I don't know what subject line to use.
For the tl;dr crowd: bandslash makes me feel sixteen again; pretty pictures!; thinky thoughts on my relationship with LJ and LJ's role as enabler/inhibitor.
Lately, I've been reading a lot of bandslash and not much else. I've been systematically going through del.icio.us and looking for things that are tagged with pairings I like and then kind of wandering around the LJs and sites of the authors I like best. It's kind of cool; I feel like a fandom baby all over again, just devouring all I can and picking up bits and pieces of canon along the way. I've also been listening to The Black Parade and enjoying it more than I did several months ago when I first had a listen -- apparently Gerard's voice grew on me in the interim. It's also surprisingly good for the gym; most power-rock (or whatever you'd call them?) is fairly midtempo, but the beats in most of their songs are fast, which is very good for chugging along when your body keeps saying "STOP, PLEASE!". Also: Bob/Frank is kind of a happy place for me, and Mikey got DAMN hot when he lost the glasses. Less cute, but way hotter.
I have also been playing with my new camera! I took these last night:
(click for full-size)
So, you know, life is speeding along. I miss you guys; in some ways I wish my life hadn't become so busy, but in others I'm kind of glad that it has. At times in the past, LJ had been the majority of my social interaction outside of work and a couple of close friends, but LJ is a space where things can be blown out of proportion very easily. For example, if someone who posts a lot doesn't respond to you almost immediately, that can feel like a slap, when in fact it probably has something to do with that person being busy (doing things like posting!); similarly, the friending tendencies of people can be fickle at times, and if you suddenly find yourself defriended -- even if it's for perfectly legitimate reasons, like diverging interests -- that almost never goes down without some kind of hurt feelings. So while I really miss the tightness of the LJ community and the magnification power groupthink has on my levels of happiness related to fandom, I'm glad to be spread thinner if it minimizes the magnification of seeming social rejection. Much as LJ encourages fannish behavior, it also punishes the casual fan, at least in my experience. Or, hmm. Maybe that's not entirely accurate. Perhaps what I mean is: LJ makes it easy to be involved at a high frequency of involvement. At a lower frequency of involvement, it can function as a barrier, making those infrequently involved actually have to work much harder. I wonder if anybody's done any research on this question in social networks. All that said, I doubt I will stop reading fanfiction anytime soon, you know?
All of which is to say I feel like I've moved, and started at a new school: I've made new friends, but I still find myself wanting to spend time with my old ones. Life being what it is, though, my time ends up spent more with the new kids because they're always around; then I try to keep in contact with my old friends only to find they have new inside jokes and new stories and they're doing just fine without me, you know? And it's HARD to keep up with all those old friends, what with having all these classes and all the activities I did at the old school, only with these new kids...
Lately, I've been reading a lot of bandslash and not much else. I've been systematically going through del.icio.us and looking for things that are tagged with pairings I like and then kind of wandering around the LJs and sites of the authors I like best. It's kind of cool; I feel like a fandom baby all over again, just devouring all I can and picking up bits and pieces of canon along the way. I've also been listening to The Black Parade and enjoying it more than I did several months ago when I first had a listen -- apparently Gerard's voice grew on me in the interim. It's also surprisingly good for the gym; most power-rock (or whatever you'd call them?) is fairly midtempo, but the beats in most of their songs are fast, which is very good for chugging along when your body keeps saying "STOP, PLEASE!". Also: Bob/Frank is kind of a happy place for me, and Mikey got DAMN hot when he lost the glasses. Less cute, but way hotter.
I have also been playing with my new camera! I took these last night:
(click for full-size)
So, you know, life is speeding along. I miss you guys; in some ways I wish my life hadn't become so busy, but in others I'm kind of glad that it has. At times in the past, LJ had been the majority of my social interaction outside of work and a couple of close friends, but LJ is a space where things can be blown out of proportion very easily. For example, if someone who posts a lot doesn't respond to you almost immediately, that can feel like a slap, when in fact it probably has something to do with that person being busy (doing things like posting!); similarly, the friending tendencies of people can be fickle at times, and if you suddenly find yourself defriended -- even if it's for perfectly legitimate reasons, like diverging interests -- that almost never goes down without some kind of hurt feelings. So while I really miss the tightness of the LJ community and the magnification power groupthink has on my levels of happiness related to fandom, I'm glad to be spread thinner if it minimizes the magnification of seeming social rejection. Much as LJ encourages fannish behavior, it also punishes the casual fan, at least in my experience. Or, hmm. Maybe that's not entirely accurate. Perhaps what I mean is: LJ makes it easy to be involved at a high frequency of involvement. At a lower frequency of involvement, it can function as a barrier, making those infrequently involved actually have to work much harder. I wonder if anybody's done any research on this question in social networks. All that said, I doubt I will stop reading fanfiction anytime soon, you know?
All of which is to say I feel like I've moved, and started at a new school: I've made new friends, but I still find myself wanting to spend time with my old ones. Life being what it is, though, my time ends up spent more with the new kids because they're always around; then I try to keep in contact with my old friends only to find they have new inside jokes and new stories and they're doing just fine without me, you know? And it's HARD to keep up with all those old friends, what with having all these classes and all the activities I did at the old school, only with these new kids...