[Sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.]

[reenka]

Man, I just read a quote somewhere about how when you come back & reread your favorite stories [or just good stories], they're always different. You always learn something new from them, or see something you didn't before, or feel things differently because you are at a different place in life & different things ping you. And I was like... yeah. That's why ideas or stories stay interesting to me at all; it's certainly surprising even to me, but I still see new things in like, Harry/Draco all the time or I really -would- have stopped by now. (Honest!) It's weird how that's also especially relevant to me as a writer [who also reads fanfic besides writing it].

    What's actually -more- weird is the concept that other [most?] people -don't- do that... that they have this constant stable response to a fic, or a type of fic, or a pairing, and then they either stop (liking or reading that fic/pairing) or they have a singular revolution, like the person in sistermagpie's latest H/D post who said they only started liking Draco post-HBP [when he went through an abrupt change so it was a shock to the system], whereas he was just "the nasty Slytherin" before. And, I mean... I can't look at a story I like and say any character is "just like that". I mean... really, that's a pretty big insult to JKR, if you think about it. o_0
    Any halfway decent character is going to have at least several faces or facets, and a really good story will have dozens, maybe hundreds. I mean, if you're talkin' Darth Maul or whatever, okay (he's just a nasty Sith lord! yep! fer sure!), but.... Yeah. :>

Okay, so like, I don't have a point, really. :/ But... it's just something I noticed being important for me to enjoy a story or an idea, even. That constant dynamic motion, you know? The sense of discovering myself along with the characters-- having them mean something to me, and not just about my ideals/projections but my emotional realities. I don't want love or stories or anything I spend emotional energy on to be like... too certain, too much like bedrock, maybe.
    Like, there are people who say they like a pairing [or a character] 'because they represent X', and they're fully certain they like X, so they're following some party line & liking whatever little 'x' reminds them of the big 'X', whether or not little 'x' even objectively exists in the narrative [and here we have Harmonians, ladies & gentlemen]. Isn't that just bloody SCARY? (Well, to me anyway.) That's cookie-cutter thinking, right there (even though I'm an idealist so I have to be careful or I'll slip into that sort of thing myself... which is prolly why it's so disturbing to me).
    Possibly it's why I'm so avoidant of fan-think like 'I like X character therefore I shall like any and all fics which mention/contain X character in a starring or positive role', etcetc. I can just feel my brain grinding to a halt & stumbling sloooowly, slowly into a deep dark RUT right there. :/

Right, so I have to disclaimer this & say that I realize that 'purchasing bewilderment' (as per that quote by Rumi) is something that's heavily dependent on one's personality preferences. Some people are 'judgers' & some 'perceivers' (according to the Myers-Briggs Jungian typology thing, anyway), and the judgers will be much more likely to make a snap decision and stick to it, while the perceiver will keep on keeping on gathering new information to use in decision-making till the cows come home. So like... I'm being very typical, saying 'I can never have too much new information!! :O!' while most 'J' types will be like 'just shut up & produce something already!! :O!' hehe :D (Especially considering that yeah, my post-HBP Death Eater!Draco novella keeps on changing depending on every new thought/insight I have about his characterization & H/D... so at this point, it may go on being written like, FOREVER, ahahaha... ha... *coughs*)

Comments

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

...

I don't speak "flippant!" And I don't know enough about Ps to know whether procrastinating indefinitely is literal or figurative. :p

what weirds me out is Js who do make snap decisions that seem based on illogical processes like the person who thought Draco was just a 'nasty Slytherin'. I suppose that's more likely to be an SJ than an NTJ, though

I don't know. I mean, I never had any great love for Harry until OotP, because I thought he was boring. And then he got angsty and that made him interesting. I don't really associate that with making snap decisions based on illogical processes, I think some kinds of characters just don't tickle some people and honestly I don't think Draco was presented as an especially deep character until HBP either. In OotP I saw some hint that he was about to become interesting, but he hadn't actually DONE it yet so I didn't care.

Maybe I am misunderstanding your point!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha, I just had to laugh at that, because... yeah, you really don't speak flippant :D :D And I... very rarely speak 'totally deliberate and 100% thought-through'... though when I do, look out, world! ;D

See, that's why I like N*Js; we have the N to provide a common reference point <3. Because while you're decisive, INTJs especially know -what- they're decisive about, -why-, and also intrinsically -until when- [until further information presents itself]. This sort of built-in scaling/contextualizing system allows me to agree or respect the point because it's made through a visible & valid process. Also, there's a difference between 'boring' (aka 'not enough there'), which is perfectly valid, and 'nasty', which implies there is enough there & sums it all up in a single word! Which is just the worst sort of J thinking to me because it lacks the N to provide possibilities and half-formed patterns for future development, so what's there is the text combined with sensory 'stereotypes'.

Like, instead of N-type patterns, there are these types ('a Slytherin') which are beyond rock-solid-- they seem made of cookie-cutter cement molds ^^;;; S types in general are like 'well, this is how things are' without really considering alternatives or specific context [more, 'typical' context], but SJs just make me shudder. Um. *coughs & looks around nervously* Well, I can't imagine any would read my lj anyway, I mean... they'd prolly get pretty confused & possibly disturbed :))

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

...it also just occurred to me that whether or not a P 'procrastinates indefinitely' [just as whether a J snap-judges] depends a lot on whether there's an S there (which makes a P more likely to try out lots of new things & be more active) or a T vs. an F (since an NTP tends to form decisions about & pay attention to different things than an NFP). Basically, it depends on what the P makes decisions -based- on (values or ideas) and whether they're likely to see possibilities or grasp opportunities :>

In my particular case, I procrastinate when I don't want to do something, and sort of slowly meander towards some apotheosis of enlightenment with ideas in general, but move forward like a bull on crack if I have an emotional value paired with an idea for the future or story or whatever-- decisive action just pours out of me in a sort of burst of glory then. :>