I dub this week Captain Spanky Kicks Delia's Ass Week.
It may have been apparent, or not, I dunno, but I've been in kind of a weird almost-depressive state for a few weeks. Well, I guess it's more like months. I thought it was just an episode, but it's been... a while. I was going to just wait it out, but I think I need to do something about it now. There's no good reason for it, which I know is like, one of the markers of being for realsies depressed. But I feel stupid about it, like I have no right to be depressed because I am sad for no good reason. And that makes it even worse. Not to mention, going to bed at 9am and doing nothing but working and reading fanfic the rest of the time is not a good life plan. It's really frustrating.
Anyway.
All of this pity partying led me to read sad fanfic again, because that's what I do, and this culminated in reading all of medea_fic's Captain Spanky series in one day. According to my Reader settings, this is roughly 800 pages. 800 pages of clutching my bosom in heartache. In one day.
I didn't do it alone, thank god. I got myself a reading partner. nevereverposts messaged me about halfway through the first part demanding fic to read that wasn't Matthinder, so I introduced her to Pinto fandom with Captain Spanky, and we cried together over the next few days.
When nevereverposts finished reading on Monday night, she called me. I was walking down Market to meet up with Anna &c at the bar, and I just sat in front of a diner and we laughed and cried and talked about why we hurt.
This story is not something I would normally read. I don't find sadomasochism all that appealing, for one. I see its appeal to other people, and I'm fascinated by it, but it just doesn't do anything for me. And it's Pinto fic. I mean, the primary appeal of Pinto fic for me is that it's all fluff and snark and literary references and crossword puzzles and ensemble casts and vocabulary smackdowns. It is not supposed to hurt me.
And of course, being a work-in-progress, a good amount of my bosom-clutching is that I am on the edge of my seat and need to read more.
I don't need a happy ending for resolution for this story. I actually have a hard time imagining a happy ending in the next two chapters because even though I know the main question -- will they stay together? -- is a no-brainer, I felt like they're almost too broken to ever be okay.
And that's how I felt while reading it. At the end of Black Hole I empathized with both of the characters in different ways, so much, that I really felt like I would never be okay again. And now that it's been updated, I feel a little better, because it's setting up for resolution.
A commenter on the latest update said that she didn't want the characters to stay together, that they'll never have a healthy relationship because they're too broken.
I know it's just a story, and the writer can make it healthy just because, but I think... it could work. For real. I can see things getting better. There was a lot of badness, lots of poor communication and lots of issues with a capital issues. But they're actually making an effort to try and resolve them.
And then it hit me why this fic hurts so good.
This story is why I am so upset by most romance novels. I have finally figured it out.
The characters in this story? They are totally fucked up. Their relationship? Equally fucked up. They hurt each other, for stupid reasons. But they're actually trying to get their acts together to fix it. The characters are growing and learning, like actual fucking people do.
I'm looking at my bookcase right now and I can't say that about most of the books there. In romance novels, especially the ones where there's such a strong clash of personalities (and especially the ones that involve dominant and submissive gender role tropes), there's not usually a resolution to the characters' problems with each other. The conflict ends with the heroine caving in and realizing that the hero was Right About Everything. And the hero's character development basically involves realizing that being a big hobag is not a great idea because it's just not practical. Or he becomes slightly less douchey, but still kind of a dick. We never really resolve his need to control her actions, or build the heroine into her own person -- she gives the illusion of fighting his will, but she'll always give in because he's doing it For Her Own Good.
And I know why that's acceptable in Romancelandia. You want to escape into the story and let it take you away from the things you need to worry about in real life. I can understand wanting to read about someone making decisions for you so you don't have to, because you have to make those decisions as a useful member of society.
It just drives me nuts.
Shit. I really need to tap into the broken hipster romance novel market. If I could combine this fanfic with Will Grayson, Will Grayson, I would have the perfect romance novel. I just. omg. brb, writing forever.
This post is so schizophrenic. I have so many feelings!
So... What I was trying to get to in the beginning (with the whole I Am A Sad Panda part) was that, in seeing how the characters in this fanfic can acknowledge their cray-cray problems and start to get their lives on track, I realized that I can stop being a sad motherfucker and grow the hell up. I just have to do it. So I'm going to start seriously job hunting, and scheduling writing time, and stop drinking and reading sad fanfic when I'm sad. I'm going to start doing yoga again, because omg I have stress management problems. And my back hurts.
