I've enjoyed reading the comments here so much, P. I think being involved in fandom confirms something we intuitively sense about culture more generally (i.e., it's never just entertainment), and the discursive aspect of fic writing/commenting/discussion, ship fic particularly, makes that very clear.
For whatever reason, I've never had as much interest in getting together stories as fandom seems to have--I don't seem to feel the same joy in the depiction of intimacy or togetherness--but I love the puzzle presented by a good pairing or a well-drawn character and the satisfaction of a story that somehow hits on an emotional truth. How do these two people manage to fit together? What do they bring out in each other? And for individual characters, how did they come to be the person they are today, and how do they live with their own contradictions? I often find it hard to get along with others and hard to be forgiving to myself, and I'm sure there's an element of therapy here somewhere--me watching two very different characters find common ground (say, Sherlock and John, a pairing that has become much more attractive to me now that there's more to work through, to be honest), or figuring out how to embrace and warm up to a particularly difficult character (say, Petunia Dursley in HP).
I always love the joy that radiates from your fannish postings, P. I'm sorry to hear about how difficult things have been, about the things that fannish joy balances out, but I admire the fact that you're open and passionate enough to feel so much. M.
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Date: 2014-06-24 02:11 am (UTC)For whatever reason, I've never had as much interest in getting together stories as fandom seems to have--I don't seem to feel the same joy in the depiction of intimacy or togetherness--but I love the puzzle presented by a good pairing or a well-drawn character and the satisfaction of a story that somehow hits on an emotional truth. How do these two people manage to fit together? What do they bring out in each other? And for individual characters, how did they come to be the person they are today, and how do they live with their own contradictions? I often find it hard to get along with others and hard to be forgiving to myself, and I'm sure there's an element of therapy here somewhere--me watching two very different characters find common ground (say, Sherlock and John, a pairing that has become much more attractive to me now that there's more to work through, to be honest), or figuring out how to embrace and warm up to a particularly difficult character (say, Petunia Dursley in HP).
I always love the joy that radiates from your fannish postings, P. I'm sorry to hear about how difficult things have been, about the things that fannish joy balances out, but I admire the fact that you're open and passionate enough to feel so much. M.