[proof that time outside doesn't make one grow saner....]

[reenka]

I had [yet another] nice little rant brewing in my head last night when I made the mistake of... uh, actually going to a Barnes&Noble and browsing before rabidly checking email. Um. And I'm not even talking about the porn-stars book next to the gardening section [which is where I was actually headed! ...honest!] where they were shown dressed & nude on the opposite page 'body portrait'. Um. Which may not sound so bad until you realize how SERIOUSLY disturbing 'serious!look' porn-stars are, of either gender. SERIOUSLY, OMFG!!1 I AM NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THAT GUY WITH THAT BEER-BELLY OR ALL THOSE IMPLANTS AND THE HUGE PINK FAKELY-SWOLLEN MOUTHS OMGWTF WTFWTF THEY ARE COMING TO GET ME, AAAARGHhgfkjhgjkhglkjhlkuylkjlj D:! ...*breathes*

Wow. Oh wait, yes, I am. *facepalm* It's just... okay, it's tacky in actual porn movies, but seen all glittery in an 'artsy' coffee-table book... they are just. Freaks of nature, okay. I don't even. THEY ARE SCARY. :O I WAS SHUDDERING. :O! [...and I like sex-books & nudity & porn, okay. Just. Not. Like. This.]

Clearly, going to the bookstore is bad for my mental health & I should stick to the nice, safe&sane sterile confines of fandom. *nodnod* [The real world is SCAWWY, someone hold hide me!!1 Augh!]

...In other words, I also had the misfortune to read People ['cause I have an unpaid-for-magazines fetish in that I read them compulsively as long as I don't have to buy them or look for them v. hard] and... there's a Bible school for 'delinquents' called 'Heartland' in Missouri [I think??] run by this crazy millionaire guy who thinks beating people up, abusing & torturing them constitutes a good Christian education. Which... should be shocking & isn't. Um. -.-
    
Yeah, so it's pretty much got a looooooong history of similar institutions & belief systems [Victorian age, anyone?? nearly current boarding-school system in Britain, anyone?? haha, okay no] behind it, but... what's really depressing is how easily it happens NOW in one of the supposedly most 'progressive' countries on the planet. [Ha...haha...ha.] Not even talking about it being state-sanctioned (for once, we are Not That Bad, I guess), but rather that apparently there are plenty of 'average' people, parents, who're willing to send their 'problem' kids to a place like that. Christ.

I was really nearly crying when I read descriptions of some of the stuff that routinely happens there; just... realizing people who do that to other people exist. Or maybe just because I myself went to a 'school for delinquents' [in Brooklyn] in my time, & ran away from a tiny tiny fraction of the badness of this hellhole, and have always been fascinated by the idea of how to help & educate the misfits and teenage delinquents of the world. It's really hits on a personal level, the idea that immersing a person in, you know, HELL ON EARTH would help them escape from someone else's [their parents'] idea of a 'bad crowd' or whatever. Not like this is really all that -unusual- as far as ideas go; no, it's actually got quite a pedigree-- and that's prolly why it gets to me the way it does. People -have- always thought 'hey, a little brainwashing and military-style torture may be JUST THE THING to help my wayward child'. And that. THAT. Seems somehow more criminal than simply, you know, pulling someone's guts out, in a way. It's more... insiduously, quietly evil.

An everyday evil is a lot more scary, man. Like. This is worse than evil accountants, okay, because evil accountants [and lawyers! well, that was a joke] seem almost -normal-, whereas evil PARENTS [and teachers] are both normal & yet never... actually... expected. Always the same level of Deeply Wrong no matter how jaded you get, in that wounded-child corner of your head that never goes away. Always with that tiny little 'but how COULD they??' at the back of your mind even though you've grown up & realized that okay, Grown-ups Suck but there are -reasons- and society's messed-up & they can't help being idiots & really, everyone's got problems. You know? (I can't help making fun of my own pained rant in my head, btw. Yes, I made the 'no one expects... THE SPANISH INQUISITION' joke to myself at this point. Le sigh.)