Holy balls, I am easily sidetracked. I am so sorry, LJ. If you actually read all this, I will seriously give you a cookie. I will bake and mail you a fucking cookie as way of apologizing for my crazy.
PS I got paid today so I'm buying my LJ namechange token tomorrow. Look out for daffodelia.
Anyway.
All of this pity partying led me to read sad fanfic again, because that's what I do, and this culminated in reading all of medea_fic's Captain Spanky series in one day. According to my Reader settings, this is roughly 800 pages. 800 pages of clutching my bosom in heartache. In one day.
I didn't do it alone, thank god. I got myself a reading partner. nevereverposts messaged me about halfway through the first part demanding fic to read that wasn't Matthinder, so I introduced her to Pinto fandom with Captain Spanky, and we cried together over the next few days.
When nevereverposts finished reading on Monday night, she called me. I was walking down Market to meet up with Anna &c at the bar, and I just sat in front of a diner and we laughed and cried and talked about why we hurt.
This story is not something I would normally read. I don't find sadomasochism all that appealing, for one. I see its appeal to other people, and I'm fascinated by it, but it just doesn't do anything for me. And it's Pinto fic. I mean, the primary appeal of Pinto fic for me is that it's all fluff and snark and literary references and crossword puzzles and ensemble casts and vocabulary smackdowns. It is not supposed to hurt me.
And of course, being a work-in-progress, a good amount of my bosom-clutching is that I am on the edge of my seat and need to read more.
I don't need a happy ending for resolution for this story. I actually have a hard time imagining a happy ending in the next two chapters because even though I know the main question -- will they stay together? -- is a no-brainer, I felt like they're almost too broken to ever be okay.
And that's how I felt while reading it. At the end of Black Hole I empathized with both of the characters in different ways, so much, that I really felt like I would never be okay again. And now that it's been updated, I feel a little better, because it's setting up for resolution.
A commenter on the latest update said that she didn't want the characters to stay together, that they'll never have a healthy relationship because they're too broken.
I know it's just a story, and the writer can make it healthy just because, but I think... it could work. For real. I can see things getting better. There was a lot of badness, lots of poor communication and lots of issues with a capital issues. But they're actually making an effort to try and resolve them.
And then it hit me why this fic hurts so good.
This story is why I am so upset by most romance novels. I have finally figured it out.
The characters in this story? They are totally fucked up. Their relationship? Equally fucked up. They hurt each other, for stupid reasons. But they're actually trying to get their acts together to fix it. The characters are growing and learning, like actual fucking people do.
I'm looking at my bookcase right now and I can't say that about most of the books there. In romance novels, especially the ones where there's such a strong clash of personalities (and especially the ones that involve dominant and submissive gender role tropes), there's not usually a resolution to the characters' problems with each other. The conflict ends with the heroine caving in and realizing that the hero was Right About Everything. And the hero's character development basically involves realizing that being a big hobag is not a great idea because it's just not practical. Or he becomes slightly less douchey, but still kind of a dick. We never really resolve his need to control her actions, or build the heroine into her own person -- she gives the illusion of fighting his will, but she'll always give in because he's doing it For Her Own Good.
And I know why that's acceptable in Romancelandia. You want to escape into the story and let it take you away from the things you need to worry about in real life. I can understand wanting to read about someone making decisions for you so you don't have to, because you have to make those decisions as a useful member of society.
It just drives me nuts.
Shit. I really need to tap into the broken hipster romance novel market. If I could combine this fanfic with Will Grayson, Will Grayson, I would have the perfect romance novel. I just. omg. brb, writing forever.
This post is so schizophrenic. I have so many feelings!
So... What I was trying to get to in the beginning (with the whole I Am A Sad Panda part) was that, in seeing how the characters in this fanfic can acknowledge their cray-cray problems and start to get their lives on track, I realized that I can stop being a sad motherfucker and grow the hell up. I just have to do it. So I'm going to start seriously job hunting, and scheduling writing time, and stop drinking and reading sad fanfic when I'm sad. I'm going to start doing yoga again, because omg I have stress management problems. And my back hurts.
Holy balls, I am easily sidetracked. I am so sorry, LJ. If you actually read all this, I will seriously give you a cookie. I will bake and mail you a fucking cookie as way of apologizing for my crazy.
PS I got paid today so I'm buying my LJ namechange token tomorrow. Look out for daffodelia.