reenka

Skimming the comments to this post about the increasing potential for slash mainstreaming, it occurs to me that there's a difference between not liking to read slash as a genre ('cause you're just so painfully hetero it hurts or are a canon whore... and I say that lovingly) and not supporting it. :/

Maybe I've just lost what little patience I had after seeing this post by Mairead/Aristide (one of my favorite Highlander/Sentinel writers) about the homophobia rampant in Santa Barbara. I know it's unrelated, but it's exactly the sort of thing that's related to absolutely everything, every little detail in terms of how people think on many issues. Prejudice in general, no matter what kind, is such a wide-ranging and complex issue; you can't pinpoint it and eliminate it in one place-- it'll always pop up in another. And people are so well-meaning these days, so blase and PC about it, but that doesn't change my feeling that you should support slash (with whatever literary caveats) just on principle. Just to say it's, you know, okay and not take that for granted.

I dunno.

On the other hand, I don't want slash to go mainstream; I don't want the media attention, and even moreso the courts' attention. Then again, I don't think we -need- the mainstream-- it's not like they can give us anything we don't already have quite enough of, 'cause the people who were going to find that obscure little manga fandom probably would anyway and the 25-30% new laypeople into HP or like, House or something who might join... uh, well, I'm not so enamoured of fandom size/loudness/etc that I think it should grow and multiply like the proverbial Blob from Outer Space. Plus, the more mainstream you go the more people try to make money off you, and that... they already do enough of that. I mean, in many ways, fandom (the cons, the self-produced zines, the net community-- all of it) is by definition a grass-roots sort of thing; it's 'for the people by the people', and going mainstream definitely means tempting The Powers That Be to mess with this dynamic & our freedoms. Privacy isn't even an issue here; give the mainstream media a bone & they'll take your leg off, that's the issue. :/

Oh, and I feel the mainstreaming of BL manga & manga in general is totally different-- it's not a grass-roots thing by nature so much as necessity; while I still prefer to get my manga for free and feel there's still not enough diversity & market competition to make sure I get the translation/editing quality & selection I want to see-- manga is by nature a product. I like the BL fandom but can really take it or leave it-- I mean, it mostly consists of fangirl squeeing about hotness anyway. Slash is qualitatively different; while it's not original the way one's own novel would be, the writing/reading is only one part of a triad-- watching/reading canon, interacting with fans and fanfic/vids/art. With manga scanlations, there's just... y'know, manga, whether or not it's professional or amateur (sort of the way you have amateur porn even though there's tons of 'professional' porn, ahahah).

You know, it's a lot easier to say 'this isn't working for me' about a thing [fandom, pairing] you love without rancor when something else -is- working. Spectacularly :> :>

Wow. It's like... I love so many more things about the possibilities in HP & H/D than [what I currently know of] The Sentinel, but maaan... now here is a fandom where for years, oodles of talented people decided 'hey, I like The Sentinel... why don't I write long, plotty, smutty, well-characterized-- and completed!-- epics for it? that sounds like a swell idea'. Where in HP we have WIPs & crackfic [especially in H/D], to the point where you have fanon crack successfully accepted as 'normal' fic a lot of times because, y'know, it's written seriously-- in TS there's crack & PWPs in their nice cozy corner-- a big corner, but not the overwhelming majority of stuff written. Wow. I'm so in love. *____* Nearly OD'ing, yes, sort of horrified at the idea of never leaving the house for a week and only reading longfic after longfic, yes, but-- in love :D :D :D

See, people (the fangirls I know) seem to fall in love with fandoms or characters or pairings rather than... well, fanfics. And I obviously do the character-love thing too, but I can't be in a fandom just for that-- it drains me, upsets me, frustrates me. Not that I'd be so happy if I wasn't really into Jim/Blair too, but if you wrote this pairing in an average manner, I would never dig it-- it's too ordinary, too... commonplace at its roots. Too easy to mess up, but in a subtle way, the way real relationships-- well, friendships-turned-relationships-- tend to be. It requires a deft touch in a different way than the overt dramatics and baggage of H/D. Maybe H/D is just -so- sparkly/dense/extreme that it seems easier because it's so difficult people get overwhelmed and bounce straight into crack/fanon. I mean, Jim/Blair is difficult too, but in an intricate, slow-paced, humanly complicated way, so maybe that quality attracts the kind of writing I've been dying to see in HP, I dunno.

