Also I have this ungodly and unwanted sudden "hello" from my libido and burnt fingers
The latter are a result of my continuing battle with Electronics class, in which patience gives way to rage, rage, and more rage with the increasing number of burns on my hands and inhalation of solder fumes. Invented several compound swearwords and went off on a loud and vociferous tangent about precisely what kind of dicks designed strip board to be so shit-cuddling fiddly.
Vanity delicious'd myself, and found this: 'And how can I not want to read a fic that the author has tagged with "eames is fat, screw your fanon the man is not a sex ninja, arthur is a robot serial killer"?' in relation to Take a Good Swing, which I believe completely validates my policy of terrorising the tag wranglers at AO3 like some kind of demonic force sent from the great Satan of fanfiction archiving.
Speaking of things I don't do to people's faces any more, have a thought process. Ruthi linked to a (very good and very funny) review of the new X-Men movie. I wanted to comment to correct a minor point ("Angel is in the comics as well, I think she was brought in during Grant Morrison's somewhat contentious run"), but then felt the urge to continue along the lines of "Of course pretty much anything that happens in comics ends up being contentious because comics fanboys are basically the crown-holders when it comes to being pedantic and conservative even Dr Who fans cannot hold a candle, but this was especially contentious because it's Grant Morrison and Grant Morrison is MENTAL."
Sounds alright so far, but I ended up not posting it because of this:
A little excess metafandom reading and general tumblrdicks has led me to eschew conversation with strangers on the grounds that I'd rather keep my own idiom than make friends with the kind of people who dislike the way I talk, because I am a very petty and self-centred person. And I cannot be in any way fucked with getting into a long discussion about ableist language and sane privilege just because I prefer to use the word "mental" to the word "unconventional" when talking about Grant Morrison. Mental has a lot more punch to it, and I am also a crazy person. I am so very much a crazy person. Part of what I'm drawing on for the fic I'm writing at the minute is my experiences of being deluded and paranoid enough a few times in my life to believe that PEOPLE COULD READ MY MIND. How did that feel, Derek? Shitty and terrifying! I was a crazyface. I'm still a crazyface. ONWARD.
So yeah rather than tweak one word I've not bothered posting the comment at all. \o/ Nose, face, spite, off.
Here, btw, are some fine reviews of the movie that Ruthi linked to: Erik, basically and ten things you should know. (The only flaw I've found in the former is the "reinventing yourself is a myth", because no, people walk the fuck out on their old identities and should be allowed to do so. I have giant angry words for any culture - ANY INCLUDING MINE - that try to steal people back from their choices. NO. NO. NO. NO. No matter how much you love someone or how much their absence hurts you, they are not yours. [/whoops someone stepped on one of my landmines]
That angry little explosion is actually an interesting thing to look at in itself (having calmed down by looking at pictures of boxers) because it demonstrates how we take different things from different works, even when we identify with the same characters. For example, while one person might feel affection for a character because they're shy and queer, another might be pleased that they're showing an accurate portrayal of the internalised guilt coming from a since-abandoned Catholic upbringing. The problem, of course, arises when one persons' Thing stops being Their Thing and becomes a lecture circuit in how everyone should write, read, or experience.
One of the reasons I tend not to write about characters-within-their-culture or characters-who-are-part-of-a-community is that I'm not Part Of My Community (geographically, sexually, in terms of my disability) and find the idea makes me violent and claustrophobic and deeply mentally unwell. I am within my own culture, but largely because my culture is one which allows me to not have any cultural convictions beyond "leave me the fuck alone" and to be disconnected from family or social obligations without utterly ostracising me. I do also (as this post may or may not demonstrate) have this charming tendency to assume that everything in the entire universe is all about me at all times ever. Lecture-posts about writing characters within their cultural context make me throw a red rubbery blood-shedding fit because they're interpreted on the receiving end as "you must do this thing, you must be like us (to the cost of your own identity) or we will destroy you". And I'm afraid "you must" messages don't go over very well with me. They instead make me want to set fire to people.
So the characters I choose to write about tend to be people who are, at best, fixated on something outside the realm of their family. Generally they're actually people who have rejected the identity that they were assumed to have, either due to circumstance or desire, and have either violently demolished it, shouted "AHHAHAHAA NO" and refused to build a concrete identity at all, or rigidly created a new one with no ties to the former beyond the thing that made them leave in the first place. These are likely to be the PoV characters, while people who do not fit this description are going to be supporting cast members. Reasons for this include: That's what I want to write. I write things I want to read because I'm just that much of a self-serving douche.
The great thing about being a self-serving douchepie is that you can pretty much not worry too much about what people think of your choices when it comes to writing exclusively about people whose relationship to their culture is either "NO FUCK OFF" or "ahahaha I would but they all exploded and now I'm nuts". It may well be demonstrating significant privilege on my part - I know there are a great many cultures in which "hahaha no fuck off" is not an acceptable response to familial obligations, it's not always acceptable in mine, but I am monster, and it is monsters that interest me. Not the ways in which they can be "redeemed" by a return to the fold, but who they become when they realise they are not enfolded any more.
