I learned about meta from reading Godel, Escher, Bach in 4th grade.
It didn't help unconvolute anything.
I've been thinking about the current onslaught of meta regarding cultural appropriation and exploitation and (ick) Supernatural and RPF in general (and vito_excalibur's exquisitely thoughtful posts, in particular). I'm not sure that my thoughts have taken on a particularly logical form, let alone a coherent sentence structure. I do know that I started out several years ago in fandom thinking that RPF was icky and wrong, and that now I read it as much as non-RPF and even dabble in writing it.
Why is that? Partly because my knee-jerk anti RPF reaction was more a reaction to the particular individuals involved (I mean. Backstreet Boys. I couldn't.) and less to the concept. Partly because there are very few of the kinds of shows on TV now that I could ever feel fannish about enough to be engaged in fic--whither the prestige drama?--and I've gotten more involved with sports fandom, which give you the kind of weird personal drama that only real life ever provides, along with plenty of mysteries to solve. (And I mean that both in the ficcish and non ficcish way.) But mostly I think it's because I have never been required to think deeply about why it's okay with me. The troubling truth might be that I think it's okay when I do it because I'm doing it with care and consideration and trying to be accurate. And RPF shouldn't be morally better based on whether or not it's accurate, right?
Don't get me wrong, I do think RPF is ethically okay given certain boundaries - but I've never really had to analyze why, and I don't think my gut is justification enough. I'll be considering this more.
Speaking of problematic things, I may be trying to write a story for Dark Agenda with an African-American Batman, and I'm deeply aware of how problematic I am as a person trying to write this. I'm trying anyway, but it might be something that only lives on my hard drive, because I don't want to inflict it on the world.
(If I do, I hope that every last one of you will call me out on every last thing I do wrong. I hope that I make you comfortable doing so. And of course I realize that asking for that is asking people to put up with my fail and correct me on it, so I hope you only do that if you have the inner resources. This is getting long. I hope for an awful lot from you guys.)
As far as it goes, though, I'm kinda blocked in terms of plot, which is a convenient way to avoid dealing with things!
I've been thinking about the current onslaught of meta regarding cultural appropriation and exploitation and (ick) Supernatural and RPF in general (and vito_excalibur's exquisitely thoughtful posts, in particular). I'm not sure that my thoughts have taken on a particularly logical form, let alone a coherent sentence structure. I do know that I started out several years ago in fandom thinking that RPF was icky and wrong, and that now I read it as much as non-RPF and even dabble in writing it.
Why is that? Partly because my knee-jerk anti RPF reaction was more a reaction to the particular individuals involved (I mean. Backstreet Boys. I couldn't.) and less to the concept. Partly because there are very few of the kinds of shows on TV now that I could ever feel fannish about enough to be engaged in fic--whither the prestige drama?--and I've gotten more involved with sports fandom, which give you the kind of weird personal drama that only real life ever provides, along with plenty of mysteries to solve. (And I mean that both in the ficcish and non ficcish way.) But mostly I think it's because I have never been required to think deeply about why it's okay with me. The troubling truth might be that I think it's okay when I do it because I'm doing it with care and consideration and trying to be accurate. And RPF shouldn't be morally better based on whether or not it's accurate, right?
Don't get me wrong, I do think RPF is ethically okay given certain boundaries - but I've never really had to analyze why, and I don't think my gut is justification enough. I'll be considering this more.
Speaking of problematic things, I may be trying to write a story for Dark Agenda with an African-American Batman, and I'm deeply aware of how problematic I am as a person trying to write this. I'm trying anyway, but it might be something that only lives on my hard drive, because I don't want to inflict it on the world.
(If I do, I hope that every last one of you will call me out on every last thing I do wrong. I hope that I make you comfortable doing so. And of course I realize that asking for that is asking people to put up with my fail and correct me on it, so I hope you only do that if you have the inner resources. This is getting long. I hope for an awful lot from you guys.)
As far as it goes, though, I'm kinda blocked in terms of plot, which is a convenient way to avoid dealing with things!