I remember asking for fandom recs, and really I should've asked for fic recs-- though these things come in their own good time. I mean, I should just accept there's generally this gap between what sort of canon I like and what fanon it produces, because there's actually a bunch of YA book/TV & manga/anime fandoms I'd read for if it produced serious lengthy slash epics... which. It doesn't. At all. -.- With possibly the exception of Buffy... which I don't slash. ^^;
    Man, it's just... so great to let go of the baggage, y'know? A weight off my shoulders, only having my innate biases with me as I read, and not years'-worth of accumulated fanon-consciousness and peevish particularity. It's so blessedly wonderful to not know the fanon, I can't even tell you; to just... be unaware when a tiny little note is off, and only notice the big, important things and how they fit together, slowly. It's so wonderful to relax & admit that writing is what I care about, fanfic or not. I'm so tired of being a canon-whore, so tired of vigilance, so tired of trying to take crack seriously, man. I like reading stuff with meat on its bones so I could -appreciate- the fluffy crack more & not get sick on my chocolate diet. Ahh.

Which is not to say I'm not thinking of actually downloading The Sentinel to watch, 'cause I am :D Hey, BLAIR IS HOT, NEIN?? :D :D :D :D

It's funny how the perceptions & definitions of quite separate concepts get mixed up so often. Like: 'fluff'.

Like. Okay, what with most people mean by 'fluff', I guess I'd have to say don't like it, y'know (even though that's not true)? I feel like a liar when I say 'okay, fine, I'm an angst-whore' because I'm not, but it's like in the binary world of that definition, I would have to be, or something, because by a rather prevalent (implied) definition, fluff = OOC, careless, overly-saccharine & largely humorless. Like crackfic except more staid and less out there & imaginative (as opposed to my definition, where fluff is basically 'feel-good fic where it's more slice-of-life warmth than serious drama' or perhaps just 'optimistic!fic' should cover it-- and WHY oh WHY should optimistic = implausible/saccharine/over-the-top??).
    It's as if the usual, widespread usage of 'liking fluff' (not to mention 'liking smutty romantic fluff') implies consciously turning away from realism. As if you cannot have... I dunno... fluff-smutty realism (which... you can, it's just, y'know, harder to write, esp. with a canonically rivalslash/angsty pairing). You can so totally have perfectly IC fluff-smutty fic, cute & sexy & IC... well, mostly with friendslash, but also as lighter episodes late in a long-running rivalslash. I've seen it! I've loved it! IT EXISTS. You don't have to be like 'well, I like an angsty pairing but I can't take angst all the time so let's just throw plausibility & common sense out the window 'cause it feels good & it's easy'. You could be-- no one's stopping you; you just don't -have- to.
    In other words, optimism & denial? NOT THE SAME THING.

Also, when people make these strident, eloquent posts about how no sexual kink or fantasy expressed in fanfic is morally questionable-- yeay, sexual freedom, right? So far, so good. And then 'sexual fantasy' becomes writing, which... is a craft, unlike sexual fantasizing, so. Um.
   ( *snip* )

...Y'know, it just occurred to me that 'wank' also means 'lame kerfuffle' in fandomland, which it's perfectly fine [...if a bit overzealous] to hate. But no, I mean the Other White Wank. Um. ^^;;

So, uh... I think I went a bit overboard with the 'subtle' mockery [to the point of wank?? I dunnooooo..!], but I just got an anonymous comment on like, a 3 year-old post of mine on 'straight' boys wanking. She accused me of things like disliking masturbation (...HAHAHAHA), being wrong for having 'opinions', and nastily-- and immorally!!-- studying poor helpless wanking boys 'as if they were animals'. Though maybe I should be flattered she was so certain much work went into writing that things-- well, it's true I used to spend more time on my posts than I do -now-, but even then I wouldn't really congratulate myself on mental effort. o_0 Y'know, I don't think I -ever- make that much mental effort [enough to congratulate me on].