Vanity delicious'd myself, and found this: 'And how can I not want to read a fic that the author has tagged with "eames is fat, screw your fanon the man is not a sex ninja, arthur is a robot serial killer"?' in relation to Take a Good Swing, which I believe completely validates my policy of terrorising the tag wranglers at AO3 like some kind of demonic force sent from the great Satan of fanfiction archiving.
Speaking of things I don't do to people's faces any more, have a thought process. Ruthi linked to a (very good and very funny) review of the new X-Men movie. I wanted to comment to correct a minor point ("Angel is in the comics as well, I think she was brought in during Grant Morrison's somewhat contentious run"), but then felt the urge to continue along the lines of "Of course pretty much anything that happens in comics ends up being contentious because comics fanboys are basically the crown-holders when it comes to being pedantic and conservative even Dr Who fans cannot hold a candle, but this was especially contentious because it's Grant Morrison and Grant Morrison is MENTAL."
Sounds alright so far, but I ended up not posting it because of this:
A little excess metafandom reading and general tumblrdicks has led me to eschew conversation with strangers on the grounds that I'd rather keep my own idiom than make friends with the kind of people who dislike the way I talk, because I am a very petty and self-centred person. And I cannot be in any way fucked with getting into a long discussion about ableist language and sane privilege just because I prefer to use the word "mental" to the word "unconventional" when talking about Grant Morrison. Mental has a lot more punch to it, and I am also a crazy person. I am so very much a crazy person. Part of what I'm drawing on for the fic I'm writing at the minute is my experiences of being deluded and paranoid enough a few times in my life to believe that PEOPLE COULD READ MY MIND. How did that feel, Derek? Shitty and terrifying! I was a crazyface. I'm still a crazyface. ONWARD.
So yeah rather than tweak one word I've not bothered posting the comment at all. \o/ Nose, face, spite, off.
Here, btw, are some fine reviews of the movie that Ruthi linked to: Erik, basically and ten things you should know. (The only flaw I've found in the former is the "reinventing yourself is a myth", because no, people walk the fuck out on their old identities and should be allowed to do so. I have giant angry words for any culture - ANY INCLUDING MINE - that try to steal people back from their choices. NO. NO. NO. NO. No matter how much you love someone or how much their absence hurts you, they are not yours. [/whoops someone stepped on one of my landmines]
That angry little explosion is actually an interesting thing to look at in itself (having calmed down by looking at pictures of boxers) because it demonstrates how we take different things from different works, even when we identify with the same characters. For example, while one person might feel affection for a character because they're shy and queer, another might be pleased that they're showing an accurate portrayal of the internalised guilt coming from a since-abandoned Catholic upbringing. The problem, of course, arises when one persons' Thing stops being Their Thing and becomes a lecture circuit in how everyone should write, read, or experience.
One of the reasons I tend not to write about characters-within-their-culture or characters-who-are-part-of-a-community is that I'm not Part Of My Community (geographically, sexually, in terms of my disability) and find the idea makes me violent and claustrophobic and deeply mentally unwell. I am within my own culture, but largely because my culture is one which allows me to not have any cultural convictions beyond "leave me the fuck alone" and to be disconnected from family or social obligations without utterly ostracising me. I do also (as this post may or may not demonstrate) have this charming tendency to assume that everything in the entire universe is all about me at all times ever. Lecture-posts about writing characters within their cultural context make me throw a red rubbery blood-shedding fit because they're interpreted on the receiving end as "you must do this thing, you must be like us (to the cost of your own identity) or we will destroy you". And I'm afraid "you must" messages don't go over very well with me. They instead make me want to set fire to people.
So the characters I choose to write about tend to be people who are, at best, fixated on something outside the realm of their family. Generally they're actually people who have rejected the identity that they were assumed to have, either due to circumstance or desire, and have either violently demolished it, shouted "AHHAHAHAA NO" and refused to build a concrete identity at all, or rigidly created a new one with no ties to the former beyond the thing that made them leave in the first place. These are likely to be the PoV characters, while people who do not fit this description are going to be supporting cast members. Reasons for this include: That's what I want to write. I write things I want to read because I'm just that much of a self-serving douche.
The great thing about being a self-serving douchepie is that you can pretty much not worry too much about what people think of your choices when it comes to writing exclusively about people whose relationship to their culture is either "NO FUCK OFF" or "ahahaha I would but they all exploded and now I'm nuts". It may well be demonstrating significant privilege on my part - I know there are a great many cultures in which "hahaha no fuck off" is not an acceptable response to familial obligations, it's not always acceptable in mine, but I am monster, and it is monsters that interest me. Not the ways in which they can be "redeemed" by a return to the fold, but who they become when they realise they are not enfolded any more.