually mean. Did that person stop commenting on the thread because I offended them, or bored them? Or "I rule because my thread went on for fifteen exchanges!" I mean, I'm guilty of that too, of wondering and feeling self-conscious. But in the end any given case doesn't necessarily mean anything in particular, and I guess I take some comfort in thinking that a connection endures, even if it isn't manifested every day. There'll always be another thread, another something or other to babble about with this person, mainly because they're an interesting person.

I have to laugh about how you visualize -- or refuse to visualize -- your "audience." I mean, yeah, it's weird to think about people being "out there." It's hard for me to generalize since I post so seldom. But I think I visualize a few people who I hope will be interested and who I hope will reply. And yeah, it's frustrating to get dead silence or fewer comments on something you thought hard about. But the logic in my own posts is often half-assed enough that there are plenty of points to attack them. And it never hurts to ask, directly in the post, "Does anyone think this makes sense?" :)

Draco and Harry -- yeah, they fundamentally see each other as usurpers. It's much bigger than interpersonal static, than not liking each other as personalities. The WW, for Harry, is all about all about reclaiming his self-worth, of finding an objective field for the narcissim that kept him going at the Dursleys but that he had to repress -- but Draco appears to him as this status challenge that he can't incorporate or come to terms with: just by existing, he seems to validate every nasty human institution that ever made Harry feel small. And Harry, for Draco, represents status or standing divorced from any possible personal merit or quality, where Draco's whole worldview is about being better than other people in tangible ways, and deserving more as a result. It's like each of their whole laboriously constructed psychic worlds would come crashing down if they had to make a place in it for the other. There's probably some wilful blindness involved in even seeing them as a pairing in the first place, though I think the mutual obsession is real enough in canon. I said to Aja once "they'll never last, you know?" and sure enough, she went and fell in love with those crudely drawn tennis boys instead! ;)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I'd think anyone would abandon a talked-out thread! I mean, to keep going would be just painful and wrong :> I hope no one takes -those- sorts of things to heart-- for me it's only noticeable when there's a stretch of posts where someone comments and then a much longer stretch when they don't, at all. It's only when they stop talking in any venue that I get that sense they've 'moved past' me (though I suspect I overreact). I generally only reply when I have something to say (doesn't everyone?) I suppose you could say it's just that I have more things to say about more subjects than most :>

For me, that whole commenting thing's a 'rush of inspiration' deal too-- I comment because I can't help it, not because I'm trying to please anyone, so all that begging for comments or people who say they purposefully do it to keep up some sort of social image just bothers me. Though I think that just makes them more extraverted or socially conscious or... something. -.-

I imagine part of the purpose of commenting is to babble and be solipsistic and spam each other in a fun way-- as long as it's enjoyable :D Like, even if people aren't talking about anything too overtly 'personal', it's personal if it feels indulgent, isn't it, which is the attraction a lot of times :>

Hahah, I think my logic's usually way wonkier than yours, which is why I feel insecure about people not attacking it (like, um, this makes me suspect they don't read 'em). Sometimes I do write to a specific mini-audience too, though, but not consciously-- well, sometimes I -avoid- saying certain things, like 'she'll freak out if I say this about Draco', but that's about all. It's hard for me to um, address people too directly without feeling horribly awkward and shy, so I may do a bit of hiding behind my own ideas on purpose :> But I always feel just *terribly* awkward if people tell me they admire me for my deep-thinkingness, so far above the fray of 'normal'... man. I put myself in a glass house & then get all disturbed to see others put me there also ^^;; Plus I'm really not... I'm not... don't people go to school? I don't sound like a professor, do I....

Hee! I love the idea that narcissism was what kept Harry going at the Dursleys-- I guess that's true; I can identify with it (like, I tend to feel more superior the more stressed out with my social environment I am). I love psychic worlds crashing down, man :D That's why writing H/D always made me feel vaguely sadistic (to the characters involved, I mean). I suppose you can make the argument they don't even -know- each other as personalities, but-- I think there's personal friction (resentment that's on a personal level) even if it's not about personality but rather their own issues clashing. Um.

I think that's why H/D feels so romantic, in a way-- that 'willful blindness' is the thing-- the very height of romance, in a way. That sense of impermanence, fleeting youth, conflict, stunted growth-- all the things that make up the beating heart of being 15-16 (as far as I remember, heh). So I get all unhappy with the rampant contentment/smugness, like, 'of course it works'-- like, how could you really -want- it to work enough if you don't have that big honking 'IMPOSSIBLE, NEVER LAST, THEY'D STRANGLE EACH OTHER IN A WEEK-- GOOD SEX THOUGH' sign hanging over you?

Sometimes I wonder if they'd just bore each other if they saw each other without all that status stuff to give it some zing, though :))

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

OK, I can see the difference, where someone just doesn't comment on a series of posts. It's hard for me to compare directly, because I post so seldom, although I guess there are certain people who I talk to mostly who tend to comment more often than not when I do post, and sometimes I think "where did they go" if they pass it over. I would probably be more conscious of it if I posted more.

But on the other hand, I guess I tend to shrug it off because I know there are such bizarre patterns in my own commenting that aren't patterns, really, in the sense of having any logical reason for them. I go through phases where I don't read LJ much at all, just skim the flist; or phases (especially around the holidays) where there's lots of fic and I just read fic, not the meta, because I can't read it all. Or days where everyone in the world seems to be into manga, which, for whatever reason, just doesn't do anyting for me at all. :) Or if I have one intense conversation going across a couple of days sometimes I just don't comment elsewhere while that's in progress.