...I really hope she didn't find it through google. -.-

It really never ceases to amaze me how people can read 'yellow' and see 'purple'. I mean, I know I make stupid mistakes and say silly things a lot of times, but really, I wish people would at least... I dunno... accuse of me of saying stuff I actually -said-. Or something. I know I ask for a lot -.-

...Was my ev01 twin I too mean? :/ Wah! Evil!Reena strikes again :(

...Man, there are several super-awesome things about living in Capitol Hill in Seattle, but one of the most awesome is definitely seeing all these gay couples holding hands as they walk down the street or order an espresso or whatever. Man, I must've seen like, three today (I know I'm from NYC, but this just does -not- happen nearly as much, even in the Village). I have to struggle not to squee, 'cause... it's definitely adorable. Awwwww. Though I laugh to myself a bit imagining their response if they knew of my little hobby. *facepalm* It's a bit like being undercover. Oh man.

I was talking to blacksatinrose earlier about why is it people seem to care so much whether whatever fannish opinion [especially ship-related] they have is 'popular' or not... and my idea at the time was that we have a desire for community validation.
    EDIT - Though actually we were talking about why people get psycho bent out of shape about it so maybe that doesn't quite apply, but anyway....
    So um, I was asking myself why -I'd- care whether I have popular or unpopular opinions in fandom-- and I realized that generally it's about subjects that seem to produce the kind of writing/reading environment I don't want to be a part of, maybe. The more popular a certain opinion is-- say 'writing IC isn't important 'cause fun = all that matters' or 'ICness = completely subjective so it's irrelevant as a label'-- the more it'll influence what sort of fic you see. The underlying meta that's around may not directly influence fandom, but it's a -product- of fandom influence, so if I see a lot of discussion that leans a certain way, chances are that's the sort of fic that's out there. If I don't want to read fic written with those meta underpinnings, however well-written, then my problem is more with the meta than with a particular fic, isn't it?

I mean, this is about meta, not a fic, right, and I can't help caring when many people disagree with this: hi, ICness? Is real. It EXISTS.

It's not totally subjective (though neither is it totally objective). It's not an exact science, obviously, it being literary criticism and not biochem, but the problem with literary criticism is actually that people get away with saying 'anything goes' in terms of interpretation. This is why I remember sitting in Tolkien class listening to some academics' interpretations of the books and thought OMFG, ALL THESE PEOPLE ARE ON SO MUCH CRACK. :/ And this is why I was too bloody embarrassed to be an English major, y'know? That much wanking can't be healthy. :/

I mean, hey. It's okay-- I didn't lose sleep over it; I'm okay-- you're okay. Being on crack is okay; I dig it. No hurt feelings; knock yourself out. But it doesn't change the fact that you are, you know, on it. What I care about-- what I can't stand-- is when people dismiss it as an issue altogether.

( ...and now for some gratuitous belaboring of the point, because I'm just a barrel of laughs like that. :/ )

Um, so my 'conclusion' is that I really only get bent out of shape when things are discussed as 'just opinion', popular or not, when I don't consider them to be. Since I don't think the existence of ICness vs OOCness is totally subjective, discussing it as such is just incorrect, the way it would be incorrect to seriously discuss how those funky weird people like their funky e-vo-lu-tion when OBVIOUSLY-- obviously!-- the world was created by elephants. In Japan. These elephants, they sat in Japan at the dawn of time & they thought, hey [they thought], why not create the universe? It already exists anyway, so it's no biggie. And thusly! THE WORLD WAS BORN. Or something. So. Yeah, that kind of opinion rubs me the wrong way, somehow.
~~

Ermm... this is [once again] not the post I wanted to write; the rant just... took me like it always does on this subject.... This is not the rant you're looking for :/ Restart, restart, reboot.... Damn, no energy. I pretty much blew my writerly wad already, but... must-- mention-- actually-- interesting-- subject-- must not-- give-- in....

