I totally accomplished all but one of the things on my to-do list tonight, and it was the one I didn't really expect to get to, anyway. So I'm shiny!
omg, being a grown-up is hard :( responsibility! do not want! I mean, hell, I barely remember to take care of my cat, who in the heck thought I could take care of myself? A person is totally harder to take care of than a cat. *nod*
This is completely irrelevant to the rest of the post, but I have some thoughts on what we read, and why. I blame
bottle_of_shine!
So I've heard it said round fandom that "I'll never be popular because I don't write porn." You can insert "popular pairing x" or "kink y" for "porn," and it still works. It's an aggregate complaint I hear a lot on my F-list, and I can empathize. The story I wrote that got the most comments was the only NC-17 rated fic I've ever posted, and that kind of irritates me on a fundamental level, because hey, I have way better stuff that is totally cool and awesome and far more expressive of my writing abilities and style and what-have-you. But, you know, whatever. I was totally going to talk about what I read, not what I write, because I spend enough time doing that other thing.
I basically have two categories of things that I read. The first category is Thinky-Thoughts (see also: most fantasy, esp. A Song of Ice and Fire, anything historical, interesting books on weird social trends that I am clearly the only person ever to care about, etc. RE: last-listed category, see also: Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, which is a fascinating analysis of expectations and eating disorders in gymnasts and figure skaters, and says a lot about our culture!) The second category is Things What Make Me Happy, and usually includes porn (see also: most fanfic, the admittedly large collection of romance novels on my bookshelf, etc.)
On occasion, I come across super awesome things that combine the two, like Kushiel's Legacy, or
sheffiesharpe's
Making His Peace With It, which I totally recommend you read if you never have (ending spoilers for FFXII.) But anyway.
I really like reading in-depth pieces that make me think. I don't care what the rating is, I just want to read something interesting. But I think I also have to be in the right mood for something like that; I'm often impatient, and so I store up such fics (like
katmillia's Broken Sky, which I totally want to read but haven't been in the right mindframe when I've had the time) until I'm in the right frame of mind. Shorter fic, and/or fluff, and/or porn, is more of a quick-gratification with minimal effort thing. I'm not ashamed to admit that after a rough day at work, I go straight for what I deem comfort-fic. A couple of my long-term favourites are
sister_coyote's
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (FF7, Tseng/Elena, NC-17, spoilers) and
laylah's
No Nearer (FF12, Balthier/Ashe, AU, NC-17, backstory spoilers, consent issues). There's other stuff in that pile, but those are my favourites. They never fail to improve a sour mood.
So anyway. I think that, by and large, fandom in general tends toward the quick-fix type fic. Folks tend to like drabbles and porn because they don't take as much investment, they don't take as much hard work to really love. (Without shortfic, I'd never have met
first_seventhe, and what a tragedy that would be!) But then again, the way I made friends with
katmillia was through longfic, so there's really no accounting for my variations of taste in the ways of reading.
I mean, I'm just as much of a review-whore as the next person and I made sad faces when my fics don't get reviews, and it makes me whiny and stompy-feet and sulky that I'm not as cool as [fandom-appropriate BNF name goes here] and don't have people leaping to comment on everything I post just cause I posted it...but I'm still having fun, you know? I told the story I wanted to tell, and I'm content with that. If people like it, bonus!
I'm pretty sure I lost the thread somewhere in the rambling about porn. Oh well. Comments? Thoughts? Disagreements? Flames? Share your opinion! Inquiring minds want to know if people agree!
Or, you know, don't, since I'm pretty sure none of this made sense anyway.