[ SECRET POST #186 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #186 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Early-early 'cause I've got stuff to do later. ):

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 164 secrets from Secret Submission Post #027.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 ] broken links, [ 1 ] not!secrets, [ 1 ] not!fandom, [ 1 ] personal attack.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Wednesday, July 11th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

19

[pretentioustfu.livejournal.com]

When I'm old and gray, people are going to matter. What I've created is going to matter. And even if those people are friends rather than family, and even if what I've created is nothing but fanfiction, even if I never break into original work (which I'm trying to do at the same time), I'll look back on it with pride. Not with sadness, because I'd rather look back on something "insignificant" I wanted rather than something "normal" and "significant" I didn't want. Not everyone wants what you consider a "real life."

I also find it telling that you're basically calling anyone who doesn't meet your standard of "real life" pathetic. Which is really sad, since one doesn't have to give up fandom to have a real life.

As a matter of fact, I *got* my real life through fandom: I've met friends online who I'm going to, someday, hang out with in real life, including my best friend. My decision to go into journalism as a career is from thinking, back in 2004, "hey, if I can write about fictional characters, I can write with facts about reality and real people." I've expanded my mind, learned so much more about my world and about people both through my friends and through the research "getting it right" demanded for me. Fandom has, in so many ways, opened my horizons, helped me to come to terms with who I was, and has been a lot cheaper than therapy or vision quests or midlife crises or whatever most normal people go for for this kind of thing.

I am thinking twenty years along the road. I may well be a published writer in some context, even if it is just as a newspaper or magazine reporter. I will, most likely, be in a relationship with someone I care about and be comfortable in my body. I'll have friends and a way of always having a chance to make new friends as well as keep in contact with my old. All the while, I'll probably still be writing fic or doing art for something, still hanging around at conventions (who knows, maybe if I do hit it big with my originals, maybe signing stuff for the next generation of us ~_^) and you know what? I'll be happy. Maybe not normal, definitely not normal, but I'll have a life I like, and that's what matters.

Characters? Fanfic? That's how I've met real people who mean the world to me. That's how I stepped outside a social box that would have, in the end, happily killed me, and found a society that, while it may be crazy and filled with trolls and wank and idiocy, has a lot of people who *aren't* bad and will accept me as I am.

I'll spare you my thoughts on yaoi for now, but if you're seriously telling me that yaoi is somehow destructive to having a real life, I have two words for you. Bitch, please.

Besides, I'd rather read about/see a couple of hot fictional guys doing it than give it all up solely to impress a "real man." I mostly prefer women, and if someone is so insecure they think my writing yaoi is tantamount to cheating or a sign I'm going to abandon them? I'd like someone a little stronger and more self-confident and less controlling please.

Unlike you seem to think, I don't think I'm "all that." I DO think fandom could do with a lot less nastiness and wankery and trolling and whatnot, it could be a much nicer place, but that starts with each person. I can be nice to my friends, try not to engage with my enemies, and the rest of us could all do the same.

And I have tried "real life." My entire childhood and adolescence was "real life," and I didn't even get into fandom until I was 18. I'd rather have real life along with fandom, myself. It's not like they're contradictory options. ^_^

Re: 19

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, I think you took what I said way too seriously.

The secret is actually directed towards people who are so involved in fandom that they stunt their personal growth because they don't want to extend themselves into the real world. Since it's apparent that you have done so, the secret wouldn't be directed towards you, while I can see how you're taking offense.

There are a lot of people in fandom who think that fandom is their life, to the point where they ignore the possibilities outside of it. If you can pair both of them up (real life and fandom) and enjoy them together, then that's even better for you. I'm glad that you've been able to do that (and I don't say that with any amount of sarcasm, either!).

Re: 19

[pretentioustfu.livejournal.com]

Quote:

Wow, I think you took what I said way too seriously.

The secret is actually directed towards people who are so involved in fandom that they stunt their personal growth because they don't want to extend themselves into the real world. Since it's apparent that you have done so, the secret wouldn't be directed towards you, while I can see how you're taking offense.

I understand your point there. Nevertheless, I don't think there should be a "standard" of real-world involvement. People are different, and what seems like overinvolvement and overinterest to one person may not be to another. I'm in a fandom that a fair amount of people like, but a lot of people hate for a variety of reasons. To someone who hates anime/manga, the art style, the characters, or whatever, our fandom may seem like "overinvolvement" and "overinterest" (especially with me, since I have a habit of engaging in tl;dr metadiscussion and occasionally being a wanky asshole ) but it's not any more than any other hobby is.

Quote:

There are a lot of people in fandom who think that fandom is their life, to the point where they ignore the possibilities outside of it.

Some people may actually like to do that, and may not be ignoring the possibilities outside of it, but have simply decided they don't want a better job/kids/etcetera. I know, for example, that I never want kids. That doesn't make me ignoring the possibility of kids and a family, it makes me someone who knows I'd be a sucky parent, knows I would hate the "gendering" of pregnancy and birth, and would rather have my writings and my pets.

Also, since this meme usually gets brought up in cases of trolling or stalking or whatever, let me add that I don't get the idea of "well, if you want them to leave you alone, you can just go away." In what other context do we encourage bullying as a successful tactic of getting what one wants by encouraging its victims to capitulate and by claiming that it somehow doesn't hurt as much to be lied about or insulted?

Quote:

If you can pair both of them up (real life and fandom) and enjoy them together, then that's even better for you. I'm glad that you've been able to do that (and I don't say that with any amount of sarcasm, either!).

*nods* Thanks for not getting offended. I'm sorry for seeming untoward, I thought you were yet someone else trying for a superiority secret (e.g. the "OMG I DON'T FRIEND FAT PEOPLE" type ones). ^_^ Now that I know you're not, I'm fine with you.