Oh yeah, I've been reading 'Benighted' by Kit Whitfield, which is based around a what-if: what if 99% of the world was werewolves, with only a very few humans, and those humans took care of the werewolves on the night of the full moon?
    This actually set me off on an interesting tangent 'cause there's a Q&A session and a 'reader's guide' at the back of the book [which I found V. V. ANNOYING, but] where Kit Whitfield says, in response to a question about what genre the book is, that genre is just for bookstore marketing & doesn't describe real books suffiently & keeps people from reading wider and finding things they might otherwise like. All of which is true as far as it goes, but....

( ...blah. )

See, yes. I'm not crazy-- when I see stuff like lillithium's latest Harry & Draco watercolor I feel like there's a reason I'm still interested in H/D besides just pure stubborn obsessiveness-- like maybe there's still something to say, something to talk about (even if I don't often see anything like that said or talked about). Because... Harry's darkness & Draco's light are so very interesting, aren't they? Really, I just can't look at that picture and see the sexualized dom/sub dynamic-- I can only see the eggshell-thin barely-contained power about to explode between them. Also, I think that is just one moment-- like, in my head, at the next moment Draco turns the tables by saying something low or demanding, Harry's face crumbles, someone gets angry-- something -moves- between them. Something always moves; if I see stillness, I think of just how rare that sort of moment would have to be.

Haha, pretty ridiculous that I don't post or go online for days and days, and even though I'm writing a longish meta entry on reading that just keeps growing-- and even though I have much I could say about Seattle and the many ridiculous and exhilarating and crazy moments I've had... somehow nothing touches my muse like that Harry. I love exploring and discussing, but in the end want to submerge into the darkest, weirdest, most intimate and hidden possible corner of a character's mind and just roll around there. Because, really, what is that if not a portrayal of Harry's Shadow self? His dark side, which keeps battering and battering against Draco (in canon, I mean). And I've never quite found a character who's this accessible to me in their deepest darkest corners; I've never thought I could go all the way through 'the long march to their soul' [thanks, Nick Hornby]. Lick up their spleen and blood and sinew and really know what makes them hurt at 3am.

Ahhh, I'm really the writerly equivalent of a methodical, loving sadist, I know. One of the main reasons I write is just to take people apart and see how they put themselves back together-- see that transformation from dark to light, like the sunrise of the soul. Yeah, I'm a bit addicted to that, I guess. That is probably one of the most true things I could ever say about myself.
    PS: I guess this sort of thing might be why H/D people keep sporadically adding me and others tell me I'm still in fandom, but... there's a difference between being part of a community & being a 'feral fan' (okay I dislike that term too, but it works 'cause I can't be bothered to come up with a better alternative... & also I really am pretty feral). It's hard to be into it without constantly thinking 'but am I like the other H/D fans??' and like... I guess I'm like more old-skool fans and not-so-much like more recent fans, so. It's really a shared history/perspective thing than a 'liking a certain pairing/character' thing. Though I must say I've yet to meet a Harry fan I disliked... it's also true I just don't really speak much with people I don't already like in the first place so my segment's pretty skewed ^^;

Okay, so I dunno if anyone noticed [durrrr...] but I've been gone-- as in, not online at all since Monday. That is because I've been packing... my computer, among well, everything else. So... currently I'm on a rented laptop [hello, Dell!] in a cybercafe and having made my triumphant so-called return (after dreaming of checking my email constantly-- somehow convinced I was Missing Out On Big Important Things, or that at least one person tried to get my attention... but no)-- well, it's been 15 minutes, and man. Ladies and gentlemen, Reena's Ennui is BACK :P Yeah, it took me all of 5 minutes-- at best-- to feel completely disenchanted to the point where I wonder if there's ANY reason I miss being online outside of sheer habit ^^; Christ.