Anyway, er... it's funny, I can accept various sorts of [sanctioned & non] killers, child-molesters and rapists a lot more easily-- they anger me at times, but I don't -boggle- at their existence 'cause I've spent a lot of time trying to 'understand the Devil' & get in touch with my dark side, so as not to get self-righteous & therefore delusional [which would be almost as bad a sin in my mind, hahah]. This is just sort of... beyond 'Dark Side' & into 'Dark Ages', y'know? Which seems harder for me to accept just because I -know- we will always have killers & child-molesters [probably], but I like to nurse the idea that us modern human beings wouldn't let an anachronism like that exist. Silly, because tons of -other- anachronisms-- from the Amish & SCA to outdated public-behavior laws-- certainly do exist. Feh.
~~

But back to fandom, my dear refuge of sanity & joy...

....*coughs*

...my stillborn rant/ramble-type-thing had to do with why I have such a knee-jerk negative reaction to the common fandom idea of 'escapism' to excuse 'fanony fluff' & other ridiculous little bon-bons. Naturally, I thought this had to do with my ideas on Life, The Universe & Everything.
    
    I was thinking that it's actually a sort of ethical [moral?? the difference always confuses me] issue in my head, 'cause I attach moral value both to Fantasy & the idealizations and dreams that come with it, and to Truth, especially of the true-to-self and not-lying-to-self varieties.
    So I reconcile that by saying that Fantasy [and its escapist fluffy offspring] should ideally (heh!) be in the Tolkien-inspired tradition, going by his essay 'On Fairy Stories'. It should elevate and enlighten, lead us closer to the truth about ourselves through the use of eucatastrophe [the ultimate happy ending, the cataclysm of joy, etcetc Tolkien-was-a-bit-of-a-Christiancakes]. Not implying that every stupid 'fluffy fanon' kinkfic should have to aspire to those heights of [truthful] Joy in each specific case, but that in talking meta about one's preferences, people seem to be igniting my -own- frustrated desire for transcendence & need to reconcile that with an escapist's yen for guilty pleasure.

The mainstream run of open-minded people say 'accept all kinks, for they are kinks', and I do, all right. I accept (in practice, in terms of individuals, and in terms of how I relate directly to people in general-- I don't judge when it's a specific case). But at the same time, I can't help worrying at it in my head & needing to write it out, trying to come to terms with the idea that people have different needs/psychological make-ups, obviously [so maybe they do need to 'run away' & they just NEED to do it with a fanfic pairing that's eminently unsuited because THEY LIKE IT SO MUCH], and yet I still have my ideals and they are still something I believe in quite strongly, so. It's not that I want anyone to -do- anything or think like I do, obviously, but at the same time I want to believe that escapism is (could be?) Good and not just Convenient, and the truth is, it's mostly convenient. Yet if that's true, I can't say anything to all my friends who're 'meh' at it because they share the common definition. So really this is about me & my ideas about ideas and not about other people at all (even though it involves other people). Just to like... alienate you while trying not to alienate you [look ma, I'm addressing the reader! quite common on lj, but it seriously freaks me out to think of any real person reading this, so I indulge in a little so-called "escapism" just to write most posts without freaking out & locking it to hell & back... um]?? Or something :P

Perhaps it's also an escapist need to believe(!) that not lying to yourself about the [canon] characters' actual (flawed, warty, difficult & unfluffy) nature as you read just to get a buzz, you could yet find a deeper, more intense fulfillment by making realism work for your fantasy-fulfillment needs. That is my ultimate dream, y'know, one I so rarely see other shippers and lovers of happy endings share [to my continuing peevish irritation, haha]. It's like in fairy-tales, you could only -really- have a Happily Ever After after lots of trials and missteps and Evil Witches and Dastardly Princes and Horrible Toads. I can't keep skipping to the end without feeling jipped and upset, and can feel no unity of purpose in hearing anyone claiming to like romantic fantasy of any sort & yet liking to do just that!

In conclusion: where, oh where is my Mr Toad??! Without him, THERE CAN BE NO PRINCE & NO STORY! D:!!1 And that, ladies & gents, is why I'm an escapist romantic yet also an anti-fanony-fluff canon-thumpy freak, The End.