And most of that is just about time, as in, who has enough? I try to at least skim my entire flist every day, and one of the reasons I get so conflicted about fandom is that it seems like doing it properly, really doing everything I might like to do or be interested in as a meta-person or reviewer or commentator or, god-help-us, to try and write fic (which I've tried to do), would be such an enormous commitment that I couldn't even imagine being able to do that. So I'm resigned to sort of being one of those hit or miss backbencher types, who attends sessions now and then, and chats with whoever happens to be in the house, and how many ways can I mix this metaphor? :)

The weird thing is that perspectives and measurements are so different -- I think of you as one of the people I talk to most frequently on LJ, one of probably less than a dozen people that I can say, in any sense, that I talk with them "regularly", and yet I know there are long gaps where we don't cross paths at all, so to someone whose standard of "regular" might be that they chat weekly or daily or even "twice a month" it would just seem bizarre to suggest this.

And I will not be entrapped into a dialogue about how intellectual your posts are! You will just have to come to terms with being intelligent, whether you like it or not. :) But FWIW, you certainly don't "sound like an article," whatever that means, and you shouldn't let the know-nothings cramp your style.

Well, on the question of Harry at the Dursleys, I was thinking about your narcissism/solipsism difference. Solipsism seems to me a kind of happy/comfortable thing, even if it's teasable, where someone just revolves contentedly in their own little orbit, but narcissism seems to involve a more desperate sort of self-assertion. Um, this is not DSM-IV, of course. So yeah, I mean, Harry must have told himself continuously that he had value, that he was better than this, even if he had no objective reason for believing it, in order to keep himself from just turning into a worm at the Dursleys. And I think one of the things that makes him an instantly attractive character in PS/SS is the way he asserts himself, aggressively claims what he is entitled to (the letter, his self-respect) even after ten years of abuse. On the other hand, this fucks him up in subtle and not-so-subtle ways in a give-and-take society of his peers, at school. But that's another post!

As for Harry and Draco -- you know, if they didn't have issues, I think they could be friends, just based on personality. I think they have similar senses of humor, a similar sense of the absurd, a strong need for affection. Which is sort of their tragedy and their temptation to writers, really, because the "extraneous" stuff about ego and space and usurpation really isn't extraneous, it's burned into their character and outlook by their experience and isn't going away. They really are their issues more than they are their bare personalities.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Man, for all this awareness of other people, I don't think of my own reading patterns much (like, well, I know who I am and am not talking to 'regularly' if by that you mean 'every few days or weekly', because any more than that and they go into 'inactive' mode). I think I -tend- to comment on some people's posts and not others-- and generally, the less I comment on someone's journal, the closer I get to thinking I should take 'em off my flist. It like, never happens that I think someone's just -fascinating- and yet I have nothing to say (unless I just haven't gotten to that day, but then I'll comment on their next post, probably). I think for me, talking is directly related to interest and a bit with familiarity-- which, I'm gathering, it's not for other people.

Sometimes, 'tis true, I'll read a meta post of someone -not- on my flist & say nothing even if it's interesting-- I'll memory it instead and most likely post in my own journal instead of commenting. I know what you mean about not having time-- and I go through phases where I just skim and never say anything to anyone, but then I'm barely reading my flist at all so I think of myself as being on 'sabbatical' or basically 'not really there'. If I read & like, I'll say something somewhere, even if just on my own lj. The only exception is prolly canon-commentary posts, which I enjoy but don't feel inspired to riff on unless it's something actually new about my pet characters-- so perhaps that's how people feel about other meta. Like they're interested but not -that- interested. Eh.

And it's not like I can't deal with being intelligent, precisely (!haha), but, um, people I respect & stuff tend to say stuff like 'your posts are too rambly and you don't support your points and you really need to learn to write essays more well-structuredly'. To -me-, nearly everyone else writing meta intelligently is doing something somehow really different from me-- like in style & content, too. I suppose, uh, it tends to be more rationalist & less philosophically bent 95% of the time, and I guess those are just different approaches & types of intelligence? My intuition feels awkward being respected as if I'm on to some hard science. Not that I don't think highly enough of myself, but I just feel-- *different*--?

Hee, one of my favorite things about talking to you about H/D is how I can never quite tell if we're disagreeing or I'm just seeing more angles or what :D But I appreciate the burst of optimism :D And yeah, um, I know what you mean about talking 'regularly'-- I suppose if you -like- the exchanges, you'd see a temporal pattern to them even if it's long-term & irregular :>

With the friends thing-- I go back and forth on it; ideally, I love and want to see more H/D friendship (in fic), and am fascinated with reading that in some ways more than the romance/sex part (I really liked the quasi-friendship in one of the Merry Smutmas fics, `A Very Long Misadventure'). On the other hand, I get very frustrated with how people have Draco no longer be a Death Eater or stop saying 'Mudblood' or whatever and poof! Harry has no problems with him & vice versa. It's like, I also doubt the idea that you can 'strip back' history & get to some 'pure' and unsullied version of one's personality & start over. Also, some of the things most natural to Draco-- his bragging & narcissism, etc-- are some of the things that annoy Harry the most, whether or not they're 'like' him. Like, I think he doesn't like people who mock anyone he -likes-, and while Draco may be the same way, the people they like are just fundamentally different kinds of people (meaning, what they are drawn to-- like, I can't see Draco gravitating to the Weasleys even if he is starved for affection). So yes, we, uh, agree :D :D

Also, to strip back one's ego-issues is to lose the tension -and- make it just another boring lovey-dovey relationship. Not to mention all that stuff H/D shippers like to say about how 'Harry needs to love while Draco needs to be loved' is just so much crap :>