I -was- really bored-- I mean, in an empty apartment, pretty freaked out by small noises [and my card-stealing upstairs neighbors], waiting a whole day for the UPS guy that never came-- not to mention packing, packing, packing, and then with a side of some packing. I, er, did a lot of packing. And also a bunch of crazy stunts that one only does when one's officially Really Bored [in between waiting listlessly & packing]. I suppose I could've written some porn-- I mean, I did draw a "porn" H/D doodle which I'll scan later this weekend [once I get -near- a scanner], but I had no energy to really write or draw anything. Man. I'll lose my H/D fandom membership card this way :P Seriously, I dunno why, but I think people still friend me 'cause of the H/D [can't be anything else, can it]. Ahahah. Oh, that amuses me.
    Anyway, I spent "fun-filled hours" downloading cellphone ringers [ahahaha the Star Trek ones sent me into fits of geeky joy... yes, I am that sad]. I also got a pink pirate!kitty phone wallpaper. That is my height of excitement this week. Oh wait, and THEN THERE WAS ALL THE PACKING. How could I have forgotten. Alas. I am finally(!) escaping the hellhole that is Binghamton... expect more-- or rather, less of me around here in the future. I hope. Um. Yes. -.-;;

If anyone's curious, I made an album of various cellphone pics I took of my place while I was packing. I... went a little overboard -.-;;; Um.

I also uploaded a cellphone(!) wav file of me saying H/D things. Ahem (I was delirious! it was early morning! THERE WAS DUST IN THE AIR!!). Um. And here's a wav of me amusing myself even MORE. If that can be believed -.-; Okay, um, I should catch my bus now.

I'm procrastinating & so apt to think of pointless/mindless things... so when I saw a Ron/Luna icon and started trying to prove to myself why it'd never happen, I suddenly cheered up realizing that most pairings I like [-and- dislike] in HP are ridiculously unlikely. I've really no ground to stand on [though neither do they], and somehow that makes me happy. (I know, I know, I'm a freak.) It's so easy to get carried away railing about how some pairing is omg-so-not-gonna-work until you realize, hey, you LIKE that sort of thing :))
    My only wish is that people actually realized they liked really-fucking-unlikely pairings rather than claiming it was about to happen if not for that pesky canon. ^^;

Anyway. I had fun writing a list of all the pairings I have any strong opinion about, positive or negative, whether actually canon or fanon. I gave them all likelihood fractions from 1-10 [where 0 = NOT IN A ZILLION YEARS and 10 = WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST FUCK WHEN THEY WERE 11? THEY OBVIOUSLY WANTED TO!]. I enjoy putting down pairings, especially when I ship them myself, ahahahah. Basically, I tried bashing every pairing as much as possible [while still being reasonable]. Whee. Yeah, I know I've got a messed up idea of 'fun'. :/
    ( shipping = silly :P )
~~

PS: I just realized all my fractions/numbers are skewed 'cause I didn't factor in the fact that no slash/homo pairing can be as likely as an equivalent het pairing, since statistically hetero pairings are a lot more likely in general. I just didn't want to keep going into negatives too much, considering my rating for H/D & H/S-- I mean, if I took off 2 or 3 for 'unlikely seeing as PROBABLY NOT GAY' that's what would happen. I just think that's kinda funny, especially considering that I think in canon, both H/G & R/T got like +3 [if not more!] points extra likelihood 'cause they're het & this is the only available girl they 'hung around', not counting Hermione in the former case. :> Though in real life, I hear a lot of 'normal' people really do hook up with whoever's in the vicinity that's remotely attractive, ahahah. Although like, if you hang out together too much, the opposite effect happens & people sort of screen each other out [which is probably why Ginny had to be a bit in the background most of the time, I guess].

Anyway, yeay for gen & kasche's Marauders pic ♥ :D

While I'll get to writing about some of the things suggested (hee! there's much to say about sushi... mmm), I just wanted to say that having seen several [professional] comic & book writers reply to lj-comments about their work, it keeps on inspiring this deep sense of wrongness in me, like I'm seeing something that should not happen. Like... it's -wrong-. Brrrr-kinda wrong. I dunno, most things don't strike me that way-- I mean, usually something seems crazy or illogical or annoying, but generally not -wrong-, like it shouldn't happen like that. But yeah.

( ...um. )
~~

    If you comment on this post:
    [meme brought to you by ishuca & the Letter C]
1. I’ll respond with something random about you.
2. I’ll challenge you to try something.
3. I’ll pick a color that I associate with you.
4. I’ll tell you something I like about you.
5. I’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I’ll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I’ll ask you something I’ve always wanted to ask you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on yours.
~~

...Okay, now I can start packing to move to bloody Seattle *___*