(And speaking of Reena The Escapist Freak... mmm, reading yaoi crack makes EVERYTHING BETTER. But see, fanfic just doesn't do it if I care about the canon characters! Woe. Except I love hp_secrets, so I HAVE NO EXCUSE D: Except, you know, that one where 'if it's cute & funny it's okay! cute & funny makes EVERYTHING OKAY! I DON'T KNOW! WHAT!' Um. It's just that I don't... take it seriously, I guess? That's a small difference, I know.) ...And yeah, you probably win a prize if you figure out just how many times I contradicted myself in this post; well, I plead the Whitman! C'mon, that one was cute, wasn't it... lame, but like one's favorite little stuffed toy is lame. OKAY I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, SOMEBODY SSSSSTOP... me!!1

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

...I love how I said all those provocative things about like, the ethical questionability of fluffy-fanon-kinkfic or whatever & no one's come over to yell at me yet but everyone's ignoring it :D :D I love my flist ))

Anyway, uh... yeah, I'm [still] quite rebellious, have been since I was a baby, but it was worse then & my school sucked so... uh... I didn't go & spent time in the library and the bookstore & like, parks [reading... and borrowing anime, but that came later]. I didn't do anything 'bad' except... avoiding, which... you know I'm good at :)) I couldn't make it to any 'super-speshul' school 'cause like, I didn't go to school long enough to get good grades & my Junior High was an academically weak Jewish school [which I went to to avoid a public school 'cause they were meeeeean & SCARY AND WEIRD]. So as a last resort, I went to an 'alternative' school where it was really small & we got lots of individual attention [which I like!] and they tried not to push us so we'd actuallyfinish school & -go- & stuff. It worked!! Haha, you -couldn't- push me like in that Heartland place. You couldn't get me there -or- keep me there... I mean, I know I seem mild-mannered etc but you know I'm actually not when I have my mind set, don't you :>

[frayach-nicuill.livejournal.com]

Sorry. Got side-tracked by porn-stars.

To me the idea that fluff/kinkfic is nebulously immoral, or at least unethical, is not necessarily a provocative idea to me. That's a discussion I had **alot** in the LotR fandom. I wrote Frodo/Sam exclusively, and because of what they had done and the nature of their relationship - it's mysteriousness (in an almost religious sense) and sublimity - I had allergic reactions to fluff fic, PWPs, kinkfic or smut fic. I wanted to read serious fic or nothing at all. In fact I have only been able to read one writer in the fandom for the last three years, and she's hardly writing anymore. As far as Harry/Draco is concerned, the issue doesn't feel as clear-cut to me. When I read fluff/kink fic, it's doesn't have that spitting-in-church-feel to it that fluff/kink in LotR engendered in me. As far as kink fic is concerned, maybe I'm still trying to work out in my head what kinds of boundaries exist between Harry and Draco - there seems to be *a lot* of darkness between them to explore that I could be convinced manifests itself in certain ways. The fluff is a lot harder for me to deal with actually, because it usually entails chucking realistic characterization out the window. Is that a moral qualm or an aesthetic one? I'm not sure. To the extent that I take my own writing ridiculously seriously and hope that other writers do the same, maybe it *is* a moral qualm. But perhaps it does go beyond upholding some kind of standard in writing . . . maybe it also goes to what I think Harry (and Draco) *could* stand for. There are very important themes there: sacrifice, courage, etc. etc. Sex & romance - no matter how titillating or ah-shucks - seem formulaic after awhile and a too-steady-diet of either starts to bleach some of the magic and mystery out of things. At least that's been my experience in other fandoms. Anyway. My glass of wine is empty and the Gregorian Chants CD I put in is starting to put me to sleep. Also, I think I stopped making sense sometime between "little monkeys" and anorexic porn-stars with nerveless lips.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ohh, I didn't mean to say 'kink' as in, 'sexual kink' was partly what I had any problem with considering how much I wrote of it myself, that would be...silly-- nor is 'fluff' an issue. It's the 'kink for fanony fluff' when coupled with someone who already admits they find the aesthetic of realistic challengic IC fics 'Good'. It's not like... in general, I have issues with fluff/kinkfic, ahahah-- I mean, let the people knock themselves out, I guess? But when it comes to caring but also discarding that in favor of surface pleasure or a buzz-- that's what bothers me. If someone just doesn't care & is in it for the porn, hell-- go ahead. I wave the PR0N banner along with everyone else [though it weirded me out a bit with Kirk/Spock somewhat for your Frodo/Sam reasons-- 'cause it was about a strong canonical platonic bond-- and I was generally only okay with 'serious' longfic slash for them-- in the end I just don't slash characters I consider to be that... special].

So yeah, I guess I was being too generalist to avoid offending whoever it was that made those comments on a post & wound up being unclear/confusing or losing my point ^^;; This... often happens :>

[shaggirl.livejournal.com]

Only you would find a school for malcontents less scary than public school. You do tend to think outside of the box. ;)